Here's To New Beginnings

This week was a week of new beginnings for everyone. For starters, Eli and Tatum are attending a homeschool academy two days a week (6 hours total). Yes, there is a "school" for kids that are homeschooled. I wanted to send the kids last year to one but it just wasn't a good fit for our schedule, the academy was in Raytown and started at 8:30 in the morning. Getting the kids up and ready to go and in Raytown by 8:30 would have been a challenge. I learned of an academy here in Raymore and decided to give it a try, it's less than 5 minutes from home and no early morning start time!

After the first week I got mixed reviews. Any guesses on which one was, "yes, it was awesome!" and which one was, "I don't like it!"? Well my social butterfly, loved it. It was really important for me to get her in some type of program. For the past several years our schedules have revolved around Eli's sports and that has left Tatum at a little disadvantage in the friend department. She can get along with the boys and does well "hanging" with them , I just wanted her to make some of her own friends. Eli, my shy one, is not a big fan of venturing outside his comfort zone and meeting new kids. His reaction was typical for him. The only saving grace for him going is one of his homeschool friends is in his class. I am thankful for that! Eli will come around and I can tell he doesn't hate it, he would just rather stay home.

My goal in sending them to the academy besides meeting other homeschooled kids in our area and giving me a little breathing room, is to fill in the holes in our school year. At the academy they will learn a foreign language, have art, music and P.E. classes and do a little science. We have a fun science curriculum this year so we didn't need the science but they both enjoy science so it's just some additional learning time. Tatum made a funny comment today about school. She asked if we were done with school after her phonics. I said we still have science. She said, "science doesn't count as school because it's fun", I guess that is a compliment she is learning but doesn't realize that it is actually school.

Here they are posing for their first day picture. I told them to show me how they felt about going to the academy.  Yep, their expressions were perfect.

I caught little Evan...oops I mean Evan "shaving" one morning and couldn't resists snapping a picture.  He told me this week in the most serious tone, "I don't want to be called little Evan anymore, I'm not little, I'm big!"  He is named after his Papa so we started calling him little Evan it just seemed to fit. Oh well,  it's going to take me a little while to stop calling him that or Little E.  My baby is growing up! I think to drive the point home to me that he is no longer little he thought it would be a good idea to shave.

Evan had his first black eye this week.  It's hard to tell in the picture, but it was a good one.  Evan is ALL boy 100% of the time and has more energy than he knows what to do with or how to handle.  He has been watching Eli play football for 3 years now and Evan thinks he is a pro at tackling and he will run up on you and try and take you out whether you are looking or not.  Well, he decided to run up on Brian and try and tackle him.  Brian wasn't ready and Evan bounced off my 6'4" 300lb husband and literally flew into the handle on a dresser.  Poor kid his, "mommy I am a big boy" strength was no match for his beast of a father.

Evan had his first soccer game this week and Daddy is his coach.  What can I say about Pee-Wee soccer?  If you want to spend an hour of your life being happy and enjoying the innocence of pee-wee soccer players then you need to come to a game.  I enjoyed watching my husband try and herd cats and I enjoyed seeing the smiles on the little cat's faces as they had fun!  Brian did a great job and the kids did too.  I believe this was the first time any of them have played soccer and they did a good job.  I asked Evan what his favorite part of the game was he said, "the snacks".

Our last new adventure of the week was Eli's football game.  While, it wasn't his first game ever it was his first game of the new season.  The team has been practicing hard and I know Eli was ready to get out there and play some football.  The team didn't win their first game they lost 2-0 which was a little bit of a shocker to them because they were undefeated last year and won the All-Star tournament.  Eli's team has some excellent dedicated coaches and I have no doubt they will have an awesome season again.  As I am working on his post Eli is at practice and he was a little weary about going to practice after they lost.  It was a good healthy weary he said, "we could have played better and we made some mistakes.  I know to make us better the coaches will be tough on us tonight."  Wow!  I love this kid!

What I don't love is this picture of him.  I don't hate it, it's just his I mean business face!  It's his beware of the Skurd because I am coming after you face!  I prefer my boy to be smiling because it makes his eyes shine but that's just his mama being his mama.