An Update: We've Moved! (temporarily)

Greetings friends, if there are still any of you who read this blog.

It has been awhile. Life has been busy and crazy, even more so than normal crazy life with four Finnlings. I have to show you all kinds of wonderful pictures of my kids, of Christmas travels, of fun adventures. I need to tell you funny sayings about the kids, and mark milestones of the littlest one. I will get to that, Lord willing.

But in addition to busy life with four kids, we moved last week. It is a temporary move for six months, but it was still a big move (we packed some furniture, the washer and dryer, a couple of rocking chairs, and loads of books!). We have relocated to Jackson, Tennessee to spend Nathan's sabbatical here. What's a sabbatical, you ask? It is a leave of absence from his teaching load granted for him to work on writing projects. After much thought and prayer, Nathan and I decided that his sabbatical would be most effective if we were able to relocate. That way he could focus completely on his writing and reading and research, and would not be distracted by life at Wake Forest. Jackson, Tennessee, is home to Union University, a stellar Christian liberal arts college where Nathan has many friends. The administration at Union has graciously found office space for Nathan, and is granting him 'faculty privileges', which is a fancy way of saying he gets to use their library :-) They also went out of their way to find housing for us--no small feat considering our family size. To turn a southern phrase, they have blessed our socks off with our housing. It is a ranch style home with three bedrooms, two baths, an open floorplan and a nice sized backyard for the kids. We are blessed beyond measure.

Last week was our settling in week, and this week we have returned to homeschooling (we didn't do any, really, during the month of December). We are learning our way around Jackson, and looking forward to doing more exploring. Jackson is just two hours from Nashville and one hour from Memphis, and we plan several weekend trips to those cities. Mostly this time away from Wake Forest is a time to study and write (for Nathan), to focus in on homeschooling and exploring TN (me and the kids), and for us to grow in our knowledge of God and dependence upon him as a family. It is quite an adventure, and we look forward to seeing what God has in store!

And lest you worry, we are only relocating for six months!! That is all the time away Nathan has been granted and that we want. We miss Wake Forest, our house, our friends, SEBTS, and our church something fierce. We cannot wait to return. Thanks for following us on this crazy life.

Busy Bag Ideas

In the fall, I participated in a Busy Bag Swap with several other moms in my area. Basically, a busy bag is a self-contained activity for young children, packaged in a resealable bag. When you participate in a swap, each mom makes XX number of her activity (equal to the number of participants). Then, one day the goodies are swapped, and each person goes home with a variety of new fun activities for their children. Busy bags aim for children to learn fine motor skills, to recognize colors/shapes/letters, and to encourage independent play. There are TONS of ideas available on the internet, many more than what I have linked below. I am coordinating another local busy bag swap hopefully to be completed before Fuller arrives, so the littler Finnlings can have fun activities to keep them occupied while Mommy is nursing :-) If you've participated in a busy bag swap, I'd love to hear what your favorite activity was! The youngest Finnling LOVES Pom Pom Push It In, while Finnling #2 enjoys the Playdough Activity Mat. Even though G is a little older than most of the target ages for busy bags, she enjoys playing with several of the activities we received.  

**If you are local to Wake Forest, and want to participate, let me know!! I'd love to have you join us.**

Clothespin Number Match

Play Dough Busy Bag Ideas

Pasta Pictures Busy Bag

Pinchers and Pom Poms

Pool Noodle Stringing

Foam Lacing Cards

Shape Silhouette Match-Up (print and laminate both pages. Cut out colored shapes and have kids match to outlines)

Pop the Popsicle

Build Your Own Cupcake

Pom Pom Stuff-It-In

Felt Fishing

Sticky Pipe Cleaners

Butterfly Symmetry Busy Bag

Button Snake

Dry Erase Busy Bag Ideas

Counting Cards

Clothesline Busy Bag

Build a Letter

Foam Shapes

Craft Stick Busy Bag Ideas

16 Busy Bag Ideas and More Ideas from Money Saving Mom and Even more ideas and Still More Suggestions and in case you haven't had enough, 30 Busy Bag Ideas

Why reading lessons are difficult

One of my biggest parenting mistakes has been assuming that my children would love something because I love it. I assumed G would love to read from a very young age because I have always loved to read, and remember learning to read fairly quickly and young. G loves books, loves stories, loves being transported to a different world...but learning to read is hard work, and she doesn't like hard work. So my six year old CAN read, but she is not as proficient as I naively dreamed she would be. A big part of the reason why Georgia isn't reading more is because I am not practicing with her as I should. Why? Because reading session absolutely tired me out. Please don't get me wrong; I love my daughter, I think she is really really bright, but sometimes reading lessons are like today:

(Words G is reading are in BOLD, her comments are in italics, my responses are in [brackets]

Shack- This word is like shark. Why haven’t I ever seen a shark? When can I see a shark? What about the dolphin with all the blood? What happened to her? [She lost her tail, but they put another one on] Oh no!...[brief sideline into the story of "A Dolphin Tale"]

Shop- Like shopping? At a shop. Like Target. Can we go to Target? I want to buy dress ups and princess stuff.

