A boy and a Train

Being a mom to two children is always an adventure. The fact that they are six years apart and in completely different stages of their lives and that one is a boy and the other a girl only adds to the fun. For the most part they get along pretty well with each other but they can also rub each other the wrong way. With that being said it is good for them to have their own time and be able to do what they want. This weekend Lauren spent the night with my parents (where she has all her "girls" and gets to learn many new life lessons from my Mom) and had some new experiences.
While she was gone Austin and I hung out most of the day and then Mike and I took him over to see some train cars that Van Alstyne is trying to restore for a park. I love how such simple things excite my children! Austin was so excited to go see trains and that Daddy was going. When Lauren was in school Austin and I hung out all the time but he hasn't had a lot of time with Mike and I without Lauren. So yesterday was really fun for him.

He was so excited to stand by a train

He was more excited to get in!!

I'll let you walk through this little picture journey of him roaming around the trains and sitting different places on the second train...

Austin wanted to take a picture of us :)

As you can see he enjoyed his time running around a train and being a boy.  I love the little things that make a child so happy.
 
Until our next adventure...

End of Summer

Can you believe how fast the summer went this year?  Did you have a good summer?  Any vacations or big activities?  We had a great summer, lots of work on our house to get ready for our big party we had.  August 12 was Mike & I's 10 year anniversary so on the 14th we had friends and family over and celebrated our first 10 years.  We had a really good time.  Thank you to all who came and celebrated with us.

Once we got the party behind us it was time to shift focus to Lauren and school.  As I mentioned in my last post we made a huge decision for Lauren's schooling and she is attending an online charter school (Texas Virtual Academy at Southwest).  Since this was our first week I decided to tell you how it has been.  The few weeks before school started I went through all the books that were sent to us and tried to get prepared.  We couldn't see the lessons before this week so I couldn't fully prepare and I felt it.  We had to do an "Introduction to online learning" video for each subject before it would give us our lessons.  I felt a little lost a times and pretty disorganized but it got better each day and I feel really good about the school. 
Lauren has done really good this week with staying on task and dealing with my craziness of not knowing which book we need and what I need to do.  I have been so proud of her.

First day of school in our "classroom"

When Lauren was young I did not think I would be teaching my child at home.  When I say that most people think I am homeschooling but we are officially enrolled in a Texas school and have to meet all the state guidelines.  Yes, I am her "learning coach" but we have a teacher for all assignments and to answer to.  (We just found out our first set of assignments are due September 10.)  I am excited to take this journey with her and even though it is only the first week I have really seen how much the last two years in public school have effected her learning and focus.  We knew the lack of being pushed and harder lessons ware having an effect but, with little concern from the school because she was a "good" student and made straight A's we didn't know the true effect.  It has been interesting to see the areas she is getting frustrated and needs work.  With having to be held up to wait for slower students she doesn't know some of the review things.  Great schooling when somethings haven't even been taught.  With all of that said I am positive we made the right decision in pulling her from the public schools.

It has been interesting this week to see how much we have to complete each week and how much we will be dealing with our teacher and our "class".  Our teacher lives in Duncanville and is basically a one room school teacher, she has more than one grade in her "class".  There is a lot of contact with your teacher with class meetings and teacher conferences.  I am excited to have a chance to really help Lauren excel this year.  We have our first class meeting online next week and will get to meet others in our class.  We have an actual meet the teacher at the beginning of September where we will have a face to face with our teacher and other leaders in our area and parents and students.  We are excited to meet the people we will be dealing with this year and going on field trips with.

Lauren is excited because we already have our first science project.  She said if we get to do fun stuff like this the first week this is probably going to be a REALLY fun year.  We had to get Mealworms and we have to observe them for our lesson on metamorphosis.  Did you know mealworms turn into beetles.  We will be observing them everyday and waiting for the change.

The life-cycle of a mealworm

One of our concerns with Lauren schooling at home was Austin.  Having a 2 year old running around while trying to teach a 3rd grader, could be bad news.  I must say though he has done great this week.  I have gathered some things here and there to work with him on ABC's, numbers, colors and other basics.  The beginning of the week since I felt so lost I didn't have much time to do anything with him but today we got to sit and work with some of the flashcards I got for him.  He really enjoyed doing it and it made me feel like we will be able to do this.  I can work with Lauren and Austin and we will all learn.  I know it is only week one (and our teacher told us it will probably take 4 weeks to settle in) but I am very confident in our decision and I know next week will feel more normal (with a little prep from me).

So how was your first week of school (if you have kids or are a teacher)?  Do you attend public, private or something different and how do you like it?

