so, I am a Christmas Tree skirt snob..

I am a snob about quite a few things but I never thought one could be so particular about a Christmas tree skirt. I have had this old one from who knows when. It's been around probably a lot longer than I have and I love that it reminds me of home and when I was little. I do, however, feel the need to make my own home so I am on a mission to find a nice one. I want very specific colors. No green or gold or red. I want blue and silver. Strange, I know. I may put up with some other colors as long as the others are not dominate. Annabelle and I went shopping Saturday and I can tell that she is going to be the one that enjoys that with me in future years. She helped me decide that I did not like any of the ones they had to offer at any given store.



As far as school goes, we are slowly adding more pages from our books and I have mapped out how many pages we need to do to keep Abby on track. She has gotten so much better at sitting and working quietly. She makes me proud. I am really liking this cheap language arts book I got at Sams Club. I may stick with it next year, who knows! Wes likes it too and he is pretty darn picky being the homeschooler that he is. I think we might be doing some work through the Christmas break as not to get off our groove and we have a long way to go. We started the school year all over again in October so we are a couple months behind. Also, I think we'll be going to DasCHE next year instead of SALT. This is a big deal. I am comfy in my co-op. I have made friends but SALT is moving to Camp El Har and I totally do not want to drive there every week. Oh well. *sigh* I am glad Abby has lots of friends in DasCHE. :-)

frogs and snails and puppy dog tails

I love having a boy. He is so refreshing after having two girls. I love my girls but they are both needy and have to be involved in everything. I like that Will is happy just playing in dirt or water, or whatever. It is nice. And he flashes his smile and everyone talks to him. He gets a lot of attention. I love him.

What are little boys made of?
What are little boys made of?
Frogs and snails and puppy dog tails,
that's what little boys are made of.

My lessons got a little more complex this week as I mapped out our work last night. Wes and I sat down and made a few objectives. Here is what we are doing:

Abby
Math- multiplying 2 and 3 digit numbers with decimals, timed math skills
Reading- When Zachary Beaver Came to Town
Writing- She is doing brainstorming, a rough & final draft and illustrating a paper on "why the world would be different without tv? Good? Bad?"
Language Arts- Grammar and vocabulary
Art- making stamps in class for some note cards

Annabelle
Number-9
Letters- M, N and O
Learning about Indians and will have a "feast" in class Wednesday
Painted a picture about her favorite thing she did this week

It's not complex. We hit a few snags today. Mondays are hard especially after such a fun weekend. Abby got to go to Great Wolf lodge where they have a huge indoor waterpark. She spent a couple of days there so she was pretty waterlogged and tired when she came home. So, I am learning a bit with this whole preparing objectives thing. I hope I am getting better. We are all learning together. I think the most difficult thing for me is juggling the usual household things and schoolwork. It's hard for me to seperate the two. We'll get through this!

what...?

There is something so totally wrong with this picture. Yep, they are all mismatched.

elusivity

Okay, so that's not a word. I won't be teaching Abby words like strategery or ignorarrogance. But I have been a bit elusive. Someone stopped me at church and said I hadn't written all week. There are 2 reasons for that:
1. I was at a conference for pastoral/leadership staff for several days.
2. No one comments on my posts so I have no idea you are reading it.

Please, follow and I love to see your comments! It makes me think I am not just writing to myself. :-) Wait, I might be..but you are reading this, so I am not just writing to myself...right?

So as far as this past week is concerned, I am afraid I was a miserable failure. Well, I just had bad timing in starting all of this. I had the Trunk or Treat thing last weekend, then I had bunches of housework following that. We got some stuff done Monday-Wednesday. And just when I was in the groove, the conference started Thursday, so the kids went o Miss Donna's a.k.a their favorite place in the world and they did some work there. My conference was awesome. With the ministry that I have, it's hard to get away some times and just worship the Lord. I truly had one of those heart filling, mountain-top type experiences. I needed it because burnout happens so easily. If you've never heard Francis Chan or Matt Chandler speak, I would encourage you to listen to a sermon or two online. Wow. Anyway, back to church today and we shall have a productive week this week hopefully now that everything has calmed down. I will leave you with a picture or two (or more) for fun.

Will working on his times tables.
My Abby girl
Conference fun-ness

First Day

Well, we started home schooling today. Annabelle did her work and Will was very happy scribbling in my lap while Abby picked up her room then Abby started on hers. She did a lot of math today but I realized something that might hinder us a bit. She doesn't know all of her times tables. Yup, that's right. Somehow she received commended performance on her TAKS math portion for several years without knowing her times tables. I drew her out a table and had her fill in the numbers. This will be her only "calculator" for quite some time. She went outside and found 4 types of leaves per her science book, but otherwise, we just kind of did house work after the crazy Trunk or Treat weekend. I bought a book at Sams Club for her to go through while I am looking for more stuff to do. Tomorrow she'll be in the home school room at church while I go to Bible Study. Wish us luck! We had a few snags today, it can only get better, right?

uh oh

I had a serious 'oh crap' moment when I was walking out of Life Charter with all of Abby's school records. What have I done?