I just realized I never posted our bluebonnet pictures. We did a mini-session with the amazing Shannon Morton. My mom and Woody came and joined in, too. Sugar’s pictures are my favorites, I can’t believe how grown-up she looks.
Better late than never! April was a busy month of wrapping up Classical Conversations for the year. Bud (and I) worked very hard in April drilling and proofing all of the memory work for the year. He proofed with me and two other parents, reciting all of his memory work for the year. He also proofed with our campus director and received the title of Memory Master. I am so proud of him! The proofing process was difficult, and we spent a lot of time working on it. It also revealed some weaknesses, but at the same time, I was so proud of Bud for persevering through it. We both were tempted to quit several times, but I am thankful we didn’t give up.
The big kids started playing soccer this month. Sugar is quite hilarious to watch at practice and during her games. She is more interested in running and skipping around the field. We are so thankful for her coach and his gift in engaging these little girls in something new for them. Her team is the Lady Owls. One day during practice, her coach sat them all down and was telling them they need to be aggressive during their game. He asked if they knew what “aggressive” means. No one knew, so he said, “It means you really, really want to get that ball. You want to get the ball so bad… so bad because you have to…” and Sugar jumps in and yells, “Feed it to the babies!” It was hilarious, but turns out, she has made soccer into an imaginary game where her baby owls are in the nest (goal) and she has to take food to them (the ball). It hasn’t really made her aggressive in getting the ball, but it is hilarious to get a glimpse into her mind.
Bud, on the other hand, is doing well with soccer. He loves playing and has been bold and aggressive and kind to his teammates. (I just realized I don’t have any pictures of him playing, I will remedy that this week!) He also ran his first 5K with Run for Compassion this month with Thomas. He finished in 35 minutes, and I still have a hard time believing it. He has grown so much physically and emotionally the past few months.
Thomas had to travel for a few days every week in April from trips to Dallas to San Francisco. It was trying, but I’m glad he is home now. The kids all came down with a nasty stomach bug. Sugar had it the worst, and remembering it makes me thankful for our good health since then! The first day after it started, I got a Netflix subscription, which the kids have enjoyed immensely.
Thomas, Speedy and I flew to Arizona for my grandfather’s 80th birthday party. It was great to see so many of my aunts, uncles and cousins, some that I haven’t seen since high school. I enjoyed getting some one-on-one time with Speedy (who did amazingly well on the plane, thanks to my iphone and the ipad) and getting to stay with my grandparents and giving them some time with Speedy. Speedy still says, “Ride Papa tractor!” daily. His few minutes on my grandpa’s four wheeler are emblazoned in his little mind. It was also nice coming home to the kids. They had a huge “Welcome Home Mommy and Daddy” chalk sign in the driveway.
A sweet little dog–part chihuahua–found us one day. She was the sweetest little dog, so skinny and sad, but great with the kids. She enjoyed several all-beef, organic hot dogs until we took her to the animal shelter. It was a difficult decision, mostly because we worried about the kids’ reaction. When we posed it as, “Would you rather keep the dog or keep Netflix?” and they instantly answered, “Netflix”, it wasn’t as hard of a decision.
We started meeting with two other families in our Classical Conversations community for what we call Monday Fundays. We meet together to delve deeper into our science memory work. This allows time for messy activities that I may not make time for otherwise. It also allows for some fun time with friends for both moms and kids.
We were inspired to do this from this blog, and have gotten some great ideas from her.
Some things we have enjoyed doing include:
-making edible kinds of rocks (sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous)
-making models of the each continent’s highest mountain
-labeling the parts of the earth
-making volcano models and “erupting them”
-learning about ocean floor and ocean zones and the animals in each
-making our own paper mache globes
It has been a great learning experience for all of us, both in academics and learning how to get along with others.
I can’t believe it is already April. This spring is flying by!
Basketball season ended, and while Bud lamented, we enjoyed free Saturdays again. He has been wearing his basketball jersey almost daily since then. It helps that it is reversible, so it gets double the wear. With the end of basketball, soccer season has started for Bud and Sugar. Sugar’s favorite part so far is picking out her outfit for practice, but her coach is really great about engaging a group of 4-5 year old girls.
