Still organizing....

I just realized that even though all my lesson plans are done and everything is organized, as well as it can be anyway, I forgot to make files to put the kids school work into. I used to put everything in notebooks, but let's face it, it didn't work. I'd end up with a huge stack of paper that needed holes punched, sorted by child and subject and then put into the notebooks. Not doing it this year. This year, we're going to stick to filing in file folders. Much easier, simpler, and quite frankly, less brain cells to use.

I cleaned out the garage yesterday. It was the last big project to tackle. Now that that's done, I can concentrate on getting things hung up. The echoing is a little loud in here.

We also bought some paint. This is the first military housing that allows us to paint with approval. I am soooo tired of white walls, with cheap flat paint that totally attracts little gooey sticky fingers to it and then it doesn't come clean or the paint is wiped off too (from being so cheap). We're painting the downstairs hall tan and I'm going to sponge a soft blue in the school room to offset the flourescent pink chairs and bright curtains.

Tomorrow is off to the dentist with five kids, four of which have appointments. If I survive, I'll blog again tomorrow!! hehe

A day in our homeschool......soon

With the addition of baby Tylar, we won't be starting school on time this year. Actually, here in WA, school doesn't start until the Thursday after Labor Day. I've decided to ease back into homeschooling by doing math and reading next week. An hour or so a day, shouldn't be too difficult-it will be harder to get the kids to do it with the neighbors knocking on the door to play. The week after we will add spelling and grammer and then full days starting Sept 14th.

I have found in the past, that schedules work best for us. Keeps me on target to get things done during the day and helps TL finish his assignments in a decent amount of time. His idea of decent means that he spends the entire day writing six sentences for a paragraph while I stand over him literally pulling my hair outta my head.

For the most part, our schedule looks like this:

8:30-9:00 Geography
9:00-9:30 Grammer/Handwriting
9:30-9:45 Snack Break (if we don't do one, then the kiddos moan and groan and insist that they are being mistreated and malnurished.
9:45-11:00 Reading/Spelling
11:00-11:30 Writing
11:30-12:30 Lunch and chores-sometimes daddy will come home for lunch and we have to take him back to work. One of the luxuries of a one car family.
12:30-1:15 Math
1:15-2:30 Two days a week we do science, two days of history, the other day is either library or art.

I am also planning on interrupting our schedule a few days a month (weather permitting) to do nature walks and keep a nature journal. I plan on getting a few done in Sept and Oct, since the weather probably won't let us do any in Nov-March time frame.

This schedule looks very rigid, but its really not. I've tried to leave enough time to help Princess and Bugabug, while trying to nurse the baby. Little Miss Trouble will be helped by everyone and playing in our midst. TL is old enough to do most of his work independently with a little instruction before he starts off his assignments. Our days can/probably will go longer, but we'll see. I'm aiming for the 2:30 time frame to have the kids finish off their chores before the public school kids get home. Little Miss Trouble will hopefully still be napping at his time, so if I need to recharge my batteries for a fifteen minute power nap, I can.

Have a wonderful year everyone!

She's here.....

Hello all!! Surgery went very well. Tylar Belle arrived without any problems weighing in at 7lbs and 8ozs. I opted to stay the extra day at the hospital to get some extra rest. I'm happy to be home however, enjoying food with a little flavor to it. (Exactly how do you make spaghetti sauce without any taste what so ever?)



I wanted to say thank you for all your prayers and well wishes. I'll post more in the next few days.

prayers

Hello all. Just a reminder that tomorrow I head in for my csection. PLease add myself and little Tylar Belle on your prayer list. Hubby and kiddos too, since he'll be taking care of them. I probably won't be home until Friday. I try to squeeze in the extra day of rest before coming home to the masses!! lol

I'll keep you posted as I can. Thanks in advance for the prayers!

The plot to drive me crazy

I didn't realize it. It started innocently enough. I was sure hubby was trying to drive me mad by insisting that our new daughter be named after two teen pop stars. Weeks went on and everytime I mentioned thinking of a name, he brought this crazy name up. Finally, I'd had it and insisted on a proper name for our child.

Then came the socks. Now, let me explain to those that don't know what our last few months have been. We left Japan in February, flew to IA for a few weeks to visit family, bought a camper, drove to VA for 8 weeks, the kids and I drove the camper back to IA (hubby had to attend a school) for a few days, and then drove to MT to pick up daddy. We then drove the last few days together to WA. Almost this entire time we were in our camper. Before I left Japan, I went through everyone's sock drawer. If there wasn't a match, I tossed it out. No point in packing it. Into each suitcase went MATCHING pairs of socks. About eight sets for each person.

I do laundry daily since moving into our house. The laundry room is conviently upstairs so there's no lugging laundry around the house. The kids have been good about putting their laundy in the baskets to be done and I even have a table in the laundry room to fold and sort laundry. Socks are washed about twice a week and I usually match them up when I have the time.

