June 2012

Dance recital 2012

 Day Out With Thomas June 2012

On the shuttle ride over to Thomas with Daddy!

And Mommy! 

                                                                                                                 

Andy's 30th Birthday! : )

That cake, by the way, was a real pain in the neck and ended up look cruddy.  It tasted pretty good though.

 Hannah donning her personal protective equipment.

 My pic through the welder's mask.

Annular Eclipse somewhere else, with someone else taking a much better pic.

 Doing a little garden work! 

I wish I could do the standing around looking cute part of gardening as well as Hannah does.

Natalie's new, short haircut. She was begging to get it cut and I told her she could after dance recital. I kind of thought she'd forget, but she was asking about it immediately following dress rehearsal. So the week after recital it was time for a haircut! 

Hannah likes to color.....

....on herself! 

Swimming with cousin Zane.

Well.....that's Mason for ya! 

Party time! Excellent!

A flock of flamingos!

@ the Fort Worth Zoo.

Flamingo butt....that darn bird would not turn around!

Feeding the birds! Genius idea! 

Kids absolutely LOVED this! 

Probably spent 45 mins here alone!

Hitchin' a ride!

Stagecoach.

Snake wranglers!

Crazy rain front.

Super weird clouds.

Looked a lot cooler than it was.

Didn't get much rain out of it, but it was neat to look at. 

Well, that's our summer so far. 

New Ideas

Seems like homeschool is always a work in progress, which is exhausting and liberating all at once. It's nice to be able to have freedom to try things, see what works, keep the functional and ditch what doesn't work for us.

Recently I've been reading about a homeschool organization system called "workboxes."  The idea being there is a draw for each subject, wherein I place all the instructions and supplies for each of the days assignments. So math crap goes in one drawer, whatever worksheets, rulers, pencils, unifix cubes...whatever is needed for that days assignment. That's the seriously readers digest version. However, I think some version of this idea will be quite helpful in organization for our school, especially since I'll be doing more formal "school" activities with Mason now that he's "kindergarten" age.

I got the Joann (the fabric store, that is) app for my phone. They've got mobile coupons, and one this week for 50% off one item. My one item is going to be the little stack of drawers to use for our work boxes. Hopefully they have them at the store. I hate it when I think I'm going to go get something and they don't even carry it at the store. Ugh! So, that's our project for this week. Go get the drawers and get organized.

I'm actually really liking our little school area. It's fantastic. It's really taking shape and I've been fortunate in finding handy, inexpensive things to help us be more organized. A place for everything, and everything in its place.....at least in the school area. I can keep with the one area.

Spring

Natalie and Mason on the toilet "car" at the mining museum @ Jerome, Arizona.

I keep thinking I'll be a more diligent blogger but alas, life keeps going and we're all so busy living life that I forget to document it! Our most recent happening is that Alex, the kids and I took a trip to Arizona for almost a month in March. When we left to head down there everything at home was still all brown and wintery, not that we had much winter to speak of. When we got back it was all green and blooming and springy! I'm going to try to post a few pics, but we are back on satellite internet (long story) so it will likely take a ridiculously long time to post anything. HATE satellite internet!! Anyway, we had a great time in Arizona. We did lots of fun things; climbed hole in the rock at Papago park, went to the mining museum at Jerome, Arizona, pre-birthday birthdaying for Mason, kite flying, shooting trip, swimming, the Easter pageant at the temple in Mesa, etc, etc. We did lots of shopping and lots of eating tasty food. I've been awakened to the amaziness that is Ikea. Holy smokes. LOVE that place!

