A Mountain Man in the Making

In general:

• Our school co-op asked me to take pictures of the kiddos for the yearbook. I'm looking forward to shooting again. I love that it makes me feel creative.
• We found a precious church. It is a little drive from where we live but they have AWANA on Wednesday nights and a class for disabled children on Sunday morning (I got a warm feeling all over when I heard about this. No doubt another blessing of God's provision).
  
• Still waiting for our things. The move involved two companies (we found out about this after we were en route) and one company hadn't paid the second company despite being paid in full (by us) themselves. Obviously, they aren't allowed to hold a customer's items hostage so we contacted the proper authorities and finally have the okay to have our things delivered this afternoon.
  

• will be Pocahontas for "Faces of History" tomorrow night. Her song is "I'm a native American, born in 1595. My daddy is Powhatan. I belong to the Algonquin tribe." (sung to the tune of "Found a Peanut")
• We found a fun video on photosynthesis and Leila learned the plant systems.

In general

• We are thrilled to have found a Classical Conversations community. The families are amazing and so welcoming. Leila has jumped right in. Every week the children give a little presentation in front of their peers (different topic each time) to get them used to the idea of speaking in front of a group. They also have a history sentence to memorize, Latin endings, English grammer, math, science, music, and geography. We have a Curriculum Guide but we can use it as the backbone and add our own resources as well.
  
• On Tuesday we will be going to see a UNC-A presentation of Peter and the Wolf

Luke

• Luke's teacher said he has been amazed at Luke's initiative over the last few weeks. He has not needed any physical prompts for several of his activities but has completed tasks on his own.
  

Leila

• Continues to do well in her Math-U-See primer. Using the blocks with her book helps her to see the numbers and she enjoys doing her pages. Her quota is 3 pages a day.
  
• Memorizing prepositions.
  
• Learned the parts of a flower today and dissected one in order to label the parts.

Liam

• Can count to ten.
• Is enjoying a daily dose of Starfall and can recognize several letters now.
  

Challenges:

• Not having all of our books and furniture. The moving company has been a disaster and we would love to be able to dive into reading again.
  

Successes:

• Finding a network of Christian Homeschooling families that also use the Classic Methods in The Well-Trained Mind. It's amazing how God puts all the pieces together. He truly has.
  

From our New Space

Look closely, you can you see her?

In Time for the Holidays!

The timing couldn't be better in terms of our move to Asheville. We missed the peak of the leaves apparently but boy, not by much. It is stunning.

But the road trip was also an education in and of itself in so many ways. Driving through this great country...talk about some colorful cultures.

Don't get me wrong...I love California. On my first visit my eyes were opened to colors I never knew existed. There is a reason they make movies out there. The lighting is just different. Brighter.
But everyone caught on and now there are
just
so
many
people.

There were times I felt that I just couldn't breathe because of the traffic and because it was so easy to begin to feel like a number.

But it doesn't seem fair to not pay beautiful California it's proper respects.
We are still busy with the business of learning (after all, this is the homeschool blog now) but I thought I'd post a few pictures paying homage to the good ole sunny state...

Goodbye to California

It's unbelievable to think that we only have a little more time here in this house.

I am trying to keep the details in my memory.

Our Math Book Arrived!

And today we practiced the letter "L" and the number "3".

The CarlinZoo Homeschool

In general:

• Planning our road trip across the US! So I'm busy collecting busy/educational activities for 6 days in the car.
  
• I've ordered the Math-U-See primer to start on some basic math concepts. It should arrive before the trip.
• We are listening to the original version of Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. Six days in a van should be enough time to finish that.
  
• We might even get through The Bible Experience

Luke

• continues to work on letter and number recognition and potty training every 20 minutes. We are obviously going to have to put this on hold during the trip

Leila

• Can read small words and once something is read to her she usually is able to repeat it almost verbatim so she is kind of getting the reading concept by memorizing the words.
  
• Some favorites right now: Madeline, Franklin and Beatrix Potter

Liam

• He's not recognizing any letters yet and I can't help thinking of how Leila knew her letters by this time but it's hard not to compare the two. I need not too.
• He loves to push buttons and put things together. I think he's going to be an engineer.
  

Challenges:

• Liam's scheduling and not wanting to sit at all. Leila would sit on my lap and listen to stories read to her when she was his age. But he wants to be included of course. So this has been a little challenging.

