As usual, thing have been very busy around here lately. My mom came to stay with us around a week ago and will be with us until Monday. My sister and her family have gone to Hawaii for vacation (they are celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary, their son's high school graduation and their daughter's college graduation all in one) so mom is staying with us until they get home.
We ended up missing a bit of school this week, due to illnesses but we were back on track for Thursday and Friday. Next week, we will take off for the holiday on Monday, have school Tues through Friday and then we will be off the rest of the month of June. When we start back in July, we will be starting the second half of 1st grade, although 'officially' the boys will be starting 1st grade when public school starts here in August. It is nice to have that extra cushion of being just a bit ahead of where they officially need to be so I am hopeful that we will be able to maintain that going forward.
We are all really looking forward to having the month of June off (except for June 1). I personally can't wait. I am so ready for a long break. It will be refreshing for us all. I am looking forward to getting back into the groove of practicing my violin, as I have not been practicing for a while now. Ben got to the point where he didn't want me to practice with him because it made his practice session last longer, which I totally understand. But by the time I helped him practice, taught school, made meals, cleaned up, did laundry, etc., I was too tired to practice myself. But I really want to get back with it because I was really enjoying it. I also want to start working out. We have a membership at the local YMCA now and they have a very nice indoor pool with a wonderful, big slide and an area like a river current, plus a play area for younger kids. The boys love it and it is a wonderful place for them to play and get some exercise while I work out so I am hoping to try that out a bit during June. Those are my two big to-do's, plus I want to do some fun things with the boys that I have not thought of yet...but I will.
Last night was Ben's recital and he also played a short concert with the youth orchestra. He did an awesome job and I was really proud of him. He looked so handsome in his little black pants and belt, white shirt and black bow tie. I thought he might be nervous but he said he wasn't (I asked him about it today) and, when it was his turn, he walked right up there and played as big as you please, as if he was not nervous at all. I think he really enjoyed it and he is glad that he stuck with his violin. He is really doing very well with it. We are officially off for the month of June for violin too but I know he is wanting to learn to play Amazing Grace so I'm sure he will be practicing some.
Last night made Nick more excited about taking piano lessons. I was thinking he is suppose to start in early June but maybe it was July. I can't remember. I need to call the guy soon and find out. If it is June, I was going to ask to start in July instead so we can truly be away from all obligations for the month of June but Nick is really wanting to start right away. So, if it is June then we will go ahead and start it for him, since he is so excited about it. I'm still not really sure he will stick with it and practice like he will need to. He still really struggles with self discipline and self control. Who knows, maybe this will help him in some ways. Time will tell.
The boys are going to play basketball on a YMCA team starting in June also. I think they will really enjoy it. They finished their swimming lessons, for now anyway. They are both very good little swimmers. In their last class, they were learning different strokes and also how to breathe right when swimming laps. I would really love for them to be able to get into competitive swimming because I think they would both enjoy it and it would be such great exercise but we will see. To do that through the swimming school they have been attending would be really expensive (for time and money) so I'm not so sure we want to do that, nor can we at this time. With the husband starting his new practice, he is working several part-time jobs, plus seeing new patients with his practice so he is really busy these days. It will likely be a while before he is making money with his practice and it is a struggle sometimes to get 40 hours a week with the part-time jobs. I think there are other options though and I am going to look into it further.
My Dancer cat sure is acting older these days. Of course, he is at least 14 years old now so he is quite old for a cat. For the past couple of weeks, I have noticed he is getting weaker in his hind quarters/legs and then today, for the first time ever, I saw him miss a jump. When Zoe started missing jumps, she didn't last a very long time after that so I am watching him closely and keeping Tinkerbell away from him. She knows she is stronger and she attacks him any chance she gets. He likes to spend as much time as possible in the garage because it is the warmest place in the house. She spends a huge amount of time on the screened-in back porch, crouching in attack position, ready to attack any bird or flying insect, squirrel or any other thing that moves in the yard....even though she can't get out of the porch. She seems to really enjoy it and she especially enjoys the porch when I throw a hand full of ice out there and she can play hockey around the cement floor.
I have rattled on enough and am getting sleepy. Time to go to bed. Good night.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012
April 30, 2012
Last night, the boys had already been in bed long enough that I thought they were sleeping. I was in my room reading and the husband was working out of town for the night. I heard the pitter patter of little feet upstairs and heard doors opening and shutting. I waited, thinking one of them got up for something but would (hopefully) soon be back in bed. A little time went by and I kept hearing the little feet running around and more doors opening and shutting. I finally got out of bed and went upstairs. As I went down the hallway, I noticed Ben's door was open (they always sleep with their bedroom doors shut so the cats will stay out). I went into his room. His lamp was on and his bed was empty. I walked through their bathroom, no sign of Ben. I poked my head into Nick's doorway and there was Ben, standing right next to Nick's bed and leaning over his head, brushing Nick's hair with a blue baby brush that was theirs when they were babies. Nick was sound asleep.
When Ben saw me, he came trotting over immediately and headed toward his room, with a sheepish grin on his face. As he went by me, he accidentally dropped a pair of plastic play tweezers that go with their doctor set.
The next day he told me that he had also built a 'bed' next to Nick's bed, which was made of two large stuffed animals and a couple of blankets. He made it in the small cubby spot between Nick's bed and the wall. I asked him why he had the tweezers and he said he was going to use them to remove the ear buds from Nick's ears so he could take his CD player and listen to some CD's. I guess I came in before he had gotten that far in his plan.
Ben is usually asleep when his head hits the pillow so I'm not sure what was going on in his little body that night. At the time I was annoyed because I was tired and he was suppose to be in his bed, not running around playing and he could have awakened Nick. In hindsight I think the whole thing is hysterical. I don't know what he thought he was doing brushing Nick's hair with a baby brush while Nick slept but it was so funny to see him doing it. I can still picture it so clearly and I wish I had a picture of it. Funny kid!
In other news, things here are about the same. We are still doing school. The husband is in the process of opening his practice, working on advertising and getting the word out there. In the meantime, he has finished his last day at his old job and he just finished his first two days at one of his new part-time jobs. This one is an urgent care. It is about an hour and a half from here though so when he works there multiple days, they pay for his overnight stay in a hotel. The other part time job that he has secured but has yet to start is with a small ER. It is also a ways from here and when he works there he will work a 24 hour shift (I think). He is waiting to hear back from at least one other part-time job. He will likely need at least three of them to get the number of hours he wants.
Ben is still playing the violin and getting ready for his second recital in May. He will also be playing with the local youth orchestra at a couple of performances in May. We will be taking the month of June off of school and Ben will not have any violin lessons or practice that month either. I think Nick was suppose to start his piano lessons in June but I am going to see if we can move it to start in July. Our neighborhood pool is going to open in early May so we will be doing school light in May, taking June off completely and having fun. We will start back to school after July 4th, although I may try to lighten the load a bit for the summer months. Some of it we will play by ear and go with the weather.
School is going pretty well these days. It seems that adding history and science to the mix has really helped improve the boys' attitudes about school in general. They both really enjoy these two subjects. Last week we were studying Egypt and they did a coloring page of Tut's mask. Then we decided to make our own masks. We tore up some newspapers and used a mixture of glue and water to paste the strips of newspaper to one side of a blown up balloon (one for each child). We let it dry overnight and repeated the process the next day. After it was thoroughly dry, we popped the balloons (the boys really liked this part). I cut the edges of the masks to make their shapes a bit more mask-like. They came out really good. Now we need to paint them and decorate them.
The other thing that has probably helped a bit with improving school-related attitudes is that they are getting better at writing. Ben really likes to write, especially if he is using cursive. He has finished his cursive curriculum and is getting pretty good at writing in cursive. Nick is getting closer to being finished but still has a bit to go. They also still practice their manuscript writing every school day. I have noticed they are getting faster at it but also more sloppy so I need to start sitting with them again and watching them so they will take their time and do a better job. Nick, in particular, still does not care to do too much writing.
This school year we have spent an inordinate amount of time on adding and subtracting numbers from 0-10. We have spent so much time on this that I thought for sure they would have them memorized by now. I have tried to do some flash cards with them but I was probably not as organized about it as I should have been and we also did not do it often enough. I have done some reading about how important it is for them to have these basic math facts memorized so I feel very strongly that we need to do this. I have read that children who do not have these basic facts memorized will be slower at math, as it gets harder, and they may end up hating math or thinking they are bad at it. It will also make math harder for them because they will still be having to calculate what 5+3 is while also trying to do harder algebra problems, for example. So, I learned about a computer program that helps kids to memorize these facts. It makes it fun with games and has some great reporting for the parents. The boys have been playing it every day and Ben especially has already mastered almost half of what he needs to learn by instant recall. Nick is further behind but he is definitely making progress and they have been doing this for less than a week. The great thing is that they get really excited about it and really want to play these games and they are playing these math games instead of the Angry Birds or whatever games they were playing before. So I am hopeful that doing this every day for the summer will get them to where they need to be on their instant recall of addition and subtraction math facts. The math game is called Reflex, in case anyone is interested in checking it out for their kids.
On to another topic. My mom was here for about a week. My sister came to get here last Thursday and she bought the boys each a pair of roller blades while she was here. They are loving them. The husband also decided to change his membership at the YMCA to a family membership so the boys can participate there a lot now. They have a great indoor swimming pool there, very fun for kids with an awesome slide, so the boys are loving this. That is where they are now, while the dad is swimming his laps. Anyway, back to mom. She did pretty well while she was here, although she was having some bad dizzy spells every once in a while. My sister took her to an ENT on Friday because we were thinking it had something to do with her inner ear and a really bad knock to the head she had a couple of weeks back when she took a bad fall in her kitchen. The ENT said it could have been that but he didn't find anything wrong. Then Mom fell again yesterday, although I have not heard how bad it was yet. She sure is falling a lot lately though and we need to find a solution for this before she really hurts herself badly. She is also not acting like her normal self a lot of the time so we are hoping to have her seen for that also. And she struggles with losing her independence and her freedom and has had some difficulty accepting that. It is a hard time for her and it is hard for us to see her going through this and not be able to do more. Getting older is just not an easy thing.
My nephew (my sister's son) will be graduating from high school in May and getting ready to head off to college. I also have two nieces who will be graduating from college in May. My sister's daughter is becoming an English teacher and is already teaching at her new job not far from where she went to college. My brother's daughter is planning on continuing to get her Master's degree in Accounting and is planning to become a CPA. My sister and her husband and their son and daughter are all going on a big vacation to Hawaii in May. With their daughter graduating from college and their son graduating from high school and heading off to college, they have planned this big vacation as their last real family get away together before the kids are off doing their own things. My mom will be staying with us while they are gone. I enjoy having her here but it is definitely a lot more work. It turns out that it is probably a good thing that she didn't want to move in just yet because I don't know that I could have handled it full time. It seems to work pretty well when she stays here for a week every now and then, when my sister is having to work many days in a row and we don't want mom alone during the day for that long. It gives my sister and brother (who lives in mom's house with her) a break too, which they need.
