This and That

 Adorable pictures of Spock.

 He loves being held.

Ruth's creative solution to a twin bed not against the wall.

Today was the first day of camp at our church.  The girls memory verse for the day is Ephesians 5:17 "Be... not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is".

and Thank You Lord for a Mommy who knows how to make me meatloaf

 Saturday is our family game night.  Mary broke out the Hello Kitty Monopoly and we started playing a game we will continue through the weekend.

 Trying to teach Ruth logic and to follow directions.  She made these cookies all by herself.  They were super good!

 Matt being cheesy and taking out the trash.  He and Mary went on their monthly date to Six Flags and rode some super scary (to me) roller coasters.  Mary is hooked.  She rode the wildest one in the park and said it was nothing!

 Spock got his weekly bath.  He still hates them, but progress was made in less dirt being washed away and only five burs being cut out.  When we first got him it was three baths at a time every three days.  We lost track of how many burs we cut out and the fleas were horrific.. He is so soft now, eats a great dinner, plays fetch with the whole family and is so much cleaner.

Ruth being goofy and showing Spocks new tags.  He know has a collar and three tags.  He's got his rebies vaccine, micro chip information and we had a tag engraved with his name and Matt's name and number in case he gets lost.

The title of this post came from Mary's prayer at dinner.  She had asked for meatloaf and I made it for dinner tonight.  She had seconds and enjoyed it immensely.  What a busy and fun day!

Mint Tea

Years ago when we first lived in this house I planted mint under the girls bedroom window in the back yard.  It is still there and doing well despite not being watered routinely for six years.  The girls picked some additional herb plants from the store last week to add to the garden and today mint tea was made.  As Ruth said, "it tastes surprisingly good".  Even Dad the first taste tester agreed.

Baby birds

We discovered a nest in the front of our house a few weeks ago when we moved in. Now we have three chicks.  Endless fun and learning for the girls.

Catching frogs

By Ruth's count we have five frogs in our herb/rock garden.  Ruth taught Mary to catch them, and Mary caught her first one!

Fiesta Texas

Part of the reason we moved back to Texas is so we could have more activities to do with the kids.
Enter this local establishment http://www.sixflags.com/fiestaTexas/index.aspx and their fabulous season pass and we were there.

We went for the fist time on Sunday night, Father's Day to ride the roller coasters.
Everyone did great (Ruth LOVES the rides) but me.  Not a fan of roller coasters.
Matt and Mary are going back this weekend for their monthly date.  Two hours of rides and then two hours at the water park.  Should be great fun.
We went as a family and then Matt again with the girls on The Rattler.
Mary is excited to go on the Sky Screamer and the longest coaster in the park.
Should be fun.
PS- They take your pictures on these rides and both the girls had huge smiles on their faces, even Ruth who had to be talked into riding the first time and was convinced she would hate it.

An unexpected Wednesday

The girls came home to Texas one week ago today.
Last week was rough, this week is better.
Having the girls in their own room for the first time ever has been great.
I fought it for nine years, but having their own space is saving my sanity.
At least for now.
Anyway, today we had our fist play date in our Texas house and made our first home school friend.
Ms Donna is our director for Classical Conversations (more info on the program here http://www.classicalconversations.com/) and she has a 10 year old daughter Jacqueline.
In other news, Mary's reading has made huge improvements over the past few months.

We bought this book a few months ago and when we first got it she would take the entire week to read the book.  It was difficult to get her to read two chapters a day.  Fast forward to yesterday, kid read pretty near the whole book in less than 30 minutes.  She finished the rest of it in 10 minutes today.  I am very proud of that kiddo!
Tomorrow is a school day for us.  We are going to finish History, complete a math lesson, continue on with grammar and logic and Ruth will finish her spelling assignment for the week.
I am prepping Mary's new spelling program.  I am almost ready to start.  One trip to the store for supplies and we are testing to see what list she is on Monday morning.

6/19/2012, What Ruth enjoyed about school today

From Story of The World Chapter 5 "The First Sumerian Dictator"

Sargon was a ruler of Mesopotamia.  He fought with neighboring countries to make a bigger kingdom for himself.  The ruler before him trusted Sargon to the cup bearer.  Sargon convinced the Kings armies to help him kill the King.  Sargon made the cities that he conquered obey his law with military dictatorship.

This was Ruth's narration of our history chapter for the week.  We then turn the narration and the book's questions and answers into a paragraph for our weekly writing assignment.

Girls and their dog

Spock is a huge hit with both the girls.  He is a really good dog.  Mary has told him since day one that she loves him and Ruth cannot believe her good fortune to have a family dog.

First day back to school is done.

Here is Mary's best and favorite of the day, plural nouns.
We also learned about Latin vowels, matching shapes, and Mary can tell time to the whole hour.

We moved

For those who do not know, we have moved back to San Antonio Texas.
Matt got a new job and we did not love Albuquerque, so here we are.
We are in the same house and it looks a lot different six years later.
Here are some highlights, ignore the mess.

 Mary's room.

 Ruth's room.

Living Room.

Our house was a rental for the past six years so we have been slowly working on fixing it up since we got here a few weeks ago.  While the house is smaller than our NM house the girls have their own rooms for the first time ever and we like the closeness this house gives our family.

New addition to our family

We have a dog.
Totally not planned or desired but he is super sweet and we couldn't resist.
Introducing Spock Leinhos.

Two year old 19 lbs Schnauzer in good health.
We are very happy to have him, he is a great addition to our family.