Is It Naptime Yet

Last year we had butterflies for our spring experiment, this year after long debate we got ladybug larva. Insect Lore sent us a magazine that Lilah looked through everyday all day long and decided she desperately wanted frog eggs, but we had no where to put the frogs and the American bullfrogs that had more of a place to live eat live things like bugs and mice and lived for way longer than we wanted. Lilah than decided on a praying mantis egg, then earthworms and finally she decided, and stuck to her decision, that she wanted the ladybug land with ladybug eggs, but they were in the larva stage when we got them on Tuesday.

Here is our ladybug land on Wednesday. They had paper in the little vile type container and their food looks like some sort of corn meal. I can’t wait till the larva become pretty ladybugs. They larva stage of the ladybug is nicknamed alligators since they have such long tails and look like alligators.

This is my catch up blog of all the mundane things. I will do some interesting picture posts later but this is my last week and a half in a nutshell.

Last week was a little crazy. My brother Scott and his wife Fallon came to town. Since they were here I was in Henderson a lot last week.

Monday I went over to visit. I don’t remember when or how long but I was there. I think I went shopping with Kristi at Target and then to Costco with my mom and Fallon. That seems familiar.

Tuesday I had Relief Society stuff to do so I stayed on my end of town and had a fun night with the sisters in my ward.

Wednesday we had a Whole Foods grocery store tour in Henderson with the homeschool group. It got canceled half an hour before, but we and two other families did not know that and were there. They gave us a “tour” where the walked us around the store and gave the kids free samples. Lilah was in heaven because they got fruit, pizza, cheese, brownie bites, and kettle corn popcorn, which meant two sweet things in one day, all before lunch. We also bought some expensive cheese and a cinnamon bun that we left at my parents and didn’t eat till Thursday.

We hung out with the family afterwords and then went out that night to the Olive Garden. Jon didn’t go with us because it got to be too late and he was to hungry to wait at a restaurant.

Thursday I went shopping with Fallon, though I did not find the specific items I was looking for. (A casual jean or khaki skirt and cute capri’s. I hate when I’m looking for something specific it makes shopping so hard.)

I then hung out till later that day and went home that afternoon.

Friday the girls and I went to the Lied Children’s Discovery Museum. We went with some friends and then had a picnic with some other friends right afterwords.

Then Friday night we had family pictures. I don’t remember when all six of the kids were in the same state so we seized the day and took pictures to remember that there are six Harvey kids.

Saturday Lilah and I had play practice. We then dropped Jon’s car off at the mechanic and then onto my parents house for a BBQ that started 3 hours behind schedule. Oh well. I got to see family and eat good fruit while we waited.

Sunday Jonathan went out of town for a business trip. I had to teach the lesson for my class and I forgot that Eden was to give the scripture and prayer in closing exercises for Primary until I went to pick her up and everyone told me what I nice prayer she gave. I was so upset that I forgot since this was her first prayer or anything in Primary. I’m a lame mom. With everything else it just slipped my mind.

The girls and I then had a lonely Sunday and took a nap together. I was too bummed to cook so I broke the sabbath and bought some Subway for us.

Monday we stayed home and cleaned a little. Our house had gone to the pits since I was gone most of last week.

Tuesday we had lunch with Anna and picked Jon’s car up from the mechanic with my mom’s help. I can’t wait till my car is paid off and we can get him a nice one.  I also had practice that night so the Lee’s watched the girls for me.

Wednesday, or today we went to the Dolphin Habitat with the homeschooling group. Hannah came along and then hung out at our house till Beth and her sisters got home. Lilah was so enchanted with having Hannah around that she asked if I would like Hannah to be apart of our family. I said Hannah was our friend, but friends can be like family. Lilah then replied that she wished Hannah was apart of our family.

I also picked Jon up from the airport and the girls have hardly left his side since we’ve been home. Of course they’re having fun looking at the Big Picture blog and other things, but I think it’s too cute to see the two of them on either side of their daddy sitting on the couch looking at his laptop.

There, now I can start posting about other things that are on my mind, but that will have to wait till at least tomorrow.

Some days homeschooling seems impossible. Kids are ornery, mom is ornery and we are just not getting along. Other days it goes wonderfully. They ask for more “work” or ask me to read another story or just try so hard to figure things out. Some days we unschool and I let the girls do whatever they want.

What I do love is to look over and see my daughter has written her name for the first time all by herself.

Or the other is reading a book about ants and follows the words with her little finger.

Some days one school thing is enough for this momma and her girls. Some days one school thing is too much for this momma and her girls. Some days all we do is learn in both conventional and unconventional ways.