Well, time to sign off. I must go get some things done. Bye for now.
When Ben saw me, he came trotting over immediately and headed toward his room, with a sheepish grin on his face. As he went by me, he accidentally dropped a pair of plastic play tweezers that go with their doctor set.
The next day he told me that he had also built a 'bed' next to Nick's bed, which was made of two large stuffed animals and a couple of blankets. He made it in the small cubby spot between Nick's bed and the wall. I asked him why he had the tweezers and he said he was going to use them to remove the ear buds from Nick's ears so he could take his CD player and listen to some CD's. I guess I came in before he had gotten that far in his plan.
Ben is usually asleep when his head hits the pillow so I'm not sure what was going on in his little body that night. At the time I was annoyed because I was tired and he was suppose to be in his bed, not running around playing and he could have awakened Nick. In hindsight I think the whole thing is hysterical. I don't know what he thought he was doing brushing Nick's hair with a baby brush while Nick slept but it was so funny to see him doing it. I can still picture it so clearly and I wish I had a picture of it. Funny kid!
In other news, things here are about the same. We are still doing school. The husband is in the process of opening his practice, working on advertising and getting the word out there. In the meantime, he has finished his last day at his old job and he just finished his first two days at one of his new part-time jobs. This one is an urgent care. It is about an hour and a half from here though so when he works there multiple days, they pay for his overnight stay in a hotel. The other part time job that he has secured but has yet to start is with a small ER. It is also a ways from here and when he works there he will work a 24 hour shift (I think). He is waiting to hear back from at least one other part-time job. He will likely need at least three of them to get the number of hours he wants.
Ben is still playing the violin and getting ready for his second recital in May. He will also be playing with the local youth orchestra at a couple of performances in May. We will be taking the month of June off of school and Ben will not have any violin lessons or practice that month either. I think Nick was suppose to start his piano lessons in June but I am going to see if we can move it to start in July. Our neighborhood pool is going to open in early May so we will be doing school light in May, taking June off completely and having fun. We will start back to school after July 4th, although I may try to lighten the load a bit for the summer months. Some of it we will play by ear and go with the weather.
School is going pretty well these days. It seems that adding history and science to the mix has really helped improve the boys' attitudes about school in general. They both really enjoy these two subjects. Last week we were studying Egypt and they did a coloring page of Tut's mask. Then we decided to make our own masks. We tore up some newspapers and used a mixture of glue and water to paste the strips of newspaper to one side of a blown up balloon (one for each child). We let it dry overnight and repeated the process the next day. After it was thoroughly dry, we popped the balloons (the boys really liked this part). I cut the edges of the masks to make their shapes a bit more mask-like. They came out really good. Now we need to paint them and decorate them.
The other thing that has probably helped a bit with improving school-related attitudes is that they are getting better at writing. Ben really likes to write, especially if he is using cursive. He has finished his cursive curriculum and is getting pretty good at writing in cursive. Nick is getting closer to being finished but still has a bit to go. They also still practice their manuscript writing every school day. I have noticed they are getting faster at it but also more sloppy so I need to start sitting with them again and watching them so they will take their time and do a better job. Nick, in particular, still does not care to do too much writing.
This school year we have spent an inordinate amount of time on adding and subtracting numbers from 0-10. We have spent so much time on this that I thought for sure they would have them memorized by now. I have tried to do some flash cards with them but I was probably not as organized about it as I should have been and we also did not do it often enough. I have done some reading about how important it is for them to have these basic math facts memorized so I feel very strongly that we need to do this. I have read that children who do not have these basic facts memorized will be slower at math, as it gets harder, and they may end up hating math or thinking they are bad at it. It will also make math harder for them because they will still be having to calculate what 5+3 is while also trying to do harder algebra problems, for example. So, I learned about a computer program that helps kids to memorize these facts. It makes it fun with games and has some great reporting for the parents. The boys have been playing it every day and Ben especially has already mastered almost half of what he needs to learn by instant recall. Nick is further behind but he is definitely making progress and they have been doing this for less than a week. The great thing is that they get really excited about it and really want to play these games and they are playing these math games instead of the Angry Birds or whatever games they were playing before. So I am hopeful that doing this every day for the summer will get them to where they need to be on their instant recall of addition and subtraction math facts. The math game is called Reflex, in case anyone is interested in checking it out for their kids.
On to another topic. My mom was here for about a week. My sister came to get here last Thursday and she bought the boys each a pair of roller blades while she was here. They are loving them. The husband also decided to change his membership at the YMCA to a family membership so the boys can participate there a lot now. They have a great indoor swimming pool there, very fun for kids with an awesome slide, so the boys are loving this. That is where they are now, while the dad is swimming his laps. Anyway, back to mom. She did pretty well while she was here, although she was having some bad dizzy spells every once in a while. My sister took her to an ENT on Friday because we were thinking it had something to do with her inner ear and a really bad knock to the head she had a couple of weeks back when she took a bad fall in her kitchen. The ENT said it could have been that but he didn't find anything wrong. Then Mom fell again yesterday, although I have not heard how bad it was yet. She sure is falling a lot lately though and we need to find a solution for this before she really hurts herself badly. She is also not acting like her normal self a lot of the time so we are hoping to have her seen for that also. And she struggles with losing her independence and her freedom and has had some difficulty accepting that. It is a hard time for her and it is hard for us to see her going through this and not be able to do more. Getting older is just not an easy thing.
My nephew (my sister's son) will be graduating from high school in May and getting ready to head off to college. I also have two nieces who will be graduating from college in May. My sister's daughter is becoming an English teacher and is already teaching at her new job not far from where she went to college. My brother's daughter is planning on continuing to get her Master's degree in Accounting and is planning to become a CPA. My sister and her husband and their son and daughter are all going on a big vacation to Hawaii in May. With their daughter graduating from college and their son graduating from high school and heading off to college, they have planned this big vacation as their last real family get away together before the kids are off doing their own things. My mom will be staying with us while they are gone. I enjoy having her here but it is definitely a lot more work. It turns out that it is probably a good thing that she didn't want to move in just yet because I don't know that I could have handled it full time. It seems to work pretty well when she stays here for a week every now and then, when my sister is having to work many days in a row and we don't want mom alone during the day for that long. It gives my sister and brother (who lives in mom's house with her) a break too, which they need.
Well, time to sign off. I must go get some things done. Bye for now.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
March 28, 2012
My mom has decided she is not ready to leave her house yet and she moved back yesterday. I can certainly understand where she is coming from. She was completely dependent on us to go anywhere and I think that was hard for her. I was sad to see her leave but I totally understand. I would guess she may come for a few days to visit here and there, when my brother or sister are busy or out of town or something like that. It helps knowing that my brother is now living with her so she is no longer alone.
The boys are both doing very well. We are ahead of schedule in school and the boys are both doing great with it.
We are really enjoying our history and science lessons these days. We have started doing them in the mornings, before our break, as we do a better job on these subjects then. We are now using Story of the World (SOTW) as our main history book (or 'spine', as the homeschooling community refers to it). We use the SOTW Activity Guide for doing our comprehension questions after we read the text and also for the map work. The Activity Guide provides a coloring page and the boys enjoy coloring while I read. I keep a list of library books recommended from SOTW and also from Tapestry of Grace (TOG) and I order them ahead of time. We read as many of these as we have time for and find interesting also. We choose a project from either SOTW or TOG and do them here and there along the way, not every week because we also do projects or experiments in science, but when we have time.
In science we just finished studying a section on our solar system. I purchased a set of Styrofoam planets, sun and rings from a local store and we spent a day painting them, using pictures from this wonderful planets book we have as models. After they dried, we hung them down the long hallway upstairs, using a guide for an approximate scale to determine how many inches or feet each would be from the sun. The boys had so much fun with this. They especially enjoyed the first half hour or so of the painting (and then it was up to me to finish it, although Ben actually helped most of the time) and they really enjoyed measuring the distance from the sun for each planet and double checking it to what I had written on my list. It is not perfect but it is good enough that both boys were totally impressed at how far away from the sun many of the planets are. They also seemed to take personal exception about the decision of Pluto no longer being a planet. Neither of them are willing to accept that at this point and they have some pretty strong feelings about it. It was actually kind of funny.
All of our other subjects are going just fine. Right now I believe history/science and spelling are their favorites. They also enjoy doing narrations, where I read to them, ask them questions and then have them tell me something they remember about what I read. Ben loves practicing his cursive. Nick does not love it but he does an excellent job. I recently picked up a 5th grade reader so they are practicing reading from that aloud to me 1 to 3 times per week or so and they are doing very well with it. We only have one final chapter in our phonics book and it is a short chapter for learning to read very long, multiple syllable words. They had some of these in past chapters but the last chapter goes on to include even silly ones, like su-per-cal-i-fra-gi-lis-tic-ex-pi-al-i-do-tious....(spelling? - you know, from Mary Poppins). That is the very last word they read in the phonics book. We will get to that last chapter eventually but I'm not too concerned about it because we will also be covering multiple syllable words in spelling.
Well, our quiet time is over so I need to sign off an fix lunch. Hope you are having a great day.
The boys are both doing very well. We are ahead of schedule in school and the boys are both doing great with it.
We are really enjoying our history and science lessons these days. We have started doing them in the mornings, before our break, as we do a better job on these subjects then. We are now using Story of the World (SOTW) as our main history book (or 'spine', as the homeschooling community refers to it). We use the SOTW Activity Guide for doing our comprehension questions after we read the text and also for the map work. The Activity Guide provides a coloring page and the boys enjoy coloring while I read. I keep a list of library books recommended from SOTW and also from Tapestry of Grace (TOG) and I order them ahead of time. We read as many of these as we have time for and find interesting also. We choose a project from either SOTW or TOG and do them here and there along the way, not every week because we also do projects or experiments in science, but when we have time.
In science we just finished studying a section on our solar system. I purchased a set of Styrofoam planets, sun and rings from a local store and we spent a day painting them, using pictures from this wonderful planets book we have as models. After they dried, we hung them down the long hallway upstairs, using a guide for an approximate scale to determine how many inches or feet each would be from the sun. The boys had so much fun with this. They especially enjoyed the first half hour or so of the painting (and then it was up to me to finish it, although Ben actually helped most of the time) and they really enjoyed measuring the distance from the sun for each planet and double checking it to what I had written on my list. It is not perfect but it is good enough that both boys were totally impressed at how far away from the sun many of the planets are. They also seemed to take personal exception about the decision of Pluto no longer being a planet. Neither of them are willing to accept that at this point and they have some pretty strong feelings about it. It was actually kind of funny.
All of our other subjects are going just fine. Right now I believe history/science and spelling are their favorites. They also enjoy doing narrations, where I read to them, ask them questions and then have them tell me something they remember about what I read. Ben loves practicing his cursive. Nick does not love it but he does an excellent job. I recently picked up a 5th grade reader so they are practicing reading from that aloud to me 1 to 3 times per week or so and they are doing very well with it. We only have one final chapter in our phonics book and it is a short chapter for learning to read very long, multiple syllable words. They had some of these in past chapters but the last chapter goes on to include even silly ones, like su-per-cal-i-fra-gi-lis-tic-ex-pi-al-i-do-tious....(spelling? - you know, from Mary Poppins). That is the very last word they read in the phonics book. We will get to that last chapter eventually but I'm not too concerned about it because we will also be covering multiple syllable words in spelling.
