Little girls are becoming plumbers

I don't know if any of you have noticed lately, but there is a problem with little girls clothes. I noticed years ago when I was a Nanny. The fashion designers design girls clothes to look older than they are, we all know that children growing up too fast, but that is another post. What I am referring to is what is a classic plumber look.....

Because the current style is for women to wear things in their hips, there is nothing wrong with this for women, but little girls do not have hips. If their shirts are not long enough then you have the plumber problem. I have a few problems with this.

 First, little girls (and anyone for that matter) do not need to be showing the world any part of their backside. It may be funny or "cute" to see a little crack when she bends over, but really think about it. They are showing the world, or whoever is looking that way, their bottom. How would you feel if that was you exposing that area! 

Secondly, it is immodest, and we need to be teaching them modesty even from a young age. I am currently trying to teach my daughter to sit properly, yes she mostly wears skirts, but I even remind her to sit like a lady in shorts. It is important to me ( and my husband desires it too) to raise ladies. We are slowing starting on proper etiquette, but as she ages we will become more in depth.  

How do solve I solve this problem, when I see my daughter bend over in a pair of capris to pick a flower. Well, I am sad to say she will no longer be wearing this pants. I am trying to have her wear more skirts and dresses, because I believe that is more feminine, but I do allow for some capris. Here are some things i do:

~Elastic waistbands usually do not slip down, tend to stay at the natural waistline not allowing for immodesty. 

~Longer shirts that cover just in case it does happen, these shirts usually have to cover the bottom while standing to give enough allowance when the child bends

~Skirts usually do not have this problem, and if they would there should be something under them that should provide coverage.

~Dresses eliminate the problem

If your daughters clothes do this I don't want to sound like I am judging you for it (this post came about because I saw it when my daughter bent over), but I am asking you to consider covering yours.

I have noticed the clothes that are less trendy and less "adult like" are more modest as well, not all the time, but most of the time. I try to dress my children like little kids rather then little women/men. We only have 18-20 years (roughly) where they are home with us, and that time goes by so fast! Let's keep them little as long as we can.

*** For their safety, I didn't want to include this part in the main part of the post, but I feel it needs to be said because while those other I feel are good enough reasons, this is my biggest concern. I want to handle this one delicately, pedophiles they are everywhere, grocery stores, malls, specialty stores, and even your neighborhood. Some have already been charged and convicted, while others have not found their victim yet. If you visually stimulate them by allowing your daughter to expose herself. I shudder to think what might happen while you look away for a second. I know that is a bit drastic to think this way, but the world we live in today is simply no longer safe. Children have been taken while riding their bikes, while walking home from school, while at public pools, while on vacations, unfortunately it could happen anywhere. You do not have to look very far to even find where things have happened in churches. I am sad to say I have been in a church where children were abused in this way. We need to protect them, and tech them how to protect themselves. 

Update and Field Trips

Well, it is our first week, and other than on the 2nd when I realized he was going to be learning colors and shapes for the first half of the year, and decided to squish it all into the first month, I would say it went well. He had a couple of break downs (that is a nice way of saying he cried because he either got frustrated or did not want to do it any more). We are suppose to start on a new letter next week and he still has no idea what sound the letter I makes, so we may need to drag it out some more. I know he will catch on eventually.

As far as field trips go here is a list:

Grocery Store

Zoo

Art museum

Fort

Old Town

Capitol

Beach

Fish Farm

Farm

Pumpkin Patch

Historic Downtown

Hospital

Police Station

Fire Station

Park

River

Caverns

Wildlife Museum

Sports Game

Library

Bass Pro Shop

School Schedule

I hope you will forgive me for not posting this yesterday. My mother-in-law is in the hospital and the kids and I went to be with her, while my husband took my father-in-law to have outpatient surgery. We practiced writing and letter yesterday while we were out. Here is our schedule, not much, but it works

30-40 minutes Bible

Pray

20 minutes Phonics

20 minutes Story (read aloud)

10 minutes Language

20 minutes Numbers

That is it for our day. My soon to be 3 year old sits at the table with us and listens along with my son and she colors when it is time for him to do any work. For now this works, as the year progresses thing my shift and that will be ok. Here are a couple of pictures of Home Ec/Math/Counting

Cookie Bars with Frosting and Sprinkles

Our School Area

I had to split up the post about our first day and our homeschool area. Here is where we do school.

