ABCs

Today was an unusually cool day for the start of August. On second thought, maybe it was nice to be away from the 100-degree mark. Either way there was a slight feel of fall in the air and that means that school is around the corner.

So many of our friends send their children to preschool. Some started as early as 18 months while others have held off until three. We have decided that JillyBean will not go to preschool. I have mixed feelings on this issue, though I am happy with our decision. One one hand I would like for Jilly to be with her friends. She had a great time at Vacation Bible School, though that was just a blip. However, I'm not exactly crazy about the public school system as a whole, although we live in a fabulous district. Also, kids are in school for SO long that I don't want to start her any earlier than she has to. Still, knowing that the public school here demands so much of kids at younger ages, I don't want Jilly to be behind if we do choose to send her down the road so we are going to do a home school program.

I am a little nervous about this and not too confident about my ability to actually teach her. That's silly, I know, because basically everything she will "learn" at preschool we are "teaching" during our daily routine. She knows her letters out of context, all of her colors and shapes; she can count to 20 (when she's not be asked to do so) and she gets sequencing, matching, rhyming and all of that stuff. What we need to work on are the sounds of letters and how to write - something I don't remember doing until first grade but something kids today master, in some cases, before kindergarten. Reading will follow soon after, which she is chomping at the bit to learn.

Jilly has been showing a lot of interest lately in learning to write. She understands that words are made up of individual letters and when she asks us to spell something for her, she makes a separate mark for each letter. She also seems to grasp that each word is an individual item and spaces her "words" further apart than the "letters" that comprise the words.

Knowing that she is interested and ready to learn should make this process a bit easier. Having never taught any form of school, I decided to purchase a formal preschool curriculum. I chose the program from a company called Sonlight because it is literature based and uses story books to teach science, social studies, etc. We are doing a program above her current age because she is ready for it. The curriculum for 3- and 4-year-olds is nothing more than reading together and that is something we have done since birth. So she'll be in a pre-kindergarten program that will teach her how to write.

Homeschooling is something I have said that I would like to do for as long as possible but we are going to take it a year at a time. It is very exciting and Jilly is looking forward to mom being her teacher.

VBS

Tomorrow begins a very busy week for me and JillyBean. Vacation Bible School starts and I'm so excited. Although Jilly is only three, she gets to go because I am volunteering as a teacher (I have been assigned to the five-year-old class). This is exciting because she will be doing the same preschool program as the older kids.

This is a massive program and the ladies from our church in charge of the children's ministry have been hard at work for months. As of today, they are expecting more than 470 kids for the week long program. It's a western theme, which is great for Jilly since she's all about horses and cowboys.

I loved VBS as a kid. I remember spending summers "church hopping," as we would attend Vacation Bible School at our church as well as VBS at our friends' churches. I hope that this is something Jilly will grow to love and look forward to each summer as well.

I have never led a class so I'm a little nervous but also excited about the opportunity. Keep us in your prayers as well as all the kids who will be attending and the volunteers leading them.

Little Miss Firecracker

Here it is July again and I have failed to come in and update the blog. It sure isn't for lack of things to share, I just haven't taken the time to do it - once again. I need to dedicate a time of day each day to do this, sort of like a job.

Until then, we had a fabulous July Fourth celebration. JillyBean had been looking forward to July Fourth for weeks. Although I had been talking to her about why we celebrate the date, she mostly saw it as a time to shoot off fireworks. We had a couple of neighbors come over for a cook out and to let the kids have some fun. Jilly's buddies weren't as jazzed by the popping of the fireworks she and Daddy purchased, but they enjoyed the sparklers. Jilly didn't want to like the explosive rockets, but I think she forced herself to enjoy them since she had been looking forward to shooting them off for some time.

I really love the Fourth of July and have great childhood memories of family gatherings in Kansas. We would get together with my dad's cousins and spend the day tying black cat firecrackers together to make huge explosions. They all had cellars in their backyard so we would light the suckers and throw them into the cellar to hear the echo of the boom. We'd shoot off bottle rockets that we set up inside soda bottles and throw cherry bombs across the yard. It was so much fun. Then we would all have a picnic, play a game of softball and gather in the town park to watch the fireworks display that was put together by the local volunteer fire department.

