CrazyBusy

Jun. 18, 2008

Like Older Sibs, Like Younger Sibs

Posted in A Day in the Life (of our homeschool)

When I saw Josiah and Millie walking around the house all dressed up last week, I had an immediate flashback. It reminded me of a time when Gracie and Gabriel used to play dress-up together. Gabe, completely oblivious to his cross-dressing, loved putting on anything pretty that belonged to Gracie. However, he'd always have SOMETHING on that showed a touch of masculinity. Who cares that he had a purse hanging from his wrist and mismatched high heeled shoes on- he had a hard hat on for goodness' sake! See? All boy.

So when I noticed Millie and Josiah, I had to make a run for my camera (okay, so I slowly waddled, big deal). The resemblance was uncanny.

Except that it looks like Josiah's shoes match and he's missing a purse, but I think that's the exact same hat that Gabe wore! Silly kiddies!

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Jun. 16, 2008

What Do YOU Call Grasslands? Savanna, Prairie, Steppe, Campos, Plain, Pampas?

Posted in A Day in the Life (of our homeschool)

Well, it all depends on where you live (er, or where the grassland is located)! At least that's what I my children learned in school today!

Alek & Gracie are staying with their grandparents for 2 nights. It's that time of the year again- assessment testing! And since my in-laws only live 5 minutes from where the children have to test as compared to a 45 minute drive for us, and since they are morning people and we are not, we've always given the grandparents the privilege of being in charge of the children for a couple of nights and getting them to their tests. So the atmosphere is a bit different without them here.

Gabe and Millie are school buddies this year. They are doing Winter Promise's Animals and Their Worlds program and this week, as you can probably guess, we're studying the animals that live in the grasslands. Since *my* workload was lighter than usual with Alek & Gracie being gone, we got around to a hands-on project today! Gabe and Millie made Pop-Up Prairie Dogs! They LOVED this project and have played with them quite a bit. They are trying their best to keep them in immaculate condition because they cannot wait to show their older sibs when they get home tomorrow. Their prairie dogs are taped to a popsicle stick and by pushing it up or pulling it down, they can make their prairie dogs pop out of their holes to see if the coast is clear or back in quickly if danger is spotted. They're pretty cute. Let me show you.

Here's Millie's having a peek around:

And after seeing a vicious Siberian Husky (a natural predator for the prairie dog, I'm sure), it quickly went back into its hole:

And Gabe's having a peek around:

Crazy thing on Gabe's head:

Decorating their homes with grass:

Millie's again (just because I actually got to get out & take some pics and took way too many):

And one of just Millie:

I've decided this IS our last week of school. Even if the baby's not born until my due date (July 3rd) and even if it rains every day until then, we will be stopping this Friday. I am very ready for a break, and we have a new routine to get used to- chores! I'd like to get everyone used to that soon. At least we got a good head start for our next school year, and I know what to expect from this new curriculum.

Off to fold some clothes!

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Jun. 15, 2008

Done!

Posted in A Day in the Life (of our homeschool)

After cooking for 5.5 hours straight, my feet look like they belong to an elephant, but I'm done!

I had a midwife appointment first thing today. And I'm not going to tell you how much I gained in one week. I told Kenton what I thought I'd gained and I was right. I slept with my feet propped up the night before hoping to avoid a massive weight gain due to the puffiness I've seemed to acquire this past week, and while that did help the swelling go down quite a bit (and caused several trips to the bathroom), it didn't lessen the weight gain as I'd hoped. Now the swelling's not just in my legs and feet, but my face too. I hate when my face gets fat when I'm pregnant. It always does though. Anyway, other than that, everything in that department is going great. Now we're just playing the waiting game. My midwife told my baby today that she's welcome to come out anytime now. :)

After that, I had a hair appointment. I needed a cut and color BAD. I also had my eyebrows waxed. Hee-hee! That took 2.5 hours, and no, my eyebrows weren't the cause. I like the color, the cut's okay. You pay salon prices here for a Supercuts quality hair cut. But that's a story for another day.

When I got home, my parents were here. My mom came over to help me with my little project I wanted to get done. We cooked 9 large meals tonight so that we can have several home cooked, quick, easy meals after the baby arrives. We made a great team! I'd still be cooking (past midnight) if she hadn't come over to help. My feet are KILLING me and they're HUGE. Oh well, that's done! Yay!

My dad helped too- he chopped onions, took my boys to get very much needed haircuts (and wouldn't let me pay him back, the stinker!), brought home a couple of pizzas, did dishes, swept & vacuumed for me! I need to have them over more often! :)

We are finishing up our last week of school this coming week.... which is really our 3rd week into our new school year (which will give us more time off with the baby over the summer). I'm looking forward to the break, but in a way would like to just keep going till she gets here! We'll see. It may depend on the weather too.

Okay, I'm tired and just rambling so I'll end here!

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Jun. 12, 2008

Does Your Weather Change This Fast?

Posted in A Day in the Life (of our homeschool)

Gracie's journal entry from today (punctuation, or lack thereof, left intact):

6-12-08 Today it is very very very very very very very very sunny. Now it is getting dimmer.

All in the matter of writing two sentences.

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Jun. 6, 2008

A Quick Update

Posted in A Day in the Life (of our homeschool)

A ~~Quick~~ An Update
(and a video at the end of this long post)

I can't believe how much time has passed since my last post! Time is just flying by. Just for my own sanity, I'm going to try to recap what's been happening around here.

May 29 & 30- We were wrapping up our last days of school and getting the house ready for company. Our 2007-2008 school year is DONE!

