Homeschool Field Day 2017

I remember when I was considering homeschooling for our family, one of the biggest worries I had was that my kids would be missing out on the fun school stuff. My worries were all for nothing. I don't feel like they have missed out on anything. Part of that is that we have become part of a community of homeschoolers. We do dramas, fun runs, parties on holidays, experiments, field trips and we organize a field day. 

This year the weather did not cooperate with us for field day. It was chilly, cloudy and SO WINDY! It was so windy that the buckets for our bean bag toss continually blew away - even after being weighted down with full water bottles. The kids still had so much fun, though! 

One of our favorite events is the three-legged race. 

 Selah and Alton moved like one person. They won 2 out of 3 races and were so fun to watch!

Last year Faith opted out of the 3-legged race. This year she decided to run with a friend. Walking by herself is hard  - when you bind one of her feet to another person, it was almost impossible for her. They took it slow and her little friend was so patient. 

After awhile, Selah and some others noticed the difficulty they were having and went over to the girls, grabbed their hands and helped them cross the finish line. It was the. sweetest. thing. ever. These are the kind of kids we are raising. We are teaching reading, writing and math, but we are also training them to look for ways to help those that are smaller, younger, different, or have some kind of need. They are learning to love others and to love them well. These girls that would have been considered embarrassingly slow in any other race (and quite possibly laughed at and made fun of), were encouraged, helped and able to successfully finish the race. 

A few of the events were cancelled because of the weather, so the kids created their own! They found flat pieces of cardboard and used them to downhill sled. They worked together to drag the pieces up the hill and pushed each other down. 

I think this ended up being everyone's favorite part of the day! 

I am so glad that we have the freedom and opportunity to homeschool our children and so blessed by our homeschool community that makes it so much more fun! 

Cinco de Mayo

Every year since Selah was born, we have celebrated Cinco de Mayo with a fun party! We eat Mexican food and get pan dulces from our local Hispanic market.

Each kid makes a mini-pinata. 

Then they beat the living daylight out of it! 

This year we also listened to Linda Ronstadt - Papa Serna's favorite - and we played La Loteria.  

Our Fiesta has become a tradition all of us look forward to every year!! 

New Smiles

We have some new smiles in the Serna house these days. 

Mig is loosing teeth like crazy!

 While we were in San Antonio for Spring Break, Mig lost his first top tooth. He swallowed it! 

Less than two weeks later he lost his other front top tooth. 

How cute is that new smile?!?

Mig is not the only one with a new smile. Selah is getting a new smile, too!!

This is sweet Selah before braces:

And Selah now:

She looks so much older already!!

At church, there is one lady that calls us the "Smiley family". Now we have new smiles to share! 

Wedding in Conroe

Last weekend we loaded up the RV and headed down to Conroe, Texas. 

It was a very special trip - my little sister was getting married!!

The flower girl and ring bearer were super excited to report for duty.

All of the kids were excited about the big day, though.

It was a beautiful venue!

My new brother-in-law is a police officer, so he asked Mig to wear his police uniform in the wedding and then surprised him with a police car to drive down the aisle. It was precious!!!

Faith practiced being a flower girl for a week to get ready. This is her final practice at the rehearsal.

Finally the big day arrived. 

The wedding was amazing! The ceremony and reception were so beautiful! I didn't take my camera to the wedding, but I know they will be getting a lot of good pictures from their photographer. 

The next morning, GiGi, Pop-Pop, Aunt Jackie, Aunt Barbie and Uncle Ernest all visited our RV campsite. 

We had fun feeding the fish and turtles and just enjoying some after wedding down time. 

We headed home around noon, but stopped to say hi to Big Sam in Huntsville.

Sorry, Big Sam. Oh, so inappropriate! 

Big Sam is 67' tall and is the tallest statue of an American Hero in the world. It is also the second largest free standing statue in the U.S. 

It was fun to get out and see the statue in person. 

The whole trip was so much fun and full of so much love. We enjoyed seeing family and meeting new friends. We know Amanda and Brian are going to have many more happy days as they live the rest of their lives together.