Our Fridays are quite different from all the other days.

We usually start our day with a quick breakast.  Then, we head off to piano.  Both Sarah and Anne Mary take lessons from Dr. Hannah Hall, who also happens to be the best chiropractor in Louisville.  They girls LOVE piano.  I did manage to run by the music store yesterday and pick up their new music books.  Yeah!

David goes in for a quick 5 minute lesson, then he and I run whatever errands we can fit into the remaining 55 minutes.  Sometimes this means the bank or UPS store or a quick trip to the grocery.  Today it will be a trip to a local store to get a few more boxes for our big book sale tomorrow.  I also hope to stop at the UPS store to mail my packages of SuperMom I owe to several customers- my shipment came yestrday and I already need to order again.

After piano, I pick everyone up, hand everyone a healthy snack from the snack bag and a small sized bottled water.  Then I drop Anne Mary and David off for an enrichment program they take here.

Anne Mary(9) takes:  French, Journalism, Chess and Knitting.  Doesn't that sound like fun?  David (4)takes only three classes:  Reading readiness, Music and Movement, and Art.  I was not intending to sign him up for anything, but then I found out that my sweet friend (and often cooking buddy) Kathy Enix was teaching and I knew he had to take those classes.  Now, he tells me he wishes everyday was a Friday. (I ony cried a little)

After I get them to their classrooms, Sarah and I go to lunch someplace a little nicer than fast food.  One week we went to Homemade Pie and Icecream Kitchen (They have a deli!!!).  Once we went to Mark's feed store.  I usually just pickk a place once we are out.  She and I chat about life, discuss any personal or private things and talk about the week in general.  it is about the only one-on-one time she gets alone with mom and I really treasure this day.  After that, we head to a library where I do her one-on-one tutering.  This includes spelling, answering any math questions she has that Mr. Porter has not covered, reading, and anything else where she actually needs mom.  This is almost her only tutoring time, too.  unless a question comes up in her math (which I try to address right away) she works fairly independently for the rest of the week.

We then pick up David and have one hour before we have to pick up Anne Mary so Sarah will often take him to the playground and swing and climb with him for most of it.

Anne Mary reports that she loves her classes, but is usually quite tired by French class- so I really need to work on getting her to bed earlier, or insisting she eats a little more in the morning.  She is my only child who does not like breakfast, and it is all she can do most days just to put down a couple of crackers until lunch.  Does anyone else have this problem?  The rest of my children EAT teir breakfast, if you know what I mean.

By the time all this is done, I get home around 4.  We work on chores and dinner until Daddy gets home.

Last night I planned to do spaghtti but at the last minute decided to make a venison roast in the crockpot.  I took a small roast (2 lbs) and covered it with barbecue sauce and let it cook all afternoon.  The roast strted frozen so I cooked it on high. Once it was finished cooking, I took the roast and fork shredded it and served it on some buns I took out of the freezer to thaw at the same time as I removed the roast.  We had baked beans and brocolli for our side dishes.  Dinner turned out fine.  There were NO leftovers of the roast.

So, today we will have spaghetti and meatballs and greenbeans.  I went ahead and set out the water, pasta, collander, green beans, pans, and even pulled 15 meatballs out of the freezer to add to the sauce at cooking time.  I know I will be exhausted at the end of the day, so doing all that in the morning while my energy is so high makes dinnertime so much easier.

Now, off to the shower and then to start waking the little sleepy heads.  

Happy Homemaking!

Malia