Okay, so I’m not the world’s most active blogger.      But, I would like to start updating at least weekly, otherwise what’s the point really?

I’ll start with last week. 

Monday we didn’t get a full day in as we had dentist appointments.  Our dentist is about 30 miles north into Wisconsin.  So having an appointment at 2 pm for all three of us consecutively took quite a while.  Poor penguinlover has two more cavities.  They are on the top this time; imagine that, he doesn’t have any more molars on the bottom to get cavities in because they are full already!  I haven’t decided what to do about them yet, I don’t think they are very advanced, but just not sure yet what to do exactly.  I feel so bad for him that he has to go through this so much already.  This makes cavities number 6 & 7.  We are prayerfully seeking alternatives.

Horselover’s mouth was fine, I guess.  They didn’t really say too much about it.  We are still looking into getting braces for her.  I will be calling around to find out about getting other estimates this week.  We will probably end up using our tax return to help cover some of the cost, but probably not all. 

Penguinlover’s guitar lessons are still going well.  He has learned 3 notes each on 3 strings and 2 notes on one string, so he’s learned 11 notes already!  The tricky part is remembering the difference on the scale.  He has learned the some of the same notes, just different octaves so they are on different strings.  For example, he just has to remember which G to play – the G string G or the E string G!  He still enjoys getting it out and practicing so that's good.  I’ve even picked up on some of it.  It is fun!

Since we lost half a school day on Monday, we stayed home Saturday to do our day of Prairie Primer.  I am motivated to get this book done in 4-5 weeks.  We spent almost the whole day on it and got a lot done.  I bought a lapbook project for this book (it was on sale) and we’re working on a butterfly notebooking project.  We will be ordering caterpillars in the spring to watch them morph into butterflies.  I might even plant some butterfly friendly flowers for them to hang out on before they are ready to take flight.

They started their music class on Sunday.  Since we stay at church all day, the teacher is a church member, we’re all already there and she couldn’t see making everyone make another special trip out on another day for less than an hour-long class.  They are using Patch the Pirate this year.  It consists mostly of theory (learning about different instruments and different aspects of music) and choir.  All of the kids play an instrument so it makes sense to go this route.  This way it’s different from the type of stuff they get with their specific instrument classes.  It also has a daily devotional to do.  I am going to have them work on it together.  I think it will be good for them.  The theme of this book is humility and they have been at each other’s throats lately.  So maybe this will help. 

This week we are going to be learning about Blue Herons, leeches, lichens (we didn’t get to that one last week) and continuing our butterfly and lapbooking projects.  We’ll read a brief biography on Noah Webster (Webster’s Dictionary guy).  Oh, and we’re doing an Abraham Lincoln audio unit study to commemorate the bi-centennial of his birth.  Plus, they will still be doing their regular “book work” work.  They do bible, math and English (for penguinlover) daily.  Penguinlover is doing multiplication already!  I couldn’t believe it.  He’s doing well with the concept though so he’ll probably be ok with it.  He started his 3^rd grade math book just a couple of weeks ago.  It’s difficult to imagine that he’ll be doing division, decimals and fractions by the end of this book! 

Horselover is doing well with her math too.  She started division with this book a couple of weeks ago.  She was a little nervous about it, but it clicked and now she actually enjoys it.  We have a DVD to go along with it.  The “teacher” teaches a short lesson and then she does the bookwork.  He explains things her way I think because I think he’s a goofball but she gets it and that’s all that really matters. 

I guess that’s all for now.  Until next time…

God Bless