Weekly Review: Mar-4-8

We are WELL!!  Ok, mostly. Drake still have a little something hanging on but overall we are doing much, much better. The weekend was insane. Thank God for Daddy being home to help. I pretty much just took care of the sick baby and Daddy did everything else, including taking care of two sicklies and two sort of sicklies.

Great week!  I spent a good amount of time Sunday night getting everything ready for the week. I think KNOW this has been key to such a productive week. :)

Monday-

• ES-finished up week 7 and began week 8.
• We watched a few YouTube vids on tides HERE, HERE (super cool time laspe video!!), and this kind of silly one HERE.
• We then watched some deep sea videos HERE (this one is just a picture and explanation of it but I loved comparing the sizes!) and this amazing video HERE.
• Took a much needed trip to the library. :)
• Tackled individual work. Kaleb is adding and subtracting large numbers in columns (not a favorite of his) and Gabriel is working on number charts and comparing numbers....a lot of alligator *chomp, chomping* going on. :) 
• Read about the War of the Roses in history and made rose banners.

• Spent a large amount of time watching the county road crew work on our road. They are paving the dirt road in front of our house. (YES!!)  This means a lot of dump trucks, heavy equipment, and noises that boys LOVE. It's hard to stay away from the windows!

• FINALLY started the famous artist study from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  We are starting with Picasso.  I found a book about his childhood at the library. We enjoyed reading it, and learned quite a bit about his early life. Kaleb was in awe of his 8 and 9 year old drawings. :) We looked at some of his work as an adult, talked about the different periods, and learned that Daddy was born just a few years before Picasso passed away! 



Tuesday-Woke up super early to tackle my chores and then woke the boys a little earlier than usual.  The plan was to get all of our group work done before the grandson arrived to hang out. Worked perfectly.  We actually accomplished more than I thought we would. Now my husband can say "I told you so." He's a morning person....I am NOT. :)

• Scripture Adventures is moving into the book of Judges. This isn't a book that I have read so I'm looking forward to it.  Today we just talked about heros and heroines, and defined the word prophet.
• We're working our way through nine ways to honor God in Who Is God, tackling one example a day. I love the conversations we're having! (Although today as we talked about honoring God with our bodies with one example being fasting, my smarty pants 8 year old suggested fasting from veggies as a way to honor God. Hmmm...don't think it works that way, son!!:)
• Read more about William III who was the king killed in the War of the Roses and his two nephews who *disappeared*.  One of the boys suggested fingerprinting or DNA testing as a means of finding the murderer. :) 
• Kaleb and Gabriel are both working in WWE 1 right now. I also have WWE 3 but, because we've never done any formal writing, I want Kaleb to understand better about what is required of him before moving to his grade level. They love copywork...who knew? :)

The 2nd is his work. He added the A+...haha!

• Read and journaled on deserts from ES. Checked out the quick links. They LOVE those quick links.  I think most of them are kind of cheesy but I guess if they like them....
• Ran to the windows each time we heard the dump trucks and heavy equipment rolling by. :)

Wednesday-

• Read from another book about Picasso. We discussed some of his early paintings. I'm impressed with their attention to detail! This is going to be a fun subject for us. They are all working on coloring their own Three Musicians coloring page. Gabriel was inspired by one of Picasso's paintings and drew this weird face guy. :)

• The boys worked hard to get all of their individual work done so we could have dinner at a favorite pizza place with Grandma, Grandpa, and Nana.
• More WWE copywork. This is one of Gabriel's pages. We have a handwriting program that we use as well but he tries harder to form the letter properly with WWE. If he keeps this up, I may ditch the handwriting program and just require a little more writing across other subjects.

Thursday-

• Tried a new math journal idea. Months ago, I printed some CSMP and MEP math pages for some group work. My idea was to work the problems together and then have them journal about it. I love the idea of them working together and teaching each other. Obviously Kaleb has an advantage but as we continue to work on this, I'll throw out some super challenging ones and see what happens.

• The boys each made their own Tower of London as a quick history project.

