Hot Dog! Its the Fourth of July!

I have to admit I always feel a vague forboding as the 4th of July approaches...not because I'm afraid I'll eat too much (check!), or that at least once during the annual Ayers/Edmonds fireworks display I will fear for my safety (check!), but because it seems once the 4th comes and goes, summer is almost over.

All said and done, we had a great time. Here are some pics:

Me, Bella, and Abbigail at the Jonesborough 4th Parade.
We go every year, although K had to work this year so
Nana went with us. Bella loved the horses, but thought
the marching band was too loud. Abbigail love the snow
cone we ate while we waited!

Sweet cousins! Bella, Kaley, and Aly had a great
time running, playing, and lighting sparklers!



Ashlyn and Bella cool off at Nana's before my
family's cook out.

Bella, Abbigail, and Ashlyn in the patriotic outfits!

Abbigail plays corn hole with Memmie Miller

Other notables that I did not get pics of were the fireworks! When I was a kid my sister and I were thrilled with a few Roman candles, some bottle rockets, and a sparkler. My husbands family, however, buys the kind of fireworks that look like mortar shells! They seem to get better each year, and the whole neighborhood comes out to watch. Freedom Hall? Please!

Another memorable event was my niece, Ashlyn, singing "God Bless America" for us at my moms cookout. She remembers the entire first verse and chorus, and does such a great job!

"God Bless America, my Home Sweet Home".

Decisions, decisions...

This past weekend, I was fortunate to be able to attend the Smoky Mountain Home Education Association's (SMHEA) Family Resource Fair. My mom went along for the ride, and we headed down to Crown College in Powell, TN on Friday morning.

The fair featured an exhibit hall and several workshop sessions. We attended one for "New Home Educators". It was very interesting. The speaker is a mother of three (ages 12, 18, and 20) whose oldest two children were homeschooled k-12 and are now in college. Since I have read pretty extensively on the subject of homeschooling, different approaches, etc, some of what she said was review. But it was still good to hear, and so awesome to be in a room full of like-minded parents!

The exhibit hall was honestly a bit overwhelming! There are so many resources, it's hard to know where to start looking! There was a little bit of everying, from Spanish language programs to athletic associations to academic curricula. I got lots of brochures and talked to several people.

I did refrain from buying anything, though, because the last thing I want to do is make an impulse purchase! In fact, prior to the fair I had made up my mind to use Saxon Math. No question. I was sure! This was the one! Then I happened by a display for a program called Math U See. I had heard of this before, and know a mom who uses it, so my mom and I stopped to look at it and talk to the representative. We both really like the system, it uses a approach that is very hands-on and uses written worksheets for review. So, now I am undecided again!

I did purchase the phonics program I decided on, "Explode the Code". I plan on beginning it with Bella in the next two or three weeks, simply because she is ready. I'll let you know how it goes!

Ready for the Show!

One of my and K's favorite places to go has always been Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia. This year, he decided it was time to let Bella in on the family tradition, especially since there was a production of Beauty and the Beast. We saw it a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it, so we arranged for Nana to keep Abbigail, and off the three of us went! After stopping for lunch, we arrived at Barter early enough to take a stroll around town, and tour the Martha Washington Inn.


Me and Bella!

Me and K, who as per his unspoken rule is NOT

smiling good! (I love him anyway!)

Bella, (our own little Beauty!) waiting for the show to start!

We all really enjoyed the play! At almost three hours long (with a 15 minute intermission), it was almost too long for a wiggly four year old. But she did great. The theatre has booster seats for the little ones, but they aren't very comfortable. So after about twenty minutes she ended up in my lap. But that was okay. She loved the singing, and even though she was a little leery of the beast at first, that soon wore off. We look forward to more trips to Barter, especially when little Abby can come with us!

What else is new?

Well, it will shock no one when I say I am (yet again!) way behind with this blog. I really should just give it up, but I really do enjoy it when I have the time to do it! Anyway, the summer is flying by and it has been (mostly) business as usual for the Edmonds. I continue to work three days a weeek (Mon-Wed) as a dental hygienist, Kenneth is working his crazy 12 hour swing shift at Eastman, and the girls are growing like crazy. Their wonderful Nana (my mom) and Mommy Beth (my aunt) take fabulous care of them when we can't.