This is our dining room, you can see our shoe rack in the bottom left (I don't allow shoes inside).

Here is all of our supplies.

Teacher's manuals, our attendance log, and a coloring book.

These all all the papers he will do this year. I was given all the K-4 curriculum from the school I graduated when they decided to no longer do that age group. The pages had already been collated, so in the future I plan to have workbooks. Under the papers are supplement books (I will do another post on what I use to supplement the curriculum).

This is all the paint, crayons, stamps, brads, glue, and other things we will need.

This is the extra collated pages, construction paper, writing tablets, and coloring books.

This is a basket I keep with my things:pens, scissors, hole punch, stickers, chalk, post-it notes, my glasses, and hair ties (for when my hair drives me crazy)

These are all my large flash cards.

Some of our books, these are the easier readers for when he begins to read.

 Puzzles

These are my manipulatives, beans to count, flash cards, blend cards, and fun fact cards.

For now this is what works for us, but as the year goes on I may be moving things around as I discover a better system.

Our First Day

My little man on his first day of K-4

Girl-girl had to have her picture taken too.

"I is for Indian" working on writing our "I"'s and following directions.

Coloring with yellow (he knows his shapes, colors, and how to count. 

Cathy-Belle watching.

Curriculum

Picture of read allowed time. (This was hard to take) we sat on the couch while I nursed the baby, notice the hand by the book, guess she wanted to be in the picture too. "Heidi" is our current book.

School

This is our first official year of Homeschooling. I am a little nervous as we start! I was not homeschooled, only grew of knowing (distantly) maybe a handful of homeschoolers, my step-mom homeschooled for a few years, but other than that I have only read about it. I now have a few friends who homeschool, but I am grateful for these friends who have gone before me (Titus 2 women). 

I was given the ABeka curriculum for K-4 through 5th grade. I have also taught before using this curriculum, so I am comfortable with it. Since this is my first year I figured it would be a good curriculum to use because it is so good about telling you exactly what to do. Over the next couple of years I may try new curriculum, but I may not since I was privileged to have it handed to me.

From my understanding of our state laws the only thing I am required to do is report attendance. I will hopefully be attending some conferences over the next few years to help me find my way. 

We are starting a little early I know, but I read once that it is good to start in the heat of summer, so you can take some time off when the weather is nicer. We will be schooling year round and we will be taking a few vacations as well, plus some time around the holidays.

I am hoping to post all this week about our homeschool, Faithful Christian Academy (just a name we chose, not a requirement to homeschool), here are what I am planning for the rest of the week:

~ Pictures of our first day and our homeschool area

~ Our schedule (which might change once we get into the swing of things)

~ Organization of our Curriculum and supplies

~ An update of how our first week went and a list of field trips we hope to take

Books that my mom read and learned from when she was a child. I enjoyed them when I was little and now my children will enjoy them!

4th of July

This is my favorite holiday. Before anyone judges me  I think we should  celebrates Jesus everyday. Yes certain seasons during the year allow us to focus on His birth or His resurrection, and I serve a risen Savior daily. 

I love the time with family and friends, watermelon, swimming, sparklers, fireworks, and the fact that I was born in America. Yes, the country has flaws, and list seems to be growing more than shrinking, but those of us who have been born here are very fortunate (although other probably feel the same).

I hope everyone had a wonderful Independence Day!

Sparklers

The best I could do :)

"Battle Rockets" as my son calls them

Desserts- my world famous (only when my siblings are overseas) apple pie and chocolate covered pretzel rods

My 4 year old's plates (minus his corn on the cob), the only thing left was some honeydew and about 1/4 of his hotdog.

My plate, it was a holiday right ;)

Nana (my mother-in-law holding Cathy Belle) and Aunt Beta (her sister Linda)

Papaw (my father-in-law) and the kiddies 

The aftermath... I turned on "A Capitol Fourth" and watched it by myself