stepping outside my comfort zone

Earlier this week I got a phone call from my good friend (who also happens to be my CC director).  When I had seen her earlier that day she had been having a one of those days where you just want to crawl back into bed so that nothing else "bad" can happen. The first thing she said when I answered the phone was "this day just got a little bit longer".  She then asked if I was busy on Saturday (today). Sadly, one of our tutor's had to step down last minute b/c of some health issues. There was going to be one last tutor training today in Richmond.  "Do you want to tutor, and can you go to the training?" She asked.  The idea of me tutoring wasn't a totally new topic for us- I had told her I would be a substitute this year and honestly I think she has asked me every year for the last 4 if I wanted to tutor, but up to this point the answer had always been no- either from me or my husband or both.  I was caught so off guard by the whole conversation all I could do was say we would talk/pray about it and let her know in the morning.  Of course I had to call her back 30 minutes later and ask all the questions that I was too shocked to even think of when she called. :)
Before I go any further, let me back up just a bit. The last few months I have been feeling God prompting me to slow down and let go of a lot of the things that occupy my time.  I have been so busy trying to juggle being a wife and mother,  homeschooling my kids, teaching sewing,  expanding my business, sewing/product development... (the list goes on) and the truth is, I never have been able to juggle.  The one thing that should be most important to me, my relationship with God, seems to suffer most, closely followed by my commitment to homeschooling.  That said, I have been quietly contemplating what things need to change and how to implement those changes- although I will say, I have not done the best job of actually implementing them, but God is gracious.
You might at first think that adding in another pretty significant commitment doesn't seem to make much sense, but instead I felt like God had been prompting this desire to simplify exactly for this purpose.  I could have never considered tutoring if I was still determined to be expanding my business, sewing more, teaching more sewing classes etc.  And today, as I sat in training God just solidified something in my heart that has been a long time coming- when I was younger, I always though I would spend my life in another country on the mission field- I was ready to give up everything and go where ever God led me.  The reality is though- I have my mission field right here, but I have been unwilling to fully give up myself and serve God right were he has planted me.  Sometimes the big sacrifices are easier to make then the small ones.
So, this fall I will be tutoring Foundations.  This is a big step outside my comfort zone, but I am excited to see how God uses this in my life and in our family and the CC community.
More about our plans for this home school year are forthcoming :)

mini field trip

We are lucky to have a wildlife preserve within walking distance of our house and last Sunday they held a free educational event teaching kids about how to protect the watershed area that we live in.  A couple friends tagged along with us and we got to pretend for the day that we had 8 kids instead of 6 :)

After all the activities we did a mini hike through the woods and watched the turtles in the lake.  Addie found this large (for her) walking stick and insisted on using it instead of  the more appropriately sized one her sister offered her.  She's pretty cute :)

playing school

This post is a bit over due.  Last Thursday, instead of coming home to write about our trip to Jamestown, I came home to a sick husband who ended up needing an emergency appendectomy :(  It was a rough weekend (for him) but he is doing much better now.  I am thankful that he followed his instincts and went to the ER before things got really bad!

My niece's 5th grade class had a two day field trip to Jamestown and Williamsburg last week and we got to join the class for part of the trip.  In our nearly 8 years of living here we have visited Williamsburg many times but for some reason have never gone to Jamestown, so when my sister called and said they were coming down for a class field trip and family was aloud to tag along we jumped on the opportunity.

My niece and sister on the beach in front of the glass house.  That is the Jamestown ferry in the background.

Building a new longhouse (they called them something different, but I can't remember what!)

Making rope, Powhatan style.

Learning to tie knots before boarding the Susan Constant.

The Susan Constant.

Bellow deck- we need to build these in our house so the kids can have some privacy :)

A bed in a Jamestown fort house.

Ready to fight :)

The James River

Glass blower at the Glass House.  He was making an ink well, like the one at the bottom of the picture.

