Is It Naptime Yet

Somehow we got a bug at Pine Valley. Sam’s daughters have had runny or stuffy noses, and Lilah and I have sore throats and Eden’s developed a fever today. 🙁

Today is my errand day, but since we’re all a little under the weather the television has been on a lot. I am trying to keep it educational, like we’re watching our The Best of The Electric Company and later it will be PBS, but like Word Girl and other educational shows, not the ones on feelings and how to treat people, though those are useful too I guess.

Today Lilah and I watched the President’s address to students. I’m not sure what all the craziness was about and why I’ve seen parents compare the speech to sex education. Such as, “Talk to my kids in my presence. They have to have a signed permission slip to show a movie or talk about sex in class, but not for this? Whatever! My children will not be present.”  This comment is a total fallacy and I can’t list all the things wrong with it.

We aren’t in our children’s presence constantly so we can’t monitor everything that is said to them, but hey it’s a recorded speech and if a parent was worried about the president indoctrinating their child and making them a socialist then they can discuss the speech with them, not shield them from every kind of thinking that is against their own. I saw it as a very positive motivational speech that any person might give to our students and most would aggree with on the whole.

I do agree that we are entitled to having a say in what our children are taught or exposed to, one reason I homeschool, but sometimes I think opposing something positive that someone has to say just because we do not agree with other areas of thought they have is ridiculous. Are they afraid Obama might become a role model and their child might emulate him by working hard at school and going to great colleges?

Anyways, I thought it was a wonderful speech and I hope that those who don’t agree with the presidents politics can agree that going to school and getting an education is a good thing for both the individual and the country.

A while back when I was at Costco binging on school stuff I noticed they had various classroom sized maps. I was already spending a lot of money so I opted not to buy one even though I thought they were cool.

I didn’t tell Jon about the maps that day but about a week ago we were talking about something and having a map came up. I told Jon about the ones a Costco and he mentioned that a world map would be cool. (I would have bought just a United States one at the time, so I’m happy I didn’t that day, but what really stopped me from buying one was how big the maps are.)

So these maps are big. I didn’t know how big, but I knew they would be large and I knew that we didn’t have anywhere to put it. Jon said a map would be a good teaching tool, and of course I agreed, and we decided that I would buy a world map the next time I was at Costco and maybe hang it in our hallway.

I saw them and knew immediately that it wouldn’t fit on our hallway wall with what he measured, but with Costco they change what they have so I knew I needed to buy it now anyways, so I did. Jon, being the lover of knowledge he is, decided to hang it on our bedroom wall since it was the only place large enough.

Just looking at the map made me feel smarter. I didn’t feel smarter because I knew so much already, but because what I had learned about different countries in the world had faded and I enjoyed reading over it again and relearning things. I’m so happy that Jon had me buy the world map because the world is such an interesting place and I think I get caught up in knowing just about the United States when teaching the girls, but there is so much more.

I think it goes rather nicely with our blue wall and nothing matches decor. Maybe we’ll put it in the girl’s room when we finally get around to moving the bunk bed around.

Like I said, it only costs $6.59 at Costco and I think might be one of my better home school buys.

I feel smarter already and I know my girls will learn from it too.

So Lilah just took her fingerprint. It was an idea that she got out of Little National Geographic. You rub pencil on a paper, then you rub your finger around in the pencil, then take tape and remove the fingerprint and put it on a piece of paper.

It was cool and Lilah has a loop imprint, though I admit my first instinct was to tell her to go wash her dirty finger when she was asking for tape.

We then did Eden’s and Eden has a whorl. So cool, I’ve always wanted a whorl fingerprint, loop is soo common. Just think, half of her DNA that made that whorl came from me, so it almost makes me have a whorl fingerprint too, kinda, but not really.

