First, I lost my camera...thought at first Miss Molly misplaced the thing but after searching all her hiding places, I'm beginning to wonder if the thing just grew legs and disappeared...I HATE IT WHEN THINGS GO MISSING! I have pondered this, prayed out this and it sickens me....it drives me nuts. I don't like misplacing things and then the waste of a good thing gone missing plaques me..
I had a great, quiet birthday today...we did a full day of school, John woke up early and we went and found some ice cream treats at Steak N Shake where they have Happy Hour and all ice cream, drinks and shakes are half off from 2-4...I love it when I stumble on a good deal! The kids and John gave me a new fancy case and cover for my phone and some really sweet cards. John's was especially really great! He is not much of a birthday/gift giver kind of guy but he always picks out the most perfect cards! My parents came over and surprised me with a Year Membership to the Tallahassee Museum and some spending money! Yipee! Now we can go visit the animals at the museum anytime we want. Emily is about to start taking some homeschool classes at he museum about once or twice a month so Molly and I will go as well and look around. The first class Emily will attend is called Habitats. It is for one hour and for kids 3rd-5th grade. Each class is $2. Can't beat that!!!!!!
Emily and I are moving along with our homeschooling daily. Somedays it is hit or miss due to appointments, book club meetings, work but for the most part we have been very consistent. Daddy, our principal, substituted for school on Wednesday and they did great. I left lesson plans and things they needed to accomplish and it all got done. Emily said he was "hard." I like that John wants to be involved! I need that....I so need his support! He really likes history and we are reading a book about the Presidents...he liked it so much, he asked that I do it when he is here to join us. I've learned facts already and can't wait to read more on the presidents. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day and on July 4th at that. During the War of 1812 under James Madison, the Bristish burned the White House and the Capitol. John Adams thought being Vice President was boring.
John also reads the Bible Lesson with us in the morning....not really lesson I guess but John and I decided together (yay for us figuring something out together) that we wanted to quit with the "fluff" kid like devotionals and just read the Bible. Devotionals are good and have their purpose and I think some of that can be read in a personal quiet time but we wanted to stratight up read the Bible. So that is what we are doing! We started in Genesis and I have a guide that we are using that breaks it into sections to read so many verses at once. The only verses it skips are the ones that list long lines of geneology so far....so basically from what I can tell, in about a year and a half we will have read the entire Bible if we do it everyday and it only leaves out maybe 10% of the verses like geneology or long name lists. I like it and we are reading about Noah right now. The kids might not pick up everything but so far I have been impressed. They both hang with it and get that we are reading the Bible from the very beginning of Time. Its cool! I absolutely love that we read as a family after breakfast! That is what I imagined homeschool to be.
I've written before that we are doing a book club with about 5 other families. We had our first Book Review and reports this past week. The girls (and moms) all read The Hundred Dresses. They had to stand in front of the group and say something about the book, its characters, a chapter, etc. I thought my Emily did very well. She is shy but was confident in what she wanted to say and I was proud of that. She drew a picture of her favorite dresses because she is my artist and talked about why she liked the characters. As a group we all discussed the parts of a story like plot, point of view, rising action, climax, conclusion, characters, setting, conflict, the hero, the antagonist, the mood, foreshadowing, theme and style. This was school for the day....plus she had piano lessons. This book created quite the discussion in our family about lying and if the character in the book was lying about her hundred dresses or just being misleading and was that wrong...even Daddy got in on the discussion....fun stuff! The next book is Because of Winn Dixie which I'm excited about!
We've been looking at some Monet prints and I have a book that I checked out from the library called What Makes a Monet a Monet from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We will do art appreciation very slowly and maybe not everyday but I got excited when we went to pick up the book from the Library and as Emily was looking through it, she said, "Mommy, here is the Water Lilly picture that is hanging by my desk."
I've become quite the seller of items on Craigslist and on the homeschool loop. I'm in a decluttering mode and still in search of my camera so I'm purging...I've sold 3 Vera Bradley purses, baby toys, a Johnny Jumper, a rolling kitchen hutch, some clothes, and big kid toys. $20 here and $10 there never hurt anything.
John is in major Dave Ramsey form these days and is seriously writing down EVERY single penny we spend...just trying to be more mindful and better sterwards. In one month we spent over $200 on eating out...I was blown away...I didn't even feel like we had eaten out....but we had nickeled and dimed ourselves to death...you know $10 here and $20 there...so we are on a mission...its kind of fun, like a game to see how little we can spend on silly stuff. We got our home phone turned off recently because no one ever uses it. It has not made my Cell Phone bill go up at all and our grandparents were literally the ONLY ones that ever called us on it so we decided to save a little and turn it off. It will save us almost $50 a month! Extra money to go in our trip funds.....
Speaking of trip funds...
We have some get aways in mind.....John and I like to travel in the fall and spring so we are always busier then...
In September, we are taking our little Sunday School class camping over at Jellystone park in Madison...they were all intersted in our camping excursions so we are going to try to show them the ropes...
On October 1st we leave for Amicalola Falls State Park with our friends to go camping in the mountains. We are super excited about some fall weather, leaves changing, campfires, hiking, and waterfalls.
John is going to the FSU Miami game with his buds on Oct 8th in Miami and then visiting his sister that lives there.
In December, we are going camping at FDR park in High Springs. It will be very cold!!!!
We have Cabins reserved at Suwannee River State Park with some other friends for New Years Eve and New Years Day...we have had these reservations for 6 months....seriously....you have to reserve them that far in advance!
Then we have some things in mind for the Winter/Spring...these are desires but not set in stone by any means and it will take some saving of our pennies and scheduling...
We really want to take the kids to see snow....Some great people at church have a house in Black Mountain, North Carolina (got snow this year)..and have offered us their place for a VERY reasonable rate. We want to go in Mid January possibly.
The VERY LAST space shuttle mission is scheduled for the end of February. I had entered a lottery to get tickets for the November of this year but didn't win so we will try again in February. I really want to take the kids to see it and to visit Kennedy Space Center. My Dad's cousin has gone up in space twice and seeing that and visiting the space center was always the most amazing thing. John Daniel would love it!!!!!
And then in Marh/April we really really really want to go to Washington DC! We would have to drive but might be able to shack up with my brother for at least part of the time and stay in a hotel for part of it. We are studying American History and I would love to take the kids to visit DC. We want to go during the Cherry Blossom Festival. The cool thing about DC from what we hear is that most of the museums and attractions are FREE so that is really cool!
In May, the Florida Parent Education Association puts on a HUGE Florida Homeschool Convention in Orlando and two homeschooling mommy friends and I want to go. GIRLS TRIP!!! It is at the Gaylord hotel and they have vendors, curriculum and speakers and such to motivate and help you in your homeschooling. The Florida Convention is the 2nd largest in the Nation.
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