Katie turns 3!

Our little baby is growing up! Today was Katie's 3rd birthday! We celebrated all day.

This evening we had friends and family over for a puppy party.

Katie is such a wonderful child. Being our youngest, we try to treat her like the baby, but she always wants to be the big girl. As of late, she has started to sing a lot. Her favorites are the ABC song and This is the Day. She is a tough girl and defends herself well. Mark jokes that she will be a UFC fighter one day (I pray not) She enjoys doing things herself and likes to help those that are younger. Happy BirthdayKatie Jensen!

Katie at three:

-likes to be independent

-loves Charley and is learning not to pull his tail

-talks very well

-is potty trained (as of just 1 month ago)

-likes to jump off of things

-great at putting puzzles together

-loves to go to church and King's Kids

-eats broccoli, salad, veggies----ok, anything on mommy's plate

-likes to eat

-loves Team Umizoomi

-loves her brother and sisters

Her First Birthday!

Her 2nd Birthay

Her 3rd Birthday

catching up

I was without my computer for 1 week. It was torturously difficult, but we all survived! I am so grateful for the tech team at work. It is so nice to mail it off and get it back working in pristine condition.

We are so pleased with how school is going this year. I feel like we did a good job selecting curriculums that meet the needs of each of our kids. They are all challenged, but not overwhelemed. This is a very good thing.

Today, Emily, Sarah and I made homemade chia pets. I got the idea off of another blog. We hope they work.

Grandma was over visiting and enjoyed helping the kids with school. You can see that Charlie is on Emily's lap. He loves to take a long nap during school, that is if he can escape the clutches of Katie.

We were working on the letter i, so Sarah read a book about ice cream to Ty and Katie. After that they made ice cream cones and of course ate an ice cream sandwich. Emily and Sarah each have to read a book and plan an activity to do with Ty and Katie for the week. To start I am helping them plan the activites, but eventually they will be in charge of it all.

Our 4 kiddos before church. They all love to go to Sunday School and Church. I am very thankful for the wonderful, faithful Sunday School teachers that we have at our church.

Last week we had a Geo Trax party. We invited some friends with younger children over for dinner and a good time. The adults participated in a great game of Apples to Apples. Surprisingly, the most relucatant participant won. My Dad!

We had all of the geotrax set up and there were plently of other toys to play with, but I thought this picture was cute. Ty is demonstrating the awesomeness of the iphone to his friends. :)

one more

Katie wanted me to add this.

Katie

Katie loves to have her picture take....I mean Katie loves to look at the back of the camera to see herself after she has her picture taken.
She got a haircut this week. It looked so cute with no finger twirls so I had to snap a few shots. She sure has a lot of faces.

Mama's Mission

I got this idea from Mama-Jean's blog.One good(maybe) thing aobut putting your missions on the internet is you will have loads of accountability. My goals for September:(I know it is August still, but hey a headstart never hurts!) -Finish our Family Vacation book and have it ready to publish on MixbookI have already started loading pictures and making pages, but having a deadline will keep me focused. -Run 3-4 days a week every weekI plan to run my first 5k in October. I am loving Couch to 5k, but with the run for tomorrow the times start to pick up. I know I can do it, but sometimes mentally I try to talk myself out of it. -Have Katie's birthday partyThis is in the works and since I absolutely love to have birthday parties I know it will happen. There is a lot of little things to get done including invites ready for church on Sunday. -Organize the school roomWe are off to our smoothest start of school ever. At the end of each day I seem to have piles of items to put away, organize, hole punch and file. I just feel like there can be a better system. I just need to figure it out.
Now....off to get busy!

First Day of School

School has started and the kids are thrilled! We opted to start this week with a 1/2 schedule and then next week we will do a full schedule. I thought this would ease us into the routine. So far it has worked beautifully.

