September, a month of lists!

Blogging has been hit or miss!  I've taken a few pictures, that would make for good pictures.  Suppose I'll do a photo blog in the next day or so.  In the mean time, here's what is new:

• Would you believe ANOTHER phone call to the All American Appliance Inc. yesterday.  Fridge got up to 50 degrees and stayed there.  Feel like I am on the first name bases with everyone that works there.  They are a great company, one I plan on using again, should the need arise.  They are quick to respond, friendly, and knowledgeable.  Definitely recommend them for appliance needs.
• Based off my last conversation about the fridge, the only part that could be culprit would be the compressor.  With the cost of that part, the fact that this particular fridge has had MANY issues, GE doesn't seem to care, we decided to buy a new fridge.
• Thankful for the internet.  Browsed a few places, from the comforts of home, and found a few models that would work for our requirements.  Read the reviews and narrowed our choice down to one.  Searched on that model number to find that Lowes has the cheapest price on the fridge.  The closest Lowes to us, had a couple in stock and a display model (we wanted to see actual model in person).  Because they had it in stock, we were able to schedule delivery today.  Cool because delivery and haul away are free ~ another savings compared to other stores.  Even got a call this morning asking if they could move our delivery time up to an earlier window. 
• On the painful side of life,  I've been having back pains since Sunday.  Yesterday, it was to the point I wanted to go to the doctor's.  I was able to get an appointment and a prescrip for it.  Seems to be working well as I feel loads better today.  

 So ends this list!  Back to school and things on my "to do" list!  Hope you are enjoying the weather in your area.  It's raining here, 3rd morning of it, but its kind of nice.

Have a great day,

A Long Month

This month has felt so very long and tiring.  Forgotten to update so many things about our lives, that I am willing to share on the internet anyway.  So here goes the run down of life:

1. Our official Home Study is in hand.  It was post marked 9/2/10 of this month.
2. We celebrated another birthday for Kevin, one that ends in a "5".
3. The boys tested for their Senior White Belts in Tae Kwon Doe on 9/11/01 and passed
4. We've now had 3 service calls on our kitchen fridge since 9/11/10 and are hoping that it will work properly now.  Fortunately we've only lost a half gallon of milk.
5. Scouts have started back up for the boys.
6. Quest has begun for Thing One.  It is the Sunday School for 5th and 6th graders at our church and they have events a few times a month as well.  He is so excited about this.
7. Breakaway has started for me ~ this is our churches ladies Bible Study time.  There are actually about 9 different studies going on between Tuesday morning and Wednesday night.  We head out to the Tuesday morning one, which means I need to be well organized and have plenty of seat work for the boys to do.  Our church has child care through 6th grade as Tuesday's Bible Studies are attended by a lot of homeschooling families.  I've also joined the drama team.  That adds lines to memorize and rehearsal times to my schedule.  First one went well.
8. Base Camp has begun for Kevin ~ this is the men's bible study at our church.  One study that the men can go to, either Tuesday morning or Wednesday night.  Kevin is leading a table this semester.  Basically keeping in touch with the guys during the week, encouraging a time to meet outside of Base Camp, and encourage Biblical growth.  They have chances to earn points and at the end of the semester, the table with the most points wins gift cards to local restaurants.
9. Two separate rounds of colds for me!  woo hoo, lucky me.  Okay, maybe not.  At least it's over and life can move on.

That is our month in a nut shell!

Life on the Oregon Trail

There is nothing quite like listing out what others have done to make you realize that your own life is fairly easy in comparison. Today, in Pioneer Unit Study, we took another look at "Life on the Oregon Trail". Here's what the boys found out:

· day began at 4:00 AM

· men first yoked the oxen or harnessed the horses; women and girls made breakfast (hot coffee, biscuits, bacon, and boiled beans)

· cleaned up camp

· hit the trail by 7:00 AM

· walk until noon

· “captain” would give the signal for lunch or “nooning”

· ate a cold lunch and rested for one hour

· 1:00 PM began to move again

· stopped for day at 5:00 PM

· Men took care of animals and made repairs to the wagon

· Women made supper, mended clothing, and gave lessons to children

· Children gathered firewood or buffalo chips

· After chores, they’d gather around the campfire, tell stories, read the Bible, or play fiddle or guitar

Average miles per day = 15

Speed of oxen = 2 miles per hour

Average hours walked per day = 9

Yes, my boys are happy to not have to walk for nine ours a day. I think Thing Two could handle it though, with all the energy he generally has.

