Math: Done!

We are half-way through the math year! Hooray! Today we finished Lesson 66 and the first workbook of the two book set. The boys were happy to stage throwing their books away (although I wouldn't let them actually do it). Now on to the second half of the year...

The Week of Thanksgiving

I realized today that I have not posted anything for a long, long time. I couldn't even remember what I did this week! So I downloaded my camera and found out...

Here are my perfect kids behaving perfectly while we do our all-inclusive study of China. Of course, since I am the perfect homeschooling mom, we read all our history books, all our fiction and folklore books, did arts and crafts, learned Chinese calligraphy, and learned some Chinese words. Not! We managed to get the bowls done after a few readings and I put the rest off until next week.

Then we made our boats for the Cub Scout Raingutter Regatta. Like our performance in the Pinewood Derby last year, we Did Our Best. And lost. But now we know that we need to set up our own rain gutters and practice before actually racing.

After that was Thanksgiving. We bought our turkey a long time ago it seems, although we aren't quite sure of the date. I do know that I did not put the turkey away when we got home. I thought M put it away in the deep freeze. So in between mad dashes here and there and everywhere, I would sometimes think about the turkey and try to remember to ask M when to take it out of the freezer so it would thaw in time for Thanksgiving. But I never did. Plus in our family, M cooks, I bake. Turkey is not my priority nor my problem. On Wednesday, M called me and asked me to get the turkey out of the cooler and put it in the refrigerator since it was going to be in the 50's that day and too warm. The cooler? You mean, the turkey has been in ONLY A COOLER for TEN DAYS??? But it showed no signs of bacteria and we cooked it. And cooked it. And cooked it. And here is the turkey that wouldn't reach optimal temperature, the irritated cook, and the clock showing that our dinner was several hours late. If only M was holding a knife when I took this picture. Then it would be perfect.

We also had the pleasure of seeing L during the week and decided to have E's fourth birthday while L was here. L is not in the picture. I'm pretty sure I heard her say something about not wanting to be in the picture. And IJ no longer smiles for pictures. Punk!

E has her own Pokemon cards now! Goody! More cards for me to pick up and only return after the owner does push-ups. And she has marker kitty whiskers on her face, by the way (F has them too). Other gifts she received were Up (the latest Pixar movie-and one of my absolute favorites), clothes, and school books. Monday she officially starts school.

And the day after Thanksgiving, we took IJ's new archery set that he earned by selling Cub Scout popcorn outside for a test run. Or a test shoot. Or whatever archery sets do. It is nice having 15 acres to do things like this on. And look who I captured! Photographic evidence that L visited us! (She's the tall one, F is the short one- haha) And who can resist this little clown?

Scaredy Cat

I finally have a Scaredy Cat child. For years now, my boys have watched scary movie after scary movie without anything bothering them. Today, they are on the road with their dad, so I am taking advantage of their absence and watching Princess movies with my little girls.I had no idea that this face would cause E to hide behind her hands and cry, but it did. So I got to skip the scary part where the good guys fight the sea witch and go straight to they lived happily ever after.

Its a BOY!

I had the 20 week ultrasound this morning and we are having a boy! I tricked M by putting a card in a pink envelope. He asked, "Is this an 'I'm sorry' card?" He opened the card that said something like Congratulations on Your Baby Boy. He looked at me and asked, "...is it a boy?..." He looked closely at the ultrasound picture (titled Gender), pointed to his leg and said, "Is this his boy part?" Obviously, he was joking. But seriously folks, we are celebrating here!

Some random things...

This is what my kids look like in front of screens. M and A are also screen addicts. And I guess I like screens too... E is playing Jump Start, the current favorite video game at our house. All four kids will squeeze into one chair, causing pushing and complaining, until I add a second chair for them. And then they all play together and take turns. Talk about family togetherness.

Have I ever blogged about F in the pool? She is such a fish! She loves going under water, jumping off the side of the pool, blowing bubbles, going down the little slide, etc. Yesterday while in the pool, she was jumping off my knees and going under water. Apparently she changed her mind halfway through the jump. When I pulled her off the bottom of the pool, she turned around, glared at me, and yelled, "Hey! I...don't...wanna...dump!" She is only 18 months old! She talks better than any of my other kids and certainly has no problem telling us what she thinks. Here she is shooting the clock with the cats' spray bottle.And S. Sigh. He isn't really interested in reading, unless he is reading his video games or Pokemon cards and books. He is just that kind of kid. So yesterday I stopped off at the library and picked out some nonfiction books about subjects he is interested in (snakes, crocodiles, Great White Sharks). He happily read to himself all the way to the YMCA. So IJ gets the fairy tales and folklore, S gets the nonfiction, and E gets books about cats.

But math he likes, unless he has to do his daily worksheets. I tried to follow my curriculum and teach him how to add a long list of numbers by finding "sums of ten" first. The problem (I mean, "math fact" because math shouldn't be presented as a problem) was something like 9+3+4+1+3+8. He found the 9+1 right off but sat there thinking over the rest of the numbers. I thought he was still trying to figure out where the rest of the sums of tens were, but I was wrong. Way wrong. I tried to help with "What is 3+4?" trying to get him to find the seven and the other three add up to ten. But he answered "Twenty-eight."

