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I don't seem to have many pictures this time!  Here are the few I do have.

We are continuing with our Cuisenaire rods and both getting a little better at it!  I can let Suzi work some problems while I play with Robert or do something else, which is great.  We are still just working on addition right now.

On my mom's advice, I made Suzi this matching game.  Even though she can't sound out all those words, she can look at certain letter sounds for hints and is pretty good at matching them all up.  The words are taken from several Christmas easy readers we are using right now, so it helps her when they come up in the stories.

 What my kids do in their ample free time.  I'm pretty sure he dressed himself like that.

Lately, I have not had to ask Suzi to practice her writing.  She wrote these words one day when she was playing reading games on starfall.com.  They appeared in the interactive story at the end of each little unit.

The other day we read a book called "Latkes and Applesauce" and decided we'd have that for dinner.  They are a bit of work, but I love latkes.  The kids tried them but didn't like them.  Oh well, more for me.

Another bit of Suzi's writing practice, a list for Santa.  She is not yet writing words all on her own.  These are mostly copied from an alphabet poster.

We went to another homeschool skate, and after the last one I decided to order the girls their own skates.  It looks like the homeschool skate is going to be a regular monthly event.

Blurry picture, but it shows how Suzi's skates light up.

Ivey and her friend Delaney play together at the rink.

This is a little game I'm working on for Ivey.  She wanted to play Suzi's Christmas matching game, but it's too advanced for her.

More dress-up and pretend play.  Our house is their castle.

Tandem nursing!  I'm so proud.

I haven't managed to take many pictures of our time at ATBAB, our Monday homeschool co-op, but here is Robert enjoying his Thanksgiving lunch soup yesterday.  Our minister made soup for us, and it was yummy!  Then we played on the playground a little.

One thing we are working on that I have no pictures of is Spanish.  Suzi decided she wanted to learn it, so I ordered a book (didn't really need it) and got started.  So far Suzi can count to five, tell you her name and how she is doing, and remembers a few colors (rojo, verde, azul are her favorites).  We are working on getting all the colors and counting to ten.  It's been easy to incorporate into our day.  Spanish was the language I took in high school and college, and though I was never fluent, I do remember the beginning stuff!  I am also pretty decent with pronunciation, since my teachers were very particular about this (my favorite one forbid us to ever speak "hick Spanish").  Suzi isn't reading yet, so all the worksheets in our book with the words printed on them are not yet useful to us.  We just find a dull moment during the day and ask each other questions, count, and then I point to different things and ask her what color they are.  We're building on it gradually  :-)

A fall update--57 days down!

 We took a little family field trip to the state fair with Nana and Papa (Jordan's parents).  Most of it was riding and eating fair food, but we also checked out the art exhibits and some other interesting stuff.  This, for instance, is a sand sculpture of the four seasons.  The whole thing was made with sand and water!

The day after the fair, I took the kids to our homeschool co-op's zoo day and Suzi went to the homeschool class there, where they discussed how animals use the sense of smell.  Here is Autumn the giraffe, a few days before the birth of her baby, Kiko.  Kiko was born late at night, but later on I showed the girls the video.  It was amazing!

 Another zoo pic.  The girls love the statues!

 We did several fun crafts, such as pumpkin carving and these cheesecloth ghosts.  Ivey enjoyed this more than Suzi did.

 Here are the kids on their way into our homeschool co-op one crisp fall morning.  Ahh.  I absolutely love that they are becoming a bit more independent!

We went to our rink's first homeschool skate.  Loved it!  The girls spent time with their friends, and I spent some time with mine too.  Robert was at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

 How Little Brother entertains himself during math.  Maybe you can tell that he cried for the abacus.  He wants to learn to count!

 There were so many fun fall events this year.  Here we are at the Montessori school's fall festival, enjoying the hayride.  The girls spent most of their time in the inflatable bouncers, but there were also pony rides and a pumpkin patch.

Ivey the Bat enjoyed spending some time in the play-doh center at our homeschool co-op's Halloween Party.  Mother Goose stopped by to read to the children and play some games, too!

The girls were in a little barnyard play for their drama class.  Ivey is the chicken there in the middle, and Suzi is on the far right, playing a horse.  They did a great job.

 Suzi's handwriting.  She grudgingly follows my example, but prefers to sign her name in a much fancier way.

 In mid-October, we tried to take the girls apple picking, but they were out of apples when we arrived.  So we just bought some apples and picked muscadines.

These are a few of Suzi's Halloween decorations.  She loves to decorate for Halloween as much as I do!  I can't wait to see what she does for Christmas.

Here's the picture Suzi drew of Autumn having her baby, after watching the video.  That's not exactly how the baby came out, but I think it's cute anyway!  Then she did a little copy work.  Her writing is improving--she's not reversing letters as much anymore, and can do more writing faster without getting tired.  Still need to work on spacing, though.

We took a few days off in October to prepare for Halloween festivities and deal with a few other things that came up.  We are going again now, though, so hopefully it won't be as long before I get the next update posted!