Week 26: My Father's World K - Unit 22: Frog

We are just finished Unit 22: Frog - I use my tongue wisely, of My Father's World Kindergarten. This was a fun week. I wish I had planned in advance and bought a tadpole set. I think Blue Rock would have really enjoyed watching the tadpole turn into a frog. We've just been super busy with planning his birthday party, my birthday, and Father's Day. I guess we can leave that for Princess when she goes through this.

Verse of the week: Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. Ephesians 4:29 NIV

Blue Rock loves all animals and he especially likes animals that come from eggs. We started the week with drawing a picture of the life cycle of frogs. His drawings were pretty good.  My Father's World Kindergarten is pretty repetitive so Blue Rock did the work sheets and we talked about frogs and what makes them different from other animals and how they are the same. He pretended to have a frog tongue yesterday. We also talked about how there are good words and bad words. He's been wanting to talk about bathroom stuff lately, I've heard this is an age/stage for some. In addition to our verse of the week, we talked about how Ephesians 5:4 says, There must not be any unclean speech or foolish talk or dirty jokes. All of them are out of place. Instead, you should give thanks. 

He learned to skip count by 2s. We also spent lots of time with friends, outside, jumping on the trampoline, working in our garden, and just having fun. He's gone to Gymnastics Camp 3 times now and is playing tennis again. We've had a pool party with some homeschool friends and of course celebrated his big day. He's done some new puzzles and we've read lots of books. We did a weather science experiment that he and Princess seemed to like. He's painted and we've just had fun. The book for this week is Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel. He loves this book. Here are some pictures from the past few weeks. Most of them are just from different things we've done.

Kickball at a park with some church friends

Climbing his new dome

Lunch with his great-grandmother

Father's Day craft day with friends

Bouncing and balancing the tennis ball at home

Doing a maze

Thomas the Train Puzzle

Gymnastics Camp

Weather Science Experiment

Painting

Painting

Skip counting. He wanted to show his sister

His life cycle of a frog picture

He picked our first tomato of the season
Since he's picked a bag full

Hanging out with me. Love these two!

New space puzzle

Listening to the Curious George CD and going through the book

Making his own sandwich with tomatoes from our garden

Playing a balloon passing game

His frog tongue

Sticking his long tongue out at Gracie. She thought it was funny!

Gymnastics camp today

He loves gymnastics

Getting drug around on the big parachute

Homeschool swim party

Our boy's 5th birthday party

This past weekend we celebrated Blue Rock's 5th birthday! He wanted to have the same party as last year, at our house, mainly in our backyard with our water slide and all his friends. He also wanted the same cake as last year. We ordered one from Costco. I'm glad he liked his party so much last year he wanted the same one again. This year we added a few new things. We added a climbing dome, which was his big present from us this year, a sandbox, a balance beam, and a slip-n-slide. There was also a little baby pool that we set up a water balloon station in.  This was kind of a last minute thing and I think every kid made their own water balloons and liked that station. Blue Rock said making water balloons was one of his favorite things to do at the party. We had a few things planned for the kids to do during the party. However, the kids were having so much fun doing different things that we ended up just letting the kids play and not doing any structured activities. The kids had a great time. We had quite a crowd, 46 people came, 23 adults, and 23 kids, this was after 16 people were unable to come the morning of. We served lunch, cake, and ice cream. I love having home birthday parties. They are so much fun!

This is how we set up our son's 5th birthday backyard party.

My husband and then later my dad grilled the hot dogs. I think they cooked around 60. We were planning for 75 people so we have quite a lot left over! We kept the food inside for people to make their plates, less flies and bugs. There were hot dogs, chips, cantaloupe, honey dew, watermelon, grapes, carrots, broccoli, and tomatoes. I had a drink station outside with two pitchers of tea and a large ice chest with lots of bottle water and boxed juices. Also there were bags of ice for the tea. We had 4 tables set up outside and lots of chairs around the tables and around the backyard.

When people arrived, we had them fix their plates inside and then head outside (or stay inside) to eat. We had the kitchen table and dining room table available if anyone wanted to eat inside. Some ate in the kitchen but most people ate outside.

Then the kids played and played. We were planning on having a relay and a water balloon toss. I had also hoped to make a water balloon pinata but ended up running out of time. The kids had so much fun making water balloons and some would throw them at each other off and on throughout the party that we didn't do an official water balloon toss.

We had a big water slide. Our backyard isn't big enough to rent one of those huge ones. Thankfully we love our slide, it is 10 ft tall and perfect for kids from about 3 and up and fits well in our backyard.  This was our son's birthday present last year. We have a big trampoline, a sandbox, balance beam, slip-n-slide, and a climbing dome. 

Around 1pm we brought out the cake, sang "Happy Birthday" and served the cake with little cups of Blue Bell Ice Cream.

We decided to let him open his gifts after everyone left. Although he did get to open a few while some of the kids were there because they wanted to watch him open their gift. It was sweet. He loved everything he got. We kept the party favors outside this year so I wouldn't forget to hand them out. Each bag had two plane gliders, a big balloon on a rubber band, a birthday party blow thing, and a stamp.

His birthday is in a few days so I'll write a 5-year update then. Here are lots of pictures from his party and you can see how things were set up. I LOVE this boy and all his sweet friends and their parents!!

 

Online Friending

I was talking with a friend about online dating not too long ago.  The dating scene seems to get more challenging the older you get. Online dating is a personal choice. I've met people who have been married for years that met online. In some ways you could weed out the creeps in other ways you might unfortunately meet a creep! I feel fortunate not to be in the dating scene.

When we first moved back from overseas it was hard. Due to my husband's new job, most of my friends "in town" lived across town around 45 minutes from us. We found a new church but many of the women seemed to work outside the home. I'm a fairly social person and I felt lonely. My child felt lonely. Our friends who we had lived next to for the past 3.5 years were now thousands of miles away on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. We would go to the park and like we did when we lived in Germany but often we were the only ones there.  

Last week I started thinking about some of the friends I've made since moving back from Germany. Many of them I met at church but the ones I tend to meet up with and hang out with during the week, apart from small groups at church, are people I met online! Thanks to groups started through places like Meetup and Facebook, it was easy to find and join several different mom groups and homeschool groups online. I have made some really good friends with several ladies from these groups and our kids enjoy playing together. Most of these groups have a tight protocol they follow to keep the women and their children safe, which I like. 

While I have no need for online dating, I have found that I have enjoyed and benefited from online friending! We are invited to so many events and play dates each week that we have to turn most of them down! In some ways it reminds me of when I got into my upper level college classes. All of the sudden I was in a classroom of people who tended to have similar interests as me. Now as a mother, it has been a blessing to find other moms who have similar beliefs and parenting styles as I have. I also have enjoyed getting to know people who parent differently than me. We can learn from each other. Not all women in these groups are stay-at-home moms, many work outside the home. However, one core thing we all have in common is that we love our children, want the best for their future, and are there for each other. Being a stay-at-home mom can be lonely. Being a work outside of the home mom can be lonely. Thankfully it doesn't have to be! We may not all live on the same street. But if you are tired of going to the park and realizing you're the only one there, find a group, invite others to join you. You don't have to parent alone.

One great thing about online friending is that you don't have to be a parent to meet others with similar interests as you.  There are so great groups for singles and marrieds alike. There are groups for people with and without kids. There are travel groups, camping groups, sewing groups, Bible study groups, movie groups, and more. Thanks to the internet we are able to connect with more people than we ever were before.


Have you ever joined a group online?