Fun Reminiscing

Baby Piper---first day home with us

Hard to believe in two months, this could easily happen back in WI--ya, I won't miss it:D

My Fairy Girl

Angel's first birthday--we both had colds:( (shhh, I was pregnant, didn't tell anyone yet:D)

Look how Little they are!

Forever my Best Bud!

A Look Back...Guess Who is Who??

Can you guess which baby is Fairy Girl and which baby is Angel Girl?

I know the answer:)

How about now, which baby is which? 


I know the answer:)

If you need a hint, check the pages below.

Fun Art

A "Tail" of Two Mer-Kingdoms

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom of Mermaids.  Deep under the sea, not a sliver of daylight, they saw two sea castles and decided to live there:  The Castle of Flowers and The Castle of Light.

Princess Fairy Girl lives in The Castle of Flowers, along with her royal mer-court: a mer-baby, Mana, with blue hair, a green fin--she was born out of seaweed.; a mer-mommy named Gama; a mer-daddy named John; a mer-dog named Sara (she's gold with a blue fin and a blue tail); and of course Mer-Grandma and Mer-Grandpa!

Princess Angel Girl lives in The Castle of Light, along with her royal mer-court: A teen-mer, 16, named Celena, tall with red hair and a pink fin; a mer-friend named Ola; and a black mer-dog with a blue fin named Shroca; and a sea-daddy named Michael.

Both Castles were beautifully decorated with colorful furniture, sparkly and soft chandaliers, pillows, and of course, magical rugs!

The mer-people grew flowers everywhere in their kingdom (to keep the kingdom not stinkie, of course:)  The neighbors all love it and decided to move into this mer-kingdom!!

Celena, the mer-teen, is all grown up now, and about to be crowned queen and be married!  A glorious ceremony is planned!

But the BIGGEST bubble appeared and a voice called from it, "SHARK ATTACK, SHARK ATTACK!!!"  The worst-ever creature came to ruin the ceremony.  It scratched and tipped everything!!.  This was an invisible shark that sneaked up to ruin the ceremony and kingdom!  To make matters worse, a sea-girl-monster with sting rays appeared and used her flipper to pull Princess Celena over to the Bad Queen; the flipper pulled her up the latter and she was on top of the castle; and weird black sand filled the kingdom's backyard!

Everyone was so disappointed.  Sting Ray was so sad and mad.  "What happened to this wonderful ceremony?"  But then, Nice Whale brought the sword of light to save Princess Celena and the long-awaited ceremony.  And the mer-king, from his lookout, declared, "make the sharks and all the bad animals of the sea--DISAPPEAR!  And, by the power of the Flower Power Sword, make the sea-monster---NICE!"

The mer-kingdom had been saved!! Princess Celena had a beautiful ceremony, marrying the handsome Prince Triton, where they also were crowned King and Queen of the kingdom.  And of course, the mer-people lived happily, ever-after!





                            THE "TAIL" END!

 Note from the editor:


Our little homeschool is going to attempt to develop, build and write a story each week, complete with illustrations.  I will come up with a very simple theme, based on other things we may be studying.  For example, this week, I selected the theme of "water."  The girls will come up with the characters, the scenes, ideas and story development, and the illustrations.  Each week we will take four days to build our story.  The editor will attempt to take their mostly random ideas (at this point anyway); some based off stream of conciousness (for example, I had trouble fitting Little Red Riding Hood, who came up this week, into this particular story:)--and build some cohesiveness; yet at the same time, the editor will try VERY hard to keep the story theirs, by preserving most of their words; just adding a few here and there for embellishment.

  I'm sure you can see how valuable this "weekly exercise" can be; not to mention fun!  So, thank you for reading our first story.  We hope you'll come back for more!  (and my even bigger hope, that my girls are able to develop characters who aren't all mermaids:D

First Day of School -- Field trip to study Seashells!!

Today was our first day of school!!  Miss Angel is now in first grade, and Miss Fairy, kindergarten!  Welcome to our classroom!

 For an art project, we made these adorable handprint bookmarks.

 And here is Miss Fairy's HANDiwork (get it:D)










We are incorporating a couple of new concepts into our homeschooling, which I am VERY excited about.  The first is borrowing on some of the concepts of the Charlotte Mason methods.  This is VERY literature-rich, using "living" books, as opposed to text books.  This will work especially well for areas such as history and social studies.  I'm especially excited about presenting history in this format--because when I was in school, I litrerally got NOTHING out of history--I mean NOTHING.  And that is very sad!  I believe my lack of interest was due to two big factors--the way the textbooks presented the material, and quite frankly, I don't feel the history teachers I had really brought it to life for me.  It doesn't have to be that way.  That's why I'm very excited about the use of "living books" written by people who are passionate about their topics---the information most likely won't be presented in a drab matter, but rather with lots of color and rich details!  This is what brings history to life (this along with being able to visit museums, reenactments, and historical sites:)  Oh, and along with using "real literature" my girls will narrate back what they learned from some of the readings, as opposed to me requiring them to memorize stuff and spit the stuff back out for the sake of a "test."  (No worries, some important things will be "pointed" out to be committed to memory.)  However, for the most part, the premise behind narrations, is with all that happens in the brain to enable this skill---the information suddenly becomes knowledge!  Further, in my eyes, this is an excellent stage of development for my girls to become excellent communicators, both orally and written.  Eventually, when age-appropriate, narrations will also be written, by them!!  Can you see where this is going?   We are of course being a bit more traditional for math; and of course we're focusing hard on learning to read--but continuing to enjoy reading!  I pray that my girls always love reading and have a zest for learning, and that their natural creativity and curiosity never gets squelched--it's so beautiful to see this in a child!   Learning isn't something separate, and it should never be a chore; it's all part the fun of living and life!! 