Friday-A light day. We did most of our individual work and some group work before heading to town to do some errands. Don't you love when your child's bible lesson teaches you a thing or two? In Who Is God, we finished up the section about the nine ways we can glorify God.  Love that What Should I Do section!

Co-op starts next Friday, and I have a fun surprise for them on Thursday. :) It's going to be a good one! Hope you all have a great weekend!!

Weekly Report Feb 25-Mar 1

We didn't get a lot of school work done this week. It happens! I am thankful for the past few full weeks of schoolwork. We'll get caught up next week and be back on track.

We actually did these plague doctor masks the week before but I never got around to blogging about the week. They still wanted me to share. :)

Monday morning's field trip was the highlight of the week. We went to see a high school performance of Peter Pan! My boys have seen a couple plays and musicals before but none of those held their attention like Peter Pan. It was fantastic! We stayed afterward for a talk back and pictures. It was pretty hard to get the boys settled down after that so the rest of our Monday was pretty low key. We managed to do our group work but that's about it. :)

Gabriel and Drake wanted a picture with Peter Pan. :)

We had several errands to run on Tuesday that took a LOT longer than I had planned. The boys' favorite part of the day was our trip to the post office. I had several packages to mail, and the postman let the boys take turns stamping them. Then he gave them each a *priority* sticker. It was an unexpected experience from an incredibly sweet man. :) After our errands, we read about the Hundred Year's War and completed map work. The boys couldn't believe that a baby became king!! We finished our bible study on Joshua. Of course their favorite story was when God made the sun stand still (this is Dad's favorite story too). We moved on to math before ending our day a little early.

Start them early! Just kidding. Who doesn't like brightly colored movable beads?

We babysat my youngest grandson on Wednesday. The boys LOVE getting to play with their nieces and nephews. They are the sweetest uncles!! So thankful for their willingness to entertain their nephew since Joshua wasn't feeling well. We still completed a good amount of work. Read about Joan of Arc in history. Talked about how one becomes a saint. Completed most of our group work and a good amount of individual work. Of course the best part of the day was hanging out with their nephew!!

Math on the go? I don't know but Gabriel did ALL of his work with NO complaining...so I'm not going to complain either!

Babysat the grandson on Thursday too but we still managed to play catch up on our history, geography, and science projects. Daddy SURPRISED us all by coming home a day early!!! He brought some freshly picked daffodils for me. :)  Also did all of our individual work AND even got a day ahead on most of it.

Building a volcano. Unfortunately it was broken before we could use so we'll make another next week.

Joshua started getting sick Thursday night so we cancelled school on Friday. I hope not having school on Friday isn't going to become a habit but we needed to devote our time to the baby. Pretty sure he has the Rotavirus. Bleh. This is something we take very seriously in our home. One of our boys was hospitalized for almost a week and another spent the night in the ER on a separate occasion for IV fluids because of this virus. We've been keeping a close eye on this baby boy.

Hoping everyone is well by the start of next week. We have several projects that we were suppose to do on Friday that we need to finish up. We only have a couple more weeks before co-op starts!! We're excited about that but I had really hoped to get more work done before then.

Week in review: Feb 10-15

Monday-We had a FUN morning!! I had the opportunity to fill in as a babysitter for a women's bible study led by our church. They meet in a bounce-around place!! :)  The boys had such a fun time with some of their church friends, and I got to meet some ladies from our church that I didn't know. Made it home in time for lunch and then hit the books for a little while.

• Elemental Science-We watched the following YouTube videos on glaciers. The boys especially loved the exploding glacier! Warning: It's a LOUD video and I think there may be some inappropriate language at the very end. I just turned the volume all the way down.  This reminds me to caution you about YouTube videos. YouTube is an awesome educational tool. I love it!! However, the language in the video AND the comments under the video can sometimes be incredibly inappropriate for children. Be sure to preview videos before letting the kiddos watch them. :)  We also read from the Usborne First Encyclopedia of Our World and checked out the quick-links page.
• Rolling Glacier
• Exploding Glacier (Turn the sound all the way down on this one. It's LOUD!!!)
• Glacier Time Lapse
• We read about the Forbidden City in history, colored a coloring sheet, and did some map work. Gabriel was shocked that the emporers' children had pet crickets. It did seem odd that they led them around on leashes.
• Kaleb took a test on time and reviewed money in math.  Gabriel did some work with number bonds and long addition (the 2+2+2=6 kind).
• Drake was excited to do MANY ETC pages!! That kid will be through book C in no time!
• We did a fun art lesson with lines.