May 31-June 1- I had my 35 week appointment with the midwife. Everything is going great except for some blood in my urine. My back (right flank area) is a little achy, which is a little scary since I know I have a ~~time bomb~~ kidney stone in that kidney. I'm hoping it stays put for now. Done the kidney stone thing while pregnant 3 times and do not ever care to repeat it. Ever. Rather give birth 22 more times.

Got home, picked up a bit and then had some company! Hubby's sister was here with 2 of her daughters (our nieces) from Ohio! And his other sister was here too (she lives a few hours away from us and we don't see her often enough either). And of course his mom and also his grandma, who is going to be 95 this year and is the sweetest person you'd ever meet, were here too. So they stayed for a while and our 2 nieces spent the night with us.

The older niece/cousin is 24 and married! We drove out to Ohio for her wedding a couple of years ago. I cannot believe she's 24 and married! Their mom sent them each to CA (where hubbies parents and we us we used to live) the year they turned 10. I remember when SHE turned 10 and came out for her trip. We took her to Disneyland and *gasp* they even let us take her all the way down to Mexico! We went horseback riding and deep sea fishing. She still remembers how yummy the fish tacos were there. Kenton & I were still pretty young then... in fact, younger than she is now! We were 21 & 22? Had just been married about a year. She was very quiet then but so sweet. I remember walking around Disneyland holding her hand! And here she was visiting as a married woman. It was so fun! I have ALWAYS admired this family.

I remember when I was pregnant with Alek & their family came to CA for Christmas that year. I totally admired Kenton's sister. Here she had FOUR KIDS and they were so well behaved and such sweet children. I was amazed. I just thought they were the awesomest family ever. Still do.

We had SO much fun with them! So she was here, I'll call her R, with her youngest sibling, L. L is 15 years old and is about to become a sophomore in high school. Totally not your typical teenager- she just LOVED my children and believe me, they loved her right back! Both nieces/cousins did. They are very happy, bubbly, FUN people to be around. We just had a really nice time with them. They spent the night that night and the next day, after Kenton made everyone pancakes using his grandma's awesome recipe, we headed on over to my mother-in-laws house. We hung out there ALL day. It was our last chance to spend time with his sister and the girls. We didn't leave until after midnight and didn't get home until after ONE AM!

And while I wouldn't change a thing (because that would mean less time spent with my nieces & SIL), it was kind of bad because I needed a little time to prepare for school the next day. I was WAY too tired for that by the time we got home and fell asleep the minute my head hit the pillow.

June 2- Gracie cried because she missed her cousins already. She talked to L about three times on the phone throughout the day.

We had our first day of school! This is our 2008-2009 school year and our first year with Winter Promise! It took an unbelievably long time to finish school! For one thing, it's a new curriculum. The children have some new workbooks to get used to, so it was sort of "orientation" day for that. Their schedules are a bit different too.

I still print off all of their assignments that I put into Homeschool Tracker, so they have that assignment list to go by. But then Winter Promise has their own "Independent Study" sheets for the students to follow. This sheet has their notebooking and timeline assignments and directions, some reading assignments (I do all of the reading aloud though, except for their readers) and lots of activities to pick & choose from. I didn't want to put all of that into Homeschool Tracker because there is just SO much information on those sheets, so I decided to make copies for each of them each week. So they have that added to their workload. And since Gracie is also using their language arts program, she has yet another weekly schedule to follow! We started school at noon on Monday (which is typical- we are NOT morning people) and even with a 1/2 hour break for lunch, we did not get done until 7:30PM! I think that is a record for us. I spent a lot of one-on-one time with each of them that day. And was very ready for bed that night.

June 3-4- Still getting used to our new school schedules and books. It took us about 5 hours to get done these 2 days. Better, but that's still a long day for us.

June 5- Another typical school day except Gabe also had a horseback riding lesson early that evening. Alek and Gracie both think they want horseback riding lessons for their birthdays too now.

We then took the dogs to a local dog park, where Ceph's (Bucephalus- our big black lab/Great Pyrenees mix) main goal was to attack Nooshie (Annushka- my husky) the entire time and keep her from socializing with the other dogs. I swear, that's all he did. She was trying to get some play time in with a Dalmation and he's just smacking her over and making her roll a few times anytime she gets away from him. He's such a brat. He got a few "doggie time-outs" for that.

June 6- Which brings us to today. We wrapped up our first week of our new school year. Fridays are scheduled very light, which I like, since we normally have homeschool co-op on Fridays. It was a pretty good first week, and I'm sure it'll get even better.

And about why we didn't have homeschool co-op today.... our co-op year is done, except that the PE teacher is going to do softball for about a month. Kenton took the children last week and they really had fun, so Kenton wants to keep taking them. Today they didn't have softball because we were SUPPOSED to have "field day". Sometimes living here is depressing. There were prayer requests sent out asking for people to pray for nice weather today so that field day wouldn't be canceled. I just find that sad. Not the praying part, just that you have to worry so much about your plans being canceled because of the constant rain. We never had to worry about the weather in CA. You could just assume you were going to have a nice day, and chances were *great* you would! Well, June has not gotten off to a nice start here. Field Day was canceled due to the gray weather. It was supposed to rain today but never did and the sun did finally come out mid-day, which I attribute to my parents leaving on vacation. My mom can't stand the weather here and they are constantly going on vacation. Every time they leave, the weather gets nice here. Anyway, enough about the weather.

I also had my 36 week appointment with my midwife today! I am so happy about this- according to their scales, I have only gained 22 pounds so far! (according to mine, I've gained 25) With all 5 of my previous pregnancies I gained 35-40 pounds, usually closer to 40. I have absolutely no idea why I haven't gained as much as I usually do because I am not doing a thing different. I just hope I don't start packing it on now! Still have some blood in my urine. They tested my thyroid last time I was there & gave me the results today- my TSH is 2.45, so no adjustments to my medication needed. Blood pressure's great. I'm measuring right on target. Baby's heart rate is good. I am SOOOOOOOOO looking forward to her arrival! I cannot wait to snuggle a newborn baby again!

