Falling into September

September was a whirlwind.  Planning birthday parties, starting school and getting prepped for Jeremiah and Sally's wedding.  We had fun enjoying our friends and family as always! ;)


 Visit Home
A visit home for the beginning of September. Of course too short and fast but enjoyed our time there none the less.  Owen, Landon and Arabella are starting to have a quite the bond.  I love it.  I remember loving that one of my cousins lived close by.  I hope they get to enjoy a lot more time together.  Boy oh boy to I love being an aunt to such a cute little boy!

 Picnic and Fishing

A relaxing picnic/fishing trip to the lake near our house. We didn't catch anything but a couple of bug bite.  It was beautiful out there.

Pool Time
With Josh working 12-14 hour days, we didn't get nearly enough time at the pool at the end of the summer but when we did get to go we had lots of fun.  Arabella is getting so confident in the water.  Landon is improving every time.  He can swim without floaties and can hold his breath.  He just needs to work on being more comfortable laying on his back and being able to bring his head out of water to get a breath. 

Birds, bugs and books

Our school field trip with the Bolins at the Library. 
Arabella (Especially )and Landon had a lot of fun.  The event was put on by some group from UF.  The people running the event did a really great job.  The guy in charge of the "Bird Beaks" was so patient.  Landon spent so much time with the guy and the "Bird beaks."  The kids had to see what kind of bird beak (tongs, spoons, etc.) would work the best with different types of bird food. There were butterflies and eggs and see and inspect.  Nature and animal puzzles, block to play with and drawing paper to draw your best bird.

Puzzles, Computers, Blocks and Eggs

My ladybug LOVED looking in the spy glass

Look Mommy, I drew a bird!

 Preschool

 We started preschool at the beginning of September. Landon is like many boys and a lot like his daddy.  He doesn't want to sit and he really dislikes worksheets.  Knowing that worksheets really aren't a good way to learn anyway, I have looked for more "Montessori" lessons this year.  For those non-education family and friends of mine...
 Montessori education is characterized by an emphasis on independence, freedom within limits, and respect for a child’s natural psychological development, as well as technological advancements in society.  Mixed age classrooms, which is super easy with homeschooling since we have Arabella and hopefully more to follow.  Student choice of activity from within a prescribed range of options. Uninterrupted blocks of work time. A Constructivist or "discovery" model, where students learn concepts from working with materials, rather than by direct instruction.

We also enrolled Landon in a Lego literacy class.  He has enjoyed especially because his friend, Joshua is also enrolled in the class.

 

Animal exploration with books, paint, rice, and letters

Angey Birds experiment was a huge hit with both kids.  Landon did an awesome job at predicting which "birds" would be the most effective at getting the "pigs" and explaining why they would work. 

Science experiment fun, my favorite.  I was so impressed with Landon on this one.  He predicted the water transferring to the middle cup and making green.  Only downfall, the kids didn't like waiting for it to transfer but we played some games in the kitchen so it went by fast. I think it was a great lesson for science plus a practical lesson on patience. ;)

We even have learning at lunch and snack time.

It is self proclaimed "Mcqueen Girl."     Always dress up fun happening at our house. 

Patterning-Landon did this symteric pattern on his own after us doing a lesson with colored block earlier that day. Can you see the pattern?

Books

and more books!

Lots of Lego building. Landon recieved a huge box of Legos from Uncle Jon and Aunt Merry for his birthday.  We did a lesson on following directions.  Landon picked out from the instruction book and built this house basically by himself.  He was really proud because he made a house and car port on his own!

Some of our letter fun

Letter matching

Letter writing with Wiki Sticks (Bendaroos)

Learning is hard work!

Birthdays!!!!!!!!!!

I love September. Well I might be a little bias... it is my birthday month and the month that I first held my first child for the first time.  Landon and my birthday are 5 days apart and I love it.  I also love September because the day after my birthday is Autumn my favorite month. 