Some days I want to throw math curriculum out the window and let him do whatever he wants; other days I want him to learn that he doesn't rule the world and he has to sometimes do what other people tell him to do. He is that stereotypical kid that is easily bored and entertains himself with humor. I ask what number I should write down when I'm adding the pennies in a story problem (or is it number story?) and he says "Triangle." I ask him how many hours in half a day, he says, "July." Giggling. I threaten to make him do push ups and he says, "Thank you sir, may I please have another?" I just love him.

IJ the Cook

IJ was so proud of himself this morning when he was allowed to make pancakes for his family for breakfast. AND use the grill. M told IJ that he was going to have to learn how to be a really good cook so he can get himself a wife as wonderful as his mother. IJ screwed up his face and blushed faintly. Did I mention IJ has reached that age where he will make "yuck" faces when he sees his parents kiss?

Creepy Crawly Day

Homeschool science sure is fun! We spent the day learning all about reptiles and worms at a local camp. Here are pictures of my snake handlers:

E-alized Medicine

Someone has been listening to the radio too much. She came out of the playroom last night with her play stethoscope and announced, "I am the Doctor and NOBODY gets to choose!"

For Big S...

...who thinks F gets unfair blog time ;)Today is all about my S. He is growing up into a big boy so quickly. When he was three years old, he loved Thomas. When he was four years old, he loved Lighting McQueen. When he was five years old, he loved Speed Racer. Now that he is six, he doesn't love Thomas, Lightning McQueen, or Speed Racer. He only loves Pokemon and video games. So yesterday he helped me clean all these toys out of the playroom and put them in a box to be thrown away. Because he hated them. But today he likes them again and I caught him playing with The King and the Mach 5. I've spent way too much money on toys for this kid. Hundreds of dollars wasted on die cast trains with faces and race cars with faces. But he did play with them until the faces and lead-based paint wore off...which might explain a few things...

Timber!

The rest of the big maple tree came down last night. M waited and waited for the rain, hail, wind, thunder, and lightning to stop. And when it did it was nearly dark! So he is busy today and here is the view from the other side of our pasture. We will be able to look through our big picture windows and see a lot more pasture, although I will miss the shade on those hot summer days.

Twanoh Chum

Yesterday M took a day off due to inclement weather. So we took a homeschool science field trip to Twanoh State Park in Belfair to watch the chum swim upstream and spawn. The kids were amazed that such large fish could struggle in so little water, just so they could spawn and die. We even got Grandad to come along, by promising the trail was short and flat and easy to walk. If you look right above the word "Fish" you will see a large chum resting:The first part of the walk was very easy, but my kids being their father's children, weren't satisfied with a short walk. We left Grandad in a nice flat part and followed the trail a little bit farther. Here are some other sights:

My tree huggers, says sarcastic M: All I could see of my children at one point See the red dot? That's E: And F, happy to pick little rocks off the trail and say, "Rock!"

Power Outage

We survived our first power outage in the wilderness. Barely. Oh we had enough food, light, heat, and water. After all, the power was only out for an hour. But some people just don't do well without power. And some people don't mix well with children while under the stress of having no power. So yeah. Barely survived. I took this picture in the dark while M was getting his flashlight. When the lights first went out, F cried and cried. I was holding her, so it wasn't like she was suddenly abandoned. I did not know she was so scared of the dark!

He's the Man!

And that is why he is in charge of cutting down trees. I might have hit the house with this one: And I'm glad I was in the back of the house when it fell because I would have screamed, "Run!" to my kids who were all in the room watching. M actually had to jump out of the way because the tree fell the opposite direction he intended. Instead of falling toward the pasture, it slid on the stump and twisted. M had been standing right where you see the end of the tree: It all reminds me of when he decided to cut down the tree in the backyard at the old place. He missed the porch by an inch, but squished the fence.

First Halloween Here

For the last five years I have spent Halloween with my dear friend and her kids. Change is hard, especially for me, so I tried to have fun...

We ran a booth for the Cub Scouts at the local community celebration instead of driving long distances to find a neighborhood for trick-or-treating. Our family donated a total of 15 hours of community service for the Cub Scouts! Even E worked by scooping out pumpkins and cutting out lily pads for the frog pond game.

Here are the kids in costume (Batman, Snow leopard, Unicorn, and Jedi):This little one won the Cute Costume award (although she isn't as cute with chocolate around her mouth): The handsome fella behind her won the Best Husband award (from me) because he ran the game booth for the entire hour we were there!

She wants to bite your candy! I don't feel bad at all that the kids didn't get to go trick-or-treating and gets tons of candy. Because they got tons of candy just for working. At the very end of the celebration we were cleaning up the booths. The lady in charge took all the bins of candy and dumped them on the floor for the kids to pick up. S came home with a bag literally bulging with candy. And mean mom that I am, they are working hard to earn the right to eat their candy by cleaning up the messes they have made all week!