Successes:

• I've realized with the help of a wise friend that when it comes to homeschooling one of the most important things for me to instill in my children is the love of learning. It isn't most of the concepts that they will actually remember but rather, it is the love and desire to learn which will help them academically.
• And both Liam and Leila love to sit and look at books more than almost anything else. I'll count that as a little success.

For next week:

• Start the Math-U-See program daily and introduce Leila to general math concepts.
• Make more of a conscious effort to go over all the alphabet and numbers to each Luke and Liam each day.
• Introduce mini piano lessons (10 min)
• Spanish?

Top of Your Kid with a Lid

Pancakes and fruit this morning before church.

Before we brushed our hair, Leila had a little read in Milly-Molly-Mandy.

My friend Kara, of Eli's Lids, interviewed me again on her blog.

She gave us a lid for Leila and I couldn't wait to put her in it and take a few pics.

We Got the Call!

Rob will be boarding a plane for an interview in Asheville on the 10th of September. I can't tell you how relieved I am that we are at the next step. You already know.
To be able to move my children over to the east coast would be an absolute dream come true.

Meeting Mike Colon was beyond amazing. He was gracious and kind. I learned so much and I feel like I have been handed a golden opportunity because of the knowledge I've learned.

The decision has been made to focus only on engagement and wedding photography. Changing my look and feel a bit. I'll take child and family shoots for friends and family but my real love is brides, and the celebration of marriage. Being able to capture that would be an immeasurable blessing.
These images were taken less than a mile from Mike Colon's house. More about the day later -- so much information and golden nuggets of wisdom to try to put it in a blog post yet.
Nighty night, all.
xoxo, Gina

Luke's tantrums got pretty bad last week. He would scream for hours. After an emergency phone call to Dr. Jerry we put him on Motrin three times a day and a laxative to clean him out. The Motrin seemed to be working because he seemed like a different boy on Wednesday (the day after the call). It's been an easier week but then he started his tantrums up again last night. He started screaming, out of the blue, with seemingly no precursor. When he screams it's almost as if someone is scraping the inside of your skull with a fingernail file. It is jarring and loud and it is almost impossible to concentrate on anything at all when the tantrums come. One more week until school starts. After Luke took his newly messed underpants off and spread the contents the length of the living room this morning, I am wondering if we'll make it...

His grace is sufficient.
Besides, I get to spend all Tuessday at Mike Colon's workshop so what am I complaining about?

Bernard

Bernard has been a friend of Rob's for over 20 years and a friend of mine for as long as I've known Rob.
After Rob and I were married he took me to Paris, but before we left, we stayed for a couple of nights in Bernard's flat in London. So we go way back.
Bernard lives in DC now so we get to see him a bit more often. The last time we saw him I was pregnant with Leila.

I had a beautiful time with my friend Donna on Friday as well. I am blessed and grateful for friends.
xoxo, Gina

Friday Tea Party

My sweet friend Donna brought her two lovely girls over to share the morning with us.

After they left Leila said, "I wish they could stay with us forever."
Yes, friends are priceless...

We're so blessed...
xoxo, Gina

The Pool and My Attitude

At my place in life I've realized that there have to be some "sanity savers" firmly in place.
My faith in Christ and my complete trust in Him to answer all of life's questions in his own time is the first and most reassuring.
After that, there is this place. Our pool.
All the kids love to swim.

At the beginning of summer, Leila wasn't putting her head under water.
Now she is jumping in and going completely under.
She is reaching well and kicking and learning to hold her breath.
I'm so proud of her.


Those were a couple of miscellaneous shots of Liam in the garage...totally unrelated. I just liked his orange shirt.
So back to the pool.

This place even has a great locker room with sauna and steam room and jacuzzi and then there's the work out area and gym. Now if I could just get my keister out of bed in the mornings before the kiddos wake up to work out. I'm weird about the child care. I just can't leave them hardly anywhere for more than a few minutes.
I know I'll have to give that up at some point.

For anyone wondering, there is still no word from Asheville. We haven't heard of anyone getting the position but Rob has not been called for an interview either. There is still hope but I am praying for the right attitude. I will officially close off the possibility in my mind at the end of this month. At that point I'll change my focus back over here and do what I can to make this the best possible home for my Rob and the kids. I've got to try not to be sad.

