Good Old Fashioned Fun at the Low Country Boil

 Once again this year we had a Low Country Boil at the Ellis's house. And once again, it was a great time had by all. The kids loved playing on the trampoline, slide and swings. Especially the rope swing. They tried it with Mama and then Brookelynne wanted to do it alone, so we let her. And, she was great at it! She absolutely LOVED it, and kept getting back in line to do it again and again. Mitch got to spend an hour or so playing vollyball, defending our class against the Jones's class. :)

Here are some of my favorite shots from the day!

 Brooke and Mama on the rope swing together

 Braxton and Mama swinging!

 Brookelynne on the rope swing and Braxton playing with the football

 How. Stinking. Cute. Are. They.????? :)

 These two are our 'model shots' :) Brooke in the grass, and Brax with his GQ look. haha

 Sweet family photo by the water :)

 I'm so thankful for a young couple's department who cares about investing in young couples and realizes low stress, family fun is a great way to get to know everyone!

Roadtrip to Tennessee and safetly home again.

It's been two years since we went up to Tennessee and spent a weekend with my cousins Kelley, Glen, Rebecca and Lane. In that time, my sweet sweet Aunt Betty, and Uncle Alvin, as well as my cousins John, De, Christian and Hunter have all moved up there too. We had hoped to all go up there as a family, but Mitch was unable to join us, but I went ahead and tagged along with my Mom, Josh, Amy and Amy's parents and went anyway. We left on Thursday night, and drove all night to get there. Its a 10 hour drive, so we laid the children's car seats back and rolled on down the road.


We arrived around 7 am, and were greeted by Aunt Betty and Uncle Alvin with a nice hot breakfast waiting for us. Mr Larry, Josh and Amy went upstairs and got some rest. I slept the last 2 hours and tried to rest on the couch when we arrived, but alas, my children would not allow it! ha! We enjoyed the day just laying around the house, went and drove around the property and then got ready to head to Nashville to visit the Grand Ole Opry.

These are some pictures from the property (above) and some fun ones I took of Hunter and Christian, as well as B&B at Aunt Betty's house (below)

The Grand Ole Opry was fun, but Brax man had an accident and ended up pants-less for most of the night (drive me nuts, he does!). When we left there, we stopped for dinner at a Logan's Road House and had a very nice meal, before the late and long drive back to the house.

Saturday morning we all met up and went to the pumpkin patch. The kids were dressed for cold weather that really never came, but it made for super cute pictures :) They had pumpkins, a petting zoo, a huge slide, corn maze and little train. The kids had a great time!

Braxton, Christian, Hunter and Brookelynne

Kelley and Lane

After the pumpkin patch we went home for naps and then had a fantastic dinner with everyone there (except Rebecca, silly girl had to work!) Uncle Alvin had smoked the meat all day and it was just fantastic. Aunt Betty made the rest of the dinner (with a little help. here and there from the rest of the ladies at the house). And they had a Birthday cake for Josh and Brookelynne as well, which was nice, since it was Josh's birthday and Brooke was spending her birthday away from Daddy.

Sunday morning, all the Starlings and Freemans made it to church (except Uncle Alvin who had to get on the road back to FL) and Mom, me and kids joined them. It was a very nice service, in a fairly large church. We really enjoyed it. After that we had lunch at the house and just relaxed at the house for the rest of the afternoon. Around 4, I finally got to lay eyes on my sweet Becca, who had been working all weekend! We had a good time hanging out and catching up while the kiddos napped with Gabba.

Monday we all went to the National Park and saw the waterfalls and park. It was so pretty! Here are some of the shots I got of sweet family in beautiful scenery!

Then we all went to lunch at the local steakhouse and had a great time eating together and then singing "Happy Birthday" to my sweet beautiful birthday girl! :)

After lunch we visited the Amish, and made some quick decisions to go to Nashville for dinner. Aunt Betty and Mom offered to keep the kids, so I was able to go without them, which was such a blessing. I'm so grateful to have a chance to be an adult, and not just a "mommy" on the trip. This trip to Nashville was different than the Friday night, we went to this awesome restaurant/bar that has line dancing and tables and it was great! We had a fantastic time. Here are some pictures of our night!

B is for...

Last week we did our first week of "school". After all the work I had done compiling curriculum I was very excited to get started. First thing we did was introduce ourselves to the big B, and the Little b, as well as our "B" Bible verse.

Our verse for the week was Matthew 5:9, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God ". So in addition to memorizing our verse, we talked about what it meant to be a peace maker. We talked about being kind, helping our friends, giving things up instead of fighting and loving each other.

