We become wives, moms, home makers, and their teachers! God is Good!

This is my precious baby girl. Who turned 6 this year and entered the first Grade! I can not believe it has been 6 years since this little bitty baby was laid in my hands. She was three weeks early and the best baby in the world. Always wanting to be cuddled, and still does on her time! She has gone from so tiny to this very beautiful, tall, smart, creative, talented, imaginative little girl. She is so independent or tries to be that I forget she is only 6 some times, and other times I would love to just sit down with her and tie her shoes for her again! Hang on to those moments, they pass to fast. She may look like her daddy, and has his sense of humor, but she loves people and life and loving on people like her mommy.

We where so extremely blessed to learn about Classical Conversations. Then to have it come to our church home was so much more of a blessing. Arianna went to her first class today. As I get to be right there with her, the tutor and other moms and children, I feel so much joy. God is good. The information she is learning this year and what will be taught in class once a week and then carried home all week is mind blowing. She learned all her subjects today, and by the time we come home at them all down and showing of all that she remembered! It was awesome. There will be 160 pcs of info on things from creation to present she will learn, not counting the History timeline, the Bible verses, the science all bible based, the math and english and grammar is wonderful. Can you imagine a 6 year old standing in front of her class once a week and giving a presentation!! She will and did today and many more to come! The best part is we are all there to love and support and lean on each other in the love of Christ. To raise up our children the way God intended and every step they learn is all from God!

We are ready for next week already! More to come!

Thank you God so much for bringing the talents to those who wrote this curriculum and to those who allowed it to come to AMRBC and my house hold. I pray that we learn all we can and lift you up each step of the way!

Arianna Is a 1st Grader and Hunter is three. We are homeschooling!

Okay so today was a Monday for our house. We had all our plans laid out and school lessons all ready. I even let Arianna pick what we did first and second and so on today. But for some reason I had her attention about 20 min and that was it. So after we tried making it more exciting, and trying to give Hunter something better to keep him occupied. Then trying a break and some stretching and coming back with a clear head. And then trying to get Arianna and Hunter to teach each other so that is was fun, which lead to a fight over who should be on the white board first. Then literally sitting down in prayer and asking for peace and focus in out home. Now would it not amaze you that, the one thing I should have tried the first time finally worked. We prayed together and seemed to get focused on each subject and made it through to break time. Now for lunch, Hunters nap and Arianna reading. So what started off a bit rough I think will end very peacefully. Thank you God for your quick answers to our prayers, and let me say I am sorry I didn't look to your first when in need. Lesson learned for all of us in the Owens house. I am now feeling much more encouraged about this week and next week. Arianna will have her new classical conversations classes starting next week on Tuesdays. We are so excited about this and her tutor and i am thrilled to be a help mom in class. So I hope to have much to report next week on how great and successful it will be. i would encourage any home school parent to have their children in Classical conversations by age 5. It is amazing what they will learn and master each year. You should check it out at classicalconversations.com. More schooling to come and now to get pizza for lunch. Of course adding a side of fruit for some nutritents.

Great Reading Info I found today

I was looking for some creative, fun ways to work in school work into fun in Arianna's school days. Hunter spends about 2 hours with us doing school work so I thought if it was more fun, he would enjoy it also. I found this article that was great. How to raise an imaginative child.

I learned that encouraging imagination helps improve vocabulary. Reading, listening and acting all the fairy tales and stories helps them improve voc. It also helps with the taking control part of the mind of a six year old. She wants to control so much of her life, and being able to act out a scene where the princess rescues all the mice and her brother helps her to find good homes, and the King and Queen(of course mom and dad) help feed all of them. Helps her control what she feels like is more than beyond her control. It also helps with social rules. If they all go tot he play ground and create a castle out of the play houses, and then turn it into their own little world and play different parts. I love the Peter Pan part. They learn to interact with other friends in the creation in their mind. Even better is when mom and dad will join in. It is even a problem solver. They early they start with imaginative and creating the better when they get older they can solve problems through the ways they learned to be imaginative.
How do we help as parents was the part I was the most interested in. Read Read Read Books. Share stories, make them up not in a book and share them. Get them to make artwork with what they think, hear, feel, want to do, build play. Arianna loves this one and is awesome at it. She can take almost any image and in her 6 year old way draw or create it. It blows my mind every time she does it. Make music to go with all the things they are playing. Put a song to cleaning, eating, going to bed, going to the store, starting school work, singing ways to be quite. Act out different types of feelings and sad, happy, glad, and more and then how to go from one to the other,. Hunter does great at this and makes the best faces when her shows you how he feels. And of course as any acting coach says use props. Towel rack, chalkboard, sidewalk chalk, bathroom rug into a magic carpet..... But only turn to the computer on occasion. Looking up resources it is great for, but does not leave a lot of room for imagination. TV is even worse. Know all that is fun and can take up a lot for time and interaction. But there is also a limit to it, and accepting in some parts, like the imaginary friend you have to invite to dinner, always make the clean up of the mess as fun as the game, encourage wild ideas that are safe, like building a roller coaster in the back yard. ( I think I want to try that one).
So this is all the info I read and much much more. I loved all the info and wanted to share what I learned with anyone who also has a child with an active imagination and artistic mind. I will share more and would love to hear from others on things you read and learn about. Passing along parent info...