An attempt at a group shot before we headed home for the day- this was the best of the bunch.

We loved having my sister and niece come stay with us for a night and getting to experience what a "real school" field trip is like.  Jamestown was fun even though it was very crowded (lots of school field trips going on) and the kids want to go back again when there are less people there and they can really explore.

almost there

Regan passed her tutor proof for Memory Master today!  For those of you who are unfamiliar with CC, a Memory Master is a student who has mastered all the information we have learned over the course of the cycle (24 weeks) and can repeat, from memory, those facts.  This is a list of what those facts included this cycle:

-161 events and people in a chronological timeline
-44 U.S. presidents
-24 history sentences to add depth to our timeline
-120 locations and geographic features in Africa, Eurpe, and the Old World
-24 science facts (including clasifications of living things and each continent's highest mountain
-5 Latin noun endings and their singular and plural declentions
-English grammar facts (including 53 prepositions, 23 helping verbs, and 12 linking verbs)
-Multiplication tables up to 15x15, common squares and cubes, as well as basic geometry formulas    and unit conversions

There are 4 levels to proofing, two at home with family members, one with their tutor (this one is the hardest and most important) and a spot check with the director.  Regan has made it through the first 3 and just has her director proof left.  She has worked so hard for this and we are so proud of her!

After her Tutor proof this morning we met up with the hubby for a celebratory lunch at Chick-fil-A.

Congratulations Regan!

(I wrote about Micah's Memory Master Experience here last year)

i need a mental health day

I am feeling a little overwhelmed these days.  There is so much to do and we are accomplishing so little!  I am tired (without any real excuse since Emmaline has been sleeping through the night (10 hrs) for weeks now) and short tempered.  I can't seem to organize my thoughts let alone my house.  When we do school it has been going better this year than ever before, the problem is finding time (and a clean space on the table) to actually do school!

If I could just bring myself to allow some sort of routine and spend a little time planning each week I know things would be much better, but everything in me fights against routine!  The problem is, when you have 8 people living, schooling and running a business in a small space you have.to.have. some structure! 

So, I think it is time to stop all the activity, organize our space, and make a loose plan for our days.  I also need to carve out a few minutes everyday to write down my thought and ideas.  Wish me luck!

P.S.  I couldn't get my act together enough to work out while the kids were in PE at the Y today, but I did spend a few minutes drawing up my June pattern for the calendar and as soon as I get things in order here I will start stitching it up :)

the party continues...

One of Tallulah's birthday presents was a trip to the bounce house (I scored a great deal on Groupon last week, yay!) So yesterday we continued her birthday celebration with a morning at the bounce house.

While the kids jumped, I cut out flash cards and wrote a letter to Regan at camp.

I love watching how Micah looks out for his baby sister, playing with her in the toddler area and even taking her on some of the big bouncers.

She wasn't so sure of this slide :)

Micah was demonstrating his ability to use the force on these balls.

Somehow in all this I did not get any pictures of Max (well, except for his leg in the corner there)... I think he hides from the camera. 

I am headed back to the midwife today.  I get to have another ultrasound and hope she tells me that I've made some progress since my last appointment!

homeschool line-up

Test results are in and letter of intent mailed... this school year is officially over!

Now it is time to start thinking about September (actually our first day of CC is August 30th!).  This year may prove to be my most challenging homeschooling year yet.  I am trying not to think about it too much and just enjoy this time before we dive back in, but this year I will have 4 kids to school, 2 kids in the essentials program at CC (which will require quite a bit of extra time from me, especially as I learned from our test results that language mechanics is something we really need to spend more time on), a toddler and an infant.  I am pretty sure that this is going to take quite a toll on my crafting :(

Anyway, all this in mind, I am trying to keep things as simple as possible.  Here is my current line up for the fall:

Classical Conversations: Everyone

History- Story of the World 1: Everyone
We will listen to the audio book and do maps, coloring pages from the activity books, and go over the review questions.

