Tuesdays

Mondays around here seem to go pretty smoothly,  we get our work done,  perhaps we are a little grouchy,  but we get about the day with out too much trouble.  Tuesday rolls around and the kids act like they've never seen a pencil or paper before and just act like loonies.  This is nothing new and I about to lose my ever lovin'mind this morning trying to correct them every five seconds.  It's one of those "I feel like I've tried everything" moments.  i'm consistent, we have a decent routine,  they didn't eat junk food, ect ect ect.    I'm sending them off on another bike ride in hopes they will calm down.  School will go on late into the afternoon today.   

Sabbath

Technically we are only doing school mon-thu and Fridays are free days for homeschool group and catch up from the week. Our homeschool groups back to school bash was yesterday (thursday) so it freed up our entire Friday.  We spent today getting ready for sabbath,  cleaning the house (which went nothing how I'd planned,  no sparkly clean floors in every room) making bread from scratch and.. Cleaning the house..  (yes I know I said that twice lol) in reality I spent most of the day getting after my older two,  chasing the two year old and carrying the nine month old, who decided he had to have his mama snuggles and be close all day.  the kitchen got cleaned and thats it.  I'm thankful for a clean kitchen ;)

Despite the lack of cooperation we managed to get the kitchen scrubbed, make three delicious loaves of bread and get supper cooked and on the table - two hours late lol - just in time for dh to get home.

I've never made from scratch bread (bread machine doesn't count) and I was really surprised at how good it was ,  not to mention how utterly simple. I can do this all the time.  LOL right.... 

Anyway here's our sabbath table,  I had one candle holder so both candles are in that,  we used a flour sack towel and had kait trace the pattern from celebrating biblical feasts on to the towel and then color it with fabric markers.  The spice tin is an empty spice jar covered with foil, decoradte with foam stickers and then filled with nutmeg and cinnamon.

Dh and I said the blessings, sang a song, broke the bread and passed around the glass of wine. the kids all took a teenie sip,  they didn't get enough to taste and said after the meal that maybe they will actually try it next week. 

..... Which means they enjoyed the celebration :-)

Which means we are going to get to do this again next week.  

Mfw CtG Back to school 2013-2014

Day one of Year #3 of homeschooling (kids have dubbed our school 'Owl creek academy'  which is dd's favorite bird and incorporates our streets name) 
Dh has been starting work two hours later than normal, which I was hating.. God always has a plan and who am I to question it.  Starting work  later means that he gets to do devotions and bible study with us in the mornings

trying to get first day photos

kait - 5th grade

zuperhero 3rd grade

Si - 2 years, Tot school

can't leave out Jbug

practicing spelling words

also practicing spelling words

Pintrest tape road and a cheerio :p 

beginning of our Timeline

left to right - butterfly mouth drawings (God and the History of art 1) Greek Root Biblos notebook page  (instead of a notecard)  book of the bible printouts and handwriting practice

Day one went well,  apart from a meltdown in the afternoon when we got to math.  Kait decided she does not want to do math online this year and would prefer workbooks,  after a huge fit and discussing and the problem, we came to an agreement,  online school until we can find a book we both like.  

I found the bag of preschool activities we made with MOPS last year and put those to good use today  , along with  a masking tape  road from pintrest (which my two year old si played with for one second and kept my eight year old busy for half an hour) 

We managed to get a full days work done with out too much trouble,  I think we were all ready to get back to work.  

english from the roots up page from here: http://www.cyncesplace.com/Journal/english-from-the-roots-up/

ctw bible printouts from Mama Jenn we used her memory verse and hero tales printables with ecc last year: http://www.mamajenn.com/MamaJenn/MFW_CtG.html

Getting ready

Its sunday night and we're down to the last few hours before school starts. (I'm so ready for school to start..but I should be in bed :)  Those who know me and how unorganized i've been for my entire life the past few years  are probably saying  'Wait, Are you kidding??"  Nope not kidding, we have all the supplies, i have the next few months planned and we finally decided on curriculum. 

This year our curriculum choices are: 

Bible, History and Science - My fathers world Creation to the Greeks

Math - Aleks and Khan academy  (along with several lapbooks and notebooking pages from currclick) 

English - Easy grammar and daily grams

Writing - IEW

Spanish - Rosetta stone  

Spelling - Building spelling skills from Christian liberty press

we'll join our homeschool group for art, lego club, gym and field trips and a co-op for Apologia Astronomy. 

We only finished half of ecc last year,  having the baby and toddler around threw me for a loop and I'm just now getting into a semblance of a routine. 

  We  are planning on schooling year round from here on out, taking little - scheduled - breaks as needed. we will continue with ECC when we finish CTG.  We aren't going with the MFW suggestions for LA, math and writing this year, we used them last year and my kids weren't thrilled, I was given the curriculum i'm using this year and so far I like what I see. 

anyway eeeeeee...   Books are organized, pens and Pencils ready to go,  Paper stacked and I have our schedule written down.    We'll see how I feel Monday afternoon but for now I'm feeling energized and ready for the new year. 

Our already messy school cubbies

Tot school daily calendar (still need to add colors and numbers) 

Peaceful parenting

Over the past few years we've gone from having very limited cell phone use,  internet access and tv to having all of it on all day long.    How short have I become with my children and husband, no one has a nice word to say anymore, chores around the house skipped or done too quickly, papers piled up in corners, friends ignored. Time slips away when staring at the screen.  I've not read a single book cover to cover in two years! I'm an avid reader, I LOVE books. though this last part may have something to do with a certain two year old .. :) who won't let me sit down for one minute.

Two Major things I'm doing to get back on track and change the way I am reacting to the antics of my adorable wild and crazy  children and give my husband his wife back.

Media break;   I'm not the only one who has let social media rule the house as I have several friends giving this a go too.  Its been in the back of my mind all year,  limit the screen time - I decided to deactivate facebook and slim down on the emails I receive. The tv and video games are being limited to nap times and rainy days.

yelling, I made a pact with my kids this week not to yell. To be intentional about what comes out of my mouth, I'd already had this verse printed out and then a friend posted it on her facebook wall along with a comment that we need to be more mindful about what we say and how we say it, needless to say it reinforced that we need a change.       Taking one day at a time,  I'll wait until I'm done fuming over whatever it is they have done (like leave the door wide open so that the dogs run out of the house, and I have to chase them through the corn fields into the closest neighbors yard and pray pray pray that none of the chickens become happy play things. and then talk to my children instead of being obnoxiously loud.  I have a sticker chart, suggested in the book  Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids and the kids get to give me a sticker at the end of each day if I succeed in no yelling.  My 10 year old thinks its lame, my 8 year old thinks its AWESOME and gave me a huge hug and said I'm the best mama in the whole wide world,  my 2 year old just wants to eat the stickers.

 photo from this site

country living

Tonight, We took a long - currently rare-  walk with all the kids (usually its one of us home with a sleeping child and one of us walking with the others) Its beautiful out, 71 degree's sunny, no humidity, gorgeous, PERFECT.  I'm feeling blessed, content, this is one of those evenings when I'm reminded why I really love it here.

Homeschool showcase

We had a homeschool showcase scheduled for today with our local group. we were going to give certificates and talk about our achievements and obstacles we've overcome this year.   My two little boys woke up from nap time with fevers so we stayed home. Here are some photos of the two bigs receiving their grade promotion certificates,  at home.