We Love Our Marine!

My baby brother -  the one I rocked to sleep, whose dipes I changed; the one I fed, and bathed, and cradled on many an occasion... 

Yeah, my baby brother?


He is a United States Marine.

Recently home after his first stint in Afghanistan, my 'baby' brother, my daughter's beloved Uncle B, is not only stateside, but home. Home is 3 hours away from us, but we just got word that he and Mother will be visiting on Friday.

(I had hoped for, and asked my mother for, a week's notice, if possible. Evidently, that wasn't possible ;-)

Nevertheless, it is *very* exciting news that he is coming! We are thrilled to see Granma, too, mind you. But, unless you have known & loved a soldier who was deployed, risking death for our country, then you can't possibly imagine what we who love them go through. As a Christian, I've prayed many a prayer, not a few of them fervent.

But, I was unprepared for the emotions involved with having my little brother 'over there', 'doing what a Marine must do'.

My daughter and I prayed together for him. I always kept my emotions in check during our shared prayer times for him. I certainly didn't want to stress my daughter out!

But when it was just My Daddy & Me, I let it rain. I really, really did. Many times I had to take my fears and my tears to Him for comfort and assurance. But now, after that long wait, he's home safe; he's home sound; he's home in one piece. He's just HOME!

So, yeah. It's sort of a big deal that Uncle B is coming Friday! K? Thx!  ;-)

They will be making a day trip, so Friday's schoolwork will have to be made up on Saturday. Not a thrilling idea, especially since we took Labor Day off, also. It was one of the very, very few days that Daddy got to be off work, which meant home with us! But that's one of the joys of homeschooling, isn't it? The ability to enjoy life, as it happens. Flexibility! Yay!

We have things to do in preparation for Our Marine's visit!

♥   Michaela will be drawing him a special picture.

♥   Last time he came to visit, I'd had chili in the crockpot. Altho not quite done, he kept at me until I relented and let him serve up a bowl, which he devoured. So, this time, I want to make a pot of chili... a big pot... that WILL be done when he gets here, and with enough that he can take plenty home. Cornbread to accompany it, of course.

♥   We also want to make some cuppycakes for his visit. No reason in particular... we just want to love up on Uncle B.

♥   I am toying with the idea of balloons and streamers, since we were unable to attend his homecoming, which hurt my heart somethin' fierce, lemme tell ya. I just don't know if he will find that all over-the-top, or what. So, the jury's still out on that one.

I do know my daughter wants to make it all home-comey for him. And yeah, I put all that in her head (laughing). So, I guess we will be doing something like that, too.

Is it all mushy-gushy? Yeah, probably.

But we can't help it!

We just Love Our Marine!
OORAH!

Our Very First Lapbook!

We recently completed our very first lapbook!

First thing I learned: My daughter cares a little less for glue than I'd thought!  ;-)  As it turns out, she evidently has an aversion to sticky, like her Mama.

All the stuff I'd read about lapbooking urged beginners to start with something easy. Honestly, I would normally nix that idea. See, I'm a 'jump-in-with-both-feet' kinda gal. "I got it covered, thanks! This is easy peasy!"

... Until I started my first food garden this past spring, that is. Everything I'd read about THAT had told me to start small, with just a few varieties. Which I thought was completely ludicrous, and so I planted about a bazillion types of a bazillion things.

Ask me how my garden grew... ... ... .

So THAT little lesson taught me that, perhaps, it would be a good idea to 'start easy' with this, too. And so we did. :-)

Since we have a full curriculum already, I don't *have* to incorporate every subject under the sun... or any subject, especially, (aside from the science that the study was derived from, of course). So it was easy on the 3 R's, and focused just a little on nature (in the lapbook, itself).

We are BLESSED to own most of a WONDERFUL series of children's science books. The series is called "Let's Read and Find Out". One day soon I will have to blog a bit about the series for you, in case you're interested. But for now, I will just mention that each book is on a specific subject; clouds, the Big Dipper, or a specific animal, for instance.

I allowed My Precious to choose the first book she wanted to lapbook on, and she chose "How Animal Babies Stay Safe." Of course she did! What little girl doesn't love animals AND babies? Because our not-spayed-in-time cat had her kittens recently, it was a fitting subject as well. So, because animal babies are just so stinkin' cute, our lapbook was easy on the info, and heavy in the graphics department.

I must say we were both delighted (once we got past the paste issue) in the work involved, as well the finished product. Well... ok. Fact is, we are both so stinkin' proud of how our first lapbook turned out, that we could hardly stand it, and couldn't get enough of looking through it, again and again. (Which, is part of the point behind lapbooking - creating a 'book' that your child returns to again and again.)

Without further ado... Our very first lapbook :-)