Bigger and Smaller

Well we've kind of been on hold on any "Serious" schooling but we've been learning lots just living our daily lives! Tristan's new find today? That when you look in your mom's aunt's OLD funky glass lamp that you can a) see yourself b) if you get closer you get really big and look silly and c) if you move back away from it you get smaller in the lamp and look pretty normal.

Tristan spent about 5 minutes moving his nose close to the lamp and even touching it and then far away to see how small he got. It only took one time in and out to figure out that he got bigger and smaller I was pretty impressed.

It's so fascinating to see that little lightbulb click on in their head!

In Griffin news he's finally starting to learn to walk. He's far from doing it regularly but it shouldn't be too much longer. Tonight he took several steps on a few different occasions. Grandma is predicting he'll be walking by New Years... her first predicition for Christmas walking was wrong hehe.

When my children are older...

I just read this on one of my homeschool boards and thought that it was great and really embraces how unschooling and homeschooling works and just being a parent in general.

Someday, when my children are older, I will tell them:I loved you enough to care about where you were going, with whom, and what time you'd be home and to help you get there, have fun, and come home.

I loved you enough to be silent when you needed me to be silent and to be there when you needed to talk, to give you the space to discover for yourself who your true friends were and to help you pick up the pieces when you were hurt.

I loved you enough to help you pay for the bubble gum you wanted and to make things right when they felt wrong.

I loved you enough to stand by you for a lifetime, to be by your side for two hours while we cleaned your room, a job that would have taken me 15 minutes, but the conversation was too precious to lose.

You learned that I wasn't perfect as we shared our lives together.

I loved you enough to let you make choices even when the stakes were high and to help bear your burden whenever I could.

But most of all, I loved you enough to always help you get what you needed, to put our relationship first and to walk in your shoes instead of engaging in battles.

I'm glad you came to me, because in the end, you've helped me grow and become a better person, so I won, too, in this relationship.

And someday, when your children are old enough to understand the principles that guide this legacy of parenting, I hope you tell them how they helped you grow and become a better person.

How do you learn?

I took this little quiz today about Tristan's learning style. A lot of it I already knew.

The higher your child scores in one area, the more she prefers that
learning style. If she rates similarly across all three styles, that means she
uses all of them equally to grasp new information. A low score in any area means
your child hardly ever relies on that learning style. Here is what we can tell
about your child's learning style. (If you want to know about another child or a
child in another grade, you should complete
this assessment from the beginning again.)

Visual: 35%
Auditory:
28%
Tactile: 35%

Your child is a strong visual learner. Visual learners have an easier time
grasping concepts and understanding ideas when they're able to see information.
They work well with visual materials such as flash cards, videos, pictures, and
charts. Visual learners are usually great at reading and games of concentration.
For more on visual learners, click here.

Your child is also a strong tactile learner. Physical learners (also called
tactile-kinesthetic learners: "tactile" for touch, "kinesthetic" for movement)
are better able to understand ideas and retain information if they can "feel"
what you're trying to explain. This means that holding something in their hands
or participating physically in an activity helps them grasp a concept. Children
with strong tactile-kinesthetic skills are usually active and full of energy.
They do well with hands-on activities, such as shaping clay into a volcano, and
with games that require the use of their bodies, such as moving large block
letters around to form words. For more on physical learners, click here.

Compared to other learning styles, your child is not much of an auditory
learner. Auditory learners are best able to make sense of information when they
hear it. They are better able to comprehend concepts and ideas when you explain
them. They often like listening to music and stories and can easily repeat back
information they've heard. For more on auditory learners, click here.

Amazing how your views change

when you start homeschooling. Before I really thought about it every single thing we do in life our little ones are learning something. Even if it's just doing daily chores or helping mom with something.. or being quiet while she's on the phone! They are learning responsibility, how to be charitable and helpful to others, and respectful as well. They are learning new sounds and how to count and read and all the wonderful things we need to know in life by just being in this world.

Now some people might disagree with me that you can only learn certain things in a school setting. But I don't think so. There are so many things in this world that once they find an interest you just go with it. Find anything and everything you can about that thing. Tie in math and science, the history of it, and reading and they will remember. If they love it.. they will learn it.

It's no wonder I don't remember certain things from school. I had no real interest in it and it was never presented in a way that I wanted to care about it. So I just learned it and passed the class and forgot all about it. I love when something sparks Tristan's memory and he can remember whole days about things and tell you what happened and who did what. I know he can do this because they are things he loves and really cares about and has a desire to know more about.

