My guys

I took this last night while supper was in the oven.  We do this every night, Scott cuddles his boy while I make supper and PJ typically falls asleep on his daddy's shoulder.

The end of a season

Today my children lost a bit of that innocence they have had.  This evening at 8pm we buried their pet hamster, S'more.  He had been ill for a while now, and slowly declining, so we had been expecting him to die.  This morning he appeared to be doing a bit better; however, that was just his honeymoon health before he passed this evening.  Now I have a little grave in the back yard, and Lydia crying in my ear and refusing to believe that he has indeed passed into the big hamster wheel in the sky.  He was our pet for a little over a year before his passing, and while he wasn't the easiest to get along with (he had a habit of biting the girls if they messed with him too much) he was loved by all 4 girls and they will miss him.

Until we get a rabbit that is........ stay tuned for that blog post coming in the next couple months.

tough decision with a child

I only have a few minutes before we have to leave for VBS so I will keep this short.

Jojo will be 5 on September 3rd.  The cutoff for a child to start school is September 30th, and school starts this year on August 22nd.  She technically passed the K screening but has some areas that we need to keep working on, and I question her maturity at times.  We have full-day K only around here, I don't know of any half-day options.  So I'm about 90% sure that she won't be going to school this fall with her sisters.  I'm thinking she would benefit from another year at home with me, working casually and gently on things that she struggles in and maturing a bit more before she starts the next year.  But Scott wants me to send her and at least give it a try to see how she does.  She doesn't really have an opinion either way.

If we keep her home, I'll get her reading and start addition and subtraction when PJ naps.

VBS week and life's crazy fun stuff

This week is VBS week for us.  In case you don't know, VBS is Vacation Bible School, and every summer the kids who are old enough go to the program at a church near our home.  This happens to also be the church they go to Awana at and the host church for the homeschool group we've been a part of the past 4 years.  We enjoy the children's activities there, and it is just a few miles away, so they go there for activities even though it is not our home church (it is a half hour drive each way, we can't spend that much on gas for activities there outside a few special events and going to the service on Saturday nights).

This year Jojo is old enough to go, so I have all 4 girls going there from 8am-noon this week.  This is the first time I've had all 4 of them off like this for an activity, and it is also good practice for me to see what it will be like this fall when they are all 4 off to school.  Yesterday I spent the time making all the important phone calls I needed to make, and this morning I went to the grocery store and did a little bit of tidying up.  Tomorrow's VBS time I will be taking PJ to his 4 month checkup and shots, and the rest of the week is likely going to be me doing some of the chores I have to get done and taking my laundry over to a friend's house to get some done.

Yes I said taking laundry to a friend's house.  Our washer blessed us on Saturday morning when I was washing PJ's clothes by breaking down in mid-wash.  The pump quit working while it was draining the spin after washing, and then we had it fill to rinse and not drain that water.  Scott got the dryer unstacked last night so that we could tip the washer back for me to get the clothes out and scoop the water out into my mop bucket.  Next weekend he is hopefully going to order the parts we need and then he and I will try to fix it ourselves (if we can't do it ourselves, we have a reputable locally owned repair place that will put it in for us for $109 labor).  Hopefully it isn't down too much, because I don't want to do too much laundry at my friend's house and what I don't do there I am hand washing in the bathtub.  I really do NOT like hand washing dirty laundry, especially when I am dealing with diaper poop explosions because I have to use disposable diapers instead of cloth on PJ until the washer is fixed.

PJ and the milestone

I thought I'd do a little blip here about PJ's latest milestone.  I think I'll share a couple pictures first and then comment with what exactly is going through my mind now.

Nom nom nom!

PJ and the wubbie

He has started putting things in his mouth this week to chew on them.  Yes he is teething.  Yes he is starting to grab at toys and bat things.  No I am NOT prepared for the amount of heavy cleaning that this means I need to do and keep up with.  I've always kept things tidied enough to pass here, as life is just busy with 5 kids.  But now that he's starting to grab at things and is putting them in his mouth, I need to be extra diligent about keeping things picked up.  I do not want to have to deal with him getting something small in his mouth stuck there.

So today I started cleaning.  Nothing like having a baby who chews everything to force a "flight of the bumblebee" style deep cleaning.

Summer plans

This summer is going to be a very different one for us.  Scott and I made the decision to enroll the girls in a charter school this fall, so in August they will be getting on the bus and headed off all day during the week.  We are both in agreement that this is the path we need to follow at this time, and are confident in this decision.  This does not mean that I will no longer be teaching my children.  We plan to continue to supplement the school with our own materials at home on weekends and school breaks in history and science, and daily as needed with math and language arts.  This is going to be a new experience for me, as it means that I will be home with just PJ during the day.  But I have a feeling it will be exactly what our family needs right now, and give all of us an opportunity to grow in a new way.

So, that means that this summer we are going to be focused on preparing the girls to attend school.  Missa and Liddy are *slightly* behind the school so we will be spending time daily getting them caught up and even a bit ahead in math.  Missa also will get a crash course in cursive and spelling, in hopes that she will improve noticeably over the summer.  It is going to be an interesting and busy summer here, but I have faith that we can pull it off.

And I have to rework our budget to allow for us to purchase uniforms for the girls to wear.  That will be the hard part I think.

wrapping up the school year

We have had a very eventful school year here, and now it is June so we need to wrap up things at some point and take a bit of a break.  Originally I wasn't going to take a break here due to the time we had to take off with my pregnancy complications, but even I am wanting a little time to relax and enjoy.  Plus, I need to free up some time to focus on getting my plans for this upcoming school year figured out in a couple areas.

We have made a lot of progress this year despite the things that came up.  The girls had a chance to learn through my pregnancy, about keeping healthy and making good choices along with learning about the development of a baby before it is born (science and health both right there).  They learned the importance of working together and helping out when needed, and gained some additional independence this school year.  We did keep plugging away in academics of course, completing most of our goals in history and science for the year plus making great progress in math and reading.  Missa finished her math book and moved up into Beta back in October I believe, and yesterday Jojo finished her Singapore Earlybird math book.  Liddy should finish her math book in the next few weeks and move on up to Beta as well, and Kimmy will finish her math book probably by fall.  Overall, I am happy with how the school year has gone for us.

So we shall wrap up this year over this month and take a bit of time off, then pick up with grades 4, 3, 1, and K in late July or early August.  We will keep up with doing some math and reading most likely over this summer, but at a more relaxed pace.  But officially, I'm calling it over with by the end of this month and just taking it for what it is.  I didn't get as much done as I would have liked in history or science, but they still got a LOT more than they would have in our local public school.  We have many years still to finish up the history we did this school year, and I am looking forward to the US geography study we will be doing this fall.  I have even decided to expand it to include science by studying earth science (identifying landforms in each state, like mountains, canyons, and such) and some plant/animal science (studying different plant and aminal life that is in each state, such as tumbleweed and cacti, scorpions, birds, and such).  I need to take a bit of time to rework the plan I originally had obviously to include this, as I was just going to keep plugging forward in science with what we have here (finishing the Real Science 4 Kids books that I got for this school year).  I also need to take some time to create a basic intro to music theory for the kids, as I would ideally like to have the oldest girls reading music a little bit next school year, and come up with something for art.