It's my 200th post!!! :)

I don't post with much regularity or really have anyone that reads what I write anyway, but this is officially my 200th post here on my blog.  I started to keep in touch with Adam and with family since we live out of state, but Adam couldn't tell you my blog address if someone paid him and I'm nearly certain that none of my family members have ever stopped by.  But it's totally fine, I blog because I wanna.  I blog because I like to write...though I never write about anything that interesting to others...just my life with the boys.

Tomorrow Jaxon turns 2.  Already.  My little guy is growing up so fast!  It's hard to believe that we'll never again have little baby clothes to hang up in the closet, or a cute little swing in the living room, or a brand new baby to hold and snuggle.  Sometimes the finality of our decision to stop having kids is sad.  Sometimes the thought that I'll never have a daughter is a little more than sad.  But the constant reminders of my amazing life with these amazing boys is overwhelming and wonderful.  I'm so blessed.  The idea that we'll soon be able to go places without worrying about diapers and sippy cups does sound pretty exciting.  :)

Today we finally got started on school work again.  We took a break for Christmas and because we were outta town and we definitely needed to get back on track.  Because we'll be moving in just three weeks, I'm trying to keep things light and not too overwhelming.  I'm hoping to get the next six weeks planned out this weekend.  Adisson did ok today, but grumbles so much about math that he ended up doing twice as much work because of his attitude.  I don't want to use school work as a punishment, but I want him to understand how great it is that he learns at home.  Even with extra work today, we only schooled for three hours.  I mean, he got to spend a chunk of his afternoon playing the xbox with his Dad.  You think he would have been a little less grumpy. :)

Zander did his school work today.  He's learning to write his letters and I told him after he's done with that, he gets to work on learning to read.  He seems pretty excited.  I'm excited to be the one who gets to teach him to read.  I get to be the one that sits beside him as he learns how words go together and as he figures out what it's like to read.  To be a reader!! :)  It's an exciting thing for me!!

I didn't have my treatment today because my hemotologist's office didn't get my insurance referral secured before today's appointment.  :-/  It was a little frustrating because my old doctor's receptionist would have never let that happen.  She took care of everything for me.  And I miss her.  :)

So I guess it's about that time.  I'd like to get some cleaning done tonight so I can sleep in a little tomorrow before my favorite 10 month old comes over.  But that would mean Jaxon would have to quit terrorizing me, the dog, his dad, his sleeping brothers....in order for me to do that.  :)

Who let the CAT in? Who, who, who?

So today we've been testing. Adisson's taking his first California Achievement Test. It's not required until next year but I'm interested in seeing how well he does and since he's not used to testing (we don't do tests around here because I don't need him to prove mastery of a subject. We don't move on until there's mastery of a subject.) I wanted him to have a year of practice until it's required.

So far he's doing really well. I'll send the test off when he's done so it can be scored. Scored just means we'll find out how well he's done compared to other second graders that have taken the test, we don't actually get a "score" of how many he had correct. Fortunately, I am as smart as a second grader and I can grade the test myself to see how many he has correct.

And for the first time today, Zander and I did a Before Five in a Row book, Caps for Sale. That's almost embarrassing to admit because we should have been doing them for the past few years. But it went splendidly well and I'm hopeful that we can get through the whole Before book by the time school starts in the fall and Zander may be ready for some early Five in a Row books. That's weird to think about....Adi started doing Five in a Row when Zander was a tiny little baby!! :)

Jax has been more than a handful today, for the past two days actually. God bless his tiny little gums for being so sore and because he teethes more than all the children of the world combined. :) He's in a better mood now that Daddy is home, though.

Gotta get back to test proctoring. Only a few more questions to go. :)

Finally, a Dedicated School Room

Packing has slowed to a crawl. We are currently at 21 boxes and twelve 30 gallon tubs (10 of them are filled with school stuff). We still have 17 days until we start moving in and still need a lot of day to day stuff (or so we think) so we aren't sure where to go from here, I guess. My goal for tonight was, and still is, to finally get the school closet finished.

