Well, so much for saying I would update this every day!  Time just slips past, ya know.  We have gotten really busy with school, soccer, cub scouts, co-op, dance, and trying to start a new homeschool group on base.  I have my calendar filled out and I think for the rest of September we have 5 free days with nothing going on, and I think in October we have 5 free days also.  We really do like being busy though.  I really want to post here everyday, because then I can get the daily stories instead of just an overview of life.

I guess some of the big things going on in our life is the fact that dh will be going to school soon.  He will be gone for 6 weeks.  This is not to bad.  At least it is somewhere near and on long weekends we can see him.  We can also talk to him everyday instead of when he is in Iraq and we have to wait days and days for phone calls!  He also has a second opinion about having surgery on his elbow.  We will see what comes of that.

Ds has his first ever cub scout meeting tomorrow night.  I pray he likes it.  DD started back to dance Monday and did great.  We switched studios and love the new one.  They had put her with the 3 year olds and the teacher is going to move her up because she really does have a great attention span for her age and a great desire to learn how to dance.  Ds had his first soccer game on Saturday, and dispite the fact that they only had one practice, they all did fantastic!  It was a fun game to watch, even though we felt like we were melting from the heat!  Co-op is going along beautifully.  They both love it and I think it is the break I need to keep on homeschooling.  Sometimes I wonder if I can keep up the desire to continue, even though I love it and I know my ds loves it as well.

I guess I had better get our day going.  I want to get a lot of school finished up today.  I have decided that we are going to do school at home for basically 3 days.  The other 2 days are for co-op and one day is going to be for field trips.  I really thought I had this year down, but now I see a need for some revision.  That is truly one of the greatest things about homeschooling, versitility!

Well, another day that I find myself amazed at the kids.  They are just so funny.  Yesterday ds did math in 10 minutes and was ready for more-today the same amount of work took 1 hr!  What is going on with that?  Of course, that threw the whole day off-  I wonder if they felt like they were floating in space with the new "mural" hanging up!?!  We finally had to stop and I broke one of my rules-it has only been in place since Monday, of not turning the TV on until school and naps were over.  I think the horrid heat here is really doing something to the brain!  I had them eat lunch indoor picnic style and watch one cartoon, it was amazing at the change in attitude.  Before that break, we were just about to climb the walls-after the break, we got right to work and finished in a half hour!  I just hope that in the future, I will have the insight to stop school and take a break instead of just trying to push through just to get it "done."  They don't really learn a whole lot when that happens anyway!

Well, my son made me feel really "good" today-he has such a way with words.  We were talking about the book Katy and the big Snow and how it was written many years ago and the buildings that made up the town.  I was trying to get across the idea that there are buildings that are needed to run a town and there are things that just aren't needed anymore.  Well, we got to the ice factory and I told him that in past years, refridgerators weren't like they are now and that an ice factory isn't required now.  We were also talking about way back when when the settlers were setting up towns and how they didn't need gas stations, but now we do.  He said in the most innocent voice, "you mean way back in 1977?"  That just made me feel so good about my age!

I think one of the most neatest things that happend today was the fact that we started studying space and my dear friend Amanda call and told me about the space shuttle launch tonight.  I didn't ever think that my kids would get that excited about it, but they were glued to the computer screen!  They love the count down and dd was telling me to hurry and come watch because it was taking off-for 20 minutes before it actually took off.

What a great day!

Wow!  What an exciting first day.  Not quite as smooth as I was dreaming about-actually I had a very weird dream about me and an ancient Myan fertility egg, go figure-but it went very well!  I think the kids had a lot of fun and I really had a lot of fun seeing them enjoy themselves.  We started the day off with "life skills" aka chores and then started school.  We started with back to school pictures, which I will try and post some tomorrow, the pledge, a prayer and then calendar time.  I started my little bundle of energy on a quick refresher sheet of math, his favorite, and then got little angle started on her preschool stuff.  She was so proud to be doing work.  I have pieced together her work from a couple of different sites.  Since her theme for the week is cows, we read a cow book and cut out a cow picture and then played Old McDonald and moved around the living room like cows.  Then we got busy with ds grammar, spelling, phonics, and vocabulary.  While he was doing that we finished dds stuff for today.  We then did reading, which our book for today was Katy and the Big Snow.  He then took a test on it at bookadventure.org and got a prize for answering all the questions right!  We then moved on to history where we learned about the begins of writing and ended with making a clay tablet with cuneforms.  We ended our day with an art lesson about lines that make shapes and we did a collage with different items pieced to gether to make different shapes.  I think all in all we had a good time and learned along the way!

Things that I learned today-

1.  I have really taught ds how to read and comprehend.

2.  Ds really does not like to write or get creative with writing-must find a way to change that.

3.  7 year old boys can really make the simple things like moving around like a cow gross-he not only moved around, he also "pooped" all over the place!

4.  My 3 year old has almost as long of attention span as my 7 year old.

5.  Ds really retained alot from last year-thank goodness!

6.  Prepare all craft supplies ahead of time-just because I know where they are doesn't mean I can get them together in little time, I lost a lot of time today just gathering the materials.

7.  Always have clay on hand, or a lot of salt-had to make the clay myself-the kids liked that a lot, but again, I lost a lot of time.

8.  I am greatful that I found bookadventures.org-really got ds excited about reading!

So I am ending my day with wonderful memories of a great day and with the payment of going to see Chris Daughtry in concert- him.  I also want to thank my wonderful husband for taking the kids out to dinner tonight so I could get ready in quiet.  Love that man of mine!

After months and I do mean months of research and planning, tomorrow will be our first day back to school.  I've never been really nervous about school, but I must admit that this year I have the jitters.  I don't know if it is because of all the work I have put into it (instead of my normal fly by the seat) or if it is because I will be doing "school" with both kids, I just don't know.  I do know that I really want this year to be so much fun.  Last year turned into no fun workbooks with just a little fun sprinkled in, but this year I want it to be lots of fun with just enough workbooks to get the job done.  So I guess I will be going to bed with a few more prayers than normal and hoping I will sleep well so I'm not the cranky mom with no sleep!