School Days

Another school year is upon us.  Dropped my 5th, 3rd, and 1st grader off this morning and gawked at how grown up they look.

Ahhh, just love 'em.  Good luck today boys

Moses bomb.

Thanks for the cute shirts Queenie.  They love them.  Ashton kept talking about how soft they are.

My five boys

Hunter enters his last year of elementary school.  He has a 4 period day now and rotates teachers.  He still has the same kids in his class for Math and ELA but gets to rotate around with the other kids now which I am happy about.

Hunter- 5th

Ashton also tested into GT this year so he will have the next two years with basically the exact same kids.  He also gets to bring his iPad home this year which he is excited about.

Ashton 3rd

Shepherd also got a really good teacher.  It was one of two that he was hoping for.  She is young, single, pretty, and sweet so Shepherd should do just fine. :)  (Nolan, do you want a meet up?!?!)

Shepherd 1st

Bennett is home with me for one more year before he hits pre-k and I probably head back to work in some capacity.  This year though, I am going to be much more structured with him.  We will have "school" every day using the same curriculum I used for the other three.  I cant say enough about this preschool curriculum.  It is wonderful!!!  It would make a great Sunday School curriculum too.

The material I am using with Bennett... about mid year, I will probably add in Handwriting without Tears as well.

Also, at the beginning of summer, I posted "Books for Boys" which also listed some goals we had for summer reading.  I am pretty pleased with what they accomplished.  Hunter and Ashton read two chapter books a piece and did a comprehension unit on one of them using "Drawn Into the Heart of Reading."  I then read a couple books to them at night as well. Shepherd read one chapter book on his own and then we read 4 of the Stick Dog chapter books together.  More detailed descriptions in the caption below.

1- Stick Dog - Shepherd and I have read the first four books of this series and he we LOVES it.  These were a great find.

2- Bridge to Terabithia- Ashton read this for his first book and Hunter read for his second book.  Ashton used this book to do his comprehension unit on.  I wanted to challenge Ashton a bit and this book was just enough of a challenge without being frustrating.  Though it a bit of stretch for Ashton, it was leveled just right for Hunter to read by himself.
We all watched the movie last week too- it was a pretty good reflection of the book... I recommend.  Shepherd loved the movie too, though now the book will not surprise him.  Warning- if you havent read it, it deals with death so be warned.

3- In Search of Honor- Hunter did his comprehension unit on this Christian Historical Fiction book.  Again, it was probably a step above his comfort reading level but he read a lot of it out loud to me so we could discuss and break it down.

4- The Adventure of Tom Sawyer- This was Ashton's second book.  These readers are great as they take the classics and make them a bit easier.  It was the perfect level for him to read independently.  We have a couple more, Call of the Wild and The Story of Kind Arthur, that the boys will read throughout the school year

5-The Magician's Nephew-  Hunter and I read this one together at the end of the school/ beginning of the summer.  We are anxious to finish the series but we have to finish other things we have started... haha)

6- The Mysterious Mr Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey (book 2).  Hunter, Ashton, and I read this at night over the summer.  Again, we love these books.  We will hopefully start book 3 this winter.

7- City of Orphans-  This is the book H and A and I are reading at night now. This is a new one for me as I knew nothing about it but it is about Newsies and since my family loves the movie, Newsies then I thought we would give it a try.  So far, it is wonderful.  Hunt and Ash both look forward to reading it and always want me to read more.  Hope to finish it in 2 weeks or so and then I am reading Seraphina and the Black Cloak to at least the older 3.

8- Imagination Station- Voyage of the Vikings- Forgot to add this book with the others but Shepherd read this to me for his chapter book.  He did such a good job.  This is a great beginner's chapter book series.  It is Christian based and historically accurate.  We have one more at the house that Shep will read this fall.

And that pretty much wraps up our summer and pushes us into fall.  Chad's football season kicks off Friday night and we are hopeful that things are looking up this season.

To sum it up, I look above and pray....
Jesus, Protect them.  Claim them. Use them.

Summer Happenings

The summer is drawing to a close and we have stayed sooo busy.  I have posted about many of the out of town happenings but neglected to post the minutia moments that kept us moving.

1- Carowinds-  The group grandparents Christmas gift that kept on giving all summer long.  We went to Carowinds basically once a week this summer.  From the improved waterpark to the rides, the boys looked for their weekly trip.  Ashton and Shepherd are so anxious to hit 54" to be able to ride the big coasters, but they are both about 1.5" too short.  The park closes at the end of October and they are both (but especially Ashton) hopeful to the magic 54".

