Homeschool Update

Let me tell you, I was glad for the break to come!!!  Homeschooling is wonderful and fun, but also hard and stressful.  (For me and my children, anyway)  We have very good days and then very difficult days where nobody seems to want to cooperate or do anything happily.  I was showing my nephew (who is grown-up and has children of his own, one of which is older than my oldest child) our school area and talking to him a little bit about what we do for 'school' and I told him how excited the children were for the break.  His response was, "That's good!  That means you must be doing it right!"  It definitely made be feel better because my thought was:  How wonderful, the children hate school.  What am I doing to them?!?!  I will be the first to say there is no *right* way to Homeschool and I definitely do NOT think I have it all figured out.  But, what happened this morning made my day, no my week.  Maybe even my year.

Emma came to me after breakfast and said, "Mom, I want to do school again."
Me:  Really?  Why?
Emma: I'm tired of waking up and not having anything to do.
So maybe she really does secretly like school!
Last night Grant was also telling us he wanted to do History.  But, he did not want to 'do school'.  We told him History was school and he did not want to believe it.  He doesn't like 'school' because I have to spend time helping Emma and Arianna and am not spending enough time with him one-on-one.  Oh I wish that I could multiply myself!

Emma is making great progress with her math- she has been really working hard at Multiplication and Division and fractions.  She is really getting good!  The curriculum we use (Singapore Math/ Primary Mathematics) really encourages mental math and Emma is doing fantastic with that.
Emma is reading more and more on her own.  She flies through chapter books now.  She is really enjoying Magic Treehouse books and will read most anything else she can get her hands on.  She is reading The Mouse and the Motorcycle, by Beverly Cleary right now. (Grant actually got it in his stocking).  She has read Black Beauty about 3 times, loves the other Beverly Cleary books about Ramona and also read Pollyanna.  We have a great Language cirriculum (First Language Lessons) as well, and I am so proud Emma with how well she is memorizing poems (I think she is up to nine now!), learning the parts of speech and the basics of grammar.  She gets 100% on her spelling test each Friday.  She is also writing cursive very well.

Arianna is reading like a pro these days!  She has watched her big sister enjoying Chapter books and has started to read the Magic Treehouse books as well.  She is on her second one.  We are always impressed when she reads her verse of scripture at breakfast.  She is really doing great.  She also enjoys addition and subtraction and writes very well.  She is a smart little cookie.  Arianna asked to do spelling just like Emma, so I bought her the first Spelling Workout Book.  She complains sometimes about doing it (go figure, she is the one who asked for it.  I wasn't going to start her on it until next year!)  She also gets 100% on her spelling tests on Fridays.  She has also memorized almost the same number of poems as Emma.

Arianna in her princess dress-up playing a math game with me.

She figured it out!

Grant can write his name if he wants to.  He is getting great at saying the alphabet.  Other than that, I don't push him a whole lot.  It is cool to hear him recite poems that he has learned just by being in the same room with Emma as we do language.  He absorbs a lot just by being with us.  I try to read to just him everyday, but wish I could do it more.  He LOVES being read to.  

Kate is a great napper, for the most part, so that is when we do most of our school work; math, language and reading during her morning nap and history, science, and art during her afternoon nap.    She is growing and learning more everyday.  She can stand for a good few seconds on her own now, goes up and down the stairs on her own and says Mama and Dada all the time.

Playing with a crawfish at the creek near our home.  (Can you tell I let the kids wear anything they want?  Another plus of homeschooling!)

They got a real kick out of seeing the thing grab onto the stick!

We love playing with living things!

A cool moth we saw outside in our yard on the flowers Emma planted in the Spring

So, homeschooling is definitely a challenge for me and some days I wonder why I make my life so difficult by homeschooling in the first place.  But, I know that I felt strongly that this is what I needed to do.  Why?  I am not sure at this point.  I know I learn something new everyday.  I adore reading to the children and know I will cherish that time forever.  I am so glad the children get to spend so much time with Kate and get to know her so well.  Hopefully with this new year, we will be able to improve in areas that will make our lives better and more enjoyable.  (Like patience for me)  (Listening and obeying for the children)

Pictures of the kids

I took some pictures of each of the children in the end of November.  I thought I would share:

Emma 7 1/2 years old

Arianna 5 3/4 years old

Laughing Arianna

I tell you, it is hard to get a good pictures of these little crazies!  I had to include a lot of pictures of Grant so you can see the range of emotions he shows during a photo shoot.  He is so funny!

Grant 4 years old

Here's a smile mom, how do you like that one?

You want a grin?  Here you go!

Ack!  There's something in my ear!

Mom, this is getting old.  I don't really want to smile any more.

Please mom, can't we just be done now?

Kate 9 1/2 months old, I know you can't see her face (she would not look up for anything), but she still looks so cute!

I was holding her while taking this picture.  It was cold and I knew she would cry if I set her down in this area of the yard.

Look below at the wrapping up fall post.  Lots of good adventures!

