Yo ho, Yo ho, a Pirate's Life for Me

This year while we were at Hilton Head Island, my husband decided we needed a little piracy in our lives...so we loaded up our girls and my niece, Ashlyn, and went on a Pirate Cruise! Once the girls were properly tattooed (a temporary one, of course!), eye-patched, and armed with styrofoam swords, we set sail on the open sea - or at least around the harbor- in search of Stinky Pete the Pirate and his treasure.


Bella helps hoist the skull and crossbones flag.
Me, Kenneth, and Abbigail

Our three Pirates: Abby the Angry, Barnacle Bella,

and Blackbeard Ashlyn

By the end of the pirate cruise we had found Stinky Pete and bombarded him with water cannon, had a cup of pirate grog (the nonalcholic kind!), and found the pirate treasure. The girls had a great time.

A-bee-dale!

"A-bee-dale!" is the sound that frequently echoes through our house, when Abbigail is doing something big sis Bella does not approve of! She may be the smallest of our home, but Abby is bound and determined to prove that "the last shall be first".

She is bouncy (literally!) and full of life! She is learning new words and little phrases every day- the newest is "All done!" as she hands you her plate. She is sweet and loving, and at the same time fiesty and determined- just try to take her blankie from her! Abbigail is no pushover.

Last night I crept into her room to see if she was asleep, and instead found her lying in her crib peacefully, with her big browm eyes open. I whispered "Nite nite" and she whispered it back, and I watched her for a long time.

She is growing so fast, it makes my heart ache. Right now, this minute, she is still my baby. But sometimes I watch her as she plays, and I know that any second she will take one more step and one more breath and then...gone. She will be a little girl.

"For all good and perfect gifts come from above, sent down from the Father of Lights...."

So thankful.

School is cool!

Here's a litle progress report! We have completed one month's worth of lessons thus far! Bella is doing really well. Granted, there are days when we don't accomplish as much as I'd hoped. But then there are days when we plow right through our lesson! Today we completed Book A of the "Explode the Code" phonics program. Bella has learned the sounds for "b, k, t, f, m, and r". The really exciting part for me is not that she can recognize them when she sees them, but that she's starting to recognize them when she hears the sounds in everyday conversation! She's also started asking about sounds we haven't learned yet.

She is really enjoying Saxon Math K. She loves the teddy bear counters, pattern blocks, and linking cubes we use.

My favorite part of our lessons is our Bible story. Each day we read the next story in our book, discuss it, and then pray together. For example, if our story was about the Children of Israel having the sea before them and the Egyptians behind, we would pray and ask God to help us trust in him even when things don't look so good! It's amazing how simple Bible stories can still speak to us!

Here are some pictures from today!



Bella and her pattern block graph.

Phonics!

Painting a seahorse. Since we are leaving for the beach

next week, we have been looking at some books about

the ocean, and this weekend we are making an ocean

diorama (shoe box scene).

Abby participating in art!

*please note that the above art project was not nearly as peaceful

as the pictures portray! We had a few minutes of wild rumpus during

which one of us was a fiddler crab and had to scuttle sideways with "pincher"

hands, and the other person was a fish and had to "swim" away!