This is a page to include our loved ones in our daily lives. Follow us in our adventures of love, travel and growth. Not to mention the trouble and laughter our children bring us on a daily basis.
Our first month of home school is over and we love it. I will not say it does not have challenges, Tiago and I are always fighting because he hates to be wrong. It is hard to break away from our fun schedule to sit down and focus for a couple hours, especially when papa is not home and the babies are near us. I am seeing improvement and after meeting with our facilitator that comes to the house once a month, we have agreed to change some things, add some and drop some. I see us as changing things constantly because there is no one way to do home school. Thais loves to be in costume or pajamas every day and Tiago loves changing where we do school. They love going to the learning center once a week, Tiago just created a can crusher in his lego class. It has not been an easy road, but I am glad we are on this road. I love being with my babies all the time and the extra family time we get.
Thais was proud of her braid and wore it to learning center
away they go, together. which is my favorite part. They have 2 of 4 classes together
we love using dry erase boards for math, saves paper
this is our daily life, school, theater and soccer
hard to see but that is Thais in her classroom
the babies were sleeping in the van, so I told the big kids to get started on their work. Tiago had a question so he sat in the front seat and we did school together.
we pick a subject and go to the library for the kids to find books on that subject
I came in the house after bringing in the babies and found Tiago working outside
not bad doing school, pool side
the halloween princess has joined us
they are doing the same math, so they help each other
in just 3 days of math, we finished chapter 1. As you can see, some days we fly through and others day we just get 1 done. I am learning, I just have to see how it goes. I am in no rush and thats the beauty of homeschool. We go at their pace.
homework can be done at night, as well. What ever fits our schedule
after every reading assignment, they do an art project. Tiago made a leadership award for his team mate colin.
So here is the story. For the past 4 yrs (maybe 3) we have gone to Halloween Disneyland, "Mickeys Halloween Party". It is only on certain nights before Halloween and you can dress up and trick or treat in Disneyland. They offer free candy stations that you can go to as many times as you want. They are chances to take pictures with regular characters in their costumes, and they bring our certain villians that you can only see during Halloween to take pictures with, like Jack and Sally, Cruela De Ville and so on. The regular disneyland visitors are forced to leave by 6pm so the park is less crowded and the lines for rides are never more than 5 minutes. You can enter the park at 3pm and it does not close until 11pm. There are special fireworks shows and food as well. It is amazing and the best part, the ticket is $65 which includes parking. So its even cheaper than a regular day ticket and you get all these extra halloween stuff which is our fav part anyways.
Ok so fast forward to this trip. I had bought 8 tickets for me and my kids, my mom and my brother and his family, as we have done the last 3 years. How ever after we found out Thais got into Mary Poppins, we found out she had the first dress rehearsal in the theater on the same day as our Disneyland tickets. I blew it off and told the director we had a conflict and he said he would let her out an hour early but that was it. I was shocked and given a huge wake up call. I was reminded by my friends that there were 100 other kids who would gladly take her place. So I ended up selling our 5 tickets to my friend and buying 6 new tickets for a mother day, today! Unfortunately my brother and his family, and my mom could not go on our new day and I knew I could not go alone, so I invite my niece and her boyfriend to come with us. We were staying in the hotel the day before, but they were just going to drive up and meet us the day of. I paid for their tickets in exchange for their helping me with the kids. It is a help because the babies can not go on rides and the big kids need an adult to go on most the rides, so they went with the big kids and i stayed with the babies. Some rides they went with all 4 and i just took pictures. It worked out great! Im thankful for my family!
When we first went in, we got to see the regular parade and we rushed all the way to the back (kids took the train, i pushed zico and the stroller) to toon town before it closed at 4pm (we got in at 3) and we got in line for pictures with Mickey. This is a must do for us, and I have an autograph book that I put each years picture in.
you know your at disneyland when a storm trooper goes running by, lol!
We saw the day time parade
Zico loves Mickey
The look of awe and belief in her eyes
We always go meet Mickey first thing and get our autographs and pictures
we even were the last ones on the coaster before it closed, they had the whole train to themselves
we ran into a full musical, which was fun
zico waving to mickey
small world with my boy
ireland for our irish dance family
as the sun went down, then it was time for trick or treating
Thais and bita went on the matter horn (which is even scary for me), after we went on the boat through storybook land
I love Casey Jr Train
This girl
Frozen Castle
Thankful I didn't have to go on the tea cups, lol!
I don't even know how they all squeezed on 1 car lol!
Whats Disneyland without the Dumbo ride?
Babies did not want to go in the haunted mansion so we did our own scary faces outside
Darren holding Zico during the light parade
Thats Elsa castle
Happy girl
Big kids went on Star Tours so babies and me went on buzz light year twice, with our glowing gun
Our friends told us about a secret map on jungle cruise, we asked with the magic words and received. so cool!
Got to watch the special Halloween firework show
We went on Nemo and drove the cars, fun times!
We ended up at the Monsters University party, so Jojo and I ran off and rode space mt
We came back and found these guys asleep on darren, lol!
Darren did his best to video the kid own stage while he was sitting down holding sleeping babies.
Thais on the other hand, won the scare champion award for the second year in a row!
It was then time to leave!
Love all the decorations
Walking out, the songs and special effects on all the main street buildings
Not only was Zico asleep, he was asleep on his belly. This kid was wiped out!
They are tired but they smiled 1 more time
Not very often you get the whole thing to yourself
