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Sunday, September 30, 2012

Sunday Evening

In the dimly lit room a cacophony of sounds is like music.  Felicity is singing and clip-clopping in her dress up shoes.  She stops to dance and spin with her baby.  Katy and Kaomi are talking loudly and emphatically about the Lego houses and people they are playing with.  Kent is totally engrossed in the book he is reading on the love seat and probably needs better light to read with.  Clark is pushing around a truck that the wheels click as he drives all around, stopping to read a book or play with something else before continuing on with his truck.  Jeff is sitting on the couch working on his computer and I am sitting in my chair reading something on my computer.  Soon its time to pick up.  The noise changes to the banging and clashing of toys being thrown into their containers.  The master bedroom door closes and soon we hear Clark fuss.  He closed himself away from the rest of us.  Jeff goes to open the door for him and grabs him to play with him on the floor.  The drawback is that he needs his diaper changed, so Jeff doesn't want to wrestle him.  Katy got her finger hit with a toy so there is a wail of hurt.  She's fine though.  Jeff stayed laying on the floor and Clark goes and starts giving him kisses.  Then Felicity wants him to roll over so she can walk on his back.  Clark comes to see me and says "hi" sticking his face into mine.  After I say "hi" back to him he says "bye-bye" and goes over to give more kisses to Jeff.

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Saturday, September 29, 2012

In School This Week...

Monday:  Library Day!  Everyone was excited and worked quickly on their individual work.  We were a few minutes late to storytime, due to some children not following directions and getting ready to go when I said to.  Sometimes this results in us not going at all, so I was glad we were still able to go.  We finished completing EVERYTHING by 2:30.  Kent had his piano lesson after quiet time, as well.

Tuesday:  I really wanted to do art with the kids last week, so we caught up on that first thing this morning.  It involved paint and mixing colors and making a kite.  We'd been learning about Benjamin Franklin, so we glued our kites to a dark background to be the stormy sky.  Everyone had fun (me too, since I usually do the projects along with them).  After lunch, since we already had the table covered and a mess made I decided to go ahead and complete this weeks art lesson as well.  It was making a cave with wolf tracks leading up to it.  It goes along with Wednesday's history reading, so we will look back at them tomorrow after we read history.  Everything else flowed along well for school, though with the messy table I didn't do much school with Kaomi.













Wednesday:  We started off with the pledge and a missionary story.  Then we read history and Kent and Katy moved on to the things they could do without my help.  Kaomi and I worked on reading and math.  Felicity chose to look at animal cards from her preschool box.  I think we've gotten our money's worth on those cards that I found in the dollar section at Target this summer.  She loves to look at all the animals and tell or ask me what they are.  Then we read more Peter Cottontail and talked about how animals get ready for winter.  Then Kaomi made a snowy paper with some paint and some snowflake stickers that I had set aside to do something special with.  Felicity wanted to do the paper too, so she joined in.  Kent finished his individual work early, so he got to have a break while I was still working with Kaomi and making lunch.


Thursday:  Today started off with grumpy kids.  We were supposed to get together with some friends, but I decided that today wasn't going to work for that and we canceled.  I'm not sure what was up with Kent, but even though he was grumpy he finished all of his school work before lunch except reading which he had to do with me.  Katy went to bed grumpy last night and didn't wake up happy this morning.  She had an attitude all day, therefore her schoolwork performance wasn't very good.  Kaomi was so grumpy I sent her to bed after a failed attempt at school.  Felicity was fine for most of the day, but got grumpy after her quiet time and stayed that way until Daddy came home.  She didn't take a nap.

Friday:  Katy had a fever late last night although she was fine all day.  We didn't want to spread any germs or have her feeling bad while we were out, so we stayed home and didn't go to work in the classrooms at church.  We did a history review.  Kent and Katy completed an English lesson, filled in more of their timelines, and worked on their history maps.  Everyone was busy coloring pictures this morning.  Kaomi wanted to learn how to play Old Maid and Katy and Felicity joined us.  We are planning a light week of school next week, so it is good to tie up our loose ends today.  I also made sure that all the papers to be filed in the kids binders were placed where they belong.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

A Mess

Yesterday it was like this:




School went fine.  We painted.  Felicity was crying over everything.  Lunch ended up on the floor, with a broken pot handle and a hole in the linoleum.  I'm not really sure how.  I was trying to add the cheese sauce to the pasta and the next thing I know it was on the floor.  There was enough pasta left in the pot for the kids to eat cold with their veggies by the time I finished cleaning up sometime after 1:00 pm.  I ate veggies with dip.