I spy with my little eye...

Tristan's latest new found love.... I spy type books. Anything that shows you what to look for and you find it in a large picture. He LOVES them and is really good at them! I thought they'd be too advanced for him.. not at all. So he'll definitely be getting a few for Christmas! He's also found a love for board games.. even if he doesn't play them right LOL He'll learn though. We just got Candyland so it will be easy for him to learn how to take turns and such playing it.. I hope!

He also just got a new alphabet toy from Vtech. He's in love already. This should definitely help him start with letter recogniction. Although he seems to be picking up some a little just based on shapes and such.. not actual letters yet. I just can't get over how fast he's growing and the things he learns each day.

Griffin is a learning fool too! He's learning how to get into mischeif just as fast as his brother LOL Keeps mom on her toes that's for sure! His latest fascination is putting small things into a bucket, bag, anything that will hold things and then dumping them out and picking them up again. Lots of fun! No walking yet but he is getting braver and braver about standing holding on to nothing. Steps shouldn't be too far off and running right behind it LOL I'm ok with him just crawling for now... They get into enough things with him not walking... I can only imagine the fun they will have when he is!

Need to remind myself of this often!

The Art of Unconditionality
by Scott Noelle, posted on 2006-06-12

If it's raining, you're supposed to call it "bad weather" and complain.
Complaining makes you feel bad, but you've been led to believe that the source of your angst is the rain — the weather conditions. That's conditionality.

UNconditionality, means wanting so much to feel good that you stop using conditions to justify feeling bad.

One way to practice the Art of Unconditionality in the face of "bad" conditions is to ask yourself, "What's GOOD about that?"

What's GOOD about the rain? It vitalizes the soil and plants... It makes the air smell clean... It's fun to get drenched and then go take a hot bath!

What's GOOD about children "misbehaving"? It means they're trying to engage, explore, connect, create, etc... It means you get to practice loving and feeling good unconditionally, which is the key to your Authentic Power.

Eventually you'll realize it's neither good nor bad — it just IS. Welcome to Reality. :)

More ramblings from me

Wow 2 posts in a day LOL

Lately I've been feeling like a bit of a slacker about homeschooling. I know he's just 3 and doesn't need too much going on right now. But I'm feeling like a slacker. I really wanted to do that letter of the week stuff and we've just been SO busy we're hardly touching it and just reading the books on the topic of the week and sometimes coloring. I know he's learning things ALL the time from all the other stuff we do but I'm just feeling slackerish because I'm not being able to do the things I wanted to do with the program.

I feel a little bit better this morning. We read for about 20 mins this morning until Griffin went flying out of his high chair. (He's fine!) We read Chuckie goes to the Eye Dr. Tristan really enjoyed it and after Griffin was taken care of he got out his new doctor kit and played eye dr with Griffin. Griffin had no clue what he was doing but Tristan checked out his ears and eyes and can't wait to read the book again! If we hadn't already been to the eye dr this year I'd take him again.. maybe now he'd be more willing to cooperate LOL

I'm thrilled my little men are learning so many things so quickly! Griffin has mastered going DOWN stairs this week as well as falling :S He has given up a nap however and spends lots more time playing with his brother and being up to no good with him as well LOL I've sure got my hands full!!! But every day is a new day to learn things... even me!

Tristan's Birthday Party and Halloween

Tristan's party was Saturday. We had a nice time other than some party pooper cousins who didn't want to play the games. But overall we had a blast. We had coloring pages, a bean bag toss into Muck (Bob the Builder), and a marshamallow hunt in baby cereal (gotta put it to use somehow hehe). Then we opened presents. Toys galore and a new college savings account from my parents. Then it was time for cake and ice cream. The kids got cups full of "dirt" and worms and the grown ups had dirt cake from the pan. It was all really yummy. Griffin passed out after he ate his frosting though LOL Here's some pics: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AaM3DZs1YtmLh&notag=1

Halloween and Tristan's official birthday were a blast too. I can't believe my baby is 3 :( We were going to go around the neighborhood trick or treating but Griffin was tired before we even left and they made a haul in just going to the downtown stores. So we decided to eat dinner at Jim's instead where Griffin was told how adorable he was no less than every 15 mins LOL He could barely sit up enough to eat. It was a fun night even if it was super cold! Here's some pics of the boys in their costumes and our simple pumpkin carvings lol http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AaM3DZs1YtmLw

Wow it's been awhile

Sorry I haven't posted anything for awhile here. We've been really busy between me getting ready for the Pumpkin Walk (which I did quite well at) and now I'm sick and Tristan's birthday party is tomorrow... we haven't had too much time or energy to do lots of planned things.