Well, our quiet time is over so I need to sign off an fix lunch. Hope you are having a great day.
Monday, March 12, 2012
March 12, 2012
We are back from our vacation. We drove from Oklahoma to Houston and spent three days visiting friends and enjoying the museums and restaurants in Houston. We were also able to attend church at Second Baptist Church in Houston, which is where the husband and I met and where I went to church for many years. It was so nice to be back and to hear Dr. Young again. I really enjoyed it and it was nice to take our sons to church there.
On Sunday we drove to Galveston and caught our seven day cruise on the Carnival Magic. Our first two days were spent at sea. The weather was a bit chilly, overcast and windy on the first day. The boys went to Camp Carnival for 2 hours in the morning and they enjoyed it a lot. I can't remember what we did in the afternoon that day but I think we may have played foosball, putt putt golf, pool and ping pong. The ropes course was closed because of high winds and it was too chilly to use the water slides / water park area and pools. The second day was a bit warmer but still a little chilly, windy and overcast. The boys went to Camp Carnival for two hours again in the morning and spent the afternoon playing in the large hot tubs. We probably played putt putt golf again later too.
We spent the third day in Jamaica at an all inclusive resort that had huge swimming pools, water volley ball, water slides, and a river area where one could ride large inner tubes around. They also had a beach, beach volley ball, kayaks, lots of other water sports plus all the food you could eat. Unfortunately it rained off and on but that did not seem to slow us down a bit and it cleared up after a couple of hours.
We spent the fourth day on the island of Grand Cayman, which was beautiful. We took a boat out to a reef for snorkeling. These boat guys also fed the sting rays on a regular basis so they were swimming all around and people could pet them and feed them. It was a beautiful day but it was very windy so the water was a bit rough. We all had a good time anyway though. The water was amazingly clear and beautiful here.
We spent the fifth day at Cozumel, Mexico, where the water was just as clear and beautiful as Grand Cayman. We took a cab to a nearby beach which had lots of amenities and we spent the day there. It was my favorite day, by far. It was a perfectly beautiful day and a perfectly beautiful beach. We all had a wonderful, relaxing time. The boys really loved playing on the beach and in the ocean so much, it was sad to leave.
Our sixth day was a ship day and was again somewhat overcast and misty at times. The boys were looking forward to going back to Camp Carnival and spent two hours there in the morning and another 2 or 3 hours in the afternoon. The husband and I spent that time together, enjoying each others company, visiting, reading and also going through a book that we are reading together. It was a really great, relaxing day and we all, once again, enjoyed ourselves. We spent that afternoon making sure everyone had a shower (the shower on the ship was surprisingly really good, albeit small) and packing. We arrived back in Galveston early on Sunday morning and were in our car, heading for home by around 8:00 or 8:30am.
Every day we had all three meals together and did less snacking between meals than we normally do because we were so busy. There were lots of places to choose from for eating. Some of the places were only open during certain times of the day and others were open 24 hours a day. You could choose between a buffet type of help-yourself meal or a sit down and be served meal. They had soft ice cream and yogurt available with cones or cups 24 hours a day (chocolate, strawberry and vanilla). I think I had a small one about 2 or 3 times a day:). You could choose what type of dinner program you wanted. We had dinner at the same restaurant every evening. The food was awesome; the desserts were awesome also. Every evening except two, we had the same waiter and he was so friendly and sweet. We loved him too and were sad to say goodbye to him and also to our steward. Our steward took care of our room and he was so friendly also. When we went to dinner, he prepared our room for sleep by lowering the boys' beds (they were in the ceiling) and leaving us a very cute animal made from towels every night. He was really good at creating the towel animals.
Before we went, I was concerned our room would be too small and confining. It was actually perfect for us and I did not have one complaint about our accommodations at all. The boys loved their bunk beds and, even when they were down, we still had plenty of room to move about. All of our beds were comfortable and very roomy. Before we went, I had read that if we were going to use the bunk beds, then our bed had to be separated into two twin beds. We found this not to be true. Our bed was two twin beds put together but they were very comfortable and roomy and it seemed more like a king than anything. We had small night stands on either side of our bed, each with a small reading lamp. We would all watch a little television together and each read our own books before we fell asleep at night. The rooms were very well insulated and we never heard our neighbors at all. We sometimes heard people in the hallways but I was never awakened by them. Our bathrooms were also very well insulated. Both the bedroom and the bathroom were far better insulated than any hotel I have ever stayed in, and I have stayed in some pretty nice hotels back in the day when I traveled a lot for work. So, overall, I give our room an A+, which was quite a nice surprise. Also, I loved that we got to go to three different stops and enjoy each one, but we never had to pack and unpack. And our room also had plenty of drawer and closet space so we were able to unpack everything when we first got to our room and put our suitcases under our bed, not to be seen or needed again until we were ready to repack at the end of our cruise.
The only real downsides I found about taking this cruise was that the main attraction for adult entertainment was gambling, drinking/partying and some sometimes R rated comedy shows. They had some other shows too but we were usually tired by the time we finished with dinner and our sons normally go to sleep around 8:30ish. I was very surprised that the cruise line offered child care for even babies until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. Camp Carnival was during the day, from 10:00 to noon and then from 1:00 to 4:00, or something like that, and it was free. Additional child care was provided after dinner and it was pay-by-the-hour.
There were also a surprising number of smokers on the ship, although they were only allowed to smoke in certain areas. It was still sometimes annoying when we were sitting outside and someone was smoking nearby. Sometimes I got tired of the number of people that were constantly about, but one could go to their room to get away and if you looked hard enough you could likely find a spot in a corner where you could recline in peace, watch the beautiful view of the ocean and read or just relax. You had to be patient when getting off the ship on shore days but the lines moved pretty quickly. I never felt sea sick at all and actually enjoyed the slight rocking of the ship during the windy times. It was never very bad, although there were times when you had to hold on to something if you were up walking around.
Overall I found the cruise to be a great vacation. I loved not having to worry or even think about what anyone was going to have to eat for any meal and it was nice that most of the food was included in the price we paid for the cruise. The only meals not included were when we had lunch at the three stops. Every other meal/snack was included. I loved not having to pack and unpack at every stop and we had tons of amenities on board the ship. I also loved the relaxing nature of a cruise and that pretty much everyone was in a great, happy mood and most of the crew were very friendly, fun and helpful. Most of the guests were also very friendly and ready to visit during wait times. The other thing I really liked was that everyone was disconnected from the Internet and phones. You could get on the Internet for a fee but we never did. We had a television in our room but it received limited channels, although it did get CNN, some movie channels, Discovery, ABC, CBS, NBC, and one or two cartoon channels. It also had a map channel that showed where the ship was and gave the temperature and there was a channel that showed a real-time camera view from the front of the ship.
I would definitely do a cruise again and I suspect the second time would be even better than the first because you learn a lot the first time around. When we were at dinner on the last night of the cruise, some of the waiters/waitresses put on a little show for us and sang a goodbye song to us (to the tune of Leaving on a Jet Plane). It was very cute and funny and made us a bit sad that it was our last night. Ben, who had mentioned several times that he was homesick and that he missed his Legos, even started crying that last night at dinner. He was kind of smiling and crying at the same time. It was very sweet and it was how I felt too. We were all very ready to go home but we were all a little sad to be leaving too.
Yesterday we spent most of the day driving back home and today was laundry day for me. The boys spent the day playing all the stuff they missed playing while we were gone. Tomorrow we will start back with a bit of school and work towards ramping up to a full/normal school day by week end.
The husband continues to work on getting his practice off the ground and also looking for another job he can do while his practice ramps up. By week end, life should be back to normal around here:). And we came home to absolutely beautiful weather. It is in the mid-seventies here today and is suppose to be in the 80's tomorrow.
Oh, and we went off and forgot our camera in our car. We bought two disposable cameras on the ship so we have very limited pictures. I think when we get them developed we will try to have the pics put on a CD so hopefully I will eventually be able to post some pics.
Hope you all had/have a nice week!
On Sunday we drove to Galveston and caught our seven day cruise on the Carnival Magic. Our first two days were spent at sea. The weather was a bit chilly, overcast and windy on the first day. The boys went to Camp Carnival for 2 hours in the morning and they enjoyed it a lot. I can't remember what we did in the afternoon that day but I think we may have played foosball, putt putt golf, pool and ping pong. The ropes course was closed because of high winds and it was too chilly to use the water slides / water park area and pools. The second day was a bit warmer but still a little chilly, windy and overcast. The boys went to Camp Carnival for two hours again in the morning and spent the afternoon playing in the large hot tubs. We probably played putt putt golf again later too.
We spent the third day in Jamaica at an all inclusive resort that had huge swimming pools, water volley ball, water slides, and a river area where one could ride large inner tubes around. They also had a beach, beach volley ball, kayaks, lots of other water sports plus all the food you could eat. Unfortunately it rained off and on but that did not seem to slow us down a bit and it cleared up after a couple of hours.
We spent the fourth day on the island of Grand Cayman, which was beautiful. We took a boat out to a reef for snorkeling. These boat guys also fed the sting rays on a regular basis so they were swimming all around and people could pet them and feed them. It was a beautiful day but it was very windy so the water was a bit rough. We all had a good time anyway though. The water was amazingly clear and beautiful here.
We spent the fifth day at Cozumel, Mexico, where the water was just as clear and beautiful as Grand Cayman. We took a cab to a nearby beach which had lots of amenities and we spent the day there. It was my favorite day, by far. It was a perfectly beautiful day and a perfectly beautiful beach. We all had a wonderful, relaxing time. The boys really loved playing on the beach and in the ocean so much, it was sad to leave.
Our sixth day was a ship day and was again somewhat overcast and misty at times. The boys were looking forward to going back to Camp Carnival and spent two hours there in the morning and another 2 or 3 hours in the afternoon. The husband and I spent that time together, enjoying each others company, visiting, reading and also going through a book that we are reading together. It was a really great, relaxing day and we all, once again, enjoyed ourselves. We spent that afternoon making sure everyone had a shower (the shower on the ship was surprisingly really good, albeit small) and packing. We arrived back in Galveston early on Sunday morning and were in our car, heading for home by around 8:00 or 8:30am.
Every day we had all three meals together and did less snacking between meals than we normally do because we were so busy. There were lots of places to choose from for eating. Some of the places were only open during certain times of the day and others were open 24 hours a day. You could choose between a buffet type of help-yourself meal or a sit down and be served meal. They had soft ice cream and yogurt available with cones or cups 24 hours a day (chocolate, strawberry and vanilla). I think I had a small one about 2 or 3 times a day:). You could choose what type of dinner program you wanted. We had dinner at the same restaurant every evening. The food was awesome; the desserts were awesome also. Every evening except two, we had the same waiter and he was so friendly and sweet. We loved him too and were sad to say goodbye to him and also to our steward. Our steward took care of our room and he was so friendly also. When we went to dinner, he prepared our room for sleep by lowering the boys' beds (they were in the ceiling) and leaving us a very cute animal made from towels every night. He was really good at creating the towel animals.
