I can feel it. Fall is coming. We went outside to play this morning and I was pleasantly surprised. It was one of those perfect mornings when you'd like to stay outside forever -- lots of sunshine, deep blue skies with white puffy clouds, a comfortably warm temperature, a gentle breeze. Perfection.

One of Jacob's favorite books is Little Cloud by Eric Carle. Every time we go to the library, he asks for this book. Every. Time. He loves it. It is about a little cloud who changes his appearance in the sky to look like a rabbit, shark, trees, etc... This morning, the three of us (Jacob, Annabelle, and I) laid in the grass and looked up at the clouds. Jacob immediately said, "Hey! I see little cloud!" Then he proceeded to tell me what he thought the clouds looked like and this developed into a story about a flying dog and a mean guy chasing after the dog and later ended up with the three of us pretending to be pirates, sailing the high seas on a pirate ship. He even gave us each a new pirate name because "pirates do not have regular names." He has such a great imagination.

While Jacob continued his story (he was up and running around at this point), Annabelle laid beside me in the grass, gazing up into the sky with the funniest look on her face. I think she thought this was a silly idea. Before she joined me on the ground, she gave me one of those, "What in the world are you doing?" looks. The whole time she laid there, her expression never changed. It was the same look she gave me yesterday when she heard opera music.

During his Classical Conversations classes, Jacob's teacher plays classical music while the children work on drawing or whatever the art project is for the day. I do this at home, too. Yesterday, Jacob finished his project and we went into the kitchen for lunch. The music continued to play while we ate. Jacob ate and listened, calling out the different instruments as he heard them. Annabelle was much too focused on devouring her string cheese to be interested in the music...until....an opera song began to play.

The song was Flower Duet by Leo Delibes. The look on Annabelle's face was so funny, I was, very literally, doubled over with laughter. I had never seen her look more confused. She had never made that face before. As I laughed, Jacob said, "What kind of instrument is THAT?" I laughed even harder. My children obviously haven't had much exposure to the opera. Even now, when I think of Annabelle's face, I can't stop laughing. It was one of the funniest things she has done to date. I so wish I'd have had my camera in hand and ready to go at that moment. If only YOU could have seen her face!!

A couple weeks ago, my sister, JoBeth, visited us for a few days. It turned out to be a very busy week with school and church events, but somehow, we managed to carve out a little free time in our hectic schedule. We even went to the beach one morning. I must say, it was a very fun four days and we were all sad when JoBeth had to get back on the plane to head home. As JoBeth made her way through security, Jacob, Annabelle and I watched a couple airplanes take off from the runway. Jacob looked up at me and said, "Is Aunt JoBeth gonna BLAST off?????"

Here are a few pictures from JoBeth's visit. (Thank you, JoBeth, for remembering your camera when I didn't!!)

JoBeth stayed home with Annabelle while Jacob and I were at Classical Conversations. By the looks of these pictures, I'd say they had a fun morning. :)
Can't you just imagine what is being said in this pretend phone conversation? I think Annabelle is saying, "You've GOT to be kidding me...."
Mommy bought me a backpack. Can I go to shcool too?

It was a beautiful morning down by the river.....

Are You Smarter Than a Four Year Old?

It's Tuesday afternoon and all is quiet at our house. Annabelle is taking a much needed nap. Jacob is relaxing on the couch watching "Timmy Time" (a new Playhouse Disney show) after a busy morning at school. He should probably be napping along with his sister, but for now, rest time will have to suffice as he now believes "nap time is for babies."

Tuesdays are Classical Conversations school days. Jacob looks forward to Tuesdays, as do I. Annabelle seems to enjoy herself in the nursery, too. We are now four weeks into our homeschooling / Classical Conversations journey and I am happy to report, we are doing quite well. We've managed to get into somewhat of a routine. We don't have a definite schedule as far as time goes, but we do have a routine. That's a big accomplishment...for me. :)

These were his "first day of school" pictures (taken a couple weeks ago). We had actually begun homeschooling a week earlier, but this was the first day he attended his Classical Conversations class. He's such a big boy!

Jacob loves the Math-U-See program and begs to do math all the time. Hooked on Phonics is working out great. We're flying through the preschool material and will probably begin the kindergarten program next week. He's definitely ready. I guess I could have started with the kindergarten books, but the preschool materials have been a good review. Besides, Annabelle has learned a lot just from watching the videos. Jacob is already sounding out words and I'm confident he'll be reading in no time.

