Plans for Summer

I just read "A Summer Schedule" on The Homeschool Classroom and it inspired me to come up with my own plan of attack for summer. Of course the thing I look most forward to the most is a little relaxation and fresh air. Most years we end up doing way too much stuff and by the time the summer is over, we're exhausted. Last year, we purposefully did not make any plans for the summer and by the end we felt like the summer was wasted. This year, I want a happy medium. So, I'm making a plan.

Places to go

• Park days with our home school group
• Library
• Greenbluff
• Lake Coeur d'Alene 
• City pool (for swim lessons and for fun)
• The Farmers Market

Special Events

• Shannon's 6th Birthday and he actually asked for a party with his friends so we're having one for the first time. -sigh- How they grow.

Things to do with Stacey

• Sunday evenings at Arbor Crest 
• Warm afternoon dates on restaurant patios

Household Projects

• Get doors installed in basement
• Thoroughly clean kitchen (something that slipped through the cracks during Spring cleaning)

Homeschool prep for Fall

• I want to create activity boxes for Athena so she will something to do while I do one-on-one lessons with the other two
• Order the rest of our materials
• Create a few weeks worth of lesson plans

Chores to teach Shannon and Chloe

• Fold and put away own clean clothes
• Wipe down bathroom throughout week
• Get into a better chore routine with the chores they already know

Activities to do at home with kids

• Cooking: I have a couple of cookbooks that I have been meaning to crack open with the kids
• Lots of picnics to enjoy our newly baked creations
• Decorate the various glass jars I have been saving to store craft supplies in
• Teach Shannon to ride his bike (I realize many 5 year-old boys can already ride a 2-wheel bike but he just wasn't ready last summer. He has actually shown interest in learning so I have a good feeling about this year)

Creative projects of my own

• I want to give digital scrap booking a try
• Canning peaches and pears from Green Bluff

My next step is to get out the calendar and start planning on where these things can fit in. Of course I can't plan every little thing, nor would I want to, but I do want to have a rough outline.

We will continue reading over the summer and take advantage of other learning opportunities but I do want a more laid back, summer-like, feeling around the house.

Now if only it would stop raining, we could get this summer party started.

And we're back

I accidentally took a little blogging break. Two weeks ago, I came down with mastitis again. So, I was down for the count for about a day and a half followed by a really awful cold. I swear I am not here to complain I just wanted to explain myself. We actually did continue to do some school but nothing significant.

The weekend after my mastitis hit, Stacey and I were one of the presenting teams on an Engaged Encounter Weekend. Engaged Encounter is an international organization that puts on marriage preparation retreats. This last weekend was just as fabulous as all of the weekends we have done. We had 21 enthusiastic engaged couples to minister to. On the first night of the retreat, I thought I just had a tiny cold that had already peaked and was getting better. Boy was I wrong. By Sunday morning I could barely talk and was coughing and hacking and the nose was running. All around gross stuff. But I still enjoyed the weekend we got to spend together being all in love and married while the kids had a blast with my folks.

After we got home from the retreat, I had three days to prepare for another adventure:  I took a solo trip to San Jose, CA to visit some of my friends from middle and high school. Nicki, Kevin, and I have been friends for almost 20 years even though I only lived down there for 5 of those years. Now that is dedication. I make it down there at least once a year and sometimes I even let Stacey come with me . . . but not this time. We are actually hoping to go down together this fall but that is still very tentative.

I spent four nights down there in Nicki's lovely apartment in Santa Clara. We went to dinner with Kevin on our first night and had a great time catching up. I actually missed Kevin the last time I was down so I had not seen him in almost two years. The next day, I finally got to check out the infamous Santana Row Shopping Center. It is gorgeous. We took a seat at the Village California Bistro & Wine Bar and just soaked in the sun and scenery for about 2 hours before purchasing some makeup at Aveda and browsing a few clothing stores. That evening I watched Nicki play in a soccer game and then we went to see some stand up at The Improv. Now, the younger versions of ourselves would have gone out to some bars afterward but not present day Nicki and Stephanie. Nope, we went straight home and to bed.

The next day we went wine tasting in Santa Cruz. The drive was very scenic,

though I only got one picture and it doesn't really do the view justice.

Chocolate-covered bacon and Nicki and I enjoying wine at Beauregard Vineyards.

That evening I celebrated Mass with the nice folks at St. Clare's in Santa Clara. After Mass, I met up with Nicki and some of her friends and went to the Earthquakes game. They lost 3 - 1 but I still had an awesome time getting to know some more people.

The next day we went to lunch with my new friends, Sam and Marissa. We then went back to  Santana Row and met up with Kevin and some more of my new friends, Jaime and Joel. We did a little shopping and then went to the Cheesecake Factory. I got a piece of Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake. Yummmmmmm! As you can see, we are all very mature adults.