This is where the plot thickens. Where the attempt to drive me mad starts again. My not so innocent husband, who we will call the ring leader, and my not so innocent children are all participating in this plot.

I matched socks yesterday. EVERYONE had at least three socks that didn't have a match. AND little Miss Trouble? FIFTEEN socks without matches. How on earth is that possible? I looked under beds, behind dressers, and under the laundry baskets. No matches to be found.

I'm positive that when I am at the hospital next week, they will be sitting around matching socks to the ones that they HID on me and laughing and having a good time. I will return home to the land of matched socks and know that they were attempting to drive me crazy!!

Have a wonderful week!

Schoolroom

Well, this year we are very lucky to have a schoolroom. It may be small, but much better than the small dining room with the large dining room table that we had in Japan. I like that I can keep the spaces separate.

With our new space, we needed to get several things, first was a chair for me. Our computer chair broke in Japan so we needed a new one. We did splurge and get me a nice one, since I'll be sitting in it alot and since I'll probably be nursing in it alot! Here's Little Miss Trouble checking out the chair for me. Making sure that it works correctly of course!! Next to the desk is TL's area and a bookshelf that I have put our basice supplies, like paper on. I also moved the copier/printer to this shelf giving me a much bigger work space in our computer hutch. Its nice to have the space in there!!

This is a close up of TL's work area. We had to buy all the kids desks and chairs since we moved into this room. We were lucky to find rather cheap, and therefore cheaply made, desks for them. We did decide on computer chairs to raise them up and down as needed as they grow to make it more comfortable for writing. For the girls, we found white desks and matching flourescent pink chairs.

Little Miss Trouble is here showing off her sister's desks. As you can see they are very bright indeed. I had major problems trying to find some curtains for in here. I orginially wanted to go with something bright and motivating. I had no intention of going this far, but I had to match those crazy chairs! I hope to eventually sponge some blue on these bare walls for a little color. I also have some posters to hang up, if I can ever find them!!

Here is Little Miss Trouble's corner. On the top shelf is puzzles that she's not really into yet, but shoud be by the end of this year. We have dolls and little people and weebles in the buckets. Around the corner by the front door is a toy box with more toys and little people and weebles toys. She seems to enjoy the area alot and has fun being in here with us. We do have a play kitchen with toys in the living room, which is down the hall, but I prefer to have the troublemaker closer to us so I can see what she's doing! Especially once baby gets here. Don't want her poking the eyes out of her little sis!

This is the whole schoolroom. Like I said, its not very big, but it works for us. The big bookshelves hold all of our reference books, all the games, kits, anything we'll use during the year. The bookshelf with the globe on it has the books we will be using this year, plus coloring books for the girls. They use this space alot for their "crafts and coloring". The small shelf near the girls' desks hold crayons, colored pencils, tape, glue, etc. No scissors or markers as Little Miss Trouble will get right into that and off the hair will come! Our craft supplies are actually in a large closet off of the living area. There wasn't any room in here for them and this way, I can monitor it a little bit. I don't mind them using anything at all, its the little one, I'm worried about.

This is our guard dog, Shadow. His job is to keep the children in, er keep the intruders out. He looks very vicious with his chew bone next to him. Its probably a good thing the intruders can't see his cheeseburger squeaky toy behind him! Actually he looks rather bored!

And now for the big news. As many of you already know, the csection is scheduled for the 18th. We have FINALLY decided on a name:

drum roll please!! Tylar Belle

Coke bottle glassess.......

So, I'm back from my doctor's appt, at which by the way, I did not get my surgery time for next week.
I have to say however, that I am very, very grateful that this was not the doctor cutting me open next week. Now, don't get me wrong, he seemed very nice and as knowledgeable as I guess he needed to be in the three minutes that I saw him.
However, he had the largest, thickest glasses I've ever seen. You know that new Scoobydoo cartoon where the kids are little and Velma walks really fast and has these huge glasses that make her eyes look ten times bigger than they are-well that's what he had.
No problem, after all he needs them to see, right?
I didn't get worried until he needed to read something off of my file and had to put it right at the end of his nose to read it!!
Oh boy!!
Like I said, thank goodness, he's not cutting me open next week. I just pray I don't go into labor until then as the other doctor is on leave this week.
I just wonder how he sees babies when they are born naturally-he must need one heck of a catcher's mitt!!
lol!!

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog!!
I needed something easier to manage, and well, quite frankly idiot proof. I needed assistance in adding things to my blog that I just couldn't do with homeschoolblogger. I will still be checking on those friends and I hope that they will continue to follow me on my new space!
For any new friends, I will be having our fifth child, another girl, next week. We are looking forward to our new bundle of joy.
I have been working hard on our lesson plans for the upcoming year, so that I don't have to do any planning after the baby's born. I have just finished and am currently working on completing the school room.
We just moved from Japan to WA and are enjoying it here immensely-especially since there were two large earthquakes in Japan the last few days!
I'm off to clean up the house!! Blessings to all!