3 Days Down!

Oh yeah.  Now I remember how tired I get after schooling all morning and then trying to get everything else done in the afternoon.  It's all coming back!

The first "First Day of School" picture I've ever taken

The teacher is important too!

As is Hubby starting his big push of 18 months of school without a break

But the first three days have been good.  No meltdowns,  which is always a plus.  School work getting done on time and still leaving time for play.  Except for today when I failed to see the last subject I was supposed to do with #2.  Good thing she reminded me.  Once about 45 minutes before lunch.  When I thanked her and told her I would be there as soon as I finished what I was working on.  And then 30 minutes later when I wandered into the living room thinking about starting lunch and saw her patiently waiting for me at the school table.   Yeah.....

This fits our family personality better than a posed picture

#1 has enjoyed her first two science experiments.  I dislike science.  Always have.  Which is why she's in 7th grade and she's probably already doubled the amount of experiments she's done in her whole school life.  It's all about the independent learning folks!

Traditional first day of school cinnamon rolls.  Apparently doing it once counts as a tradition and therefore must be continued each year!

#2 is loving that she finally gets to start typing.  She's done some every day.

This is what a non-artsy person's welcome back sign looks like!

#3 is wondering why she has so much more work than last year.  We can't all stay in 1st grade forever!  Although, she did ask if she could do spelling more than once a week.

One subject, two kids.  At least they can put it all up by themselves now!

1/2 price floats at Sonic.  Sure, why not celebrate surviving the second day of school!

#4 is loving the books I have for her.  Rod and Staff has some awesome preschool books.  She is also constantly asking to do school on the computer.  So I downloaded some apps for her.  I do what I have to retain some sanity!  In my defense, I do read to her a lot too! 

Almost back to school

If you have read any of my posts like this one relating to school at all, you would know that it would be a lie for me to say I'm excited about school starting.  I mean, I love the planning and the organizing and the buying of supplies, but the actual "doing" school.  Meh!

However, I can say with all sincerity that I am ready to have things back on a schedule.  Everything runs a little smoother when we're on a tighter schedule.  So I've made my flowchart.   Basically it shows me what subject I'm teaching who and in what order.  It also allows the girls to see how much open time they have to work on something else before I'm going to need to work with them.  It is much more flexible than a schedule and it works perfectly for our family.

I also made a separate page of #1 and #2's work that is going to be independent work.  The independent work this year is the majority of what they're doing, especially for #1.  Since this is our ultimate goal for the educational part of homeschooling, to get them where they can learn anything they want/need to on their own, I'm very excited that after just one year of having #1 and #2 work on their own that it is going so well.  Always nice to see the fruits of your labor so clearly!

I'm also putting the finishing touches on our new chore chart.  #3 is so lucky this year.  She is being promoted to having many more responsibilities.  I'm also going to allow #1 and #2 to be responsible for teaching her the new duties, with covert supervision from me.  Learning how to teach someone how to do something in a clear and concise manner without being rude or condescending is a learned skill.  One that I myself still struggle with.  So I'm going to let #1 and #2 try it out on #3 and I'll be there to step in should it not go well!  #4 also has more duties.  She is excited about this as only a 4 year old can be.

The delineation of chores are going to be a little different this time around as well.  I gave #1 less "every day" chores, like sweeping after meals, and more "once a week" chores, like doing a load of towels and cleaning the bird cage.  We're also going to try to have her make one dinner a week.  I'm wanting to ease her into more adult-like duties.  Not fun by any means, and still a lot of work.  I think giving her that kind of responsibility will actually make her happy.  She wants so much to be perceived as "older".  I think this will give her that sense.

Our first day of school won't be until Monday, but we did have a back to school meeting this morning.  We went over our new chore chart as well as all of our subjects for the coming year and what I expect of their independent work.  This way no time is wasted on Monday and we can get right into the swing of things.   Who knows, I might even take a first day of school picture for the first time ever.  We'll all probably still be in our PJs though.  Can't let everyone think we're too perfect!

Let's play catch-up! Again!

It's a good thing I'm not doing this professionally since I didn't think more than once or twice about posting something on here to show what we were doing during this summer.  We had a blast and I want to remember it, which is really the only reason I'm even doing this now.  I know in a few years I'll look back and this and it'll help me remember the fun we had.  So once again, the last couple of months in pictures!

I sewed a tablecloth for my Mom and Dad.  It had a border on it. It wasn't as hard to do as I thought it was going to be.  Just don't examine it too closely.

I ran out of red thread for said tablecloth.  I had one more panel to sew.  One!