Sarah's Curriculum for the year

Bible-Rod and Staff

Spelling-A Reason for Spelling

Math-Horizons 4 and Rod and Staff 4

Writing-Writing Strands

History-Rod and Staff 4

Science-Eagles Wings-Considering God's Creation

Vocabulary-Wordly Wise 4

Penmanship-Rod and Staff

Grammar-Growing with Grammar 4

We also do a Daily Journal for all 4 kids, famous paintings study and art and music activities.

So Sarah is off to a great start. Her favorite subject is Spelling. We used the same curriculum two years ago and was thrilled to be using it again this year.

Ty is a K4 student this year. He misses the cutoff for K by just a few weeks. We opted to use Rod Staff Grade 1 Math and Rod and Staff Beginning Reading. My plan is to take this year and next year to complete these two curriculums. I would add more to next year to make sure he was getting enough 'stuff' in his Kindergarten day.

So far things are going very well. He loves doing school. The first day he snuck out his math book and did 5 additional pages!

I thought the curriculum started out too easy, but it is good for him. He has so much confidence and is taking pride in his work. If we stay on task he will be reading basic cvc words by Christmas. Right now he is working on a page of the letter A that he wants to give to Grandma (Dillehay) because she has apples in her kitchen.

In addition to the curriculum we add in lots of hands on activities and learning centers.
Katie is modeling her bead necklace she made on day 1. She is doing journal activities with us and also begs to do Ty's work. I am including her in as much as she wants to do. I have made a few 'tot school' things for her to do too. She loves being a part of anything the other kids are doing.

Her primary goal for this week is potty training. We started last Monday and let's just say it was a long week. On Saturday something clicked and she started telling us when she had to go. Things are going very well this week. She has had a few accidents, but is doing great! Whew! We will soon be diaper free!
Emily is a GULP middle schooler this year.

Her curriculum:

Bible -Rod and Staff 6

Science-FLVS

History-FLVS World Cultures

Language Arts 1 with FLVS

Math-FLVS Math2

Career Education-FLVS

Vocabulary-Wordly Wise

Grammar-Growing with Grammar 6

Penmanship-A Reason for Writing

We also add in the extras like daily journal, music, art and other activities. This will be an interesting year with her taking 5 FLVS classes. I know she can handle the load, but it shows make her seen so grown up to me. We chatted with all of her teachers on Monday. She is so personable on the phone. That will help as she has to do a phone quiz with them after each chapter. It will be neat to be on the other side of FLVS this year.
I think this is going to be a great school year! We have 4 wonderful students and it is a pleasure to teach them.

Katie's ABCs

Mini-Vacation

After church on Mother's Day we left for a quick getaway to Orlando. We haven't taken much time off lately and it was so nice to getaway from the normal swing of things.

Arabian Nights was running a special Homeschool Rate so we attended the show. All the kids enjoyed watching the horses. They have changed the storyline since last time we went there. We were very glad about that.

Katie had a mouth infection during the trip. The poor thing could hardly eat and was quite miserable. Luckily she started to feel better on the last day.

We used our Give A Day, Get A Day passes that we had earned back in January. All we had to do is buy a ticket for Ty. What a great deal!

Emily and Sarah got started in Pin Trading this time. They loved trading pins with castmates and were always improving their collection.

Emily's new boyfriend?

Emily and Sarah used to hate 3-D attractions. They were terrified to watch them. This time I made them try Philharmagic and thy both loved it!

I was driven by Katie! (We hit the rails alot)

Ty enjoyed being the navigator.

We had a great time and can't wait to go back to Disney.

King's Kids Jamboree

Tonight was one of my favorite nights of the year.

King's Kids is our Wednesday Night Program at church. Mark and I are in charge of the program and it has been such a blessing to us. Most years Pastor Sutton runs a Jamboree where we compete against other area churches. It is an all day Saturday event. Due to some scheduling difficulties it was decided we would not be having it this year.

After some discussion we elected to have our own Jamboree. It was a different not to have 3 or 4 other churches, but still turned out to be a very nice night.