Afternoon school went fine and I was starving by snack time.  We had apples with peanut butter sauce.

I was really looking forward to supper.  I was making broccoli and eggs.  In between changing diapers and being a mom the eggs were not edible, so I sprinkled the cheese on the broccoli and gave the kids broccoli and buttered bread for dinner.  Jeff came home to a plate of broccoli with cheese at his spot.  I ate my broccoli and some trail mix.

I was rather disappointed.  I mean, who wouldn't be after two ruined meals, a hole in the linoleum and the pot I use the most with a broken handle.

Later I ate some crackers with peanut butter.

    Life: unmasked button     

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Bountiful Basket #6







This week we ordered an organic basket (on left) and a conventional basket (on right) and 9-grain bread.

We've been enjoying our baskets and having lots of produce to eat raw or use in recipes both old and new. 

This week so far we have had bananas, apples, yams and carrots in our beef stew, and cucumbers.

I'm looking forward to making some kind of gluten free dessert with the limes, if you have any ideas please let me know what I could do with them in the comments.  The pears are ripe now, so we are looking forward to having them with lunch tomorrow.  I'm planning on making some guacamole, as well.

Monday, September 24, 2012

22 Weeks

Just thought some of you would like a picture of "Swimmer".



This pregnancy is going "just like the textbooks", as my midwife says.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Picture Highlights from 9/15-9/18/2012


Clark playing Daddy's Kindle.
Another gorgeous sunset.
  

Lissie, reading at her "podium".


Saturday, September 22, 2012

In School This Week...

Monday:  I had everything ready for the week to start this morning.  It sure is nice to have Kent and Katy be able to look at what they should be accomplishing for the day/week and know that they can work on their individual work without me having to look it up and tell them what they should do several times a day.  Their schedule also shows them what they need to work on directly with me and what we will be working on all together.  It was smooth sailing today and everyone was done with their school by quiet time.  Clark and Lissie were fussy all day.

Tuesday:  Morning came and I was going to make sure I had the kids work graded, before they started knowing that it was a busy day.  They were anticipating the day and started their school before they ever came downstairs, oh well.  I was invited to a luncheon with some other ladies from church and the kids got to spend some time away from me.  They had fun and I had fun.  Kent and Katy also did a great job doing their individual work and actually completed it all before the end of the day.  Kaomi got to practice following the directions on a color by number sheet and she did a good job staying in the lines while coloring.

Wednesday:  We started off with our together work and then I did reading and thinking skills with Kaomi.  Kent and Katy worked on some of their copywork and History, while I corrected Monday and Tuesday's work before they tried to continue on.  It's so much easier to correct mistakes right away rather than make the same mistake for several days in a row, so we made a point of correcting anything that needed to be fixed before moving on in that subject.  We all went outside during lunch break as well.  It was a beautiful, sunshiny day that wasn't too warm.

Thursday:  We didn't start altogether this morning, because Katy was working on her piano practice at starting time.  Kent was assigned to read Proverbs 2 and choose a verse that he thought was interesting.  He chose Proverbs 2:3-5.  Then he went to work on correcting yesterday's school and beginning his individual work.  Katy finished her piano practice and read Proverbs 2 and chose the same verses Kent chose to share with me.  She didn't know which ones Kent had chosen.  Kaomi started off her math with measuring.  We used a gold plastic coin as our standard of measure for several items.  Then she measured the sides of the table using Duplo Legos as her standard of measure.  Then she moved on to practicing tracing her letters properly on an erasable page.  After Lunch we read our science and everyone pretended to be a bird by trying out different types of flapping their wings.



Friday:  We worked in the classrooms at church and went to Kroger.  After we returned home Kent and Katy completed corrections from Thursday and English.

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Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Clark's First Step

This morning Clark was playing with the TV remote and I asked him to bring it to me.  He reached his hand out with it toward me and took 1 step toward me.  Then he realized that he wasn't touching the couch anymore and to the floor he went.  Then he brought me the remote with a big grin.  Knowing he was obeying Mommy made him smile, waiting for the good job and thank you he knew was coming when he handed it to me.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

In School this Week...