What I do know is these little kids are sponges and the soak up knowledge so quickly along with grow far too quickly.

I’m excited for a few reasons.

1. Our anniversary is coming up. 7 years I’ve been married to Jon. Plus, we don’t have to pay for a babysitter since a friend is holding her daughter’s birthday party Friday night and has told the adults to go out and have a date.  It worked out perfectly!

2. My niece Shauntae is coming to town and I get to see her! Well, she’s Jon’s niece and he’ll get to see her too when we go to lunch, but I’m excited to get to see her while she’s here.

2. My brother Scott and his wife Fallon are coming town soon too. It’ll be fun to see them and have the girls see their aunt and uncle whom they haven’t seen in two years.

3. March is becoming a very busy month with one of the Homeschooling groups. We’re going to the Shark Reef and the Dolphin Habitat, all for only $6 a person for each exhibit and 4 and under is free, so I only have to pay for Lilah and me and Lilah has been asking to go back to the dolphin habitat so this will be exciting for her.

I’m really looking forward to the next 6 weeks!

Lately school has been nonexistent at our house. Unless you count watching Nature each Sunday night on PBS and Nova on Tuesday and reading a couple short books about President’s day. We’ve just been so busy and it seems like I’ve been so tired and have not wanted to deal with school. I was also at a loss of what to do lately so that hasn’t helped.

Last week we received a book in the mail that I’m using as a guide of what to teach Lilah. I plan on supplementing it because it is not all inclusive and has a very white, conservative, male dominated view of history, which I find to be OK, but at the same time not very diverse or up to the current political view I want to teach my girls. I see the book as a good guide of things I can be teaching the girls, without having to rack my brain for ideas or use a set curriculum, because I really want to introduce ideas to them and see if they’re interested in learning more and go from there for each topic.

This morning I decided to just read some poems and then fables from the book while the girls finished breakfast. They seemed to really enjoy it, but they really enjoy almost anything you read to them and it got a short discussion going. I think this week in literature we’ll focus on poems and fables and maybe we’ll write our own.

I also bought a math workbook for Lilah. I just can’t think of everything to teach her that deals with math, or creative ways to do things. I really needed something to help me and she can read well so she can do a lot on her own. Most of this Kindergarten math workbook she knows just by everyday things, which I suppose is the point, to teach them everyday things and patterns, but I bought it for it’s introduction to money and adding money together. This is not the only thing I’ll use to teach her math, but it gives me ideas and helps me feel like I’m at least teaching her what she might learn in the classroom and in a way she would learn in the classroom, so if she ever wants or needs to attend public school she’s prepared for it.

Today we started our new schedule and the girls missed the make up class for gymnastics. I needed to clean my soda stickied floors and do school and take them to gymnastics. I knew only two of the three would happen so gymnastics was cut and school won out.

I’m still not as disciplined as I want to be with a homeschooling schedule, but I keep trying and when the girls are excited or engaged in what we’re learning it’s a lot easier to do school and be willing to come back to it the next day. I don’t feel as though I’m failing at homeschool just because I’m still inconsistent.  I’m just hoping to find our grove by the time Lilah’s 8, which is a long time, but I think it might take that long to gain a full knowledge of what we want and do it.  They’re learning and I’m learning and as long as they continue to learn I don’t care about anything else.

I’m not sure how long these new things and techniques will last, but I know an ever changing perspective is needed and I know that the girls want to learn and do learn, despite my inconsistencies and impatience sometimes.

I’ve haven’t posted a lot on homeschooling. Lately it’s been kinda crazy. We had Jon home for two weeks in December, then I had one week to get in a groove, which I didn’t, and then I made the costumes the next week. Then I got sick.

So this is the first week, in six weeks, where I was consistently doing something homeschool related for three out of the five days. (My goal is school three days of the week.)

I’ve been feeling kinda in a rut, we do the same things over and over, and I’m wanting to help Lilah more with her spelling, and incorporate math and history or some kind of subject learning, I also wanted Beth to kinda tell me where Lilah is with her reading and what she thinks I need to work on.

So we hopped over to Beth’s house after a strange lunch time at the park. (Lilah was avoiding Eden and I kept losing sight of her or Eden because of it, so I forced her to play with Eden but she decided they should play hide and seek and, in essence, avoid Eden still.)

Beth did a reading evaluation on Lilah and Lilah read, and comprehended most of what she read, up to the fourth grade level and Beth felt she could have pushed her to the fifth.

So we’re doing something right.