Olive Shell--South Carolina's state shell!

For the afternoon, we headed over to Hunting Island, where we met a volunteer naturalist for a class on sea shells.  We learned a tremendous amount of information about Whelk shells and the many varieties.  The woman who led our "class" this afternoon is a malacologist (I bet that's a new name for you too :)  This is a person who not only studies the shells, but the mollusks as well (the soft animals inside the hard shell:)  After a very informative lesson at the picnic table with the naturalist's personal collection, all found locally on Hunting Island, we hit the beach for some fun!  The girls (and the gentleman who also joined the class) all had a spectacular time digging in the sand, and bringing their treasures to the naturalist to identify!  We found oysters, sanddollars, fossels, various shells, coral (specific to this area, not the same was that found in the warmer waters of the Carribean), sea sponge---and we were able to identify the fate of some of the shells (e.g. a hole in the shell potentially indicates, that it was "drilled" by another sea creature, and then sucked out for lunch:)  We also found a few clams that were still alive (they group together), and we threw them back into the ocean, hoping to save them!  

Also, though my girls are very aware of not littering, and  being able to recycle when possible--they learned a valuable lesson from the naturalist-they watched her pick up somebody else's litter to throw away later.  She explained to them that one little piece of garbage can wind up back in the ocean, and be sighted by some sea animal who will think it to be food---and then could very easily die from trying to consume the garbage!  This really hit Fairy Girl hard, who picked a couple of pieces of trash up, and later told her daddy all about this!  A valuable life-long valuable lesson was learned today!

In the photo below, you will see a group of shells (sorry, forgot the name) that survive by living ontop of one another.  You may be interested to hear that all the shells on top are male, and the one carrying the load--female:D  Even more interesting, if the female decides to bail on her mates, the male on the bottom, will suddenly transform from male to female:D

  Our seashell class lasted an hour and a half.  And the woman leading the class was so incredibly enthusiastic about this; she invited us to hang out more with her as she continued to walk the beach looking for treasures.  It was also very clear how passionate she was about sharing her love with children!

How's that for science and nature studies:)

What a GREAT first day of school!!  

(I wonder if my girls realize these life experiences are just not typical, everyday "school"--I'm grateful we have these opportunities!)

Savannah and Tybee Island

We had a wonderful day today visiting historic River Street in Savannah.  I'm not sure if downtown Savannah is always this festive, but we arrived to find bands and craft vendors, and bouncy thingies for the girls, and balloon artists, glass blowers, and child street musicians, and riverboat cruises, and yummy food, and and and... I LOVE Savannah.   The very old buildings have a lot of charm and character, and are being used for all the fun and trendy restaurants and shops that adorn the river front!  I LOVE Savannah!

Following a really fun afternoon, we headed over to Tybee Island.  The large and beautiful pavilion on the beach hosted a great and rather loud (I must be in my 40s:D) variety band.  We had pizza on the beach at sunset, and listened to the crashing waves for awhile under the stars, as we enjoyed watching beach patrol kick all the people out of the water(didn't we just have a hurricane whirl past, aren't the rip tides still there?)  Of course once the beach patrol drove past, the people were right back in.  Finally I saw a convoy of beach patrol cars drive in with their bright lights and loud whistles--I'm sure that did it:O 

The evening was to end with fireworks, being shot out over the Atlantic, but we decided to avoid the crowds going off the island (plus we're not sure if our youngest is still afraid)--oh, and poor Piper had been home for about 12 hours--so we thought it was only fair to get back to him.  I don't like letting such a wonderful evening come to an end--but I know everyday can be equally as wonderful, if we choose:)  We feel very blessed!

The Sandbox--Big Truck Night!

I'm kind of sad.  I thought my girls were young enough to go to Betty Brinn, without standing out too much; but last time we were there was almost two years ago.  Last night they had their monthy free family fun night at The Sandbox of Hilton Head--kind of a VERY cute but compact version of Betty Brinn--I'm sad to report that although my girls had fun (despite the masses of families taking advantage of free night)---my girls TOWERED over the mostly hundreds of TODDLERS there.  It was good to do this, ONCE:D

Flashback Friday---Fairy Girl (and Little Angel "nursing" her Baby Bear:)