This year Landon choose a Batman birthday theme.  Not really what I wanted him to pick but I went with it.  I was surprised he picked it because he has never watched Batman and doesn't even have a Batman toy (although now he has lots (;  ).  Landon helped a lot in the planning, I have to say he is quite the planner.  He knew what he wanted to eat, what decorations he wanted, what kind of dessert and who he wanted to invite.  I helped offer some suggestions but it was mostly his ideas. 

I thought it would be fun to have the kids dress up so we edited the theme to be Batman's Superhero Party.  I loved the costumes!  I think I will be encouraging my children for more dress up themed parties.  Arabella went as Sailor Moon.  Sailor Moon is a Japanimation or Anime Super hero that was my favorite growing up. I made Bella's costume. Landon went as Batman, of course.  My parents, Josh and I bought the different parts to Landon's costume.  I was Catwomen and Josh was Joker, per request of our son-Batman. 

The Super Heroes (and Joker)

 Thank you everyone who made Landon's birthday special!!!

Party Time!

 The Joker had captured some of our little Super heroes (seen in lower right hand corner) so all the BIG super heroes had to brave past THE JOKER and bring the little super heroes to the safety of Mrs. Victoria ;)  The kids had fun!

Save the Super Hero Game!

Birthday Boy and His Cake and Cupcakes!

 Mommy and Batman's Party back home with our family at Uncle Jon's and Aunt Merry's.  I was surprised with the most amazing chocolate raspberry cake made for me by my sister, Merry.  It was the best cake I have ever had!  Although the trip home included leaving a day late (due to sickness and just too much to do), loosing Reesie for 4 hours in Tallahassee (Josh stayed behind to look for her and thankfully he and Sally found her), Jon driving to Tallahassee to pick up Josh, and a whilwind trip home in general, Landon and I did have a great time celebrating our birthdays and so thankful we have an amazing family to celebrate with!

The Super Heroes, Cat Women, and Joker

Cake, Presents and Play Time!

We also enjoyed celebrating a family friend's birthday.  Emma turned one! 

We were excited to celebrate with her and family and friends!

Catchup of our August

Catchup of our August

We are huge fans of finger lights in this house.  Talk about inexpensive fun!  I picked a pack of 3 up for $1 at Micheal's at Christmas for Landon last year.  After everyone enjoying them so much we bought 40 online for less than $7.  The kids love them.  They get played with everything, stuffed animals, plastic animals, trains, cars, dress up, and and everything in between. 

Finger light fun!

Ashley invite us to the creek to have some fun in the water and search for sharks' teeth. We didn't bring out swim suits so Landon borrowed a cloth diaper cover and Bella played in her diaper.  Yay for cloth diapers being multipurpose! I am planning on taking some of the teeth we found and make Josh and Landon shark necklaces. 

Creek Splashing and Play Time

Our Findings

Arabella has been praciting her photogratphy skills.

Landon's friend, Ben came over for a play date.  Landon has been asking for a while for him to come over.  Finally our 2 busy families were about to coordinate a date.  We did a Lighting Mcqueen/ Cars2/ Olympic art work.  The boys had fun with trains, finger lights, and big Legos.

Play date with Ben

Unfortunately, this was one of the few trips to the beach this summer.  It was quite the eventful trip.  Our car tire got a hole in it.  Thankfully it wasn't a blow out and it was a mile from the beach.  Josh dropped us off and took the car up the road to a mechanic we had seen close by.  The guy who worked there was very nice and really helped us out a lot with putting the tires on right away and gave Josh a good deal.  After he was done, he mentioned that he wasn't even suppose to be at the shop that day because they were closed but he had gotten a call and had to meet someone at the shop.  Very thankful!  While at the beach we meet a little boy a few months older than Landon who was named Landon.  Needless to say, our Landon was so excited to meet another Landon.  He still to this day talks about him.  Josh joined us for about an hour before a storm rolled in and we had to leave. 

Beach trip

Isiah's birthday party

Fruits of our labor from our garden.

