Christmastime Piano and Last Field Trip

The Christmas Piano Recital was wonderful this year. The girls did great, Ainsley really worked hard to overcome a hard song. So proud of her. I love this picture of them - they were joking around before the recital got started... They are so funny together.


Here are their songs.

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For our last field trip of homeschooling, we went to see Santa Claus and go Ice Skating. It was a wonderful last adventure together.


Here they are helping buddy next to the HUGE Christmas Tree at the Galleria.

Violin Recital

It was a wonderful Fall Recital. The girls and Anderson did great. They have worked so hard, I'm super proud of them all. In January, it has been 4 years since Alexandra started violin and our family started down this path. 2 1/2 years for Ainsley. 6 months for buddy. It is super sweet. Here are the silly cutie pies!

Anderson's first recital. He did his pizzicato.





Ainsley played Long, Long Ago




Alexandra played Etude

Watching the kids learn....

Here is Ainsley in Ballet. This Ballet studio is very interesting and actually funny in a way. These two teachers are the ONLY two teachers. Mr. Bill (husband) warms the girls up for the first 30 minutes. Ms. Ann then comes in and teaches the girls further technique the last hlaf.

The only thing they teach at this studio is ballet. No tap, modern, jazz, etc. They have been the only two teachers for I think around 50 years (seriously) as you can tell!! BUT, these two folks have sent many many girls on to become bigtime ballerinas... NYC Ballet. Pennsylvania Ballet Company and more... They currently still produce these high quality ballet dancers. Anyway, Ainsley loves Ballet and I think it's so adorable to see her learning. They let us have an observation yesterday so I recorded some little things.

Notice the RECORD PLAYER they use. It's very old school! Literally.









I had Ainsley record Anderson learning his first "rhythms" on his violin. It has been NINE MONTHS to get this far. It will hurt your ears, but I wish I would have recorded this stage with the girls... It's sweet and NOT as easy as you may think!!




Here is Ainsley learning her new piece Perpetual Motion. Ms. Kathy breaks down the pieces into learnable chunks. This is Ainsley's first step to Perpetual Motion. Alexandra is accompanying her while she learns...

Am I lazy or busy?

Okay, both. But mainly a good mixture of Preggo Laziness mixed with Homeschool Busy. So, here is my Blog Catchup! We've been up to all kinds of Fall Activities. But here are some highlights....

I love Anderson's hair long, but we decided to get his hair cut. He LOVES to go to Sports Clips because those ladies are sooo sweet to him.

Gdad came in town to buy a house! Gma and Gdad now live in Rockwall. Here is Gdad reading the boys Spiderman!

Alexandra picked a recipe out of my Cuisine at Home mags and decided she wanted some Pork Ribs! She made the rub and did the entire thing by herself. I cut them up for her. Ainsley reeeeally wanted to make "the side." So she made a list of fruit, I was sent to the store to get them and she made Fruit Kabobs! It was one yummy dinner.

Alexandra insisted on "plating the food." We've been watching a lot of 'Chopped!'

While making lunch, Ainsley wanted me to take a picture of her bell pepper that was heart shaped "so she could remember it forever!"

Here is Lexi's Magnetics creation - they play with these while I cook dinner....

Our Favorite friends of all time came in town!!! Yay!! Lori, Michael and Avery. Here are the kiddos watching the ducks... We had such a fantastic time. I sooo wish they lived in Dallas. Anderson WORSHIPS Michael.

Here is a busy day at school. In the middle of the day, the kids have started running laps! TEN! Down the front steps, they go left and around to the side porch. Each of them really works up a sweat doing these laps. I've been coming up with a game to play with them in the front yard after the laps. Moving Statues and Chimp Race. They love it... Anyway, during the laps, Anderson has fallen THREE times and torn up his knees. They were so bad I bet they'll be lifetime scars. But, here he is "resting his knees" while coloring.... Poor baby.

Here is Aunt Shelly watching Emma play Pin-the-hat-on-the-Turkey! We had a great Thanksgiving with Lathan, Michelle, Gma and Gdad.

