Menu Monday and the Coming School Week

First, the food (because with me that always comes first)

Mon-relishes, ham cubes, cheese cubes, grapes, crackers ~all in a cooler at soccer practice

older kids will FFYS, plenty to eat if they make it

Tue-pork chops, scalloped potatoes, salad, strawberries

Wed-greek chicken, rice, green beans, lemon sorbet

Thu-spaghetti, salad, oranges

Fri-tacos, corn, apple slices& caramel dip

Sat-veggie soup, 1 hr french bread, ice cream

Sun-corn dog casserole, relishes, grapes

The school week plan

Greek Myths~reading aloud

Math~adding in your head

Vocab~homophones

Handwriting~ letters i,u,w,t

LA~Fact vs. Opinion, Story Maps, KISS grammar

History~ Babylon, Assyria, Early Jewish History

Science~ Erosion&Weathering, Recycling, Start Weather

We're finishing an Encylopedia Brown book at bedtime and maybe we'll move on to Ginger Pye next

Two

Baby girl turned two today. Birthday celebrations were cancelled however since she was felled last night with Dengue Fever or whatever mystery virus is still winding its way through the house. She, fortunately, is clueless. Her five year old sister voted for having the party anyway and keeping the birthday girl quarantined to her room until it was over. She explained that she could have cake that way and no one would get sick. Ah, sisterly concern. No two year photos or cake shots so I'll pull up some from two years ago.

Number 4 Falls

My fourth child has begun run the 'mysterious fever' . It is sweeping the house. It's the new rage. Ok, maybe not. Of course she had people coming over tonight and is invited to a big party tomorrow. She will be crushed if she can't go to 'the biggest sleepover ever' tomorrow. I shall ply her with motrin. My experience with the brothers though is she ain't gonna be better. And no,(I say this because people have been on my back) I didn't take them to the doctor to see if it's Swine Flu . Ooops, H1N1 (IN is a pork producing state after all, gotta be politically correct). If they had been truly ill of course I'd take them but this seems to be some 2 or 3 day fever/virus. Now if they start to oink or develop and aversion to bacon I'm gonna call

Stuff I Like

Don't Mess with Her

No Fake Crap, LOL

Eleven Years Ago

She has gone from this small (and evidently electrocuted, if the hair is an indicator) baby

To this vivacious, tough, smart young lady. Happy Birthday Honey. Love ya' more than chocolate!

Funducational Friday

Our first Friday after a full week. I'm opting to mix things up a couple Fridays a month. For all our sanities. Today we read Egyptian myths as part of our Egypt study and wrote our names in Heiroglyphs. We played online dinosaur games http://funschool.kaboose.com/time-warp/dinosaurs/ and did some dinosaur graphing from Enchanted Learning. We also did an addition quiz (horrors) and wrote three whole sentences about Egypt (double horrors) but it was mostly a good day and week. We got lots done in school. I've been using a bastardized workbox system so that at least one of us is in on the plan. I've decided (like nap time) it's not for them, it's for me.

Filling in One of the Little Sisters

Menu Monday

I have to take F to get a tooth filled today. That's about it on the excitement calendar.

Yes, I realize this is of no interest to anyone but me (and the people forced to eat my cooking) but I gotta put this somewhere so I remember.

Mon-chicken&rice casserole w/ broccoli, grapes

Tue-husband's delight casserole, carrots, strawberries

Wed-pasta w/spinach&cheese, fruit salad

Thu-ratatouille (ok, it's vegetable stew, but it sounds better all fancified) on rice, peach cobbler

Fri-cheese filled breadsticks w/pizza sauce to dip, fruit plate (all the bits and pieces w/chocolate dip)

Sat-corndog casserole, green beans, applesauce

Sun mac&cheese, broccoli and mandarin oranges

Life in the Fast Lane

This weekend included the Andrews Western Days Parade and Brethern Church Pancake Breakfast, the Van Buren Popcorn Festival, and swimming at Markle Pool (a water filled quarry folks). Bright lights, big city, that's my life.

First Day of School

High schoolers before leaving. Gotta love that sibling affection.