So that's what we've been up to! Thanks to those of you who've emailed to check up on me! Not too much longer now!

I have no pictures to share, can you believe that?! I have not touched my camera since May 18th! (the pics below were posted days after taking them) It's just been THAT busy. But don't worry. I'm hoping to make up for that once my new baby gets here.

Just wanted to add this video too. A week or so ago, it rained. Now not like we normally get. Here it just constantly drizzles and/or is gray. It doesn't rain very hard at all nor do we hear much thunder or see much lightning. That's pretty rare. So on this day, we could hear the rain hitting the roof while we were downstairs- it was POURING. The children were SO excited about this little rain variation that they ran outside to play in it. Yes, they are weird. Here's a little video clip of them playing in the pouring rain.

I shot this video while standing inside the comfort of my home so the angle is not the best. And I refuse to take responsibility for any dizziness you might experience from the viewing of this video. ;) That "thing" bouncing around on the trampoline with the children is the bow that Gabe made. I don't know why it is there.

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May. 19, 2008

Drum Roll Please....

Posted in A Day in the Life (of our homeschool)

I know I already posted once today, but I cannot let this go unsaid. This is BIG news.

For the first time in 3 years, 4 months, 23 days, 17 hours, 31 minutes and 49 seconds (my calculations may be slightly off), Josiah made it through the day wearing underwear- no pull-ups, no diapers. Underwear. And not 16 pairs of underwear like the other days we've tried to go diaper/pull-up free. Just one pair. One. And they stayed dry and, well, uh, um, *ahem*, "soil-free" ALL DAY.

Amazing. Simply amazing. This child has not shown a shred of interest in potty training. He'd rather walk around like a cowboy who's been on a horse too long with a "package" in his pants than dare try to deposit the package where most normal people do. And mah! Wet pants, schwet pants. What's the difference, thinks he. They don't (didn't?) bother him. But today! For some reason this child decided to use the potty. All day. (maybe it was the Laffy Taffy bribe? doesn't matter)

I am very excited about this. I'd better not get my hopes up though. But oh PLEASE let it be so! :)

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May. 19, 2008

More Missions Accomplished!

Posted in A Day in the Life (of our homeschool)

I've gotten a few more things checked off of my never-ending to-do list! Yay! Here's what I've accomplished:

My hospital bag is completely packed for baby & I! Well, I just have to remember to bring my camera- it can't sit in my hospital bag till baby arrives. I'd miss it. I highly doubt I'll forget to bring it. It'd be a first if I did.
All of baby's clothes, burp cloths, cloth diapers, pj's, booties, onesies, sheets and everything else baby related has been washed, folded and sorted!
I also purchased all of the necessities I was missing- like a new bulb syringe, onesies, baby shampoo and soap, a new car seat, etc.

Now unfortunately, there is one more thing I'd like to have done but can't. It's in regards to The Dresser Situation. The children have ALL outgrown their dressers. While we were at the homeschool conference mid-April, we ordered two HUGE dressers. Seriously. They're 62.25" wide by 51" inches tall. Millie has a hard time finding anything because her clothes are spread over several drawers and shelves in their room. Alek's drawers are falling apart because they're stuffed too full. Gabe's stuff is on shelves in a hutch type dresser that's missing a door (thank you, Alek). His stuff is constantly falling out when he goes to take an item out of it. That dresser's going to the dump. Either Josiah or Gabe will move into Alek's old dresser and Alek and one other boy will get the new dresser. Right now, Josiah's stuff resides in a couple of drawers in our room and a couple of drawers in Gabe's hutch. A mess, I tell you.

So I'd really, really like to have these dressers. Like, now. But they are going to finish them for us (sand/stain) and they gave us a date of June 26 (which happens to be our 15th anniversary!) as to when they could have them done. The baby could be here by then! I really hope they can get them done sooner. Because right now, even though the baby's clothes are all clean and organized, they are being stored in a plastic tub. I don't want them in a plastic tub. I want them in drawers. Especially before she gets here. Baby will get Millie's dresser/changing table and Gracie's dresser once the dressers arrive.

When they do get here, I also need to go through all of the children's clothes & weed out the outgrown and out of season clothes. That's going to be a big job. I *could* do it now but I'd rather just do it all at once. So it's out of my hands. I have to wait. Maybe I should call them. Maybe I should bribe them. Or beg or plead?

Next mission? Put photos from last NOVEMBER to present day, that I just finally ordered, into photo albums. Sound easy? Have you noticed how many pictures I take? Hee-hee! I purchased 5 new photo albums just to be sure I had a place to put them all. And for some reason, Shutterfly sends them all out of order, so I usually have to go through and arrange them in chronological order before putting them into albums. DONE!

Oh, and then there's the fact that NEXT FRIDAY is our LAST DAY OF SCHOOL! But since we are going to continue for 3 weeks into our next school year to give us more time off with the baby, that weekend I will have to clear out the books from this year and replace them with next year's books. I also need to go through the children's binders and gather their best work for a portfolio and have it bound. And I'll have to print out their grades so those can be included in the portfolio......

A woman's work is never done!

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May. 17, 2008

Everyone Needs A Boost Every Now And Then

Posted in A Day in the Life (of our homeschool)

My entire family is not out and about in the general public often, where certain standards of behavior are expected (except church, co-op). When we go out, it's usually for a walk or to the beach or wherever- places where children aren't expected to sit and be quiet.