Math:
Regan: Finish up Saxon 5/4 and move on to 6/5
Micah: Saxon 5/4
Max: Finish Saxon 2, move on to Saxon 3
Tallulah: Finish Saxon 1, move on to Saxon 2

Reading:
Regan and Micah: independent reading
Max: continue to have him read aloud and review All About Spelling level 2
Tallulah: continue to have her read aloud, finish All About Spelling 1 and move on to 2

Grammar and Writing:
Regan and Micah: CC Essentials program
Max and Tallulah: Continue with First Language Lessons, Start writing with Ease

Handwriting: Handwriting Without Tears: Everyone

Last year we did the homeschool PE class at the  YMCA, but I am not sure if we will do it this year or not- I think we will try and find some balance with these things before we add in any extras.

So, what does your homeschool year look like?

working my to do list

The 4 big kids have been attending VBS in the mornings this week and I have been crossing things off my to do list faster than I can write them!  Adelaide has been the perfect companion for all our morning activities:  baking, shopping for some new clothes for her dad, finally closing that bank account I have not used in years, a quick trip the grocery store, rearranging furniture etc.

We've also painted some furniture...

completed all but 2 sections of our yearly testing!

And I've even found a few spare moments to work on some sewing projects!  I cut out the exterior fabric for this diaper bag and am just waiting for my order from Fabric.com (lining fabric, interfacing, notions etc.) to come so that I can finish it up.  I've also sketched out most if my squares for the Happy Go Lucky embriodery sampler and have started stitching a few.  This is a project that will probably take some time for me to complete, but that is okay- I like to have projects like this to work on when I'm watching TV or on a long car ride etc.

In other news, I bought my first maternity top today.  I know, totally crazy to be buying maternity clothes when I have less then 5 weeks to go, but this seems to be the way I roll.  I wear my regular shirts until I really can't go out in public in them any more without my belly hanging peaking out the bottom.  With Adelaide I think I was 38+ weeks when I finally caved and got 1 shirt that fit me.  This time I will be living in luxury the next few weeks with not only 1 top that fits me, but two dresses too!

happy endings

This is our last week of Classical Conversations.  I can't believe how quickly the year has flown by.  Today Micah completed the tutor round of his Memory Master Proof.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with CC, a Memory Master is a student who has mastered all the information we have learned over the course of the cycle (24 weeks) and can repeat, from memory, those facts.  This is a list of what those facts included this cycle:
  
-The entire timeline of 160 events from creation to modern times; 
-Twenty-four history sentences about U.S. history; 
-Twenty-four science questions and answers covering human anatomy, chemistry, and origins; 
-Multiplication tables through the fifteens plus squares and cubes, conversions, and math laws; 
-All fifty states and their capitals plus seventy physical features on the U.S. map; 
-Twenty-four definitions or lists from English grammar; 
-Latin vocabulary lists and John 1:1–7 in Latin; and 
-The forty-four U.S. presidents.

Today's test was the hardest part and he passed!   Micah, we are so proud of you!!!

This weekend I had the pleasure of getting to put together this basket of goodies for the mom who coordinates our afternoon program for all the children not yet in Essentials.

And I finished up these bags for all my kids tutors and the nursery workers.  If you want to make one yourself, check out Randi's tutorial.  It's not exactly the same, but pretty close. 

I made 10 different bags and they all turned out so cute- I wanted to keep them all for myself!!!  They come together quickly too and make a great afternoon "I need to sew something" project :)

Today

I snuck this sweet picture of my husband teaching a guitar lesson to Tallulah this evening.  The big kids have been learning and she so wanted to learn too.

