An 'Incredible' Halloween

This past weekend we attended our church's fall festival.  Levi has been obsessed with The Incredibles, so a costume idea wasn't too hard to conceive.  Levi loves to run.  It is literally his favorite thing to do which is why he makes the perfect Dash.  Naomi went as Jack Jack and Violet was with us too, but she just insisted on being invisible in all the pictures.  We couldn't let the kids have all the fun though.  Hope you all have a Happy Halloween and the beginning of a wonderful holiday season!

Changing Colors

 Living the the mountains has had its perks, but the changing of the leaves has been one of the best.  The leaves have been absolutely beautiful in all shades of red, green, yellow, orange, and brown.  While we have had a pretty good view of them from our home and town, we've taken a few drives on the parkway and through the park to enjoy them a little more.  My pictures do no justice to the beauty we've been seeing.

While driving the parkway we hiked up Devil's Courthouse.  The hike was quite steep, but we all made it!  The view was beautiful when we reached the top!

 Devil's Courthouse from the bottom.

 We also hiked up to Clingman's Dome in the GSM Nat'l Park.  The kids loved all the rocks along the pathway.  It was overcast and cloudy that day so we didn't have a great view from the top, but it was fun anyway.

 One more trip to Cataloochee proved to be awesome as always.  We saw several elk, lots of full grown bulls, and a few young bulls.  The highlight this visit was two young bulls sparring.

Good-bye Summer

A few weeks ago we went with Aaron's parents to Panama City during their fall break.  This kids absolutely LOVED it!  We spent the majority of the time at the beach and pool.  Levi & Naomi are both getting really good and swimming.  My kids definitely love the water.  The weather was wonderful.  High 80's and the water was even warm.  We  swam, flew kites, chased birds, built sand castles, caught crabs and fish, and even kayaked!  We are already looking forward to next summer and our next trip

Just Pictures.

I guess the title says it all.  Here are just a few pictures from our life from the past few weeks.  The first one speaks for itself.

 I tried catching this beautiful sunset on our way home from the national park one night.  Not perfect, but you can at least imagine how beautiful it was.

 Playing with early 1900 century toys at the festival at the farm in the park.

 A little hike to this waterfall.  Worth it.

 Smiles.

 Backyard cookout.

 Cataloochee during the elk rut.

Homeschooling Take 1

When I started homeschooling a month ago I was saying "What was I thinking?"  Honestly.  It was hard.  New schedule.  New disciplines.  New way of approaching things.  Being a school teacher I went into this as school at home.  I'm learning that homeschooling is school through life.  While we have curriculum and daily lesson plans we try to follow, I have had to completely change my expectations for what I thought our homeschool would be.  I like to sit down and work on everything at once and get it done, filed away, and pick up where we left off the next day.  It doesn't quite work that way.  While we do have a schedule and try to stick to it, I have had to become more malleable and take things a day at a time.  Sometimes my plans don't quite work out and sometimes he is just grumpy (ok sometimes I am too).  Sometimes he is so eager than he wants to do 3 days worth of work in 1 day.  I have had to learn to deal with it and go with the flow.  If you know me at all you know that is not easy for me.  I like my plans and I like to follow them.

Anyways, we have made progress.  Enough that even though it is still difficult at times, it has been so rewarding.  There is this special time that Levi and I get to have doing school with no interruptions and with a common goal.  I have seen him give his best and stretch himself and I've seen him become frustrated and shut down.  We've been able to work through those things together and I'm learning how to encourage him and push him past his limits in a good way rather than a frustrating way.  While I haven't mastered any of it by far, I can see little "yay moments" along the way.  Those moments when he finally learns a letter he has been struggling to grasp, when he follows directions completely, when he gives 110% to a task or activity, and all the little "aha" moments he has throughout the day when he sees what we are learning in everyday life.  It makes it all worth it when he is so happy and eager to apply what we've been learning.

Right now he is learning so much.  Most of the curriculum is things he already knows, so colors and shapes have been super easy since he already knows most all of those.  He struggles the most with his letters.  I've tried teaching them to him in the past and he was never interested.  It usually takes him several days to master it, but as we add new letters every few days he starts to get a little overwhelmed and will sometimes shut down acting like he doesn't know any of it.  As of now he has A, B, C, D and L mastered, and as been introduced to E, F, and G, but hasn't mastered them just yet.  Levi is definitely more inclined to conceptual learning.  He succeeds way quicker with his numbers than his letters and mathematical learning seems to be more of his strong suit rather than letters and word formation.  As he grows this may change, but I definitely see him gravitating to the mathematical side of learning.  Right now he can count to 15 and recognizes numbers 1-4 and just learned 5 today.  His fine motor skills are coming along nicely.  The first day we used scissors I thought I may lose my mind, but he is slowly becoming much better and aware of his cutting.  His coloring and drawing skills have developed pretty rapidly since we started school too.  Before school he would want to color the whole page of a coloring book with one color, but now he is using multiple colors on his work.  His drawing skills have also developed where before hand he couldn't (or wouldn't) draw anything.  Seriously anything you asked him to draw was a bunch of scribbles on the page.  While they were beautiful scribbles he has now branched out a little more and drew his first stick person the other day.  While it was just an enormous head and the smallest body any stick man has ever had, it was progress.  Progress that this mama is sure proud of.