Relay For Life

We participated in the local Relay For Life event this weekend with our wonderful Mom's group. It was great fun and we were able to raise a bit of cash for the American Cancer Society.


It was rainy, so not as many people attended the actual event on Saturday night, but we had a good time. Our group, Moms On A Mission, endured the wet weather and enjoyed some yummy Wayside chicken and barbecue. Each of us signed up to walk an hour or two-hour shift (the goal was to have people walk 24 hours) so JillyBean accompanied me on my trek. She did great - walked the whole hour and even ran two laps around the track (more than I can do without stopping).

Afterward the kids ran around and played in the rain, danced, attended a magic show and, well, acted like kids. This is one of my all-time fave pictures of Jilly and her friends. I can't believe that I was able to get four three-year-olds to stand together, look at the camera and smile at the same time.
One part of the event that we did not stay around for (thanks to the wet weather and an exhausted child) was the lighting of the luminarias that people purchase in honor of or in memory of someone impacted by cancer. We made a luminaria for Aunt Evelyn who died last year. Jilly had a fun time decorating the paper bag that event organizers filled with sand and a candle to light. We are sure that Aunt Evelyn looked down with pride.

Oh to be three....

...and get away with wearing pink sparkly shoes with bright pink flowers.
JillyBean and I went to Richmond on Saturday to get some new shoes for her. She is good for summer with sandals, church shoes and tennis shoes, but really need a pair of closed-toed play shoes. We go to Saxon twice a year to get shoes for her - once in the fall and again in the spring. I adore the store and its selection of kids shoes. They typically carry higher end shoes, but they do such a great job fitting her that I don't mind paying a little extra since they seem to fit the entire season. The people who work there really know how to work with kids and know what to look for in the way of fit. I haven't really felt all that confident at the stores in town.

It was the sweetest thing, shoe shopping with her. She looked carefully at the choices I gave her and I was not surprised that these would be her favorite. She wore them out the store and got so many compliments from the other mall shoppers that you could see the pride bursting from her face. On the way home I was looking at her in my rear-view mirror and she was raising up her feet and smiling at her new shoes. Then she said, "Thank you so much for my new shoes, mommy. I really, really love them."

Mother's Day

I was so happy with Mother's Day this year. It was low-key and we were able to be together as a family. I came downstairs to this lovely arrangement on the kitchen table:
Not sure Beanie Daddy paid attention or if he was just lucky, but the color of the daisies are the exact color as the spring tea towels and a few other spring decor items I have in the kitchen right now. They coordinate perfectly.

We went to church and afterward had a lovely picnic at Cardinal Point Winery where moms got free appetizers with their tasting. We got a bottle of wine and had lunch on the lawn. It was a perfect afternoon, with the exception of a bit of wind. We came home and grilled steaks, which were super yummy. It was a great day.

Jilly Jam

We are so lucky to live down the road from a wonderful orchard that not only provides scrumptious peaches in the summer but also strawberries. Jilly and I met a friend last Friday to pick a few and were generously rewarded. Last year we had to hunt and pick through several bushes to find perfect berries, but this year, we were able to pull off multiple berries from the same bush and didn't have to move much beyond one small section.

JillyBean had a lot of fun this year, too. Last year she wouldn't pick the strawberries and only wanted to carry the basket around with her. This year she didn't want to stop.
She even ate a few, which was something new. When she was a year old she loved strawberries but I haven't been able to get her to try one since. She loves strawberry ice cream, cake, smoothies, lollipops, etc., but would never eat the actual fruit. She wouldn't stop this time.

We brought home our load and used some to make fruit pops and some to make strawberry jam. I had never made jam before but it was actually so simple that I think we will do more. Jilly had the important task of mashing up the berries and she did a wonderful job.
We made 9 half pints of jam, but two didn't seal properly. We kept one and gave the other to a friend who said they would be able to eat it right away. Jilly has assigned "homes" to the remaining 7 jars so, if you're lucky, a jar of Jilly Jam will be coming your way soon.