Snake+Turkey=Thanksgiving

Since HomeschoolBlogger (my real blog is there) is having problems, you all can read my son's latest cute story here. (I'll paste it over there when HSB comes back up.) This is the reason for duel posting - I often have login issues here and they often have site issues there, but as long as I can get to one of the two, I'm happy.

ANYWAY - Here's what #2 told me upon seeing a drawing of a cat with a snake in its mouth
(We were reading Animals at Maple Hill Farm.)

"One day we might hit a snake and then pick it up and bring it home and throw it in the oven. Then we might hit a turkey and throw it in too. Then we could have Thanksgiving - or maybe Christmas." :)

Not that we have ever eaten roadkill for dinner, but his little mind is always running, and you never know where you'll find him next.

Bedtime ... definately bedtime

It's been a really long day. #2 has pushed every boundary and bounced on every available nerve and pushed all my buttons. #3 missed his morning nap because we were at Bible study and only slept for an hour this afternoon. I'm exhausted. We did school during the hour that the baby was asleep, so that did get done - and that was the one thing that #2 did NOT give me a hard time about. Everything else he was determined that he would do things his way in his timing. I didn't let him get away with it, but it made for a really long Tuesday. I'm behind in the Iliad, I'm behind on another project, I have two rooms that need paint, two weeks of school to schedule as soon as DH gets back from the library, and do you know what I'm going to do with my evening? I'm going to bed with pillows propping my pregnant self in a comfy position. I promise to try to be more positive tomorrow in the morning, after a good long sleep.

It's official....

the ultrasound tech circled a picture of the boy parts. Our precious number four, who is well on the way, is certainly a boy. He's also healthy - growing perfectly with all organs and systems apparently intact - and he's busy and big, so there is no fear that he has cytochrome c oxidase deficiency or any other mitochondrial disease. Since our oldest son died in 2005 from COX deficiency, that is a relief. I'm off to change

About socialization.....

I had a friend ask me about the big S word, and I thought I'd record my answer here for all posterity. :) At least that way if I need it again, I can just come grab it. I'm sure I'll need it again.

As for socialization - if she can teach her kid how he/she how to behave in public and how to treat people properly and she takes him/her to the grocery store, the park, the library, McDonald's, the ice cream store - if she keeps her kid with her and teaches/trains behavior in all those areas, then the kid will be BETTER socialized than the herd (yes, I said herd) of school kids who learned how to behave in public from each other instead of from responsible adults. Her child will know that teasing is cruel, making fun of other's differences is unacceptable, physical violence is wrong, and that everything goes better if one is courteous and polite BECAUSE he learned all those things from his parents. If you think about it, elementary school kids - and especially middle school kids - tease, torture, hurt, and are generally rude because the herd follows the most powerful leader, and that leader has usually seized control - think back to those who made fun of us at Carver because we weren't the most beautiful :) They definately weren't the cream of the crop. What good does it do to have the herd mentality when you grow up to work and live with people of all ages?

First blog of 2007

I wanted to take a minute today to post some Not-Quite-Resolutions and wish you all a Happy New Year! I say Not Quite Resolutions because I've never made a resolution that I didn't wind up breaking by the third week of January. I'm going to think of these differently - God gives us all so much grace in everything we do, I'm going to give myself plenty of grace in these resolutions. I want to keep these goals in mind and refer back to them often. And if I don't meet my mark, I'll just keep trying.

Anyway - here are my plans:

1. Spend more time in prayer and Bible study. I've failed to make time for this over the last year, and I'm hurting for it.

2. Spend less time on the computer and more time doing my job - after all, my family is MUCH more important to me than my blog. Though, I won’t quit blogging because it is such a good way to chronicle our adventures, and it doesn’t get as backed up as scrapbooking does (I’m currently cropping January 2005 - I have much work to do there, too.)

3. Stick to the budget, which I need to rearrange in order to make it even feasible - but sticking to it and paying down debt is important to both me and my husband.

4. Read more and kill brain cells while watching TV less. This is actually a goal for my whole family. We all watch more than we need to, and while I don’t want to go to the extreme of getting rid of the darn thing (which does have its appropriate uses), I do need to curb its usage and turn it off more often.

5. Declutter and CLEAN. After all, we do have another baby coming in short order. We have to make room for him or her. If I’m not playing with the computer or watching TV, it should be a whole lot easier to get things cleaned up, huh?

So, those are my plans - things I’d like to change in 2007. There are a few things I’d like to learn:

1. How to shut off the mind and go to sleep when tired.
2. How to swim laps for exercise (would involve improving my skills)
3. How to care for a newborn, a 15 mo. old, and nearly 5 year old with grace and without losing my mind .

I have a list of things I’d like to read, too, but I’ll leave that post for another day. Right now, I’m trying to conquer Fagles’ translation of Iliad, and it is VERY slow going. I’m never going to meet the schedule at the Great Books Partnership.

Happy New Year, my friends, and many many blessing in 2007!

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A Review: Five Little Pumpkins from Hands of a Child

I purchased the Five Little Pumpkin project pack from Hands of a Child last month because I wanted to add something for the season to our little homeschool. This pack is for children between preschool and 1st grade, and it was pretty well suited for my four-year-old kindergartener. It was simple to order the ebook and print it out - no waiting for shipping!

There were many activities to complete or choose from. The project pack is set up in a five day format, with the student learning one verse of the Five Little Pumpkins rhyme every day during a "circle time" with the parent-teacher. Several of the activities are centered around the letter P, and some are centered around counting to and adding numbers to five, while others center around the color orange and pumpkin botany. The graphics for all of those activities are included in the ebook with the lesson plans. There is an art project or a craft listed for each day, too, though the materials for those are not included in the download. The materials are, however, simple to find - we had most of them in the house, and the one that we didn't have we were able to substitute for with a little creativity.

Here's what our pages looked like when they were completed. We left out a few activities that didn't pertain particularly to pumpkins. That's because we were putting the projects on the second P page of the alphabet book that we are building as part of My Father's World Kindergarten. So, this picture isn't of the traditional lapbook format, but of what worked for us for the moment. (That's another blessing of a project pack - you can follow the diagrams for assembly or you can put it together any way you want!)


A sample of the project pack in lapbook format can be seen here at In the Hands of a Child. This is the third or fourth HOAC product that we have used in our school, and we have been very pleased with the quality of their products and exceptionally impressed with their customer service.