Giddy to the Point of Giggling

Squash and Zucchini 

I am soooooo excited about my garden right now. Every time I go out to water my plants I just want to giggle. Not only are my plants still alive, but they're beautiful! I seriously can't believe it. It amazes me how just a little bit of water and sunshine everyday can turn a small seed into a beautiful plant.

 

Tomatoes 

 

Green Beans

 It's so fun to just be able to go out to my garden, pick what I need for dinner, and then come in and cook it. I picked two large bowls of green beans during the first haul of the season! 

And speaking of things that are "growing"...

 

 These two pretty much have me wrapped around their fingers. 

No offense to all you other moms, but I'm pretty sure I have the BEST two little boys on the planet!

Tot School Sneak Peak

 B is for... and C is for...

 To see our full week of activities, click on the hands to visit our school blog!

 I love taking pictures of my children sleeping. Especially when they have their little hands over their face. When Tate gets tired he claws himself to death! After finding him with bloody head, face, and ears more than once we decided to start socking his hands. It looks funny but it works! He knows it's bed time when the socks go on and his bottom lip juts out and he starts fussing at us. It's really cute.

 

 Gromit, who always seems to sneak into the car while I'm not looking, has been riding buckled up per Collin's instructions. I was quit amused.

Our first Lacrosse Game!

 My nephew Mikey played lacrosse this year and invited us to one of his games. I found it very entertaining. From the minute we found out Collin would be a boy I told Michael, "He'll never play football!" 

Like I can really control that right?

 I would prefer my sons to just play a safe instrument, but Michael says every boy needs to play sports. Maybe Lacrosse can be our compromise sport! It's still physical but not nearly as bad as football.

(Mikey's the one in the orange jersey, grey shorts and orange socks)

 Uncle Ken showing Collin how to play.

 And Tate hanging with cousin Tiffany

 Park Hoppers!

 No, we aren't park hopping at Disney :(  But we have been park hopping as a family to all the local parks in our area. We've been to 4 in the past two weeks. The boys love it!

 Collin has also started catching love bugs. He has about 3 or 4 in a jar every day but before he drops them in he gives them each a kiss. I don't have the heart to tell him that's not why they're called Love bugs :)

 Sky Zone

Our friends, the Lees invited us to Sky Zone during the really rainy week we had. It was our first time and Collin loved it!

 Ryan, Jared, and Collin

First Oreo

 Who cares about baby food when you can have oreos?

 When we finally took his messy goodness away he cried

I love my little bearded man :)

Tot School Sneak Peak

A is for...

If you want to see the full week, click here and it will take you to our school blog.

Jumping into Homeschool!

I once read this article regarding homeschool called, "Taking the Plunge!"

I laughed when I saw it because that's exactly how it feels when you decide to do something huge...like homeshooling.

I was homeschooled from 4th to 9th grade and even though I know the ends and outs, I still find myself overwhelmed at times. It's a whole new ball game being on the teaching side than on the learning side. 

As a homschooler I always felt like I had to prove I was smart enough. I don't know how many times I was told that I lived a sheltered life and would be overwhelmed with the "Real World" when I got older. I will admit that I did have a sheltered life in the fact that, I wasn't surrounded by profanity and other degrading things day in and day out. But that doesn't seem to have stunted my emotional or intellectual growth at all :)

Now as a prospective homeschooling parent, I'm still feeling the pressure. It's just coming from myself more than it's coming from others. 

How do you know which curriculum to use?

What if I'm a horrible teacher?

What if my kids don't learn well from me?

How the heck do you even get started!?

See what I mean by overwhelming?

I finally came to the conclusion that you just gotta do it! You just gotta jump right in and then things will start to fall in to place.

Homeschooling my children is something I've always wanted to do. I love having them near me and I love watching them learn new things.

So I did my research, read TONS of articles, visited TONS of homeschooling blogs and I think we're finally ready!

Now granted, Collin is only 3 (or will be in a few months) so he's technacially not old enough to be considered as "schooling age," but that doesn't mean he's not old enough for me to start teaching him. 

So.......our offical Tot School starts next week and will take us all the way through next year when he will start Pre-K!

I think we're both excited to take the plunge!

A VERY Big Boy Bed!

 Collin got a new bed!

 Secret crawl space

 I think it's safe to say that he LOVES it!

A HUGE Thank You to cousin Austin for giving Collin his old bed!

This and That

 It took me almost a WEEK to finish that last post so because I am so behind on posting and have very little time I've decided to just throw a little of This and a little of That at ya :)

These pictures have no rhyme, reason or order to them so be warned!

 We did the magic bubbles again while uncle Logan was here and he taught us some new tricks!

 Tate discovered the jumparoo. Don't let his face fool ya, he loves it!

 BBQ get together at my aunt and uncles house.

 My uncle has this old Volkswagen bus that is affectionately called the Blueberry.

Collin thinks it's the coolest thing.

 Ok, maybe the bus is the 2nd coolest thing next to the boys awesome fort!

 dirt, secret hide outs, sticks, it's every little boys dream

 Collin was thrilled that Austin and Logan let him in to their super secret lair. 

 Duck feeding time!

 You can barely see, but those are baby ducks! Collin wanted to go pet them so bad (because he remembered hand feeding Aunt Tori's ducks) but I pointed out momma duck and told him she would NOT be happy if he did that.

And this is where we found Collin's missing sucker.

I always thought Michael had a sweet butt though :)