Before we went, I was concerned our room would be too small and confining. It was actually perfect for us and I did not have one complaint about our accommodations at all. The boys loved their bunk beds and, even when they were down, we still had plenty of room to move about. All of our beds were comfortable and very roomy. Before we went, I had read that if we were going to use the bunk beds, then our bed had to be separated into two twin beds. We found this not to be true. Our bed was two twin beds put together but they were very comfortable and roomy and it seemed more like a king than anything. We had small night stands on either side of our bed, each with a small reading lamp. We would all watch a little television together and each read our own books before we fell asleep at night. The rooms were very well insulated and we never heard our neighbors at all. We sometimes heard people in the hallways but I was never awakened by them. Our bathrooms were also very well insulated. Both the bedroom and the bathroom were far better insulated than any hotel I have ever stayed in, and I have stayed in some pretty nice hotels back in the day when I traveled a lot for work. So, overall, I give our room an A+, which was quite a nice surprise. Also, I loved that we got to go to three different stops and enjoy each one, but we never had to pack and unpack. And our room also had plenty of drawer and closet space so we were able to unpack everything when we first got to our room and put our suitcases under our bed, not to be seen or needed again until we were ready to repack at the end of our cruise.
The only real downsides I found about taking this cruise was that the main attraction for adult entertainment was gambling, drinking/partying and some sometimes R rated comedy shows. They had some other shows too but we were usually tired by the time we finished with dinner and our sons normally go to sleep around 8:30ish. I was very surprised that the cruise line offered child care for even babies until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. Camp Carnival was during the day, from 10:00 to noon and then from 1:00 to 4:00, or something like that, and it was free. Additional child care was provided after dinner and it was pay-by-the-hour.
There were also a surprising number of smokers on the ship, although they were only allowed to smoke in certain areas. It was still sometimes annoying when we were sitting outside and someone was smoking nearby. Sometimes I got tired of the number of people that were constantly about, but one could go to their room to get away and if you looked hard enough you could likely find a spot in a corner where you could recline in peace, watch the beautiful view of the ocean and read or just relax. You had to be patient when getting off the ship on shore days but the lines moved pretty quickly. I never felt sea sick at all and actually enjoyed the slight rocking of the ship during the windy times. It was never very bad, although there were times when you had to hold on to something if you were up walking around.
Overall I found the cruise to be a great vacation. I loved not having to worry or even think about what anyone was going to have to eat for any meal and it was nice that most of the food was included in the price we paid for the cruise. The only meals not included were when we had lunch at the three stops. Every other meal/snack was included. I loved not having to pack and unpack at every stop and we had tons of amenities on board the ship. I also loved the relaxing nature of a cruise and that pretty much everyone was in a great, happy mood and most of the crew were very friendly, fun and helpful. Most of the guests were also very friendly and ready to visit during wait times. The other thing I really liked was that everyone was disconnected from the Internet and phones. You could get on the Internet for a fee but we never did. We had a television in our room but it received limited channels, although it did get CNN, some movie channels, Discovery, ABC, CBS, NBC, and one or two cartoon channels. It also had a map channel that showed where the ship was and gave the temperature and there was a channel that showed a real-time camera view from the front of the ship.
I would definitely do a cruise again and I suspect the second time would be even better than the first because you learn a lot the first time around. When we were at dinner on the last night of the cruise, some of the waiters/waitresses put on a little show for us and sang a goodbye song to us (to the tune of Leaving on a Jet Plane). It was very cute and funny and made us a bit sad that it was our last night. Ben, who had mentioned several times that he was homesick and that he missed his Legos, even started crying that last night at dinner. He was kind of smiling and crying at the same time. It was very sweet and it was how I felt too. We were all very ready to go home but we were all a little sad to be leaving too.
Yesterday we spent most of the day driving back home and today was laundry day for me. The boys spent the day playing all the stuff they missed playing while we were gone. Tomorrow we will start back with a bit of school and work towards ramping up to a full/normal school day by week end.
The husband continues to work on getting his practice off the ground and also looking for another job he can do while his practice ramps up. By week end, life should be back to normal around here:). And we came home to absolutely beautiful weather. It is in the mid-seventies here today and is suppose to be in the 80's tomorrow.
Oh, and we went off and forgot our camera in our car. We bought two disposable cameras on the ship so we have very limited pictures. I think when we get them developed we will try to have the pics put on a CD so hopefully I will eventually be able to post some pics.
Hope you all had/have a nice week!
Monday, February 20, 2012
February 20, 2012
We celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary yesterday, my birthday is this week and we are preparing for our upcoming vacation. I think I mentioned we are going on a cruise. I have purchased swim wear that provides more protection from the sun, along with a wide-brim hat. We are all looking forward to our vacation.
Mom is here but I will be taking her back to her house this week, where she will stay until after our vacation. My brother is moving into her house so she will still have someone staying with her. She seems pretty upbeat about moving in with us. Tomorrow she is getting together with a friend from her school days, which is nice. Her friend lives fairly close to us.
Well, time for sleep. Hope you are all well.
Mom is here but I will be taking her back to her house this week, where she will stay until after our vacation. My brother is moving into her house so she will still have someone staying with her. She seems pretty upbeat about moving in with us. Tomorrow she is getting together with a friend from her school days, which is nice. Her friend lives fairly close to us.
Well, time for sleep. Hope you are all well.
Monday, February 13, 2012
February 13, 2012
Just enough snow for two little boys...........
...to try out their new sleds
...to build a snowman
,,,more sledding...
Later Ben told me he got really hungry so he ate the snowman's carrot nose.
and ....to build a snow fort. Awesome morning!
They had their fun and then it was melted and gone by the afternoon. Tomorrow is suppose to be in the 50's. Now this is a truly wonderful winter:).
Then they came in, ate some yummy homemade stew and cornbread and started on school work.
Hope you had a great day!
They had their fun and then it was melted and gone by the afternoon. Tomorrow is suppose to be in the 50's. Now this is a truly wonderful winter:).
Then they came in, ate some yummy homemade stew and cornbread and started on school work.
Hope you had a great day!
Sunday, February 12, 2012
February 12, 2012
We have a lot going on around here lately. I don't remember how much I have already mentioned so forgive me if I repeat myself. The two biggest changes are:
1. Dear husband is starting his own cash-only (meaning he won't be accepting insurance) practice. He would like to keep working where he works currently (an urgent care clinic) as his new practice ramps up. He discussed it with one of the owners recently and it did not go so well. We are waiting to hear what they decide they want to do moving forward. Dear husband has already signed a lease contract for office space. He is working on the many details and hoping to start seeing patients around May-ish.
2. My mom is going to be moving in with us. She has been here with us since Wednesday and we have been discussing some of the details for her to move here. This is something we had anticipated and planned for since we built this house and the main reason we made sure our guest room is on the first floor. With some of the issues she has been having, it seems that this is the right time. My sister and I both expected that, when this time came, there would be some resistance from mom. Surprisingly, she is very excited about the move and seems to be really looking forward to it. That is a nice surprise. She tended to not get out enough when she lived alone and so she really ended up spending too much time alone and I don't think it was healthy for her. I am hopeful that we will all be able to adjust to this move fairly smoothly. I think we will.
Both of these things are huge changes for our family so we would greatly appreciate your prayers.
In other news, school is going well and we continue to chug along.
Above is our finished salt map. We had a lot of fun with this project.
These are Egyptian serpent headed throwing sticks. The boys had a lot of fun painting them. Boys, such as Moses, growing up in Egypt practiced throwing serpent headed throwing sticks at targets. When they got good enough at it, they hunted with them. Although we did not read this, I am guessing that the original throwing sticks were quite a bit longer than this and might have possibly had a sharp point on one end:).
Above is a picture of our messy kitchen and dining room during one school day. It does get quite messy around here at times.
Last week we had our first day of adding a new spelling curriculum to our day. It was not received with much excitement but I am hopeful that, once they are used to it, they will enjoy it. I need to do a better job of planning and implementing our science. I am not very impressed with some of the experiments so my excitement for doing it has waned a bit. Must work on that. Overall school is going very well. Our current read aloud is Charlotte's Web and we recently finished The Borrowers. Reading aloud is pretty much our favorite thing...for all of us. I love it too:).
Break time! ....and bed time for me. Hope you have a great week. Good night!
1. Dear husband is starting his own cash-only (meaning he won't be accepting insurance) practice. He would like to keep working where he works currently (an urgent care clinic) as his new practice ramps up. He discussed it with one of the owners recently and it did not go so well. We are waiting to hear what they decide they want to do moving forward. Dear husband has already signed a lease contract for office space. He is working on the many details and hoping to start seeing patients around May-ish.
2. My mom is going to be moving in with us. She has been here with us since Wednesday and we have been discussing some of the details for her to move here. This is something we had anticipated and planned for since we built this house and the main reason we made sure our guest room is on the first floor. With some of the issues she has been having, it seems that this is the right time. My sister and I both expected that, when this time came, there would be some resistance from mom. Surprisingly, she is very excited about the move and seems to be really looking forward to it. That is a nice surprise. She tended to not get out enough when she lived alone and so she really ended up spending too much time alone and I don't think it was healthy for her. I am hopeful that we will all be able to adjust to this move fairly smoothly. I think we will.
Both of these things are huge changes for our family so we would greatly appreciate your prayers.
In other news, school is going well and we continue to chug along.
Last week we had our first day of adding a new spelling curriculum to our day. It was not received with much excitement but I am hopeful that, once they are used to it, they will enjoy it. I need to do a better job of planning and implementing our science. I am not very impressed with some of the experiments so my excitement for doing it has waned a bit. Must work on that. Overall school is going very well. Our current read aloud is Charlotte's Web and we recently finished The Borrowers. Reading aloud is pretty much our favorite thing...for all of us. I love it too:).
Thursday, January 19, 2012
January 19, 2012
Well we are finished with school for today and we have eaten lunch and the boys are playing outside. It is a beautiful, sunny day here and the temp is around 55 degrees or so. I'm sure it feels even warmer in the sun.
Yesterday we decided to take a day off of school so we had a free day. We traded it with Friday this week because we are not having co-op this week so Friday was free. It was nice to have a break mid-week and we all came back at it today refreshed.
Yesterday I was sitting in the living room and I kept wondering why I was smelling smoke so strongly. We had made a fire in our fireplace the night before for the first time (it was lovely and we need to do that more often) and I kept thinking I was smelling the results of that. Finally, I happened to glance outside and noticed smoke wafting past our house. I got up and looked next door and saw a large plume of smoke coming up from a huge pile of trees that had been knocked down and piled on the other side of the lot when they started building a new house. I didn't see anyone around so I decided to put on my shoes and coat and walk over there to see what was going on. Nick went with me and we found that, sure enough, the huge pile of trees were on fire and nobody was around. We came back and told the husband and he called 911 to report it. Not long after there were several smaller red trucks (not true fire trucks) with tanks in the back bed that came to put it out and watch it for a while. I guess they save the big trucks for the big jobs. It was not a very big fire yet but it was really smoking and it took quite a bit of water to put it out. The boys really enjoyed the whole thing.
