Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Labor Day Three Weeks Late! :)

Labor Day for the Reddy Zoo means heading out to our grandparent’s lake house. But first we had some things to take care of, meaning sports! Big D and C had their first soccer game and it was a lot of fun to watch. The whole team did really well and didn’t even let the other team score! The Final score was 1-0. I had my first volleyball game that night as well and lucky for us it was at the same place. All in all I think we did alright. The other team had very good teamwork though, so we ended up not winning any of the three games. But we all had fun anyway!

The boys were so anxious to get out to the country that they caught a ride with their cousins. The rest of us just waited until morning. All our bags we packed so all we had to do was load up into the car as soon as we woke up. Upon our arrival we found out that the first activity of the Labor Day Regatta had already begun - the Walk/Run. We weren’t too disappointed. The boys were really the only ones interested anyway. After we had a delicious breakfast of pancakes and sausage the run/walkers returned with prizes! For every activity that you participate in you have a chance to win a ribbon for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. The family and/or cabin with the most ribbons at the end get to put their name on a big stone for everyone to see. That has been us for two years in a row now! The next activities in the regatta are the sandcastle and sand sculpture building contests. Those are closely followed by kayaking, paddle boat, sail boat, swimming, and rafting races, plus a water balloon toss! During all that our family hosts a hole in one golfing contest, to see who can hit it closest to the flag. We all had so much fun in the sand sculpture contest building a flip flop, a digital clock, a bumble bee, and so many others. How did we fare in the swimming races? Almost everyone who swam got a ribbon! Of course after this we are all very tired, but the fun has only just begun because then there is church on the hill and a big party! We all celebrate mass together and then have a Bar-B-Q and dancing. Everyone had a blast doing the Cha-Cha Slide and the Cotton-Eyed-Joe! We also participated in a Hula-Hoop contest but none of us won anything except Banana. She won a black eye from getting hit with a Hula-Hoop! Everyone was pooped after all of that, but it’s the country so of course we stayed up until about 11:30 playing games! Another thing people like to do out at the country is fish, but not MiMi, KK, and Me. We went with Grandma to look at some of the houses that were having open houses. We just think it’s cool to see other people’s cabins, but for Grandma this just means DECORATING IDEAS!!! All the houses were very cute, but when it was all over we decided that our cabin was still the best! Dinner that night was pork steaks. YUM! After we were all stuffed we loaded up into the car to head home and say good-bye to the country house for awhile Monday morning we woke up in our own beds.(That we had to make right away because Mom was in one of those cleaning moods.) Yay for us, right?! So we cleaned and cleaned until we were all really hungry. Mom and Dad took everyone out to Macaroni Grill for Mom’s birthday a day early! We had so much fun over the Labor Day weekend and we hope you had a good one too!

Miss M :)




Dad's Fish

Big C and cousin El playing in the sand


Mr. H havin' fun in the lake

Playing cards with cousins while waiting for the Bar-B-Q

Banana, Mr. C, and El getting comfy in the recliner

The Run/Walkers!

FOOTBALL!!


Little Cousins are so cute! :)


Lunch on the beach

Monday, August 29, 2011

Back to Busy-ness

We kicked off our third year of homeschooling last Monday, and the day went quite well.  Better than I ever expected, in fact.  Almost too well, if you know what I mean.  Being the planner that I am, I had a schedule –with start times and end times – from which to work, and we pretty much stayed on schedule all morning.  We prayed together, I read aloud to the kids, and we studied a painting by Cézanne.  Each of my elementary kids got to practice reading, we talked about Vikings, went outside to study ants, and the younger two made boats out of egg cartons while the boys read to themselves.  Banana said that she loved school.

Around noon the Hot Lunch Crew, a.k.a. Grandma and Grandpa, came to feed the kids and help with the last few subjects of the day.  (I get the chance to go grocery shopping and run errands in the afternoons on Mondays.  God bless the Hot Lunch Crew!!)  We attended a Back-to-School Barbecue with our homeschool group that evening, after which the boys had soccer practice.  And to end the day properly, I made sure to look over the kids’ math and grammar before going to bed so they could look over their work the next day.  Yes, Monday went very well indeed!

Then came Tuesday.  There was a little less enthusiasm for school that morning.  We hadn’t even started yet when Banana declared, “I’m quitting school!”  She had been a Kindergartener for exactly one day!  She definitely had a difficult day on Tuesday, but things got better after that.  She realized that the older kids have more on their agendas than she does, much to her delight.  She is always finished before lunch, while the older kids still have a few things to work on after lunch.  And seriously…who would want to quit Kindergarten??

I am pretty excited by the number of things we accomplished this week.  To increase the level of couth in our home, we listened to a little bit of the life of composer Franz Schubert, and began learning a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, in addition to the Cézanne painting.  Oh yes, we are civilized here at the Reddy Zoo.  We also worked on the kids’ handwriting and reading, not to mention the other educational basics - grammar, religion, history, nature study, and Banana’s new favorite subject – Math!! 

Miss M is doing well with her studies so far.  She hangs out with us in the mornings for a little while, but she does the bulk of her work independently.  However, since I have 3 elementary kids and a preschooler this year, I am extremely busy throughout the mornings.  This means that I don’t read e-mails, make phone calls, or check off anything on my to-do list until after lunch at the earliest.  I have never had this level of busy-ness in my entire life.  But it is also the BEST kind of busy-ness I have ever had.

Here are a few pictures from our first week.  I hope to take more pictures of our activities this year.  We do so many things I would like to capture and remember.  These are just a couple of pictures of the kids reading...


...doing math


...and cooking!  (Isn't that one of the 3 R's?)

Saturday, August 27, 2011

A Reddy Zoo Summer 2011

A whole lot happened this summer so I will just give you a little summary. One of the first things we did was go to Texas to visit with family down there on Mom’s side. We had fun visiting with cousins and going to a really cool lake. It had waterslides and diving boards. It was a lot of fun!





  Also in May we had a music recital.




 And to end the month of May C.B. made his First Communion with his cousin El! 



To start off June Grandma and Grandpa Reddy celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary! There was a very special mass and a really fun party afterwards.





Big D’s baseball team started pitching this year. Big D and two of his cousins got to pitch.



 I also had a good season with softball. We did really well. We only lost two games! We went to City County for the third year in a row!!! It was really fun!



Now moving right along to July! We all took a little trip to St. Francis state park to float down the river. We went with some cousins and friends. We had a lot of fun jumping off cliffs, swinging on rope swings, and sliding down a mud slide!






Big D. took a camping trip with cub scouts and had a lot of fun. He brought home so many stories and songs.









   
This month we did a lot of stuff as well. We spent a whole week at the country house in Warrenton. We had so much fun visiting with both sets of Grandparents and cousins! We also started school Monday the 22nd!














 Big D. and Dad went to a Ram’s practice! They said it was cool! Our cousin even caught a field goal. They were kicking them right into the crowd!





    

There’s a little bit of our summer! I hope you had a good one!


Miss M :)