Tuesday, August 13th

We had a really good school day on Tuesday - Bible, Math, Reading, and Art, plus play dough time and a couple of other small hands-on type activities.  Grammie took the big kids out to the front yard for quite a long spell in the afternoon, which they loved (and I did too! haha - had some wonderful <quiet> snuggles with Waverly).  In the evening, Jim offered that I could take some time out by myself; he knew I'd been wanting/needing some quiet dedicated time to finish mapping out a few last minute items for our school schedule, so this was an offer I couldn't resist!  I was out the door by 5:30 and spent the next four hours holed up at Barnes & Noble and it was truly wonderful :-)  For his part, he arranged for Waverly to have some one-on-one time with Nana and then took the three big kids to dinner.  What a guy!

Scarlett's art project practice (hen).  

(Side note: I was really interested to find a simple at-home art program for this year that would address teaching the kids how to draw some basic things, and had been looking all summer for what might be the best fit.  Having several programs bookmarked, I went to this year's homeschool expo and instead walked away with the first book in the Draw Write Now series.  This was our first day using the book and we all loved it!  I decided we would do each lesson in two parts - the first time we would practice drawing the main theme several times, so they wouldn't feel pressured to try, mess up, and try again.  The second time (probably Friday) we would actually draw it into the book and add the background, color it in, etc.)

Victoria's art project practice.

Play dough!  I am not typically a make-it-yourself kind of gal, but there are a few exceptions - play dough is one. I like the texture better and its wonderful to be able to add your own scent; the kids always take huge whiffs of the play dough when they take it out of their bags because they think it smells so good :-)

After playing outside for quite a while, Victoria came in and said she was going to draw.  She was very quiet and concentrating and when she showed me her finished page, I had to smile - she'd been working to perfect her hen!  I love that she took the initiative and practiced on her own.  Pretty good!

For dinner, Jim took the kids to... Longhorn!  I couldn't believe they went without me! ;-)  Oh well, it was worth it for the much needed time.  The kids however, made sure to regale me with the wonderfulness of their dinner date out with daddy.