So far this summer we are trying to enjoy the sunshine, stay out of the heat, and away from the gnats. Sheesh, I almost just left the "g" off of gnat. We have snuck away for a weekend in Pigeon Forge / Gatlinburg this summer. We spent two nights and crammed in lots of activities, including Dollywood, the Aquarium, a hike to Laurel Falls, some shopping, good food, and a ride on the chairlift. Needless to say we came home worn out! But it was lots of fun. Here are some pics:


This is at the overlook at the top of the chair lift. Abbigail
was too interested in the slushy to pay any attention to the
nice lady taking our picture. Thats my girl, food trumps photos
any day of the week.

This is me and Abbigail going back down. I admit I

was a bit nervous about holding an 18 month on my

lap, even though it is a chair lift and not a roller coaster.

The solution? Goldfish on the way up, slushy on the way down.

Happy, content, and still baby.

Yes, it was very hot. Yes, she had lots of hydration.

My hubby, valiantly pushing a double stroller up

the (mostly) paved path to Laurel Falls. Abby fell

asleep on the way up and missed the whole thing,

but it was beautiful.

Bella walked a while, rode on the double stroller, and

then rode my back for a while. Best excercise I've had

in a long time!

Spring 2011

Well, spring has sprung! I can tell, not so much from the beautiful flowers and verdant hills, but from the yellow coat of pollen on everything and the fact that wondering into the great outdoors without a respirator brings on the mother of all allergy attacks. There is nothing subtle about Mother Nature.

So, since per the usual I am way behind on the blog, I'm going to lump all of "Spring 2011" (to date!) in this one. First things first, I turned the big 3-0. It was definately weird. Not so much because of the number itself. Or the fact that several females (lovingly) assured me that 30 hit them a lot harder than 40. But just because it got here so fast. Sometimes I look around me and say to myself, "I am thirty years old. I have two kids. I am married. Heck, I am a grown up!" Anyway, we had a pretty low key celebration. Dinner at my moms one evening with a chocolate cheesecake for dessert (after all, lets take full advantage of my swiftly declining metabolism. Thanks, mom. Especially since you are most often the one to point out the effects of said metabolism) Then the hubby took me out another evening. The gang at work threw me a little surprise luncheon of Italian food, which is one of my faves! Why does everyone insist on feeding me! Can't they see I need lettuce, water, and several hours with a personal trainer?! It was very nice.

I didn't take any pics of my birthday, so I just threw this one in. This is (thirty year old) me and my Memmie, Lola Jean. This woman is the poster child for graceful ageing. She looks exactly the same as she has my whole life, with the exception of hair color. I love her a whole, whole lot.


Next in our busy Spring was Easter. Some genius in retail marketing decided we should celebrate the birth of our Saviour by buying new dresses for our kids. Obviously he had a relative in chicken farming who threw in the egg dying and there you have it. I'm not complaining, I go along with it too. Although I did make a point to read Bella the real Easter story and stress to her why we celebrate it.

So here are Bella Reece and Baby Precious in their dresses, which my mother bought.

Next on the agenda: Bella turns four! Sheesh, now THIS was hard for me. She is four. Thats one more than three and right behind five. Where did that come from? Shouldn't I get time to prepare? Can't we ease into this or something? That worst part is, this year she KNOWS she is older. She's already making comments like, "I can do such and such, 'cause I'm four now."

Since instead of crying over it, like I kind of wanted to do, we had a party at the park. Cinderella, Prince Charming, Castle in the Clouds, and all that. Here she is, blowing out her candles.

And here is the amazing cake, made by Mr. Tracy Hoilman of Erwin. (www.tracystreats.info) It tasted even better than it looked, if that is at all possible!

Preschool Update

I am still very excited about my decision to homeschool Bella, and later Abbigail. I began doing some preschool work with her in the fall and she did really well with it. This spring we have been a lot less structured, mostly because I have been very busy! I practice dental hygiene Mon-Wed in a general dentistry office, and I am an adjunct faculty in the ETSU Dental Hygiene Clinic on Thursdays for the Spring semester. On Friday mornins we do attend our Homeschool Co-op, which we both enjoy very much.