2012 London Olympics

BEhind on posting again.  Oh well.. Here is our Olympic festivities


We spent the whole week reading, crafting and playing with the Olympics in mind.  I have never really been hyped about the Olympics as I have been this year. I mean I would watch it sometimes and I really love watching certain sports.  It has been fun learning and counting down the days!

 Here are some of our adventures in prepping for the Olympics!

Olympic shirts.  Landon did his all by him self with my instructions. Arabella picked out what she wanted to do on  the sleeves.  The torch has been a favorite play thing of the week. 

 Torch- I saw several torches on Pinterest as I was gathering ideas.  I used some ideas I saw and added a few of my own.  I think ours looks pretty good compared to the real one this year considering it is made of almost all recycled items ( with the exception for the tinfoil and gold spray paint) and can't really be safely lite on fire.  I was excited we made it all with recycled items.  That orange stuff is from a bag the tangerines came in ;)
I used a toilet paper roll for the round part to hold.  The triangle part is a paper towel roll. After making the trinagle part we pushed one roll into the other and then taped them to We covered the whole thing with

Togas and laurel wreaths to remind us of the original Olympics.  British flag lunch to remember who is hosting this year.  I also have been using Cars 2 as a motivator since part of the movie took place in London.

The Food!

Since our small group meets on Friday and the Olympics started on Friday we had an Olympic around the world themed dinner. It was fun!  Our small group did a great job of representing Asian foods.  I think more than half of the dishes brought were Asian. I made an Olympic Ring Pizza for dessert. Everything was really yummy!

Josh and I planned several dinners that were new to us and distinctive to different places in the world.  We had Bangers n' Mash, Yorkshire Pudding, Egg rolls, Edamame, Burritos, crepes, and Stir Fri.  I tried to find traditional recipes.  It was really fun trying some new foods.  All of them were quite yummy! I think the favorite was bangers n' mash.  

Here is some of the food I remembered to take a picture of.

The Games!

We did some Olympic games as well.  I had a ton planned but as typical in our house.  Life got in the way.  We still had fun and learned a lot!  Before we played any of the sports we watched either the event or practice of the event online (Thanks Mom and Dad for giving us access to the online coverage!).  We did the discus(we made them out of paper plates), soccer, boat races, javelin(made out of straws), obstacle course races, gymnastics, relay races, and swimming.  Landon's favorite sport to watch and play was soccer.  Arabella's favorite to watch and play was gymnastics but she really liked soccer a lot too (Just like her mommy- maybe she will want to gymnastics and soccer like I did). 

Summer Fun at the Williams' House

What is summer filled with around our house?
Legos, Legos and More Legos. Books, puzzles, picture taking, dress up, lots of dress up, playing in the rain, playing with friends, naps(but not as often as mommy would like) and strolls in our wagon.

Fractured Fairy Tales at the Library

FRACTURED FAIRYTALE AND CONFETTI FUN!

The downtown library was having a play in July.  It was a fractured fairy tale.  I think they incorporated The 3 Bears, The 3 Little Pigs, The Red Riding Hood, and maybe a few others.  It was cute but really loud because there were a lot of kids who apparently were very excitable.  The favorite part of the play was when they tossed confetti around the whole room.  We stayed afterward so Landon, Arabella and Lexi played with a couple of other children and the confetti.

Singing, dancing, reading, and writing

Josh and I took the kids to this free local event to encourage reading and writing with music and books.  It was a lot of fun.  They had a children's singer from South Florida sing and dance with the kids.  It was about a 45 min performance.  Both Landon and Arabella were dancing and trying to sing long.  Although Bella was only dancing and singing if she was convinced no one, including mommy and daddy were looking.  Afterward the kids got gift bags with a book, crayons, coloring book, writing book, and a few other little trinkets.  They also had snacks (yogurt with fruit and granola and gram cracker Goldfish cracker) and drinks for the kids.  They also had a HUGE selection of books and let each child pick out their own book and wrote their name it for them.  Landon chose "Smash, Crash" A Trucktown book because he had another one we got in a box of Cheerios.  Arabella picked out "Duck on a Bike", which I have to say is now on my list of top favorite children's books.  It is an adorable book and I like the art too.  So happy she picked out such a great book. 