Yesterday we all went out to see Prince Caspian. It's a 2 hour, 20 minute long movie. I will admit I was little worried about how Josiah would do, but they did great, all of them.

As we were exiting the theater, this lady and her husband caught up to us and said, "I just have to tell you. You have the most beautiful family! Your children were so well behaved! It's just so nice to see a family like yours these days!"

Of course Kenton & I both smiled and thanked her but if she only knew what a boost to the soul those words were! Frequently, it's quite obvious by the looks on people's faces that our large family doesn't meet their approval (who asked them, anyway?), even when the children are at their best behavior. So to hear something like that from a complete stranger was a very, very nice change. May we all think about how our words and actions affect others.

Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. Proverbs 16:24

Reckless words pierce like a sword. Proverbs 12:18a

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May. 3, 2008

Gabe's 7th (Cowboy) Birthday Party

Posted in A Day in the Life (of our homeschool)

Gabe's not quite 7 yet (not till the 15th) but due to time constraints mostly, we celebrated his birthday yesterday.

We usually just have birthdays at our house but we did things a bit differently yesterday. The children had co-op in the town next door and this is also where all of the grandparents live. So my mother-in-law offered to have the lunch/BBQ part of the party at her house immediately following co-op. It was SO nice not having to scramble to get everything done the day before, including my house!

It did take a lot of planning though. I brought almost all of the food, down to the burger toppings and condiments. We had a western theme going on. I brought a huge duffle bag with all of the children's changes of clothes (they do PE at co-op- cowboy boots just don't cut it for PE), hair things, etc. I asked the grandpas if they could dress up as cowboyish as they could and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the grandmas dressed up a bit too! I got hammered a bit for being the only one NOT dressed up in Western attire, but I'm sorry, I don't have any western tops to begin with, let alone MATERNITY western tops! I had jeans on? Doesn't that count?

Anyway, there was another reason we wanted to stay in *that* town for the party. We had some tricks up our sleeves. You'll have to read all the way through this long post to find out what that was. I dropped Kenton & the children off at co-op (except Josiah), and headed over to Costco to pick up drinks, buns, chips and some other things. Then I stopped by my in-laws house & unpacked all of our stuff, including Gabe's presents. I had time to saute some mushrooms and brown up some onions for the burgers and then had to go pick everyone up. My mother-in-law finished the rest of the food prep and my father-in-law grilled burgers and hot dogs while I was gone! I was so thankful! Oh, and my mom had some baked beans already made from her recent company, so she just brought those! I tell ya, I got off easy yesterday!

After I got the rest of my family there, I had them change and re-did the girls' hair. I got a group shot of everyone (but me) before we ate. I should just warn you now, I had a little fun processing these pictures, so some may look a little weird to you. I took WAY too many and didn't get any I was impressed with but here's a snapshot of our day.

Doesn't everyone look cute all dressed up? I wish I'd had a better spot to take this- the background is way too busy, but it was raining at the time (don't get me started on that). See the drops by Gabe's feet?

And then I attempted a group shot with just my children. I didn't get one good one. Here's one where everyone looks good but Josiah:

And then Josiah finally cooperates and no one else (except Gracie) does:

Birthday cowboy:

Believe me, the burgers WERE as good as they looked! Thanks Dad!

Mmmmmm......

My MIL had the table set so cute! She found some of Kenton's old plastic cowboys and set those at the top of Gabe's plate.

So lunch was wonderful. We had BBQ'ed hot dogs and hamburgers with LOTS of fixings for the burgers. We had chips, potato salad and baked beans too. And then it was time to open presents. Here's Gabe waiting patiently for everyone to gather around. Papa was cleaning his glasses for him.

The girls close by for moral support (actually, Gabe's reading the card they gave him). My children declared yesterday that they love giving gifts better than getting. Even after just asking Kenton & I what we liked best when we were children, and we gave them our selfish, honest answer that when we were little, we liked GETTING. Doh.

I love this one of Gracie.

My moms do NOT like me taking their pictures. At least my mother-in-law just gives in and smiles.

This is the only picture (out of 5 or 6) I got of my mom where she's SMILING instead of SCOWLING. The stinker. My parents.

So Gabe got some really cool gifts from his siblings. He got a tiger Webkinz from Gracie (a first for us), a fun Rubik's Cube game from Emilia, a toy shotgun from Alek, and some sidewalk chalk and Hot Wheels cars from Josiah. And then we rolled out our gift to him. We had all of the children (except Gabe) sit with their backs turned to Kenton with their eyes closed so that nobody would blurt it out before Gabe got to see it first. Gabe got a new bike & helmet! He was SO excited!

So after Gabe got to go outside and try out his new bike for a while, we brought them all back in and told him he had one more gift from us. He didn't look too impressed when I handed him a stick horse I'd picked up at the dollar store, but didn't say much. I told him that cowboys had to have a horse to ride, right? "Yeah." You don't want to ride this one? "It's not real." Oh. Would you rather ride a real horse? "Yeah." Okay, let's go! At this point the children all began squealing. Really? Really, mom? Yes, really! Let's go!

So on to the second half of the birthday party, to a young homeschooled teenager's house who does birthday parties and gives horseback riding lessons for some income. She had a little room all decorated in the barn with tables and chairs, paper plates, party streamers and balloons all ready for us. Her horse, Casper the Friendly White Horse, had been groomed and even had glitter in his mane. This was a hit, I tell ya, and the other children are already asking if we can do that for THEIR birthdays!

Gabe got to walk the horse from the barn to the arena.

Of course Gabe was the first to get to ride.

Clint Eastwood. I mean, my father-in-law.

I don't even know what to say about this little ham.

Hunky Hubby.

Alek's turn on the horse. He got to ride without being led.

