Friday, August 30th

We had been planning to attend an afternoon of kickball fun with our SASCH group, however the day had promised to be sticky-hot in the afternoon and the kids were worn out from our full (and napless) Thursday.  Instead, I opted to skip the group activity and keep our light-schoolwork-day agenda.  It ended up being just what the kids needed - they had lots of down time, playing time and seemed to enjoy the schoolwork we did as we began a new facet of our fall curriculum.  For the late afternoon, Jim and I split up - he took Lincoln out for a daddy-date, while Gram, the girls, and I headed to the mall... to get Waverly's ears pierced!! 

Just after breakfast, I laid Waverly down in the living room for a bit of blanket time.  Lincoln laid down across from her and encouraged her along - he is anxious for her to crawl! (oh, if only he knew...)

Jim has been doing such a great job of working out every morning.  Before he leaves for the gym, he sometimes will take 5 or 10 minutes and "work out" with the kids - getting them to practice their karate moves, doing push ups, and lifting weights :-)  Lincoln is pretty sure he is awesomely strong.

We had our first SQUILT lesson.  SQUILT stands for Super Quiet UnInterrupted Listening Time, and will be used to introduce several musical concepts to the kids (dynamics, tempo, rhythm, etc.) while also helping them become familiar with several famous composers. 

We're beginning with the Baroque Era (the kids enjoyed learning the origin of "Baroque" as being bizarre, weird and different), and our first composer is Johann Pachelbel.

I spent quite a bit of time discussing terms and we would clap or snap different tempos and different dynamics.  Lincoln's favorite part was undoubtedly being able to shout "LOUD" and then whisper "soft," haha. We also watched a few clips of Mr. Gregg on Youtube, before quieting down and listening to two different versions of Pachelbel's Canon in D.

While they listened, they drew on their "Draw What You Hear" worksheets.  This is Scarlett's - she wrote (on the bottom) "I feel good" and "was slow, lawd [loud]."

The front of Lincoln's...

...and the back. I asked him why he drew what he did, and he got really defensive and replied, "Well, you SAID it was Canon in D!" Oh my goodness - what am I going to do with this kid?? I died laughing!  He painstakingly worked on drawing all of those D's so nicely!

Victoria's drawing.

Grammie graciously offered to take the kids out front to play for a while, and Scarlett took Salty out on the leash to get some good exercise.

Chalk time!

Victoria has a mild obsession with lady bugs :-)  She had Grammie and Lincoln digging through the fern leaves to find them for her so she could collect them in her cup.

Grammie and Waverly at the mall, ready to do the deed!

Gram was such a trooper - at first I asked her to be the one to hold Waverly so that I could take pictures.  Once we got there though, I was so relieved she was going to hold her for other reasons - namely, I'm not sure I could have gone through with it!!  But she was calm and cool under pressure :-)  The girls, casually sipping their Starbucks in the background, were anxious for Waverly, too!

Getting the dots drawn on her ears...

...and all done!  Such a good, sweet baby girl!  She cried for just a minute and was totally over it. They look so pretty :-)

One other reason we went to the mall was to try on several different types of clothes.  Before I start purchasing any fall pants, tops, etc., I wanted to get a feel for what sizes I would need to be hunting.  The girls did such a great job and tried on loads of things without complaint!  I decided I would let them each pick out *one* clothing item from the clearance area at Macy's - Victoria chose this dress ($4!) and Scarlett was ecstatic to choose a Rainbow Dash shirt ($7, from one of her favorite shows, My Little Pony).  Of course they had to have the tags off and wear the clothes out of the fitting room ;-)  Then Grammie bought each girl a new boo.  We had fun watching them spaz out over which one to select (and for Lincoln, too), and the clerk at the store was chuckling at them as well :-)

We grabbed dinner at the food court, and little miss fell fast asleep - it was an eventful afternoon for her!

Meanwhile, Jim and Lincoln were at Mountasia, zipping around the go-kart track!  Jim had a groupon for unlimited go-kart runs that expired soon, so he was happy to take Linc with him to enjoy the fun.  Jim said Linc really enjoyed it...for about four turns - then he was done :-p

Now miniature golf?  Definitely more his speed!

At home later that evening, everyone was tired and worn out but happy to be back together.  Lincoln proudly showed off the new, just-his-size baseball glove that Daddy had picked out for him after their Mountasia fun.  He loves it!