However, we are still learning new things. When is anyone NOT learning?! Tristan is starting to be an even better helper with things like the dishes and laundry. He now knows where things goes and helps to put things away while making sure that *I* know where they go LOL.

We've been learning new things from Blue's Clues too.. yes he watches tv *gasp* His newest favorite is the show about machines. He LOVES it and is always asking for Blue and the broken airplane! He loves anything that moves and does stuff and as soon as he can start fixing things himself I'm sure we'll have lots of projects for him! He's also learned about things being heavy and light from Blue too. Good thing he's Blues Clues for Halloween! She sure has taught him a lot of things!

We've had a few playgroups this week. One was story time at the library. He wasn't too interested in sitting with the other kids but had a great time playing with them after. Griffin had fun too going up and down the steps! He was so proud of himself.

Last night we went to a family event at the library, although daddy couldn't come cause he had to work late :( It was a scavenger hunt and we just looked around the library for different halloween pictures and then Tristan got a coloring book after. He had fun playing with Felicity and Jaden when we were done too.

Back to the pumpkin walk.. Crystal, bless her heart, watched both boys so I could have some sanity and they were both so good! That was the first time he's been babysat since he's had his freak out episodes and he was so great, not one freak out at all!

Tomorrow is his birthday party so we'll see how he does with that but he's really excited!! Here's what his invitation looks like

busy busy busy

Monday was a run around like crazy kind of day! We had a meeting to discuss refinancing the house and of course we lack babysitters so both kids tagged along and learned how to act.. or rather how NOT to act in a business place like that. After that we dropped daddy back off at work and headed to visit Grandma at the school library.

Tristan LOVES the library and went nuts picking out books to check out. Griffin also loves books.. but mostly just to knock them off the shelves lol. Tristan got to listen to one of mommies favorite stories, There's No Such Thing as Dragons.

After that we hit Hancocks for fabric and Roberts for more crafty stuff for the craft show this weekend. Both boys crashed after that and other than dinner they slept the rest of the evening. It was very peaceful and mommy got a lot of stuff made with ALL her boys sleeping, even daddy!


Today was playgroup day. It was lots of fun! We went to Carl's Jr first and ate lunch and played in the playland for awhile. Tristan had no freak outs so that was great and he's starting to really play WITH kids rather than just near them. Griffin also had fun going up and down one of the steps and watching the older kids run around like wild animals LOL. After that we had an appt to check out the Corn Maze in Erda. It was a bit chilly but luckily wasn't raining and it wasn't too muddy either. It took us 30 mins to find our way around and Tristan led the whole way! He did really good.. we only hit a dead end once and didn't do too many circles lol. He must have great navigating skills! Here's a few pictures when we first started and then my camera died :S



Later today after the boys wake up we're going to read some books about cats, as that is our theme of the week! Tristan LOVE cats and I look forward to lots of meowing this week :)

Fireman in training!

Yesterday we were lucky enough to go check out the local Fire Station. Tristan LOVES firetrucks!! He was thrilled to be there!

October is Fire Safety Month so they were having an open house to educate people.

Tristan got to get in the fire trucks and pretend to drive to a fire. He thought it was the coolest thing ever.

We also got to see them spraying the hoses, but we got there too late to test it out ourselves.

Tristan was less than thrilled about Sparky the dog mascot but he wasn't scared of the firemen at all. He even got to stand on the front of an engine and have his picture taken with a fireman!!

Both boys came home with Jr Firefighter stickers, Smokey the Bear stickers and new fire hats. To see the rest of our pictures from the visit click here.

We also had Bonkos last night and after much deliberation on whether to go or not since last time BOTH boys were clingy and I didn't even get to play along with Tristan's social anxiety recently, we decided to give it a try and stocked up on Thomas tracks and trains and Grandma brought Monsters Inc to watch. He only had one break down but otherwise he was great!

We also took Griffin some cars to play with and Tristan is getting really good at counting. Usually he skips some or repeats some and counts them twice but last night he was counting all 9 cars no problem at all! He'll be playing Bonkos on his own in no time ;)

Catching up!

We've been super busy this week and kind of veered from our theme of jungles.. but that's ok.. life happens!