Baby Girl Owens

This is the 18 weeks ultrasound from our new baby girl. Awesome size and shape and growing great. Moving a lot. She moves more at night around 11 pm every night. Arianna is so excited about her baby sister coming. Her due date is Dec 12th. I don't think she will make it that long though. The c-section will be a week early, unless her decides to come early like Arianna did. Arianna was three weeks early!!! We had to drag Hunter out. no really that had to use a suction tool to get him out.. HAHAHA He was also a c-section and 9lbs. I have a May baby and an August baby. A dec. baby is going to be a change. I have a few months to go, but feel like if I don't start getting it all ready now, I will wait and then it will be to late. I know with Arianna I had everything planned to do that weekend, since I had a c-section scheduled three weeks away. Then she decided she wanted out in the middle of the night. I love being a mom and getting to remember all the great ways our children come into the world. Arianna wanted to come early and that is so her personality. Hunter had to be drug out and he is the same now, you have to let him finish everything is in own time. I guess we will see what this one does. I am excited to get colors and clothes and strollers and all the baby stuff for her in the next few months. I actually started buying diapers already and that was the first time it felt like okay now it is time!!! More to share in the future!!!

Arianna turns 6 and we venture to Ocean Lakes

We had a great invite to go to OceanLakes in Myrtle Beach, SC. It was a very nice house and the children had so much fun. There are so many things to do at the campground and hanging on the beach. My niece had a run in with a small jellyfish, bless her she was very tough. Then Hunter had a TV fall on his head and arm and scared Tim and I to death. But other than that it was a great few days. We even had Arianna's 6th Birthday there, which she LOVED. We ran into some wonderful friends from church and they where able to join us for her birthday and she couldn't quit talking about them coming and how happy she was they did. The pool was fun for a little while, but way crowded. I have never seen so many people in one place at one time. Hunter and Arianna played putt putt for the first time on her Birthday and Hunter wanted to play again and again. He wanted Grandpa to play with him, but maybe next time. He may have to wait until he can play big golf with Grandpa. I was a bit stressed at all the schedule and what to do when. But I finally relaxed and tried to just enjoy being there. The baby is 22 weeks along and she is moving a lot. Moves the most at night at 11 pm almost every night. Only a few more months and she will be here and I feel like my to do list is longer and time is to short. We are know back and already started some of Arianna's school work today. i am really looking forward to her attending Classical Conversations at AMRBC. I think it will be a blessing beyond belief. I have loaded the Beach pictures, and in the middle of trying to take the good ones my camera battery died and it got to dark, so maybe next time I will get that perfect beach picture like I wanted. I did however take several pictures of other families I didn't know and theirs where beautiful. I was actually ready to come home and get back to life, which is strange. More often than not I try to run from life....hahaha... I am really happy about what the future holds for our family and all that we are going to learn and experience in the next weeks, months and years ahead. God has a great plan for us and I am anxious to learn what it is, but also wanting it to happen slowly. Our pastor DJ is right about taking a vacation. You tend to come back with a clearer head and friendly manner than when you left. I am reading a new book I want to start posting more about, and still reading Power of a praying Parent. I will let you know how they both are going. Oh yes and the Have a New Kid by Friday really great. I listened to it, but some awesome info we are putting into play this week. I look forward to the awesome outcome, I hope!!! haha Blessings

Pictures from Holly

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