• We read about Moses turning over leadership to Joshua, and reviewed all of the miracles God performed during the time of Moses.  We named the baby after THIS Joshua. :) He is Bo's favorite person in the bible.  So excited to share this book of the Bible with the boys.
• Started a study on South Korea, did some lapbooking on ducks, and finished the Chinese dragons from last week. (also these are apparently the only pictures I took all week!)

Tuesday-A FULL boring day of school to make up for all the fun we had this week.

• Reviewed the capitals and counties so far in Asia.
• Talked about the promises God made Joshua and how those promises relate to us today:
• to prosper us
• to help us be courageous
• to be with us always
• Finished another lesson in Who Is God? I wonder sometimes if the material is a little over their heads. I know it is for Drake but I'm not sure about Gabriel. Kaleb can easily narrate what we talk about every day and remembers when we review though. I know he's remembering it but I'm not sure if he's *getting* it. We did talk at length about our worldview and who/what are good/bad influences.  I do know Gabriel and Kaleb understand that much.  Afterward I let them take a TV break. As they surfed channels, they were discussing why the Disney and Cartoon Network channels are bad influences on their personal worldviews. They settled on a documentary about fast food which ended up being pretty eduational and interesting.  Kaleb, later on that evening, asked me if I thought a particular show that I sometimes watch was a good or bad influence on my worldview. I had to agree that it probably wasn't the best choice for me. That was convincing enough for me to continue with Who is God? for now. :)
• The rest of our school day followed nicely:
• Gabriel's reading is really picking up! I couldn't believe how quickly he is being to read the short stories in OPG. I remember when this happened with Kaleb. So exciting to see another child grow a love of reading!!
• Kaleb struggled with converting days to hours. It wasn't his favorite part of the day! :)
• Drake finished a cheap little math book I picked up for him. I'm trying to hold off starting MM until he's in kindergarten but that boy just keeps asking for more and more math! I have one more math workbook for him and hopefully it will hold him until the fall.

Wednesday-Another FULL boring day of school.

• Read about Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible in SOTW, and did some map work.
• Continuing in Daddy's favorite book in the Bible, we read how Rahad protected Joshua's two spies and the promise they made to protect her family.
• In ES, we learned about the seashore:
• Read about the seashore in our encyclopedia book.
• Defined the word tides.
• Visited the quick-links website where we saw how the seashore changes over time, went virtual beachcoming, and read an online book about the coastline.
• Found several seashore-related items in the Great Planet Earth Search book on pages 20-21 Scraggy Shore. They LOVE search books!
• Used the Internet to find information about South Korea.
• After all the fun stuff, we tackled individual work.

Thursday-highlight of the day: Valentines Skating Party!!!  Did much else matter to the boys? Not really. :)  Nathan played hooky from school so he could go with us and see his homeschool friends. We cleaned the house all morning and then left for the partay!!


Friday-Daddy came home Thursday night so we scrapped school for the day. LOVE that option! :) We'll do some catch up next week but SO worth being able to hang out with our favorite guy!


With all of this lovey dovey Valentines stuff going on this week (that I will admit I LOVE), I woke up with Jesus Loves Me in my head and I was reminded yesterday that the GREATEST LOVE OF ALL comes from above. God gave us the best Valentine gift in the form of His Son because he loves us SO much and wants to spend an eternity with us. He continues to love and forgive us even in the midst of our many failures. Happy Valentines!!  Hope you have a great weekend!!

Week in Review Feb 4-8

LOVED this week!!!

Monday-
We had to cram, cram, cram everything we could into the morning hours since we had plans after lunch.

