Homeschooling

I suppose everyone has their perceptions of all the different types of schooling. There is public school, private school, home school, catholic school, charter schools, board schools, and whatever others I can't think of. So when you think about your child and their education it can get overwhelming. As my girls' mother I feel like it's my responsibility to research all of the options and find the best one for my girls. I've given a lot of thought to homeschooling. I love teaching my girls and I think I know them better than anyone and their strengths, things they need to work on, the best way that they learn, and so on.

I get insecure though and think that maybe I do know those things and can work with their teachers to facilitate the best type of learning for them and to leave the work to the professionals. I mean, I would find it a little strange if Riley's kindergarten teacher tried to tell me how to nurse patients.

Currently we just do fun workbooks and activities that my girl enjoys. We color, do sight words, put together puzzles of the United States and talk about how many 5 nickles and 3 pennies are. I think it is super important for my girl to socialize too because it's her personality and being around others feeds her so soul like it does mine. After thinking a ton about it, Hub and I decided to register Riley for a private Catholic grade school at the parish we belong to. She will start half day Kindergarten in the fall, and I am thinking about home schooling her the afternoon. There is a homeschooling convention coming in April, and I think I may have convinced Hub, whom is very skeptical of homeschooling, just to check it out. I am worried though that I will confuse her and be overloading her with too many things and different teaching styles, but I think it will all be worked out and just take some communication between her teacher and I.

Where ever our path of life takes us, I'm sure things will fall into place exactly as they should. In the mean time, we are going to have fun learning at home because this is such a fun and exciting age, and Riley is enjoying it. Raigan is also working on coloring and recognizing the different letters, both capital and lower case, and has mastered her ABCs.

Seasons

Everyone experiences seasons in their lives. There are the highs and the lows and the in-betweens. I have been told by many, and read in many places not to rush the seasons and to enjoy them for what they are. In hopes of not sounding super negative lately, I think I've enjoyed the most I could have ever enjoyed this season. I'm ready to move on. Move on and start a new season. So that I am.

I am excited that our family is finding a new routine from what we are used to and all this recent change may just become our new normal because I think we're getting pretty good at it. We are doing well at adapting and making do with our situations. My husband and I took a leap of faith (some may call irresponsibility, we're calling it a leap of faith) and he quit his job. He has an interview in the morning and we are very hopeful that this will allow us the opportunity to spend more family time together and have our Saturdays together again as well.

The girls are also staying home full time now and are out of preschool until the fall when Riley will start Kindergarten and Raigan may or may not go back. We haven't decided. Until then we'll enjoy late morning breakfasts at our kitchen table every day of the week. 

In the middle of this crazy season in our lives we have been in cheer mode. Riley began on an All Star Cheerleading squad in the fall and they had their first competition last weekend.  It wasn't so much a competition as it was an exhibition for her squad since they weren't judged or awarded. I was a little apprehensive about this whole thing when we began because I didn't want her to commit to something that was too competitive and time consuming since she is so little still. I felt a little nudge for one reason or another to just go ahead and do it, and we joined the squad. She keeps up with her 5, 6, and 7 year old teammates like a natural. They only practice one day a week and it's fun for her.

Just from the fall till now her skills have improved so much, not just cheerleading but listening skills too. She is so dedicated to being a part of her team, listens to her coach, even tells me that she tries and works really hard. Pretty impressive for a 4 year old. Sometimes I do feel like I'm talking about or posting pictures of a little girl that is way older than her age. I'm really proud of this little girl.

They did a really good job last weekend and it was nice for them to have a trial run without the pressures of competing yet.

That was last Saturday which was followed by a horrible illness that I was the only one in our family to get, thank goodness. It was pretty bad horrible and lasted for days and there was even one point where I was so disoriented in my dehydrated weakened state that I text my husband and told him to pull the plug. Luckily there was no plug to pull and I survived it to write this blog post. I was really worried that I was going to be so sick still and miss the cheerleading competition this weekend that everyone has been so excited about all season. After two doctors visits and enough fluids to resuscitate a large animal I recovered enough and our family ventured a little mini vacation to Louisville, Ky.