And here is a picture of Jaime and Joel taking a picture of themselves. 

That night we went to Jaime and Joel's and drank daiquiris and played some board games and watched a movie. By 2pm the next day, I was home and hugging my family. And now I am back to doing all the things I love: teaching, parenting, and just taking care of my home and family.

Notebook: Week of 5/10

Language Arts
Reading
Shannon: Lessons 51 - 53. It seems we have hit another plateau. Shannon seems to get overwhelmed by the length of the stories at the end of each lesson. But we'll keep plugging along slowly.
Chloe: She has not been able to do the lessons that Shannon is on so I want to start working with her, one on one, at her own level. I started at the beginning of the book and went through parts of each lesson to see which lesson I should start on with her. I think we got up to lesson 15 so far.

Poetry
We finally got back to this after a pretty long break. The kids have memorized Bed in Summer and now we are starting on The Cow. I like how at the end of Bed in Summer, Chloe sometimes states, "It's hard to go to bed in the day". She is both summarizing the poem and agreeing with it at the same time.

Handwriting
Mead books: Letters G, Q, U, V, W, R
We had taken a break from this as well and I am amazed at how much each kiddo has developed in their fine motor control. Chloe is actually forming letters and Shannon just zooms right through without getting tired.

Math
Shannon finished up the unit on number placement. He did very well working independently. I had not originally planned on going back to the workbook but he seems to like it. If he gets tired of writing, I just go over the lesson without the worksheet. I should also note that he is doing awesome at printing those numbers. He used to get so frustrated while attempting a "6". But his 6's are great now and he is so proud of himself. He'll call me over to look at his masterpieces, "Check out this six, Mom!"

Chloe, not to be left out, has started completing worksheets from the beginning of the book that we never used because we started with this book mid-year. So she is learning one to one association. It also gives her a chance to work on fine motor skills without calling it handwriting.

Mother's Day Rules!

I am here to fully admit that I tend to indulge a bit on Mother's Day. In fact, one day is not good enough so I call it Mother's Weekend. And this year was no exception.

Friday
The kids and I went to our home school group to be with my Catholic home school peeps. And this was an exceptional meeting because I got to meet, in person, one of my blogger friends. All of the kids and moms got on very well with one another and I really enjoy this time we all get to just be together and socialize. Here is Athena with one of my friend, Barb's, girls. She has five other kids just as sweet and cute as this one. No wonder she keeps having more (#7 due this Fall).

Friday Evening
Hot date with my husband. This date almost didn't happen because of some scheduling stuff but I am so glad we made the decisions that we made and went on this date. We had such a fantastic time. We went out for a light dinner at the Nordstrom's Cafe, one of our very favorite places to eat. We like it because it has a very chic atmosphere yet is casual and not very pricey. In fact our entire meal, with dessert, was only $25. Then we went to the Eastern Washington University Alumni Wine Tasting at the Spokane Club. Great food, great wine, and the great company of my sweetie.

Then we went back to Nordstrom's so that Stacey could grab the opportunity to fully spoil the mother of his children. He bought me a pair of Dansko Sandals that I have had my eye on. I really needed a new pair or sandals. Shoes and I have a checkered past. I wear a size 11. Yes, you read that right, an 11! So for a very long time, I hated shoe shopping. I was insecure about my feet and most stores don't carry my size. And just forget about shopping at a clearance. Since stores almost always have to order my size, they don't need to clearance them for quick sale. But I have since learned to love my feet and how cute they look in sandals and boots and I really love how the right pair of shoes can dramatically change the look of an outfit. I was quite the tom boy growing up but I think I am making up for it in my adulthood. But Nordstroms actually does carry many styles in my size and if not, they can order them and ship them right to my house. I have also found that they always have the lowest price for whatever brand I am looking at. AND, they will let you return anything if it isn't working out. I bought a pair of UGG boots this past fall and the color immediately soaked up the dye in my jeans. It looked awful. I went back in to see if they had anything that would take the stain out. They told me there was no way that stain was coming out so I thought I was just out of luck. They quickly followed this bad news up with, "Why don't we just get you a different color boot? That way the blue dye won't show up as well". My heros!

Saturday
Shannon's last soccer game of the regular season. We had to get up crazy early, for a Saturday, so we hopped in the car and stopped by Starbucks for scones and coffee. Great start to my day.

After the game, we went home to just relax. It has been a crazy couple of weeks so this was just what we all needed. Stacey watched some movies with the kids and I got to be in my office for a while to work on some future planning. Yes, I consider this relaxing and not working. Such a fine line.