Monday:  I really would like to have Monday's off from school.  So I can recoup from the weekend and be fully ready to start back to school Tuesday through Friday.  Since that isn't currently able to be the case we had a rough start to our week.  We are in Unit 9 this week.  Kent and Katy had some corrections to make from last week, so we worked on those first.  We went to the library since storytime was starting up today.  Then they each completed an English lesson.  Kent did Math, Katy did Cursive, we did History and Storytime together.  Kaomi practiced writing and learned how to write "g".  She also thought about big, medium and small in her math.  We checked "Goldilocks" out of the library for a story to go along with her math.

Tuesday:  I still haven't caught up, so we're winging it today.  It's a good thing Bigger Hearts for His Glory has the plans laid out so easy, even for days with no prep.  We did science reading and Kent and Katy did their notebooking page about Benjamin Franklin.  Kaomi and Felicity colored a picture of Benjamin Franklin with a kite.  Kent and Katy both worked on Math, Reading, and other individual work.  We finished our storytime book, Seabiscuit.  Usually, we really enjoy the books we read for storytime, but this one seemed to have evaded our interest.  While I found the story interesting and learned more about the history of horse racing, I think the book was just  a little bit on a higher level than my kids were ready for (I'm reading to K, 2 and 3).  Maybe it would have been okay for just Kent.  Usually they ask questions to help them understand something better, but there were very few questions this time around and they really didn't want me to read it each day at storytime.  They are all excited that we are done and now we can read something more fun for the rest of the week before we begin a new book next week.  Kaomi's reading lesson was a longer one so I opted to only do half of it today and we will do the rest of it tomorrow.  She is doing well, but becomes overwhelmed easily in one sitting if it is long or she struggles even just a little bit with something.  She was also excited to read more in Peter Cottontail.  We didn't get to math, so she asked Daddy to help her with her math after supper.

Wednesday:  Kaomi had her well-child visit first thing this morning, so we started school when we returned home.  We learned more about how a printing press worked in Benjamin Franklin's day and stamped each child's initials with a letter block and stamp pad on a paper.  We wrote a letter for English and worked on Math.  Kent and Katy also had poetry and other individual work for the day.

Thursday: We kicked off our school day with Bible time followed by Science.  We tried to make static electricity and failed, but then we moved on to talking about progress and robots and programing robots to do what you need them to do.  The three older children practiced following directions blindfolded trying to take a piece of candy to someone else who was stationed at the door.  They had fun and the un-blinfolded children had fun watching the one who was blindfolded trying not to run into any obstacles.  I didn't think to take any pictures until after we were done.  Kent and Katy moved on to English and other individual work for the rest of the morning.  Kaomi worked on reading and math.  Then we read more Peter Cottontail and she tried to draw Reddy Fox pretending to be dead.  I ended up drawing a sample on the whiteboard, then she did her best to draw her idea of what my sample looked like.  In the afternoon we started a new genre for storytime and reading.  We are working on historical fiction and our new storytime book is Understood Betsy.  I realized today that we must have been behind on our last storytime, when I thought we were a couple days ahead.  Oops!  We should have been starting this book on Monday.  That's okay we'll probably catch up with no problem.  Kent and Katy started their new books for reading today as well.  Since their reading gets spaced out a little more with them, I am trying to start the same genres around the same time.  Kent will pick up his missed genres from this year, next year since I have him on a two year schedule to complete his workbook.  Kent's book selections are for 4/5 reading level this year.  I'm thinking that I may do the same thing with Katy, but I will let her read the genres we missed covering this year, as she will have a different set of books to read next year.  She is on a Level 2 reading and will be on Level 3 next year.  I worked on math with Katy this afternoon, then she had a review to complete.  This week we got behind on her math so we will try to get caught up tomorrow, to be ready to start next week on schedule.  She's not lacking in skills, Mommy was just lacking in organization this week.  I'm looking forward to trying to be on top of things next week, again.



 
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Thursday, September 13, 2012

Bountiful Basket #5

This is what came in our Bountiful Basket this past Saturday.


