Any Volunteers??

Anyone want to go to the grocery store for me?  Anyone??

It's been a little crazy since my last post earlier this week.  I woke up Tuesday am with a sore throat and headache.  As the morning went on I felt worse and by 10:30 we wrapped up school so I could go and lay down.  By 1:00 I had to call my sister-in-law to come and get the kids because they were fighting and it was not working with my headache.  By 6:00 I was headed into the doctor because the headache was still intense after two Aleve and I could feel every joint in my back and legs.  Throat culture came back positive for strep and with some antibiotics I was on the road to recovery.  NOW, that this happens while Ryan is gone for the week is just how things go in my life:)  If it snows and the drive needs shoveled - it's when he's gone.  If all the kids get sick - it's when he's gone.  If something major goes out like the furnance - you got it!  It's when he's gone!  We've learned over the years to adjust to things happening while he's gone and taking care of them ourselves.  This time however, I am VERY thankful that I have in-laws close by who were able to take the kids all night and shuttle them around for 2 days for me.  I don't know what I would have done without them!!

Now I need to head out to the grocery store but I'm dragging my feet because it's cold out there and snowing!  It's also one of my least favorite chores so I'm procrastinating as long as possible:)

Name of the Game

Flexibility - something that I've never been all that great at that I'm learning I need to deal with.  Today started off a little later than I like.  The kids have a hard time waking up on Monday mornings after a busy weekend so I've started letting them sleep in a little.  This pushed the whole entire school schedule back and I was starting to feel frustrated and was pushing the kids by 11:30 when I remembered that if our school work goes into the afternoon - SO WHAT?  If we take a break for 3 hours before we finish our last subject - SO WHAT?  By the time we had worked through our schedule and were ready for reading - the last subject of the day - the twins were having a very hard time concentrating.  So I said, "Okay, let's wrap up and we'll come back down later this afternoon and finish our reading."  It wasn't the end of the world and we still got all our work in plus all the piano practicing/chores that I had written down.  Well, that's not entirely true - I have things on my to do list for today that won't get done until later this week but...SO WHAT?  Flexibility is the name of the game around here!

Happy Monday!

Week Interrupted

Week 3 didn't start off so well!  I was planning on having school on Monday since Tuesday we were going to be off doing other things BUT Ryan didn't think it was fair that all the neighbor kids were off and ours had school.  So, I gave in and regretted it:)  Turns out the neighbor kids didn't come over to play until after 1pm - plenty of time to have gotten in a school day.  Now today, Wednesday, I feel like we are playing major catchup PLUS getting the new Teacher's Guides (that just came last week) figured out.   Frustrating but once we get going we'll be fine.  I have the next few days planned already and now that we've done one day with the Teacher's Guide I have a better idea of what's expected from me and how much prep work I have to do.

Yesterday I had to take a turn teaching at Ethan's church preschool so the twins came along to help out.  It was fun but I'm glad that's over!  We went straight from there to Target (minus Ethan who went home with Keegan and plus Tayden) to get goggles for the twins' swim class.  From Target we headed to the Elgin Rec Center for one hour of gym class and one hour of swim.  It went MUCH better than last week where Kenton refused to get into the water.  Sometimes he needs to hang back and check it all out before he's ready to jump in and participate.

We left the Rec Center around three and ran a few errands on the way out to Jamie's to pick up Ethan and for supper before jetting off to my mother-in-laws for Bible Study.  By 8:45 last night Ethan had enough and was melting down big-time.  So we packed up a little early and headed home straight to bed!  Whew!

I was hoping homeschooling would allow us to slow down more than it has.  Some of it is me being unable to say no to things and some of it is that we are busy doing the same things as last semester just in a little different order and together rather than having the twins gone for 8 hours a day.

Week 2

Week 2 is almost over and I feel like we are finally getting into a groove of sorts.  There have been a few ups and downs as we've gone through some "growing pains" this week but overall we have made some progress academically so that's what counts, right?

I had made the decision to back up in Math and take it slower which has turned out to be a good strategy. I'm not fighting the twins during Math time so much to do the work.  When it was way over their heads it was turning into a huge battle to get the math work done in 45 mins instead of it taking all morning!  Now it's taking the appropriate time with a little time to spare.  I'm slowly introducing them to multiplication facts and reviewing addition and subtraction.

It seems like the first 2 hours of the morning goes great and than the next two kind of fall apart!  Right now they are supposed to be reviewing for a History quiz tomorrow but they are rolling around in the basement on the chairs Ryan bought for them yesterday!  I keep telling them that as soon as they are done with the review we can eat lunch but that's not proving to be much motivation this morning:)  We really need to get a big carpet remnant down so that they can't do so much rolling!

Kaitlyn asked me at the beginning of the week if we could do "marbles" like they did at school where they accumulate marbles for good behavior and get them taken away for bad behavior.  They work towards collecting 50 marbles at which point they get to have a "Marble Party".  I'm not sure what the Marble Party is going to consist of and gauging on how today has gone I've got a little bit of time to get it figured out:)  At school they usually had a special dress day and got to bring in drinks and snacks and watch a movie.  Instead of that we may go roller skating or bowling or something.  I'm open to ideas!

Gym & Swim on Tuesday was interesting.  Kenton joined right in on the gym portion of class but wouldn't get into the water for the swim part.  He's a good swimmer so I'm really not sure why he decided not to participate.  He did say something about being scared of sharks being in the water...

pictures of the classroom

Our Arts and Crafts center and soon to be added Science center

Teacher's desk:)

The couch in the background in the reading corner that we use for centers and for reading the history lessons.

kids desks and front of classroom

 

 

 

 

We Want Heat!!!

Lennox Consumer Affairs

2100 Lake Park Blvd.
Richardson, TX 75080
P.O. Box 799900
Dallas, TX 75379-9900

Dear Michelle/Les,

I spent over an hour on hold waiting to speak to a representative today learning about the Energy Star Efficiency award that Lennox received in 2007.

Congratulations on this achievement! I just wanted to let you know, that my 4 year old Lennox furnace should be included in your future statistics, as you will be sure to win more awards.

It is January 11, 2011 in Chicago (26F), and my furnace has not used 1 unit of gas in almost 2 weeks… What an incredible accomplishment! Unfortunately, I have been told that it will not use any gas for at least one more week as well.

Below are the details of my furnace:

Model Number: G43UF36B07008

Serial Number: S906F01713

Part Needed: Draft Inducer 83M56

Order Number: 1000009977

*When it is convenient for you, please advise when I should expect this furnace to start using gas again.

Kind Regards,

Lennox Customer

Ryan Weiss

12430 Lions Chase Lane

Huntley, IL 60142

630-715-5154

New Feature

I've added a new feature to my blog.  If you look in the right hand corner above the "About Me" section I've added links that I have found helpful for both homeschooling and being a mom!  I will add more websites as I find them that prove helpful in providing worksheets or projects to help kids learn - whether they are in public, private, or homeschool!