She's a natural

Reagan has decided that she LOVES to take pictures. She has also discovered that her favorite subject is herself :)
I gotta get this girl a camera for Christmas!!!

The Dress

My daughter will be getting married in June and her dress came in yesterday. We were so excited and rushed up to get the dress and try it on again for alterations. Amazingly, the dress fit perfectly!! No alterations needed.

Originally she was just going to have that small hair piece in that had a flower and some feathers and that was all. Once we got back there and she put the dress on and decided to "just look at" a veil, she as hooked. In the end she went with a really long veil on bottom with a shorter veil on top. It is really beautiful.

A few more pics of the dress.

Then the lady in charge of alterations did the most amazing thing to bustle the wedding dress for the reception. Instead of simply having it tuck under, she has it in a series of folds that make this dress look so beautiful. It is had to see in the pictures, but it makes the back of the dress look like a bunch of rose petals.

We are so pleased at how everything has worked out with the dress! If only everything else would go this smoothly :)

Colonial Tea Party

To wrap up our reading of the American Girl Historical books about Felicity, we had a Colonial Tea Party.

I sewed (just learning how) matching dresses for my daughter and her doll.

The tea party was done as a co-op type event and the wonderful woman heading this up made each girl a mop cap to not only wear during the party, but to take home with them.

Reagan learned how to minuet and we have practiced this at home several times since the party.

Each girl had a place card on the table with some blank paper below it. They made quill pens and practiced writing with them.

The girls probably would have been happy doing this all day long! We had no idea how much fun they would have with this project. In fact, we ended up not doing one of the projects that could fit into another party since they wanted to keep writing!

Then it was Tea Time!!

We had a really great time and look forward to the next meeting (fiesta) that will will be having after finishing up Josefina!

It has been awhile

since I have posted here on my blog. I had considered giving up my blog as I really felt the need to concentrate more on school this year and spend less time on the computer. It is so easy for me to get wrapped up reading all the wonderful blogs out there and I end up losing track of time.

I really like my blog and have miss posting on it and reading all of my favorite blogs. I am going to attempt to re-enter the blogging world in moderation.

We had a few unexpected trials at the beginning of our school year and it through us off track. We are getting back into the swing of things and are really enjoying our school. We are getting ready to have our first get together with our History Girls Club. We have finished the Felicity books and are going to be having a Colonial Tea Party next week. We are really looking forward to this and I even stepped out of my comfort zone and sewed my daughter a colonial dress and then made a matching colonial dress for her doll to wear to the party. Whew...was this a stretch for someone that has never sewed before :) We are also doing Along the Alphabet Path with a few exceptions. First we have pumped it up a bit to make it a little more on Reagan's level. Next I re-wrote (just for our personal use) the section of the story that involves the Catholic Saints. What I ended up doing is inserting a bible story that goes along with each letter of the alphabet. I will write more about that in a separate post. Anyway, we are really enjoying Alphabet Path and will continue that for the remainder of the year. It falls nicely along with our Studying Creation with Botany co-op we are in. Overall I am really pleased with school this year so far.

I have had a few health issues going on at the same time. After undergoing a colonoscopy and EGD (scope of the esophagus and stomach) we have ruled out all of the really bad stuff and we believe now that it might be IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). I would just be happy if we could get this under control and not feel yucky all of the time. I would humbly ask that you add me to your prayer list that the doctors might be able to help me. Anyone else out there with this issue that could offer me any insight into this?

Thanks for stopping by and visiting me, and I look forward to getting caught up with everyone!

A change for the new school year

We will be starting school on August 1st and I felt the need for some changes in order to make my life more simple and easier to manage.

I have left the majority of my yahoo groups with the exception of a select few in order to decrease my email inbox and the time that I spend in front of my computer just reading all of the emails.

I have also decided that at least for the time being, I will just be making a monthly entry on my blog with all of the fun things that we have done the month previous and what we have coming up.

This is what we have planned for homeschool...

We will be spending this year using the American Girl Historical books for our history. We are also part of a co-op that will meet every 6-8 weeks after we have finished the current "girl" we are reading about and have a big get together with crafts, food and fun related to that time period.

We will also be starting Apologia Young Explorers Botany study. This will also be a co-op that will meet once a week after each chapter is completed and we will be doing the experiments and more together.

We are really excited this year and the only way that I can see to get it all done is to spend less time on the computer :(

I will see you back in a month to let you know how our first set of books went as we begin our history study with Felicity 1774-1776.

Father's Day at the zoo

On Father's Day, we were finishing up our Kansas and Missouri trip and decided to spend the day at the Tulsa, OK Zoo. We were really excited since the elephants from our zoo are now at the Tulsa Zoo while we are building a larger nicer area for them. We have not seen our elephants in a year and were anxious to see what they looked like.

Entrance to the zoo.
Father's Day Picture.

Children's Petting Zoo

The tropical rain forest area with free roaming animals

I really loved the tropical rain forest area, it was so beautiful.

The tram that we used to get from the front of the zoo to the back area and then back to the front again. We really appreciated this since is was 102 degrees at the zoo that day.

We didn't get to see our elephants, they were not out while we were there, but we really love the facility they have there for the elephants.

My two favorite areas were the tropical rain forest and the cave area. This was so much fun and definitely worth the time if your in the area.

For Tiffany

Picture from the street before.

Picture from the street after.

Picture of the front porch area before.

Front Porch area after.


Side gate to backyard before.

Side gate after. (Ran short one bag of mulch...will be added this week)


Corner of house before.



Corner of house after.


East window before.
East window after.


West window before.

West window after

Front before

Front after

Front after