I would totally post pictures but Jon recently changed us to Linux and I have no idea how to import pictures and then edit. Our scanner is also disconnected because we had to plug something more important in and so the scanner got unplugged, though I can’t use it in Linux either. To think of it I have no idea what we plugged in and why and I’m not sure why I’m using Linux besides that Jon is making me ’cause it’s faster and more secure, or something like that. I may have to reboot into windows just because I’m also unsure of how to open photo’s to edit. Sure he showed me but it’s hard to teach an old dog a new web program and I’m am totally slacking on posting a picture post a week.

I’m also a little worried that someone might try to still my children’s identity if I post their fingerprints, not really, but you never know what wacko’s are reading your blog, or if the wacko is really the one writing it. Don’t answer that.

Also, it was totally a random homeschooling moment. We went online to compare the prints to tell us what each one was. I think next time I’ll have Lilah type in what we’re looking for. I’ll just need an ounce or two more of patience for slow typing.

So I’ve been back on the home-schooling wagon for two days. I think it helps to have my car in the shop and not to be able to go anywhere. It’s like the old days when we had just one car and I had to plan ahead, and it had to really be worth it, and I’d take Jon to work if I wanted to go anywhere that day or I’d just stayed home and do things in the neighborhood or at the house.

I’ve decided that the afternoon, right after lunch, is the best time for me to home-school. I’ve done my chores and other things  that distract me in the morning while the girls play, then I have them clean up while I make lunch, then after lunch we clear the table off and bring the work there. I stay at the table writing down what we’ve done and what I want to do, partially in effort to show what we’ve done and partially to work on my penmanship, something I want to improve. I give the girls different tasks to do and modify when needed. At the end of our work day we read, do a fun activity, play a learning game, or all three. I don’t say I need to fill two or three hours with work, I just work with them a little and as time progresses I’ll add more where I see they need it.

Eden’s work ends much sooner than Lilah’s so she usually draws and does what she wants until we’re ready to do our group activity. Lilah works quickly and mostly happily. I’m hoping we can introduce things that she wants to know more about and have a library day where we go and check out books on the topic of her choice. This is something I’ll add as we get more into our routine and one of the reasons we homeschool, so they can learn about what they want to learn, when they want to.

My goals for them at this time are the following:

Eden (four years old): Teach to read with Bob books. She’s really very good at sounding out words and recognizes some. It’s sounding it out and then remembering it for the next time. I think she’s ready to learn to read because I’ve caught her trying to sound out words when she’s trying to read books. I don’t expect a lot from her but since it seems like she wants to read I figure I’ll teach her to read. I’ll also be working on simple math with her and working on her writing her name more clearly.

Lilah (six years old): Math, penmanship, spelling, geography, and history. I have a lot of things for Lilah this year. I’m not yet set on a curriculum, but we do have work books, flash cards, and other learning materials to learn with. Lilah reads very well so I’ll think I’ll be reading chapter books with her, where she reads them to me and I help her slow down and sound out words she reads incorrectly. She has a tendency to read quickly and thus read some words incorrectly.

We’re also in a co-op starting in September where the girls will be taking different classes and I’ll be helping and teaching some classes too. My sister Kristi is home-schooling her children but using K-12 where they provide the lessons and many cool things to teach with. We’ll be sitting in on some of their science lessons on Mondays or Fridays.

I’ve decided that Mondays are co-op and science days, Wednesdays are park, library, or errand running days and Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are school days. Most things that I do are in the morning, so as long as I’m home by the afternoon we should be fine if something does happen to come up.

I’m hoping this works well for us as I try to be a little more concrete in my home-schooling schedule.

It’s been fun to sit down and see how much the girls know already. They’re amazingly smart and really want to learn. I’m hoping as we do work I can find interesting things to introduce, like sign language or Spanish, though I don’t know if I’d be the best Spanish teacher.

In an effort to not get completely behind and post every picture post months after if happened, I’m posting pictures from Eden’s 4th Birthday Party.

We had the party at the Zurflueh’s house where Lilah’s was held last year.

We of course had a pinata.

