Well you may have noticed I've haven't been posting as much lately.  Life is picking up around here as sports season gets underway.  Pumpkin will be starting basketball at a local christian school here in a day or two.  Plus our church now has a youth pastor so there has been more opportunities for him there.  Peanut and Peewee have both started soccer.  Peanut is also in Boy Scouts and they meet weekly.  Then their is P.E. co-op classes that have started.  I've also been making it a point to go to the library once a week so the boys to work on our history and science notebooks.  I want them to get good at looking things up in books instead of just running to the internet all the time.  Oh and don't forget our weekly nature walks.  We've done pretty good with these so far.

If I recall someone asked me about the notebooks.   So here's a brief description of what we do.  I have them take their notebooks, colored pencils, and pens with us; just in case their is something they want to sit down and draw or write about.  Usually though we just go about exploring and enjoying the wonders of nature.  When we get home we'll look through the things we collected and write what we saw, collected, and did in the notebooks.  They tend to run around when we're out and because I don't want them to dread the walks I let them.  Their natural curiousity usually brings an abundance of questions and objects to show everyone.  It's not unusual for them to all be hovered around something checking it out and poking it.  Poking it seems to be a necessity when studying nature with them.  They really like doing rubbings of things also.  Our nature studies are a pretty laid back event and I don't get too picky about the notebooks.  My only requirement is that they have some sort of summary of what they saw and what it was doing.  Sometimes they go all out and look things up in the field guides, sometimes they don't.  I use to obsess about it but I've learned to relax.  I keep a notebook also and tend to be more detailed with mine.  I have noticed that this seems to help and direct them in theirs.  If nothing else they enjoy looking through mine, so they are getting the info one way or another.

I keep a history and science notebook right along with the boys.  I know it seems strange but it has made a difference in our school.  We all sit around the table diving into the books finding the information for our notebooks.  It has sparked some interesting conversations and they enjoy sharing interesting information when they come across it.  It just seems to make it more relaxed.  I won't say it's perfect.  There has been days I just want to strangle them.  I have a few attitudes that creep into our day and try to get out of doing things.  They like to write things like he was a patriot.  Yay I knew that but what did he do exactly.  I'm sorry but you do need to learn how to write and yes your mean mom is going to make you.  Why?  Because I SAID SO.  I'm sure someone can relate to this.

Tonight at dinner Peanut was squirming around in his chair.  I told him a couple of times to sit right or he was going to fall.  Well guess what he fell right into his brothers plate, face first.  LOL  I couldn't help but laugh he got up with a face full of nacho sauce.   We had nachos for dinner.  You think maybe next time he'll listen to mom. LOL  By the way I did help him clean his face off, eventually.