Shed-Like our shed in the backyard. Where did we get our shed? [We bought it.] Who put it there? Did we bring it home in our van?

Whiz- What’s whiz? [Someone who is really smart.] Dora is really smart. She knows a lot of things.

Chick- A chick is an tiny baby chicken that is white or yellow or brown

Chuck- Ooh, that’s a big word! [b/c of the capital letter.] Like Mr. Chuck!

Smog- What’s smog? [like fog, but thicker and more dangerous.] It’s yucky and will kill you. Where is our smog? **

Smug- What’s smug? [It means to think you are the best at everything.] I’m not the best at everything. [Who is?] Jesus is the best at everything!

Snag- What does that mean? [Snag mean to catch on something.] Like using a net to get a butterfly

Snip- Like with scissors you go snip, snip, snip.

Sniff- That is when you smell something that is really sweet and spicy and you sniff (snff snff sound) it

Snub- What’s snub? [To ignore someone.] Like when you and daddy are talking and I want to say something and you do this [turns her head away but cuts her eyes at me].

See how a reading lesson might wear someone out? Love her inquisitive mind, though, and do not want to quench it in any way!

**funny aside--the first time she read the word "smog" she asked if it was the name of the dragon in The Hobbit. Smart girl.

First day of School--August 20, 2012

The Finnlings officially started school yesterday, August 20, 2012! Georgia has started homeschool Kindergarten this year, and Baxter will be doing a little bit of schoolwork as well. I will attempt to blog about what I am doing/books I am using a little later. Here is our first day of school in pictures!

Georgia and Baxter each received a box of school supplies--they were VERY excited about them!

The "First Day of School" breakfast of champions--Orange Cinnamon Rolls

First Day of School portraits--Georgia

First Day of School--Baxter

(these are quite his typical faces)

He was jumping around so much I missed him entirely in this picture ;-)

Brother and sister--they have so much fun together, aggravating each other

As part of our school activities, we made cookies for Nathan's first day of class--Snickerdoodles!

And we can't leave Eleanor out--here she is attempting her schoolwork with dominoes!

Date taken: August 20, 2012

Christmas Thank You cards

I was raised to write thank you notes after receiving gifts. Truthfully, I did pretty well at thank you notes until I had children, and then the number of gifts seemed to overwhelm my ability to send thank you notes. So I apologize to all my family and friends who for many years have thought me ungrateful and greedy. Now that my children are old enough to help, I hope we will be writing thank you notes more often. But don't count on it! For Georgia's notes, I wrote the 'body' of the letter, but left a blank for her to write the recipient's name and to sign her name as well. For Baxter, I wrote the entire note and just let him color on the back. It worked for both. Note Georgia's cute 'backward S' and 'extra line E'. I have not worked on handwriting with her in any serious manner; just workbook pages here and there, and having her write her own name. Poor child might be forming her letters incorrectly for life since I've not bothered with it before now :-)

First day of school for the Finnlings!

Because Georgia's birthday falls in late October, she is not eligible for Kindergarten until next year, when she will be 5-almost-6. She is old enough now, though, to start doing some 'schoolwork' at home! It is our intention to homeschool our children at least at the beginning, and so when Daddy's classes started back yesterday, we started some homeschool activities as well. I have not invested in a full preschool or kindergarten curriculum yet, but instead am doing a variety of small structured activities to get us into some form of a routine.

After a morning walk, I took pictures of the kids on their first day of school. They had fun 'cheesing' it up!




Georgia needs to reinforce her knowledge of numbers, so I wrote out numbers 1-10 on index cards and had her put the same number of stickers on each card (thanks for that idea, Jennifer S!). It was also a good skill for her fine motor skills, because peeling off the little smiley face stickers required a lot of concentration. Baxter did this activity some as well, but not as consistently :-)






My main 'textbooks' for the first day of school: the Bible (we read Genesis 1), Big Picture Story Bible, and On the Banks of Plum Creek (we are reading a chapter in this Little House on the Prairie book every couple of days).


I wanted to document some things about the kids' lives, so we measured them, traced their hands, and I asked them a few questions. Georgia wrote her own name on the top of her paper--it is not perfect, but she is trying, and I am very proud of her!




All in all it was a great day!

Date taken: August 22, 2011