Noah's Spring Time Antics

Ahhh, our Noah - he definitely keeps us entertained! From always being ready for a good water fight...

to being Santa Claus in the tub...

to making baseball man, we never quite know what he's going to do.

He's got a great imagination, spending a good part of his day pretending to be someone other than Noah. His creativity also comes out through lots and lots of drawing and artwork. This is an art piece he made at school that was hung in the school hallway for a time.

Some character from Minecraft, at least that's what he tells me.

He loves to hang his art work next to his bed. As one can see, there's a ton of it! He goes through reams and reams of paper!

He also came home from school one day with these little clay donuts that he had made. So cute! He was very proud of them and they are still displayed on his windowsill.

He finished up 1st grade this year and a few days before school ended I got to join Noah and the other first graders for a huge picnic.

He ate with me for a few minutes and then he took off with his sweet little friend Ava.

Another big thing that kept Noah busy this spring was baseball. He was finally done with t-ball (yay!) and had a really fun season with his Pirates teammates. Although this team was seriously the Bad News Bears, all the boys did try really hard and there was definitely some improvement by the end of the season.

Go get that ball, Noah!

I absolutely LOVE his batting stance!

Following in the footsteps of his favorite O's player, Matt Wieters, Noah decided to give catching a try. With a little help from David...

he's all ready to go!

Now he just needs to work on the whole "catching" the ball thing...but he sure looks cute back there.

Noah did earn the game ball one night with a really great catch. Before he headed out to the field I told him that he needed to work on moving to where the ball is hit because the ball is NEVER just hit right to a person. Well, some kid hits a pop fly right to Noah who was playing 2nd base and without Noah having to move an inch, not even his glove which he happened to have sticking out in front of his body, plop, that ball just landed right in Noah's glove! And thank goodness Noah kept a hold on it! Play of the game, the parents went nuts, including me and David, and Noah got the game ball!

End of season celebratory pizza party.

Coach Jason had some nice things to say about Noah and his development as a player.

Cute team picture.

Noah and Coach Jason.

Noah has decided that it is awesome to pose for pictures with his eyes crossed. How 'bout that!

Homeschool Graduate!

We did it!!! Savannah completed 6th grade at home!! And what a year it was. Sure, there were a few tears here and there, some definite tough days, and a whole lot of prayers, but on the whole it was a wonderful year of learning and growing together and I'm so glad we did it.
Savannah was able to complete all the coursework we had set out for her to accomplish and enjoyed most of it. Science was one of her favorites, especially the labs we did. Here she is testing her nerve endings for an experiment in the Nervous System Unit.

Although I loved studying the body, Savannah was ho-hum about it; she especially hated the Reproductive Unit and moaned and groaned her way through the unit. One afternoon as she was doing some colorings of the male reproductive system, Xander came into her room and, upon seeing her work, exclaimed, "Does Mom know you have that?" Pretty funny kids!
Anatomy took us from September to mid-March and then we moved onto Biology which included units on plants, trees, and flowers. The timing was perfect so that her flower unit activities included planting some in our front yard.

History was her favorite and her year of study took us from Ancient Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt all the way through Classical Greece and the Roman Empire. I always tried to include lots of art projects for her!

Not only did Savannah luck out with her Bird Study by having a family of robins right out our back door but some church friends decided to raise quail and invited her over several times to check out the birds' progression from eggs to several weeks after birth.

The birds started hatching on Mother's Day so we hurried over right after church to watch!

They grew very quickly, just like the robins.

Savannah's most hated subject? Grammar!!! She loathed it! Oh, what joy there was in our home when she completed her book in April!

I felt a reward was definitely in order for her perseverance!

Savannah worked hard all day long, going from 8:30 to 3:15 each and every day. But we did allow for some fun times as well. One afternoon we made chocolate covered strawberries just because we could.

And Savannah loved her art class!

One of the last outings we had was to the library pond on a beautiful day in June. She was finishing up her pond unit and we just sat on the grass, talking, looking at samples of insects and grasses, laughing, and screaming a little as we saw a snake swim by. It was wonderful just being together!

Unfortunately my camera focused in on the grass but if you look closely you can see the snake gliding behind it.

My cute girl!

Checking out our samples.

A beautiful dragonfly.

The ginormous turtle we saw!

On the last day of homeschool, Savannah, David, and I all headed out for a celebratory lunch.

I know I will miss having my little buddy around as she heads back to public school in the fall.