Back to School Excitement

I'm excited.  Every afternoon I obsessively listen for the arrival of the UPS man.  Why? I'm waiting for my school books.  Our parent partnership program changes its rules every year and THIS year we got to order our books last spring if we had our learning plan submitted.  Since I happened to be pregnant and super organizedly nesty (I know those are not real words), I had my plan ready to go before the due date.

One of the funnest parts of homeschooling is reading every. single. catalog. that comes in the mail and obsessing over what subjects to teach and what curriculum to use.  And once you make up your mind for the millionth time, you get to order your stuff and get packages!  It's better than Christmas!  And the absolute best part about being in the parent partnership program is that I don't have to worry about how much anything costs or if I can reuse it for many kids over many years. No more buying one activity book and using clear plastic overlay and washable markers-everyone gets their own!

This is my seventh year homeschooling and I'm as excited as I was with my first year.  One thing I've learned about myself is that I need to keep myself distracted with something even better than what I'm waiting for.  Waiting for a baby is hard to top, but I can be distracted from package waiting by...ordering more things from Amazon.com with free two-day shipping thanks to my Prime membership.  Today I got some Huggies for Lula!  Can you believe she is wearing size 2 and is 12 1/2 pounds? Of course I'm just teasing myself with having the UPS man come down the driveway every few days.  Any day now the good packages will be here...

Shane's 9th Birthday

As I mentioned before, we set up the video games for Shane's birthday.  That was one present.  We thought about getting him a new system, but Mark had a good point about getting something that we would hate and say "no" to all the time.

Slackline!

Mark wanted a trampoline.  I didn't want the hospital bill.  So we settled on a Gibbon Slackline.  Go ahead, Google it.  Watch videos on You Tube.  A Slackline is like a tightrope and trampoline all in one.

Shane and his best friend

We invited a few friends and siblings over for cake and ice cream.  Shane got his favorite kind of presents.  They played and ate and played video games.  And that was about it!  A perfect birthday party for a 9 year old boy.

Cake-chocolate of course

Shane's birthday wish was having two birthday cakes.  Wish granted!  We had 14 kids and four adults (and more had been invited), so I had a second cake in reserve.  He isn't the best wisher.  He last week told me if he could have any wish in the whole world, he would want to find his missing pet rock.  I would so ask for more wishes!

Duhhhh...

Shane and Ian are back to marathon video game sessions.  I've never understood Super Smash Brothers, but they spend hours staring at the screen and pushing buttons.  I will be pulling the plug on them and the video games Friday.

Happy Lula Joy

This is how Lula greets me in the morning.  She slept twelve hours with one wake-up/feeding around 5:30 AM.  She was in a soaking wet cloth diaper that leaked all over the bed behind her.  I have never had such a happy baby.  She is so content to just sit and smile at her family and she doesn't cry when she first wakes up from a nap.  If no one comes in to visit her after 15 or so minutes, she will start to cry.  But if we are there soon after waking, she will just stay where she is a smile, smile, smile!

Return of the Video Games

Two years have passed since I banned the Nintendo and Playstation.  And I never wrote about it.  Here's a quick recap: Shane was a video game junkie.  It all started when he was almost five years old and Ian was sick and needed rest.  We let Shane play just to keep him from jumping on Ian.  His playing quickly turned crazy.  He would get up at 6:00 in the morning and get his schoolwork done by 7:00 so he could play (I had to teach him what 6:00 looked like on the clock so he wouldn't get up earlier than that).  He learned the days of the week so he could count how many days until he could play again.  Then we had to move and kept the kids from messing up the house while we tried to sell it.  And after we moved here, we sometimes needed to keep them out of the way and quiet.  He dreamed about video games, he colored video games, everything was video games, video games, video games.  Shane was able to remember all sorts of strange things about the video games...like in which order he found certain things... like once he said, "That balloon up there was the 19th balloon that I found."  He also said, "I remember the day Daniel was born.  I was the day I got the boomerang in Zelda."

Two years ago it got so bad that I decided to let him play video games as long as he wanted just to see if he could self regulate.  Nope.  Three days of playing in isolation.  We didn't tell him to eat or sleep, we left those decisions completely up to him. We wanted to see if he would get bored, turn off the machine, and come out to see what everyone else was doing.  And he never did.  The first night we all went to bed and he kept playing until he was so tired he couldn't play anymore.  Then he came out and wondered where we all were.  I felt terrible about the whole thing, but I felt like I needed to finish my experiment.  The other kids, especially Ian, were super worried about Shane.  Shane was no longer able to hold a conversation or walk without tripping.  It was really weird.  So we took the systems down and put them in a box.

In honor of Shane's 9th birthday, I told them if they cleaned the house we would set them up again...

...and my zombies are back!