Happy Wedding Day, Kely and Jud!

A new park.

Liam doesn't like to keep his hat on.

I get away with a few minutes here and there.

How did he get this big.
It makes no sense.

Seeing Leila in this hat makes me realize I am kind of a hat fanatic in hot weather.

But it's hot out there.

The OC Blogger Ball

Such fun to meet some online friends on Saturday night.
Here's Jen from Jen Johnson Photography.

And the awesome Kara Noel from Eli's Lids.

Marcy, from The Glamorous Life Association was our gracefully beautiful hostess:

Here's Carrie with the most amazing dress from the fifties and she got it from this amazing new thrift shop that I'm dying to get to. Carrie has a blog called This Mamma Makes Stuff. Everything from sewing to mountain biking. So cool.


And then there was the food. Don't get me started.

I could kiss them.

What a fun night. I love my blog buddies. Friends online are friends indeed. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

And sometimes there is fancy food involved.
Thank you Marcy, Suzanne and all my lovely OC bloggers.
xoxo Gina

We watched Gigi for movie night on Friday.
We went to the pool today and Leila jumped off the side for the first time. And then she did it 20 times.
Only a few weeks ago she was afraid to put her head under water.

And I also went nuts and cut Leila's bangs yesterday.
I was trying to grow out her bangs and it took me over a year to realize it was too much of a pain to have her hair back in a clip each day

Rob watched the kiddos tonight from 7 on while I went to the OC Blogger Ball.
A few photies to come...

Answer to Mom's Request to Send "A Picture a Day or Threreabouts"

The last day for the Asheville office to receive applications is Friday. Hopefully Rob will get a call for an interview shortly thereafter. I've always been someone who has a really difficult time with not knowing what is right around the corner. Will we be in California or in North Carolina in the fall? How do I plan? Do I start cleaning out the garage? Packing boxes? Obviously, no but the suspense is brutal.

I went last night to the OC Smug Meeting . I got to meet the talented Jamine Star and Jessica Claire. I am blown away but the generosity of this photographer community. I love being a part of it. I feel honored. I love loving what I do. That's what only about %20 of people who have careers can say...isn't that unbelievable?

Since we've been watching the television series, "Little House on the Prairie", I've picked up the first book, "On the Shores of Plum Creek" and have been using it as our read aloud for the last couple of days. I remember reading it when I was little but had completely forgotten how descriptive and sweet this series is. I strongly recommend it for the young learners in your family.

Dwight in Disneyland

Here we are in the most "magical place on earth". Who knew the most magical place would be so crowded and hot.

Here are my stunned Disneyland first timers. "What IS this place?"

Yes, he wore his cowboy hat to Disneyland. Makes my heart go all fluttery. Isn't he handsome even in his Dwight Yokoam phase?

Four

We celebrate Leila's fourth birthday tomorrow.
Yes, you know it's going to go fast because, as your children are growing up, someone tells you just about every day.

But I wasn't prepared for lightening speed.
Nothing has prepared me for the conversations we've had and the joy I've experienced as the Mama of this little girl.

In so many ways it seems that God sent her to Rob and I to save our sanity, help give us back our joy, our lives. It's a lot of weight for two little shoulders to carry but she's already filled the role. There's nothing left for her to do but smile.

Happy Birthday, Sunshine
********
Someone pinch me.
Rob was actually talking about which car we would need to take should Asheville work out.
I am trying to keep my feet on the ground but we would live no more than 3 hours from everyone in my family (not including extended relatives).
This is way too exciting to be true.
I've called the regional centers and school districts to get specifics about what kinds of therapies we could get for Luke. I am waiting to hear back from most of the people I've called but at this point I am thinking that we will make it work however we have to because it's about quality of life for ALL of us.

Night, night ~
xoxo Gina

Recently Rob, out of the blue, brought up Asheville, North Carolina and said it might be a nice place to live. "It's beautiful there." I said, not thinking much about it. A few nights later he brought his resume to me and asked me to take a look at it. Believe it or not, it actually took me a few days to put it together.