Wrapping up Fall

I have gotten behind again.  Alas, it's the stage of life I am in, I suppose.  This post had been in the works for several weeks now.  I can hardly believe that Christmas has already come and gone!  I had every intention of posting all this fall fun long ago; at least before Christmas came.  Better late than never!  We had a wonderful fall here in Kansas.  It was very beautiful.    

Here are some pictures of harvesting the garden and the yard and chickens:

Digging carrots.  The white shirts are supposed to keep their clothes cleaner.

Hooray for carrots!

This child makes the funniest faces!

Digging potatoes.  Why use the shovel when you can use your hands?

I really enjoyed the color of those trees this fall.  You can see the chicken coop in the backyard.  Isn't it cute?!

The chickens love to eat the berries off this bush.  Can you see that chicken in the background?  

Yes, you saw right!  She is jumping to get the berries.  Isn't that hilarious?!

The kids love these chickens so much.  They even get rides in the car.

The ladies.  She's watching you!

Dad and the kids love to play baseball.

Remember that post about the snow and I really wanted to be able to go on our trip?  Well, we were able to go after all.  We only got a dusting that stuck an the grass and melted on the roads.  So, we were good to make the 3 1/2 hour drive to Oklahoma City.  We went for my Birthday.  We stayed overnight in a hotel there so that Kenneth could go to the temple that evening and I could go early the next morning.  When I got back we all went to the pool and had a blast!  I haven't swam in a while.  Kate was too small, or I was too pregnant to want to swim.  But, this time, all six of us went swimming.  Kate loved it!  We went to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory.  Yummy!  We stopped in Wichita on the way home for a little bit of shopping.  Here are some pictures of that:

What happy kids! (And Daddy, too!)

It really was fun to swim with everyone

Even, if I did feel a little mobbed at times.

35 years old!  Wow!  Can it be?

At the end of October the kids had their Primary Program at Church; Grant's first one!  He did great.  As much trouble as he sometimes gives me here at home, he is an absolute angel every Sunday in Primary.  His little face in those little glasses just melts my heart!  The girls did really well, too. 

Kate had her 9 month check up the beginning of November.  She is a little bitty (for which I am grateful- it makes her much easier to carry around!)  She weighed just 16 lbs.  oz. 

Later in November we hosted 5 of Kenneth's coworkers for dinner.  It went pretty well, considering I can barely pull dinner together for our own family most nights lately!  Everyone seemed to enjoy the food and the company.  Three of the visitors were from Germany, so I was able to practice my German a little bit.  The kids really enjoyed having them.  (Yes, we ate dinner with the kids too!)  I was actually away from the table for most of dinner between nursing Kate and taking care of the other kids, but that was okay.  Kenneth was a very gracious host.  In preparation for that evening, I worked my tail off to actually get the dining room to look presentable and lived in, instead of just empty with a couple of pictures slapped up on the wall.  It looks pretty good, I think!

The week after that our good friends came to visit for Thanksgiving week- all the way from California!  They were already in Utah and figured they were half-way here, so they drove out and stayed a while. We felt honored that they would drive so far. It was so good to see them!  Grant was delighted to have 4 boys to play with!!  The girls also had their good friend to play with.  We mostly stayed home and cooked for Thanksgiving and hung out around the house and yard.  We were given a fresh turkey from someone in our ward who works on a turkey farm.  We also made 3 different delicious dessert: Bavarian Apple Torte, French Silk Pie and Pumpkin Pie.  World's Best Dinner Rolls from Our Best Bites were especially good.  The kids all enjoyed them for days afterwards. (I'm glad I made a big batch!) Kenneth took Marty and Evan on an AGCO Tour and they got to drive tractors.  We all went on a walk to visit the horses nearby.  On that Saturday, Kenneth BBQed chicken and we had another family in our ward over- I thought it would be fun to get two of my most influential homeschool families together.  It was great fun.  It was also a great way to celebrate Kenneth's Birthday!

The Thanksgiving Village Kenneth put together with the kids.  It is on top of the new entertainment center we bought for the family room.

Close-up

G carving the turkey and T looking on

The very full and happy Thanksgiving table (full of people, that is!)

 This is what the Dads did Thanksgiving evening:

We put everyone to work raking leaves

And also let the kids play in the leaves!

A little work. . .

then some play!

My wild woman of the earth

Here is the whole bunch of us minus Kenneth, who was the photographer, and Kate, who was napping

We sure miss our dear friends in California!!

Here is some more leaf pile fun with just our kids:

We piled all the leaves on top of the dormant garden plot to break down

Burying Arianna in the leaves

The beginning of December was a piano recital for the girls.  Arianna did amazingly well for her first recital, even though she was a little nervous beforehand.  You would have never known.  She played her pieces so well!  We are so proud of both of them!

Arianna playing her pieces with her teacher

Grinning Arianna 

It was Emma's second recital, so she seemed pretty comfortable.  She practices hard, so she felt very prepared.

Emma playing

Happy Emma

Finally, Kate learned to play Peek-a-boo.  Such a cutie!

I am planning on doing a little more blogging before the start of school next week, so check back soon!