My Favorite Two Year Old

God's plans are always perfect.  He knew that I would be spoiled if Lula was my first baby and he knew that I'd go crazy if Daniel were my first two year old.  Since Daniel is my 5th two year old, I have that wonderful perspective only years and years of experience can give...*laughing at myself*  My kids enter the terrible two's around 15 months of age and don't leave until...well, some of them haven't left the difficult age yet...I know I haven't!

Daniel's "smile" for the camera

I saw a mom and dad in Costco today with their one child.  She was throwing a fit and refused to walk with her parents in the direction they wanted to go in.  The mom said to the dad, "I guess we are not going back to the wine section."  I laughed and said, "She must be two!"  I could laugh because my two year old was at home, I had been away from him for an hour, and I missed him.  Of course, MY two year old is so well-trained that if I wanted to go to the wine section, he would say, "Yes Mama!" and trot along after me not touching anything!  *snort*  Lucky for me, Daniel happily follows his older siblings because walking and not riding in the cart is still such a novelty.

After dumping sugar on the counter, he falls off the chair eating it

Daniel's latest thing is to defy anything we say with, "No, I'M..."  This is a LOT of fun.  Mark says, "Daniel, you're bugging me!"  Daniel says, "No, I'M buggin' me!"  Ian will say, "Daniel, I'm a rat fink!"  Daniel says, "No, I'M a rat fink!"  I will say, "Ack! Mina's going to kiss me!"  Daniel will say, "No, I'M going to kiss you!"  Oh yes, he is so fun.

Naps are like hitting a giant reset button!

The theme of the summer has been the Fruits of the Spirit.  It just happened to land on my lap during Vacation Bible School at our church.  All of us are working on our love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control.  I'm loving the walk down memory lane listening to The Music Machine.  ("Isn't God good when he asks us just to love like he does?") And what better way to work on those traits than living with Daniel?  And Fiona? And the rest of us?  Patience is the big one! ("Have patience, have patience, don't be in such a hurry! When you get impatient, you only start to worry! Remember, remember, that God is patient too and think of all the times when others have to wait for you!")

Piano Wizard

At long last, I'm finally writing about Piano Wizard.  Piano Wizard is simply a video game method of learning to play piano.  We bought this for the kids about two years ago and I had music scheduled as part of the kids' school day.  I took five years of piano lessons in elementary school and sang until I graduated high school, so I felt quite confident in my ability to teach my children music.  Unfortunately, Piano Wizard did not fit into my preconceived notion of teaching music.  I felt like I had to spend a lot of time getting to know the program so I could set up lesson times and figure out how I could monitor how well each kid was playing and keep track of their progress.  Like that was ever going to happen! Plus, I was hung up on teaching the language of music reading-a sure way to kill their interest in music and make it just another lesson!  So, the keyboard sat to the side of the computer table, collecting dust and spider webs... until this summer.

When I was nesting before Lula was born, I pulled the eyesore out of the corner and set the program up for the kids per their request.  This time, I showed them how to start the program on the computer and set them loose.  I was done trying to be in control of their learning and just wanted to see how "Squirt did flying solo."  It was summer vacation, I was getting ready to have a baby, and I wanted nothing to do with micromanaging their time.  The kids played their way to learning piano in a way I could never imagine...

The idea is quite simple, yet it is an ingenious trick.  Each key on the keyboard has its own color.  All the C's are plain, D's light blue, E's orange, etc.  All the black keys have dark colors and the white keys are light.  The first level is played like the picture above.  As the object colored to match the key approaches the top, you have to press the key to make the object "explode" on the picture of the keyboard on the screen.  The backgrounds and objects are customizable; there is a space background, a concert hall, a scene of dinosaurs, etc.  The whole point of the first level is to get the player familiar to where the colored keys are located in a horizontal manner.  As soon as the first song is mastered, the player can either move up in difficulty visually or try a new song using the same level.  This is about the time I gave up trying to schedule music lessons two years ago-which way should a person go?

The second level is the same as the first as far as objects, colors, and background, but the objects now move from the right side of the screen to the left side of the screen.  You can better see the two lines on the colored keys that show when the player is supposed the hit the key to explode the object.  The purpose of this level is to switch the horizontal placement of the keys to the vertical alignment of the notes on a staff in the player's mind.  It's quite brilliant!

In the third level of difficulty, the player is now reading notes.  They are colored, but they are note shaped.  And predictably, the fourth level changes the notes and keyboard on the edge to black and white and the player reads the standard music staff.  When the song is over in all levels, you get a score based on note accuracy. 