• We started a quick study on volcanoes in science by watching a Bill Nye video on YouTube. We looked at some pictures on Google, and used google to answer several questions.
• Math, WW, OPG, handwriting, SOTW, ETC, FLL, and bible studies were all done as well before lunch. Whew!
• Drake is asking for more and more school work. He is working in ETC and doing some fun abc worksheets as well as a numbers workbook that I picked up from the dollar store. We'll start some OPG work soon.

Working on ETC worksheets

He LOVES cutting practice!

• We got ready for Nathan's first district basketball tourney game. The boys AND girls both won the first round!!

Tuesday-

• Started the day with ES since it went so well on Monday. We read from the Usborne Encyclopedia of Our World about volcanoes. We'll do the volcano experiment at the end of the week with Dad. We journaled in our science notebooks before moving on to mountains.  We read about mountains from the same book. We caused different kinds of snow avalanches, looked some animals who live in the mountains, and watched a video about the different types of mountains...all thanks to the Internet quick links in the Usborne book. 

Gabriel's science journal page



Kaleb's Science journal page.

Kaleb's (2nd) Science journal page about volcanoes.

Drake's science journal page

• Read about Caleb and Joshua in our bible studies. The boys thought it was cool that we have our own Kaleb and Joshua. :)
• Flew through math. Addition practice for Gabriel and time review for Kaleb.
• WW, OPG, handwriting, SOTW, ETC, and FLL followed nicely.
• After lunch, we did the first lesson in Writing With Ease. Very excited about this program! I'm starting both boys on Level 1. I told Kaleb if he did well for a few weeks, we could bump him up to Level 2. Kaleb and Gabriel enjoyed the first day!
• Completed our school day before 2:30!!

Sometimes....Hazel feels left out and needs some school-time love.

Sorry about the red eyes. :) He actually liked the writing activity in WWE. I'm shocked but happy!

Everyone working so nicely and quietly...two days in a row! Very soon I'm going to post about that green hanging file folder at the bottom middle of the page. It's a part of our new organizational system that replaces the workbox system. LOVE the workbox system but it just wasn't working well with my middles...maybe we'll try again in a couple years.

Wednesday

• Heard in our homeschool today:
• "Thank you, abacus. I love you."
• "Mom, what's 1000 x 1000?" One million, son. "Wow. Great job, Mom. I didn't even know the answer to that one!"
• "I want to make my 4 the way I like making it but I have to make it the way you tell me to. Even though I don't want to, I'm going to because you said."
• A very quick let's-get-it-done kind of day. Math, bible study, history, English, ETC, OPG, and handwriting all done...all boring. Ha!
• We skipped science since we spent so much time on it the two previous days.
• Re-started Galloping the Globe. This is our last try with this curriculum. If it doesn't work, we'll be looking for something else for geography. We googled the Great Wall of China and cities in China as well as Chinese farm life. Then we went on YouTube and found a couple good videos with some quick lessons in Chinese. {Look to the right of the YouTube page for more videos by the same group.} Found China on the globe which was easy since we're studying China in SOTW right now and have been doing map work all week.  We won't spend two weeks on China in GtG since we've covered China in the past. Moving on to South Korea next week.
• Quick trip to town for a park play date before rushing home to grab the teen and head back to town for dinner with Grandma and Grandpa.
• No pictures even. It was THAT kind of day! :) 

Thursday

• GtG-made this a priority in the morning to see if we can establish a good routine. Made  Chinese lanterns, started our Chinese dragons, and colored some coloring sheets as well as tackled another YouTube lesson and watched a quick video on the Chinese dragon dance.

painting their dragons. Finished product next week!

Chinese lanterns

• We drew ducks from Draw Write Now when we talked about animals from China.

