a blog for a homeschooling mom of 4 children whose husband is in the Army Reserves full-time and is also an ordained Primitive Baptist Preacher http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/ en-us Homeschool Blogger Fri, 6 Nov 2009 19:42:00 -0600 Fri, 6 Nov 2009 19:42:00 -0600 Well here we go again.  We are taking Jacob to see a Gastro-intestinal doctor at Pittsburgh Children's Hospital.  I am praying that we maybe will start to get some additional answers regarding his stomach problems. The three boys have joined the Young Marines.  They just went to their third meeting and seem to really be enjoying themselves.  Rebecca is looking forward to the day when she can join.  The boys are really enjoying scouts.  Jacob just earned his second class rank.  Joseph had earned it back in the summer.  Now both boys took the training to be den chiefs for the cub scouts.  Jacob is assisting with Nathan's den (Bears), while Joseph is assisting with the wolves. In other news, we are waiting to hear whether or not Dennis received a promotion to E-8.  IF he did, we will be moving again within the next year.  Also, I have been accepted into an online master's degree program and will be starting my work for that this weekend. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims of the Fort Hood massacre.  It breaks my heart to think of the families left behind. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/742747/ Fri, 6 Nov 2009 19:42:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/742747/ Last week we had excitement at our house.  Almost two weeks ago on the 13th, Noodle fell while playing outside.  He hurt his arm.  I could not tell if anything was wrong or not.  I have never had a sprain or a broken bone so I don't know what to look for at all.  I called dh who was at work to come home so we could take him to the ER.  This happened around 5 in the evening. (Dh stayed late at work so he could finish his research paper for one of his classes).  He came home and determined it looked okay.  Well Thursday morning (the 15th), dh left for a weekend drill with his Army unit.  By about lunch time, Noodle was in real pain.  So I called our pediatrician's office and talked to the nurse.  She fit us in the schedule for as soon as we could get there (my mom came with me as well as Rebecca).  Once there, the doctor decided we needed to get x-rays as she believed it was broken.  We had the x-rays taken, went back to the pediatrician's office (the two offices are in the same building) and found it was broken.  Because of the time, we could not get into an orthopedic office that day.  So the pediatrician had us go to the er.  She said if we did not get the arm stabilized in a splint he could do additional damage that would necessitate surgery. We went to the er and after several hours of Noodle and I waiting in one of the er cubicles while my mom, Rebecca, Jacob and Joseph waited in the waiting room we got the splint put on.  Part of the problem was the er staff not being able to pull up Noodle's x-ray.  But we finally made it home.  The next day I took him to the orthopedic doctor to get a cast put on.  The staff there was wonderful.  Noodle was nervous at all the places mentioned above for fear of pain.  He evidently remembers a lot more than we realized regarding his 5 sets of stitches that he got several years ago.  We went back yesterday to the orthopedic doctor who said the x-ray showed slight angulation, but it should be okay.  So we go back in a week again to have another x-ray done.  At this point we are not sure when the cast will come off.  It will be around Thanksgiving is about the best guess we have. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/738703/ Sat, 24 Oct 2009 08:10:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/738703/ Well we are well into our new homeschool year.  My mom is doing school with our children this year.  She actually is doing the same works our four children are doing.  She is loving every minute of it.  My older two are doing one set of curriculum and my younger two are doing another set.  They are having a great time having mom do school with them. We have taken a trip to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg.  We have also visited a local theme park about 20 minutes from our house.  We had a great summer and are looking forward to a great fall.  http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/729185/ Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:20:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/729185/ Well I finished our MOTH schedule and am almost done with my home management binder. My dh has finished making our guest room truly a guest room. Now all we need is a queen size mattress set for us so we can move ours into the guest room. We started school last week and the children did fairly well.  We started out somewhat light.  I will probably go to a more rigorous schedule in about three weeks.  Dh is getting ready to leave for his two week annual training so I expect these next few weeks will be out of sync for us.  The children seem to like their school materials which is good.  I may have to tweak Boo's a little since some of hers is a bit advanced for where she is rigt now.  We just got the Videotext Algebra Module A in on Friday, so the older two boys will begin using it tomorrow. I will try to update more as soon as I can along with uploading some photos.   http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/713698/ Sun, 2 Aug 2009 21:23:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/713698/ Well we are officially part of our boy scout troop now.  Dh is going to be the Chaplain advisor and I am the assistant committee chair.  Our second son is going before the board of review tonight for his tenderfoot and second class badges.  He had a great time at summer camp along with our oldest.  They had a lot of fun and we got to go visit for the  parent night.  Dh is working on our basement.  We are getting ready to make some changes there to turn it into a bedroom for the boys.  Then we will take the third floor and turn it into our homeschool classroom.  When we are finished I will try to post pictures.  