I don't know where he gets his silliness.

Josiah even got a couple of turns to ride. He was not a BIT afraid. He smiled almost the whole time.

Gaber.

Wearing the double crown of Egypt. An easy way to hold someone's hat for them.

Even Papa got to ride! Which do you like better?

I think my dad was SO excited that a) he didn't eat it while trying to mount the horse, b) he didn't fall off while riding and c) he didn't eat it while dismounting, especially since he knew I was right there to joyfully capture the moment if it'd happened, that he did this when he was safely back on the ground. And in case you're wondering why this is such a feat for him, watch the video in THIS POST:

So tough.

So a little over an hour later, after all of the children had 2 or 3 turns each (and Papa got his turn), we went back to the barn where we had our cake... and ice cream. It was an ice cream cake. Gabe wanted a cowboy cake and since we don't have a REAL bakery around here where we can do special orders and our 2 grocery stores are limited to making only what you see in the books AND they BOTH said their photo cake machine was down (which makes me wonder if they share it), Gracie gave us the idea to get the cake at Baskin Robbins. THEIR machine was NOT down and the lady didn't show me any pre-made cowboy cake pictures, she just asked me what I wanted it to look like. I was SO impressed with her work! Gabe's cake turned out SO cute! Just look:

Those specks on the edible photo part are frost. It was really yummy!

And then the grandparents gave Gabe their present from them- 4 horseback riding lessons from the same girl who did the party! He is very excited about that. We had a great day yesterday.

From there, we went back to the in-laws, packed up our stuff and followed the parents to a duplex they're thinking about buying. It would be so cool if they did! They're going back to look at it again today. It's only 20 minutes from our house (as compared to 45 minutes), it's in OUR town, it's SUPER SUPER close to our church, we could visit them all at once, it's at the end of the road.... I hope they get it. :)

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Apr. 16, 2008

We're Outta Here!

Posted in A Day in the Life (of our homeschool)

I am so excited! We are going to an awesome homeschool conference this weekend! And I don't know what I'm more excited about- the conference or the fact that Kenton & I get to go away, by ourselves, for 2, maybe 3, nights! Okay. Yes, I do know what I'm more excited about. But the homeschool conference sure is a nice bonus! Hee-hee! This will be the SECOND time we've gone away for a couple of nights by ourselves since having children- the first being for Kenton's birthday (surprise) in January. The children will be watched by the capable and loving hands of their grandparents- in split shifts.

I love homeschool conferences. I've gone just about every year since Alek was 2. They are so refreshing and encouraging. I would highly encourage you to try and get to one if you've never been. It's also a great time to check out all of that curriculum you've only drooled over in catalogs.

Doug Phillips of Vision Forum is the keynote speaker! It ought to be good.

I hope to see Leigh and Linny again there! :)

While we're there, we're going to do a little shopping (order the children's dressers) and a few other things. We have to take advantage of being in/near a big city when we can. Pray for safe traveling if you think of it!

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Apr. 13, 2008

An Actual Post About Homeschooling (our plans for next school year)

Posted in A Day in the Life (of our homeschool)

My recent prolonged absence wasn't only due to all of the time that went into re-doing a few of our rooms (see the 3 "Home Makeover" posts here, here and here). I was also doing some major planning and organizing for our next school year... or two.... or three.

After talking things over with Kenton, we decided that instead of stopping our school year on May 30th as planned, we'll keep going for 3 more weeks, extending our last day of school to June 20th. Why? Well, the baby is due July 3rd, which in my pregnancy language, means the end of June. I want to ENJOY this baby without the added responsibility of homeschooling for as long as I can. I figure that if we start our next school year in June, we could start back up September 15th (which would give me 2.5 months off with the baby), take a week off at Thanksgiving, 3 weeks off in December and still finish by May 29th of 2009.

Of course, I do realize that I may need to be flexible, but as of now, our next school year is completely planned out.

I have all of the children's assignments put into Homeschool Tracker (I L-O-V-E that program- have used it for years now!), which believe me, is a very time-consuming chore because I sometimes get pretty detailed in the directions for assignments. I figure the more detailed I am, the less the children will have to ask me what they're supposed to be doing. Anyway, I love this program because by putting in all of the assignments the children do on their own, it accomplishes 3 things for me:

An easy way to input grades All I have to do, since I assign certain assignments a grade point value, is click on the "points earned" box, input a number & mark it as "complete." I don't even have to open up each assignment individually; I can just go down the list of assignments for the week and click in a number into the points earned field. I try and do this weekly and it only takes about a minute or two for each child. Voila! Grades are up-to-date!
Attendance calendar is a breeze We have to keep up-to-date attendance records here in WA. There is an option in HST that if checked, when you mark an assignment as complete, it will automatically mark the attendance calendar for that child as "present" for that day. As long as I keep up with inputting grades each week, my attendance calendar is also up to date each week.
Makes a nice checklist for the children By putting in all of the assignments my children will be doing on their own, I have the option of printing out a weekly checklist for each of them. It makes it so much easier on all of us if I can just run down their list and see what they need to be doing for the day and what they've already done (so I can look over their work.) They check off their assignments as they go and know what they have to do for the day at a glance. Here is a screen shot of one of Alek's Mondays (his heaviest school day). If you'd noticed that I allow him to check his work on his own, he is the only one that has this privilege as he has proven himself to be completely honest and responsible in doing so. Also, his Monday assignments are two pages long- this is just the first page (if you were wondering why he didn't have to do math).

Last year, if you remember, I spent half of my summer planning out this school year. That was a bummer. There is a link to the schedule I came up with here that you can download if you'd like. That one is in Word format or click here for the PDF version (be sure to read the very last page to understand my abbreviations). The colored dots you see next to some reading assignments are my cue to check my teacher's notes (which are separate from the schedule). Our scripture memory plan can be found here. And just FYI, we never did do Picture This!- a draw your way through the bible type program. It was one of the first things that got cut due to time.