Tuesday we colored pictures of jungle animals. Tristan had a great time naming them all making all their sounds! He LOVES animals!! We have several bigger kid books about the jungle and he just enjoys looking at the animals in them. We read the Great Kapok tree but he wasn't very interested in the story, just the amazing illustrations.

Here our our pictures we colored. I'm pretty sure it's obvious who did what LOL




In this picture Tristan drew a ghost :)


Tues we also focused on the color green. We found green cars and green trains (which we have a zillion of each!) and looked for green in books too.

Weds we had a playgroup that kind of fizzled out with only one family showing up. Tristan had another of his freak outs and ended up sleeping through the whole thing. I'm not really sure where this sudden social anxiety came from but it makes me sad to see him so upset! Griffin had a great time playing with Talen, however. Crystal and I made some super cute Halloween cards and just had fun hanging out.

Thursday I don't remember too much of what we did. I believe it was mostly playing and laundry LOL. I've had a migraine all week so it's a miracle I remember all this ;)

Friday was my last day at the Farmer's Market so we spent the day getting mommy's van packed up and finishing some last minute items to sell. We hung out at the park all evening and it was quite tiring. Griffin spent most of it getting into things and Tristan spent time organizing Grandma's table LOL I didn't sell much but it was nice to get out of the house!

I'll post about this weekend later when it's over ;)

Discovery Gateway

I wish I had pictures from this but Griffin's milk spilled on the camera so it wouldn't work :( Today we went with the Homeschooling the littles group to the new Discovery Gateway (formerly the Children's Museum). It was really nice but not as big as I was expecting. BOTH boys had a really good time though. We hit the 'Garden' first. It was a giant beehive filled with different tubes and such that you could drop big plastic balls down and gadgets to turn them up to the ceiling and put in other tubes and ones that made sounds. Tristan LOVED this area, as did Griffin. Tristan loved figuring out the different machines and how they worked and also loved watching the balls go down the tubes and seeing where they come out at. Griffin even climbed up ALL the stairs so he could put balls in too.

Next we hit the Kid's Eye View which is a small town of stores and such that are kid size. Tristan's favorite part of that was the construction area where he could build with foam blocks and put them on the left and turn the crank to take them up the platform. He also enjoyed putting blocks down the chute too.

We briefly stopped in the little house and passed quickly past the grocery store to hit the water play area. Tristan could have stayed there all day. He LOVES water and with all the machines to do differnt things and the ping pong balls and rubber duckies. He was in heaven. Griffin had fun with it too just watching the other kids play. After this we played in a fake car for a few minutes, climbed through a beaver dam and Griffin rocked on a little dog rocking horse thing. We also picked some veggies and Tristan got to sit on a fake horse.

Next we headed up stairs but most of it was for older kids. We did a little coloring but the big hit was outside.. a real life flight helicopter! We didn't get to see too much of it because there were so many kids but Tristan put on his Life Flight Pilot vest and got to sit in the front and back of the helicopter for a few minutes.

After that we headed back downstairs to play in the Garden for a little longer before leaving. The boys were OUT cold before we even got out of the parking area LOL

That night we started our new theme of jungles. Tristan looked at a few books with jungle animals in it and knew most the animals already. He was mostly looking for monkies but was excited to find geckos, iguanas and frogs too! ~ribbit ribbit~

The Weekend (including Friday)

Our weekend was spent cleaning the house up for Griffin's first birthday party! Tristan was TOTALLY excited for the party and was literally boucning off the walls for days. Saturday he was bouncing all over shouting about party cake and it being Griffin's birthday. By time the party came around he wore himself out and got overwhelmed with the sudden amount of people in our house. He had a break down and chilled in his room for a bit before returning to the party. After that he did great though. He enjoyed all the food and almost got chocolate slimed by his little brother LOL

Sunday we hung out with Jason's parents while they worked on the Scout and then we headed to Salt Lake to visit Al and Melinda who were in town from Florida. Tristan had another melt down after he saw all the people and clung to grandpa almost the whole time. Grandpa took him outside for a bit and brought him back in and then he was ok. This seems to be a new thing that I'm not quite sure what started it, other than Scott.

After that we went to Grandma's house to spend the night and Tristan had fun hanging out building roads and tunnels with his foam letter mat and playing with Grandpa.

Play day

We had a very relaxed day today. Tristan seems to do much better with that than if I try and schedule in our time to learn.

Our wonderful friend Tammi sent us a fun package today full of goodies for the boys.

Tristan broke right into the playdough and we had fun making squares and triangles and funky hair. We also used the cookie cutters to cut out fish, cars and birds!

