Tanaka Farms Field Trip

Today we headed to Tanaka Farms in Irvine for our very first Homeschool Field Trip

It was so much fun!!

The kids had a blast and the experience created lots of questions that lead to some great discussions about farm animals, how vegetables grow and how a farm works.

Here are some great pictures we took while there!!

Right after checking in...before the heat got to us!!

Yep, those are real farm tractors and some gorgeous plants they had along the edges of the farm....Freddie about died when he saw these tractors!

Ah the inevitable petting zoo....

Karyl had no fear....she grabbed some food and walked right up to the animals and fed and touched them.

Freddie took a little more convincing....he finally touched this one goat on the top of the head - I barely got this picture it was so quick!

Even though he wasn't super thrilled about the animals, he still was in a good enough mood to smile for me!

After washing their hands we stopped for a quick picture before heading back to the wagon for our ride around the farm. Freddie kept saying how much he loved the petting zoo, that's why he's all smiles here...even though he didn't want to touch the animals!!

This was the wagon ride....Freddie was SO excited watching the tractor pull the two wagons, he could barely contain himself.

Waiting for our wagon to take off...a quick attempt at taking a picture ourselves...not too bad, right??

The good old corn maze...the kids loved it, but it was getting hot and it was a little larger than they planned....

But they made it to the middle and were so excited when they did...luckily this was a short maze so I could follow them from a distance and see them.

See, just the right height for kids....Kayrl loves to tell everyone that she made it to the flag with the smiley face in the middle!

Then we got to pick vegetables...these were the radishes.  Karyl even let Freddie pick one of each vegetable (she was allowed 4 of each veggie).

Look, it's a radish!!!

And then some carrots...

Even Freddie picked a carrot and then put it in the bag with the rest of our pickings!

They had so much fun and loved getting into the plants and seeing what came up when they pulled the leaves.

Does this need a caption??

Karyl also got to pick a pumpkin, but it had to be small enough that she could carry it out of the patch - no rolling allowed.  She walked that pumpkin patch for at least 10 minutes looking for what she thought was the perfect pumpkin!!

Tah-dah!! It was about 8 pounds, and she didn't carry it very far.  Right after I took this picture she asked me to carry it.

We were lucky to get this picture...the kids were hot and sweaty and REALLY thirsty by this point and about 10 seconds later Freddie completely broke down and screamed for water and to go back home.  I had no idea how large the farm was, or how long we'd be there....next time we will bring water bottles!!

Our freshly picked veggies from the farm...now what to do with them!?!?

Overall, we had a great time and despite the heat and whining, the kids say that had a really fun time and would love to do it again!! SUCCESS!!

Oh, and for those thinking our group looks a little small...Grandma and Grandpa were nice enough to watch Nicole for us while we went so I could focus on the two older kids and really enjoy spending time with them!! I loved being able to give them my undivided attention for those few hours, and I think they appreciated it too!!

I'm one of the chosen ones!!

For those of you who haven't heard...there's an amazing blog I love to read - Win, Lose or Blog which chooses 8 contestants for each "Season" to participate in a new-age weight loss competition.  Not only are there prizes at the end for whoever loses the most weight, but each contestant is given a blog page to write updates on and share their triumphs, frustrations and experiences with weight loss through the 8 weeks in the contest.

They also have giveaways for the blog readers and lots of great weight loss inspiration!!

So...why am I sharing this with everyone here?? Because I was chosen as one of the contestants for Season 6 which starts October 3!!!

As most of you are aware, I worked really hard to lose weight before getting pregnant with Nicole, and I am SOOO excited to be a part of this contest and now have extra motivation to work hard...because all the people who read the blog will be able to see how much weight I lose and my weekly picture.  That's motivation enough to work hard and really lose some weight now that I'm accountable to lots of people!!

Once the contest starts I will have my own blog page off their main one and you can follow my 8 week journey with me - please check out there blog and see for yourself how neat it is!! And I can't wait to see how this goes and would love to have all of you follow me through the contest!!

I will post my blog address for the contest when I get it!!

What you've been missing

I know, there aren't enough Nicole pictures on here...I gave her a bath this afternoon and since she was clean and relaxed I held her for a while and she fell asleep with her head on my chest. I took this picture about 30 minutes ago....I got her to sleep laying on me and thought I'd try laying her down on her tummy. She is still asleep and has even readjusted herself, so I know she's not going to suffocate!! Maybe this will be a new tactic for napping??

On a side note, that onesie she is wearing used to be HUGE...it's still wide, but she's finally the right length, which means she's growing!! She's still a little pipsqueak, but she's slowly expanding!!

This picture was taken last weekend...I decided that I needed to map out Karyl's school schedule before I started back to work so that I would be able to get everything she needed for the day or week ready ahead of time and she could do more independent work...and make sure she gets it all done by the end of the school year!! So this is everything spread out while I tried to sort through and make sure we got everything on the schedule!!

Our little ballerina!! She started ballet and tap class on Saturday mornings at a wonderful little studio here and she LOVES IT!!! The best part is watching her huge smile each week. She's super easy to find because she's like the tallest kid in the class (there's a few first graders maybe an inch or two taller, but that's it). However, in 2 weeks she will be moving over to the performance class because we decided to let her continue on after her class through the city was done and she will definitely be the tallest girl in there by at least 6 inches!!