I am so far behind on posting pictures that I don't even know where to start. I will put in a few here though.
This (above) is what happens when boys get a hold of the camera:).
Here is our house, decorated for Christmas.
The dad was helping the boys make their gingerbread house.
We made a big batch of Christmas cookies that were quite yummy.
I was out Christmas shopping on this day, I think. They set the camera up on a tripod.
This was taken just before we took the Christmas tree down, which we did quite early this year. I was ready for the house to get back to normal.
Here is Tinkerbell. She is really getting big these days and a bit chubby too. This is how she looks when she is getting ready to attack something.
Here is one of my beautiful nieces, having a treat with the boys.
This is a salt map we made, while learning names of various landforms. It has taken it about a week to dry completely. We should be able to paint it soon. This was a very fun project for the whole family.
An after dinner dessert for two goofy boys.
Here the boys are doing a science experiment with the dad. We are studying the human body right now so the dad (being a dr.) enjoys joining in for the experiments. Here the boys are blowing into the tube, which forces water out of the 2 liter bottle, showing how much air they can hold in their lungs. They did this twice; once with a regular breath and once with a great, big breath so they could see the difference in how much their lungs hold. It was a fun project and we all joined in and tried it.
This is how we make our daily schedule. The laminated cards have velcro on the back to attach them to the strap. There is a pocket at the bottom to hold the cards. The boys and I decide what order we will do our subjects each day and we put the cards on the strap in that order (click on the picture to see a larger version). As we finish a subject, they take turns taking the card off the strap and putting it into the pocket. This is really working out very well for us and the boys are quickly getting use to the additional workload. We are normally done by noon, except on Tuesdays when we have to go to violin lessons in the mornings.
That's it for today as we have to get ready to go to swim lessons. Hope you are having a great day!
Yesterday we decided to take a day off of school so we had a free day. We traded it with Friday this week because we are not having co-op this week so Friday was free. It was nice to have a break mid-week and we all came back at it today refreshed.
Yesterday I was sitting in the living room and I kept wondering why I was smelling smoke so strongly. We had made a fire in our fireplace the night before for the first time (it was lovely and we need to do that more often) and I kept thinking I was smelling the results of that. Finally, I happened to glance outside and noticed smoke wafting past our house. I got up and looked next door and saw a large plume of smoke coming up from a huge pile of trees that had been knocked down and piled on the other side of the lot when they started building a new house. I didn't see anyone around so I decided to put on my shoes and coat and walk over there to see what was going on. Nick went with me and we found that, sure enough, the huge pile of trees were on fire and nobody was around. We came back and told the husband and he called 911 to report it. Not long after there were several smaller red trucks (not true fire trucks) with tanks in the back bed that came to put it out and watch it for a while. I guess they save the big trucks for the big jobs. It was not a very big fire yet but it was really smoking and it took quite a bit of water to put it out. The boys really enjoyed the whole thing.
I am so far behind on posting pictures that I don't even know where to start. I will put in a few here though.
That's it for today as we have to get ready to go to swim lessons. Hope you are having a great day!
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
January 11, 2012
We had a great day with school today. We have added almost every subject now for 1st grade. We did Science today for the first time and the boys really enjoyed it. We are studying the human body and this week they are learning about cells, blood vessels, veins, arteries, and organs. They loved it. We will do an experiment on Friday (we are schooling Friday this week because we missed Monday). Tomorrow is a history day and we have two history projects to do. We will likely do one of them on Saturday, along with our first art project. I know they will really enjoy that.
They are doing really well with their narrating. I am astounded at how much they remember about what we read and they are really good at forming their responses in complete sentences. Currently I ask them questions about the passage I read aloud so I am walking them through how to narrate a paragraph or short story. Eventually, they will be able to do it without the questions from me.
I had better sign off, as it is much too late and I have teacher, mom, wife, housekeeper, cook, daughter, sister, etc. duties tomorrow.
They are doing really well with their narrating. I am astounded at how much they remember about what we read and they are really good at forming their responses in complete sentences. Currently I ask them questions about the passage I read aloud so I am walking them through how to narrate a paragraph or short story. Eventually, they will be able to do it without the questions from me.
I had better sign off, as it is much too late and I have teacher, mom, wife, housekeeper, cook, daughter, sister, etc. duties tomorrow.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
January 1, 2012
There was a discussion on a forum I visit regularly about plans for 1st grade. This is something I have been working on for a while. The boys are older K'ers so they are currently doing 1st grade level work in the three R's. Currently I am trying to work through (and test out) the best way to add subjects to our day with the most excitement and the least resistance (more school and less play is not always met with a cheer at this house:).
Currently we are doing the following:
-- I read aloud for probably at least 30 minutes (they always beg for more). Our current read aloud book is Little Pilgram's Progress and it is awesome.
-- Leading Little Ones to God devotion and scripture memory (one verse per week)
-- Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading: we have maybe 1 to 2 months left to finish the book. Once we are finished, I will replaced this with All About Spelling Level 1.
-- Math Mammoth 1A: We have recently started this, after spending the first semester using Right Start A and Singapore Math 1A. They did not work out for us, for various reasons but MM seems like it is going to work out well for us (at least so far). We also use some of Miquon for extra practice or a different approach to a type of problem. For now, I am having them do 2 pages of MM a day, although they could probably do 3 because it is pretty easy for them right now, since we started back at the beginning.
-- Hand Writing without Tears Cursive / Reading: One child does a page of cursive work while the other reads aloud to me from a 4th grade Pathway Reader and then they switch. One child is stronger at writing and the other is stronger at reading so this actually works out very well for us. The boys had already finished HWT K and 1st books this school year. After doing some research, I decided to move them on to cursive, although they will still practice their printing with our writing program, for now.
The way we have been doing school, they are finished at this point. We usually start around 9:00 or 10:00 and they normally have snack time at the beginning of school, during our reading. The work above normally takes about 1.5 hours, although it would be closer to 2 hours if they were doing math that was more their level. Since we started at the beginning of MM 1A, it is pretty quick right now. We are schooling Monday through Thursday and go to co-op on most Fridays for P.E., choir and general play time with others. We read aloud from their Bible at bedtime and they each pick a book for us (my dh or I) to read aloud at that time also. They are also in swimming and soccer once a week, although they will finish swim lessons in May. Ben is still taking violin lessons so he has violin practice some days (should be every day but we are not quite that good:). Nick would like to take piano lessons and will hopefully be able to start sometime soon-ish.
Below are the subjects we will be adding for 1st grade. We have done a few lessons of each so I could get a feel for them:
First Language Lessons 1: Poetry memorization, learning parts of speech and narration.
Writing With Ease 1: Copy work leading to dictation and narration.
All About Spelling 1: We have done a lot of this but, in retrospect, I probably went through it too fast so we will start from the beginning and go through it more thoroughly.
Tapestry of Grace Year 1: Currently studying about ancient Egypt and what it was like when Moses was growing up. We do related read alouds, geography map work and vocab work and some type of craft project.
Noeo Biology: These bottom two are the ones we have not done yet, although we will start science tomorrow. I have looked through it and we will be doing read alouds from interesting books and experiments. I have to determine where we should start since the author assumes it will be taught starting in the fall and part of the work needs to be done in the spring.
Usborne Art Treasury: I bought all of the art supplies yesterday. Nick is especially excited about this.
We will still school Mon through Thur, year round, taking off time as needed. For K, we have normally started school around 9:00ish or 10:00ish, depending on the day, and we are finished within 1.5 to 2 hours. When we add these new subjects, I plan to start earlier. I will read the fun read aloud while they are eating breakfast. I think the rest of it may look like this:
Math Mammoth
All About Spelling
First Language Lessons
Writing With Ease
Snack/Play Break
Leading Little Ones to God + scripture memory
History(MonWed)/Science(TueTh)
HWT Cursive/Reading
Lunch and Play Break
After lunch, we will do Tapestry Of Grace Geography or a craft/project on Mondays and Wednesdays and a Science experiment on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The boys will have time to play for a while and then we will have our quiet time, during which they will do some independent reading for 15 to 30 minutes. Art will probably be on Saturdays or we may fit it in during the weeks we don't have a science experiment.
In addition, Ben has to practice his violin each day and Nick will (hopefully) soon have piano practice. Both boys play soccer and take swim lessons once a week.
Well, that's it! That's the plan. Of course, the actual and the plan do not always line up exactly so we will see how this works out. Prayers are always appreciated!
Currently we are doing the following:
-- I read aloud for probably at least 30 minutes (they always beg for more). Our current read aloud book is Little Pilgram's Progress and it is awesome.
-- Leading Little Ones to God devotion and scripture memory (one verse per week)
-- Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading: we have maybe 1 to 2 months left to finish the book. Once we are finished, I will replaced this with All About Spelling Level 1.
-- Math Mammoth 1A: We have recently started this, after spending the first semester using Right Start A and Singapore Math 1A. They did not work out for us, for various reasons but MM seems like it is going to work out well for us (at least so far). We also use some of Miquon for extra practice or a different approach to a type of problem. For now, I am having them do 2 pages of MM a day, although they could probably do 3 because it is pretty easy for them right now, since we started back at the beginning.
-- Hand Writing without Tears Cursive / Reading: One child does a page of cursive work while the other reads aloud to me from a 4th grade Pathway Reader and then they switch. One child is stronger at writing and the other is stronger at reading so this actually works out very well for us. The boys had already finished HWT K and 1st books this school year. After doing some research, I decided to move them on to cursive, although they will still practice their printing with our writing program, for now.
The way we have been doing school, they are finished at this point. We usually start around 9:00 or 10:00 and they normally have snack time at the beginning of school, during our reading. The work above normally takes about 1.5 hours, although it would be closer to 2 hours if they were doing math that was more their level. Since we started at the beginning of MM 1A, it is pretty quick right now. We are schooling Monday through Thursday and go to co-op on most Fridays for P.E., choir and general play time with others. We read aloud from their Bible at bedtime and they each pick a book for us (my dh or I) to read aloud at that time also. They are also in swimming and soccer once a week, although they will finish swim lessons in May. Ben is still taking violin lessons so he has violin practice some days (should be every day but we are not quite that good:). Nick would like to take piano lessons and will hopefully be able to start sometime soon-ish.
Below are the subjects we will be adding for 1st grade. We have done a few lessons of each so I could get a feel for them:
First Language Lessons 1: Poetry memorization, learning parts of speech and narration.
Writing With Ease 1: Copy work leading to dictation and narration.
All About Spelling 1: We have done a lot of this but, in retrospect, I probably went through it too fast so we will start from the beginning and go through it more thoroughly.