Then we started work with the B word of the day, butterfly. We matched butterflies of all different colors with the uppercase and lowercase wings. We counted butterflies and matched them with the right number. We worked on writing the letter B, both upper and lowercase, as well as writing all our numbers.

Lastly, we finished off the morning with our handprint butterflies. When I saw this craft, I just knew we had to do it.. My children absolutely love anything with stamp pads, so this was perfect.

Just do 2 handprints of each hand, cut around the handprints and glue them to the body of the butterfly. Add the letter B for the kids to trace, as well as some eyes and antennas. Ta-Da!

The next day, we worked on B is for ballerina. We started with a review of butterflies, with some size sorting exercises. I have to admit that I was extremely impressed when Braxton did this perfectly. (Brookelynne did too, but I expected that). Then we moved on to our awesome ballerina-themed activities.

We did a ballerina number puzzle, some ballerina writing activities (some pre-writing activities for Braxton, with just simple line tracing and some more difficult letter tracing for Brookelynne. ). They both really enjoyed those, since they love using markers, and I place all of their writing activities in a dry erase folder so we can do them over and over without wasting paper.

We followed that up with some ballerina counting, and a ballerina game.

The rest of our weeks activities will be included in another post. (if I ever find the time! Ha!)

Pearson Preschool... The background information.

I absolutely hate that I haven't posted recently, but I just get so busy with the "every day things" that the extraordinary never seems to happen, and the everyday things seem to common to post about. That being said, there are a lot of changes coming for the Pearsons in the latter half of this year, and one of the most exciting ones is our new homeschooling curriculum!!

I've never done any intentional teaching with Brookelynne, but she's learned to recognize and say all her letters and numbers. But in the last few years, Mitch and I have gone back and forth deciding whether or not homeschooling was for us. There was no question that sooner or later I would have to try, and since there is no baby Pearson number three quite yet, this will be my only real chance to teach two without a third around, so we are starting now!

I started doing research several months ago, looking into different curriculums, researching different teaching philosophies, and deciding on how I wanted this school year to go. Anyone here knows me, knows that getting ready for school is my absolute favorite thing to do. Needless to say, I might have gotten carried away. :) and after hours upon hours upon hours, I have researched, downloaded and organizedI have over 4,000 different resources to use with B and B.

The basic premise of Pearson preschool this year is to cover the same material for both kids, in progressive steps. Meaning this, Braxton will be learning his letters, recognizing them and saying them along with their sounds, while Brookelynne is learning to write her letters and putting the sounds together to form words. Braxton will be learning to count to 10, and recognizing those numbers, while Brookelynne is learning to count to 100 and learning to write and add her numbers.

Therefore I needed a lot of curriculum to keep them entertained and on track and I think I have it figured out. I visited 30 or more sites (blogs, publishers, teaching sites, etc.) and found several great resources with packets set up by letter and or number. Even more exciting has been finding those same resources with a Bible verse theme for each week. Unfortunately, I didn't feel comfortable with using any set curriculum from one site. (they either didn't incorporate enough for Brookelynne or it was over Braxton's head to where it wouldn't be very helpful for him) So I have put several different curriculums together and will be doing a ton of fun and exciting things in the coming year so stay tuned for updates and pictures of all that we are learning here!

Brookelynne is starting gymnastics!!

Today Brookelynne started gymnastics! I was so excited to get her involved, especially with a gym as close as this one. I contacted them a few weeks ago and they put together a two-year-old class because they had several people interested. I took that as a sign :-) the best part? Brooklyn's friend Kalea got to be in her class too!

She didn't love it at first, and was very hesitant about the teachers but she warmed up after a little while and really enjoyed herself! Their lesson for the day was to learn to do a straddle. And I can tell you for sure that she learned it. :) they also got to walk on the balance beam (one on the floor, not raised :) ), hang from a bar and start learning to do a handstand! I am so proud of her!

B&B's First Trip to Disney-world: Day 2!

On Tuesday morning, we got up early and went to our first character meal. It was a Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy meal at the Beach club resort. We had made reservations the day before and only waited a few minutes once we arrived. We sat down and before we could get our food, Donald Duck was there to see us! This was the first character that the kids had seen up close. (they had seen several characters in the parade the day before, but none of them tried to get close to B or B :) ) Donald walked right up to Braxton, in his high chair, and started heading his head :) I have to admit, I winced when I saw him get close to Braxton, anticipating a scream or cry, but my little man loved it! He was grinning from ear to ear :-). Brookelynne was less sure about Donald but went right up to Minnie when she arrived a few minutes later ;)

