The Girls' 1st Race!

Fitness is a large part of my life. It has been for the past 10 years or so when I lost almost 40 pounds!

I would love to pass along to our girls the love of exercise and teach them to love being healthy and physically active.  

{Note: I do NOT want to teach my kids that being "SKINNY" equates to being healthy. I will probably never be skinny/model thin and that is perfectly fine with me!}

So, when the girls' gym coach told us about the Red Nose Race, we signed up right away! Our city had a hugely popular adult marathon and some local businesses sponsored a smaller race for the kids to participate in the same weekend. 

 Warming up before the race. It was a cool morning, but turned out to be a nice, fall day!

 Elle at the starting line.

 Our family:)

 My husband ran with Ce Ce and I ran with Em. For some reason, she didn't feel like running with the bigger kids.

 Elle crossing the finish!

Our little athletes:-)

What ways do you incorporate fitness into your lives?

We would LOVE to hear about it!

Blessings,

Aria:)

Helping Others

Matthew 5:16 

"In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." 

This is one of my favorite Bible verses!  It really speaks to the reasons WHY we, as Christians, are to perform good works. NOT for our own personal gain or glory, but so that GOD may be glorified!!!

This weekend, our family participated in a 2-mile walk to raise money and awareness about Juvenile Diabetes. We put it on our Fall Fun Festivities List, and are so happy to have been able to complete this event!

  Friends of ours have a daughter the same age as our oldest with Type 1 Diabetes. It is life-changing. We chose to participate in this walk in honor of them and we had a really fun time doing it:)!

 There were LOTS of people involved and the weather was absolutely GORGEOUS for a midwestern fall day!

 Me, with a local news anchor.

 We had so much fun on this huge slide:)

 Our sweet love, Ce Ce, having an apple. I just praise God for our children and pray for their health daily.

 It was such a gorgeous day,we decided to spend it at the park after the walk.

 It was the perfect day! Our girls learned what it means to really help others and we had such a wonderful feeling being with so many others who shared a common goal. We are praying for our friends and all children with diabetes. We hope you will join in the effort. Please check out The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's website for more info!

Blessings,

Aria:)

{Homeschool Highlights} 1

Instead of doing a Weekly Wrap-up of our homeschool adventures, I have decided to peridically post some highlights of some of the things we are working on. I am trying to streamline a bit and cut down on my obligations as to avoid burning out really quickly!

Our recent Bible Memory Verse.

I recently blogged about our newest kitchen adventure--our awesome Snack Tray! The girls are really loving this, maybe a bit too much:) They eat so much food!

The girls have also started attending an organized gym class. It is PERFECT because both of the older girls can participate!!! This really makes Em happy!! She loves the gym class and is really blossoming in there:).

Elle continues to really love math and reading! She loves working in her workbooks:).

 Here, Elle was working on some patterns and designed some of her own on her white board.

Working on Phonics.

Doing some Language Arts work.

Elle loves using little flashcards to construct sentences!

Baby CeCe loves to come along and try to take Elle's cards just as fast as she can put them on the table. Elle is comforting a crying Ce Ce, and explaining to her why she could not take her school work. Awwwww, this just melts my heart and makes me LOVE homeschooling even more!!!

The big girls set up a store to work on money lessons. Here Em is showcasing her little wallet with all of her money. Elle decided to use her debit card so she didn't have to figure out the change, lol.

Em still LOVES working with Alphabet Letter Box I made!

Here she is working on some pre-writing worksheets.

 Decorating their Letters!

We need to figure out how to hang them up still.

The girls LOVE using the Alphabet Cards to do some exercising--especially when it is raining outside!

Em is so silly:)

Collecting leaves for fall crafts and math lessons.

Sorting their leaves.

 Em, making her fall wreath of leaves she collected.

Elle, working on her fall wreath.

They turned out so pretty:)

 Doing some leaf rubbings.

 A little science fun---baking soda and vinegar experiment.

Working on more leaf rubbings--even Ce Ce enjoyed this one:)

 We have been studying Australia. Elle made a diorama of the Great Barrier Reef.

 The girls always enjoy going to the Children's Science Center!

 And, of course, Elle just HAD to watch some surgeries:)

 We also took a trip to the local Art Museum. The girls had so much fun!

 The look on Ce Ce's face is priceless:) Em is building silly animals.

Em, 3 years old.

 Elle, 5 years old.

Thank you for sharing our adventures with us. We certainly hope you are enjoying the ride:)

Blessings,

Aria:)