Sunday
Spring Barrel tasting! This was our fourth year in a row. All of the wineries in Spokane participate in this event. We met up with my parents, Stacey's parents, and my Granny at Latah Creek Winery. Then we went to Barrister, White Stone, and ended at Barili. We had a late lunch, just me and Stacey, at Laguna Cafe on the south hill. We went to pick the kids up and saw them headed for the park so we joined them for some play. We drove home and spent the remainder of the day resting.

I would say the weekend had a perfect mix of alone time, husband and wife time, and family time. And I was able to recharge my batteries and hit the ground running on Monday. Back to the grind!

Simplifying

I have been writing a lot lately about decluttering, cleaning, organizing, etc. Originally I started this process to make life easier and less stressful for me and the rest of my family. But then I realized an even greater purpose through the reading I have been doing lately. First, A Mother's Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot. This book really got me thinking about my calling. Since God has called me to this vocation of marriage and motherhood, everything I do is for Him and should be that much easier to say "yes" to. "Yes, God, I will go do the laundry even though I would rather sit here and look at everyone's Facebook status updates." God asks this, and dozens of other tasks, of me everyday and that is a pretty awesome thing. So many people are lost out there, living with pain in their hearts, wondering what it is that God wants them to do with their lives. Well, I already know! Yet, it is sometimes so hard to just do it. So, that it something I am working on in my prayer life right now. I already know what God wants of me and that is a huge gift in and of itself.

The book that I am reading right now is called Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne. Since I have been reading a lot about cleaning and organizing, I actually thought this was another book on simpifying your home. But, this book is actually about the effect that a messy, hectic, stressful life can have on children. The funny thing is, I put this book on hold at the library about three weeks ago, because I saw it mentioned on a website along one of my web surfing adventures. Apparently, I didn't even know what the book was really about. But as I started reading it, I realized it is exactly what I need to be reading at this time.

 Shannon's occupational therapy came to an end about two weeks ago and I wasn't really sure how we were going to have to adjust for that in our everyday lives. Things have actually been working out okay with a few exceptions. Whenever Shannon watches too much TV or plays computer games, he gets all crazy eyed. He becomes irritable, gets a nasty attitude, starts hitting things/siblings. I then react with complete non sympathy and pretty much get nasty right back and then we have this great unbreakable cycle until I finally remember that I am the adult (sometimes I wonder who throws the bigger tantrums: me or my kids). Well, lately the weather has really been gross and the kids have had a lot of down time due to my own projects around the house. And they have naturally spent a lot of this time in front of the TV/computer and that has caused fighting over said TV/computer, lots of screaming, and an overall stressful tone within my family. I tried to get them to play in the toy room or do some crafts instead but they haven't seemed interested. Enter Simplicity Parenting.

So, the third chapter deals with the environment that your child lives in. He begins addressing the toy situation. Most kids do have way too many toy. Now, I am pretty proud of the fact that we do not keep many toys around after they have been played out and I go through and throw out broken toys at least once a month if not more often. But then after quantity of toys, Payne addresses the kinds of toys you keep in your home. He said that any toys that don't foster creativity or use of imagination are pretty much useless and kids get tired of them after a short time. As I was reading this, I peeked in on my kids. Do you know what toys they were playing with? Not a single one of the new toys they had received as Christmas gifts. Not a single toy that requires batteries and makes lots of awesome noise. Nope, they were both in the toy room playing with good ol' reliable Legos. They were building airplanes . . . that talk, of course. Another thing we are guilty of is something the author calls "toy multiples". When we noticed how much Shannon loved playing with his wooden train set and trains, we went out and bought even more train track and even more trains. We also thought that this way the kids wouldn't fight so much over the two or three wooden trains. Wrong! They immediately started fighting, even more so and louder, over the twenty wooden trains.

So, I will be doing a toy makeover very shortly. I am not going to just dump it all in the trash (and the author does not suggest this either) but I will be putting a lot of stuff out of sight for a while. I can't believe how many perfectly new-looking toys the kids have because they lost interest in them after only a week of use. The toys I notice that they still play with are the wooden bead maze thingy (we have had for over two years), the wooden food (old), the dolls (old), the Legos (old), the stacking toys, and several of Athena's baby toys. Kids really do like to create their own fun. They don't want a battery operated toy doing it for them. Even though Shannon asked for a battery-operated train set for Christmas, he barely ever plays with it because it is constantly falling apart or running out of battery. And it only does one thing: you push a button, it goes around and around. I am only on chapter four but the premise of the book is that kids, in general, have too much stuff, too many choices, too much information, too much in their schedules. And this can make them crazy.

Stacey and I went out last night and bought a few items in an attempt to organize the arts supplies so they are more accessible to the kids. I can't expect them to want to do art projects if they can't even see the art supplies. And I got a folding table for them to do their craft projects on so we don't have to push everything aside when we do school or want to eat a meal.