Gabriel

Kaleb

Drake--the blue circles above his duck are raindrops. :)

• Talked bout Balaam's talking donkey in Scripture Adventures. The boys LOVED that story!
• Learned about Marco Polo in history. They couldn't believe that his own family didn't recognize him after so many years in China.
• The rest of the day was pretty lazy. We did get some math done and a few other things.  Adding three numbers had Gabriel totally wigged out until he realized how easy it was! :)
• I didn't sleep well the night before so we took it easy.  We've had such a great week so far and accomplished SO much.
• These boys who wouldn't color anything with crayons to save their lives have turned out about 15 pages each in history, bible study, and GtG this week. Not sure what caused the change but it makes for an easier story time when their hands are busy!
• Highlight of the day: co-op class enrollment! They are EXCITED!! Now we wait for co-op classes to begin in March...
• Kaleb is taking a class on plants, a class on horses, and a MythBusters class.
• Gabriel is taking a hands-on science class, a class on plants, and a MythBusters class.
• Drake is taking a sign language class, a story + art class, and a playdoh fun class. :) 

Friday

• Taking it easy today. Working on the three R's first and then we'll see how much we get done after that. Daddy is home so if we only get the three R's done, I'll be happy with that.
• Picking up the public school child this afternoon and heading out for a fun family evening!!

Hope you have a great week as well. Happy weekend!!


Linking up:

It's THAT time of year!

It always feels like a little restlessness, maybe even some boredom, starts slipping into our homeschool about this time of year. The cold weather plays a huge factor, although this year we have had several unseasonably warm days (and I've loved it!). 

For me, there's a HUGE holiday let-down...when the craziness of the holidays is gone and our days slow down.  Ours lasts a little longer than some because my oldest son's birthday is in January.

At times, it seems like the days start blending together. Same old, same old. Routine is good, but (honestly?) it's a little boring. 

Like many other homeschool moms, my attention starts to drift toward the next school year. New, shiny books and materials. Curriculum changes. Evaluating our year to see what worked and didn't. Preparing for the new year. NEW, EXCITING, FUN stuff!! 

This year has been no different. I started thinking about next school year sometime last week when I decided to give up on Rod & Staff English. I LOVE the program, but unfortunately my kids do not. It's a source of frustration in our house. To be honest, even I have been avoiding grammar all together just so our days aren't turned upside down.

We successfully used R&S with my oldest for three years. He didn't like it but he did very well and didn't complain (loud enough, I guess...). It works! I know it does. I hate to give it up but it's time.

So I began to panic a little. I've never used anything else for grammar. I had NO idea what was out there, what would fit with my boys (who have completely different learning styles), what I would enjoy teaching (because let's just get real here...if Mom doesn't like it, it doesn't get done).

As I began thinking about what new material we need for next year, I did something a little different. I evaluated myself and my ability to find materials that fit our family. How am I going about looking for new materials and how successful am I?  I found that I've been incredibly blessed. Ha! Everything we love just *happened* into my line of vision and straight into my lap. Everything we haven't liked....it seems now that maybe I forced upon us because of recommendations, reviews, or simply *I* just wanted it.

Don't misunderstand. Recommendations and reviews are good, very good and very useful. :) I simply have found a few other ways beyond just those two that have helped me.

So I made a little list of the things I was doing when I found those items that fit our family perfectly.

• Pray. Seems obvious, right? Apparently not for me. :)  Looking back on the curricula that currently fit our family, I can honestly see the times when I asked for guidance, even if the prayer was simply "Grr...I have NO idea what (or which) I should get!!! You decide!!" This is my best tool when trying to find that perfect fit.  Thankfully God already knows what will work...it's just a matter of getting my own thoughts and desires out of the way, and actually listening to what He is saying.  Unfortunately, I can also clearly remember the times when I just wanted something because it seemed great to me...only to find out after the purchase that it just wasn't what we needed.