Tae Kwon Do

The boys tested for their Senior White belts on September 11th.  The were excited because both boy past.  The downfall of this particular belt is that their teacher has to order the belts from a place that takes longer to get the belts.  So, on September 22rd the boys received their senior white belts.

 No idea what I did to the html code, but managed to get both of

the above photos stuck together.  The top photo is of Thing Two belt

being put on.  So obviously, the second photo is of Thing One getting

his belt.

After the class that the boys received their belts.

Pioneer's Unit Study

We're now in week three of Amanda Bennett's Unit Study for Pioneers. It has been such an amazing study of part of American History. Thing One and Thing Two are enjoying it immensely. I was really impressed with the boys today and how they are tying everything together from the previous weeks ~ they're making connections in ways that I just don't have to lead them too. Totally awesome. Then, as I was reading from a couple web site links, the boys starting drawing on their whiteboards various pioneer scene ~ pony express, wagons, mountains, explorers, etc. I was also excited to read that that this study leads into the Civil War time in the US History (my mental calendar of historical dates is not so good). Totally stoked because that is the next unit study we're doing. It's just the way things worked out without trying. SwEeT!!!!!!

Thanks Amanda, for a well written Unit Study!

Good School Day!

Today has been a fairly good school day! We got through most our school work, with little effort on the kids part and with minimal help from me.

Big news on the reading front. Thing Two brought down "Duck on a Bike" by David Shannon and read to me. This is the same boy, that even through the summer, was convinced he could not read. It may not be a chapter book, but for really just "getting" how to read, it's a descent length book for a new reader. He read about 98% of the book correctly. Guess it's time to get some more challenging books for him. I might just be able to convince him to try reading "The Magic Tree House" series, working on a chapter a day.

It really is exciting to see my kids taking off in a new or difficult subject. Love the front row seats.

Pledge!

Yes! The furniture polish. It's something to be thankful for when you have a Netflix dvd that doesn't want to play. A quick spray and wipe with a tissue and the dvd plays again! Woo Hoo!! If it's really bad, I might first spray with Windex, tissue it dry, then Windex, and wipe with a tissue. This hasn't failed me yet.

Upside/downside

inside/outside . . . .

of what exactly, is still to be decided.

Upside of today:

• it's Sunday
• we all made it to church (inside)
  
• we've got a bit of extra time, some of us anyway, as we went to the first service. Kevin is playing bass, so he's going to all three (inside)
  
• change in service times made it easier to get to the first service (inside)
  
• Quest Kick Off is this evening (outside)
• nap is calling me (inside)

Downside of today:

• lots of different places, only a small portion of us need to be, at varying times today (mostly inside activities, with exception of one outside)
  
• it's overcast outside and drizzling (outside)
  
• lots of cleaning to get to (inside)
  
• lesson plans to get to (inside)
• wanting to kick back and vegg without the long to do list
  

First day of Co-op

We're officially in our fifth week of school this year, but today marked the first day of co-op. It was fun seeing friends from last year, meeting new folks, and seeing the sparkle in my kids eyes as they were telling me about their classes. Think Thing one is the most excited about co-op this year; he is taking a cooking class and "Dangerous Boys" AND his best friend is in both classes. Thing two is taking free play/games (which for him is a good thing because he is a ball of energy) and Galloping the Globe; believe his best friend is in at least one of his classes which is nice too. Hopefully it won't cause trouble for their teachers because they can be a handful.

Couple things about the photo. First, yes, I'm late on the "first day of school" photo and I usually take them at the front door. This seemed appropriate, when I thought about because we home school and we've done/completed some school in the car. Second note, thing two is distracted by our neighbors dog, who had just been let out and likes to take a quick run through our yard. Not a big deal, because Bandit is a sweet dog and we've encouraged it.

So, there you have it, our official, first day of school photo for 2010/2011 school year.