Anyway, I have since found Winter Promise. They use Mystery of History as their spine for history as I did this year. I think someone here may have suggested to look into them back then, and I did, but the age span for their Ancient World program was listed as for 4th to 6th graders, and I was hoping to use it with a 1st, 3rd and 5th grader. Well, looking back, this program would've easily worked out for us. It's actually not a whole lot different than what I'd planned anyway, and Gabe (my first grader) has had no problem keeping up with us.

So sometime early in this school year, when I realized that Winter Promise (WP) would've worked just fine for us, I planned on using it for our 2008-2009 school year, thus saving me 1.5 months of my summer planning it out myself. (thank you Lord!) I went ahead and ordered WP's Quest for the Middle Ages at the beginning of February. It looks absolutely wonderful! We have REALLY enjoyed Mystery of History 1 this year so I am happy to continue into the next volume next year.

Well, then I got to thinking. I had planned to use QMA with my older 3 and then use Sonlight K, which we already own, with Millie. However, out of all of the years we used Sonlight (PreK to 3), K was my least favorite. The last time I used it (when Gracie was in K), I remember having to replace a bunch of the books I didn't care for/thought would be over Gracie's head, with ones I thought we'd like better. That ended up being more work and I don't care to go through that again. I decided to look into some of WP's other programs for younger children and thought the Animals and Their Worlds program looked pretty fun. I thought it would be a nice change of pace- a science oriented study rather than history-oriented. I talked it over with Kenton & then went ahead and ordered it.

And then I got to thinking again. Gabe has followed along with Alek & Gracie since he was in K. He has probably had more history than most 1st grade children will have by their 3rd grade year. I thought it would be fine if he skipped a year with a history oriented unit and decided to let him choose if he wanted to follow along with Millie or Alek and Gracie. I KNEW what he'd choose because he's more into animals than any of my other children. It was a no-brainer for him- he will be doing Animals and Their Worlds along with Millie next year. I really think he's going to enjoy it. There are a couple of books that they use that teach children to draw animals. He is my most artistic child so this will be good for him. An added bonus to this will be there will be no more fights as to who gets the coveted spot next to mom during reading. I will have 2 children in each program.

I did have to alter the reading schedule in QMA for Alek though. Using WP's reading schedule (the books the children read on their own), Alek & Gracie would be reading the same books at the same pace. Well, they are NOT at the same reading level- Alek needs to be challenged a lot more than that. Gracie will be reading 9 books next year per WP's schedule, which will be challenging enough for her, and I believe I have scheduled out 19 books for Alek to read. I lightened up his Friday load a bit since we usually have homeschool co-op on those days anyway. He will have read 20 books by the end of this school year.

I also planned out all of their memory verses for the year. This sounds easy but it took me an entire day to do this! We have songs that go with all of their verses and I even made the CD already. The first 2 verses they will be learning are sung in a lullaby. I want them to learn this before the baby arrives so they can sing it to her. :) It's the 3rd track on the Hide 'Em In Your Heart lullaby CD and is really sweet (you can listen to a short clip of it on Amazon). Gracie wanted me to print off the words and has it pinned on her bulletin board in her room. I think she knows it already.

We love to read poetry and WP only has 1 poem scheduled per week in the Animals and Their Worlds (AW) program. I have a few poetry books just about animals so I scheduled out a poem to read every day that goes with the animal we're studying. I'll read one a day to Alek & Gracie too but don't need to schedule that out as we'll just go through an entire book.

I also decided that I wanted to do Bible with all of my children together. I am also hoping that we can make this the first thing we do in our day. We will be reading through Leading Little Ones to God. This is a book Sonlight uses in, I believe, grade 1, so Alek & Gracie have already read through it. However, it's a wonderful book and it's been long enough for them that I believe it will be beneficial for them to listen to it again. I also wanted to continue to read about missionaries or people of great faith. We will read two YWAM books, about a chapter each Monday throughout the year. We will be reading about Eric Liddell our first semester (the Chariots of Fire guy) and Corrie Ten Boom the second. We will top off each book with a movie night about each of them. We will also be reading from two other types of books: one called Polite Moments (an awesome little book of manners), and a (very) short moral story with books mostly from the Building on the Rock series. This may sound like a lot, but will only take about 15-20 minutes to do at the most (I did a trial run with our schedule). Here's a screen shot of a typical bible reading week:

This school year I printed off a bible reading schedule for Alek & Gracie. They check off the passages they read as they go. Their instructions for bible reading are to pray first, then read the Word. It's funny how much they enjoy this- on Fridays when we have homeschool co-op, I will let them skip several assignments (mostly all but reading and math) but they do NOT want to skip their bible reading! I am hoping to instill a lifelong habit in them. This was not on Gabe's assignment list, but he decided he wanted to read the bible every day too- so he has been lately!

Not only do I want them to read the bible, I also want them to know how to apply it to their lives. I've kept an eye out for devotional books for them to do on their own and found one for each of them that I think is going to be awesome!

