It's been awhile since I posted since there hasn't been too much excitement. We went on vacation to the folks house and that was busy-we needed a vacation from our vacation! LOL

Carmilita's doing very well. This is a much different situation from our last placement. She very rarely talks about her mom and dad, but does seem to enjoy her visits and is always thrilled to see her mom. this morning she was testing us, but even then, it wasn't that big of a deal. She respond's very well to time outs and really seems to recieve what we are talking to her about. She's a very happy, beautiful little girl. If she goes home, we will definately feel a loss, even though it will be best for the family to be reunited.

I'm having fun teaching preschool again! But I have lost my groove LOL! I dug the big box of preschool activities out of the garage, and printed and purchased a few things at a garage sale. Carmi's so bright I think we will breeze right through the 3/4 and be moving into phonics and reading really soon. She can already count to 20 and knows the alphabet and all the sounds. Since it's only been about 2 weeks we are going to keep working on the preschool stuff until I am positive she has it all down. Her fine motor skills are a bit behind, but just in 2 weeks I already see a major improvement. All in all, she's a blessing to have in our home, and she's really integrating in. She has little tifts with her "brovers" and wants to do school with us. Mostly she just listens and colors in her Scooby coloring book. She wants us to get her a sister now to sleep on the bottom bunk!!!!!!! Apparently Eric told her that there was a possiblity that this would happen and she is ready LOL

We took our adoption class, filled out the paper work, and it will go out in the mail tomorrow. From here we go to the doctor, get interviewed, and after that I am not sure what we are supposed to do! or what the dept. will ask us to do! I still want to adopt 2, Eric is kind of coming around. We talked about it today and I told him it would be good to have two little girls so they can play girl things together and they will be closer in age and entertain each other. We will see what kind of doors the Lord opens and shuts.

Luke is in full swing with his virtual academy. I love the curriculum, but hate being on someone elses schedule-he's not too crazy about that either. his math is challenging and it's hard to learn a new program, but we are. The language arts is intense, but utilizes classics like we were before so he is used to that. There is a lot more book work and writing-which Luke needs. So my first week of using the program has been overwhelming, but once we get used to it, I think it will be a blessing for us.

Levi and Nick are doing better now. I was using more of a workbook approach again and that fell apart in a hurry! I get so frustrated with myself for not trusting the process with a Charlotte Mason approach. Levi was having a blast with this workbook I bought him for fun, so I decided he must want to do all of his learning like that-wrong! It was taking him all day to get his work finished. He would beg me to do science or history! I would say "not until you pages are done". Finally, after two weeks of that, I gave in and realized that Levi and Nick learn better with literature and lapbooks, with a little bit of notebooking thrown in. So I researched Five in a Row, and I found a really cool website called www.homeschoolshare.com that is right up our alley. I don't know, they might not be well rounded since we skipped the Roman's and went straight into Vikings and their culture and history-I'm the only one who seems to feel this way, the boys love it. Eric being norweign, the boys think this is great fun-and low and behold, the first famous viking we encountered was Erik the Red! LOL Did they ever have a blast with that one! While being immersed in Vikings we are learning all of our language arts, social studies, history, applied mathematics, art and just about anything else you can think of. The only thing we are doing in a separate unit are math (math u see is great fun for the boys) and spelling rules. the spelling rules are also being done in a lapbook form with memorization pockets. We sing songs to learn the parts of speech, and put hand motions to our bible verses so they can memorize them quicker. Levi picked this up from the parts of speech songs! My days are honestly way more relaxed, we get way more done in a shorter amount of time, and no one is crying-not even mom :)

I'm trying to wrap my mind around teaching in the evening, on a Saturday or Sunday and create more of a relaxed environment instead of trying to get everything done during a block of time I have decided I need to be teaching in. So far-so good!

HMMMMM...this turned very long for a family who isn't doing anything! LOL

TTFN-

Natalie and co.