When we moved here, we set up our living room and our dining room which are techinally in the same room. I hate open floor plans, by the way. That left us another space in the back of the house. Some of my neighbors use it for their dining room and the rest use it for a playroom for the kids. Because we have so much school stuff, I knew what the primary use for the room would be. But....I never really committed to this room being our school room. It has our desks set up and our dry erase board on the wall. We have (had) our laminated maps put up, a few other school things, but this never really became a learning room for us. I vowed to the boys that things would be different in our new house.

In our new place, we have a living room and a den. Adam also has his own game room and the boys have all their own rooms as well. To me, with the season of life we're in now, it doesn't make sense to me to have two "living" rooms. So I've decided that the den downstairs will be our dedicated school room. Bookshelves, learning tools, tables, chairs, books, toys. The works. We have it, we just never get the stuff out because it's in the school closet. That will finally change.

I'm pretty excited to turn that room into a place where we can all be and learn and have a good time. Where unfinished projects have a home, where books have plenty of room, where toys are welcome. Pretty excited indeed.

Yay for getting lots of school stuff done today!

Last week we reviewed spelling words we had used in the last six weeks of last year (when we started with My Father's World). This week, we finally got a new list going. The words are pretty easy for Adisson, but it's the curriculum MFW recommended and I guess I'll just have him stick with it.

He also worked on his puncuation (period, question mark, and exclamation point) and handwriting, had some more math review, and discussed Ben Franklin. We did a science experiment on yeast. We put yeast in a glass with sugar water and yeast in a glass with salt water. Here are our pics:
Experiment Picture 1

Experiment Picture 2 (just 90 minutes later):

We stopped the experiment then because Adisson was sure the yeast would explode everywhere.

We've also been reading The Courage of Sarah Noble and today went over new vocabulary words and discussed how fear could be measured even though it's a feeling.

And after the yeast experiment, we made bread. :) I'll hopefully have pics later of us eating it!! :)

This year we are learning with My Father's World. We started it at the end of last year and it seems to be going really well. Adisson is really into American History, and while we both really loved Five in a Row, it felt like MFW would be a better fit right now.
This week we mostly did review work over the first six weeks (what we covered last school year) and started on week 7. We discussed more early settlers and their interactions with the Indians. We made a canoe from construction paper (pic coming soon!), made and mapped a sundial, made play dough, and worked on punctuation. It was a great week!

Because my family is so far away, I'm soooo hoping that I can keep my blog updated this school year with what's going on with us and our homeschool. We'll see. :)

Here are some first day of school pics:

Yesterday was super productive for me and I hope today I can get some more stuff done as well. I got Adisson's whole first semester of First Grade (!!) planned out and made a complete list of all the things we'll need to order this month. I'm hoping to get the second semester planned before the end of the week. We'll be ordering a lot of items from Rainbow Resource to complete our list of "gotta haves" and also a few books from Abeka. He'll still be using Five in a Row as his unit study curriculum this year as it's so amazing and we love it dearly.

Our school year is going to start in August. I scheduled the year to have two different schedules. His full schedule will include the following:

Bible Study by Explorer's Bible Study
Complete Arithmetic 1 and start Arithmetic 2 from Abeka
Reading, 2nd Grade Readers from Abeka
Spelling and Poetry 2 from Abeka
Language Arts by Queen's Language Lessons for the Very Young
State Studies by Fifty States Under God for Young Learners by A Helping Hand
and our favorite
Unit Studies including Social Studies, Science, Art Appreciation, Language Arts, Health, and Math from Five in a Row

We'll be working hard in August and September as we'll have to take some time off in October to move to Maryland. Back to work at the end of October and for the rest of the year as we'll take a little bit of time off while I have Baby M.

Even during our "off times" Adisson will still be working on a "Light" Schedule. It's better if he continues to work on math daily so we won't be skipping everything while we're moving and having a baby. His light schedule is the same as above but will not include Unit Studies or State Studies.