Next up; Mason's 5th birthday! It doesn't seem like that can be right. He's quite a character. You can never tell what might come out of his mouth next. When we were at Jerome we had to park on one section of the switchbacks the town is built into, and then climb stairs up to the restaurant for dinner. When we were done eating we were going to climb back down the stairs, and next to the regular stairs were these other giant stairs, more like outdoor amphitheater seating. I asked Mason if he wanted to go bounce down the stairs, meaning jump. I think he thought perhaps bounce like a ball or something because he looked up at me and said, "That is NOT a marvelous idea!" If he was thinking about it like a ball, he's probably right about it not being a marvelous idea. He's an observant, clever, witty, big ball of energy. Such a fun boy! He had his first party with friends this year. We did another party at the Children's Discovery Center. (Natalie had her birthday party there last year.) It was good fun. Because of scheduling and busy weekends this time of year we ended up doing it on a weekday afternoon which turned out great because there were almost no other kids there. They pretty much had the whole place to themselves.

I'm thinking about trying to potty train Hannah. She seems kind of interested. I put undies on her today, and of course she peed in them BUT she was REALLY ticked about it. She screamed like I'd pulled her legs off. She was way not happy. So, since we've got warm weather now I may let her run around in undies at home and see how she does. Although, I did just buy a giant box of diapers at Costco....lol.

Organizing and half dead! LOL

I think Anna Kournikova is trying to kill me! LOL. Ok, maybe not! I got this new exercise DVD. One of the Biggest Loser series. Anna Kournikova does one of the segments, and it's hard! Her segment is only 15 mins, but I can barely get through it. I feel kind of wimpy. I'm doing pretty well on the exercising part of getting more healthy, and I suppose my diet is less bad, but boy do I LOVE baked goods! Terrible! I've successfully told myself no to making a pineapple upside down cake (a fav) for the last several days. But I did give in to shortbread, lime curd and blueberries yesterday. Oh the sweet tooth.....

On the organizing part of my New Year's resolution Andy and his dad built a coat locker/cubby thing. Which I'm SUPER excited about! I sanded it (and got a splinter and cuts on three fingers) and painted it. I was going to install the hooks, but somehow jabbed myself in the hand with the screw, so I passed that task off to Andy. Probably good if I stick to putting the baskets on the shelf.

Here is the finished product:

Pretty darn good if you ask me!

January 2012?

The holidays are over and it's time for some New Year's resolutions, eh? Is it lame to resolve to lose weight this year? I suppose it's not lame to make the resolution, but lame to cop out and be feeling the same way this time next year. Hm. Anyway, I'm trying to exercise while Hannah takes her nap in the morning. I get Natalie going on her school work, put Hannah down for a nap and pop in a DVD. I'm getting quite a little collection, which is nice cause doing the same one over and over is BO-RING! The other thing I'm doing is trying to not eat a ton of carbs in the evening. I think I'm going to try to just eat fruit, veg and yogurt for dinner. We'll see how this goes. I just don't want to feel lame.

My other resolution for this year is to get the house more organized. Did I set the bar a little high...organizing a whole house...perhaps. There's too much crap around here and it's gotta get organized and some of it's gotta get gone. I'm super excited about the cubby thing Andy built for the kids' coats, shoes, hat, etc. This is the FREE plan he used;

http://www.freshhomeideas.com/diy-projects/furniture-projects/how-to-build-a-storage-locker

I've got to sand and paint it and then organization ahoy! It's amazing all the little jackets, hats, scarves, mittens, shoes one accumulates with three kids in the house.

I've been re-re-re-reworking our homeschool plan. It seems to be a continual work in progress. I keep trying things, but then I think of something I think may work better, so we give that a try. We've been doing things day by day, and that was working out ok but not great. Going back to school after the holidays I've decided to try getting all the work for the week ready and in her folders so that it's all there for her to do as quickly, or a poky (within reason) as she wants. No homework on the weekends, except if she doesn't finish the weeks work during the week. We'll see if this plan works a little better. I guess part of the deal with buying a pre-assembled and planned curriculum is deciding which parts are working and can stay, and which parts are mindless drudgery and have to go. I've been trying to do every single thing they have in the curriculum, but have discovered that some of it is a bit much. So we're adjusting.

So 2012....what do you have in store?! Guess we'll find out!