Yesterday

was a pretty fun day! First thing after breakfast, Matthew and Fin left to go see Winnie the Pooh at the theater. Finlay's first movie! He was scared to go into the dark theater but once he saw the screen he was ok. And then he loved the movie. After they got home, I kept hearing him make believe he was eating honey. hehe...

Then Autry went to the garden center and target with him, while Milo, Finlay and I watched Gumby.
the big boys and I also did our second lesson out of their Bible curriculum that came in the mail the other day. I hadn't planned on starting until we begin school September 6th but the boys are excited about it and want to do it. So, I'm definitely not going to say no. I'm hopeful they'll have the same attitude toward their core subjects when we get them next month.
In other news, I had my 24 week appt last wednesday (not sure why I haven't blogged about it till now) and everything is going great. Declan is growing right on track has a healthy heart rate and our only squirmish was my ...ehem... rate of weight gain. ugghh. Up till this appt, I had only gained 8 lbs in the first 20 weeks. But then I gained 7 lbs in the 4 weeks since that last appt. Boo! So I was told to "watch my weight." Now, in my defense, we have had quite the sweet tooth lately and fell for the lemon meringue cake from costco, made smores several times and then with Atury's Birthday week I indulged in 2 birthday cakes, pinata candy, pizza, Sonic and In-N-Out spread out over 4 "birthday parties." Yikes! It's not hard to see how that added up on the scale, eh. So, after doing pretty good since wednesday, I made peanut butter cookies today, my first treat.
That's about it. Much love <3

Updates

So, We are now 23 weeks along in this pregnancy! Little Declan True is a busy boy constantly kicking and flipping around in there. Yay! I'm knitting him a bright royal blue cabled baby beanie right now and starting to gather supplies to begin his bedding set. The theme will be owls. Hooty hoot!
I also just made a list of what I need to make some maternity clothes based on tutorials from diy maternity

Megan Nielsen has two excellent blogs and wonderful easy to follow patterns for both maternity and baby! Go check her out...
The garden is growing tall and bushy (depending on the plant) and the only no show is our lettuce. Bummer. I'm going to re-sow it and a few other bald spots and hope for the best.

We also had a great visit with Matthew's parents who came to visit last week. Which means we also got to spend some concentrated quality time with Gina and our nieces, as well! Yay!

The boys actually asked to do school yesterday. I think they miss the structure. So, we did a bible lesson from Landmark Freedom and a couple math and LA worksheets and games.

Since Wednesday ...

*I colored my hair red again

and discovered that my hair has finally reached the point that I need 3 boxes to cover it all. Gaah!
*Joyously found out that our charter school has decided to make an exception and pay for the entire Calvert curriculum for BOTH boys and even cover the difference beyond the $700 they typically allow by rolling over Milo's remaining EU's from this year! Praise God!
*Our seeds have sprouted in the garden boxes! The boys and I are always excited to see seedlings popping through. It just feels good, for some reason.
*We Enjoyed a "graduation Sunday" carnival on the back lot at church yesterday. It was a great time and the boys were surprisingly well behaved. They partook in inflatable fun, hot dogs/ corndogs (eeew), a train ride and even jousting.

Autry got in ONE good hit before...

his inevitable defeat.

Then at the car they ALL decided they just had to pee. They're 6, 4 & 2. Don't judge me...
Then we had a great time with my brother, Mike and his sweet girlfriend, Rachel, who came up to help out, hang out and devour some In-N-Out with us. Mmmmmmmm....
*I had my 20 wk prenatal check up. I took Finlay with me and the older boys went to pick out plants for the back hill with Matthew. It was actually quite fun having him with me. He helped Mary, my midwife, find and listen to the baby's heartbeat and asked 100 cute questions and even got four Spiderman stickers for being so good. Then he and I went to Starbucks for treats on the way home.
There was more mundane stuff but who wants to know that much about us, really?
Much love,
The Bennetts

New Curriculum!

Last year, I really wanted to use a Charlotte Mason method Christian curric. and found an excellent one called WinterPromise.
We homeschool through a local charter school and they will purchase up to $700of school stuff for you. They bought as much as they could but, being part of the public school system, they couldn't buy all of it because, of course, they can't buy "religious items." Although I initially planned to just buy the rest myself, time got away from me and it never happened. I either borrowed comparable items from the charter's resource center or had them buy acceptable items from Amazon. I loved everything that we got from WinterPromise and would highly recommend them to anyone. Here's just a small sample of what we got from WinterPromise.

However, through our process this year, I've learned so much about my boys and what they respond to best and how they most enjoy learning and we've decided to take a different route next year.

We will be using Calvert K for Autry and Calvert 1st for Milo. And honestly, I couldn't be more excited. It is a complete curriculum that our charter can purchase in full and it will make homeschooling the two big boys so much easier once I also have Fin plus a newborn. I had our EF (educational facilitator) order them today so we should have them before the summer and be ready to go next year. Woohoo!