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I made the pinata this year, like I did last year, but since I painted it it didn’t take me 8 hours to decorate. Just $4 for spray paint and half an hour. It’s the only way to make a homemade pinata.
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This is the cake I made, sorry it’s dark but it looks better since you see less of it’s imperfections. I drafted a slightly bigger genie since I decided 8×10 would not be big enough for the sheet cake my mom baked for me.

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We did pin the lamp on the genie. The genie was drawn by my wonderful friend Anna. I painted it.

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This is my niece Adrienne, with her big sister behind helping to hold up the blindfold that I did not securely tie. The funny thing is my niece is far sighted.

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Judging who won.

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We enjoyed some Otter pops and then it was pinata time.

Eden the birthday girl was first.

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Gracie got a really good hit in. I think next year I will make the pinata three layers again and maybe blindfold the kids.

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Josh is in Eden’s church class and lives down the street from us.

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Some of the kids close their eyes when hitting the pinata anyways.

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Christina, Josh’s older sister, broke the pinata on her third hit, but it wasn’t quite spilling the candy yet.

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Her sister finished it off for us.

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We then sang Happy Birthday.  Lilah is such a wonderful big sister. I think everyone needs a big sister.

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I just thought that this was a funny picture.

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We opened presents and then it was time for swimming!!!

The Spencer family.

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Elona Spencer with mommy and sisters behind her.

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Lilah looks like she’s waiting for a swim meet.

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And she’s off!

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Eden swimming with Jon. I think they’re so cute.

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Cute Eden.

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Sam with Britta and baby Matilda.

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Carolyn with Adrienne.

It was a fun enjoyable party and we thank everyone who helped and was able to celebrate with us.

I’ve realized I have two weaknesses right now.

The first is I love, love, love finding school or teaching related things. The whole back to school season has made the stores full of cool learning things and I find myself filling my carts with flash cards, puzzles, glue, pencil box holders, notebooks and workbooks.

I’m just excited to find things that I feel my girls will be excited about and find things to teach them. I may not be the most consistent homeschooler, but the idea is to make my house a learning environment and then all by themselves they’ll be interested in what’s around them and the cool stuff mommy bought to help them learn. My girls love learning and I love watching them learn and right now is the time to get cool workbooks and glue really cheaply. ( They go through glue rather quickly and I fear my 9 bottles that I bought rather cheaply won’t last till the end of August at the rate they love to make crafts. )

My second weakness is sewing. I’ve been sewing a lot. For the past three weeks  I’ve been sewing everyday or night, except weekends, and for the most part I love it. I’ve been able to make some great things and I’m even looking at making a dress for me. We’ll see how that turns out and if I get to it anytime in the near future, but I’m excited to be sewing and creating.

My next project will to fix the slightly to small top of Eden’s Jasmine outfit. (I’m happy I made it a size larger than her measurements, but still disappointed that it fits so perfectly.) Then I get to make some more aprons and bags. JoAnn’s is having a sale on outdoor canvass, 60% off, and I’m so tempted to go buy a lot of fabric for my bags. It’s just that I don’t buy fabric because it’s on sale so have it for when I need it. I don’t have the storage space to do that and even though I have a very specific reason for buying it, I don’t know where I’ll store it till I can use it, though I have an idea where I might put it if I clean out some other things.

I admit my house is holding up, but I need to spend more time on certain things. I feel like I am accomplishing a lot at the same time. I’ve had great cleaning days and great sewing days. I’ve been spending more time with the girls and I’m figuring things out with what I want to teach them and how I want to spend our days. I’m no where near the organizational level I want to be, but it’s baby steps. Just take baby steps.

I’m just going to need to stay away from Target, JoAnn’s and Costco till I can put a rein on my spending. (Costco has great back to school stuff and it’s cheaper and it’s only there for a limited time and too tempting for me.)

So don’t be alarmed if you come to my house and find the ironing board out, sewing machine on my table, a slightly to very messy house, and children reading Brain Quest cards. It’s just how it is around here nowadays.