Tristan practiced his fine motor skills today too by stringing beads on a string. He thought it was TONS of fun!

We also played for a few minutes with one of his other gifst that was a chalk board and magnetic board in one. We sang the ABC song and counted to 10 with the magnets.

Tristan also helped a little around the house by unloading the dishwasher and trying to keep his little brother out of mommy's way.. he wasn't too successful LOL

Tristan's huge accomplishment today was *knocks on wood* having ZERO potty accidents today! He went bumless all day and pooped and peed on the potty all by himself!!! I hope this means an end to diapers for him in site! That would be wonderful!!!

Slow Wednesday

We didn't do a whole lot today but we did learn some new things.

We got to watch the hail and listen to the wind as the storms moved in today.

We watched Dora and learned a little bit about the different seasons and what things belong in each season.

Tristan played trains, as always, and Griffin "helped" too.

We read Click, Clack, Moo, Cows that Type.. always a favorite! Then we colored a picture of a cow and drew some cow pictures!

Here is the cows momma drew.. thank goodness Tristan doesn't mind his mommy couldn't draw a cow to save her life ;) The purple cow got a rip in it, but Tristan figured out exactly how to fix it!





Here is Tristan's picture of a cow that he mostly colored himself.


While trying to color on white paper with a white crayon Tristan decided that momma was right and that it doesn't work on white paper. He thought the crayon needed new batteries LOL Then he changed his mind and just said it was broken.

We also read Counting with Dora and counted all the fruits on each page. Tristan is starting to get better at counting each item and not skipping or recounting ones that don't exist! He also can count all the way to 20 now!!

We didn't work on the letter A today but that's ok we can do it tomorrow!

Tuesday~ Milk day

Well it's now day 2 into our homeschooling venture. Tristan is feeling TONS better and is fever free so he was thrilled to get to do more with cows! We read a book called Cow that went through the day in a life of a cow, right down to getting milked and shipping the milk off to the factories. Tristan thought that was really cool. We also counted the cows on each page, and other animals when they showed up. Tristan is VERY in to counting anything and everything right now, even if he doesn't get it right everytime.

He wasn't really interested in reading another cow book, he would rather jump on the trampoline instead.

Next we discovered squares. We found a square hot pad, a square Wheat Thin and a square flash card. We counted the sides on them. Tristan keeps trying to call them triangles but is slowly getting used to calling them squares. We then went outside to find more squares. Right out side the door we found tiles that were square so we carried one around to find more things that were the same shape as the tile. It was kind of hard to find things outside but we found squares on their points in the fence.. lots of those! We also found that the dog's water dish had 2 squares for the water to go into. Then we did some raking. Tristan has his own rake and the leaves are starting to fall so we raked a few of them out of the flower bed.

We came back inside and found more squares in our hallway because we have new tile in there. Tristan then counted the squares while driving his firetruck over them in circles.

We read a book next called Autumn Leaves. All the leaves here are changing so it was fun to see the different colors in the book. We went back outside to look at the leaves we just raked and picked out a green one, a yellow one, and a brown/dead one.

After lunch we placed the leaves under paper and colored over them with crayons to make fun leaf decorations.




After nap time we'll make some squares out of something and just hang out and play with his new trains that he got from my secret mommy!

Mooooooooonday

This is a day late.. but Monday started our first day of "school". We are not doing a lot of structure because Tristan's only 3.. well almost 3 LOL He's a very active little boy and likes to switch activities often. Today did not start off as exciting as I imagined seeing as Tristan had a fever and spent most of the day sleeping/laying on the couch.

We did manage to read 2 Cow books today though, seeing as that is our theme of this week, while Tristan was in the tub getting his temperature down. One was called It's a Great Day to be a Cow and the other was just called Calfs (our vocabulary word this week) that showed a calf growing up. Tristan is not quite connecting that a calf IS a baby cow yet.. but hopefully later this week he will.

We sang 10 rounds or so of Old Macdonald too and Tristan had lots of fun making the animal sounds. Griffin thought we were insane though LOL. We didn't get to walk around like cows or make cow sounds but overall we had a great day!

We're homeschooling!

That's right! We're officially starting homeschooling this week! This blog will track our learning and activities that we are doing. We are very excited to be venturing into this unknown area of our life and finding out what is in store for us. We are members of a homeschooling group based in Salt Lake that is providing us with lots of opportunities for field trips. We'll have pictures and art work displayed here because we want to share the things we learn with everyone.

Thanks for supporting us!!