We ordered an organic basket, the Italian Veggie Pack and organic 9-grain bread.  I received the broccoli as a thank you for volunteering, as well.

We've been enjoying it.  I made quiche with chard, mushrooms, onoion, bacon and cheese and EVERYONE liked it.  We served fruit on the side.  I added zucchini, mushrooms and fresh basil to our pasta sauce.  I made fresh guacamole and spread it on tortillas and rolled them up with a slice of ham for my lunch yesterday.  I used fresh rosemary and onion in seasoning our roast chicken on Tuesday.

Update:  I also made Veggie Soup to serve with cornbread on Friday and Used the leftover soup with spicy sausage and rice on Saturday.

    

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

U-NEEKS Card Review

This month I had the opportunity to review some friendship cards by Dayspring through (in)courage.

Cards...they are fun to send and fun to get.  It makes my day when I receive an encouraging word from someone.  If it is a card or note that comes in my mailbox it serves as a reminder more than once that someone I know is thinking about and praying for me.


As I looked through the selection of cards I was sent, I thought the silly animal pictures on the front of them would make them perfect to send to kids and "kids at heart" or for kids to send.  Since I have a few children, who I thought might have fun picking a card for someone, I laid them out for everyone to choose one.  Then we read the inside and tried to think of someone they knew whom they could send some encouragement.  Kaomi chose to give her friendship card to her Sunday School teacher.  Katy's card was a birthday card so she sent it to her cousin who has a birthday next week.  Kent had a get well card and he chose to send it to someone in our Bible Study Group who wasn't feeling well on Sunday.  I chose to send my card of encouragement to a friend who recently had a death in their family.




This was a fun activity to do with my kids and they had to think who would fit with the card, rather than just sending it to whomever they were thinking they might want to write to.  It's a good way to get out of a rut.  

At first, I was a little disappointed with the simpleness of what was written inside the cards, but as we started working on this project I found that I liked that there was quite a bit of space inside them to personalize them as the sender wished to do.   The simpleness of the cards actually turned out to be something I liked after all.*

My challenge to you:  Pick a random card and see if you know someone that it fits.  Then send it to them right away.  Then do it again tomorrow.

     This month when you use the code SpecialShip! you can receive free shipping on any Dayspring Card Pack.



*These are my own opinions.  I received these cards to review and have not been compensated in any other way.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Felicity and Her Baby

This afternoon Felicity and Kaomi were playing with baby dolls.  Kaomi's doll had a dress on and Felicity kept trying to take her doll.  Felicity's doll didn't have a dress.  The next thing I know I see Felicity coming from the area of the stairs carrying Kaomi's Our Generation Doll, Jenny.  She sat down in hallway and removed the dress from Jenny and brought it to me to put on her baby.  So now there sits a doll upstairs with just a pair of stockings on.  Felicity was very happy to have a dress on her doll and she played contentedly without trying to take Kaomi's doll anymore.  It's a good thing that the Our Generation/American Girl doll dresses fit on our baby dolls.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

In School this Week...

Monday:  Daddy had the day off of work.  No school!!!  We did swim, so that counts for exercise.

Tuesday:  This was a long day for school.  Katy decided that she would have an attitude all day, because she had to clean the bathroom (her regular Tuesday chore).  She didn't pay good attention and made several mistakes and decided she couldn't do her math.  She finished math with Daddy's supervision after supper and didn't get to play.  Kent had trouble following the directions for long division when he was working by himself.  No mater how many times I explained it and he seemed to understand it, he couldn't do the long division by himself.  Daddy tried to explain it to him after supper and Kent finally got all his problems correct.  I'm hoping he remembers now how to do it.  Kaomi did great in reading new words, in math learning about patterns and in writing.  We had time to read some of Peter Cottontail as well.  Felicity wanted me to read her a book from her preschool box about Joshua and the Battle of Jericho.  Then she made a trumpet craft to go with her story.




Wednesday:  Kaomi did great on her next reading lesson.  It seems like she's starting to understand how sounds fit together to make words.  She practiced making a pattern and wrote several words she has learned how to read.  Kent did a great job on his math review answering every problem correctly.  Katy did a great job on her math review, as well.  They both finished up their school work in a timely manner as well.

