The Girls in their Fave Place!

My grand-daughters are crazy about horses. They love to ride. Kirsten likes to be at the stables better than anywhere else. They are both good riders and the day before I left they had a riding lesson and I got to go out and watch them. This is Hannah on one of the horses she rides.
Kirsten rides on Smokey most of the time. This guy can get a real attitude and tries to do things his way. He doesn't realize that Kirsten is more strong willed than he is and she will stay in charge.

Emily hasn't started riding.....yet. But there are many things for her to do when she is out there. She loves the kitties. I think this is the cat that is getting ready to have her own kitties.

Hannah looks so natural on a horse.

Emily and her mom watch as the girls ride. Well, Emily doesn't watch so much as she is so busy doing her own thing.

This time Richard was off and so he came along. The barn is NOT his favorite place to be. I think he is texting as Emily looks on.

The girls getting ready to do some jumps

I am taking a look at Smokey. Notice I am on the Other side of the fence from him.

Hannah's horse is a little more friendly and gentle

Smokey loves Kirsten and she loves him

Kirsten's motto is a bad day at the barn is better than a good day anywhere else. I don't think she thinks it is possible to have a bad day at the barn.

Mom & Dad look on

Smokey gets a treat after the riding lesson

There was a mama goat and two babies. We got to watch them milk the goat and feed the babies.

The two baby kids were so cute.

Emily got to help feed one of the babies

Aren't they so cute?

A close up shot of one of the "kids".

And the other "kid".

I always enjoy going out and watching the girls ride. They both do such a great job and love it so much. I certainly can't say that I share their love of the barn or of the horses, but since they love it so much I enjoy watching them.

Baby Bunny-

Our little bunny who has the run of the whole back porch has found a place to hide. One day it took me a long time to find him. Gary finally discovered his hiding place. This is the back of one of Tanek's trucks. All night long he runs back and forth on the porch but in the day time you can find him comfortably sitting in the back of the truck. The dogs haven't even been able to find his hiding place.
I had to sneak up to the truck and take the picture backwards to get him. He just sat there and even the flash didn't scare him away. He thinks he owns the place. He is getting bigger and loves to eat carrots most of all.

Tanek See's the Cardiologist

On Wednesday morning Tanek had his annual check up with his Cardiologist. He has a small heart murmur and they check it every year. He was such a big boy and said he had fun at the doctor's.
They even had a chair just his size for him. He also got a cute pillow that ladies from Shiloh Baptist church make for the patients.

They hooked him up for his ekg. At first he wasn't too sure about it, but once he remembered that they don't stick him he was ok.

The tech was very good with him and he was fine watching what they were doing.

All hooked up and ready for the test

She is explaining to him what the ekg is showing and he was quite interested

And in just a short time it was over and time to take off all the stickers

A big smile for mommy

Just one more to go

The doctor comes and checks him and he is good for another year.

All done and that was fun!

Homeschooling with the Grand-daughters!

While I was visiting with the family this past week I had the opportunity to sit in while Hannah and Emily went to school at home. Heather is so creative that she makes everything a learning time. They have so much fun that everyone likes doing this. It made me want to go back to school (well almost) It did encourage me to do more with Tanek. I like that not only is everything interesting and geared to their interest but they have so much fun too. There was snack time, and lunch time and outside time, and lots of learning time. Here Emily is working with some shapes while Heather is reading to them. This was a real neat little thing she was working with putting together patterns.

It was such a nice day we went outside to do some reading. Richard was cutting and edging the yard and a nice big frog jumped out. Heather immediately picked him up and a new lesson started. Hannah and Emily checked this frog out from head to toe. We looked at all his bumps and colors and stretched him out to see how big he was. Emily gave him a drink of water from the fountain out front. After they were through examining him from every aspect they let him go and then Heather read to them about frogs and we drew pictures of frogs. It was all very interesting and I learned some things I didn't know about frogs. Hannah our big nature lover is raising tadpoles in her little water fountain.

We decided he must be the kind of frog that you get frog legs to eat from. He was big, but his legs did not look very appetizing to eat.

Emily had no problem holding him or checking him out. Lots of girls would not have touched him but Emily and Hannah had no problem with that.

He really was a very ugly frog. Some frogs are kinda cute, but this guy was just ugly. Very bumpy and rough skinned. Made for an interesting study on frogs though.

This was the book Heather read to them while we all took turns drawing pictures of frogs.

So nice that on a beautiful spring day you can be outside reading and studying rather than sitting at a desk in a classroom. I think I would have done much better in school if I had been able to have more of this type. I always hated sitting in a classroom . I found it very boring and confining. I am so happy to see how well my 2 grand-daughters are doing with home school and how well Heather is doing teaching it. Kirsten opted to go back to her school as she needed more of a challenge from her peers. I am encouraged to work more with Tanek and use a lot of Heathers style. She is very patient and laid back with them and they love it. Stephanie will be like that too. I will just help fill in the gaps while Stephanie is at work and we will try to make this a fun experience for him. There is so much opportunity and tools to use that are really a lot of fun while they are learning too.

It is also a very good way to have a closer relationship with your children and teach them your values instead of some of the things they are trying to teach that they don't need to learn.

After a fun morning of school we went to lunch. Richard was off on Monday and he worked in the yard while the girls did their school work and then we all got to go to Chipotles for lunch.

It was a fun Monday. Then after school we went to their horseback riding lessons. But that will be for tomorrow.