Life these days...

These days, life around here is busy and full! That is why I haven't been blogging so much lately. We are up to quite a bit, but I'm not left with all that much time to record it! :) I thought I would do a little recap on what we've been up to lately. After winter break ended, Matt went back to school and thus began our "winter/spring semester" for school and activities.

We jumped back into our ABC Jesus Loves Me curriculum. We aim for three school sessions each week. We have a pretty full schedule of activities (more on that in a minute) so we try to "do school" on the two days a week that we don't have planned activities (sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon) and on one additional weekday in the afternoon (after our activity and lunch/quiet time). I like that we don't have a "set" schedule or time. If we're going to be home all day school will often start around 10 a.m. after snack and last until lunch time. If we've been out in the morning, Savannah will have some quiet time while her sister naps and I work, and then as soon as I wrap up the work I need to do we cozy up for some school time together then. Savannah has learned a TON this past year. I can't get over it! She knows how to write her name, how to form many other letters, all the phonemic sounds of the letters, six sight words, is starting to decode words, knows the four seasons and the months of the year (currently working on days of the week), is learning about the five senses, has memorized many Bible verses, can count to 20, knows her phone number and address, is working on phone etiquette, has learned how to dial 911 in an emergency, and much, much more. I'm so proud of her! We have 13 more weeks of our curriculum before she "graduates" this year and I'm excited to see what else she will learn!!

Some play time on a cold morning!

Silly little face!

Taking care of their babies.

Crazy girls jumping on the treadmill!

I printed out this fun activity from themeasuredmom.com.
Savannah has to match each picture to its beginning sound.

Working on a sight word activity that I saw on Pinterest. This one is great!
She practices her sight words and works on her fine motor skills!

The site word is also written on the craft stick.
Savannah clips the letters on to them, matching up the letters, if that makes sense!

Savannah also has a full schedule of activities this semester (and Hailey does, too!). One day a week we have library story time. This is a class that I go to with both girls. They love it so much! The librarian who teaches it is fabulous; I tell Matt she seems like she came straight off of Sesame Street! After class we always check out books and materials for the week. On another morning Savannah has ballet. For the spring session she switched classes; she is now taking a Fairytale Dance class (it is a basic pre-ballet class with a new fairytale princess theme each week) with the teacher that she had over the summer. Although her fall class was fine, she requested to go back into Ms. Cathy's class. Ms. Cathy has had over 30 years of experience teaching dance classes (instead of being a new teacher, like the teacher she had in the fall) and she runs a much more structured class, which Savannah seems to like. I think it makes her feel more safe and secure. Anyway, she requested to switch so we did and she seems to be doing very well with Ms. Cathy again. For this activity Hailey and I hang out just outside the studio in a waiting room and color. Our third weekday activity is Cubbies for Savannah while Hailey goes to Moppets and I go to either MOPS or Bible study (they flip flop every other week). I look forward to this activity because I get to go and socialize with other moms and be refreshed while my girls are taken care of by some loving volunteers for two hours! On our two "free" days we run errands, have play dates, or sometimes just stay home all day.

Showing off a new ballet outfit and dance shoes for spring session!

Love her!

Teaching Hailey how to plie in first position!

Two cuties!

This is the busiest schedule we've had yet, but we're all loving it. I really like getting out of the house more and the girls enjoy it, too. I seem to really thrive with the structure it provides us. Speaking of structure, another change is I'm attempting to overhaul the way I clean my house. I usually try to clean the whole house in one or two days each week. This wasn't working so well for me lately because I'm not home often enough to spend several hours at a time cleaning. I am now following a schedule I found over at Cleanmama.net which has you split up the big house chores amongst the days of the week so you clean a little bit every day, but over the course of the week your whole house gets cleaned. Also you do laundry each day instead of saving it all for a big laundry day. I've been trying it out for two weeks now and I think I like it; it's much easier for me to say okay, I'm just going to do 15-40 minutes of cleaning each day, instead of one big marathon cleaning day.

That's basically what's been going on in our lives lately! We're busy, but we're happy and healthy and loving life together - I wouldn't have it any other way!