Our first day of CC went great. Everyone loved their tutors and Addie even took a nap during essentials, despite the craziness of 30 some kids in the room playing and crafting.  It is so nice to have both the vision and accountability of CC, and it does not hurt that my children LOVE it too!

a new year

Well, we started school on Monday, sort of a slow start to the year with math, reading, handwriting and history.  Classical Conversations starts tomorrow, so things will pick up from here.  I have to confess, I am having a really hard time jumping back into the routine of school this year.  I keep trying to tell myself that it is because I am a "veteran" (this is our 5th year), and I don't really need to spend all that time prepping and planning that I have not gotten my act together, but the reality is, I just don't feel like it.  Partly because I am tired of hearing about how awful life is for a certain (to remain unnamed) child to have to do a few hours of school work each day, and the "I can't do it"s from another.  And partly because of my own stubborn/selfishness.  I even looked up tuition costs for the nearest Christian school today... not that it is even remotely possible that we would send our kids there.  Last year CC was my lifeblood as far as keeping my motivated and having a long term vision for our homeschooling, so I am sure that getting back into it will give me the boost I need, academically speaking, and taking my eyes off myself and putting them back on God will give my heart what it needs to get this school year off on the right foot.

Enough of my pity party, lets get on to this years lineup!

Our core curriculum:
*Classical Conversations Foundations program for Regan, Micah, Max and Tallulah
*Classical Conversations Essentials program for Regan

Math:
*Saxon 1: Tallulah
*Saxon 2: Max
*Saxon 3: Micah
*Saxon 5/4 with Dive DVDs: Regan (Has anyone used the DIVE dvd's?  If so, what to you think of them- I am hoping that it helps her to be a bit more independent in math this year.)

Reading:
*I am hoping to do Sonlights American History reading curriculum (D + E) for Regan and Micah to compliment what we are studying in CC, but so far have not been able to order the books yet.
*Bob Books and other easy readers from the library for Max and Tallulah

Grammar and writing:
Since Regan will be doing Essentials  and will be using the Institute for Excellence in Writing I am hoping to adapt what she is learning and use it with the other kids too.
I may still do First Language Lessons 1 with Max and Lu, just because we enjoyed it so much the first time around.
I also have a book call The Sentence Family that I may use as well to introduce/reinforce the parts of speech.

History:
We are using Beautiful Feet Books' Early American History (Elementary) program to supplement what we learn at CC.   We started this week and I am really liking it.  The kids give it mixed reviews (the older ones, who complain about everything, are not crazy about it).  They really loved Story of the World last year, which we will eventually come back to, but I though this would be fun for the younger ones.

Handwriting:
I really dropped the ball on this one last year, so we've gone back to our original handwriting curriculum this year, Handwriting Without Tears.  K for Tallulah, 1st for Max, Cursive for Micah.  Regan is using an A Reason for Handwriting book that we already had and working on cursive as well.

Electives:
We are still hoping to work our way through the first level of French (Rosetta Stone) this year.  I am almost done with level one, but the kids still have a ways to go.
I've signed the three older kids up for a Homeschool PE class at the Y that meets twice a week and Tallulah will be taking a ballet class as the Y as well.

That petty much sums it up, I think!  Here is to another great year of homeschooling :)

and so it begins

We started school today and I just realized that I never did my beginning of the year "this is what we are doing this school year" post. I could pull it together today, but I started reading The Hunger Games yesterday and it has been all I can do to not tell the kids to take the morning off so I can go read! I forced my self to put the book down at 11pm last night, halfway through and in the middle of "the games" and even then it took me awhile to fall asleep wondering what would happen to Katniss next but knowing I needed my sleep. So, with school finished for the day (we are starting off light this week since CC does not start until Thursday) and lunch in the oven I will be disappearing this afternoon back into the book. I'll be back with that school year post as soon as I finish :)

the little white schoolhouse model basin

Growing up in Maryland I had friends who lived out near the David Taylor Research Center in Potomac. It was a place where the Navy tested boats (and I guess they still do? It had a different name now). Anyway, the kids wanted to make a boat the other day. They chose all the supplies and came up with a plan, I helped a wee bit with actually putting together of the sail, but they did most of the work and planning.