Stan already has our lights up and I have a head start on Christmas shopping this year! Merry Christmas Season and Happy Wintertime!

Scary and Fun Fall

We have had our ups and downs this Fall Season...

- Volleyball season ended. But it was a great experience and Alexandra LOVED every part of it.

- Anderson got super sick. Bad bad virus.

- Our Psychotic neighbors stole our cat. Yes, you read that correctly. They took her, sent her off so she would not be an Outside Cat.... I better not keep typing about this or things will get ugly.

- Halloween was super fun, although Anderson was still recovering. But he did trick-or-treat for one block and came home. Girls had a GREAT time and I have very much appreciated all the chocolate sneaking opportunities I have had since they brought their loot home. Well, it's not me, it's the baby that's happy about it...

- We had our last Ice Skating Lesson.

- Homeschooling is crusing along very nicely. My favorite remark of the last two weeks is this,
"Mom! I just noticed that all the History, Latin, Religion, our Language, Handwriting and the books we are reading all relate to each other! Did you realize that Mom? All the maps we read are in the same region and the timeframes are all similar. It's so cool...!"
Y'all know I could not stop smiling.Who says my customized Classical Study plan would not work!!!! :D

This was my very sick little boy at the doctor. Basically, it was typical virus but he ended up having a fever for several days that meds, baths and various things could not break. It was so sad. In fact, it has taken him a few days to heal, even after he started feeling better. This was a bad one and was tough to see him so sick.

Here are my scary trick-or-treaters! Then a crazy animal tried to come eat them!




Here are my cuties at their last Ice Skating Lesson. All 3 got sooo much out of these lessons. If it wasn't such a schedule hog, I would continue these lessons... But, I think we are going to stop. We'll see how we feel come January.

"Y'all come here - let me take her picture!"



"Okay, you can go skate now..." :)


Happy November everyone!

We've been adopted?

Yesterday was a normal morning. The dogs woke me up wanting to go outside, I stumbled downstairs and let them out. Then all of a sudden, Lincoln goes completely insane and I had to go get him so he didn't wake up our whole house and the neighbors. As I was being ignored by him, I got closer to see a cat *on it's back* scared to death of this giant chocolate noise maker!

I dragged him back inside and woke Stan up. There was a little kitten who looked injured, clearly scared to death stuck on our property - how he got in our fortified back yard is still a question. But, the kitten is probably 2 weeks old and still very small so somehow she squeezed thru.

Here is Stan crawling around trying to get this little critter! We finally captured her and put her in a box then a crate and took her to the front porch b/c the dogs reeeeally wanted to go back outside and get that cat!


Here she is slurping up milk - not sure if you are supposed to give cats milk or not??


So, now here are Stan and I talking.....

"What do we do with this thing?"

"Should we tell the kids? Of course, we have to, they'd love to hold a little kitten."

"I wonder if Lathan and Michelle would take it? Maybe Becky...! Here, let's text them."


The kids wake up and stumble downstairs....

"We have a surprise for you." We explain what happened as their eyes grew bigger and bigger...

"But, we can NOT keep the cat! Does everyone understand?" They all nod... "You can go look at it but we have to find it a home ASAP. No cats here!"


Those little demon children said, "of course Moooom, we know THAAAAT.......... WHERE IS IT?!?!?!!?"

"On the front porch...."

"Mom, she is pretty!"

"Mom! We can call her Mittens because all 4 of her feet are white!" Great, the thing has a name now....

We got them dressed and they wanted to hold, "Mitzy...."


So, Becky brought Mittens some food. Aunt Shellie came to the rescue and offered to take Mittens for us, but since they have lost 2 cats in a year b/c of the wild animals where they live, Mitzy was sure to meet certain death and the kids know this.....

So, at this point, we opened the crate to let her roam free, if she stays, we'll feed her, we figured... Well, the cat apparently is NOT stupid and has not budged from our front porch!