Yall, I kid you not.  The three holding the map are not posed.  I told Hunter to go stand with them. Men and Maps.

Here are some pics from our many many many trips.

On the choo choo with Bennett

The big swings. Ashton loves these

This year Bennett finally got on the horse

Hunt and Beez 

This is soooo Shep and Ashton.  haha

The Scrambler. still trying to convince Bennett to ride this one

Selfie with my baby

Hunter's friends Austin was able to come with us

Ashton, Shepherd, Austin and Hunter all in the front row.  They rode this 3 times.

2-  Hiking/ Walks  We gave a hiking a go this summer.  The oldest and youngest enjoyed it  much more than the middle two.  Ashton said, "I would rather run than do all this walking."  Along with legit hikes, we also hit the local parks and trails which all 2 legged and 4 legged family members loved.

Local playground

Took the trails from the playground and walked up to the soccer fields where the sprinklers were up and running so of course, they had to run through

The end of the hike. They were troopers since I was not prepared for the magnitude of this trail.  We didnt quite make it to the top- they were DONE with my impromptu hike.

Somehow we are still smiling

These 3 and I made it to the pinnacle on attempt #2.  Ash and Shep decided to stay at home with dad this time.

So pretty!

3- Summer Camps- The older three were able to hit all the high school sports camp... football, basketball, and baseball (Hunter did not do baseball).  The only camp that we had to pay for was soccer and we just did that through the rec so it wasnt super expensive.

4-  Adult soccer league-  yep, I finally got to play soccer and it was so fun.  I really missed playing.  I definitely feel my age out there with these young guys but I like to think I held my own ok.

5- Kids Creek Activities (church activities for the kids)-  Again, the older three went on three scheduled activities through our church.  They went to the movies and CiCis, a waterpark, and then today they went to read to the dogs at the animal shelter.  I know they had fun at the first two activities but I must say they were so excited to tell about all the precious dogs they got to read to and love on today.  It was a great community project to do... and my kids proved that they have their mother's tender hearted nature to animals. When they were leaving, the director asked Hunter is he had allergies because he had teared up.

6- Drive in-  A new drive in opened and the boys got their first taste of it.  We saw The Secret Life of Pets and loved it!  The line "I miss her so much" is a constant when talking about Moses' love for me.

Drive in

7-  Riggs- We got to spend some time with ol' Riggsy too.  He spent a total of twoish weeks with us this summer.

Best friends who love the ball chase

Hate this is blurry.  he is such a handsome boy

8-  American Ninja Warrior-  This show continues to dazzle my kids.  ANW obstacle courses were created all over the backyard.  It reminded me of making American Gladiator courses in GrandmaDeans yard with my brothers and cousins.

From scaling the walls inside (only one picture frame has been broken), to climbing up the slide to scaling the wall to moving across the swings to balance down to the teeter totter to riding the zip line to jumping onto large football dummies, the boys have made quite the course.

This little dude is strong.  He easily pulls himself up without using the green holds.

9-  Library Days.  The boys completed their library incentives and got to go hear and see an animal specialist come in and talk about and show a bunch of different animals.

B and H touching the snake

Shep's good friend, Mason, just happened to be at the library too.

Funny story... see the little girl beside Ashton.  She apparently has a little crush on him and kissed him on the cheek when she left.  All this happened in front of Hunter.  Ashton could have D-I-E-D!

10- Chick Fil A Day- Of course, we hit CFA for our free annual lunch.

And though this Target visit was on a different day than CFA day, it cracks me up.  Paw Patrol for life.

11- Spend the Night.  Shepherd had his first friend over to the spend the night.  Each kid was supposed to be able to invite someone over but we only got the details worked out with Shep's friend.  As mentioned above, Hunter's friend did Carowinds with us.  We did try a couple times to get Ashton's buddy over here and schedules just didnt match up.

A bunch of boys.

12- Moses-  All random posts like this have to include some Moses shots...

One of the highlights of Moses' summer... catching a squirrel

Moses enjoying movie night

My Moses is such a good boy... anxiously waiting for a treat

How we all feel about school starting back.

Such a wonderful, fun summer!  I know I have forgotten things like a quick Chuck E Cheese trip to other things but these were definitely some of the highlights (not to mention the other things I have posted about this summer.)  Sad to see it end but looking forward to seeing all the cool things they will do this year!  Plus, this could quite possibly be my last year at home before heading back into the workforce!  EEK!