Tapestry of Grace Year 1: Currently studying about ancient Egypt and what it was like when Moses was growing up. We do related read alouds, geography map work and vocab work and some type of craft project.
Noeo Biology: These bottom two are the ones we have not done yet, although we will start science tomorrow. I have looked through it and we will be doing read alouds from interesting books and experiments. I have to determine where we should start since the author assumes it will be taught starting in the fall and part of the work needs to be done in the spring.
Usborne Art Treasury: I bought all of the art supplies yesterday. Nick is especially excited about this.
We will still school Mon through Thur, year round, taking off time as needed. For K, we have normally started school around 9:00ish or 10:00ish, depending on the day, and we are finished within 1.5 to 2 hours. When we add these new subjects, I plan to start earlier. I will read the fun read aloud while they are eating breakfast. I think the rest of it may look like this:
Math Mammoth
All About Spelling
First Language Lessons
Writing With Ease
Snack/Play Break
Leading Little Ones to God + scripture memory
History(MonWed)/Science(TueTh)
HWT Cursive/Reading
Lunch and Play Break
After lunch, we will do Tapestry Of Grace Geography or a craft/project on Mondays and Wednesdays and a Science experiment on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The boys will have time to play for a while and then we will have our quiet time, during which they will do some independent reading for 15 to 30 minutes. Art will probably be on Saturdays or we may fit it in during the weeks we don't have a science experiment.
In addition, Ben has to practice his violin each day and Nick will (hopefully) soon have piano practice. Both boys play soccer and take swim lessons once a week.
Well, that's it! That's the plan. Of course, the actual and the plan do not always line up exactly so we will see how this works out. Prayers are always appreciated!
Sunday, December 25, 2011
December 25, 2011
We have had a very merry Christmas at our house. We opened gifts first thing this morning and then spent the rest of our time before church working on putting together the Lego police station, which was a very popular gift. We went to church and they did not have Sunday school or children's church this morning so the boys were with us in big church. I really enjoyed having them there and especially enjoyed hearing them sing. I really think Christmas should be on Sunday every year. It is just so special. Our pastor had given such a wonderful sermon this morning and three people were also baptized. The boys had never seen a baptism before so I was really glad they were there to watch and they were very interested.
After church we did our normal, every Sunday after church thing and headed to one of our favorite places to eat. After driving around, we saw that pretty much everything was closed, which I kind of expected. Sonic was open and they were being slammed. We went there but it didn't take long for us to realize that it would be a long time before we were waited on and served so we headed home.
As it happens, I had bought a wonderful honey glazed ham so we cut off a few slices and heated them up, along with some baked potatoes and veggies. It turned out to be a pretty good Christmas lunch and it was pretty quick also, which was good because everyone was getting pretty hungry by then.
Back to the presents. The boys were very excited about all of their gifts, although some more than others, of course. They got some fun science-y things in their stockings (a submarine that you put baking powder in and it makes it dive and come back up, magnet toys, a small volcano that requires baking soda and vinegar to make it erupt and a few other things. They also got a Lite Brite and I Spy puzzle, a wrist watch walkie talkie, a pirate/treasure hunt maze book and another fun puzzle type book, a wood kit where they build and paint four wood projects (a jet plane, a bird house, a race car and a bird feeder) and their big Lego police station. Last, but not least, we got a basket ball goal but we have not put it together yet so it is not on the radar. I think the dad will put it together tomorrow. As it was, the dad and I both ended up spending the majority of the day helping the boys with one thing or another. It seems that the majority of the gifts needed some kind of help or another. It was nice though because we really spent a lot of family time together today, which was a wonderful way to spend Christmas day.
My dear husband went above and beyond for me this year. My big gift was a new, wireless printer. It is not only a printer but it is a do-it-all kind of printer. It prints in beautiful color and can print pictures. It also faxes, copies and scans. My biggest want though was for a wireless printer that could print in color. It was a big surprise for me and dear hubby already had it set up and configured. He had me open an envelope that had a letter in it that told me to print a Word document from my laptop, which happened to be sitting on the island counter. Then I went to his office and there was my printer and the paper I had just printed with no connected wires! Yay! I can't tell you how nice this will be for me. I have always had to take my laptop to his office and connect it to the printer to print something. It will be so much more convenient and how lovely that I will be able to print in color now. This will definitely be great for all of the school stuff we will be doing.
The other gift from dear hubs was a new blender. The one we had was mine from about 30 years ago and it had a short so it was becoming more unreliable. The new one is quite nice and may even make me want to bake a bit more often. I also had some new kitchen utensils in my stocking, which we desperately needed. I am a very practical person so I really like gifts like this:). I was quite pleased and thankful for all of my Christmas gifts and also thankful for such a thoughtful husband.
I got the hubs a new router and a jig saw. As it turns out, he already has a jig saw so he will return this one and put the money towards something else. He got some nice office supplies, candy and some yummy cinnamon covered pecans in his stocking.
All of this is in addition to everything we all received when we celebrated Christmas with my family down at the farm yesterday. It was so nice to see everyone and we even got to talk to my nephew who is a chaplain in the service and is currently stationed in Kuwait. It was so good to hear his voice.
Above all, we are all healthy and were able to spend our Christmas with family, which is such a blessing. Our sons are growing up too fast. I think they skipped size 6 in their jeans and went straight from a size 5 to a size 7. What's up with that?
We are going to be taking a vacation in the next couple of months. We are going to go on a cruise and we are all very excited about it. The husband has been on one before but this will be the first for the rest of us. I am excited for the boys to get to see the ocean for the first time and to play on a beach for the first time. I didn't get to do either until I was in college so this has been one of the things that I really wanted them to experience while they are younger. It is so fun and exciting to have something like this to look forward to. It will definitely make the time fly by.
Speaking of time flying by, we took most of this week off of school. We schooled on Monday and I had planned to school another day or two but other things kept popping up. The dad is off work Monday and Tuesday but we will plan to school at least Wed and Thurs and possibly Fri, although we will likely have co-op that day.
I have been spending a lot of time learning about the curriculum we will be using for history, geography, literature, some writing, church and art history and I can't remember what else it covers. It is such a wonderful product and I am looking forward to using it with the boys. I have been learning so much from it already and I know they are going to enjoy it and we will do some fun projects. It is called Tapestry of Grace and it seems like I have been researching it forever. I am so hopeful that it will work for us and that we will all enjoy it and learn a lot from it. I'm not quite sure exactly when we will really start it but I plan to do at least a couple of weeks after the new year so I can really get a handle on how best to prepare and deliver the lessons. I have already placed a hold on the library books we will need for the first week of study. We start out studying about ancient Egypt.
I was excited to learn about this library elf thing, where you can sign up to have this application send you emails in advance, telling you when your item on hold is ready and when your items out are due back, or overdue. I am going to really love this little elf helper and, hopefully, I will never have another overdue item. I have not been too good about that in the past. I also found a ton of eBooks listed with our library that are are available for download to Kindle. I will definitely be loading up on some books for me and the boys for our vacation.
So far we are having a pretty mild winter here, which I love. Today it was nearly 60 degrees and it was a beautiful, sunny day. I think the next couple of days will be even warmer. We definitely need to get out and enjoy it.
Well, enough of a book for one posting probably. I hope you are all having a lovely Christmas.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
After church we did our normal, every Sunday after church thing and headed to one of our favorite places to eat. After driving around, we saw that pretty much everything was closed, which I kind of expected. Sonic was open and they were being slammed. We went there but it didn't take long for us to realize that it would be a long time before we were waited on and served so we headed home.
As it happens, I had bought a wonderful honey glazed ham so we cut off a few slices and heated them up, along with some baked potatoes and veggies. It turned out to be a pretty good Christmas lunch and it was pretty quick also, which was good because everyone was getting pretty hungry by then.
Back to the presents. The boys were very excited about all of their gifts, although some more than others, of course. They got some fun science-y things in their stockings (a submarine that you put baking powder in and it makes it dive and come back up, magnet toys, a small volcano that requires baking soda and vinegar to make it erupt and a few other things. They also got a Lite Brite and I Spy puzzle, a wrist watch walkie talkie, a pirate/treasure hunt maze book and another fun puzzle type book, a wood kit where they build and paint four wood projects (a jet plane, a bird house, a race car and a bird feeder) and their big Lego police station. Last, but not least, we got a basket ball goal but we have not put it together yet so it is not on the radar. I think the dad will put it together tomorrow. As it was, the dad and I both ended up spending the majority of the day helping the boys with one thing or another. It seems that the majority of the gifts needed some kind of help or another. It was nice though because we really spent a lot of family time together today, which was a wonderful way to spend Christmas day.
My dear husband went above and beyond for me this year. My big gift was a new, wireless printer. It is not only a printer but it is a do-it-all kind of printer. It prints in beautiful color and can print pictures. It also faxes, copies and scans. My biggest want though was for a wireless printer that could print in color. It was a big surprise for me and dear hubby already had it set up and configured. He had me open an envelope that had a letter in it that told me to print a Word document from my laptop, which happened to be sitting on the island counter. Then I went to his office and there was my printer and the paper I had just printed with no connected wires! Yay! I can't tell you how nice this will be for me. I have always had to take my laptop to his office and connect it to the printer to print something. It will be so much more convenient and how lovely that I will be able to print in color now. This will definitely be great for all of the school stuff we will be doing.
The other gift from dear hubs was a new blender. The one we had was mine from about 30 years ago and it had a short so it was becoming more unreliable. The new one is quite nice and may even make me want to bake a bit more often. I also had some new kitchen utensils in my stocking, which we desperately needed. I am a very practical person so I really like gifts like this:). I was quite pleased and thankful for all of my Christmas gifts and also thankful for such a thoughtful husband.
I got the hubs a new router and a jig saw. As it turns out, he already has a jig saw so he will return this one and put the money towards something else. He got some nice office supplies, candy and some yummy cinnamon covered pecans in his stocking.
All of this is in addition to everything we all received when we celebrated Christmas with my family down at the farm yesterday. It was so nice to see everyone and we even got to talk to my nephew who is a chaplain in the service and is currently stationed in Kuwait. It was so good to hear his voice.
Above all, we are all healthy and were able to spend our Christmas with family, which is such a blessing. Our sons are growing up too fast. I think they skipped size 6 in their jeans and went straight from a size 5 to a size 7. What's up with that?
We are going to be taking a vacation in the next couple of months. We are going to go on a cruise and we are all very excited about it. The husband has been on one before but this will be the first for the rest of us. I am excited for the boys to get to see the ocean for the first time and to play on a beach for the first time. I didn't get to do either until I was in college so this has been one of the things that I really wanted them to experience while they are younger. It is so fun and exciting to have something like this to look forward to. It will definitely make the time fly by.
Speaking of time flying by, we took most of this week off of school. We schooled on Monday and I had planned to school another day or two but other things kept popping up. The dad is off work Monday and Tuesday but we will plan to school at least Wed and Thurs and possibly Fri, although we will likely have co-op that day.