Slow on the uptake

I am slow on the blogging thing! It's like an online diary of what ever you feel like writing about and are willing to share (depending on who has access, that is, to your blog. Yes, I have one that is by invite only.)

I have a new knitting project, a triangular shawl out of home spun yarn (see picture to the right). This particular yarn, is definitely high up on my favorite list. It is very soft and warm. For me, it took a bit of getting use to when I first starting knitting with it because it isn't spun tightly together. Home Spun is spun more loosely with a thread wrapped around it to keep the yarn together. Each skein has such variance in color, it is just beautiful.

Anyway, back to the title of this particular blog post "Slow on the uptake"! I am slow, in that it's hard to come up with titles for the whole blog, when there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of folks already blogging about the very thing you want to start blogging about. I went through this with trying to find a title for this blog with the words "Home School" in it. Then again with wanting to start yet another blog about knitting. I should probably just take some time to figure out what the main point is behind this blog and see if I can find a better title for it. Simply put, it's about "My Life", bet that's taken already!

Happy Birthday!

Today is Kevin's Birthday! Happy Birthday Hubby! Thought I'd list some thing that I like about him, so here it goes:

• he loves God
• he has a passion for playing string instruments
• he loves serving at church
• he's faithful to his quiet times
• he loves hanging out with our boys
• he enjoys teaching our boys any number of things
• he'll get down on the floor and play the same games with the boys over and over again
• he enjoys reading
• he has a good job
• he likes, most days, that good job
• he likes to cook
• he likes cooking enough, I barely have to cook on weekends
• he's an encourager
• he takes lead on disciple with the boys
• he helps around the house, a lot!
• he's fairly even keeled
• I still enjoy being around him as much as I did when we first started dating, but it's better because we have a history now
• we have fun taking the boys places and telling them about things that happened there (King Street Blues was really good last night! One of our first dates was there 14 years ago.)
• he's the love of my life
  

Happy Birthday Honey,

Woo hoo

It's Saturday morning, the weather (at least from inside) looks beautiful. Yesterday, Hurricane Earl left us with gray skies all day! As it's Kevin's birthday tomorrow, we had chocolate croissants from Trader Joe's. Those things are so yummy!

Love waking up feeling refreshed, that hasn't happened in a few days. Hope that feeling lasts through out the day. It would be nice to have a full day of feeling good!

Pizza Party Review

Earlier this summer, I volunteered to help review some of Amanada Bennett's Download and Go Unit studies. The first for the boys and I has been Pizza Party, which we received for free for reviewing it. It's been a blast because I'd been wanting to use this one for awhile now. At our house, we've been making pizza on Friday nights for about 9 years. It really seemed like a great way to get some history, geography, and art into our lives based off of a food we already enjoy.

For me, I have enjoyed the amount of information that is put into this unit. There are many links to Italian cities, various individuals, video's on making pizza, fun science projects, and so much more. Another feature I really appreciate are the links take you to the pages for the lap book pages for the day and a link to take you back to the page you were on. It's so easy to move around the down load with these and to be able to print what you need when you need it ~ I generally don't have time to print out everything at one time, let alone figure out which pages I need more than one copy. Being able to jump around like this, is absolutely wonderful to me.

The boys most favorite parts have been a couple different things. For Thing Two, it's been the art work, he really enjoyed making his self portrait on Day 2. It was neat to hear the two of them working together (Thing One did some self portraits for Cub Scouts and was "coaching" Thing Two on how to make a good picture!). Thing One has been enjoying the history ~ learning about how pizza came to America, people like Marco Polo, Vivaldi, Galileo, and doing some map work.

I think when Friday rolls around this week, the boys are going to enjoy our dinner a bit more with more knowledge of their favorite food now. We so look forward to working through more of Amanda's unit studies.

Happy Eating,

Happy September 1

Yes, September first! Ninth month of the year! Four days till Kevin's birthday. Public schools start in 6 more mornings around here. Six more full days of the pool being open, including today. Wednesday, which means sheets and towels get laundered around here.

What does September 1 mean for you this year?

My lists of hopes is long for the day and first on the list is hoping that my body allows me to accomplish my wish list!

Have a great day,