Public School VS School at Home

Well, we had to make a hard decision this past week. We have decided that Seth will stay home with me this year for kindergarten. I will be teaching both Elizabeth and Seth this year with the help of Connections Academy. We had him registered at the local school and were all excited for him to attend his first year up there. BUT, 2 weeks ago I received a notice that said something about welcome to our PM kindergarten class. Just a few days before that I was told Seth had gotten a morning slot which is what we wanted, which is what was going to make time with Elizabeth so much easier. That started the process of phone calls that led to discouragement and more frustration. Our school had to lose a kindy teacher, leaving the remaining teacher with 70+ students to manage. This of course led to only two kindy classes being taught and Seth was moved to afternoon. At last count his class was up to 38 students. Which to me seems like a nightmare. I don't care how good of a teacher you are, that is insane. We called the school to see what could be done, we called the district to complain, knowing none of it was going to do any good but we had to try. No good, this poor teacher is still stuck with 70+ kids and we were stuck with a PM time that was really inconvenient. We did hear the district was kind enough to give the teacher an aid, and then they gave her a permanent substitute teacher to work with her. And I heard a rumor last night that a teacher who retired last year will be offering her services as a volunteer this year. Still, not good enough. Too many kids, and really I start to get claustrophobic just thinking about that many kids in one classroom and then 4 adults trying to manage them all. NO THANK YOU!
When we made the decision in the spring to send him to the local school it was based on factors that, at the time, were adding quite a bit of stress to our lives. At that time I was SURE I couldn't handle starting elementary over again, especially where Elizabeth is now at a point where she is more independent. But now several of those stress factors are gone and after getting angry enough I realized I was more than happy to have Seth home with me this year. Fortunately, I feel I have options and do not need to sit around to wait and see what happens with the school and district.
As it sits Seth is almost completely registered with Connections so we should be getting his books in the next week or two. I'm excited, I haven't actually ever done kindergarten at home. The older boys did it up at the local school and Elizabeth skipped it. So something new to try this year :) Seth was slightly disappointed when we talked to him. However, after explaining the situation the best we could and why we felt he should be home, he ran upstairs and very excitedly told the other kids that he was going to get to stay home to learn with Elizabeth. Very happy the disappointment didn't last long!

Pictures from the last few months

Well, has been too long. Rob got me this wonderful new camera for my birthday in April. I LOVE it! Unfortunately it can hold like thousands of pictures so I haven't had to dump it yet. Which means I haven't gone through all the pictures. I'm going to attempt to now and just throw some pictures on here from the past 3 months so you can see what we've been up to :)

At the Beach over Memorial Day weekend

Jonathan performing at the Concert in the Park Day for  band

She hates touching grass with her feet

Seth learned to tap from a friend at church

It also included some ballet, these are the cuties he took class with :)

Zoo time!

 
 

Just learning to walk

Park day

 

Elizabeth and her cute friend Leila

 

One Year Old!!!

It's hard to believe a whole year has gone by! Meredith has become quite mobile, she took her first steps the other night. In the past month she has also developed the funniest sound. It's like she's growling, but it's her happy sound. It's just the funniest sound. Thankfully she's started saying more mamamama's and babababa's the last week or so. She's got one or two more teeth, one kept her pretty miserable for almost the whole last month. It finally broke through the other day and she's been much happier. 

For her birthday we just had a small family get-together. The most hilarious part of the whole night is when we let her have her cupcake. She didn't hesitate, once she saw it on her high chair she grabbed it and tried to shove the whole thing in her mouth! Cake and frosting everywhere! None of our kids have gone crazy with their first birthday cake so this was great. So fun to watch her go at it. We gave her a piece of the bigger cake when she was done and she ate that with just as much gusto. She loves cake!

Yay! Clothes! I totally needed bigger clothes!

I can dress myself just fine.

Just love the expression on her face here :)

You guys have totally been holding out on me! I LOVE CAKE!

You don't think I can eat another piece? Just watch me!

Sugar coma setting in?

Showing off one of her new outfits. 

Meredith's Quilt

Yay! I finally finished it! I finished the top last April but was too big and pregnant to get on the floor to pin it together and then quilt it. I managed to get a few hours to myself last week and I was able to quilt most of it and today just finished up the few mistakes I made in the binding. I loved this design, it was a lot of fun to work with. I want to make another but I think I will use the pattern for three colors. Unfortunately, I can't get the lighting right in any of my rooms so the colors look dull.

Look Who's 11 Months Old Today!

Getting so tall!

During her 10th month, Meredith finally figured out how to do a normal crawl, go up and down the stairs quickly (though coming down is still iffy), learned to walk around the furniture and acquired one more new tooth on top with another trying to come in. Meredith has also perfected her screeching. I'm not sure how to break a child of this. I am totally up for suggestions. I swear I can feel a little bit of my hearing disappear forever every time she does this. Today at church she stood on her own for a few brief seconds several times. I put her up against the wall at church which is covered in scratchy fabric. She didn't like resting her hands on it so she would keep puling her hands off which left her standing and she didn't know it :) She loves to eat anything we'll give her.

We have pictures of all the other kids asleep in the high chair. Meredith does not fall asleep in her high chair. BUT the other day she was tired enough she fell asleep in her bouncer so I had to grab a photo.

Friday morning was hard for whatever reason for Meredith. I couldn't put her down without her screaming. I tried pulling her pj's off to see if she was too hot. That worked for about a minute and then the screaming started again. A friend came over to use the sewing machine and I needed to put Meredith down so I could rethread it. She was totally content to pull all the diapers off her changing table and she wasn't screaming anymore so I let her. She then got a hold of some batting and starting shredding it. I was saving it for another baby quilt but the no screaming was worth letting her tear it apart. Some days you just have to choose your battles :) 

New Clothes for Meredith

I don't have the time to sit and work on quilts like I'd like to. When I quilt I like to have a good 4 or 5 hours to just sit and work on a quilt. Yah, I don't have that right now with Meredith :)


I was just itching to sew something so I decided to make a dress for Meredith. The pattern comes with a pants pattern too and since it is still cold around here I thought that would be good under the dress. I'm finally done. Took me longer than I thought but the outfit turned out pretty cute! Now if'she'd just leave a a bow in her hair it would be perfect :)

I have fabric for two more dresses and another pair of pants. Need to get on them :) 

What??

Really? What the heck? It's been snowing for 3 hours straight now!