Reading was a big hurdle so I feel relieved that Lilah is doing so well, and I feel like I was guiding her not teaching her.

Lilah does read at a fourth grade level, but she does have a problems with figuring words out on her own. She reads so fast that she doesn’t like to slow down and figure out what words are if she doesn’t know them or she glosses over and makes an educated guess, sometimes right, sometimes wrong, something I’ve noticed when we read together.

So our next goal is to look at word structure and talk about them, even on words she knows and stick to lower level reading book until she gets a little more patience and stops to figure words out. She’s not in some rush to move up in books so I think this will be just fine for her.

I’m also needing to work on writing and spelling with her a little more, but this shows me that kids can learn and they can teach themselves. I really feel like I just was helping Lilah learn and she was the one progressing ‘behind my back’ when she would decide to sit down and read books to herself or even to Eden.

She’s one smart cookie and I’m happy to be her mom and mentor.

Today I made an impromptu lunch outing to McDonald’s on our way home from gymnastics. I didn’t want Lilah going in the play area in her socks or bare feet so I told her to keep her shoes on.

She had a very, very hard time with this.

She was about to go in and then she came  back to me.

“It says ‘No Shoes’. I can’t go in.”

“It’s not a big deal. Mommy says you can go in there with shoes.”

Then she whispers in my ear, “I don’t want you to go to jail.”

I chuckle a little and I reply, “I won’t go to jail. Only people who do really bad things go to jail.”

Luckily the play place police weren’t around, otherwise I may have gone to hamburger jail for having my girls break the no shoes allowed rule.

On a side note, the substitute who taught Lilah’s class just came by to drop something off and she just gave some wonderful compliments on how well behaved Lilah was, but also how impressed she was that Lilah read the word “trust” when she wrote it on the board and that Lilah was so smart and was answering a lot of questions. I love my good girl.  She surprises us with words she knows. Last night we got some Greek and Latin root flash cards and she read ‘friendship’ in the back of one.

Lilah had a stuffy nose last week that began on Monday night. Eden wasn’t getting it so we thought it was allergies or because of the temperature change we first experienced on Monday. Then Friday Eden got Lilah’s stuffy nose, or as Eden would say snuffy nose. (It was too cute and I had the hardest time not repeating it since we try not to baby talk to our girls.)

Since the girls were sick on Saturday we stayed home instead of doing some holiday festivities, like making cookies and going to a holiday dinner, we’ll I went to the holiday dinner since Jon was a sweet heart and stayed home with our girls.  Sunday Jon stayed home with the girls for two reasons. Eden still had a stuffy nose and he too was feeling sick.  I got some herbs from Sam and we made tea for him that afternoon and myself since I started to feel a little swollen in my throat. So much for Lilah not being contagious. ( I apologize to anyone who was exposed to our germs, it’s just hard to tell if something is a viruses or just due to freak weather like snow storms on Las Vegas. )

Jon’s taken the next two weeks off so Monday  we all went to the planetarium at CSN with our internet home school group. Jon and I felt OK, and the girls were both over their congestion problems. Then we went to Target for the girls to get gifts for one another.  Then since Smith’s was on the way home we stopped and I ran in to get sausage and cinnamon rolls for our Christmas breakfast, then to JoAnn’s because I needed some tear away to do the buttons for the girls pajamas.  (When I expressed we should stop at Smith’s and JoAnn’s after Target he was like, is this going to turn into a long morning of errands? )

That’s my final Christmas project. I’m making the girls matching pajamas.  I have buttons and buttons holes to put on both the girls tops and Lilah’s pajama bottoms to do. I waited till late, but I should get them finished and wrapped tonight so they can open them Christmas Eve. Even though they know they’re getting these pajama’s, I’m making them at night after they’re in bed and I’m hoping Lilah is somewhat surprised, I know Eden will be since she’s littler, but I’ve talked about them in front of them and Lilah remembers everything I say.

Anyways, Jon and I are both having some throat problems, but whatever we had didn’t get too bad and we seem to be on the mend. I’m just hoping it gets better and we can enjoy our Christmas without any illnesses.

Just one day till Christmas, or two depending on how you count.

I’m so excited.

While at the store on Friday Lilah thought up a smoothie recipe.  She then wrote it down so we could make it Friday night, but Mommy wasn’t up to it Friday night, so we made it Saturday. I was going to take pictures, but I forgot since I was making it, but I have scanned in recipe that Lilah wrote down and my translation for those of you who do not live in our house and know that Daddy’s yogurt is plain yogurt and Mommy’s yogurt is vanilla yogurt.