There were about 30 girls in the class who, like us, signed up through the city....but if you decided to continue on with classes and be part of the Winter Wonderland rehearsal, you get to leave the city class and move to the performance class and learn the dances for the recital...she even gets a professional costume (which there is a picture of further down!!).

Tah-dah...this will be her costume...a penguin!!!

The rest of this blog is courtesy of Karyl....she asked if she could borrow the camera and take some pictures, and these are the things she felt were important enough to snap a memory of.  I have no idea why, but quite honestly, some of her pictures are better than the ones I take!!

I love that she chose specific things to photograph...she even placed them carefully on the floor and was very meticulous about the pictures. You have to love that girl!!

And for those thinking, "wait, don't you have a son??" yes, we do!! However he is such a little ball of energy that he's never in one place long enough to take a picture of!! He is growing so tall so fast....we thought Karyl was abnormally large, well we were wrong...Freddie is quickly giving her a run for her money!! This boy is only a head shorter than Karyl (about 5-6 inches) and he is only about 6 pounds less than her. Luckily, since Karyl is a girl, she thinned out as she got taller, but Freddie will definitely not be "thinning out," this boy is linebacker material all the way!! He is getting too stinking cute too and is talking like it's nobody's business. He went from saying maybe 2-3 words together before Nicole was born to full sentences and ideas now. He know his whole alphabet and what sounds the letters make...he can count to 10 and count objects correctly...he is amazing us everyday. He had a slow start but has caught up fast and we just can't get enough of him...even if he is loud enough to always wake Nicole up RIGHT AFTER she finally falls asleep and I finally get a few minutes with no screaming....

Homeschooling ROCKS!!!

I know, this post should probably be on Life After Diapers, but since it involves Karyl I think it is appropriate here!! For those of you who aren't aware, we have made the decision as a family to homeschool our children. Before you start typing any comments, let me save you some time....I've heard it all, "you're crazy" - "but what about their social life??" - "I can't wait for my kids to start school so I get my 'me' time back...when will you have your 'me' time?" - and my personal favorite "you're just going to screw up your kids"


Well, I have lots of great comebacks to those comments, but this is a family-friendly blog and I like to at least appear to be a sweet and kind person, so I won't tell you what comments go through my head every time someone gets nasty about our decision to homeschool. I should point out that we are homeschooling through a Charter School, so we are held to the same basic academic standards as a regular public school (basic....VERY basic...) and we are accountable to the school for what work gets done. So don't go thinking that we are just going off the deep end and just letting our kids frolic through the woods and just learn whenever they want. I have a list of things a kindergartner should know by the end of the year, and lots of books to use to get us there. The beauty of Charter School is that they give you the money to buy curriculum (hey, it's MY tax dollars, at least I get to spend them on what I want!!) and the curriculum has to be on an approved list from the school (no religious curriculum is allowed because it is a public school).

What's great is that we can teach however we want and do it in a way that makes our kids excited and eager to learn. Every day I have Karyl asking to "do school." It's great because for instance, Karyl already knows most of the stuff that's in the Harcourt Kindergarten Math Book that most schools use, so we can go through quickly, check for understanding and move on without her having to be bored with doing something she already knows over and over!! We have it planned out so that by January she will be starting 1st grade math and we're super excited!! We get to read books and really dive into all aspects of they story (history, geography, math in the book, science...etc...) and use all the lapbooks we are willing to print out and put together!! I love that in the 5 weeks we have been doing Kindergarten, Karyl has gone from maybe knowing 5 sight words to knowing well over 50 and being confident in sounding out all the basic consonant-vowel-consonant words (cat, mat, dog...). She will actually get a piece of paper when we're not doing school and "practice her words" and write all the 3 letter words she can think of, then bring me the paper and make me read all of them - the most amazing part is that not only does she spell the words right but I can easily read them in her writing!!

I just love that her thirst for knowledge is still going strong and that I can be the one to fuel her fire for learning. She really is an amazing girl, and I feel so blessed to be able to be her teacher and watch as she learns everything she will ever need to know. There is something very special about being able to see that moment when the light bulb goes on and something is learned for the first time.

Another thing I love about homeschooling is that we can take education back to its roots, which is something that has been lost in the public school system. What ever happened to teaching our kids the basics....reading, writing and arithmetic?? It seems like nowadays they teach everything BUT those basic subjects. I love the analogy that our public school system is a conveyor belt type of education...everyone is taught the same things at the same time based on age and just sent through the system...there is no room for kids to explore or learn about what interests them. I love the idea that my kids can think and be creative and let their imaginations run wild instead of having a teacher tell them what to think and when to think it. If Karyl suddenly wants to know more about dinosaurs I can add that to our studies for the week and we can spend our time gathering information and learning about dinosaurs when she is interested in them, as opposed to her having to wait for a teacher to decide it's time to learn about dinosaurs.

It's a tough job, and it requires time and effort that students won't appreciate until years later, but homeschooling is totally worth it!! There are so many amazing resources out there online for us homeschool parents that make our jobs infinitely easier, and they even make it fun!! I can't wait to see where this journey takes us!!

The milestones begin!!!

I was feeding Nicole a little while ago and after she was done I was playing and tickling her and the most amazing thing happened....SHE LAUGHED!!! That's right, she actually giggled!! Combined with her absolutely adorable smile it was an unforgettable moment.  The one thing I love about babies is seeing them hit the milestones, the first smile, the first laugh, the first word, the first roll....

So, despite her tiny size, her laugh and smile were HUGE!!!

Let the amazingness begin!!!