• Read. I've read MILLIONS of reviews. OK, maybe not millions but I have read many, many, many reviews well into the night...on many occasions. I bet you can relate. I am in no way saying reading reviews isn't important but you have to go further.
• Read homeschool mom blogs. There are so many curricula options out there...and it can be overwhelming. In my relatively young homeschooling experience, all homeschool moms LOVE talking about their curricula. What's working...what's not. Read not only how they *like* it, but read the weekly reports to see how it works in their home.  How are they using it? How much time is involved?  Is it open and go or does it take a little more prep work? Does it work well in small or large families? You'll quickly see if it's something you can actually implement in your own home.
• Actually READ the material. Most companies have awesome free samples. Request them and spend time going through the material on your own. (Kind of obvious but I've bought before without even actually seeing the material for myself.)  If a homeschool mom friend has something you've been thinking about, ask to borrow it for a couple of days. Look it over. Ask her how it works in her homeschool.

• Wait. Don't buy the first or second or third thing you find. Can I be honest? I've been looking and looking for a writing curriculum for what seems like forever. Maybe it's only just a few years though. I tried a few things, knowing it wasn't exactly what we needed, but out of a desperation to be DONE with it. I wanted to be teaching not searching. I bought a book last year, took one look at it, didn't really understand the concept, deemed it a bad fit, shelved it, and moved on. Tried something else that didn't work, and pretty much gave up ever finding something. Then, as I was cleaning out the school closet last week, I found that book. I determined to read it again. I prayed. "Oh God, if this is THE ONE, pretty please make it obvious. If it isn't, I need that to be obvious as well." I have to admit, I am so GLAD that I didn't get rid of that book. I didn't exactly *wait* I suppose, but thankfully I did feel the need to hold on to it. I can honestly say this will fit our family. I know it because it's the same way I felt about everything else that has fit us so well. If I hadn't held on to that book, I'd still be searching....and frustrated.

• Quit. Yep. Give up. I have tried SO hard to get a particular curriculum to work for us. SO hard!! I wanted it. It was cool and popular and fun and everyone else was using it with such great success!!!  I just needed to MAKE it work for us!  When I finally admitted defeat and chose to give up cramming it into our family mold, I opened up the opportunity to find the a better, more comfortable fit. Something that actually worked for our family.

• Change. Be willing to try a totally different approach. Be open to different learning styles. If you're stuck in a rut, pull yourself out and move in a different direction. People change, kids change, families change. It makes sense that, when something stops working for us, we need a change. When I find something that works, I want to stick with it....like forever Even if I see breakdown, I seriously don't want to let it go!!! It worked once before. It will work again...right?! Sometimes we just need to recognize it's time for a change...and give it up.

There are so many different methods to finding the perfect curriculum for your family. These are just a few of the things I have found that work for me (when I actually remember to apply them). I have had good success so if you're stuck in a rut, maybe one or a few of my ideas will work for you.


I'm excited to share *what's new* in our homeschool very soon!


Linking up at....

Week 21 Homeschool Report

Well I counted up the weeks and found that we just finished 21 school weeks. Now we didn't work all week during a lot of that time since Daddy was home so much, but we're counting it! Ha! We have roughly 15 weeks of schoolwork left so obviously we managed some work even with Daddy distracting us. :)

We jumped back into our science studies this week. It's been sorely neglected. You know, I had ordered one of the books (like the main one!!!) needed for Elemental Science from Amazon before school even started. It never came. Then I had to find another and REorder. In the shuffle of school and fall sports starting and Daddy being home, we just kind of dropped it.

This week we learned about earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, and volcanoes. We completed the earthquake and tornado experiments but we're holding off on the volcano experiment until next week.
Of course the boys LOVED it. We watched videos of each natural disaster on YouTube as well as a couple on Tsunamis. We read a little about them and then did the experiments in the books. Then...my favorite part...we brought out our science journals that haven't been touched yet, and wrote/drew about what we learned. I failed to get pictures of their journals this week but I did get a few of the earthquake experiment and a quick video of the tornado experiment. However, Blogger is being contrary and won't let me upload the video. Maybe next week? :)

"Earthquakes are serious business." "(They) can hurt and sometimes kill people." "Sometimes they make big buildings collapse." 