On May 29th the girls, Hannah, and I went to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay. I had a free ticket for me, Eden was free and Lilah was just $8.50, and so was Hannah even though they first wanted to charge her as an adult.

They gave us these hand held devises that we would punch in the correlating code and then listen to information on the animal or animals we were looking at. Apparently if you don’t pay for that child they don’t need to listen, so they only gave us three things for the four of us. I gave Eden mine, and then Hannah let me use hers for most of the time, she had been before and apparently knew that the information was only somewhat interesting. Lilah was very intent on listening to each little recording, but towards the end, at like 32 of 36, she stopped. Eden gave up a little sooner, but still listened to most of them.

We saw so many interesting fish and the girls loved petting the sting rays. Hannah was a nice help and hopefully she had fun too.
We watched two divers cleaning one of the tanks and one even put his hand to the glass to “high five” the girls. We also saw some bait for some fish, but they must not have been hungry because they didn’t even notice it for the 5-10 minutes we watched and waited to see if they would eat it.

I don’t have too many pictures because it was not the most ideal setting. Most of the time if was too dark and then the flash would wash everything out. It was still fun and I will try to get a free ticket next tax season so we can go again.

Some giant fish from the Amazon.

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Eden watching another giant fish from the Amazon.

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Lilah is listening to the recording about the giant fish from the Amazon.

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Learning about the piranhas. They had a staff member stationed at the tank. No doubt to keep idiots from putting things, or there own hands, in the tank.

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Hannah helping Lilah pet a sting ray.

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Gross fish water!

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Eden’s turn to pet the sting ray. Hannah actually had to pull her arm down so she could reach.

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I thought this was a tiger fish, but it’s actually a lion fish.

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Lilah looking at the jellyfish.

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Eden ready to go home.

I am not good at schedules. At least self imposed schedules or tasks. You give me a deadline and I will do it. If I give me a deadline, I might do it.

As we get back in the grove of our normal life I find myself craving a schedule. Mostly I think I want something to anchor me, something to help me anchor my children. I’ve never really had a schedule, or stuck to one, at least for long. I suppose I’m good at getting up and feeding my family at specific times of the day, and having the girls go to bed at certain times, but that’s it, and even Jon and I have disagreements about when they should go to bed since we don’t always stick to a schedule. Some nights it’s 9 some nights it’s 9:30.

I think part of the reason I’m not good at sticking to a schedule is my home never had one growing up. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but with six kids it can be hard to implement something and have us all follow through, especially when both parents work and weren’t there to supervise all the time.

In my house it was both a group effort and a fend for yourself environment. We all helped with dinner, though one person was assigned the main meal on a certain day of the week. (Mine was Wednesday  for a long time because I didn’t go to mutual or the youth activity, and yes I was cooking dinner before I was twelve.) The person in charge of dinner would then assign the different dinner assignments. One always wanted juice and vegetables because it was the easiest and then dishes was the least desirable. We worked together, but the goal was to get the easiest task possible.

I feel this has stuck with me. Try to accomplish what you need to the easiest way possible.

It was that way at home and it was that way at school.

So now that I’m a mom and one of the two providers of my children’s education, I find that I need to change my mindset. Schedules should be empowering, not a struggle. I should help my children learn in whatever way necessary, not the easiest or the quickest.  I should have my girls help me around the house more because in the end it will help me, even if it takes longer now.

So I’m asking for advice. What schedules work for you, or don’t work for you?

Jon’s told me to start out small. Do just one task and make it a habit and then after a week or two add something else. I think it will take me two years if I implement that to it’s fullest, but I think it is good advice.

If it helps, my goal in scheduling isn’t to fill every moment of my day, but to make time for the things I want to do and to limit my self indulging which takes away from my family. I find myself on the internet entirely too much, and sleeping too much also. Both are to avoid doing work, though sometimes I’m just tired.

