K-Doodle is turning Eight today!

Eight years ago, on a snowy day in Illinois, I had the privilege of giving birth to a beautiful baby girl.  We named her K-Doodle and our lives have been forever changed.  Another heartstring attached for life.

K-Doodle is sensitive, giving, hilarious and such a loving little girl.  Happy Birthday baby girl.  We love you!

A Day at Homeschool Coop

Two years ago, we joined a start-up homeschool coop through a rather large homeschool group in our area.  It is a Christian coop that studies one subject during a six-week session through classes in science, language arts, history and art.  The children are grouped together by age and there are currently about fifty families participating.

C-Sunshine in her art class making etched jars.

  The schedule goes a little like this.

9:30 - 10:00 - Arrival, hellos and get your spot for assembly
10:00 - 10:30 - Assembly where we gather for a devotion, presentations and announcements
10:40 - 11:30 - First Hour Class (History or Lit)
11:40 - 12:10 - Lunch together (we sit on the floor in the gym on blankets with picnic lunches)
12:20 - 1:10 - Second Hour Class (Science or Art)

K-Doodle creating in art class.

The moms usually teach one week and assist the second in a one hour class of the day.  The other "class" hour is spent in a Moms class where we usually talk about a chosen topic.  We also chat, cry, EAT CHOCOLATE and pray with one another.  A chance to get to know other homeschool moms on a deeper level than the casual "hey" during an event or class.  I am so glad that I have gotten the chance to get to know some of these moms.  We just love Explorers!

Hope you are having a great week.

Daddy Daughter Game Night

They came......

They played board games......

All those Daddy-Daughter Combos

(Contemplating the next move.....)

Quite the selection of games they had...

Then it was time for "group games" - Telephone anyone?

Just Dads and daughters of American Heritage Girls......

C-Sunshine and Daddy

Next came the Ice Cream Sunday Bar - Yum!  No Moms allowed!

K-Doodle and Daddy

Just a good old-fashioned night out with the most important man in their lives.
DAD

Priceless.......

Little Flowers ~ Wreath One ~ Love of Neighbor

Tonight was our fourth Little Flowers club meeting.  We had two girls out sick tonight so it was a cozy number of five for our Love of Neighbor/Saint Valentine meeting.  We began the meeting working on a coloring sheet of St. Jane Frances de Chantal from Charlotte over at Waltzing Matilda.  The girls really seem to enjoy coloring these sheets and I think it is so nice of these women to share their gift of drawing with us.  So, here's to you - Thanks to Charlotte over at Waltzing Matilda.

After coloring time, we sat in a circle and I reviewed our three prior virtues of Faith, Hope and Love of God. We then went into our virtue for this month which is Love of Neighbor.  Drawing upon a blog post over at Shower of Roses, I wrote up a sheet about Jesus' model of loving everyone and treating everyone with kindness.  I actually created my very own virtue page this month for the girls to use to scrapbook their page for their Little Flower notebooks.  I had been relying on the generousity of Jessica and her wonderful pages.  However, I really wanted a few roses on the sheet and found these graphics to use that were free.  I am happy with the way the sheet turned out.  You can download the pdf here.

Because the virtue Love of Neighbor fell in February, we decided to celebrate with Valentines or "Love notes" to each other and bring something to swap or share with our friends.  The girls each decorated their own bag for the swap as their craft for the day.  They also decorated 24 Valentine's to send with our Deacon to the nursing homes in the area to share with parishioners that now reside there.  The girls did a great job with these.

After the crafting, C-Sunshine lead the younger girls in some St. Valentine games that she had researched and got ready for the meeting.  Because she is the oldest in the group, she is more of a second leader.  She does a great job in this role.  All the girls really enjoyed the games.  She hid several hearts around in the classrooms that they had to find.  Then they played a HeartPotato game.  Passing the heart around like a hot potato.  I am proud of C-Sunshine.  She puts a lot of care into helping me.

We had a Valentine swap, snack, another game and then closed the meeting with intentions and prayer.  It was a very nice meeting even though we missed our two friends who were out sick.  

I think I want to do a craftier project for our next meeting and will be looking into the Little Flower Craft book  for one.  I also want to prepare prayer cards for the girls for the opening and closing.

Well, hope this helps someone plan.  I know how much I enjoy seeing what other LF leaders are doing.  Happy planning!