I remember going on soccer tournaments when I was little and staying in a hotel with the whole team and those times are some of my favorite childhood memories. I think staying in a hotel room is so fun under any circumstance, but especially so when there are little cheerleader friends just down the hall. A hotel room is a true place to relax for me too because there's nothing to have to clean or any laundry to do. Our little family just moves right in and makes ourselves at home. I love that our girls get to make these memories too even though I think Riley has stayed in more hotel rooms than I did my entire childhood.

 The girls stayed up super late and we had to wake up super early at 5am to curl my girls hair. Some of the other girls had hair pieces that just went right onto their ponytail and although I feel like I would officially be one of those crazy cheermoms that deserves their own reality show- think Toddler and Tiaras- it sounds way easier. We used an old fashioned curling iron and enough hair spray to maintain the curls through a hurricane. Here's my girls all natural hair curled up with a huge cheerleading bow.

I think the girls knew that they were competing this weekend because they brought it (I'm officially a cheermom after saying that). They did the best performance that they have ever done.

That's my Riley in the center back row. 

There's Riley at front and top of the pyramid!

And here she is tumbling upside down.

They won 1st place in their division.

Raigan wasn't really impressed with Riley's win though because she somehow slept through the majority of the competition. I was pretty impressed because the cheer music was very loud and overpowering, but I guess waking up at 5am for cheerleading isn't for her.

Waiting on awards.

After the cheerleading competition festivities we made our way across the state for my nephews 1st birthday. He was so stinkin cute and devoured his little smash cake. It is truly hard to believe that he is somehow a year old already and that time keeps going by so fast.

Here is his awesome guitar birthday cake and he even had Kanya West show up to perform:

It was such a fun weekend packed full of cheerleading, birthdays, family, and memory making. I'm glad that this is how we are starting off this new season. Things are only moving in the up direction and I'm starting to finally allow things to happen the way they are supposed to instead of thinking the only way is the way I think it should go.

Lions Carnival

Cheerleading and football season has begun! The season opened with the annual summer Lions Carnival. The girls worked it to raise money for the season and it actually ended up being a lot of fun. We worked the drink/soda booth.

I think it was a lot of fun, because I got to work it with my sister in law and Riley had fun because she got to do it with her cousin bestie Chloe.

And of course, our littlest cheerleader of all, Raigan.

Little Passports

I think it's really important to teach our children about the world around us. To teach them that what goes on here in small town Northern Kentucky is just a freckle of what goes on in the world. In a perfect world I would pack a bag and throw my kids on a plane and show them the world firsthand, but since I'm not a billionaire and my children aren't even quite old enough I think to comprehend other cultures, we're taking baby steps.

I read a lot of magazines. I have subscriptions to quite a few and get one in the mail every few days. Naturally, I read a lot of parenting magazines, being a parent in all. So one day I was sitting on the couch after dinner while my sweet husband was doing the dishes and saw an advertisement for this, and just knew I had to have it for my little Riley, the one that loves to "explore the world" as she puts it herself.

Little Passports (click to see their website) is a San Fran based company that sends the character Sam and Sophia around the world. Your kids can follow them along and learn about different cultures around the world and learn world geography. Unfortunately I'm not getting paid by anyone to say this haha but I think it's a pretty neat little thing for little ones.

It comes with this cute little suitcase, which is worth the $10 alone. 

There is also a world map, a passport where you can put your child's picture, a boarding pass with access codes to online games, stickers, and worksheets.

Each month the characters, Sam and Sophia travel to a new country and a new package comes for a monthly fee that you can cancel at anytime. Super cute and a great way to get Riley excited about learning other cultures and get a perspective on how large the world is.

Plus she loved getting mail with her own name on it, she must get that from her mama.

Cheer Party!

Trial Run

I worried myself that Riley was not going to let me put curlers her in her the night before cheerleading competition, a tradition that I did as a little girl! So we did a trial run, and boy did I underestimate her! She loved it and had no trouble at all sleeping with them in, I even found this adorableness in the morning:

Isn't she the cutest?