We made a weekend trip to Houston to visit our friends, the Culpeppers. They are very hospitable, and we had a great time catching up. We took the kids downton on the Metro rail, which blew their little minds. They live near the museum district, so we went to the natural science museum before heading home. It was great reinforcement for our science learning this spring.
The kids were invited to several birthday parties this month, so we had a lot of fun with friends.
Uncle Jason came to town for work, so we made a trip to the hospital lobby to hang out with him for a few minutes and load him up with snacks.
I busted my shin doing 13.2, the second workout of the Crossfit Games Open, not competing, just for fun at home. It was going great, but I missed the box somehow attempting to jump on it. It felt okay, but then it was swelling like crazy and I couldn’t put weight on it. I spent a morning at the ER, but thankfully, it wasn’t broken. I got some crutches which helped me a ton for a few days. I took the rest of the month easy and sat around reading and eating bon bons all day.
We spent a lot of time outside playing basketball, which Speedy calls “shoot, ball!” He can now scale the ladder of our playground in the backyard, bypassing the barrier we put on the bottom two rungs. All the kids continued their digging exploits in the empty area of the garden.
Speedy started making “choo-choos” by lining up his cars and trains. It is so cute and nice that he is playing more on his own for longer periods of time that doesn’t involved climbing on furniture.
We invited friends to join us at the skate park during a weekday midmorning when it is normally empty. The kids loved using their scooters and bikes, but all that concrete nade me a nervous wreck.
I started a new Bradley series in a new location. It is closer to my house and accomodates a larger group of students. I had a few minutes of Bradley teacher fame, and I got to doula at a beautiful hospital birth last week.
Long time, no post. Here’s a quick recap of some of the highlights of January and February with the Supercinskis.
I drafted this post a few weeks ago, but forgot about it.
The kids had us in stitches last weekend with all the hilarious things they were saying. The bigger two participated in their first race. While they have attended several races to cheer on Mom and Dad, this was their first to run in. They surprised me with how well they did on the 1.2 mile course. I hoped and prayed that they would finish it without giving up halfway, and they did!
Sugar refused to let Thomas run with her, and opted to run with a friend of hers and his daddy. Afterward, she boasted about not needing a daddy to run with like her friend did, but I pointed out that she just used her friend’s daddy instead of her own. Her friend’s daddy relayed some of their conversation along the run:
Sugar: I just had to wear my hair in a ponytail this morning or else I would have hair all in my face. You can’t run with hair all in your face! You can’t see where you are going!
Later, Sugar: I am going to need a bath after this! Running makes you sweaty and stinky like a hamster. Hamsters stink and I am going to smell like a hamster! (I have no idea where this came from!)
While explaining to Bud about Johnny Manziel winning the Heisman Trophy, Bud failed to see the significance of the event. Finally he said, “If the trophy isn’t made of solid gold, I don’t see what the big deal is.”
Thomas and I got all dressed up to go to his company’s Christmas party. I bent down to tell Sugar good-bye while she patted my hair, dress and jewelry.
Me: I love you, Sugar.
Sugar: I love your earrings.
We upgraded to a new camera after a Black Friday sale we couldn’t resist. Our old camera was purchased before we got married, and the quality of pictures has steadily declined. (I blame the children.) This month, we took twice as many pictures as we took in any other month. Of course, December is full of picture-taking opportunities, but still… this post has a lot of pictures. Click on any to enlarge them.
We went on several nature walks during the first part of December when the weather was gorgeous. We have been learning about plants and classifications of living things, and the kids have really enjoyed the nature walks. Bud was determined to catch a butterfly, but found lots of caterpillars instead.
The kids also ran in their first race, a one mile kid’s race as part of the BCS Marathon. They both finished and had a blast, though training for it had its highs and lows.
December was full of parties–end of CC semester party, a CC review day party, our PE co-op Christmas party, Thomas’ company’s Christmas party, and Christmas celebrations with my mom, Woody and siblings, my dad, Gigi, and sister, Thomas’ parents, and our little family on Christmas day. Whew! We also drove through Santa’s Wonderland one night (Speedy sat in the drivers seat and had a blast), and we walked through Christmas at the Creek one night. While visiting my mom, we spent a morning in Tyler catching up with our friends, the Eylers. (It was so much fun to see you guys!)
