This morning we woke up to a blanket of fog.  That wasn't completely out of the ordinary, but what sparked our interest was all of the spider webs that we could see.  The wet air had put drops of dew all over the webs around the house.  And being "fall", there were a LOT of webs. 

We started out investigating our front porch. 

But soon the kids were running around the yard finding webs.

We found lots of teeny tiny webs in the grass about 1 inch in diameter.  We also found some bigger webs in the trees and on this sunflower in our garden. 

I found a really good example of a funnel web.

On the way back from the house, I noticed our bushes. 

Can you believe all those webs?  And you can see the fog in the background.

After breakfast, we set up bug bombs and went to Walmart while all of our indoor spiders died. 

When we got home, I read to the kids about spiders from the Handbook of Nature Study.  Tomorrow, we will begin our spider unit study that has been sitting around for a few years, waiting to be used. 

And since we are on the subject of spiders, here is one we found the other night.

And his web which was about 5 feet tall. 

Today we started back to school!  I forgot how much work it is!  Thankfully my mom is here to help out with some of the lessons.  She was entertaining the little ones while I worked with the big ones.  I am terrible at being prepared.  But part of the problem is, I don't know how to prepare.  I like to wing it.  But I know things would run smoother if I was prepared.  How do you people do it?  How do you school some kids and keep the other kids busy at the same time?  How do you keep them sitting quietly?  Things actually went rather well today, despite my pleas for help.  :-)  It's just that right now in my life I am desperate for organization and schedules, but I am so awful at it! 

This year, I bought Teaching Textbooks for D.  I still love Saxon math, but with the other kids schooling to do, I needed something easier on me.  I actually just ordered it today, so I will have to let you know how it goes.  But it is CD Roms and it actually teaches the lesson, has him do practice problems, lesson problems, and most importantly to me, it checks his work.  He tried the sample lesson online and is really excited about it.  He will also finish up his Learning Language Arts through Literature book that I got for him in January.  I really like that book.  When he finishes, I will get him the next book. 

N is moving on into Saxon 3.  It's the last Saxon that I will be doing with him.  Next year, he becomes independent.  He is so happy to be doing school again.  It's awesome.  I am still using First Language Lessons since it is for 1st and 2ND grade.  We like it and I plan on using it for the other kids as well. 

For science we are going to start out with our nature journals.  When the weather turns nasty, we will move on to a volcano/earthquake lapbook.  After that, I have Christian Kids Explore Chemistry that I will hopefully use this year.  (We never got to it last year) 

We are putting off our Story of the World for right now to do A Child's Geography:  Explore the Holy Land.  I did a couple lessons last year, and then I realized it was May and the school year was almost over, so I saved it until this year.  When we finish that, we will continue Story of the World Volume II. 

They will still have copywork, reading, and writing. 

Princess C and Toddler B will be starting Saxon 1.  Mostly Princess C, but Toddler B will be sitting in on the lessons and learning with her.  C will also be practicing writing.  She has hit the point where she wants to do things neatly and carefully, so that helps.  B is just a nut.  Today, we were doing lesson 1, and I was trying to get him to repeat the date and the year and other things.  He would shout out goofy answers like, "2000 and mama!"  or "Tuesmama!"  Oy.  This should be fun.  And since we are speaking of fun, C and B are doing a shape book of some sort.  It is filled with songs and rhymes with a few worksheets thrown in.  They know there shapes, but the worksheets have them tracing shapes and letters.  I am also going to go through the alphabet with them, and have them memorize a scripture for each letter.  We will be using Psalty's song to help them memorize them.  C will be learning to read this year using Abeka's reading and Bob books. 

I have the book, Drawing with Children that I would like to fit in somehow.  We used it once or twice last year and the kids really enjoyed it.  But it's so hard for me to fit in the regular need-to-do things, that it's practically impossible to fit in optional, fun things.  So, we will see how it goes. 

I think that about sums it up.  What are you using?