I have been spending a lot of time learning about the curriculum we will be using for history, geography, literature, some writing, church and art history and I can't remember what else it covers. It is such a wonderful product and I am looking forward to using it with the boys. I have been learning so much from it already and I know they are going to enjoy it and we will do some fun projects. It is called Tapestry of Grace and it seems like I have been researching it forever. I am so hopeful that it will work for us and that we will all enjoy it and learn a lot from it. I'm not quite sure exactly when we will really start it but I plan to do at least a couple of weeks after the new year so I can really get a handle on how best to prepare and deliver the lessons. I have already placed a hold on the library books we will need for the first week of study. We start out studying about ancient Egypt.
I was excited to learn about this library elf thing, where you can sign up to have this application send you emails in advance, telling you when your item on hold is ready and when your items out are due back, or overdue. I am going to really love this little elf helper and, hopefully, I will never have another overdue item. I have not been too good about that in the past. I also found a ton of eBooks listed with our library that are are available for download to Kindle. I will definitely be loading up on some books for me and the boys for our vacation.
So far we are having a pretty mild winter here, which I love. Today it was nearly 60 degrees and it was a beautiful, sunny day. I think the next couple of days will be even warmer. We definitely need to get out and enjoy it.
Well, enough of a book for one posting probably. I hope you are all having a lovely Christmas.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
December 20, 2011
Below are the promised pics that go with the last post about the recital and orchestra concert;).
Saturday, December 17, 2011
December 17, 2011
Ben has been playing violin with a local youth orchestra. This week they played at three elementary schools and a hospital. This afternoon they played at a church, after they had their winter recital. He and a few other youngsters are not actually members of this orchestra yet but they were invited to play anyway. This younger group only played three or four songs with the orchestra and then they had to sit quietly for the remaining part of the concert. He is the youngest one of the group and it was challenging for him in many ways but he came through with flying colors.
At each of the elementary schools, they passed around a microphone and each of the kids who were playing in the orchestra stood up, one by one, and introduced themselves. Without hesitation, Ben stood up and introduced himself each time, telling his name, age, grade and how long he has been playing the violin. He was excited to get to talk into a real microphone, as he had had lots of practice with the play one that he has at home.
He was the first one of the violinists to play for his recital this afternoon. The piano recitals went first so he was able to see what it was all about before it was his turn. Ben played Jingle Bells and brother Nick accompanied him by shaking some jingle bells. They were so cute together.
All of the boys playing in the orchestra had to wear black pants and shoes, a white shirt and a red bow tie. Ben absolutely loved his red bow tie. They had a practice session yesterday afternoon and snacks were provided after. After snack, he wanted to go to the restroom to wash his hands, but I wet a napkin to wipe them instead because I knew if he went to the restroom to wash them he would get his sleeves wet. As we were walking out to the car, on our way to the hospital where the orchestra was to play, Ben said "I wish I would have had more time to admire my tie". This was the real reason he wanted to go to the restroom...to admire his tie:). He is so cute.
Since Nick was to accompany Ben at the recital, he thought he should wear a white shirt and bow tie too. So, even though he was not in the orchestra, he was dressed like the orchestra boys. They both looked adorable.
They sat next to each other on the front row for the longest time, waiting for their turn. There were a lot of piano students before it was time for the violins. Ben and Nick definitely set a record for sitting quietly...and not only were they sitting quietly, they were sitting next to each other...quietly....for a long time. It really was a sight to behold. They normally can't sit next to each other for 2 minutes without starting to pick at each other and either get real silly, start wrestling or get upset with each other and start fighting over something.
Ben took $5 of his own money with him to the recital. He wanted to buy one extra red bow tie so he could play with it at home but his violin teacher would not sell him an extra. She said they were for the orchestra only. I will definitely have to find another one for him to play with. Both boys also got their first belt - and it matched their black shoes - so they were very excited about that too.
Overall it all went very well. I am so proud of Ben. He did such a great job. I think it also helped Nick to desire to start playing the piano soon. I need to get busy tracking down a piano teacher for him.
I know this post should have had lots of pictures with it but I have not downloaded them from the camera yet. I will try to do it and post them asap.
Night!
At each of the elementary schools, they passed around a microphone and each of the kids who were playing in the orchestra stood up, one by one, and introduced themselves. Without hesitation, Ben stood up and introduced himself each time, telling his name, age, grade and how long he has been playing the violin. He was excited to get to talk into a real microphone, as he had had lots of practice with the play one that he has at home.
He was the first one of the violinists to play for his recital this afternoon. The piano recitals went first so he was able to see what it was all about before it was his turn. Ben played Jingle Bells and brother Nick accompanied him by shaking some jingle bells. They were so cute together.
All of the boys playing in the orchestra had to wear black pants and shoes, a white shirt and a red bow tie. Ben absolutely loved his red bow tie. They had a practice session yesterday afternoon and snacks were provided after. After snack, he wanted to go to the restroom to wash his hands, but I wet a napkin to wipe them instead because I knew if he went to the restroom to wash them he would get his sleeves wet. As we were walking out to the car, on our way to the hospital where the orchestra was to play, Ben said "I wish I would have had more time to admire my tie". This was the real reason he wanted to go to the restroom...to admire his tie:). He is so cute.
Since Nick was to accompany Ben at the recital, he thought he should wear a white shirt and bow tie too. So, even though he was not in the orchestra, he was dressed like the orchestra boys. They both looked adorable.
They sat next to each other on the front row for the longest time, waiting for their turn. There were a lot of piano students before it was time for the violins. Ben and Nick definitely set a record for sitting quietly...and not only were they sitting quietly, they were sitting next to each other...quietly....for a long time. It really was a sight to behold. They normally can't sit next to each other for 2 minutes without starting to pick at each other and either get real silly, start wrestling or get upset with each other and start fighting over something.
Ben took $5 of his own money with him to the recital. He wanted to buy one extra red bow tie so he could play with it at home but his violin teacher would not sell him an extra. She said they were for the orchestra only. I will definitely have to find another one for him to play with. Both boys also got their first belt - and it matched their black shoes - so they were very excited about that too.
Overall it all went very well. I am so proud of Ben. He did such a great job. I think it also helped Nick to desire to start playing the piano soon. I need to get busy tracking down a piano teacher for him.
I know this post should have had lots of pictures with it but I have not downloaded them from the camera yet. I will try to do it and post them asap.
Night!
Friday, November 25, 2011
November 25, 2011
My mom had to spend a couple of days in the hospital and she is doing much better now. Her lower extremities were very swollen and it was causing her to stumble and fall a lot, which is very dangerous for her as she takes anti-clotting medication. They were able to treat her and get her swelling down very quickly. They also did a lot of tests on her heart. They did not find anything significant, although her test results will go back to her cardiologist so he can compare them to the tests he did this past summer and see if there are any significant changes. I think we all learned a lot through this whole experience (preventative) though and hopefully my mom will not be falling every day now that the swelling has gone down.
I am very tired and sleepy as I spent the past couple of days at the hospital with mom. Both mornings I woke up early (3:30 and 4:00 am) so I could get to the hospital early and I didn't come home until late. My sister's daughter stayed with the boys and even taught them their lessons those two days. She made cookies with them and cooked for the boys and the husband. She was really an answered prayer, as my sister had to work and my mom really needed me to be with her. The husband was actually off those days but it was still so wonderful to have my niece to help out at home.
Today the husband was back at work and it was just me and the boys. We took it easy and just had a fun, relaxing day together. It has been quite some time since I have been away for any length of time and they were so happy to have me home. They were very cuddly and loving and sweet and I could have just eaten them up! I missed them bunches too and it made me realize that it would probably be beneficial for me to be away a day/night or two once or twice a year. It is good for me and for them. It makes us all appreciate each other more. I definitely need to plan another trip to a homeschool conference in the spring. I didn't go to one this past year because of building the house and moving
Tomorrow we are having our Thanksgiving at my sister's house. We delayed our Thanksgiving celebration because my sister had to work and it turned out to be a good decision because mom was in the hospital. I am looking forward to tomorrow though. It will be nice to spend time with the family and visit with everyone.
Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving!
I am very tired and sleepy as I spent the past couple of days at the hospital with mom. Both mornings I woke up early (3:30 and 4:00 am) so I could get to the hospital early and I didn't come home until late. My sister's daughter stayed with the boys and even taught them their lessons those two days. She made cookies with them and cooked for the boys and the husband. She was really an answered prayer, as my sister had to work and my mom really needed me to be with her. The husband was actually off those days but it was still so wonderful to have my niece to help out at home.
Today the husband was back at work and it was just me and the boys. We took it easy and just had a fun, relaxing day together. It has been quite some time since I have been away for any length of time and they were so happy to have me home. They were very cuddly and loving and sweet and I could have just eaten them up! I missed them bunches too and it made me realize that it would probably be beneficial for me to be away a day/night or two once or twice a year. It is good for me and for them. It makes us all appreciate each other more. I definitely need to plan another trip to a homeschool conference in the spring. I didn't go to one this past year because of building the house and moving
Tomorrow we are having our Thanksgiving at my sister's house. We delayed our Thanksgiving celebration because my sister had to work and it turned out to be a good decision because mom was in the hospital. I am looking forward to tomorrow though. It will be nice to spend time with the family and visit with everyone.
Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving!
Monday, November 21, 2011
November 21, 2011
Well, I noticed it has been a while since I have posted so I thought I would get a quick one in now. Things here have been quite busy. We have pushed forward with our schooling and we are also getting over colds. We are mostly over them now, just in time for Thanksgiving (Yay!).
School is going pretty well these days. We are now starting our school day off with read-aloud time. We are currently reading two books from the Mother West Wind series. One is the Where book and the other is the Granny Fox book. We are almost finished with them and have really enjoyed both books.
After reading about three chapters of our book, we read from Leading Little Ones to God. We are also going through a booklet from our church children's program that has scripture reading and memorization and also some other related stories. We just recently started this and I think we're really going to enjoy it.
Next, we do our memory work and after that we do phonics. We are actually doing four phonics lessons in one sitting on most days now. Now that the boys are reading so well, we have stepped up the pace a bit. We do two review lessons and then we do two new lessons.
After phonics we move to the kitchen island to do math. Sometimes they sit while I teach something using the chalkboard. Other times I sit in the middle with a son on each side of me while we work through problems. After math we do reading and penmanship. One of them works on his writing while the other one reads to me and then they trade places.
It is currently taking us about 2 hours to go through everything. I am contemplating when to start adding other subjects and time, ramping up slowly towards more of a 1st grade work load. I think I will probably start adding other subjects after the new year, but I have not made a final decision yet and I still have some things to purchase. We will eventually be adding history, geography, literature, grammar, writing composition, science and art....I think that's it. It sounds like a lot but it will all be at a very age appropriate level. Grammar and writing composition start out very slow and gentle and take very little time for 1st graders. I will wait to add that in until we are finished with phonics, which would be sometime in the spring (last time I checked). The two subjects together would take less than we currently spend with phonics so that won't be a problem. I still have to work out a schedule and figure out where we might be able to multi-task.
