First Day of School

Today was our first day of a new school year. Audrey is in 5th grade and using Switched on Schoolhouse again (absolutely love this program for her) and Adalyn is in K5 using Bob Jones. The first day went very well considering that Caleb decided to stay awake after his 6:00 am feed...and currently has only slept 3 hours total since that time:-) AAAHHH!!! Homeschooling with a 5 month old is definitely different...well, a juggling act to be precise...BUT, it went well considering:-)

We just got back Audrey's achievement test results and were happy to see her ranking Average to Above Average in every subject this year! She did well despite the fact that we had a weird last three months of school due to pregnancy complications, preemie birth and hospital stay right when we were hitting on some important info in school.  Those were some crazy days after the hospital stay as the girls and I tried to get back into somewhat of a normal schedule two days after we got home...! Our girl pressed on and we're proud of her:-)


Adalyn completely enjoyed her first day of school. She had a hard time going to bed last night because she was sooo excited about today. She kept coming into our room to tell us something else about her starting Kindergarten for quite some time after she had been put to bed.  I love watching my children get excited about the possibility of new things and new experiences...precious childhood days:-)


Caleb isn't starting school yet (THANK GOODNESS:-), but he contributed his two cents worth anyways:-) He sat in Daddy's lap this morning while Daddy and the girls had Bible time **at dark 6:30 am** until his antics were too distracting for the girls.  Mommy let him "help" her make beds and fix Daddy's lunch and then he sat in his bumbo until it was time to have a "snack" and take a nap:-) 


I am thankful that the Lord has allowed us to begin another year of home educating our children. It is something that we do not take for granted, nor do we take it lightly. We see it as our opportunity to teach and train future servants for the Lord's work...ie * future homemakers and a future husband!*  We are also so grateful to a special lady who sent our girls a special amount of money to go towards all their school supplies. What a blessing that was! The girls enjoyed getting to go to the Education store in Gaffney and choose some neat things to help them in their schooling endeavors. 

We have Opening Revival tonight at ABC so I must be off to get things ready for that, but before I go, here's some sweet faces to brighten your day as they do mine EVERYDAY!

Finale

My goodness...what a week! We really enjoyed our time together as a family and made some fun memories! We concluded our week with several rides on the Carousel and Train at our local city park and a sleepover for the girls out at my Mom's for them and some of their friends and cousins. Caleb loved all the pretty horses on the carousel and if the tunnel hadn't been too dark on the train ride, I would have taken a picture of his very surprised expression at the darkness of it and the noise of the train horn blowing! It was very cute:-)

Here are some pictures of the park and of the girls sleepover:-) They had a beauty contest for the most beautiful outfit and also for the most retarded outfit....it was VERY interesting, but very fun! A big thank you to Mom for hosting the event;-)

Over the Hills and Through the Woods...

Oh wow...what a busy day!! I awoke this morning to a darling little face staring at me from a picture on my phone...yes sir, little Ethan Jeremiah Bream was born Tuesday night at 10:58 pm weighing 6 lbs 10 oz. and is 20 inches long! He is such a cute little man and reminds me so much of my sweet JD when he was born. Hard to believe that JD will be 4 in just a few weeks! YIKES!

 

After a sweet visit to little Ethan, we packed up and headed to the beautiful foothills where we visited the Carl Sandburg home.  This is a really neat place to visit and if you have the time to take the house tour (Caleb wasn't too happy at this point and we didn't want him spitting all over the carpet in the house...don't think that would have gone over too well..lol!) which is in the exact same state as it was the day Mr. Sandburg died. Nothing has been moved in all these years!

After buying a book in the book shop, we headed down the lane to the Goat yard to visit the goats. Mr. Sandburg had a goat dairy and it is still in operation. The girls loved getting to see some new baby goats and they were pretty cute!

Since we were running short on time, we cut our visit a little shorter than planned and headed over to the Dish Barn to let the girls pick out something fun! Audrey got jewelry and Adalyn got herself another flashlight...at least this one doesn't require batteries because we won't let her have anymore of those! She burns those things up in one day and batteries aren't cheap! This one has to be "primed" by squeezing a little handle several times before the light comes on. The noise of the little primer being squeezed is a tad annoying, but hey, no more burned out batteries! :-)

All in all, this turned out to be a very fun day and we were thankful to have had the opportunity to spend it together! We have so enjoyed our week together as it is the first time since Caleb was born that we've had time to be together as a family without other distractions. We are looking forwards to tomorrow and all that the day holds for us!