I want to make time to have my girls help with making lunch, and make time for me to do things to improve me and work alongside of them as they do work too. Not just assign them to do things and go off and do what I want or need to do. So if Lilah is writing in her journal, I should be writing in mine, not blogging. 🙂

So what schedules work for you? Both in keeping your house organized and your children occupied.

On March 25th we went to the Secret Garden and Dolphin habitat with a homeschooling group. Sadly the group has dissolved and it was our last trip with them.

Our friend Hannah came with us. The girls adore her and she adores our girls. Even though I didn’t really need the help, since they are so well behaved and rarely get into trouble in public, Hannah came along and lent her hand to also hold while we walked around and her arms to pick up the girls to see things. It was nice and the reason we invited her to also come to the Shark Reef with us in May.

Here’s just a few pictures of the girls and our activities. I can’t believe it had been two years since we had gone with our old Mommy group and almost to the day.

The underwater observatory.

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The girls loved when the dolphin swam right by the window.

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Above watching them feed the dolphins.

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There was a 6 month old baby dolphin, though it was pretty big for being 6 months old. I’m happy my girls grow slower than a dolphin, but it’s still too fast.

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Cute Eden.

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Hannah helping Lilah look at the map.

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There was also a baby jaguar to watch.

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Hannah with the girls.

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A tiger taking a bath.

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Sisterly love.

The girls and I did a few events for Earth Day. My friend Emilie called me that morning to tell me how the Disney store was giving away reusable bottles if you brought in three regular plastic bottles. I thought this was great, but I didn’t have any regular bottles due to already using reusable, so Emilie gave us nine bottles, enough to get three reusable.

We picked up the plastic bottles and followed the unknowing Emilie to the mall. We were both heading there, but she didn’t realized I followed her  there. The girls were amazed with the Disney store and would have loved to stayed, but we had to head to UNLV for their Earth Day stuff. They’re happy with their plastic reusable bottles, and so am I since I can freeze these and have ice cold water on hot days.

We got to UNLV later than planned, around 11:10. I saw that they were having a little closing ceremony with the elementary kids there as I headed to Jon’s office but thought nothing of it since it was scheduled to go from 10 am-2pm. We sat and ate lunch and then while I was inside with Eden Jon realized that vender’s were leaving. We were on the far end so it was hard to tell. We decided to pack up lunch and eat at the park and got to two vender’s that were packing up, but still had stuff out to take. I was really disappointed that it went so short and that we missed going around. I still need to write an e-mail to complain about the shortness of the event and how what they advertised to the general public was misleading as to the actual length of the event. Last year we got there early and left before it finished, so I don’t know if they did the same thing.

After kissing Jon goodbye and leaving lots of time on the meter since I thought I’d be there longer, we headed to the park to meet the unschooling group. There we made slushy with a cool ice cream ball and the girls made bird feeders with pine cones and the adults talked. It was a fun afternoon and not too hot and we left around 2:30.

I gave Eden a quick bath once home to get sand out of her hair. It has a tendency to stick to children’s sweaty heads and I didn’t want sand coming off on my couch or floor as she cooled off. I then took a nap with Eden and woke up hearing Lilah say “Daddy you’re home.” I was hoping Jon was home early, but no, it was 6:16 and I had slept heavily since 3:45 when we laid down.

We ate pizza to finish Earth Day and Lilah and Eden both spoke on keeping the Earth clean at dinnertime, though I heard it all day long so I may be just making it up about dinnertime.

We hope the Earth has a long healthy life and we’re trying to be the best caretakers we can be.

Here are a few pictures I snapped since I was the one helping with the slushy and busy while the girls had their fun.

Lilah walking with her bird feeder. She wanted to hang it at the park for the birds.

Eden with her bird feeder.

Lilah and Eden with bird seed pouches. These might look familiar if you came to our wedding. They’re from our wedding and I finally found a use for the birdseed. (I need to  be more creative if I’m gonna do this home school thing. )