After finishing breakfast, we headed to animal kingdom! This was my first time in that park, and I was surprised at how pretty and "earthy" it was. It was about 10 AM at that point, so we headed straight to Minnie – Mickey camp. When we got there, the lines to meet the characters were practically non-existent. We jumped in the line to see Minnie right away. Mitchell saw that they were signing autographs books for the children and wanted our kids to get autographs too. I had already decided against autograph books, because I don't like the idea of getting someone's autograph, and idolizing them. It's one thing to have them sign something significant, but just to sign their name to a piece of paper, like they are more important than other people kind of bothers me. but Mitchell was insistent, and I was resourceful, and we came to a compromise that I am very Very happy with. Instead of having them sign a piece of paper, we pulled out our Mickey Mouse Clubhouse books and had the characters sign next to their picture in the book. That way, when we are reading our books (which we would do anyway) we can see their signatures and remember the time we met them at Disney World!

We went and saw Minnie, Goofy, and Mickey before heading into the lion King show. The Lion King show is in Minnie - Mickey Camp as well, and starts every hour on the half hour mark. It is a very good show, very entertaining and interactive. It was a little longer than my kids would have liked, but still a great show to take them to.

After that, we went to the Africa area and rode the safari ride. The kids enjoyed seeing the animals, all so Braxton slept through most of it. We then went over to the petting area and the kids got to pet some goats. They really enjoyed that, as well as seeing some pigs up close and personal. We then headed over to the A's loop and did the walk through attraction, with birds, tigers and bats. :) by the time we finished that, the kids were down for naps! We found a place to watch the parade and parked there until it started. :) once again we got a pretty good spot, in the shade, to watch the parade and the kids woke up just as it started. Brookelynne got up on daddy's shoulders, and all the people on stilts would come over and speak to her, it was so cute! :) once the parade was over, it was about 415 and we started back to the hotel.

They have a great time on this day as well and their favorite part was definitely getting to meet the character!

More soon!

B&B's first trip to DisenyWorld!

So Mitch and I had talked about going to DisneyWorld a while back and wanted to wait as long as possible, so that Braxton would be old enough to enjoy it, but that Brookelynne would not have turned 3 yet. Of course we were concerned with the heat, and weather as well as price so when we found out about the Wild for 3 Passes for Florida residents which were $99 for 3 days, and the fact that they are valid through the end of May, so we decided to go as soon as we could get everyone off at the same time. :) That is what brought us to our Late-April Trip.

When deciding what parks to go to, I did some research and picked parks that the kids would get the most out of, Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom, and it worked out perfectly! The kids had a great time at Magic Kingdom, both days, and it was much easier the second day! :) I had gotten several different things that the kids could have as 'gifts' and us not have to pay for them at the park. Here they are getting their surprises on day one.

The first day we went to Magic Kingdom, and Brookelynne
was so excited to be at Mickey's house. We headed straight back to fantasyland, and rode "it's a small world". The kids were immediately in heaven :-) they loved all of the puppets, the singing, and the lights!
Here is a picture of me, Brooke, and Mitchell heading into the first tunnel.

We rode on Dumbo, the tea cups, and Peter Pan while in fantasy land. We also got lunch on that side of the park. I was very surprised at how busy it was, I thought that Monday would be less crowded. It wasn't horrible but there definitely were lines at each ride, and it was slow going trying to maneuver through the park.

Braxton fell asleep around one, and was completely out. We rode a a few different rides with him in our arms, and he didn't even stir.

Around 1:40 PM, we put Brookelynne
in the stroller with Braxton and walked around until she fell asleep. Since Braxton was so out, we decided it would be better to have Brooke nap at the park too, instead of going back to the hotel and Braxton and her sleeping at completely opposite times.

About 2:00 PM, we found a place in the shade on Main Street, and settled in to wait on the parade. The kids woke up right as the parade started at 3 PM. And they absolutely loved every bit of it. The characters kept coming up to us, and we were in the shade so it was easy to see everything, and not hot at all. After the parade we went to the "country bear jamboree" and then got in line for the jungle cruise. I can honestly say that getting in that line was the worst decision of our whole vacation. It said the wait was about 35 minutes, but after an hour and 20 minutes we were still in line. Mitch, the kids, and I stuck it out and rode the ride. It was not worth the hour and a half. :) after that we made a decision to go out of our way to get fast passes if at all possible. Lol. (which for the record usually required me to walk about a mile as fast as I could to go get them and come back while the rest of them road a ride without me.)

We headed back to the hotel around 5 and were all pretty exhausted. I picked up Olive Garden to go, while I was out getting Braxton's ear infection medication. (did I mention that Mitch and the kids were sick? soml )

All in all, day one was great! And the kids loved it! I will post about day two and three and four ASAP. :)