Here we are with our King's Kids. Emily won 1st place in the Bible Memory Contest. She was thrilled! This is an event that she spent a lot of time on. Sarah was heartbroken to finish 4th. (She forgot a 'the'. ) She had about 30 more verses ready to go. When we got home she told me she was so happy for Emily to win, because she still has 3 more years to try to win it and Emily only has one.

We work with several amazing helpers. They make our lives so much easier. Our King's Kids workers tonight were Patty, Scott, Bonnie and Gina. Jenna and Angie always work with us, but were unable to come tonight. Here is our group from tonight.

Emily, Sarah and Hannah were awarded journals and pens for memorizing all of Psalms 96. These are 3 hard working girls!

Alison and Baileigh did a great job! Allison won the Quiz Bowl Competition. It was a hard fought match. Emily ended up 2nd and Sarah 3rd.

Here are our 5 quizzers. I don't think Mark ever finished one entire question. They were up and ready to give the answer quicker than most of us processed what he was saying. I'm so proud of all of them.

We did 6 different relay races. 3 were Bible based and 3 were just fun.

Sarah on the scooter relay.

Brooke working on the Beatitudes Matching.

We invited the parents and family to join us dinner before the Jamboree started. It was a good time of fellowship.

One of our races was the Jelly Bean Race. The kids had to use a straw to carry a Jelly Bean to a bowl. Many of them ended up on the floor and the kids had to get it from there to the bowl.

Our King's Kids Girls (we are missing Bethany. She was unable to make it tonight.)

This is the the poster we made to memorize Psalms 96. I had planned on learning it with them, but I didn't quite make it. The girls put lots of time in to preparing for the Jamboree this year. We are so happy to see their dedication.

Mother Daughter Banquet

Last night was our church's mother daughter banquet. It was an extra special one for me. Mrs. Judy started by reading a letter that was given to her. Little did I know that Emily wrote the letter. Here is Emily's letter:

Dear Mrs. Judy,
Hello! As always I am sure you are going to have a Mother of the Year and I would like to nominate my mother. She loves and cares for us kds with all her heart. I don't know what I would do without a mom like her. Whenever I need her she is always there. Not just that, she also teaches us so that we can have a good education with a bible based meaning. She is also a very Christian women who loves God and her church. So the Dillehay children hereby nominate Mrs. Tabitha Dillehay for the Mother of the Year.
Love The Dillehay Kids

I was surprised and thrilled to get the beautiful letter. It is always nice to be honored, but I think the letter is what I will treasure the most.

Unexpected Treat

Tonight my mom called and asked if all 4 kids come over. We hadn't ate dinner yet, so she thought Mark and I could go to dinner. We were thrilled and jumped at the chance.

My dad took Ty and Katie to indulge in their favorite cuisine. McDonalds! They had a good time with grandpa. I guess he had to finish their ice cream cones because they wanted to play. Sorry Dad!

My mom took Emily and Sarah to JoAnns to buy fat quarters and buttons. She brought them back to her house and helped them cut out and sew a purse. They turned out great! How neat to say that you bought fabric and made a purse all in one evening! I'm glad my mom likes doing fun stuff like this with my girls. I know they enjoy it.

Mark and I went to Roadhouse and had a delicious meal, but best of all we got to talk uninterrupted the whole time. What a treat that is!

Now we are settled in and watching a movie. What a fabulous Friday night and great way to start the weekend!

Headed to the Library

A basket full of books and headed to the library. Our family use the library a ton! All 4 kids love to go and check out books. Ty especially likes to ask the librarian for help. He is so thrilled when she is able to find a new space, robot or dinosaur book that we haven't seen before.

Normally I would be the on taking the kids to the library. Today I am loaded with appointments, so Mark is headed there. I love it that he has the freedom to be able to take midday trips with them. I know the kids enjoy the daddy time.

As a homeschooler it seems like most of the educational 'burden' is on the mother. While this is true, I enjoy having a husband that steps in and helps with anything that is asked. He is such a great Dad!