We had fun and it was a great way to spend a Saturday morning.

Family Fun Saturday

Independance Day

We had a great day celebrating our privilege of the freedom we have in the USA with our friends and family.  We are so thankful we have our freedoms.  Sometime I wonder how long we will have them but I am going to enjoy them while I can.  I hope that all Christian can celebrate their freedom of religion and worship long after I am gone and hope they use those freedoms to show God's Love because if not then the freedom is just a waste.

Thank Blasczychs for all the fun, food, swimming, spending time with great people and all around great time!

Happy 4th of July!!!

Victoria's Secret

Josh was showing the kids some silly animal pictures on the computer.  The website that had the pictures had the little add picture things on the side that changes occasionally when you clicked to the next picture.  One of the ads that came up was a Victoria's Secret ad.  She was fully dressed and smiling.  Arabella got excited and started pointing to the girl.  As she started pointing, she said "Mommy." She continued to say "mommy" and then looked around for me and pointed to me and smiled while she said "mommy." Josh asked her if she thought that looked like Mommy.  She shook her head very excitedly yes.
I doubt Victoria's Secrets model search will be calling me up...ever.
But at least my daughter thinks I look like a pretty lady with a pretty smile on her face. :)

Sleeping Beauty

  


While watch Sleeping Beauty recently.  Landon was all cuddled up with me, during the scene were Aurora is singing with all the animals (in the beginning of the movie). Prince Phillip rides near and hears her singing.  Landon and I then have this conversation...
L: Mommy I to meet one, her.
M: One what?
L: A princess that sings to the animals and are friends with birds.  I want to meet her. I want a red bird too. I want us to have birds together. 
M: So you want to meet a princess?
L: Just her, one that like the woods and birds.
M: Well she is just pretend but I am sure there are lots of little girls who like animals.
L: I want to marry one.  I want to be the prince and have a horse but a black one.  I like black.  A black horse, a princess, and a red biird. and a blue bird, and owl.
And then goes off on how all the birds are related.  I couldn't follow that part as well but there were lots of relation between the all the bird we saw.  I think maybe all of them were related but the owl.  ;)



M: so you want to marry a princess? who likes birds?
L: yes, can I?
M: Well, sure but I bet who ever you decide to marry will be a princess to you.  You just need to treat her like one and you will be her prince.
L: Is that what Daddy did?
M: Yes, he treats me like his princess. ;)
L: That is what I will do.  I still want a red bird.





I thought that was such a cute conversation.  Sweet and scary.  I want him to grow up and be happily married but never thought he would think about it already.  ;)

Short trip home

We went home to visit a little,but mainly to have a beach date and wonderful babysitters to celebrate our 8th anniversary.  Somehow I didn't take any pictures of our family.  Landon and Bella did a "fashion show" with my mom as the designer.  It was cute!  I got lots of the kids and Dad W has some of the kids and Josh at the beach that I need to get from him(I went shopping with my family that morning). One awesome, so what unexpected thing, I got to see my brother.  He came up Saturday morning.  I love seeing my brother so I was very excited and so was Josh.  So was Landon!  Arabella is still warming up to her uncle, all of them.

It was too short but a nice trip.

Thanks Mom and Dad for everything you do for us!  Thanks Aunt Jamiie and Dad for watching the kids!  We miss you all!

Sleepy time sweetness

While saying good night to Landon...
Landon: Mommy, I can sleep by myself because I am a big boy but I want to cuddle with you tonight. 
Me: Why is that? 
Landon: Because you are the sweetest Mommy (eyes get really big and comes closer to my face) I have ever had seen in the whole world! (then lays his head on the pillow with a sweet smile) And that is why I need to cuddle with you.

Who can argue with a request like that!?!








July 11, 2012

8 years of bliss

8 years ago (June 27th), I was blessed to be able to married my best friend and soul mate

Today still happily married and more in love than ever! What a blessing!!