fall

 

 

 

discovery

 I love it when we discover a new park come across a park we've never been to before.  I always think, "How could I have not known this gem is only 15 minutes from our home?"  And it is our favorite place to be until we discover something new come across something we haven't experienced before.

Childhood is all about discovery.  Every experience is something new.  A joy of parenthood is rediscovering by entering into the world of our children.

Each kid has their own tire swing!

 And there are endless rocks to throw into the river.

 And a big stick to....

My little girl will not let a chill in the air cramp her style and her shoes are on the wrong feet...just details.

 And there are no monkey bars my five-year-old won't tackle.

 

Spinning. Climbing. Sticks. Water. Rocks. 

 Discovery.

"t" is for tent...and trust

The one is at school and the two homeschoolers are playing too harmoniously to be interrupted with formal learning, so I have two choices.  I could clean the bathrooms, or I could brew another cup of coffee and update the blog.  My choice is obvious. 

God's Little Explorers, the preschool curriculum I've been using, goes through the Bible chronologically with a new story every week and a theme with a letter (not alphabetically) that goes along with the story. 

A couple weeks ago (as you can see I have not posted to the blog, or cleaned my bathrooms, in a couple weeks), our story was about Abraham and how God promised him he would be the father of a great nation, but first Abraham must pick up everything and move.  Where?  God did not tell him, he was required to trust without knowing the whole plan.

The curriculum developed a theme around "'t' is for tent".  On the first day of the week, it was suggested that we pack up as if we were camping and set a tent up and read the Bible story in the tent.  So, on Monday morning after Brett was off to school, I announced excitedly to the preschoolers that we were going on a adventure!  "Get your backpacks!  Let's pack a snack and sleeping bags and flashlights!"  Reggie was totally on board.  He ran around the house in blind trust, gather stuff for his adventure.

Lydia.  Not so much.  She wanted to know what we were doing.  "Are we going somewhere in the car?  When are we coming back?"  She stomped her feet and whined and begged and pleaded.  "Put your shoes on, it's going to be fun!", Reggie and I pressed on.  If Reggie had not been so enthusiastic, I don't think she would have joined in.  But she reluctantly followed us out to the backyard and finally joined in on the adventure when we started to set up the tent.

After "camp" was set up and we had our "s'mores", we settled in for our Bible story. Reading the story, we realized as the morning had unfolded, we had a real-life object lesson of  what it meant for Abraham to "trust" God and go, even when he didn't know God's whole plan.

This would be a cute, comfortable story if it was just about Lydia.  It wasn't.  How often in my life do I want to know the plan?  Am I so comfortable and set in my routine that I'm not open to doing something different?  Can I step out in faith without knowing the outcome, or researching my options, or doing what my middle-class-American culture tells me is best?

Do I trust - really trust - God, like Reggie trusts me?

on to football

If I can't be at a baseball game in October, I might as well be at a football game.  Can you sense my enthusiasm?

In reality, this was a very big day for the Wedan's.  It was our first game as season ticket holders!  In honor of this big event, we hired our sitter for the whole day - she actually spent the night so we could leave home at 5am sharp!  It's about four or four-and-a-half hours to drive, so we got to Green Bay around 9:30.  Time to tailgate!  Yes, we were eating hot dogs when most people would be eating scrambled eggs.



Up to our eight seats occupied by seven family members and a friend (and no kids - those days will come!) around 11:30.  It occurred to me I had never actually been to an NFL game.  The game was entertaining, the nachos were average-at-best, and we (and 78,000 other fans) got to witness the Packers' victory over the Lions first-hand.



The fall air was crisp, but a perfect weather day for football "up north", and the drive was beautiful.  We made it home by 8:30 to tuck the kiddies in.  Now, you don't have to be a fan of football to call that a great day!

10 reasons why I love home-preschool

I am a strong believer that what's best for one child might not be what's best for another, and this particularly applies to their education.  Brett started going to preschool shortly after his 3rd birthday, and I believe we made the right decision for him.  With Lydia, in particular, and for Reggie, this year, we carefully weighed the pros and cons, and decided I would do home-preschool with them.  Last year, we did home preschool also, but with Brett home in the mornings, and the two of them still taking naps, I had to squeeze the curriculum into less than 3 hours a week, not that they aren't learning through play all the time.  This year, we have more time to devote to it, and we've really enjoyed it.

Here are 10 reasons why I love home-preschool

1. It's (almost) free.  I use free resources online and check out books from the library.  Of course we need crayons and glue and construction paper, but we'd buy most of it anyway.  Here is the curriculum I'm using this year.

2 and 3.  Maybe it's just my personality, but I'm bothered by the time constraints and gas of taking my kids from here to there. (We will have plenty of years of that ahead I'm sure). We do home preschool on our time, in whatever we happen to be wearing, and the car stays in the garage a couple days a week.

 4.  It's everything times two with two four-year-olds.  I'm getting twice the bang for my energy.

5.  If I'm going to "stay-at-home" with my kids, I might as well have my kids "stay-at-home" with me!  I'm of the general opinion that we push our kids into too many programs too early and for their first five years, parents are their primary teacher.

6.  Each kid is different, and Lydia (who will be in kindergarten next year) is an eager learner.  She loves to sit-and-do learning activities, making my job easy (Reggie requires a little more creativity).

7.  Both kids separate well from Mom and Dad, one of the primary goals of preschool.

8. Both kids tend to make friends easily wherever they go, another primary goal of preschool, and they get plenty of opportunities to share and take turns with each other.

9.  Wow!  Lydia is starting to read!  And I get the honor of participating in the process.

10. Field trips!  A is for apple, so lets go to an apple orchard.  Z is for zebra, so let's go see one at the zoo!

teeth

It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating teeth coming in...

Brett, 15 months

And now here we are celebrating teeth coming out.

I have a feeling the Wedan's are going to be keeping that tooth fairy pretty busy the next few years!

now it's the kids' turn

We had our fun going to baseball games in August, it was the kids' turn to go in September.  Thanks to participation in the summer reading program at our library, we scored free tickets to a Twins game!  Brett and Lydia were both under two the only other time they had been to a MLB game, and it was Reggie's very first MLB game.

 The two main ingredients for keeping 4-and 5-year-olds content at games are coloring sheets...

 ...and sugar.

 See?

Maybe that was too much sugar for Reggie.

But for Brett, every event is all about the treats, so next up was the $16 "souvenir" bucket of mini-donuts.

 We survived 7.5 innings of not-watching the game and got a picture with TC before calling it a night.