Just when I vow to be consistent with my blogging, my computer breaks.  I have had such computer problems, it's ridiculous.  N was holding Lil' L when her foot got caught on the power cord of my laptop.  He walked away and, BOOM, down went the laptop.  There were three things wrong with it.  Dell only fixed one problem.  We have been trying for weeks to get the other problems solved.  Nobody knows what could be wrong with it.  The only answer they have is to reboot the entire thing.  So we had to go buy an external hard drive - which took us awhile since our "big city" is not so close.  Now we have to talk to Dell again.  My desk top computer has been broken for awhile.  While we were at Best Buy, we picked up a new fan for it, got it working, but then couldn't install the internet on it.  Of course.  And the next day it broke again anyway.  My mom was in CA visiting my brother, so since she wasn't going to be using her computer, she let my sister borrow it.  So normally I have three computers in my house, and yet I was not able to use any of them.  Very, very frustrating.  Thankfully, my mom is home, and so is her computer.  Phew.  So that's my story.  I have pictures to post and updates to share, but for now, I need to clean my house.  I have a weekend full of company.  Shockingly. 

I am looking forward to reading what everone is doing this school year!

If you were a fly on our wall, you might hear something like this:

N:  We are not allowed to say the "S" word. 

D:  What about the "D" word.  We aren't allowed to say that, either. 

N:  The "D" word?  What's that... Oh, I know.  What about the "F" word?  Mom does NOT like the "F" word. 

At that point, I'm like, what in the world?????

Then I decode their words.  S = stupid, D = dumb, and F = fart.  Those are the worst words my kids know. 

This morning, B came down wearing overalls looking all cute and everything.  Princess C comes over to me and says, "I want to wear oreos." 

My SIL informed me the other day that we only have 6 more weeks until school starts.  SAY WHAT?!?!  That's it?!  Didn't summer just start?  Isn't it still June?  D still hasn't finished last year's math.  I havn't bought next year's math.  I will be homeschooling three/four kids next year!  AHHH!!!!   I say three/four because I plan on including B in on C's schooling as much as I can.  If I can keep them on the same page as far as schooling, life will be so much easier in the long run.  I can't imagine either one of them being ready to sit and learn, so I think I'm going to have to get creative with them.  I don't do creative.  I wish I did creative.  But, I just don't.  Oh, and I just realized there will be a new baby to deal with come Febuary.  Wow, that sounded bad.  But what I meant was, crying and pooping and nursing to try and keep up with therefore school will most likely come to a halt.  Yikes, I hadn't thought of that.  More creativity.  I'm in trouble.  Lil' L was born in May, so we ended the school year early.  B was born in Dec, so we had an extended Christmas break, Princess C was born in August, and really back then, I was only schooling one child, so that wasn't even a big deal.  This is the first baby I'll have to try and work school around. 

If I'm talking in circles, I'm sorry.  I just now thought of all that. 

All summer, N has been working on a snake notebook.  He has been researching things like what is the fastest snakes and most poisonous snakes.  He has drawn pictures and written things about what he drew.  He has printed out pictures and written things about that as well.  He has done all of this on his own.  I showed him what books to look in, and Hubby looked a few things up on the internet for him.  I am quite proud of him.  He is the type of kid that loves collecting things.  So to have a collection of books and pencils and what not to carry around with him makes him happy.  He was just carrying around the stack of things, but then he found an empty container, so he has that filled up and he carries the container around with him.  Right now, he is reading over a book trying to find some cool information to write about.  He probably has about 20 pages in his notebook. 

I love that he is learning and loving it. 

I think I lost all of my readers.  Hopefully I will get some new ones. 

Life has been crazy busy.  Summers are usually like that.  We finished off baseball season.  That only lasted about 2 months so it wasn't as bad as by our old house.  Speaking of old house, yesterday marked our 1 year anniversary of being in our new house. 

So on to the news, right?  We are expecting baby number 6 Jan 31.  We are all excited and happy about it.  I have been feeling TIRED!  Only slightly nauseous.  Just very, very tired.  I don't remember being this tired with my other pregnancies.  But that's OK, because with my other ones, I was insanely sick.  I am actually enjoying this pregnancy so far. 

D turned 11 a few days ago.  He is getting old so quickly.  He is also maturing into such a helpful young man.  He takes care of the animals almost completely by himself.  He feeds them and waters them, lets them out and puts them away.  He is always willing to help and do whatever I ask usually without complaint.  Unless it's school work... that's another story. 

Hopefully I'll get back in the habit of blogging.  I miss it.  I am 10 weeks now, so hopefully in a few weeks I won't be so dead tired.