Seven and counting...

OK, so I managed to add more pictures, just not in the time-frame I had planned on! So here's the rest of 2013 pictures. I'll have to hunt for some Christmas pictures; I just realized I didn't find any. I bet they are on Michael's memory card, which doesn't fit in this computer... we need to buy an adapter for it.

Julian never gets tired of riding/playing in this car! Lucia loves being a passenger, too!

Julian, being goofy.

...and cute.

My little policeman.

Josephine helped me put together Lucia's outfit (she's a pirate!)

The library had these cute masks with a background so you could take pictures.

This is Maureen...

and Julian.

Flowers from Michael. Aren't they pretty?

It's so hard to get all five kids looking/smiling at the camera!

Not sure why I felt the need to take a picture of this... I guess I just wanted to share. With FOUR girls, I've acquired a good amount of shoes. I only keep them if they are in decent shape, too. I have a huge rubbermaid tub I keep them in and normally pull out twice a year... it really does save money to hang on to gently worn shoes and reuse them for others! I do this for clothes, too. My washroom is packed with large tubs of newborn clothes up through 14/16 in girls, and newborn up through size 3 in boys! Every time we have another baby I ask Michael if I should start getting rid of them. He always says, no... just in case. Ha!

Veronica riding her "new-ish" bike (from her birthday last year)

Trying to take a picture of Veronica's first lost tooth! She has "shark teeth" but you can see a tiny spot on the bottom where the baby tooth used to be.

Lucia being sweet and looking pretty :)

Maureen, cradling her new puppy purses from Target... I'm pretty sure she used birthday money to buy these.

Lucia in a baby doll playpen. ALL of the other kids did the same thing when they were smaller!

Julian concentrating hard on pulling Lucia (you can't see her in this picture). The older he gets, he's turning into more of a helpful and sometimes, protective, big brother. At other times, he can pick and be bothersome towards Lucia, too!

I was so proud of how my Literature Unit of Charlotte's Web turned out, I wanted to share. This is the first time I did reading and vocabulary with all three girls as a group, but I decided to try, with aid of A Guide for Using Charlotte's Web in the Classroom (Literature Unit (Teacher Created Materials))

http://www.amazon.com/Charlottes-Classroom-Literature-Teacher-Materials/dp/1557344353/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393052736&sr=8-1&keywords=charlotte%27s+web+literature+guide

It was very time-consuming to prep all the materials, but it was SO worth it! All the girls were very engaged, excited and loved the "fun" activities to go along with reading the story. It went so well, I'm going to continue teaching them this way as a group for reading and vocabulary. I've even decided to let Maureen skip her Vocabulary workbook (Josephine still needs to do hers!) since there are plenty of new words she's learning with these books/vocabulary activities... They each have their own grade-appropriate readers that they read independently, but this is a fun supplemental, you might say... Starting next week, we will do James and the Giant Peach, which I'm really looking forward to. There are many science and history lessons to go along with it! I've even put together a power point presentation for them... All ideas are coming from a similar teacher's guide:

http://www.amazon.com/Classroom-Literature-Teacher-Created-Materials/dp/1557344418/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393053050&sr=8-1&keywords=james+and+the+giant+peach+literature+guide

Here's pictures of a few of the activities/crafts and vocabulary words (printed on the blue ribbons).

Maureen made this one:

This is a page out of Veronica's "Baby Animal Booklet"

Here is Josephine's Venn Diagram; not surprised to see "fashionable clothes" on there!

I was too lazy to flip this picture around... I'm sure you can tell what this is. The game was very easy for Josephine, but she loved playing it anyway!

These were Veronica's puppets:

and all three girls helped make our "puppet theater."

Maureen taking a selfie with the web cam (and her brother!) Her face is looking more and more grown up these days! But her tiny body still seems like the size of a 6 or 7 yo!

I will call this the first update (of probably a few over the next several days...) beginning with stuff from April of 2013! Being a homeschooling, part-time working mother of 5, this is the best I can do! Pictures are taken from cameras and cell phones...so not all the pictures are very good quality.

Here's a monarch cocoon on the side of our house. If you look closely, there are gold specks on it!

This is the first (and only!) cake I've decorated since my cake decorating class. I enjoy doing it, but it's SO time-consuming and stressful to devote your time to when you have 5 children underfoot... It was "Nyan Cat" for Veronica's 6th birthday.

I don't even remember who did this to Julian's hair... I'm guessing Michael or one of the girls did it. But it's funny.

Visiting with Aunt Jeanne and cousin Jada!

The monarch butterfly after coming out of its cocoon! Notice the other cocoon behind it!

Julian crashed out on the floor :)

OK, so here's the 4 Aldana siblings... about 14 years after another picture that was taken of the four of them. I SO need to get the other picture of it, scan it and put it next to this one! So funny.