Thursday:  We got off to a late start.  I ended up just sending Kent and Katy to begin when I realized that it didn't look like we'd be able to start altogether anytime soon.  They finished all their individual work by lunchtime.  We had some friends over for a little while in the afternoon so we didn't work on anything we needed to do together.  We will try to get it all finished up tomorrow.  Kaomi did great again on her reading lesson.  She struggled a little when she forgot what sound the letter "g" makes, but she continued on and was able to complete the whole lesson.  Kent built a really tall Duplo Lego tower after lunch, we just a few interruptions of Lissie knocking it down and it falling over a couple times.


Friday:  We helped clean in the nursery at church this week.  Kent and Katy completed their English.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Fear of Man

"The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe." 

Proverbs 29:25

This is the verse that the kids have been learning for school this week.  I've found it thought provoking.

Are you caught in man's snare?  What are you afraid of?  Are you trusting God?

It is through trusting God that he will keep you safe.  He will take care of you and give you everything you need.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Other Highlights from Last Week (8/28 & 8/29/2012)


Katy made mashed cauliflower.

Clark got "stuck" between the loveseat and wall.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Kaomi's Birthday Pictures - 2012

Special Place Setting

Breakfast

Birthday Swim

Time for cake




Happy Birthday!
Would you like some tea?


Tea Party Cake
Presents!

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Happy Birthday, Kaomi! - 2012

Today was Kaomi's birthday.  She requested toast for breakfast.  We went to church where she made sure that everyone we knew and some people we don't knew that she was turning five.  After church we had a nice brisket lunch, then Kent, Katy and Kaomi played quietly and had quiet time.

She wanted to go swimming and play a game.  She chose to play Zingo and then the older kids watched Princess Diaries while Lissie was still napping.  Around 5:15 pm we all went swimming and came inside to have nachos for dinner.  Then we had birthday cake and presents. 

I'll plan to post pictures tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, Kaomi!!!  We love you.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

In School this Week...

Monday:  We needed to focus on rebooting our household so school was limited and we cleaned up and took care of some things around the house.  We focused on Reading, Math, Piano, Timeline and History Reading.  We are supposed to work on our timeline on Friday's but we are behind so I wanted to make sure we caught up on that today.  It doesn't take long and is fun to do as well.

Tuesday: Kent and Katy were both struggling with newer math concepts today.  I think they've both figured them out now.  Felicity enjoyed playing with some horses that I put in her preschool box this morning.  She's been begging to play with them since I put them in there yesterday and she could see them through the box.

Wednesday:  We are now doing a full day of school on Wednesdays and our day "off" will be on Fridays.  Our volunteering has switched back to Fridays for this semester therefore the change in our schedule.  School went well all around.  We completed almost all of our together stuff first thing in the morning which worked well.  All the kids enjoyed drawing pictures of services and goods for history.  Even Felicity wanted me to draw a barrel and a stethoscope on her paper for her to scribble over.  She wanted to be like the big kids.

Thursday:  I found out Katy didn't do her English lesson yesterday.  She didn't think she had time to do it.  We had a talk about making sure you let me know if there is something you don't think you can do for whatever reason.  We started our day off in the garden.  Kent and Katy picked onions and everyone helped with some garden cleanup and yard cleanup.  When we came back inside we started school and completed science right away.  The kids had fun making molds with plastic animals in Play-doh to help them understand about fossils better.

Kent thought he was moving on to a new topic in math, but when I checked his schedule that isn't until next week.  Boy was I relieved, as my brain was already full and I wasn't sure that I would be the best at explaining it so he would understand.  Come next week we can tackle quotients and remainders.  Kaomi did a good job on her hand writing.  She started learning lowercase "d".  She got a little confused when she was trying to write bed, but she figured it out with a little help from me.

Friday:  This is our day "off" of school.  We often still have a few things to do, but our focus isn't on school.  Kent and Katy quickly worked through their English lessons and happily went off to play.  I made peach jam.  I though I was going to have a couple helpers, but they were all playing so nicely that I didn't make any of them join me.  After lunch I made a peach cobbler for dessert tonight and then we had storytime.  Kaomi was pretending to spell a word that she can read, so I suggested she sound it out and tell the names of the letters she hears.  She was so excited when she spelled "an" correctly that she wanted to write it down.  She and Katy got out the magnetic board and letters and had fun making words.