 

 The girls and I went to The Farm while Hubby was in CA doing a meeting.

Then we stayed with my sister and bro-in-law for a few days.  The B-I-L grew up with one brother, so we're a bit much for him to handle in large quantities, but he's getting used to us. 

So used to us, that when I asked them to bring me back something from Scotland, this is what he bought me.  Note--that's not my hair attached to the hat.  I laughed.  It is pretty funny!

On to my parent's house for their church's VBS.  The girls always enjoy it.  And we enjoyed spending time with everyone there.

I think my brother wears the hat much better than I do!

Or #4

We had a shower for my brother and Sis-In-Law for our newest niece.  #1 was sick and not able to be there, but the other girls had a good time.

 

Then the girls all stayed while I drove 12 hours home by myself.  I felt like this the entire way.  I swear towards the end I was stopping every 30 minutes because I was guzzling the soda to stay awake.  You would think all the salt from the sunflower seeds I was eating would have helped that, but all it did was give me cankles!

However, the girls got to spend time with my parents and my sister and bro-in-law and they had an awesome two weeks without their parental units around. 

All the grandkids for my parents at church together.  LuLu (the one we threw the shower for) wasn't quite there yet.

Hubby and I had a lot of fun being able to go and do whatever we wanted without having to think about the girls.  For instance, we spontaneously decided to drive 3 hours one way to hear The Fabulous Equinox Orchestra.  Clay is our friend, but we've never heard him perform with his group before.  So we drove there to hear them with every intention of driving home that night, but we were given a hotel room on the Mississippi River so we just stayed the night.  It was awesome!

After two weeks those in my family who could come met up in Hot Springs for a family vacation.  And this is the only picture I took.  I will eventually get more from those more picture conscious than me and I'll do a different post for it.  Because it was an amazing week!

Except for the trip home when #4 had a fever and was miserable.  Everyone ended up getting sick, but I was thankful we had made it home before it hit!

And since being home I've finally finished the t-shirt dresses I promised the girls I would make them this summer.  #1 and #2 have one also, but again, not picture conscious! 

So ya know, nice, typical, slow summer for us.  Wouldn't have it any other way!

A Month in Pictures

Oh look--a month has gone by since I put anything on here.  I've thought about it a couple of times.  But then something else would come up and it wouldn't get done.  And I really don't want to write several posts to get caught up.  So here's a month's worth of living in picture format.

Sewing.  Lot's of sewing.  The first is a skirt that was supposed to be #1's, but I messed up on the measurements so it became #2's.  It looks nothing like the picture in my head.  But she likes it.

Family movie nights.  Carmel popcorn always makes it better.

A spur of the moment trip to go see my sis-in-law, Mom, niece and nephew.  Missed my brother this trip.  But enjoyed our time on the farm.

That would be #4 with Rapunzel hair.  It's actually an old Moby wrap my sis-in-law used.  Braided like my brother braids his heavy duty extension cord.  Because he's creative like that.

A trip to the gator farm with our homeschool group.  It was amazing!  We had such a good time, despite the heat.  We're probably going to be going back with my in-laws in September.

More sewing.  The skirt is more like what I saw in my head this time.  Hooray!  The bottom is a tablecloth I'm making for my parents.  Sewing a large rectangle, no problem.  Adding a colored border around it, mentally taxing.  This is the method I finally went with.  Still not completely sure how it's going to turn out, but there is no going back now!

A birthday party with a mustache theme.  Those things did not want to come off. 

VBS this week.  We did more than just bowling, but since I was helping I didn't really get any pictures.  And those aren't actually my kids bowling.  Because apparently I'm good at remembering to take pictures of my friends' children, but can't remember to take them of my own.  We did have an awesome week at VBS though.

Notable mention with no pictures:  My Mom came to visit for a few days.  I miss my family coming to see us, so I was glad she was able to come. 

We went to a pottery painting place with some friends.  Lots of fun! 

The three oldest went to their first sleepover.  They've had friends over to spend the night, but this was their first time going somewhere.  I hear they stayed up till 2.  There were no bad attitudes, so I didn't care how late they were up.

Bought #1 a bike for an early birthday gift and Hubby one for Father's Day.  We've gone riding 3 times a week for the last three weeks.  We love it.  Hubby is the only one who gets chased by dogs.  Hmmm....

And now we have a week left before going to visit family.  A bit of relaxing before beginning a serious search on finding a smaller place so we can save some money on rent.  Yay for moving during the hottest part of the year!  Again!  Maybe this time we won't be doing it the day after a hurricane blows through!