Christmas with kids is a lot of fun, and I enjoyed seeing them soak up more about the meaning of Christmas–God with us. Our tree was typical of one with a toddler in the house, no ornaments on the bottom three feet, though Speedy was often found standing on one of the presents he drug out from under the tree in order to be able to reach an ornament.
We also harvested a measly crop of sweet potatoes (we didn’t water enough), and have had lots of broccoli and lettuce. Did I mention we got a new camera and took a ton of pictures?
I am a little behind, but at least my pictures are organized on the computer by month. November was a busy month for our family with homeschooling, Classical Conversations, gymnastics, and starting a new Bradley series. I also taught a breastfeeding class at the crisis pregnancy center. Bud also started Upward basketball, and Thomas jumped in to coach his team. They are enjoying that special time together, and Thomas is learning how to coach six to eight year olds with limited basketball experience.
We spent a lot of time outside this month enjoying cooler temperatures.
We made a trip to Hamilton to visit Thomas’ parents. There was a benefit for the fire department, and the kids enjoyed climbing all over some of the fire trucks. We had fun walking around the square.
I cut 11 inches off my hair, and I love it!
Newborn got married to Sam with Thomas officiating the wedding. As you can see by the picture, he had a really hard time keeping a straight face while saying things like, “Newborn, do you take Sam…”
We spent a Saturday at the Brazos Valley Worldfest. With a huge amount of International students at A&M, there were many countries represented. The kids enjoyed learning more about countries they have learned about with our geography lessons at home and their CC memory work. Sugar was amazed by the fancy dresses, and we all had fun with the food.
Thomas built a bike rack for the garage. This has been helpful in preventing the pile of bikes that has been growing over the years.
A sweet friend of ours got married, and we all had a blast at her wedding.
We celebrated cooler weather by roasting marshmallows in the backyard.
We spent Thanksgiving here with several friends coming over. There were 10 adults and 9 children, and more than enough food. Once again, we bought a smoked turkey from C&J’s bbq, which was delicious. We had a great time, and were so happy to spend time with lots of friends, but I didn’t get any pictures.
We made our annual trek to the pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins for the kids to paint. Speedy had a blast trying to lift all the “balls” and succeeded in rolling several off the pallets. You will notice is mouth saying “ball” in many of these pictures.
Wow, I got really behind on the blog, but I want to keep these going as a digital scrapbook of sorts. We had a busy, fun-filled month in October. We enjoyed a nice, long rain at the end of September (yes, I know, the pictures were still on the camera when I did my September post). The big kids and I also went to see our community theater’s performance of The Music Man. It was a great production, and the kids loved it and begged to go see it again and again. One of my someday-dreams is for our family to perform in a musical together. Wouldn’t that be a blast?
We hosted a block party in our driveway for National Night Out. We have done this before, but we decided to go all out this year and we rented a bounce house and grilled burgers for everyone. We have amazing neighbors who are all very friendly, so it was a great time. The only pictures I got were of the kids in the bounce house before everyone arrived. I was too busy chasing Speedy to get any other pictures.
In celebration of cooler temperatures, we roasted marshmallows and made smores, and we picked out pumpkins at the pumpkin patch. Speedy tried to haul around all of the “balls”. We also planted our fall garden of lettuce, spinach, kale, chard, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower.
We did a lot of school, enjoyed our Classical Conversations community, lived it up in our PE co-op, went on a few field trips, and I took the kids with me to vote.
Bud and Thomas joined some of their favorite guys and boys for their annual Boys Only camping trip. It was the day we got a serious cold front, and they got to camp out with temperatures in the upper 30s. Sugar and I put Speedy to bed and painted our nails, made ourselves a treat, and watched Cinderella together. This is Bud all packed and ready to go.
At the end of the month, our polo-playing neighbors invited us to watch them play polo in a benefit match. It was a beautiful day, and we all had a great time watching our neighbor score the one and only point. Speedy thought the horses were dogs and kept panting at them, and all the kids lived it up in the bounce house between rounds.
Subscribe via: