Miley 7 & 8 months

These past two months have been huge for Miley! She has gone from sitting up to crawling over night!  She started by scooting around it was really cute she wouldn't use her hands and arms she just moved her legs... so she looked like an inch worm.

 To say that she has discovered her voice is an under statement!

Little inch worm... so cute!

 She still has that thumb!

 Finally using her arms :)

Big brother loves to play with Miley. Jackson is very sweet with his little sister. 

Miley 8 months old

Miley has discovered to scream!  And I mean SCREAM!  When she is happy, sad, mad, hungry!  You name it she screams!  She also insisted on eating table food... I mean screamed for it!  During Addison's Bday party she saw a club cracker and screamed and so we gave her one... she gobbled it up in no time and screamed for another one!  She is so cute and funny!  So I bought the puffs and started her on those and some cheerios.  Since she has been crawling she follows me around the house like a little puppy.  Where ever I go so follows me :).  Like two days after she started crawling she pulled herself up to her knees and has also climbed onto the fireplace hearth!  That is favorite place to go!

                                          Miley likes her stickers now... She won't leave them on!

                                                                   Playing with Daddy!

Schooling

School is going great!  My goal for this year is to make learning fun!  After all it is fun and we are doing first grade, kindergarten and pre-k.... that should be fun!  Last year was very much let's get the meat of the lesson done! Taylor would complain a lot and say school is boring. :(  I was pregnant and then had a newborn.  I also had to turn stuff in with the virtual school.  So with no pressure and being accountable to ourselves by not doing virtual this year... we are having fun! That is my goal... we may be having to much fun though... Nah! Never! I am so thankful to God for providing this for us!  

My Father's World is hands on learning curriculum.  We do phonics and reading too which is very important.  But we go outside and explore the things that we are learning about or make something to go along with what we're learning.  It's a lot more work, a bigger mess and takes us longer to do a lesson BUT totally worth it!  And I tell myself that every school day.  Messes can clean up just go for it! 

So the first week we learned about creation.  On day 2 God Made the Sky, we went outside and looked at the clouds, we looked for shapes in the clouds and learned there are different types of clouds.  We had fun taking pictures too! 

I got this idea from Pinterest.  If you take a bar of ivory soap in the  microwave it forms a cloud.  Very cool. So we did this and the kids thought it was awesome!  It comes out of the microwave all in one piece so it's not that messy.  You can just crumble it up after it's out, we tore it apart in our bath that night. 

Taylor's art that week was to make a clay pot... yes I said MAKE a clay pot, out of corn starch and some other stuff.  I was not to excited about trying that one... but willing.  I was talking to a friend at church about that and she said just paint pots!  Ummm YES!  Why didn't I think of that!  So we painted pots instead of making them.  Taylor learned that in Bible times people wrote on a scroll and the scrolls were stored in clay pots.

We did a picture for each day of creation.  They turned out really cute.  I should of taken a picture of all of them... Oh well... we turned them into a book so they could keep them.  Anywho... for Day 7 the directions were to put the number 7 on a white sheet of paper and nothing else... for God Rested.  Taylor did this on her own... she made a bed out of a foam sheet and glued it to the paper and drew God.  At first I couldn't tell what it was and asked her to tell me about it... she said "It's God resting in bed!"  I love this! :) 

Catty Shack Ranch

Our second field trip with our homeschool group was to Catty Shack Ranch.  Catty Shack Ranch is a wild cat rescue they fully run on donations.  If you live in Jacksonville and haven't been you need to go!  The zoo is cool and all but you really get to see the wild cats up close and see them play instead of just lay there (like they do at the zoo) We had a great time and heard the lions ROAR, yes they did!  I think I was more excited than the kids.  But it was just sooo cool!

All us moms with little ones were so thankful for these golf carts!

Addison and Payton

Freddy, as soon as we were leaving he started to roar!  So we walked back and watched him show off for us!

The Cougars... someone had one of them as a pet!  Seriously what do some people think!  Yeah I'd like a cougar as a pet... MmmHmm..

There were 5 tiger cubs they were so adorable playing in the mud.

 Mazie Grace

The Locklear's and Miley

This lion literally pounced at the fence towards us! 

 Told ya...

I can't even tell you how this felt as a mother... 2 of my babies standing there and a lion pouncing, roaring and growling at us!  Uhhh yeah... so what there was 2 fences between us... we moved farther away after that.  It was awesome don't get me wrong... but it was better from a distance for me. :)

Caleb and Mazie Grace

Angie and Hannah

Some of the kids. My brother and sister played hookie and joined us! 

Jackson ready to take off with the go cart!

I kinda took the long way home and by long way I mean we drove a circle around Jacksonville to get home. I still don't know how I did that!  Anywho... everyone fell asleep except Addison and Miley.