Classical Conversations has been an incredible experience so far. I've always heard that children have a much easier time learning and memorizing information than adults. This is no joke. It is absolutely astounding the amount of information Jacob has memorized in the past four weeks -- everything from great historical events, to science facts like the seven types of biomes, to fundamental concepts of english grammar. My four year old is now smarter than I am. He is an intellectual genius. ;) Just curious, do you know the eight parts of speech?

In case you didn't catch all the words, the eight parts of speech are: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, interjections, prepositions, and adjectives. Pretty impressive, right?

Know anything about William the Conqueror? No? Jacob will enlighten you on the subject.

Again, in case you didn't pick up all the words....After the church split into Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, William the Conqueror defeated King Harold of England in 1066 and started feudalism.

Classical Conversations classes always begin with presentations (a.k.a. Show and Tell). Jacob doesn't seem to mind speaking in front of a crowd. I didn't figure he would. Anyone who knows Jacob knows that he talks incessantly...to anyone. Today's presentation topic was "My Favorite Bible Verse." He did a great job. He did the presentation much the same way as he did here in this video. Check out these skills:

Last week's topic was "My Family." I let him use the ipod to show pictures of his family. Of course, he loved that. My favorite part of this show and tell was when he said, "....and today, I am going to introduce you to my family."

Besides school, Jacob also had an eventful night at church last Wednesday. He is now an Awana Cubbie and a member of the preschool choir. He was sooooo excited about going to preschool choir and even more excited about becoming a Cubbie. His Cubbie vest instantly became a prized posession and he refused to remove it from his body. He is, indeed, proud to be a Cubbie and announces his new status to anyone he sees.

Need a Laugh?

I know I've said this a million times, but my kids make me laugh...so hard...everyday. They are both so funny. Annabelle cracks me up with her craziness. Jacob cracks me up with the crazy things that come out of his mouth. Here are a few recent conversations:

Jacob: Mommy, you are like a princess and I am like your prince.

Me: Ooooh. Ok.

Jacob: Yes......or we can just be friends together.

At the dinnertable......

Jacob: I cannot eat this food. I cannot eat these peas.

Me: Why can't you eat the peas. What's wrong with them?

Jacob: If I eat these peas, they will rotten my teeth out.

In the car.......

Jacob: Mommy, you are the greatest singer of all.....and I am awesome. I am an awesome singer.

Time for School

Well, the Duncan family has officially embarked on a new adventure. An exciting new adventure. A fun new adventure. An educational new adventure. A challenging new adventure. This week, we began homeschooling.

When Jacob was a baby, if you'd asked me if I was going to homeschool, I would have given you a definite "NO" for an answer. "Me? Homeschool? Are you crazy? Seriously, you're joking, right? Have you seen my organizational skills? Do you really think I am capable of teaching my child? It's hard enough just figuring out what to feed him." Well, four years later, my feelings have changed. And believe me, I am just as shocked as some of you who are reading this right now.

I can honestly say, I never planned to send Jacob to preschool. I knew I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and Heath and I planned on our precious little boy being home until he was old enough for kindergarten. We were comfortable with our decision. But then, I started feeling the pressure. When he was around two years old, I began hearing questions like, "So, where is Jacob going to preschool?" or "Have you signed him up for preschool yet?" To any of these types of questions, my answer was always the same: "I'm not planning to send Jacob to preschool." And the response I was given was, also, always the same -- a blank, yet surprised, "Oh." I started to second guess our decision.

Heath read a couple books about preschool (and education in general) and I skimmed through them. After his thorough reading, my skimming, and a lot of discussion, we stood firm in our decision to keep him home. However, even though we knew we didn't want to send him to school anywhere (yet), we knew we needed to take advantage of Jacob's eagerness and willingness to learn. That's when the homeschooling idea popped into my head.

There are several homeschooling families in our church. I've always admired them. I've always thought, "Wow. That's great that they can do that, but I could never do what they do." My thoughts haven't changed any, but for preschool, I am giving it a try. I mean, if I want to try homeschooling, shouldn't starting with preschool be a little easier than, say, second or third grade? After all, the government doesn't mandate that my child attend preschool. If the homeschool thing doesn't work out, we're still ok. Jacob can go to kindergarten in a regular classroom next fall and everything will be just fine. BUT, that being said, you can be sure I am going to try my ABSOLUTE best and hardest to make homeschooling work for us. We'll just take it one minute, one hour, one day, one week at a time and see what happens.