Rob used to work with someone who now works in the Asheville office and the head of the office called to see if Rob would be interested in a newly-opened position. I am trying not to get my hopes up but I really don't know how not too. If we lived in Asheville we would be no further than 2 hours from every single member of my family and my children can grow up with their cousins. I can't remember the last time I was hoping for something this much. Since it hit me FINALLY yesterday, and I looked up the job and saw the posting, I've been praying literally almost non-stop that this could work out for us. I love California and I've met some wonderful people and made some beautiful friendships but this would be a dream come true. I'm trying desperately to live in the now and be thankful for where I am.

But when the kids were napping this afternoon I spent almost an hour on Google Earth touring Asheville. I am on the edge of my seat. In the next few weeks I am going to be either elated or very disapointed. I hope I handle whichever is meant to be with the appropriate measure of grace.

Bullet Points

Today we finished Milly Molly Mandy and tomorrow, for movie night, we'll be watching Anne of Green Gables, the sequel. Popcorn included. Who am I fooling? It's popcorn night with a little bit of movie watching thrown in.

• There was a substitute sensei in Leila's karate class tonight and he kept calling Leila "Leela" but she said "That's okay, he can call me that if he wants."

• We've decided on a language program -- Rosetta Stone. We'll go through level 1-3 of Spanish and then level 1-3 of French. I think that will take them up to 7th or 8th grade and then we'll spend some time with Latin.

• And for math, it looks like it will be Math-U-See. Like so many, I wasn't much for math in school and I wanted to find a way to make it interesting and...let's be honest...easy. I think I may have found it with Math-U-See.
  
• I love all the concepts in The Well Trained Mind and am planning on pretty much following it to the letter. The website is chock full of useful tidbits.
• On the "issues" front, Leila is wanting to talk back to me a bit (okay, a lot) and we are working on saying only, "okay [or] yes, Mommy" rather than her offering her whole line up of "if"s, "and"s and "but"s. Liam issue is SCREAMING! He screams when he's happy and he screams when he cries. I must curve this habit NOW! So not fun.
• We've read through the beautifully-written, Wind in the Willows recently but I'm thinking of picking it up again.
• I love Voddie Baucham
  
• Liam loves to kiss and it looks something like this:
  

• 
  

Four

My little tiny baby girl is going to be four and has legs up to here.

We've decided to go for it and go to Disneyland.

I think four is kind of the magical age. It's going too fast.

Way to fast.

I vacillate on whether or not to keep this blog going but I'm attached to it for some reason. I'll use it for candid shots and nothin' too fancy.

Nighty night,
Gina

Wordless Wednesday

Onigashimasu, Sensei

For more on Leila's karate debut, click on over to Monkey Moon.

Time for change...

From now on, I have only one blog. I'd love for each and everyone of my Spicy, Savvy & Sane readers to follow me there.
Monkey Moon

Ciao, Spicy, Savvy.
See you at Monkey Moon!
Love, Gina

A shot from a recent shoot.
Such sweetie pies.
All the kids were bathed and fed when I got home from my shoot this evening.
I need to be cleaning out my closets.
And preparing Luke's lunch for tomorrow.
I'll get to that.
Right now, I have a date with my computer.
Rob is taking the train to a more religiously fundamentalist area of Bangladesh tomorrow.
Khulna.
Sounds scary.
I'll be so happy to have this trip behind us.
Goodnight all ~

Monkey Moon Photography * Orange County Photographer * Anna and Baby Rainbow

I took this photos of this bubbly charmer last weekend.
Mom, Liam and I spent eight hours on the road on Friday driving to Sacramento.
What are all those groves on the side of the 5?
I think I'm going to have to look that one up.

For more of my work and for more frequent updates check out Monkey Moon Photography Blog.


Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

One of my previous blog posts was posted on the amazing Blessed Nest Perch Blog. Blessed Nest is a company that sells these adorable organic nursing pillows. If you or anyone you know is having a baby anytime in the future, these nursing pillows are a must-have.They come in the most precious shapes and patterns and they are dreamily comfortable.

Thank you, Heather and Donna for the honor of allowing me and Luke to appear on your blog!

The Lamb was Delish

Mom has arrived!
It's great to have the Nana in town.
I think we'll go to Bubblefest at some point this week.
Trying to be a good and faithful blogger, facebooker and twitter as I think it might be good for business.
My Skye Hardwick workshop is this weekend (forgive the lack of links -- it's late and I'm feeling a little lazy). I'm really looking forward to it!