This is the way my kids used the program: They played several of the easier songs on the first level and then tried them on the second and third.  They would then pick a few more songs and learn them on the first level and work their way up again.  They considered a score of 100% "beating the level" and would then advance to the next song.  After a few weeks, the boys felt comfortable learning new songs on the third level, but they also liked the fun screens so would go back just for fun.  They didn't worry about proper fingering; they used whatever finger they felt like (which bothered me-adding finger numbers is an option in the advanced mode, but they aren't ready for that feature yet).  I did try to show Shane how much easier it is to play Fur Elise (modified for the game) if he walked his fingers like a spider.  If I caught anyone just banging all the keys at once so they could get a perfect score, they would lose their turn for the rest of the day (that was mostly Evie and Fiona)!

Okay, so what? So they've memorized some songs and can play them on a computer keyboard with colored stickers.  Does it translate to REAL piano playing?  Maybe.  It certainly created an interest in pulling out our small keyboards so the kids waiting for their turn to play had something to do.  Ian and Shane were able to play the songs they learned in Piano Wizard on the keyboards without ever having to learn the names of the notes, what octaves, keys, or time signatures are, or why notes come in different shapes-and they weren't dependent on the colored stickers either.  Ian has even pulled out my old music books and is trying to read music all on his own.  They also asked questions- Why do you say that Mary Had a Little Lamb and Merrily We Roll Along are the same songs when we play them using different keys?  What does the rest of Ode to Joy sound like?  Why does this song sound so sad?  What does this mark over the notes in your music book mean?  I wrote a song, can you write the notes down for me so I can read them?


I also enjoyed playing around with Piano Wizard.  I could not play a single song if the colors were turned on.  After sight reading music for years, the colors totally threw me off.  The kids were appropriately impressed when I would play a song for the first time on the fourth level and score higher than 70%!

To wrap this up, two summers ago the kids would ask, "Can I play Nintendo?"  This summer, I constantly hear, "Can I play Piano Wizard?"  YES!  Just plug in the headphones, okay?

WashJam 2012

This blog post is a bit overdue!  I blame the kids-they hog my computer with their Piano Wizard playing (I promise, I will post a review by the end of summer).  So...

...Mark, Ian, and Shane went to WashJam.  WashJam is a Scout jamboree held every four years in our lovely state of Washington.  This event cost about $30 per scout for four days and three nights of fun (you bring your own food, but water was provided), which is way cheaper than a plane ticket to the East Coast for the National Jamboree.  WashJam was held at Joint Base Lewis-McCord and over 4000 scouts attended according to the newspaper!  There were so many great activities for Cub and Boy Scouts.  Mark took as many pictures as he could before the camera died when they went swimming...

Shane and other scouts from our pack

Ian, Shane, and a Cub

Umm...Totally a Shane-ish Pirate

Ian rock climbing

Ian on the obstacle course

Yes, they actually got to drive these!

More fun courses

"Sword" fighting

Canoes (there were kayaks too)

The last picture before the "waterproof" camera died...

There was also shooting sports, a Black Hawk helicopter to explore, magic and talent shows, attacks by zombies on a hike, and all sorts of stations where Boy Scouts could work on merit badges.  I wish I could write more about how awesome WashJam was, but I wasn't there.  Maybe one of these days I can get Mark to guest blog about his time there.  You can see more pictures on the WashJam Facebook page-they aren't of my kids, but you can see all the activities.  I highly recommend that my scout friends up north come down in four years and join us!

Fiona Sings

Unlike Fiona in the Shrek movies, my Fiona can sing!  I had no idea she could carry a tune so well!  I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but...well, we just don't do a lot of family singing unless it is a silly song.  I tried to sing to my kids as they grew up, but they would just cover my mouth and tell me to stop.  Now that they are older, they will sing the Gilligan's Island theme song, a few Christmas carols, and Veggie Tales silly songs with me.  I'm not that bad of a singer; I can carry a tune even though I'm not Broadway material.  I don't know anything about teaching kids how to match their voices to what they hear.  But it looks like Fiona has an ear for pitch!

Being a Yes Mom

When the big boys are away, the girlies will play.  When Evie asked if we could have a sewing party and invite Grandma, I said yes.  Well, we didn't get any sewing done while Grandma was here, but we had a lovely time chatting and eating cookies!

Daniel survives Girl Time by napping in front of Thomas

After she left, we dug into our projects.  I really wanted to dig into the projects I bought fabric for yesterday, but Evie asked if I could fix Puppy for her-again.  I said yes.  Evie made another bag for my Kindle:

She folds a piece of felt in half and sews a running stitch along the edge- Sewing 101, right? When she asked if she could make another (third one) bag for my Kindle, I said yes.  But this time she learned the whipstitch!

When Fiona asked if I could now fix her stuffed bunny, I said yes.  When she saw Evie sewing, she asked if she could learn how to sew too!  I wasn't sure if I had the nerve to hand Fiona a sewing needle...but I said yes.

