Poor Emily! She is covered in knots. It started on her lower back. And months ago, I cut as many out as I could. Leaving her to sport what looked like skinny jeans for dogs. But I wasn’t able to get to the root of the problem. So we sort of stopped brushing her as much. It was really a worthless effort. So the tangles spread until she really looked like a hoodlum. I finally got around to calling this morning to get her an appointment at Petsmart. They were able to get her in right away. I think they could hear the desperation in my voice! So after lunch, I loaded up all the kids and Em and we headed off to pamper our princess pooch! Now this is where it gets interesting. Picture this: A lady walks into Petsmart with 5 kids going in every single direction and a tiny dog. The lady is so preoccupied looking around and wrangling her very obnoxious kids that she doesn’t realize that her dog has decided to poop in the stores entrance. So she proceeds to drag the poor pup dropping excrement as she goes…I should say the dog was doing the dropping! Finally, a nice employee points this problem out to the (at this point) frazzled lady. So the lady warns the very excited children to watch out for poop and she goes to get the “oops bags” which are complementary, and perfect for people like this woman who are all but prepared. As she is walking away, her foul mouthed children are laughing and screaming “POOP,” at the top of their lungs. And of course one of the youngest kids manages to step in it and begins walking in circles while looking behind her with this look like, “why is it following me?” as she leaves a trail. I am just going to keep pretending that that lady wasn’t ME!

While writing this, the house began to shake. So I ran upstairs to yell at ask Tyler to calm down. He was sitting quietly playing legos. The house began to shake again a little more this time waking all the napping kiddos up with screams and tears. I got the baby out of the crib and had all of the kids stand in the doorways. This was my first experience with an EARTHQUAKE! The young-ins were all freaked out but quickly fell back asleep.

Disclaimer: I wrote this draft months ago with grand expectations of importing pictures and of course following up with more posts. Needless to say life kept right on going while this blog stayed in draft mode! I really want to share these things with my family that is so far away. So I am just adding the photos altogether and we can only hope I will be able to keep this up in the future! Enjoy…

We made it through week 1 of second grade and preschool! And I am worn out feeling good about another week approaching. We finished most of what was planned and still managed to keep up with a few of our weekly chores and even added in a few extra curricular activities. Oh and mom had a real good cry on Friday afternoon, but we’ll get to that in a moment. For now I would like to share a review of our week in pictures (and apparently words, too. Turns out I can’t shut-up!)

Monday ~ Day 1. I went to the library on Sunday to pick up a few selections for the week just to find out that the library is opened on Sundays between Oct and April. OOPS! Though it would have been nice to have gotten everything I needed, we survived. We discussed creation and attentiveness. Learned a new way to count in math. Started learning our ABCs in sign language and started our study on Legos. Sister worked hard on her Chicka Chicka ABC lapbook. She asked for glue and tape ALL day.

Tuesday ~ Day 2. Went for a nice walk with all the kids and discovered 3 different trees in a clump in the field. We investigated each one and brought home a ton of treasures to study further.

Wednesday ~ Day 3. Bubba continued to read a chapter to me from the book of Matthew. His reading is really coming along. I was a bit nervous because we have not been consistent with our reading this summer. We finally added in our Spanish lessons and started our hymn studies. We still need to start our Lego mosaic. Bubba, Sister and I played Candyland. Sister won, Bubba tried to quit! He is so much like his daddy. 🙂

Thursday ~ Day 4. I let Bubba sleep in and at 10 I finally went up to check on him and found him playing quietly. He said he had been up for a while he just didn’t want to do school. Poor kid has a way to go. I went back and forth about doing the Lego multiplication assignments. I am so glad we tried it. Bubba did GREAT. We are not here yet in math, but I think it was a great intro. And the fact that he got to use his Legos I think really helped hype his interest. Sister finally got to use glue on this day. We finished her lapbook and she had fun showing daddy how everything worked. Sister asked for scissors all day.