Day one of homeschooling didn't go exactly as I had planned. Actually, it didn't go...at all. Sunday night, Jacob developed a fever and by Monday morning, he was SICK. I took him to the doctor thinking he may have an ear infection, but found out he had a virus. Poor Jacob. He had been looking forward to this day -- his first day of homeschool -- for over a week. Everyday, he asked, "Can we do homeschool now?" Now, on the day when my answer was finally, "Yes we can!", he didn't feel up to it. Even though he felt horrible, he begged to have school, so we attempted. We made it through the pledges and prayertime, then he sat at his little table, shivering because of the fever. I told him he needed to go rest and he cried because he wanted to do school. We continued. We made it through the Bible story, then Jacob finally agreed he needed to rest. He walked over to the couch, I gave him his blanket and pillow from his bed, and he didn't move for six hours. Despite giving him Tylenol around the clock, Jacob's fever hovered close to 102 degrees throughout the day. Day one of homeschool would have to wait until tomorrow.

Side note: Annabelle took full advantage of her brother's sudden illness and took that opportunity to be as crazy as she could possibly be...and play with Jacob's toys -- especially the ones he NEVER lets her touch.

I did a ton of research before settling on a homeschool curriculum. I talked to people, looked online, browsed through several catalogs, and went to a homeschool conference. I finally decided to enroll Jacob in Classical Conversations. I think he is going to love it. One of the things that most appealed to me is, he gets to attend a class once a week, which I think is a wonderful thing. Since he was sick, he missed his first class, but I'll keep you posted on how it goes. Besides Classical Conversations, I am using Hooked on Phonics for Reading and Math-U-See for Math.

We're on our third day of homeschooling and so far, so good. I am amazed at how much Jacob has learned already. I have to be honest, though. Tuesday (our actual first day), I had a little meltdown. I realized my planned schedule wasn't so great after all. Jacob was determined not to learn the correct way to write a lowercase "A" and I was just as determined to MAKE him write it the proper way, whether he wanted to or not. Forty minutes later, I gave up. I didn't even realize we'd been sitting there for that long until I glanced up at the clock. So much for those " no longer than twenty-minutes" lessons. As far as scheduling goes, we still have a few kinks to work out, but we're managing. Yesterday and today have gone much better.

Annabelle hasn't been quite as cooperative as I would like her to be, but I didn't have high expectations. :) While I'm working with Jacob, she works dilligently to divert my attention away from him and onto her. Her scheming works. As she well knows, I can't just let her climb up onto the kitchen table and dance as she pleases. I try to involve her as much as possible. She has a pencil box with crayons just like Jacob. She has coloring books to color in while Jacob works in his workbooks. She does not have her own gluestick, however, and this does not make her happy. She stole Jacob's the other day and smeared glue all over her face before I realized she had even taken it. She loves to watch the Hooked on Phonics videos, which they've been viewing during snacktime. She loves the songs and she repeats the letters and sounds along with Jacob. All in all, she's been fairly well-behaved (for her).

For the record, Jacob is not allowed to have Mr. Monkey's cousin (his monkey blanket) with him during school. He must have grabbed him while I was looking for the camera.

I realize we're only three days into it, but right now, I couldn't be happier with my homeschool preschool decision. I am definitely looking forward to the year ahead!

Summertime, and the livin' is easy

There is only one word to appropriately describe this summer -- H-O-T! Jacob and Annabelle love playing outside, so we've been forced to endure the miserable heat and humidity. At least we have the giraffe pool to help cool us down,

Believe it or not, we've only been to the beach one time this summer. I am almost ashamed to admit that. It's just so hard to watch the kids at the beach by myself and our weekends have been too busy for Heath and I to go. Erika came along on this particular trip. So....we may have only been to the beach one time so far this summer, but that one time was fun!!

Both kids love playing along the shoreline where the waves come crashing in around their feet. That's where we spent most of our time. I was a little surprised. Annabelle really likes playing in sand, so I thought she would want to dig holes and make sand piles. I was wrong. She played in the sand a little bit, but not nearly as long as I thought she would.

As if the beach wasn't fun enough, we went for cupcakes afterwards....and what was already a great day....became even greater.

Thanks, Mom!!

Oh, yes...she ate an ENTIRE cupcake...in record time. She's proud of herself. Can you tell?

Jacob was more interested in the icing than the cake. Once he had licked off all the sugary goodness, he was done. Annabelle, of course, was ready to devour any leftovers, but much to her dismay, I removed the cake before she could dig her little fingers into it. No, I did not eat it. One cupcake was enough for me, too.

