Here are the pictures as promised.

Caleb made a piratship porthole:

From Atelier:

Heather:

Jessica:

Caleb:

Cute pictures of Lauren:

And todays fiasco - Heather cutting her hair:

and after a fix at the local hair cut place:

I have been meaning to update my blog the last few weeks, but it kept escaping me.  Probably because Lauren is at that age when she has a hard time falling and staying asleep on her own - she is almost 1 year old! 

But what a week - I have no been feeling well for a while, and  symptoms started on the 20th anniversary of my mothers death.  Then on Wednesday, we went in to the ER.  The pain was like transition in labor x 10.  They gave me lots of pain meds (which made me sleepy) and it was awful.  A 6mm kidney stone had started descending and got stuck in the tube connecting the kidney with the bladder.  The doctor performed surgery, using a laser to break it up.  Luckily I was under general anesthesia for that part!!  3 days later, I am still sore, but not in major pain.   The doctor put a stint (?) in between the kidney and bladder that will be removed Monday (boy am I NOT looking forward to THAT process!!).  The CAT scan showed another stone forming in my other kidney :(  I really hope to never go through that again though!!

So that is a short update.  I really hope to put up pictures of the kids work they have done the last few weeks.  But not tonight.

I feel like I should right a book!  Life is so exciting having a 3 year old.  Their worls consists of "So much to do, so little time" and the DO make the most of it! 

The day started out as any other, but as I walked down our hallway back to my room to grab something - there I saw it.  Nine pices of playdoh arranged ever so nicely in a 3 by 3 square.  This was no doubt the work of a child obsessed with the number 3. 

Later, for a desert, the kids wanted ice cream.  So I come out to answer this question.

"Is this enough sprinkles Mom?"

Yes honey, that is good.  Of course she dumped the remains of the jar into the cone.  When it came down to it, she did not end up eating it all. 

Oh to be 3 again....

We are just over a quater of the way done with this year, and it is time to re-evaluate as see what is working and what isn't.

First, for Caleb - math is slow plodding, but I think he is getting it.  we have added addition and subraction flash cards to try to get the speed up (and not counting on fingers).  Multiplication seems to come easier to him though and we can add those flashcards soon. 

History/Science - we are using WP S&S and it is wonderful!  He loves the readings, books, and activities.  This is really an awesome program!

LA - this is not going so well.  His handwriting is not great and he struggles with a lot of writing.  This is where we are re-vamping.  I re-read The Well Trained Mind and I think we need to go back to square one - copywork.  He sturggles with it so much - there is no point in going on to a writing program until he is physically able to write that much.  So I pulled out the Draw Write Now books and am going to have him to a page a day, all the way through the series.  Then I have a Memoria Press copybook as well for him to work through, and then we will try dictation this spring and hopefully will be able to continue on to a writing program like IEW next fall.    We will continue on with sequential spelling and Wordly Wise as well.

Jess  - is complaining math is too hard.  She is already in the second book for grade 1, so I think we will take a break and work on som flashcards and math games.

She is loving WP Animal Worlds, and is doing great with their LA as well.  She is really reading well for a first grader - no sounding out words anymore.

I want to add more arts and crafts and have already started making my lists for next year on what we will be using... will post that soon :)

We have finished our journey into the African Savannah using WinterPromise's Animal Worlds.  We really enjoy the One Small Square books - I highly recommend them.  We used the Usborne book Animal Things to Make and Do to create these instead of a diorama:

Jessica has thoroughly enjoyed reading about the aninals and listening to me read Gooseberry Park.  We have the 2006 version of the guide, so these were the reading included.  Next, we will journey to the hot, sultry rainforest.

More from Atelier:  This was a family portriat with potato stamping and oil pastels -

I cannot recommend this program enough!!  Go check it out!  It is worth it! It's a DVD format and it walks the kids through all the lessons.  Very awesome!!

Jessica had her birthday - she turned 6.  We were unable to have her party on the original date becuase I got the stomach flu and was unable to prepare.  It was basically a glorified playdate at the park anyways, but I did have to make the cake.

Jess got her hair cut:

And here was her cake:

She had a fun time with her friends at the park.  Then we came home and the kids played outside.  One of our neighbors had a garden, and the carrots were getting rather large.  Here Heather is eating one of them, and I don't think this was the biggest one we pulled:

We are using Atelier Art and loving it.  We are almost done with Level 1 Module A.  Here was today's lesson:

For some reason, I can not sleep, so I am going to update my blog!

Today was Jessica's 6th birthday.  It's hard to image how the time flew by.  Everyone alsys says it goes so fast, yet some days seem like forever, but then you turn around and they are 3, or 6 or 8 already!

Jessica recieved a pink keyboard from us for her birthday.  One thing I am sad about is not being able to afford music lessons for the kids yet.  I'm looking to see if I know anyone will barter for something, but I don't know what I have to offer.  Hopefully I can teach Jess and the kids a few small songs on the keyboard as a start.

Dad came home for the afternoon and we went out to State farm park to play mini golf and play on the playground.  It was overall a nice day.  

Lots to do around the house, I am really struggling to figure out the new 'groove' to be able to get it all done.  Soon all the extracurriculars will start up.  One good note, I have been able to find the time to run daily - about a mile - when Lauren goes down for a nap.  That has been helping, and my goal is to fit into my clothes by Christmas if not sooner. 

Homeschooling is going well - very well.  We are really enjoying the programs and the kids still have a lot of free time. 

Jessica was treated to a Rainforest camp at our local Children's Museum for her birthday by grandpa.  It was an entire week - from 9am to 4pm.  There were 20 kids, and I am told that only three of them were boys.  So she LOVED it!

It was well done, and the activities looked great -especially for a girly hands-on learner like mine.  Here are some of her crafts for the week:

A hummingbird puppet:

A bat:

A bird:

A snake:

A butterfly:

Flowers:

And a rainforset poster:

She said she can't wait to do it again next year!