Friday ~ Day 5. We wrote a letter in code to G-Ma. Bubba spent the bulk of his morning coming up with symbols for each letter. We also spent a lot of time on Lego Digital Designer. Bubba REALLY liked this program. I think I will try to add it to the schedule weekly or even using it as a reading incentive along with his DS. We also went on a really fun tangent while listening to our folk song for the term. We are learning Elle Rhea and discovered that Elvis used the tune for his hit Love Me Tender. This lead us on an Elvis YouTube adventure. While in the middle of rocking out to Blue Suede Shoes we were asked by Sister to, “look at Yaya’s hair.” After glancing at Yaya my heart sank. I remember grabbing my chest and exclaiming, “I can’t breath, I can’t breath!” Her hair was GONE! I was trying so hard to keep it together and not strangle lash out in anger at Sister. I took the girls back upstairs and found the trash can and toilet full of Yaya’s beautiful hair. When I asked Sister why she cut her sisters hair she responded, ” I was trying to get it out of her face.” While trying to cut the few strands that were left I found myself sobbing. Yaya was so patient. Each time I started to cry she would stand up and give me a big hug and then sit back down real still waiting for more of her hair to be cut. This was her very first haircut. I have to say that Sister did a fairly descent job. If you can over look the hole front and center!

What I have learned ~ I need to prepare our music selections ahead of time so we can listen to them each day. We should also start our weekly letters at the beginning of the week so that we stay in our 15 min per subject time frame. I have also started making a visual schedule for the kids so they know exactly how much more they have. We are going to try a modified version of the workbox system for Sister’s work….more about that next week. Finally, I have learned the hard way that Sister cannot be within 5oo feet of a pair of scissors!

All in all, I think we had a really great week. Oh and I still have not gotten to the library!

<Disclaimer ~ I intended to post this 2 months ago, but life got in the way and then I forgot my password and couldn’t get in to update….Better late than never…right?>

Now that Bubba is taken care of for this upcoming year, it’s time to focus on Sister. I really thought that I would NOT do any kind of formal school with her until she was a least 5 because I see no reason to rush her childhood. But she is eager to have school like Bubba. Therefore we will gently expand on her already vast knowledge. ;0

In all seriousness, she really does have a very strong foundation. I wish I could take the credit for it, but she is almost entirely self-taught. She is always eager to learn and experience life to the fullest. I could learn a lot from her!

I will continue to read aloud to her from a variety of living books, fairy-tales, and poetry, without any other expectation than her attention. We will review uppercase letters and introduce lowercase letters. And begin learning letter sounds and a few sight words. She will join Bubba for history, science and art. I am thinking we will “do school” 3 days a week max.

My resources for Sister:

• Awana Cubbies~ This is Sister’s 2nd year as a cubbie. We are working through the Hopper book and Character Builder book 1.
• Letter of the Week from Confessions of a homeschooler blog.
• Read to me and ABC from walking by the way blog.
• Now I know my ABCs from Tot School (basically anything from this website!)
• Homeschool Creations website

*UPDATE: Sister is continuing to LOVE school. She begs me to “fill her boxes” most days! Fridays are our family fun night. We try to eat a meal that starts with the letter and watch a movie or play a game that starts with the letter. This has been a huge hit with everyone…especially when we had Happy Meals for the letter H week! (We eat off the dollar menu. The only time my kids see kids meals are when grandparents are involved!) I am really enjoying seeing how creative she is. She is so independent. But still very timid in new situations. This is new territory for me as she and her brother are polar opposites. Where Bubba is ONLY content to be the center-of-attention, Sister finds her place wrapped around my leg…or my personal favorite (I wish I could express how sarcastic I am being) with her fingers in her mouth! We are all a work in progress. Her favorite part of school is the art journal.

I have never kept a journal or diary for more than a few days. The last scrapbook page I made was when my oldest was a baby (he’s almost 7 now).  I can’t remember the last time I updated my Facebook status. And this is my second attempt at blogging. Needless to say, I am not very efficient when it comes to chronicling anything! But I desperately want to hold on to these precious days with my kids. And each morning they are a little bit older and I am a lot more behind! So here it goes. Will it work? If I am still here next week, I will consider this “thing” a success. Enjoy!