Everything else is going well. Kaleb is working on times tables and doing well, Gabriel's phonics lessons are coming along nicely, and Drake is learning all about letters and numbers. Drake surprised me this week by wanting to write more and more. He spends quite a bit of time with dollar store alphabet workbooks, just tracing and writing those letters. :)

We had some excitement one day this week, and spend the night with Nana. Daddy was out of town. Nathan came home from school and told me about the three hour school lockdown that the school never called or texted me. Apparently a wanted criminal had escaped police custody near our home (!!!) and they had been looking for him most of the day. About the time Nathan was telling me about this, a storm developed in our area and knocked out our electricity. That was just a bit more than I was comfortable with handling on my own so we camped out at Nana's house that night. :)  Thankfully the storm passed with no damage, the electricity came back on, and criminal was captured early the next morning.

The next day was less eventful.  A tree fell on our house. Thankfully it wasn't a huge tree and actually didn't do any real damage.

Nathan played his last jr high basketball game yesterday. Next time he plays a regular season game, he'll be in SENIOR HIGH! Oh my gosh. Nathan turned 15 years old last week. I'm seriously thinking I can't possibly be old enough to have a 15 year old who is almost in high school....can I?

Look how TALL that kid is!! (oh and someone always have to photobomb us! ha! PEACE!)

Outside of our homeschool which was great, it's been quite a tiring week. :)  Glad to put this one to bed and start fresh on Monday. We are SO very thankful that, even with all the chaos, we are happy, healthy, and safe. Many blessings.

His breakfast smoothie was extra super yummy that day!

Good morning kisses from Hazel to Joshua!!!

Hope you had a great week and have a wonderful weekend! :)

Weekly Update: the one without a number.

After a few weeks off from school and a few partial weeks with a few kind of weeks and a few blah weeks, I've lost count on what week we are in right now. Ha! I can't even tell you how many DAYS we've been in school since we haven't been using our counter on a regular basis. How about we just call this week 1 of 2013 and not worry about it? Thankfully we aren't required to keep up with the number of days or weeks of our homeschool year in our state so really....it doesn't matter. :)

It's been a doozy of a week! I knew it would be after the long and ridiculously fun Christmas break. I didn't plan to take so much time off from school at the first of the school year, but quickly realized that the littles weren't going to get much done with Daddy AND the teen at home all day!

So we got off to a rough start. Monday morning was so bad that we had to restart our day. Around 10am, I sent the kids back to bed, climbed into bed myself, and then *re-woke* everyone. We smiled and hugged and greeted the day with a little more enthusiasm the second time around.  The rest of our day went much smoother. We enjoyed an extra long reading time in history and did most of our schoolwork on the living room couch.

After such a bad start to the week, I was determined to do better on Tuesday. We got off to a great start. Accomplished a lot of school work on the couch again. Joshua, Drake, and Hazel (our dog) fell alseep on me while I read from our history book so our morning quickly turned into a time of rest. Drake and the baby weren't feeling all that great anyway, and Kaleb and Gabriel had fun playing on the computer while the rest slept.  When the sleepers woke, we went into town for a quick lunch. A super nice gentlemen who talked to my boys at the restaurant surprised us when we went to pay for our lunch. He beat us to the bill!!  How sweet was that?! I was flabbergasted to say the least. A very nice surprise! We did a little bit more schoolwork when we got home and then just enjoyed the rest of the day by watching a couple movies.

The hubs called on Wednesday to tell me he was coming home.....as soon as the dizziness stopped. He had a raging fever overnight and woke up with the flu. :( After tying up a few loose ends, he headed home. Drake and Joshua also woke up sick with the flu so school was cancelled and I took care of the sicklies all day.

Thursday and Friday were filled with Daddy and Drake sleeping off their flu fever, Kaleb and Gabriel playing and then resting for long periods before jumping back up to play some more, and me holding a sick baby.

By Saturday, all fevers were gone and everyone was on their way to good health. Daddy and Gabriel still have a little cough but otherwise are doing much better. Nathan and I never did get sick...so thankful for that since Daddy could barely move.

No pictures. My hands were too busy taking care of my loves....and I'm sure nobody wanted their picture taken anyway. :)

We'll begin schoolwork again on Monday (today) and hopefully have a much more productive week minus any illnesses. :)