August! Back to school!

We had a great back to school the 2nd week of August and got a good early start on things.

First day!! Our classroom looks a little different than most but it works for us! The kids have desks in their rooms, but they seem to prefer to work in the kitchen/dining room because that is where I am most of the time.

And no, they don't do school in their jammies, at least not most days!





We have already changed our schedule a bit! Have to find what works right? Anyway, when we first started I was trying to get up and work from about 3-7am and then be available to get the boys up, feed them breakfast and start school. But with that model I was just too tired when they needed me to be on target for teaching so that wasn't working. Especially because I have a household full of night owls who didn't like for mom to go to bed at 8pm! So now we start our day around 6:30 with breakfast, bible reading and showers and are ready to start classes by 7:30. They each get a weekly schedule with all the lessons they have to accomplish on the schedule for the whole week, and they get to choose the order they do them in. This seems to work well for us and they seem to like to hit it really hard on Monday and Tuesday and have lighter days on Thursday and Friday. We finish school around 2:00 or so and then they have an hour or so of free time and then they have to help mom with chores, cleaning and fixing dinner. After dinner we all clean up and then dad gets them ready for bed while I go work until my work is done. I usually get done around midnight or so.

Our time seems to fill up really quickly! I laugh at these folks who question me about whether or not we are worried about the socialization that the kids do or don't get...I really don't think socialization is going to be a problem for them! Let's just look ahead at next week's schedule! Friday Keenan has a friend coming over. Saturday they are going hiking with dad and some other kids. Sunday we have 2 meetings. Monday we only have school, all day! Tuesday we have a library meetup with some kids from their old school. Wednesday we have meeting. Thursday they have Lego Robotics club and they have the booster buddies meeting (Moms work on planning field trips and kids play). Friday morning we have a field trip to the Olympic Training Center and in the afternoon they have a middle school meetup at the Penny Arcade in Manitou. And that doesn't even include the 3 live class sessions that each of them will be attending next week!

I may find that we are more busy doing home schooling than we were with public school! But at least I know who they are socializing with and what they are doing!

So far they are both progressing really well with classes. Conner really zipped through the first 5 units of math since it was all review and now he is getting into some new stuff. The great thing about COVA is that he has that option. As long as he passes the assessments he can go on to the next lesson. Keenan is flying through Vocabulary, which I am sure is a surprise to everyone who knows him! Of course that would be HIS favorite class! Neither of them just love history but we are working on making that more interesting.

And I am developing a much more profound sense of AWE for those teachers in my elementary country school who taught more than one grade at a time! This is HARD! Keeping track of everything, covering all this material! It would certainly be much easier if we had them sharing ANY of their classes! But nothing overlaps this year!

Oh, and Conner had his birthday August 26. We had a friend over for the weekend and they made slime...a way too much fun science experiment! The made about 400 paper airplanes and then they went swimming all day Saturday. I made his cake, and it is obvious it is an amateur job but they liked the flavor and that is what matters!





PS....when you put a straw into the center of a ball of slime and blow air into it...it makes a sound that only boys can appreciate!

July!

Dad took the kids to the waterfalls, their favorite place to hike and play, to give mom a bit of a break one day.


And Keenan said that "nature was a great place to practice yoga"!



My kids proving that even big kids can have fun with Lincoln logs! Actually I told them that they had to get away from their computers and do something creative...and there was much laughing going on downstairs. When I went down there, this is what I found, with the question "Is this creative?"


Keenan wanted to learn to make meatloaf, then decided it was gross!


But he ate it anyway!



Then the school supplies arrived! They were both excited on that day...because now they are both home schooled!




Then back to Nebraska for a little break before school starts!

Cousin H had her first birthday...


Conner was educating cousin H about the gameboy..because all boys need to know how to operate one of those!

The kids found a big caterpillar and saw it make a cocoon. Apparently it was big enough that it made Uncle G nervous when he put it in the jar!


Grandpa got a new grain cart and the size was impressive to these city kids!

And then there was harvest!



We stayed long enough to pick lots of currants for jam and help can lots of peaches and pears, go swimming at the pool in Scottsbluff, see lots of friends but not for long enough! And then we had to head back home! Almost time for school to start!

Um....catching up?

Since I am so far behind...here is a brief "catching up" of the past few months!

We had mother's day in NE again and everyone was home for a lovely lunch prepared by the men, with lots of good food! (oh and cousin E's first birthday that week too!)

















Keenan and cousin K got a little silly and had a lot of fun!



Conner made a distiller for science class, and there was much concentration involved! The greatest thing about home school science is that instead of a bunch of kids watching one kid do the experiment, he has to do the WHOLE experiment himself!


Keenan finished 4th grade at the public school and he finished it in grand style with a "Hawaii day".



He had a field trip to Garden of the Gods



Conner stayed at Dean's house for calving and then went to preps at Antioch for a few days but I don't have pictures of that.

Laura came to visit and we hiked the Manitou Incline





We went to Antioch and had wonderful days there! Keenan made a big choice!

We went to Chugwater..and lived to tell the story! And only found 2 hail dents on the car and the windshield was still intact. We were very lucky compared to others!



We had a beautiful day to hike up Barr Trail about 4 miles each way





Coming up next? Harvest and a visit to Grandma's house!

A drawing!!!

I promise, I will get some pictures and a post with some updates done soon....really, I will....but right now I just wanted to tell you about a contest....

On Ramie's Blog....

For a Longeberger basket cookbook holder!

Go leave a comment and register for the drawing!

See you all soon.

February....

A busy month to be sure! Keenan turned 10, so now there is no one in this house in single digits unless you count the kitties! We had a big party for Keenan with some of his classmates. There was lots of sword fighting, eating blue cake and pizza, and NOISE!!!!! We had a group stay over night and it actually went pretty well for that many boys, they were pretty much asleep by 11:00, which was a good thing considering we were woke up with one of the boys having an asthma attack at 5:00!




























































Conner is doing great with school. It is his goal to go to grandma and grandpa Lerwick's for calving the first weekend of May and stay until Antioch time. We have told him he can if he is finished with school by then. It actually looks like he will be finished by the middle of April....oops, guess we will have to fill in some blanks! Actually, he did finish up math so he has the 8th grade math course arriving today and will be working on that when he finishes everything else up.

My boys love to be goofy! I told them to use some elbow grease to clean off the table. So here they go!


















We were lucky and had some special visitors this month! Uncle Grant and Aunt Kelley came with their kids and then Uncle Dean and Aunt Jen and their kids came too! We LOVE having company!





























































I am working more again. Sometimes it just takes a leap of faith to get out of a bad situation (the old job that didn't actually want to pay me for work) and know that better things await. Now I have more time to focus on family and home and the work that I do have is gradually and steadily picking up to where I will be about 3/4 of full time,which is just perfect. The old job had me at about 1 1/2 of full time! It was getting to be too much and I am glad that I jumped when I did.

We are getting more and more settled in the new house...now if we could just get the garage cleaned out so Kevin could park in there all would be well!

Art Contest

Conner spent a lot of his winter break working busily on his art contest entry. Today was the deadline, and after fighting with printers/scanners/computers etc.....mom FINALLY got the artwork submitted. So....here is his art competition entry. And coming soon we will have his sampler for school project. He is studying American Art and the point he is at right now is early 1800s and he gets to make a sampler.