Middle and grade schoolers

Pre-pre-schooler

We're calling this homeschool PE

Not Yet

Please, can we stop the post-mortem on summer. It's August. No, I'm not glad the kids are going back to school this week. There's tons of time left. Time for

softball played by wistful girls

Potions made by princesses in pools

And milkshakes drunk shoeless under a tree

So have a popsicle, walk down dusty gravel roads, swim, flop down in the grass.

Eat watermelon and let it drip down your elbows, yell after dark and play bloody murder with your friends.

Get mosquito bites and chiggers and nettles and go back for more the next day.

Swing, jump out and do it again.

Savor the season, soon enough we'll be bundling and huddling. Use up the last bit of summer and drain the glass for every drop.

Bad

Someone resurrected the badminton set from the garage. The racquet's are sort of bent and missing some of the tape but oh well, we suck anyway. The pathetic part is that we've had a ball (so to speak) batting the birdie over the clothes line. There've also been way too many shuttlecock jokes but that's teen boys for you. The sad thing was that amid much laughter one of the kids noted that other families don't do this stuff. They don't hang out. They certainly don't do something as mundane as play badminton. Siblings don't associate. All of which may be more pathetic than us playing badminton.

Thanks to Some Unnamed Artist

Boring

The problem with a really good week at camp followed by going to the parks and going swimming is that if you have a gray, rainy day in which your mom has to change a flat and then go get the tire fixed it's booorrrriiinnnggg. I did get this though. I'll add it to the pile of ones that say I stink.

Menu Monday

All the chicks are back in the nest so I'll actually have to make food again this week. Camp was a huge success. Surprisingly, for some reason, F was a favorite of the counselors. Everyone loved F. Em kept asking them why, lol. This week

chicken&gravy over potatoes, carrots, banana pudding
macaroni&cheese w/hotdogs, green beans, fruit cocktail
homemade pizza, relishes, applesauce
hamburger gravy on noodles, corn, peaches
homemade pretzels and homemade nacho cheese sauce to dip or pizza sauce to dip, relishes, pears
potatoes&eggs, canned oranges
chicken stir fry, fruit salad

No particular order to these, it all depends on how busy we are.

Trying To Be A Planner

We jumped into the homeschool thing mid stream last year. We've kept at it since, doing a little bit every morning this summer (when F wasn't at camp, bible school or some other event) but.....we've just done whatever looked good in no particular order. This year will be more difficult. Miss Ads will be 2. Enough said there. Mel will be joining us too. She will only go to K from 8:30-10:30. K has become all day/every day here. I just think that is too much. I asked for a half day and this is what it will be. It seems the kindergartners eat lunch at 10:30. Good grief, I'm just considering something solid at that hour. Anyway, we will start the year this way because she really wants to go. If it's a huge pain in the behind I'll just keep her home second semester. Oh yeah, back to the plan. Can you see why I might need a plan. ADD mom here. I have figured out that 15 minutes is about as long as F can tolerate seat work so it's short and sweet and repeat.

We usually start at 8:30 too so
8:30-8:45 Singapore Math and Time4Learning Math

wiggle break

9:00-9:15 KISS Grammar M,W,F and Time4Learning LA
Creative Writing T,Th

9:30-9:45 Vocab/spelling

10:00-10:15 Finish any of the above work

10:15-10:30 Independent Reading

Sissy Home!!!! They'll do history and science together

11:00 Lunch, Sonlight History while they eat. It's read aloud.

12:00 Ads to nap, Sonlight Science

12:30 Read aloud story


Done!!!

In the afternoon they can do puzzles, read more, play outside or come with me to do errands and go to the library. I have workbooks that Mel likes to do for fun, just simple phonics and counting things.

P.E. is covered by playing soccer in the fall and spring and baseball in the summer. We'll probably participate in homeschool music classes for 6 weeks and he is a Cub Scout and attends church Kids Klub. His friends get home at 3:45 and he is out of here to play with them at 4:00. The kid has plenty of friends. Mel will play soccer and t-ball, be a Daisy Scout and attend Kids Klub. She is harder to find playmates for because people don't tend to let their kindergartners run around on their own as much as third graders.