Here’s what she wrote out:

7 Ingredients

Mommy’s Yogurt (vanilla yogurt)
Daddy’s Yogurt (plain yogurt)
Chocolate (we used chocolate syrup, though she wanted t use the semi sweet chocolate baking chips we just bought at the store.)
Vanilla
Lilah- I think it was suppose to be By: Lilah- she’s not one of the ingredients
Sugar
Milk
Banana

Her S’s are backwards, so they look like Z’s, but she’s had a hard time with S’s lately, they usually come out looking like 3’s, so I’m just happy they’re now backwards, which is pretty typical.
I’m impressed with her spelling of milk even though it has a C instead of a K, they both say the same sound, so I’m also just happy she got all the sounds and especially the vowel. As you can see in some words, like banana, she often doesn’t hear the vowels in the words.
Also, she did this all by herself, with me only telling her that CH made the ‘ch’ sound in chocolate, though I’m not sure how to write that down. I hope you as a reader just know what sound CH makes. 😉

The smoothie was mostly like drinking banana yogurt. We didn’t need to add sugar, but we would have used honey had we needed to. We also keep the chocolate to a minimum.

It was actually pretty tasty and it’ll be interesting to see what she comes up with next.

Saturday there was a local book festival downtown which I took the girls to. It was sponsored by Target, in which they had free, 100% beef hot dogs, chips, water and snow cones. Had I know about the free food I wouldn’t have fed the girls right before we left, but I still enjoyed a hot dog later in the afternoon while the girls munched on chips. They girls also had snow cones, while I took bites of what they had.

There were different booths featuring local authors selling their books. Booths which gave away free books, the girls got around 3-4 books each, and things to do like crafts and coloring.

I took the girls to get out of the house while Jon studied, something I’m always doing on the weekends lately. Then I went to a temple session for my friend Amy and her fiancee, who were getting their endowments taken out.

Sunday was the same ole’ thing.

Monday is a blur, as is Friday and why I started on Saturday this post.

Tuesday Jon was home and he went on his date with Lilah that morning. Lilah won my friend Anna’s gift card so she went and spent it on  gel paint, around 13  paint brushes, a pack of ten and a pack of three, and a little lion cub figurine for Eden, though that was particularly small and I fear may already be lost.

Also yesterday, the girls had a little song practice for the Christmas program for our ward dinner. They’re singing Jingle Bells, which Lilah said she didn’t know very well  because she doesn’t hear it very often, and Eden just sat there and did not participate at all. I think I’m going to disappear after I drop them off in hopes that Eden will actually participate. She was very talkative before the other 2 kids got there, but once she learned they would be singing and doing stuff she immediately stopped being outgoing and just sat there.

I’ve been sewing like a mad woman to finish the table runners, which were finished this afternoon. Now I just need to iron them one last time and call the parents to let them know they’re finished, since the bride and groom are already in Salt Lake.  Thursday I’m vegetating, preparing my lesson, and working on my talk. Friday I hope to do some major house work, which has been greatly neglected with all I’ve had to do lately.

One new stress in my life is a journal that Lilah and I do each day. She was doing it with Beth at the class and Beth asked if she was ready to take it home this past Thursday. Lilah replied yes, so we did and I immediately dropped the ball and forgot to have Lilah do it on Friday. (She draws a picture and then writes one to two sentences about the picture, where I might sound a word out, but I don’t tell her how to write it. It’s to show true progress on her writing and spelling.) Anyways, Monday rolls around and I ask her what she wants to write about and she immediately starts whining a little. We get through it, but she had been very crazy and unfocused, so we had a discussion about politeness and school time.

I admit I only do real sit down school activities with her around 2-3 times a week, so she’s not use to doing it each day. We read and do a little math, spelling, and what not. The journal is helping me to find time each day to do at least the journal and one to three more activities. She knows a lot and I want school to be a mixture of learn what you want when you want it, and sit down stuff that we do together.  Anyways, the second day she whined and when I mentioned it to Beth this morning she suggested that maybe it should be a just at her house thing, so when Lilah whined again today, I asked her if we should only do it at Beth’s house and she jumped right up to say no, she’d do it at home. (I should note today it was later and during her PBS time, but she’d already watched her fair share this morning while I sewed.)

She’s not liking school everyday, or at least doing the journal everyday, but since she’s not liking it, it shows me that I need to do school time more often and work with her more, but her attitude and my easily frustrated self make it a little difficult. Patience is one thing I’m short of lately, so I guess I just need to work harder and talk to her more.