Seven Years Ago....

Seven years ago yesterday (july 1, 2003) my life changed forever. It was a defining moment. It was a moment that changed who I was. I was no longer Shawna. It was at that moment that I became a Mother for the first time. When I look back now it seems SO long ago. Happy Birthday (yesterday)to my preciou baby boy, Jordan Lee. You have grown up into such a special young man. You are so sweet, smart and adventureous. Even though you are growing up you will always be my baby boy. The one that made me who I am today. A mother. I love you Jordan Lee!

From this:

To this in 7 years:

Summer Break??!?!

It's summer. Normally that meant not having to think about school at all. Enjoying every day without a routine. I'm finding myself thinking about "school" more than any other summer. First of all, we haven't technically finished school yet. We took a break. It was not intentional. It just kinda happened. I was in need of a break. I was burnt out. The summer sun was making school seem like a chore. The summer sun was also making the kids not want to be bogged down by a routine and schedule. So we just took a hiatus. A break. A much needed re-grouping period. Next week we are going to resume with only a little math left and some language arts and of course reading. But the reading will be for fun mostly. But even on this break I am constantly thinking about school. I'm making curriculum choices for the Jordan's 2nd grade school year and for Mya's kindergarten. I wanted to go with something different than what we had. I went back and forth between piecing together all different types of curriculum or just going with a complete set. Ryan and I have researched all types of curriculum choices. I ended up finding what I think will work good for my kids this next school year. We have decided to go with Bob Jones Curriculum. It's a christian based curriculum that is used in lots of christian schools. I love the information and I think it's what we were looking for. I went to a used curriculum sale and to my surprise I found the phonics and reading teacher's guides for Mya's kindergarten. I paid $30. To buy the same thing new would be more than that for ONE book. I got 3 for that price. I just need to buy the student workbook that goes with that. I also just bought Jordan's social studies off of ebay for $12.99 for the student text and teacher's guide! SCORE! The teacher book alone was $57 new! So now I"m just piecing together the whole curriculum set for a fraction of the cost. The only new books we will have to purchase will most likely be the workbooks that they will write in. Then once I get all the books in my hands then comes the REAL work. Going thru it and planning for the school year. I want to have a definete plan in place. It didn't go as smoothly as I wanted by just preparing the night before. So even though this is summer. I have NO break in mind. I can't get school off the brain! I am excited for the new school year and to have more of a routine and be involved in a local homeschool group as well. It's going to be a good 2010/2011 school year!

Gracie's Birthday Pics

One Year Ago

One year ago my baby girl was born! I can't believe she's no longer an infant but a toddler ready to explore this great big world! She's walking, and talking (well, her favorite word right now is "doh" not sure what that means but she says it when she points at stuff! LOL). She now climbs onto the dining room table, climbs up on the bed, and chases after her brothers and sister! She's growing up WAY TOO FAST! Happy Birthday Gracie Ann! Click here for my post of her birth story.

Mya's 5th Birthday

I can't believe that it's been 5 yrs already!

My baby girl turned 5 yrs old on June 8th! WOW! I can't believe it. We had a great party at Chuck E. Cheese. Her favorite birthday venue!

Our Gatlinburg Trip

Here are the pictures from our Mini family vacation to Gatlinburg, TN that we took at the end of April. I finally got around to uploading the pictures. We stayed for 2 nights. We went hiking on a trail in the Smoky Mountains to Laurel Falls. It was a 4 mile hike round trip. The kids did really well and even Mommy & Daddy made it! We even saw a black bear. We were just out in the woods on the hike with no one around us. This isn't a zoo guys! This was a real live bear 30 feet from us. It was rare to see that. After taking a few pictures we decided we'd better continue back on the trail since we had all the kids with us. After heading on we looked behind us and that bear walked right onto the trail we were just on! And get this! A few weeks after we saw that bear we heard about a hiker that got biten by a bear in the Smoky Mountains. There are TONS of trails in there so I never thought it would have been on the very same trail we were hiking on just a few weeks before. To my surprise I found this (click here for the article) news article. Here the hiker bit was on the VERY SAME trail we were on. Kinda freaky since most likely that was the same bear that we saw just a few weeks before. Just glad it wasn't us getting attacked! I don't know what we would have done with all 4 kids there! EEEK!
On our trip we also went to the Ripley's Aquarium the kids loved it there. They have an underwater shark tunnel. It was so neat seeing the sharks from underneath them.
We had a great trip. Here are some pictures from our adventure.

On the way up the Smoky Mountains we stopped to look at the view and get a picture! (the babies were asleep so we let the big kids get out and look)


The whole fam at the waterfall (before our bear encounter)


Here is our friendly bear


by the jelly fish at the aquarium

From Slap Bracelets to Silly Bandz

First of all, do you remember those slap bracelets that were popular in the late 80's and early 90's. I know I had a few! I swear everyone had one on at school. Until they were banned that is. Now today it's "Silly Bandz". For those of you that don't know what they are they are stretchy, rubber bracelets that are shaped like things (animals, sport figures, alphabets, etc. When you put them on you can't tell what shape they are until you take them off. I was first introduced to those by my Sister-in-Law. She said all the kids are crazy about them and she gave my kids some. They wore them a little but since they aren't in "real" school they haven't really realized just how "cool" they are. Today on Yahoo I saw that they are started to ban silly bandz from schools since they are a distraction! Imagine that! When I read that, it made me remember when Slap bracelets were "the thing" and how horrible it was that they were banned! I'm sure there are MANY kids out there SO terribly upset that silly bandz are banned from their classroom. Oh to be a child again and only have silly things like this to be upset about! LOL!