I think the one thing he is probably the most proud of his learning to recognize and write his name.

Just a sample of his work.  He had to color the large circles blue and the small circles red, then he could color the rest any color he wished.  The success here is that he used the right colors (instead of the ones he wants to use) and that he finished the assignment (something he doesn't always like to do).  

More NC Exploring

We spend a lot of time in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.  We love riding around looking at wildlife and nature.  There is lots to explore in the park and we have been taking advantage of it almost every weekend.  A few weeks ago several friends from back home were camping in Elkmont in the park and we decided to go visit them.  On our way there we stopped and hiked to Laurel Falls.  It was really beautiful, but it was Labor Day weekend and it was super crowded.  We continue to see elk almost every week.  They are in their rut right now which means they are a little more active.  The bulls are battling for territory and cows, so its been neat to see them in action.  

 Laurel Falls

 Nomes enjoying her smoothie.

 The weekend after Labor Day my sisters along with our friends Samuel & Rachel came for a visit.  We had a blast.  Friday we explored Cataloochee Valley and the river park while Saturday we went rafting down the Nantahala River.  We also spent quite a bit of time at Clyde's restaurant.

 Beautiful sunset view from Cataloochee.

 I'm pretty sure the highlight of our weekend was the impromptu hide-and-seek game we played Saturday night.  We had a blast, and Samuel gets points fro the best hiding spot.  I'm not sure how he got in or how he got out.  So glad you guys came up for a visit.  We have the best friends anyone could ask for!

 While we had visitors our kids with were with my parents.  I found this T-Rex hat at the Dollar Tree and had to get it for my T-Rex obsessed little boy.  He literally wore it the rest of the week.

More Pinterest Recipe Verdicts

So I've tackled a few more Pinterest recipes.  I'm determined that they will not just sit in cyberspace so I've brought them to our dinner table.  Some good, others...well I'll just say it could be the cook. Here is what we thought.

1.  Sweet & Spicy Bacon Chicken

So this recipe was everything I was hoping, and is probably one of my most favorite Pinterest recipes I've come across so far.  I grilled it rather than baked it which means all the credit goes to the hubby.  It was delicious and really didn't need anything extra to go with it.  In fact I'm making this again tonight!

 2.  Italian Fires

Truth be told we haven't been eating a lot of potatoes lately and when we do they are baked potatoes not fries.  We tried this a few weeks ago with some left over potatoes I had.  This is a Martha Stewart recipe, so you know its going to be good.  My concern was would it be easy and be as good in my kitchen as hers.  The verdict:  Yes.  These were good and takes just like fried fries rather than baked fries.  Everyone gave these a good thumbs up.

3.  Crockpot Pizza Casserole

This was a so so hit.  It gets points for taste, but the outsides got a little overdone.  I omitted the bell pepper since my kids are keen on it and I really made this for them.  I used ground sausage instead of hamburger meat as well.  This is one of those recipes I'll have to tweak and work out whats best for us and my crockpot.  Not horrible.  Not amazing.

4.  Pumpkin Fluff Dip

This was a huge hit with the family.  I made this last week to take with us on a picnic in the park.  Everyone loved it.  I served it with graham crackers and apples.  To be honest I was a little disappointed in it.  It wasn't quite what I was expecting (and I'm a big pumpkin pie lover).  I don't know if it need more spice or what, but the kids and husband loved it.  So to each his own.  I'd definitely say give it a try if your curious.

5.  Baked Zucchini Fries

We have been eating a lot of zucchini.  A lot.  I thought this would offer a new spin on something we've come used to eating, but it didn't turn out quite a lovely as I'd hoped.  First it was a little more difficult to make than just tossing them in the oven.  Not hard just more than I was expecting.  I couldn't find the planko crumbs she used so I used regular old bread crumbs which changed it a bit I think.  I also didn't have a cookie rack to cook them on so I cooked them right on the oven rack with a pan underneath.  All that goes to say that mine didn't turn out quite as nicely as the ones pictured above.  I felt they were a little bland so I'll add more spices next time.  I did serve them with marinara and that added lots of flavor and is probably a must for this recipe.