Until next time...enjoy the end of summer weather (even though summer is over for our children).

Catch Up

I know, I know...it has been WAY too long since I have blogged. There has been so much going on. I will give a quick catch up and write more on some of the big things later.

My last post was just before Halloween so since then.....my youngest sister and her husband bought a house in the same city I live in, we had Thanksgiving, Christmas, started a new year, had two birthdays, my middle sister bought a house and we have redone the inside for her to move in (you can go to http://cowgurlsblessing.blogspot.com/ and see that project) , and we have made a big decision for our daughters schooling for next year.

So I will start with the most recent, our school decision. We have had a hard time with the school Lauren has gone to the past two years. She came into the school ahead so we knew there would be an adjustment period but we are at the end of our second year and still waiting for the lessons to challenge her. We have also had issues with the teachers she has had and the lack of structure in the classrooms. After much research, prayer and discussion we have decided to enroll her in the Texas Virtual Academy. It is an online charter school. I will be taking over her teaching at home with the guidance of the school and a local teacher we will be assigned. Unlike typical homeschooling we will have lesson plans and assignments sent to us for everyday. We will have to answer to the teacher and follow all Texas guidelines. We know this will be a challenge for all of us but we are very excited to start this in the fall. We are already looking at ways to schedule my days (cleaning, laundry, etc.) into school days. Lauren was a little worried about not seeing her friends but when I told her she can still talk to them and see them and we will have fieldtrips with other students from this school in the area she was excited. We will take it one day at a time and for now we are only looking at this for one year. We will see as we go how we all adjust to this and we will decide later what we will do for 4th grade and foward.

Austin is growing growing and talking up a storm. He loves to talk and be outside. Next year will be very interesting with him as I will find things for him to be learning during the school day also.

We really think this will be the best thing for Lauren in the long run and I think she will really enjoy learning with more challenges. I will let you know in the future how this goes.

Time to begin a new adventure!!! If anyone has done this or has helpful suggestions please send them my way.

Since it has been so long, here are the most recent pictures of the kids. We took these this weekend while driving around.

Until next time...

Ashley

Pumpkin Fun

Wow!! It has been forever since I have posted anything!!

We have been busy, busy working at Ms. Janice's house and finishing projects for her big open house. If you would like to catch any projects we have worked on or the finished project you can read all about them on my Mom's blog http://cowgurlsblessing.blogspot.com/.

We are getting ready for Halloween around our house. Weekend before we took the kids to the Pumpkin Patch (I will blog on this tomorrow) and this weekend we worked on our pumpkin. Austin is having SO much fun with all the decorations and holiday stuff he is starting to see. He likes to kiss the scarecrows I have up for decoration. As crazy and into everything he is I figured he would have a great time helping clean out the pumpkin. I knew Lauren would not be really excited about getting her hands all yucky but I knew she would help.

So we cut the top off and I dug in and showed them how to get the slimy stuff out...they were both pretty grossed out.

Austin thought the scoop looked fun.

Then he thought he'd try the spoon.

Lauren dug in and had stuff on her hands...EEEWWW!!

They did stop for a really cute picture.....(both of them have their hands out with sticky on them.)

Austin was not about putting his hand in the pumpkin at all...you can see his face looking at the stuff on the floor.

After a lot of convincing he finally put his hand in, we missed a picture of him pulling stuff out but with his first finger and his thumb he had one little string of stuff and said gross...it was so funny.

Lauren was pretty grossed out the whole time.


She finally got in there and got a big hand full of stuff...both of them just crack me up!!!

BLAH!!!! - that's what Austin is saying, he was really grossed out Lauren touched it.

I was so surprised at his reaction, he is a play in the dirt pick up everything kind of boy but apparently he draws the line at pumpkin guts.

After much discussion as to how we were going to decorate we decided that since both the kids LOVE Spongebob we would make a Spongebob pumpkin. So I looked up a template online and drew him on. Then the question was how well would this really work.

He looks good drawn on....

I finally got time to carve the pumpkin today....SUCCESS!!!

I am so happy with how it turned out!!

The kids think it is SO cool to have a Spongebob pumpkin. We did decide to keep him inside so we can enjoy it though so if you drive by you would have to knock and come in to see him. I do believe this is the first pumpkin I have ever had that has a name.

So now Austin stands and oh's and ah's at the Spongebob and then he goes over and kisses the scarecrow. Crazy Boy!!!

Christmas is going to be so much fun with him this year, Lauren has already taught him what Santa says and is telling him he can't cry when they go see him.

Tomorrow I will try to post on our Pumpkin Patch trip...until tomorrow...