All About Me

Hi-eeeeeeee! My name is Annabelle. If you ask me what my name is, I'll tell you. It's "Ah-dehw." I am a big girl now -- almost 22 months old. My mommy says I'm starting to get a little "attitude," whatever that means. I prefer to call myself a wild child. I love to run and climb and get dirty. Today, I fell in the mud at the playground. I was covered in mud. Mommy freaked out a little, but I had a glorious time. I love mud. I also love to dance and jump...on the kitchen table. I think it's funny to climb up there because I know as soon as mommy sees, she races to get me down. Mommy is so silly. What...does she think I'm going to fall or something? Oh puh-leeease!

I can say lots of words now -- sentences, even! Phrases like, "Mo peessss (More please)!" and "Mo dat (cake)!" and "ssiiii pay" (I want to play outside). I call any sort of drink, juice...except, just today, I started referring to my milk as "wok." I like to give my stuffed animals a drink when they are thirsty.

Sometimes, I feed Nin (Minnie Mouse) grapes. Nin likes grapes. Nin gets lost around the house a lot and I have to look for her. I walk around yelling, "NIN!" or "NI-NOW!" That's how I say her name. Nin makes me smile.

Mommy says she can't take me and Dats (Jacob) to the grocery store anymore. I don't know why. I really like the grocery store. I like to yell as loudly as I possibly can while I'm in there. It makes other shoppers look at me. It's fun to open all the cereal and snack boxes, too. I like to stand up and climb around in the buggy. I've only flipped out of the seat into the back of the cart two times. That was a little scary, but I'm over it now. Dats (Jacob) likes to run around the store and throw things into the buggy, like green beans and tomatoes. He really enjoys the produce section. I think it's funny when people I don't know come over to help Mommy run after Jacob or try to make me sit down. But, for some reason, I don't think Mommy finds it quite as funny as I do. The last time we went to the store, the same lady kept passing us on every aisle. Each time we saw her, she looked at Mommy and said, "God bless you." I wonder what she meant by that?

Yes, I am a very "spirited" 21 month old girl. When I'm not getting into trouble, I am eating. When I went to preschool this summer, I stole my friends' food. What can I say? I love applesauce and I just can't help myself. Sometimes, I pretended to be a mommy and fed my friends their applesauce. But, then I usually lost all willpower and stole a few bites for myself. Besides applesauce, I like to eat spaghetti (or anything with tomato sauce, for that matter), every type of fruit, yogurt, cheese, cheerios, broccoli, carrots, garlic rice-a-roni, eggplant and brussel sprouts (among MANY other things). No, I am not kidding. I love brussel sprouts. Mommy made them last night for dinner and I ate them all...every last bit...and then had seconds. Mommy was very surprised. At mealtimes, I climb up into my chow (high chair) all by myself...because I am a big girl and can do lots of things on my own now. The only thing is, Mommy wants me to sit down while I eat. I don't want to sit down. I'd much rather stand. Sometimes, I stand up and put my feet in my food, especially when we eat pizza. Mommy is not amused. I always get in trouble for that.

I know I wear Mommy out. Occasionally, I give her a break and read books on my own for a while...even though I like it better when she reads to me. It's fun to pull down ALL the books from the bookshelf. At bedtime, Mommy reads Goodnight Moon. It's one of my favorites. I like to play peek-a-boo with Paul in Pat the Bunny, too.

Eventually, I do get tired. Being a wild child can be exhausting, you know. As much as I enjoy acting crazy, I like to sleep...a lot. I still sleep late in the morning. If Mommy doesn't have to be anywhere, she lets me sleep in. The latest I have ever slept is 11:30 AM. Now, THAT was a good morning!

Oh, one more thing. Did you see the pictures and video of me wearing the blue and white checked outfit? Guess what size it is. You may remember seeing baby pictures of me in the same outfit. It's a size 6 months. I may think I'm a big girl, but I guess I am still "little." :)

Is That a Sandwich or a Birthday Cake?

Friday was a big day -- the last day of the summer preschool session AND Jacob's birthday. Even though we had a party planned for the next day, of course, he had to have a school party too.

He had the best time. He even got to stand up on the stage while the big kids in summer camp sang happy birthday to him. Then we sang to him again when it was time for cake.

For the preschool party, I made a peanut butter and jelly "cakewich." Heath's mom gave me this cake pan shaped like a slice of bread. It came with a recipe and I couldn't wait to try it out!

Jacob, as well as the kids in his class, were most definitely amused. And, let's be honest. So was I. :) What a fun cake!!

Proud moment: One of the kids looked at the cake and said, very excitedly, "Wow! Where did you get that?!?!" Jacob replied, "It's my birthday cake!" His classmate said, "I know...but what store did you get it from?" Jacob yelled, "It didn't come from a store. My Mommy MADE it!" :)