That night when dad got home from work they took it into the bathroom to test it out- they even set up the fan to simulate wind! They were pretty excited and proud when it actually worked!

Here we all are crammed into the teeny bathroom watching the boat in action!
This is just one of the reasons why I love homeschooling my kids :)

week at a glance

Here is a sneak peak at what the average school week should look like us this fall. This schedule still has some things to be added, like I forgot guitar lessons and practice in the evenings with dad and I forgot to list French in our school subject list. Really, those of you who homeschool know that there is a lot of trial and error at the beginning of any school year. We have an idea of how we think things should look, but in reality they are often quite different, like most of life.
Weekly Schedule Fall 2011

It was hard to fit everything onto one sheet of paper, so I made some things on the calendar general, like "Afternoon Chores" and made a separate document with the specifics of what those "chores" are. I got the idea of assigning each day with a certain area of the house from Kim Brenneman's book "Large Family Logistics".
Daily Chores

Both of these documents are bound for editing and in no way do they cover everything that we might do in a day, say for instance, sew, blog, email... I did not even include vacuuming the house anywhere on the chore list (In case you were curious, My hubby vacuums every Tuesday before bible study and I pull it out as needed throughout the week... although it is rare that I find the floor needs vacuuming more than once or maybe twice a week- there are usually more pressing jobs to do, like starting a new craft project).

Next up, Menu plans.

fun finds

I found this pile of brand new books in the library's book store, $.50 each!

The Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea books have an inscription in the front. It seems someone did not like the gift they were brought from the Anne of Green Gables Museum. The date on the inscription was June 2011! Well, I am glad to have them in my library, even if Bonnie did not want them :) I have not read any Miss Reed books, but they looked interesting enough for $.50 a piece.

I also found this super cute dish towel at Kroger, of all places. I am pretty sure I will be making a little skirt for Adelaide with this.

And with that admission I guess I am busted... I have not touched my WIP pile since we returned home over a week ago (truthfully I have not done any sewing since we returned, I have been working on some organization projects to help get the school year off to a good start.) and I've already got my mind set of making some of these flowers as soon as I can pull my machine back out. I have had this idea in my head for embellishing a couple of lamp shades for our bedroom, and I think that these flowers will work perfectly for what I have in mind!

Maybe I will get some of my organizational projects together and share with you all, things like meal plans, chore schedules and school work record-keeping. Any interest?

P.S. I am still playing with my image sizing, so if it is not coming out right when you view the blog, please let me know!

d.o.n.e.

Need I say more?

bowling

Someone from one of our homeschool co-ops had a coupon for a free bowling party. The kids have only bowled a few times, but they love it, so I signed up as soon as I heard about the party.
Our neighbors came along too and we all (well, most of us) enjoyed 2 hours of free bowling.

This is how Addie started out, and she was more or less content in the stroller for the first 45 minutes, as long as I did not look at her.

Tallulah got two strikes in a row! That little dragon next to her is the coolest device! Makes bowling a lot more doable for a 4 (almost 5) year old!

When she was no longer happy in the stroller we moved to the ball racks.Her stay there was short lived and I spent the next 30 minutes keeping her from running straight down the lanes!

The big kids were having a blast. Our lane was a pretty rowdy bunch, lots of dancing, cheering and screaming... I am sure the rest of the group loved it :)

Max is quite the bowler...he knows just how to use those bumpers for optimum scoring potential :) He won the first game and was a close second in the next (just behind Lu with her 2 strikes).

And this is how we ended our outing. Seems that trying to contain a 16 month old in all that excitement, during nap time is not the best way to spend an afternoon, for her anyway. She was so worked up that she did not even fall asleep in the car on the way home... until we were 1/2 mile from our house, of course.
And just because I am sure you are all dying to see another picture of Addie... The kids were playing Library the other day and failed to put the ink pad away. Adelaide was tickled pink to find it out for her enjoyment :)