Ms. Janice's backporch bed

I have recently been doing some projects for my Mom's friend Mrs. Janice for her backyard and I thought I would share some of my work. She has a wonderful back deck with lots of shade and she decided to give her furniture a face lift. So I have been working hard sanding and painting patio furniture. This one though is one of my favorites from her backyard though.
It is an old metal baby bed with the front removed to make it like a couch. I forgot to take a picture before I began sanding but this is in process. As you can see it was blue when I started (and whatever blue it was it was on there GOOD!!!)

You can kind of see how the paint is rough from weather and age....some of the roughness was actually the metal dented and banged up over the years.

After much work and LOTS of elbow grease you can see the paint is coming off and I am happy with the result.

My helper keeps touching my work and getting sanding guck on him.....Boo he says as he pokes his head through the bars.....

As I got to working lower on the bed I decided it would work much better if I could work on it as two pieces so I removed the spring part.

Once I removed the springs I could move the sides around to get to some hard to reach spots.

All done sanding I began the fun part...painting....Mrs. Janice decided to do all the furniture in a rusty brown color (the same as a fan she already has hanging out there)

Here you can see the color better....looks good...

In my excitement to begin painting I didn't think everything through and the feet are sitting in the grass...I will have to move it in the morning to finish but otherwise the base coat is done.

Once I finish painting this color I will spray Hammered metal paint on it for a texture and it will have some really cute red, white and blue pillows and a mattress that my Mom covered. I will post more pictures of the finished project next week.

Camping trip day 3

Day 3....Today we finally get our boat tour!!! We all got up had a good breakfast and are ready to go. Lauren is very curious as to what we will see and Austin seems not to sure.

We had a group of bikers on the boat with us (they were from all over and were all out riding together).

The guy standing in the back is our driver and those are the other two couples on the tour with us (they were from up North were they didn't have things like this).

We left from Uncertain, TX...the driver told us one theory as to how the name came to be...since most of the steamboat workers couldn't read they used playing cards to "name" the ports. They would put a card on the shipment that would tell them which port to deliver each box to...at the end of the run they would have boxes that the card had fallen off of, instead of taking them all the way back to New Orleans they would unload the "uncertain" boxes at their last stop...hence the name Uncertain, TX.

We learned a lot of history on the tour. The steamboat captains used to travel from New Orleans to Jefferson using the lake...this was one of the only inland ports.

This building was Dick & Charlie's Tea Room...the river was the county line for Marion and Harrison county. Harrison was dry and Marion was wet so for a nickle you could ride a boat across the river to the tea room and spent the evening drinking (just save a nickle to get back across or you would have to swim the river...scary). Dick and Charlie had three rules, 1. There ain't none, 2. There never was none, 3. There ain't gonna be none. This is the last of many of these kind of establishments still standing (they are trying to save it so it doesn't fall in the river).

This is the Graceful Ghost (it is the one for tours), steamboats like this traveled these waters for years.

Some of the trees we saw on the tour were over 150 years old.

On some of the trees we saw these...they are for ducks. The guide told us there are some duck blinds on the lake but the only way to get one is it has to be passed down from generation to generation....you can not build a duck blind on the lake and the one's that were there were grandfathered in.

We saw quite a few beaver dams along the way.

Lauren is enjoying the trip....

I was glad we had a guide for the boat ride...it was like a maze of river streets going different directions.

This is looking up what was called the government ditch.....the steamboat captains needed a straight path to help with the trip....because of the cost and time it was taking they asked the government to help...the government created a bail out and took over the project...by the time they completed the project the rail road had come through and instead of hundreds of steamboats on the river there were only about 5 using the ditch.

After the tour we had a picnic...

HHHMMM....

After lunch we explored some more...Lauren on her bike...

The view when you look up under the trees...Lauren said it's like it snowed and the ice or snow hanging on the trees just never went away.

Don't think we will be doing this at all...scary

We found this cool tree...of course Austin had no fear going in.

Boo...

After a little convincing Lauren got in...

Silly boy...

Lauren thinks there are bats in the tree (the exhibit we saw had bats in the tree they sat in yesterday).

No bats...this is looking up in the tree...

Lauren and her bike again.

After much exploring...dinner time...YUM!!!

Wonder what he sees......(notice the bubble wand).

Playing...

The trucks were much fun in the dirt...

Austin is snacking on Fritos before dinner (no hiding them from him).

End of the night....SMORES!!!! (It's not quite so late tonight so I could get a picture).

So another adventure filled day..we have had beautiful weather an a wonderful time so far. Camping is so relaxing....more fun tomorrow.