The Haynes Family

This week....

2009-08-29T13:13:00.009-08:00

This is going to be a two week post since I forgot to post anything last week, which is becoming the norm.... Makayla is pretty much reading by herself and sounding out 3 and 4 syllable words. We have been visiting Barnes and Noble a lot lately. She loves to sit and read books in the children's section and the boys enjoy playing with the Thomas train set. Mommy enjoys not having to entertain them!
Caleb has learned letter E and letter F. He gets really excited when he sees letters on signs and cars. Last week, he saw a letter E in the bank drive thru. He shouted "Mommy! Look it's a letter E! My learned that today!" He made F's out of play-doh!

Makayla has been learning some fun bible stories! She learned about Moses sending the Israelite spies in to Canaan. We talked about the land being fertile and having great soil to grow things. We made a layered "soil snack" with raisins as the rocky bottom layer, crushed graham crackers as the top layer and cereal flakes as the humus layer with decaying plants and trees. They all loved making and eating this one!

Makayla also learned how God told Gideon to knock down the idols at Baal. We all had fun making idols out of legos and throwing balls to knock them down. Caleb LOVED this! Anytime Mommy says it is okay to throw something in the house, it is a good day!

Caleb learned about Moses and the 10 plagues in Egypt. He was playing with some water, and we turned it red like blood. Of course, that only made him want to play some more!

I am also including some fun pictures of Luke. He loves David's old pony that Aunt Helen gave us. He has started riding it and it is the funniest thing!

Letter C, Letter D, Reading and lots more!

2009-08-11T19:14:00.010-08:00

We have been so busy the past couple of weeks that I haven't had time to post anything. Caleb has learned letter C and D. He also learned how to spell his name. He realized that it matches what is written on the wall in his room. Makayla is reading, and we are all really excited about that! She is flying through the Bob books and tackling just about anything she can get her hands on. We learned lots of fun bible stories over the past couple of weeks. Check out the pictures below...

These are pictures of the kids making a rainbow out of torn up construction paper. We learned how God sent a rainbow after the flood as a promise that He would never flood the earth again. The kids did a great job on these!

This was a really fun experiment! We all made boats out of aluminum foil and then used coins to see how much weight they could hold. We discovered that our boats couldn't hold much! I asked Makayla how Noah's boat could hold all of those heavy animals and not sink when our boats couldn't even hold a roll of coins without sinking. She got really excited and said "God's power!!" We made waves in the water and blew on the boats to see how the water and wind could make the boats move. Luke even got into the action!

The kids pretending to be Abraham in his tent!

This was probably one of my favorite crafts so far! Makayla learned about Joseph being sold by his brothers into slavery and taken to Egypt. We learned a little about Egypt and got a great book from Barnes and Noble that tells us all sorts of cool stuff about the culture. When we were learning about what the Egyptians wore, we made an Egyptian collar out of cardstock. It was lots of fun!

Hope you enjoy the photos!

Another week down!

2009-07-18T14:47:00.008-08:00

We have now finished week 2 of homeschooling, and we are in full swing! By the way, at the top of the blog I will post what the kids memory verse is for the unit that we are in. This week is one of mine and Guy's favorites! Both of the kids learned about Adam and Eve and the fall. We learned that the snake was very crafty! We also studied snakes and learned that God made them with clear eyelids. So they can see straight through them. Pretty cool! Here are some pictures of the snake bracelets that we made.

We also had lots of fun working on our numbers from 1-5. We practiced counting using Teddy Grahams and then ate them as a snack.

One of Makayla's lessons this week was on Cain and Abel. She learned that God sees our heart and that Cain's offering did not please God because he was not giving it with the right heart. This picture is of her etching a heart into layers of crayon.

The funniest story this week was from Caleb when he was running a fever. We were still able to work on letter "B" , and we did a rhyme with lots of animals in it that start with letter "B". The animals included 2 brown beavers that got on Noah's ark. After his fever had broken I asked Caleb if he was feeling better, he got a big grin on his face and said "Yeah! My beaver is gone! Just like on Noah's ark!" He is so funny!

Our First Week in Review!

2009-07-13T11:31:00.008-08:00

We have officially completed our first week (or 5 day unit) of homeschool! We are doing 4 days a week so Mommy and the kids have at least one play day per week. The kids are getting into the swing of things and are actually asking for more work. Go figure! Both Makayla and Caleb started at creation, and we are moving on from there. Caleb learned his letter A this week and had a fun rhyme about Adam and lots of animals that start with the letter A. Makayla learned how God created the world and how He separated the land from the water. She can now name all 7 continents! We are also working on our handwriting, phonics, and math. Hope you enjoy to photos! I will post more in about a week.

These photos are of Makayla and Caleb making a collage. We learned that Jesus is at the center of God's plan for history.

This is a picture of Caleb learning his letter A. He and his "ting ray" were tracing the letter and saying the "a" sound. Don't worry. It's just tape!

This one is Caleb learning about Cain and Abel. He learned how God wants us to love each other, not hurt each other when we are angry.

Easter Pictures!

2009-07-06T10:07:00.002-08:00

Here are pictures from Easter. The kids had a lot of fun hunting Easter eggs after church at Aunt Helen's house. Hope you enjoy the photos! Sorry they weren't up sooner!

Some pictures!

2009-07-06T09:41:00.003-08:00

Just wanted to post some pictures from events over the past few months. The first one is from Guy's surprise 30th birthday party. We had such a good time and Guy had no idea until he arrived!

First Day of School!