Zander, my little sweetheart, will be working on a few things this year as well. I recently purchased an amazing File Folder workbook and a laminator and have been making file folder games for Zander. He loves what I have made so far! :) I really like making them for him as well. I also participated in a Preschool Activity Bag Swap a few weeks ago and have acquired 16 different activity bags for him to work with. I'll be adding a few (hopefully 9-10) more bags to the collection that I have made myself. He'll be starting on Before Five in a Row soon, but not just yet.

Now I've got to get some cleaning done and get everyone ready for my OB appointment today. Adam has a busy day at work so he's not able to come home to keep the boys so we're all going to meet up at the hospital. And it's nearly lunch time and the natives are restless. I'll be back soon with some more school planning updates.

So we're still working on The Tale of Peter Rabbit. With the Fold-N-Learn from Five in a Row and all of the goodies we found at Homeschool Share, we've had plenty to keep us busy for awhile! Adisson's still really enjoying this book. I love it when he really enjoys what we're working on, it makes it so much easier and way more fun.

A few weeks ago we started a Notebook. I just grabbed an unused one subject spiral bound notebook we had already. I wanted to use something inexpensive in case it wasn't something we decided to stick with. Well, Adisson really likes it. He loves flipping through what we've already learned and reviewing it. I like it too because I think that just helps cement past topics in his head, at least for now. :) Next year we'll get a nicer notebook. In the meantime, he's SO EXCITED to show his grandparents his notebook when they come to visit this weekend.

I'm still working on some Tot School goodies. I've decided to have 15 activities ready to go and then plan out the five we are going to use for the week. I want to work on Letter of the Week stuff with him, but he's just not interested in it. I don't want to make him do any of it...he's just 2. But I would like to print off some coloring pages, either just to color (ie. something fun like an Easter egg) or something to color that is a little more educational (ie. a letter or number coloring sheet) so he can work on that as well as his other activity.

We're also working on some Easter activities this week. Yesterday we made a tomb from salt dough. I'm hoping we did it ok because it is not turning out exactly as I had hoped, but there's still time for it to work out. :) We're also making some other crafts I found in Five in a Row Holiday and our Easter Fold-N-Learn from Five in a Row. I love making new traditions. :) I just love thinking about when the boys grow older that they'll remember holiday traditions with fondness and remember what fun we had doing them as they were growing up. I'm hoping to post pictures soon, just as soon as I get the camera all gathered up. :)

We're waiting on some important decisions from the Army this week. Pretty big decisions. I'm praying and praying for this situation. I'll let you know how things go...and what has been decided once it's been decided. :)

My homeschooling head is heavy tonight. I often feel like I don't do enough with the boys. Part of me wants to just enjoy having little kids right now and not be so strict and regimented with learning. Adisson's only in Kindergarten and I feel he exceeds expectations of public schooled kids so part of me just wants to let him enjoy these last few months of being silly and having a good time more often than not. I know, life is still fun in the first grade! and that it won't be too much different than it is now. I'm just hoping that next year we can have more of a schedule, a plan, a routine, and expectations of what needs to be accomplished each day for school.

And my little 2 year old. Some Mama's do some amazing activities with their toddlers and we don't do enough I don't think. I know I shouldn't compare but I am now wondering, am I not pushing my kids enough? Are they not learning enough? Am I not using all the brain power in their little heads? Am I just too easy going when it comes to schooling?

I guess another reason I'm not more scheduled is that I'm often ill. I've been sick since Christmas. Some days are good, some days are not so good, and other days, it takes all that I have to get up. I know I should see a doctor and discuss possible issues (though I have a pretty good idea of what's going on), but I'm not sure how to approach my Care Manager (I don't see a doctor on post, but a nurse) with my concerns without sounding like a flake that spends too much time online.

I want to provide my children with the best education possible, and let me tell you, right now, I don't feel like I'm offering it. I am not even a little bit considering public school, but I am wondering how I can make this better....how I can be the homeschooling Mama I wanna be. I'm praying about it, pretty often, but I'll be praying even harder.

In the meantime, it's bedtime.