She runs up and down the steps, hides under the bushes, sits in the little crevice of the flower pots and generally has a pretty good time entertaining herself. So, I guess we have an OUTDOOR cat named Mittens. She may also get injured and die from the cars on our busy corner or a wild animal in Munger Place - I know they are around because they are always breaking into our Dog Food. Oh, what to do....

But the kids just looooove her so much. I'm making them wash their hands every time they touch her. Not sure how long this is going to last...

Anyway, we now have a zoo. Our own little Lewis Family Zoo. 2 dogs, 3 fish, 1 cat and almost 4 kids. It's a zoo alright! Life is good.

9 great years!

It is amazing to see how much Alexandra has grown. She is 9 going on 25 intellectually. But her heart is still as sweet as any little 9 year old girl. She is special, precious and so much fun. She has had a great birthday, according to her. She got her ears pierced, FINALLY, fun presents and a fun party.

Here is her cute cake for her small Movie Party!



Here is her favorite present! Here she is starting to type thank you letters. It's taking her some time to get used to it - but she has already read the instructions front to back. Progress being made....! It's a great typewriter, it has that old school sound as she types. As well as the old school courier font. She loves this thing.


Her happiest moment by far this birthday......

Thank you God for these last nine years. I don't deserve these 3 amazing kids, but THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. Happy Birthday Alexandra Elizabeth, I'm looking forward to my last nine years with you here with me all the time. I love you so much. You are one fabulous person.

Two Crazy Weeks

Well, one of the benefits of Homeschooling is you can be flexible with your schedule. I think the last two weeks we took it to the extreme. This week we are going to get back on track. Here was week 1.

Monday (Cleaning day, Volleyball practice, Piano/Violin) - we did a tad of school but it is very hard b/c Mary comes and does her magic. In the evening we had Volleyball practice and Violin and got home at 8pm.

Tuesday (Scripture Study, Ice Skating Lessons, Doctor Appt, Ballet and 1st Volleyball Game) - Again, we did a few little things but our day was jammed packed. It was a super fun day to boot! Got confirmation that we are having a little boy!

They are really enjoying their Ice Skating Lessons. They have a super cheap price for Homeschoolers or we would not have added this activity. Still, they are really getting a lot out of it and having a GREAT time!

Is this the cutest thing you have ever seen or WHAT? Alexandra LOVES Volleyball!

Wednesday (Saw the play Miss Nelson is Missing and Soccer Practice) - The super fabulous Dallas Children's Theatre allowed all homeschoolers to attend this great production for FREE! So the 4 of us went and had a great time. Enjoyed a lunch out and went home and got buddy ready for Soccer Practice.

Thursday (Tour of the Dallas Cowboys Stadium! Spanish Class and Gymnastics) - Holy cow - this was the most fun ever. They offered a Homeschool Day so it was pretty cheap. The stadium was really neat and the kids loved it as much as I did. The architecture was just crazy cool and interesting. The kids got to run all over the field and go to the locker rooms. One of the most fun things we have done. Then of course we hurried back for our Spanish Class then off to Gymnastics where we saw Nastia Luiken Training! Yes, the World Gold All around Olympic Champion! COOL!

Here are some Cowboys Stadium Tour Pics!

The interview table!

Future Field General?? He got to try on Tony Romo's Jersey.

Future Cowboys Cheerleaders??

Amazing Screen and Size - so cool!

Friday (School work, of course!) ;)

Weekend and the Next Week - Halloween Decorations then started the Countdown to OU/tx! We had our annual get together with our friends and we had a totally great time. The entire week was getting the house together, food shopping and a little school work. Mumsie and Grandaddy came in town on Wednesday and took the kids to the fair! Mumsie and the kids made a pumpkin cake and had a great time. Then, Nadine, James and Baby Saryn arrived on Thursday - and Amy Scott and Elise arrived on Friday. The whole fam had a great and memorable time. We love this weekend so much. Everyone stayed up waaaay too late and laughed a whole bunch. Us girls got in some shopping and watched a FAB football game! BOOMER SOONER!!