School Things....

Routine?? Schedule?? We are having a hard time following either of these. We are good for about two days and then life happens. School is still happening, just where ever we can squeeze it in somedays.

Anastasia has made her own number pictures for her workboxes, (See picture below). I fill her boxes with her disks for Switched on School House (which by the way is awesome and frees me up some and keeps her focused) in her other boxes are math, Awana, typing and some fun activities like sewing and drawing.The pictures are from Twlight and New Moon

We have finished our Life Cycle unit finally and even got the lapbooks togeher. I need to take pictures still. I am now trying to put together a unit on Medieval times with Knights and Castles. I want to try some Notebooking this time. We need a break from lapbooks (at least I do). We are on the search for large appliance boxes in order to make a huge castle in our front room. We will also be going to the Rennissance Festival later this month. As I get the unit together I will share what we are doing.

Here are some fun things I have added to their workboxes:

These are great printables from www.prekinders.com I was so excited to find these as we have pattern blocks but no cards and they are quite pricy to by. Well these can be downloaded and printed for free so I printed them on cardstock and the kids love them.

The next activty was found courtsey our game closet (maybe I should go clean it out and see what else I can find. LOL) Joshua brought down this game I had forgotten about and him and Savannah can do it. It is Rush Hour Jr. it is an awesome game for logic, skill and critical thinking. I think we are going to get Rush Hour for a family Valentine's gift.

Joshua took his first spelling test and got 100%. That lead me to share my latest discovery with you all. Some awesome spelling sites. I found spelling curriculum for free along with a great website for practicing.

www.sunflowerschoolhouse.com is an incredible site/blog that I have just begun to explore. Go to this page specifically for the spelling sites. I love www.spellingcity.com

Ok I think that catches us up on school happenings. I will post the letter of the week pages as soon as I take the pictures.

Jadon is 2 months old

Wow two months old! Look at our big boy he is almost 10lbs now. Jadon is doing very well he is the delight of our whole family. When he does get the occasional bottle the kids all fight over who gets to give it too him. The kids are getting excited because Jadon is reacting now and trying to talk and smile. No such luck with sleeping through the night yet but that is okay.

Here are some two month old pictures to enjoy

Where is Jadon? He he he

It's Party Time!

Tonight was Anastasia's birthday party. We wanted to put some space between it and Christmas and make sure I was up to having a bunch of giggling pre-teen girls spending the night.

It was a great evening for all. There were 8 girls total and we started the night with making homemade pizza and while it was cooking the girls played Rockband. After the pizza there was fondue with lots of chocolate and lots of things to dip in it. YUM!

We decided to make a birthday cookie instead of a cake since we were doing fondueGraham crackers, strawberries, bananas, marshmallows and oreos OH MY!

Alexa loves her chocolate!

Happy Birthday to Anastasia!

Time for RockBand

It's the "Alexa Grin"

Savannah and Alexa had a "sleepover" in our room.

I took Jadon to bed around 11:30 and Jay stayed up a bit longer to keep an eye on things. When I woke around 2:00am to feed Jadon I could hear the girls in Anastasia's room but they were being good. When I woke up again at 5:00am all were sleeping soundly.

A fun evening for all!

Back to Weight Watchers

Alright it is time to get back to weight watchers. Jay and I are starting back up again. It is much easier to do when we are doing it together. I really love weight watchers because it is more of a lifestyle plan and not a "diet". It is fairly easy to follow and I can do it while still nursing Jadon. Following it is easy the hard part is getting myself motivated to get my rear on the treadmill that is sitting in my room and staring at me every morning as I walk by it. So I will keep you posted on our weight loss and some yummy meals that we come up with.

Zoo Field Trip

So we got to go to the zoo...the kids got their stuff done I wish I could say the same for myself!

We really enjoyed the day, it was beautiful weather and we had not been since April. They have added several new exhibits and Natasha loved seeing all the animals.

We packed our lunches and ate over at Harmony Farm as usual. We visited the new Komodo Dragon exhibit which was really cool except for the fact that Savannah got her elbow caught between a wooden pole and the glass enclosure. She wasn't even goofing around or anything so with a little lotion and water daddy saved the day!

When it was time to head home we no sooner got out of the parking lot and all the kids were snoring away! So I would say it was a good day. We are looking forward to going again next month and exploring a different part of the zoo.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

My kids keep me in stitches with some of the things they say! Here are two things that were said in this past week or so.

Jay was listening to the music for the Easter contada and Alexa was with him and she came into the kitchen and said listen mom "Lori to God, Lori to God" "It's singing about you". I tried to tell her it was GLORY to God but she wouldn't believe me and went on upstairs singing "Lori to God"

Gotta love 'em!

Jay and I were getting ready to go on a date night and I told Joshua I was excited to go out with his daddy but he said "it was disgusting because you kiss on dates eeewwww"

Back to a Routine......Kind of

We got back to school on January 4th (co-op) so we started at home on January 5th. We have taken it easy the first two weeks but the kids have still gotten quite a bit done. We are slowly getting into the swing of things with adding Jadon into our routine. One major thing we have changed is that Anastasia has started using Switched on Schoolhouse (SOS) curriculum. It is done on the computer and so far it has been working really well. It is making her more independant and keeping her focused and I can work with the others. I think we will definetly check it out for 7th grade as well at the homeschool convention this summer.

The other kids are finishing up their life cycle unit and the girls are still working on the letter J and T. We didn't start anything new yet. I told them if they worked hard the next two weeks we could go to the Zoo on Friday the 15th. Papa and Grandma Donna got us a family pass for this year. We are so excited. I think I needed the motivation myself to keep on track! I am having a hard time and just keep fliting from one thing to the next and not accomplishing much. So we will see.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

We spent a quiet evening ringing in the New Year. It was just us and Christina and I didn't get very many good pictures but we played Wii had a mexican fiesta and ice cream sundaes.

Here is our New Year Baby!

The 2 little ones ringing in the New Year!

The girls and their ice cream.

We had the girls celebrate with New York (which is 2 hrs ahead of us ). I didn't lie to them I just kept saying "it is midnight in New York" and finally Savannah asked me: "do we live in New York?" Ha Ha.

New Year's Resolutions:

I don't do a lot of Resolutions but I do have a couple:

1) Read my Bible more! This is a must.

2) Lose the baby weight. I have started back with Weight Watchers.

3) Keep the house more organized.

4) Keep school plans on track.

Do you have any resolutions?