The look of concentration on her face is priceless.  I felt like I was witnessing the birth of the modern Dr. Frankenstein.  Only her monster is a pink bunny.  She learned the fish bone stitch.  I've found the fish bone stitch to be the best for fixing stuffed animals.

My project has been dubbed The Smart Baby Burp Cloth.  My mom says I should sell them on Ebay (and Etsy- I could name my store Crooked Seams because that is how well I sew).  Because black and white designs are supposed to stimulate a baby's brain and make them smarter, what better way to multitask?  Burping time is wasted without this educational opportunity!

I've seen black and white geometric borders on nursing bras, so why not burp cloths?  Maybe I should call them Baby Frankenstein Burp Cloths instead (Baby Einstein is taken) in honor of my crooked seams.  And by the way, I'm totally making fun of myself.  I'm not serious about trying to make my baby smarter during burping time.  They get smart enough on their own without my help!

Lula Smiles

Hot, Hot, Hot

I don't like hot weather.  Anything over 76 degrees is too hot.  Today reached 96 degrees and the inside reached 77-one degree too warm for me!  The heat makes me grumpy and I feel like dried up vegetation ready to flame up at the smallest spark.  That is why I am so glad that Mark and the boys get to go camping this weekend.  It has been a long hot week and the week isn't over yet.  Lula doesn't like the heat either.  If she isn't sleeping, she is fussing because we are sticking to each other!  I am so thankful we replaced the windows and we no longer live in our old house.  That house reached 85-in the coolest part of the house!  I remember canning when the kitchen was that hot and wondering why all the berries needed jamming in the middle of the heat wave...

Today I covered all the windows with blankets, refused to let the kids play outside, brought the fans down from the attic, and made sure everyone drank their water.  I'm not planning on making dinner either-we are having cold cereal and maybe blueberry smoothies if I feel like making them.

Picture courtesy of my friend JB!  I stole it from Facebook!  Hahaha!

This was the funnest thing we did this week-maybe this whole summer!  My friend had this great idea to get ice blocks and go sledding.  We met a bunch of other homeschooling families at the park yesterday and swam and sledded to our heart's content.  That picture is of me going down the hill with Daniel on my lap.  Thanks J for taking pictures!  And coming up with the idea!  All you have to do is buy block ice, use an old towel to sit on, and sled! 

All in a Day's Work

Yep.  All in a Day's Work.  Nothing special, nothing exciting.

Most of the firewood is chopped and stacked.  Mark and the boys do this job in the morning before the sun gets hot.  The boys set a line of wood on end so Mark can chop, chop, chop.  They then stack the chopped wood or reset it.  It makes the chopping and stacking go much faster. We have double (at least) the wood we had at the beginning of last winter.  Mark has to lift the boys on top of the wood pile so they can stack it!

I'm picking the green beans and freezing them for winter.  We have a bumper crop of beans this year.  I'm loving my Food Saver for this job.  I've canned and dehydrated, but this is the first time I've blanched and frozen.  I can't believe how easy it is.  I do flash freeze the beans before I vacuum-pack them.  It keeps the water from interfering with the seal.

Thanks to the planting of an entire package of seeds, we also have a bumper crop of yellow summer squash.  I'll be making and canning relish this week.  Relish.  Every time I read that word, I want to say re-LISH instead of RE-lish.  Rhymes with delish!  I counted 30 squash in the garden and that does not include what I've already brought in.

So much for me not having anything to do with gardens this year!

Evie Loosens a Tooth-and Loses it!

Why is Evie so happy?

She is going to lose her tooth today!  The lighting in the lower living room was perfect for picture taking yesterday, so Evie hammed it up for the camera.

 I love her shiny green eyes and chipped blue nail polish.  I also loved her ideas for getting the tooth out!

She wanted to do the tie-the-tooth-to-the-door-and-slam-it idea, but she also improvised and came up with tying her tooth to something heavy and dropping it.  Another idea was having Shane knock it out while jumping off the couch like last time.  My absolute favorite was tying the tooth to Jack the Pirate and opening the door so he could chase a cat.  She would lose the tooth, but she would REALLY lose it and have nothing to leave for the Tooth Fairy.

We are just going to let it fall out by itself after much wiggling sometime today.  And how did I get such a pretty daughter?

Later...

"Look. it's even more loose!"

"Try twisting it out."

"Now it's stuck!"

"I guess you just have to pull it out!"

 

One Month

Lula is now one month old and is no longer a newborn.  Wow, time sure flies!  We are trying to get her to smile for the camera, but it is slow going.  We get a lot of pictures of:

But we did get this one!

We are still trying to figure out which sibling she looks most like. What do you think?  And can you guess which baby is which?