2009-07-06T09:35:00.002-08:00

Okay, it has been a REALLY long time since I posted and well, there isn't much I can say other than "We have 3 kids!". Guy and I have begun a new adventure today and want to be able to share it with everyone. We have decided after much prayer that we want to homeschool our children. At this point, we have a plan to take it year by year. I am hoping we can post weekly updates and pictures to our blog to keep everyone in touch with what is going on in our busy home.

Love to you all!
Mary

Alligator Farm

2008-09-27T19:37:00.002-08:00

We are finally getting weather that is not scorching so we decided to make a trek to the Alligator Farm for some Saturday morning fun. The kids LOVED it! Makayla was such a girl and said she was scared. Caleb said all the snakes were monsters and he really didn't like Gomek, the stuffed ginormous crocodile! We only experienced one little mishap when the giant tortoises decided to get a little friendly. We had to quickly distract the kids and keep moving. Makayla and Caleb liked feeding the baby alligators and were so excited to see macaws and pygmy marmosets (just like on Diego!).

Princess Tea Party

2008-09-27T18:34:00.002-08:00

Makayla turned 5 on the 20th and wanted a Princess Tea Party at Bibba's house. So we threw pink and purple on everything that would stand still, set up the croquet game and poured the tea! Our menu was complete with all the tea party favorites, including a birthday cake made out of cupcakes and shaped like a princess crown. Makayla started out not wanting boys at her party (including Daddy!). It took some work but she was finally convinced that all the boys could come and they didn't have to stay outside! We played croquet, ate all sorts of tea party foods and broke open a pinata shaped like a tea pot. Somehow I missed getting most of the shots in digital format and failed to order a disk with the prints so I apologize there aren't more photos! If anyone has any photos, please send them!
Birthdays are always so much fun but it makes me miss our baby girl that we brought home only 5 years ago. Happy Birthday, Makayla!

1st Days of School

2008-09-27T18:20:00.002-08:00

Here are pictures from Makayla and Caleb's first days of school. Caleb was such a trooper and charged right in without crying a bit. He was equipped with his Cars backpack and lunch box (even though he doesn't eat lunch at school!). Makayla started PreK this year and is LOVING it! She was so excited to start school and now counts down the days on the weekend until Monday morning. They grow up way too fast!

New Family Photos!

2008-09-27T18:01:00.002-08:00

I am finally getting my head screwed on straight again and getting around to updating our blog! Here are the latest family photos. This is our first photo shoot with all 5 of us. Bibba and Betsy were gracious enough to let us borrow their front porch for a while. We were eaten up by mosquitoes but I think we got some great shots. Makayla is in the goofy grin stage and Caleb is just a ham! Luke was great and smiled while Mommy and Daddy did everything but stand on our heads behind the camera! Enjoy!

New Pictures of Luke

2008-05-10T18:05:00.002-08:00

I am finally getting around to putting up some new pictures of our newest member! Jennifer did another great job with pictures and got some really cute ones of Luke. Our plan was to take pictures of the whole family, and we were all dressed in our crisp white shirts and slacks. Caleb had other plans and fell backwards on the coffee table and cracked his head open! We all packed up and went to the emergency room. Caleb ended up with 3 staples in the back of his head, and we ended up with only pictures of Luke! We will try again next week, but we are getting rid of the coffee table!

Luke is finally here!

2008-03-08T06:54:00.002-09:00

Luke finally decided to make his appearance at 7:11 pm on Thursday, March 6th. It was a very long day for Mommy, but as always it was worth it in the end. Makayla and Caleb were so excited to finally meet their little brother. Makayla has not stopped talking about him.
Luke weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs 5 oz and 21.5 inches long. He has officially beaten our family record held by Caleb at 8 lbs 14 oz. But as you can see from the pictures, all of our babies tend to look alike. As Aunt Ashley put it "At least you are consistent!" I will put up some more photos in the near future but we wanted to make sure everyone got to at least see his cute little face before too much longer!

Love to you all!

Belly Shots!

2008-03-03T08:50:00.006-09:00

We think we know why Luke has waited this long to make his appearance! We were never able to get photos like these with Makayla or Caleb due to their early arrival. Jennifer just got a few new toys and wanted to try them out on my very pregnant belly. I think they turned out AMAZING! We will certainly treasure these photos. Hope you enjoy them!

Cars! Cars! Cars!

2008-02-25T14:56:00.005-09:00

Caleb's favorite movie is Cars, so for his 2nd birthday we had to have a Cars theme. I think his favorite part was the cake. He kept trying to blow out the candles before we could sing Happy Birthday. He likes blowing candles out so much, Sarah actually got him trick candles that would relight but we couldn't keep them lit long enough for them to relight! Caleb and Hudson had a great time pulling the streamers down and then shaking them. You never know what will entertain a 2 year old! A very special thank you to Tammy for giving Caleb the megaphone! We have REALLY enjoyed that!

Our recent family photos...

2008-02-23T13:38:00.006-09:00

This is my first post containing pictures so I hope all goes well! These are our family photos from the middle of December with Nicole LaPointe. Nicole did an AMAZING job of capturing the kids at their best. As most of you know, it is very difficult to take children to a studio and get good pictures. You never really know if it will work or not! Nicole met us at the Lighthouse Park and took a ton of photos. These are just some of my favorites. Hope you enjoy them.

Here goes...

2008-02-21T10:52:00.000-09:00

After much pondering and not really having much else to do with my time except stare at the walls...I have decided to create a family blog! I am following the footsteps of close friends, and I hope that everyone will enjoy what I post. I thought the timing is appropriate since we are welcoming baby Luke into our family at any time. I will probably do a few posts in the next few days just to get my feet wet. Feel free to comment!