First half of September

Mostly in pictures!

Blessed Virgin Mary's Birthday....yes, we had a cake!  And sang Happy Birthday...(see Isabel singing?)  Iz also thought it was cool that Ian's bumbo was the same color as our homemade cake icing.

 

Then the leaf-cutting bees hatched.  Well, one hatched.  And we rearranged our homeschooling day because of it.

There was napping....

And word-object matching games....

A cross craft for the Exaltation of the Cross Feast!  (She loved using the gems- such a girl!  And we attached the cross to a popsicle stick so she could "Lift High the Cross"!)
 

Then there was the clay-play!  We made the entire crucifixion-resurrection scene out of clay....her idea, not mine.

And had more nap time........

Then there was the rash.
I think this was a contact rash from a teething ring.  It lasted about a day and a half....Ian is teething hard these days.  The two top teeth are coming in (along with 2 others I think).  The first top one (his top right) sort of broke through yesterday...there was a hole there anyway.

And that's pretty much the first half of our month in pictures!

Really Rockin'

Ian, Really Rockin' at 5 months!

Hard to keep up!

These days it is hard to "Keep up with Isabel and Ian"!!  At least as far as blogging goes!  I am so far behind!

We are homeschooling Isabel again this year for Kindergarten.  She started on Labor Day, September 5th, so we are just into the middle of our 2nd week.  It is going to be a great year!  She jumped right into school that day!  Daddy made chocolate M&M pancakes for breakfast for the first day of school...here is a picture from Labor Day.

I found this fun idea for making your own chalkboard portraits and had Isabel draw the members of her family:

Some other pics:  We made our own watercolors!  Very neat!  directions here:  http://www.magicalchildhood.com/crafts/watercolors.htm

Those turned out just gorgeous!  We used them to paint these glue-salt-watercolor art that I found here:  http://artfulparent.typepad.com/artfulparent/2009/08/glue-salt-watercolors-salty-watercolors.html

They were BEAUTIFUL!!!  Isabel thought this was really cool...and the salt just sort of absorbed the watercolors.

Finally here are some pics of her To-Do Chart that we implemented for the school year.  Of course she was already doing all these household chores already, but I needed a "system" to give her some responsibility for getting these things done rather than me nagging her ;)  This worked...she loves being able to take the card off the front and move it to the back when she is done.  We have started giving her 10 cents a day if she completes the chores that I set out for her.  When she gets 10 dimes she may trade them in for a dollar and she has also started saving and giving to the church from the money she earns. 

Siblings

Ian's Up....

On hands and knees now, that is!  At 5 months now he is rocking back and forth on his hands and knees, he has still just the two front bottom teeth, but he is gnawing hard.  He weighs about 14lbs.  He loves bathtime, is very ticklish and smiles so easily...still melting my heart!