Anyway, that's school. Right now, all of our subjects are coming along quite nicely and it is very rewarding to see the results.
In other news, I have to be quick now because I am getting sleepy. My mom has been falling a lot lately so we are trying to figure what is making her do this. She is fortunate that she has not broken something already. Thankfully we have a very good RN and a very good doctor in the family to help. I hope we get to the bottom of it soon because this falling thing is very scary.
The weather here is finally getting cool enough to require jackets on some days, such as today. Dancer has been begging to go outside every day but I'm not feeling to badly about it because he was just so so skinny when we finally got him back home again. Little Tinkerbell is not so little anymore. She is growing up quickly but she still acts ALL kitten, including the continued attacks on poor Dancer. She is relentless.
I got a new toy the other day. I bought a Kindle Fire and it is really great, so far. I just need a few more hours in my day though. There is just not enough time to do everything I want to do. And, on that note, I must turn in for the night. I have been staying up too late and I'm running on empty.
School is going pretty well these days. We are now starting our school day off with read-aloud time. We are currently reading two books from the Mother West Wind series. One is the Where book and the other is the Granny Fox book. We are almost finished with them and have really enjoyed both books.
After reading about three chapters of our book, we read from Leading Little Ones to God. We are also going through a booklet from our church children's program that has scripture reading and memorization and also some other related stories. We just recently started this and I think we're really going to enjoy it.
Next, we do our memory work and after that we do phonics. We are actually doing four phonics lessons in one sitting on most days now. Now that the boys are reading so well, we have stepped up the pace a bit. We do two review lessons and then we do two new lessons.
After phonics we move to the kitchen island to do math. Sometimes they sit while I teach something using the chalkboard. Other times I sit in the middle with a son on each side of me while we work through problems. After math we do reading and penmanship. One of them works on his writing while the other one reads to me and then they trade places.
It is currently taking us about 2 hours to go through everything. I am contemplating when to start adding other subjects and time, ramping up slowly towards more of a 1st grade work load. I think I will probably start adding other subjects after the new year, but I have not made a final decision yet and I still have some things to purchase. We will eventually be adding history, geography, literature, grammar, writing composition, science and art....I think that's it. It sounds like a lot but it will all be at a very age appropriate level. Grammar and writing composition start out very slow and gentle and take very little time for 1st graders. I will wait to add that in until we are finished with phonics, which would be sometime in the spring (last time I checked). The two subjects together would take less than we currently spend with phonics so that won't be a problem. I still have to work out a schedule and figure out where we might be able to multi-task.
Anyway, that's school. Right now, all of our subjects are coming along quite nicely and it is very rewarding to see the results.
In other news, I have to be quick now because I am getting sleepy. My mom has been falling a lot lately so we are trying to figure what is making her do this. She is fortunate that she has not broken something already. Thankfully we have a very good RN and a very good doctor in the family to help. I hope we get to the bottom of it soon because this falling thing is very scary.
The weather here is finally getting cool enough to require jackets on some days, such as today. Dancer has been begging to go outside every day but I'm not feeling to badly about it because he was just so so skinny when we finally got him back home again. Little Tinkerbell is not so little anymore. She is growing up quickly but she still acts ALL kitten, including the continued attacks on poor Dancer. She is relentless.
I got a new toy the other day. I bought a Kindle Fire and it is really great, so far. I just need a few more hours in my day though. There is just not enough time to do everything I want to do. And, on that note, I must turn in for the night. I have been staying up too late and I'm running on empty.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
November 10, 2011
We were having dinner this evening and I received a phone call from a lady saying she thought they had our cat. She said she knew he was a special kind of cat because of his coloring and markings. She and her husband found Dancer in their garage. I didn't get the whole story but they had also seen him outside, swatting the neighbor's dog, when the dog got too close and nosy for comfort. She had asked a couple of neighbors if they were missing a cat and the second one she asked told her about my signs. Her husband went out to get the phone number off of the sign and he said when he saw Dancer's picture, he knew that was the cat.
I'm not sure how long he was in their garage or when they found him. He sure is thin though and he went straight for his food dish when he came in the house. I gave him some special treats too. Now he is curled up asleep in his basket next to my bed.
I am so happy and thankful to have him home. Thank you all so much for praying for him. I truly do appreciate it. I had been so sad over the past few days, wondering what had happened to him. It is such a relief to have him home safe.
I'm not sure how long he was in their garage or when they found him. He sure is thin though and he went straight for his food dish when he came in the house. I gave him some special treats too. Now he is curled up asleep in his basket next to my bed.
I am so happy and thankful to have him home. Thank you all so much for praying for him. I truly do appreciate it. I had been so sad over the past few days, wondering what had happened to him. It is such a relief to have him home safe.
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
November 8, 2011
If you are so inclined, please pray for my old friend/cat Dancer. We have not seen him since Sunday afternoon around 2:30pm. I have put up signs around our neighborhood, posted flyers at the local shelter, on facebook and twitter and at many of the vets offices around here.
We have been having lots of hard rain and thunderstorms for the past couple of days so I am hopeful that someone might have taken him in, will see our signs and call us.
He is really the sweetest cat I have ever known. However, he has always, always wanted to go outside. It was his hearts desire. He was an escape artist and would constantly watch for opportunities to catch people coming in and out of doors unawares. Over the years, he escaped more times than I could count.
He loved going out into our garage and exploring out there and it was a place where he could get some respite from the attack kitten. About a week ago I let him go out in the garage, not realizing the husband had left the side door to the backyard open. About 3 hours later we realized he was outside somewhere so I quickly put on my shoes and started for the back porch to go out and look for him. He was sitting on the back patio, just outside the back porch door, waiting to come in. He had been exploring the back yard for all that time, I guess. After that experience, he was crying and howling all the time to go outside. He was constantly waking me up at night and I even had to put him in the laundry room one night. Finally, I decided that maybe we should start letting him go out. After all, he is almost 14 years old and he has been wanting to go out all his life. We live in a pretty low traffic area now, with lots of open areas (pastures, fields and forests) so it seemed like a relatively safe environment for him to be out.
When I was growing up, all of our cats were indoor/outdoor cats. They came and went as they pleased. They did not have nearly as long lives as Dancer and Zoe have had but they lived for quite a while.
The first time I let him out, he stayed in the back yard for a couple of hours. The boys were playing out there most of that time and they kept going over to him and petting him. He was so happy. He was walking around with his tail straight up in the air, smelling everything and eating grass.
The next time he went out, he was gone for about 4 hours or so. He spent some of that time in the back yard and then was off out of sight for the rest of it. When he returned, he came to the front door so I felt pretty sure that he knew where home was.
Then on Sunday after church he went out. This time he was wearing a collar because I wanted to make sure people knew he had a home. He never returned. It stormed really badly that night and has done so off and on since then. I am so heart broken. I feel so guilty now for letting him go out at all....but then I remember how happy he was too. So I feel guilty for letting him out and I felt selfish for keeping him in. Either way, I am heart broken and I miss him so much. Please pray for him, if you are so inclined.
We have been having lots of hard rain and thunderstorms for the past couple of days so I am hopeful that someone might have taken him in, will see our signs and call us.
He is really the sweetest cat I have ever known. However, he has always, always wanted to go outside. It was his hearts desire. He was an escape artist and would constantly watch for opportunities to catch people coming in and out of doors unawares. Over the years, he escaped more times than I could count.
He loved going out into our garage and exploring out there and it was a place where he could get some respite from the attack kitten. About a week ago I let him go out in the garage, not realizing the husband had left the side door to the backyard open. About 3 hours later we realized he was outside somewhere so I quickly put on my shoes and started for the back porch to go out and look for him. He was sitting on the back patio, just outside the back porch door, waiting to come in. He had been exploring the back yard for all that time, I guess. After that experience, he was crying and howling all the time to go outside. He was constantly waking me up at night and I even had to put him in the laundry room one night. Finally, I decided that maybe we should start letting him go out. After all, he is almost 14 years old and he has been wanting to go out all his life. We live in a pretty low traffic area now, with lots of open areas (pastures, fields and forests) so it seemed like a relatively safe environment for him to be out.
When I was growing up, all of our cats were indoor/outdoor cats. They came and went as they pleased. They did not have nearly as long lives as Dancer and Zoe have had but they lived for quite a while.
The first time I let him out, he stayed in the back yard for a couple of hours. The boys were playing out there most of that time and they kept going over to him and petting him. He was so happy. He was walking around with his tail straight up in the air, smelling everything and eating grass.
The next time he went out, he was gone for about 4 hours or so. He spent some of that time in the back yard and then was off out of sight for the rest of it. When he returned, he came to the front door so I felt pretty sure that he knew where home was.
Then on Sunday after church he went out. This time he was wearing a collar because I wanted to make sure people knew he had a home. He never returned. It stormed really badly that night and has done so off and on since then. I am so heart broken. I feel so guilty now for letting him go out at all....but then I remember how happy he was too. So I feel guilty for letting him out and I felt selfish for keeping him in. Either way, I am heart broken and I miss him so much. Please pray for him, if you are so inclined.
Saturday, November 05, 2011
November 5, 2011
Well this was a first for me! I was just sitting here, doing some on-line reading while watching an old episode of Friends. Suddenly, I heard a low rumbling noise that seemed to get louder and louder and then the house started trembling and then it was really vibrating! I reached over and woke up the sleeping husband and we were both just shocked. My heart was really beating fast.
This morning I had read that Oklahoma had had 5 or 6 earthquakes starting around 2:00 am-ish and going until mid-morning. The biggest one was the first one and it was around a 4.2. It will be interesting to see how big the one we just had was. Edited to add that it was a 5.6 earthquake!
What a really strange experience.....not something you really expect in Oklahoma!
This morning I had read that Oklahoma had had 5 or 6 earthquakes starting around 2:00 am-ish and going until mid-morning. The biggest one was the first one and it was around a 4.2. It will be interesting to see how big the one we just had was. Edited to add that it was a 5.6 earthquake!
What a really strange experience.....not something you really expect in Oklahoma!
Saturday, October 08, 2011
October 8, 2011
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| Guess who turned 6 years old? Ben! |
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| Happy Birthday Ben! |
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| The afternoon sun warms up this bathtub so it is Dancer's favorite nap spot. |
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| Playing a phonics game, Cross the River. They have to cross from one side to the other while only stepping on the cards with a certain vowel sound. |
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| Poor Tinky had a little surgery so we won't be having any kittens. She can't seem to leave her stitches alone so this is what she is living with these days. |
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| Hopefully the stitches will come out Monday or so. |
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| Sparky the dog and Sparky the cat at work again. |
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| Dancer climbed up behind the husband and started loving on him. |
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| I love you I love you I love you! (or, at least, I love your hair!) |
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| Patient, cat-loving man, my husband. |
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| Tinky loves to play in any sink. |
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| Tinky loves to play. She is very cute and fun to watch. |
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| B and N playing doctor. |
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| Isn't she pretty? |
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| The dad salvaged this keyboard from an old computer so the boys could play with it. |
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| Does she look happy to you? |
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