Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday was a beautiful day here in Cottonwood. The sky was clear blue and the weather was perfect! The kids were excited about thinking of Jesus and His resurrection. At church, Tirzah played a piano piece called "Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee" on the piano. The highlite of our morning was when Lily, a ten year old girl who has been coming to our church with her grandma for about five years, was baptized! Then, Lily's dad had a surprise for her and he also was baptized! It was really special.

Sitting in front of our portable baptistm, the kids were all smiles.

Everyone was asking me if I sewed the girl's clothes, so let me say that I although I have been sewing lately, I did not sew the dresses. We bought the girls' dresses at Wal-Mart, and all I had to do was hem Selah's dress. (I also hemmed Hardy's dress pants--a first for me.) It was sweet to see the girls in their matching dresses and Hardy looking dapper in his new church suit.

Selah is our little sweetie.

She loves to say in sign language "all done" after she eats a meal and then claps  right afterwards. Of course, we're clapping along with her, and she has discovered she loves the attention from clapping! And this past weekend she started blowing kisses, which is so fun.

We had a wonderful Easter Sunday, and now today we are celebrating Tim's birthday! Don't we all have so much to be thankful for?

 

Homeschooling the Kids

I thought you might be interested to see how we do homeschooling in our family. Using the Abeka curriculum from Pensacola, FL, Tirzah, our second grader, does the video school while I get to be Hardy's teacher. (I used to teach K4 and K5 for six years so kindergarten is my specialty.)

We start school with Bible class at 8:30 every morning and finish school around 1:30 in the afternoon. In the above picture, Tirzah, Hardy, and Acarith are pledging to the flag in their Bible class. Hardy and Tirzah do Bible class together, and sometimes Acarith joins for fun. Mrs. Jadine Chappell is Tirzah's teacher and always keeps Bible class fun.

 

Hardy does his schoolwork at a little desk in the dining room. While I work with him, Acarith "babysits" Selah in either her room or Selah's. The roommtime is good for the girls and helps me and Hardy to have some good one-on-one time.

Acarith loves to do school. She enjoys counting, learning her letters, and coloring papers. About ten o'clock she does her papers at the table.

Here is Selah by Tirzah's desk in the schoolroom. As long as she is good and quiet, she is allowed to be in the schoolroom with Tirzah. She plays with blocks, looks at books, and says "hi" to Tirzah. Tirzah loves it when Selah hangs out with her. Ten thirty Selah takes her morning nap and the kids go outside on recess--their favorite part of school!

I love Tirzah's little desk; it fits perfectly into the schoolroom which is about ten by eight feet. Tirzah does very well with her video school and especially enoys having classmates. Our last day of school is May 16th (if all continues to go well), and I must admit, we are all looking forward to summer break!

 

 

 

 

We Have Chickens!

For a month now we have been taking care of 12 baby chicks. Tim ordered only hens from California Hatcheries. They are Rhode Island Reds and just adorable. Known to be great with kids (and I definitely agree), our kids are having a ball taking care of them. The chicks were living in the schoolroom...until today. Tim put together a pen for them outside and so we'll see how it goes! I hope it works out for them to be outside (their cage will still have the heat lamp and be covered to keep them warm), because they really stink!

On the first day we got them, Hardy's job was to make sure none escaped from the cage. This was hard because they were so little they could slip through the openings. It was hilarious watching him chase them down!

 

Here's Tirzah--acting like a chicken. She told me today that she knows the chickens like her best because she sings to them and they always like her songs. :)

 

Here's Tim with them. The chickens are totally Tim's things with the kids. I told him from the start I didn't want to do too much with them. I'm not good with animals; I never had a pet growing up. When Tim was a kid, he had all sorts of pets: turkeys, pigs, sheep, a cow and a steer, goats, bunny rabbits, pigeons, cats, chickens, ducks, geese, dogs, and lizards. Tim's getting ready this week to hook up a cool watering method for the chicks so we won't have to supply them with water. Honestly, if you want your kids to be around animals but don't like messes in the house, the chickens are the way to go! And I am definitely looking forward to getting those eggs. Hopefully, the chickens will satisfy Tim's itch for wanting lots of pets-- I don't think I want any pigs in the back yard! :)