Gabe will be going through a book called God's Mighty Warrior Devotional Bible. Gracie will be going through it's counterpart, God's Little Princess Devotional Bible. They are both written by Sheila Walsh and are geared for 4-8 year olds. The devotions are short and sweet, easy to read and easy to understand. I think they will be perfect for those two. I read through most of the lessons and I am just really impressed. They will do a devotion out of their books on Mondays and Wednesdays (which includes reading a portion of scripture out of the devotional book) and reading the bible on their own following a reading list on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

I have been on the lookout for something to use with Alek for a couple of years now. I found two devotional books at Plain Path Publishers for him that I am SO excited about! I really hope and pray he takes these lessons to heart because they are so meaty- there is so much to be gleaned from them! They could really make a difference in a child that takes them seriously. I purchased both Christian Manhood and Christian Character. They are both geared for 10-14 year olds, but I think they could be used for advanced 9 year olds to young men older than 14 easily. I had Kenton look them over and he thought Alek should go through the Christian Character book first. Check out the links I added above to view sample chapters of these studies. I think you'll be impressed!

For the first part of the year though, since we will be studying Saul/Paul, the apostles and the early church, Alek will be reading through the book of Acts and doing a study guide put out by the Hey Andrew, Teach Me Some Greek folks. It's called I Can Study Acts, Alone With God. They also have sample pages you can view on their website. It looks great too. It will take him 2 school years to get through all 3 of these books.

I have all of our school books for next year in two tubs- one for the AW program and one for the QMA program. My teacher's binders are put together and completely organized. I still have a few things I could do to make life easier once we start school, but are not completely necessary. For the most part, if we had to start our next school year tomorrow, I am completely ready to go! And as you homeschoolin' mamas can imagine, that is a time-consuming accomplishment! But BOY, does it feel good to be DONE with that!

Oh, and I already have a good idea of what we're going to use for our 2009-2010 (S&S for the boys and CAW for the s Sonlight preK for Josiah) and 2010-2011 (QRR for A & Gr- and maybe Ga & E too if WP comes out with one for their age, Josiah??) school years... Crazy, huh?

So there's a peek at what we'll be doing next school year!

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Apr. 10, 2008

Homeschooling Tool You Can't Live Without?

Posted in A Day in the Life (of our homeschool)

Is there something you use in your homeschool that you couldn't live without? (or would be greatly inconvenienced if you tried?) If so, I want to hear about it!

There are several things I could list as far as our homeschooling must-haves: my computer (along with Homeschool Tracker), the 3 hole paper puncher, electric pencil sharpener, etc. But the one I want to talk about is our unique dictionary.

We have been plagued with a dictionary problem. We have all kinds of dictionaries around here. We have Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary. I love that dictionary, however, it was an expensive book and it takes up a LOT of space. We don't keep it with the school books (no room on the shelves) so that one sits on a bookcase upstairs, rarely used. I can see this one getting more use when the children are older to compare how word meanings have changed over the years. They'll be more gentle with books by then too (I hope.)

Then there are children's dictionaries. We have somehow built up quite a collection of children's dictionaries. We have found these to be pretty much useless. Alek is usually the one who needs to look a word up in a dictionary, and without fail, the word he has to look up is NOT included in a children's dictionary. It got to be extremely annoying.

And then we have the well worn Merriam-Webster pocket dictionary. This has served a purpose in a pinch but because of its size, it seemed to be lacking something- not as many definitions per word and the definitions seemed abbreviated. Plus it's falling apart.

And then we found Franklin Electronics Merriam Webster's Speaking Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus. Shew. Long name. But bascially, it's not much bigger than a checkbook, it contains over 200,000 words and it will even SAY the word for you.

Now the "speaking" part may not be a big deal to many of you. However, a lot of what we're learning in history is new to me & I have a hard time pronouncing a lot of these ancient names and cities- and I *hate* to mispronounce words. All you have to do is type in the word & press the speaker icon and it will say the word for you. LOVE that feature. It's also nice when the children (mainly Alek) have to look up a word- they can also hear how it is pronounced.

A few weeks ago, when Kenton was reading to the children, he mispronounced Ashurbanipal. He rarely ever mispronounces words (he's a smartie). I had had to check this one in my little dictionary a day or two before, so I actually knew how to pronounce it correctly. I got out the little dictionary & played the word for him... and Mr. Funny Guy went on to pronounce all of the remaining "Ashurbanipal's" in the story in the computer-like voice of the talking dictionary.

We have not ONCE had the problem of a word not being in this little dictionary. It takes up hardly any space. There are a lot more features to it that we don't even use- games, SAT spelling bee, grammar guide, etc. And you can also purchase extra cartridges to expand your dictionary, like a Spanish-English dictionary. Cool, huh?

Anyway, this is NOT one of those "paid to post" posts (in fact, NONE of my posts are) nor do I get any sort of commission if you click on the Amazon link I posted above. I just love this little dictionary so much that I wanted to share about it in case someone else has had a dictionary problem too.

Also, if you DO follow the Amazon link, my model is actually the 1870A. The link is for model number 1870. I think mine has been discontinued. I did not pay over $100 for my dictionary- it seems like I paid $79 and I believe I bought it on Amazon. I'd have a hard time paying the price they have listed for this thing.... so shop around if you want a better price! And if you do get one, let me know how YOU like it!

All in all, this has been one of those "I'm glad we splurged a little" purchases. It has been quite a useful tool around here.

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Feb. 19, 2008

Field Trip! Goat Farm.

Posted in A Day in the Life (of our homeschool)

(if you are here to find out the sex of our baby, CLICK HERE)

We went to a local goat farm yesterday for a homeschool field trip. As I said yesterday, there was a really good turn out. Our hostess and the owner of the goat farm said that she had told her husband the night before that she didn't think anyone was going to show up. She was a bit surprised at how many were in our group!

It was a very bright and sunny day and there were so many people that I didn't get very many decent pics. But just wanted to share a few snapshots from our day.