Despite the fact that we are a little more unstructured at this time, Bella is learning by leaps and bounds, as all children do at this age. My mother and I have both been working with her on math skills and pre-reading. She has preschool workbooks that she really enjoys, and in the past couple of days she has started doing simple addition problems! I can ask her to tell me what five and four is, and she will count it out on her fingers and tell me nine! I am super proud of her, especially since math is definately NOT a strong point for me.

She has also learned to recognize all the upper case and most of the lower case alphabet, and we are working on some of the sounds. I'm not pushing it, she isn't even four yet. She is also practicing her handwriting, and can write her name. My goal for the summer is to have her learn all her lower case alphabet, and do lots of reading aloud. She loves to be read to, and right now she is very interested in volcanoes, thanks to a Discovery channel program she watched with her daddy. We have checked out several books on volcanoes from the library and now she can tell you all about them! We are also working hard on obedience and manners.

My plans for fall ("Man plans. God laughs!") are to begin Saxon MathK and also a reading program. I am still looking into reading programs and talking to other homeschool moms.

Now, I'm sure some people are wondering (because I didn't know much about it until I became interested!) about homeschooling, if it is legal, how expensive it is, etc. Homeschooling is legal in all fifty states, with varying degrees of regulation. For example, Pennslyvania is one of the strictest states to homeschool in, with lots of accountability and documentation required. Other states just require you to notify your local school district. For more information and to see the homeschooling laws for every state, you can visit http://hslda.org/ .

As far as expense, homeschooling is about like anything else in life: you can get the cadillac or the used Honda! Both will get you where you are going! There are many, many resources available for free online and in local libraries. You can buy used curriculum on ebay or craigslist. Just google "homeschool curriculum" and you'll see just how many products there are to choose from. You can choose a "boxed" curriculum, which is pretty much everything your child would need for a particular grade, or you can pick and choose different subjects from different publishers.

I have been researching homeschooling for over a year now, and am still learning a lot! I am out of time for now, but maybe in another post I will list some books / websites / resources that have been helpful to me.

Hodge Podge

As usual, I am woefully behind on my blog posting. However, I am happy to report that my laundry is (mostly) caught up, the house is clean, the children have been fed and watered, and in general things are pretty quiet!

As some of you may recall, we went through a difficult period with Bella when Abby was born. (I've taken to referring to it privately as The Slough of Despond) Anyhoo, we have recently had a recurrence of "the uglies". We had several bad episodes and a couple of very diffucult bedtimes. One meltdown occured smack in the middle of the Johnson City Mall. I had never experienced the uglies in public before and let me tell you, I never want to again! We got a lot of stares, some sympathetic and some not, as I pulled a screeching daughter through the mall by her hand. I found the best thing to do was just smile at everyone like nothing was wrong. It was so bad a one point, a sweet little grandmother saw fit to intervene on my behalf. Now, normally this would annoy me to no end, but at the time I thought, "Lady, if you can do something with her, be my guest!" She walked up to Bella and said something to the effect of, "You're an awfully pretty little girl to be acting like that. I'd take you home with me, but I don't let little girls who act ugly come to my house." It actually worked for about 3.5 minutes, then the uglies reared their heads again.

I'm happy to report that the past few days have been much, much better. We have learned to intervene when we see the uglies coming, and steer her attention in a different direction. We went to visit friends with a new baby just yesterday, and the new baby's grandma actually complimented Bella for being so polite. I just smiled sweetly and thought, "Lady, if you coulda seen her ten days ago...

As for Abbigail, she is 15 months old now, which I can hardly believe. She is not incredibly verbose at this time, but she definately gets her point across nonetheless. She says " mama", "dada", "Bye bye", and "bite". She also can point to her hair, tummy, toes, nose, etc. She also screeches ,"neeneeneenee" whenever I am doing something she doesn't like, such as washing her face. She started walking at just over 10 months, so by now she has graduated to bigger and better things, like climbing on top of the kitchen table. I'm so proud.

I really love this age, because her personality is really coming out. But she is still my baby. My favorite time of day is after bath time. I lay her on her changing table and smother her in baby lotion, then the games begin. She has learned how to unfasten her diaper, so as soon as i get one side on she will start giggling and wiggling and kicking and trying to take her diaper back off. This game ends only when I have managed to corral her into her jammies.

Is there anything better?