So, that is where I am on my domestic journey right now. As I was typing this, Shannon woke up a bit early so I told him while I was finishing up he could either read or play quietly. I heard him shuffling around in the family room and finally he asked me to come look at what he made.

Out of all the toys in that room, he chose the Styrofoam (from the packaging of a shelf we just bought) to play with. Yep, sounds about right. 

My son . . .

Yesterday, the cord to my MacBook was yanked out and when that happens, because my charger is kinda broken, it takes me forever to get it put back in just right so that it will charge again. I was getting frustrated with it, probably making all sorts of annoyed noises, and Shannon says to me, "I hope it starts to charge.  If it doesn't, it will be a mollerseat". I asked, "A what?" and he repeated, "A mollarseat". And I had to ask once again what he was saying. I hate it when this happens because sometimes Shannon will get really frustrated that I don't know what he's saying.

Finally he says, "You know, like if the house was on fire it would be a mollarseat".
"Ohhhhhhh, an emergency."
"Yah,  a mollerseat"

I was (and still am) so impressed that instead of getting frustrated he just thought of a different way to explain it to me. He used to just keep repeating the word over and over and OVER and OVER. Getting louder and louder and more frustrated until he exploded. I could not stop telling him how proud of him I was and then we spent a few minutes practicing the correct pronunciation of the word "e-mer-gen-cy".

-sigh- I just love that little man.

Oh, and it is kind of funny that he thought my computer not charging would be an emergency. Hmmmm, I think he just knows his mom very well.

Future Learning

I can't believe my first year of educating my children is coming to a close (I like to believe I've been teaching them since they were born but you know what I mean). I think I have learned more than they have about so many things. I never knew how great it was going to be. Working through challenges with Shannon has been so fulfilling. He went from running away whenever I mentioned picking up a pencil, to writing on his own when I don't even ask him to. And watching Chloe go from toddler to scholar over this year has been incredible. I just can't believe how much she has blossomed. She can read! And count to 20! And she loves to open up random books and make up her own stories. I'm so proud of all of us. We have made some great strides this year, which is why I can't help but get excited for next year.

My hope for the rest of this year:

Language Arts

• Reading: Get through as many of the 100 Easy Lessons as possible and start reading easy/beginning reader books. I'm not too worried about him finishing out all of the lessons this year.
• Handwriting: I think we'll just keep copying lines from stories and maybe finish out the Mead book

Math

• I have pretty much put the book away. The rest of the MCP Kindergarten book covers a basic intro to place value, measurement, addition, and subtraction. We started out this year using the first grade book but there were so many problems on each page that Shannon would just look at it and freak out. It was taking us an entire week to get through one lesson and it was not happy for anyone. So we jumped back to the K book. Basically, it covered the same material but less of it and at a slower pace. So, I will probably pull out a couple of worksheets from each of the remaining chapters and call it good for Kindergarten. Now that Shannon is way more comfortable with writing, the first grade book should be just fine.

Religion

• I have really been slacking in this area. I want to finish reading God's Love Story and finish our lap book that is taking forever because I keep losing focus. At this stage, I really think religious studies should just be who we are what we do. Catholicism is so much more then just another subject to cover. Our faith should be reflected in how we live our lives everyday.

Other

• Soccer will go until mid - May and then we'll probably be starting swim lessons and possibly a soccer camp this summer. 
• Many trips to Green Bluff. We always have a great time picking fruit so I'm excited for Green Bluff season. And we always seem to learn along the way.
• Nature walks, now that the weather is getting nice
• Trips to the library
• Lots of fun in the garden with Daddy

When we made the decision to home school last Spring, I decided to start right away and just take it slow. So we have been doing Kindergarten for almost a full year now, with plenty of breaks along the way. This has worked out so well, I've decided to home school year round on purpose. I think it makes the most sense for flexibility. It has been nice being able to take time off when we have just done an Engaged Encounter weekend or when Stacey is out of town.

So, we could actually start on First Grade whenever I get the materials together and plan out a few weeks of lessons. I am working on a lot of stuff around the house right now and we have a few other things coming up in May but probably around June we'll transition into a tiny bit heavier work load. Another advantage to starting early is I have a feeling that sometime next year, we will be thinking about another baby. During week 8 - 16ish of my last pregnancy left me pretty useless so at least if that happens again I will be ahead of the game.

I have been thinking about next year's curriculum for some time now. I'm pretty excited. I haven't made all of the final decisions but I have decided that I will just buy materials for Shannon and then adapt what I can for Chloe. So far they have done pretty well at the same level. There are a few things that go over Chloe's head but for the most part she's pretty engaged. I can't believe that in the public school system she would still have two more years before starting kindergarten. That's just crazy talk. That girl wants to learn!

So stay tuned for the reveal of next year's learning materials and tools. Oooooooo. You're on the edge of your seat, I know it!