My belated fraternal twins, Gracie and Josiah, pet the cutest, softest baby goat:

Millie pets a baby goat:

Gracie feeds a baby goat. I got a pic of all but Alek feeding the baby goats but there was always someone walking right in front of me when I snapped! LOL!:

Josiah and Millie wrangle a baby goat:

This goat thinks I'm weird looking:

Millie gets a try at milking a goat. The goat is not happy with Millie's mother. "Why? WHY?" she asks.:

I thought this was cute. Alek was in his own little world (as usual) and while everyone else was watching the children take turns milking the goat, Alek was gently playing with the goat's long floppy ears. Alek really, really needs a hair cut.:

Josiah snuck in a try at milking the goat after his turn was over. I don't think he's using proper technique, despite the very thin stream of milk flowing from the goat's udders.

Afterwards, she invited us into her home to sample some goat's milk and cheese. I will admit, I was a little nervous trying goat's milk. I had always heard it has a bit of a goat-y taste to it, but it didn't at all. In fact, it didn't taste any different than cow's milk to me. And the cheese was yummy! It almost tasted like cream cheese, but lighter and fluffier. She had out some bread and crackers to spread the cheese on. Mmmm!

And when we left, she gave everyone a sample of Juniper Breeze goat's milk soap that she and her two daughter's had made. It smells really good! They make all sorts of scented soaps and sell them locally at a farmer's market.

It was a really nice day!

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Oct. 23, 2007

A Result Of Family Worship

Posted in A Day in the Life (of our homeschool)

Unfortunately, in our church, we don't sing very many "older" songs- mostly modern, contemporary songs. I don't know the words to half the songs we sing. We started doing family worship.... several months back, I think? We haven't been very consistent with it at all lately, but it's sweet to know that my children have learned a lot of the older hymns during our family worship time. I overheard Josiah singing Victory in Jesus tonight while he was playing. I quickly and quietly grabbed my video camera, hoping to capture him without his knowing, but alas, as always, as soon as the video camera is ready, the action stops. So I bribed him with Smarties, cuz he was not going to do it for me otherwise. Obviously he doesn't know it perfectly, but hey, he's still 2. I think he did pretty good! I made it B&W due to some "white balance" issues. Also, I did not notice the "thing" on his ear until I uploaded the video. Don't know what that is.

Victory in Jesus
Starring Josiah

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Sep. 6, 2007

MOH Week 1- Creation: Invent An Animal

Posted in A Day in the Life (of our homeschool)

We are doing volume 1 of Mystery of History this year. I already know we're going to love it. We're finishing up our first week and last night (yes, night-I was in recovery mode after the tea party) we did one of the activities. The children were to invent an animal, give it a name and describe it a little. They had a blast and the results were.... interesting. Disturbing? Puzzling. No, really, they did good!

Meet Squishypond, created by Millie, age 4.

Even though I'm doing Sonlight's Preschool program with Millie, she wanted to participate in this activity. According to Millie, Squishypond "gets squished and he jumps in the pond. He's wet and he says hi to friends. He eats pond. Actually, that's kind of his drink. He eats grass."

Wiggly-Biggly

This is Gabe's (6). Here's what he had to say about it, "This is a Wiggly-Biggly. It eats mostly goldfish and catfish. If it's very hungry- a cat, and if it's starving, a person. It can grow and shrink quickly. It has 1 predator: people. He's caught Little Squishy, the fish." (see little blurred blob by his top yellow arm)

Another view of Wiggly-Biggly.

And now I'd like to introduce you to Googly Moogly. And if I could write that name exactly the way Gracie (almost 8!) did, you would see the 4 o's had eyeballs just like her creation.

And wait! Before this creature scares you away, let me explain. That protrusion, according to its creator, is its mouth. Here's what she wrote about it, "This is Googly Moogly. This thing sticking up is its mouth! It doesn't float on the water it sticks to a rock under the water." She initially told me it stuck to rocks by its mouth and then said that "it sticks to rocks with its suction cup legs, like some toys we have in the bathtub."

Gabe complimented Gracie on how real she made its eyes. Yeah, that's the first thing I noticed too.

And now on to Alek's (10) creation. Meet Squidgellyphytarpirmush. And I'll pay you $5 if you can pronounce that correctly. He wanted a bit of a Latin feel to the name he chose. I think the "phyta" part qualifies?

Here's what Alek wrote about his Squidgellyphytarpirmush (spelling and grammar intact), "It eats usually plankton, sometimes fish, and when it's starving it could eat a whale. It's mad most of the time. Has no predators. It floats on the water when it's sleeping, can rocket through the water for fun, and swim for food. It has poison fingernails and polished naturally red toenails. It breaths air and is able to hold its breath for 12 hours. Its long nose helps it breath. It has a brain just for defense. the hair has poison, like the fingernails. [was running out of room on his paper so he crammed the rest of this...] Has 4 eardrums, 3 mouths and 3 toes on each foot. Has 2 fingers."

They wanted me to bake these so that the clay would harden and they could keep them. Like a good mom, I put them in the oven at the lowest temp it would go. I'm sorry to say that Gracie's Googly Moogly is now just a mere puddle of goo. Maybe she could nickname him that. Goo. Sure, you can still make out its eyes, but its mouth is now one with its body. I guess this particular clay's motto "Never Dries Out!" was really true. Who knew?! I hope she won't be too terribly upset....

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About Me

Hi and welcome to my crazy busy world! I'm Alyssa, pronounced A-lee-sa. Hubby & I have been married for 15 years and we have 5 wonderful children and one on the way! Their ages are 11, 8, 7, 5 & 3, with the latest model due early July! Spend any amount of time here and I'm sure you'll quickly learn that I love photography! You'll find quite a mix of posts here- lots of photo blogging, some photography tips and tutorials, posts about home schooling and posts that will give you a glimpse to the goings-on in our lives. I hope you enjoy your visit! Thanks for stopping by!