I am in the process of doing a new MOTH schedule for us.  I am in the final stages of completing the master schedule.  We planned on beginning school last week, but we have postponed that.  We will probably begin either this coming Monday or the following Monday.  I will try keeping this up to date more for this school year. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/708230/ Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:11:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/708230/ Well we are getting ready to start our new year of school.  We are using Landmark Freedom, Spelling Power, Institute for Excellence in Writing, Calirobics, guitar lessons (we bought a program for this and dh is going to help teach), Queen Homeschool materials and some things from Geography Matters.  I am looking forward to them starting.  Dh may be leaving on Friday for 29 days for the Army Reserves, so I figure this will be a good distraction.  I am working on getting my new MOTH schedule in place, our home managment Binder completed and planning for at least the first nine weeks of school. It should be interesting to see how well things go for us.  The older two boys went to summer camp for Boy scouts.  Dh and I have become part of the Boy Scout Troop Committee.  So this year ought to be interesting. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/706004/ Tue, 7 Jul 2009 19:10:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/706004/ Well we are finished with school for the year.  We had our evaluation which went wonderful.  It was such a painless process.  It is exciting to have that out of the way.  Then on Thursday we got our standardized test results back.  Technically none of my children had to take the tests.  But being military, I thought it was best if they continue taking them.  That way if we move to a state that requires them to take tests they will be used to taking them.  The exciting part was they did really great on the tests.  We did the IOWA tests.  Everyone was performing above grade level.  It reaffirms that what I am doing must be working.  Even though it seems at times that my older two don't understand about grammar, maybe a little is sticking in their heads after all. Now all I have to do is turn in the portfolios and evaluations.  We have recevied just about all of our new curriculum for next year.  My dh put up some new bookcases and shelves for me.  I have most of the books put away in the shelves.  Now it is just a matter of me getting their planners put together so we are ready to start the next school year.  The boys leave a week from this Sunday to go to Boy Scout camp (well the older two anyhow).  It is the velcro kitty's first time at camp and the third camp for our grape ape.  While they are gone I plan on doing some of Noodle's Bear requirements with him.  I will probably do some things from Keepers of the Faith with BooBoo.  http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/697136/ Mon, 8 Jun 2009 17:08:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/697136/ Well, we have finished the school year.  We did our evaluations on Saturday.  My children were really uncertain about this, but ended up enjoying themselves.  Our evaluator was fantastic.  He was so easy to talk to and to work with.  It was such a blessing.  My children had a fantastic time talking and playing with their children.   Now we are just waiting on our standardized test scores to come back. We spent the last month traveling for the most part.  We went to the Pennsylvania homeschool convention and had a wonderful time.  We found lots of good curriculum and got to talk to a lot of nice people.  Then we came home for a few days.  After that we went to NC to visit dh's family.  We had a wonderful visit.  From there we headed to Winston-Salem for the North Carolina homeschool - we found even more great curriculum there.  So now all this curriculum is coming in -(some we mailed to ourselves in NC, and some of it was mailed to us by the companies).  There is nothing like the feeling of getting all the new books in the mail.  I love it.  Dh spent part of Saturday and part of yesterday putting together bookcases for me in my computer/office room.  It is really coming together nicely.  He did such a wonderful job.  Now I am just trying to get all the books organized and put away. Well guess I better get back to work. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/694806/ Mon, 1 Jun 2009 15:04:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/694806/ Well we are done with our standardized testing finally!  What a blessing that is.  Hopefully the children all did well.  We are now working on getting ready to go to the Pennsylvania homeschool convention this coming week.  Then the following Thursday, we leave for North Carolina.  We will get to see family and then will go to the North Carolina homeschool convention. I am really looking forward to these. Thursday we just had family pictures taken for the first time in about 2 years.  I ended up buying quite a few as well as the cd.  Now I need to get busy scrapbooking so the children have these pictures in their albums. Here is a link to the album if you want to see them. photo album Hope you enjoy! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/684981/ Sat, 2 May 2009 09:35:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/684981/ We are at the end of our year as far as the number of required days is concerned.  We have met our 180 days.  So now I am trying to get organized for next year.  I am making up my list of curriculum for next year.   Next month, our family will be attending two different homeschool conventions - 1 in NC and 1 in PA. We will be continuing to work however for the next several weeks.  Some subjects we changed books for, so the children need to finish them. I am looking forward to our next year.  I am really working to get more organized for it.  The requirements for NC and PA are really different so it has been a real learning experience for us. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/679136/ Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:07:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PATTIPEANUT/679136/