Friday, August 16th

Friday was a full day of school - Bible, Math, Reading, Passport Club (geography/cultural awareness), Story & Tea Time.  We had a really fun time with all of it, and then in the mid-afternoon Jim and Victoria took off for her last birthday-related event.  She had told Jim that one thing she would *really* love for her birthday would be to attend another Braves game.  We'd been to two already as a family, and she enjoyed it so much :-)  Jim was able to find a great deal via Goldstar (coupon type website) and chose a Friday night game for them to attend so that they could stay to see fireworks!  Meanwhile, I took the other two big kids on a couple of errands and then we came home for a popcorn & movie night.

I am really relishing our Bible time, and loving the object lessons book.  I had really hesitated whether it's once-a-week style lessons would be enough, but a good friend (Mrs. C) suggested that if I loved it so much then perhaps I could take each week's lesson and really draw out two or three elements from the topic.  This ended up being a great suggestion, and also forces me to really spend time mulling over the subject matter.  Our 3rd and final day on the topic of Being Rooted in Jesus took form in studying about Thankfulness.  We discussed how taking time to be thankful when we feel sad, angry, scared or just have a bad attitude in general can often help us refocus.  The note to write in their journals was "Thankfulness helps us to be rooted in Jesus" (Colossians 2:6-7 was our scripture for the week). We also colored in little hands to paste in the journals, which tied in with the other part of the lesson.

I had found a few great ideas online for helping kids visualize ways to be thankful.  Or in other words, how to employ thankfulness when it's not easy.  One idea that I loved was to teach children to have thankful hands - to tick off ten things (one per finger) they are thankful to God for when they are struggling with any kind of negative emotion.  To leave an impression on exactly how that works, I had each kiddo rattle off ten things - I had written on my own hands as an example (and to show them they didn't need to be all "Bible" answers - some of mine were, like "God", etc., but I also had down "hugs," "tea time," and so forth).  Here was Lincoln's: God, Uncle Jeff, Mommy, Grammie, My Nook, Papa, Nana, BearBear, Daddy, Basketball.

Scarlett's: Mommy, Friends, Grammie, Nana, Family, Cat, Health, Jesus, God, Animals, Siblings, Love.

I hope this very visual object lesson will stick with them!

Gram participated too! I'd asked her the night before if she would help me write on their hands, as I knew they would all be eager for this :-)  Gram's: Friends, A Nice Room, I have Health, A Great Church, God, I trust Jesus, Family, Good Home, Eyesight, Heaven, Salvation. Victoria's: Good Attitude, Family, Bear Head (favorite lovey), Siblings, Daddy, Mommy, My House, Nana, Friends, Jesus.

Truly, we don't even understand exactly how incredibly thankful we should be all of the time!  But hopefully this will help all of us to remember!!

Tracing maps of China - first we used highlighters to trace large maps of just China; then we had maps of Asia, and the kids had to locate China based on the shape they had just become familiar with.  Victoria noted that China "sort of looks like a puppy, but with no tail." :-)  Lincoln spotted China within Asia in about 1 second!  The girls were impressed.

Tea & Story Time!  We had cinnamon & apple spice tea - Scarlett got to choose and I think the fall-esque weather inspired her.

We read two chapters from "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane," then the kids made crafts depicting Edward being thrown off the ship and sinking to the bottom of the deep sea.  I made an example one for them (far left) and hung their finished work next to mine on the mirror.  So it's mine, then Lincoln's, Scarlett's, and Victoria's.

Waverly thought craft time would be ideal to take a long nap... in my arms ;-)  So I foiled her plans by putting her in the wrap, where she snoozed away contentedly.

Sweet baby girl!  I look tired... maybe because I was really tired?  Probably :-)

I wasn't the only one!  While the girls did their math and reading, Lincoln quietly snuck away to Nana's room where she was working from home.  I had been downstairs and heard him chatting to her, so I knew he wasn't into any mischief (more than usual) but I was surprised that he stayed down there during all of our one-on-one time... then I got this picture text from my mom ;-)  Apparently Nana's bed is just a little TOO comfy.

Random sweet shot of Waverly staring up at Gram while eating.  She is getting to such a fun age! (the baby, not Gram; although Gram is also at a fun age, lol) 

 Daddy and Victoria - ready to head out for dinner (Mexican, of course!) and the game.  They didn't get home til after midnight!  I Facetime'd with her on their drive home as she was super tired, it was late, and she wanted to tell me everything about the game :-)  Toward the end of our Facetime session I saw her just kind of slump over and she handed the phone to Jim, haha.  That was one very, very sleepy little 5-year-old!  She had a wonderful time :-)

After Jim and Victoria departed, I *had* to run to the pet supply store and pick up cat and dog food.  The dog had a few scoops left, but the cats had missed breakfast and sat like sentinels next to their food bowls ALL day, expectantly waiting.  Lincoln and Scarlett came with me, and we ended up at Barnes & Noble for a while, too.  We took advantage of the cafe and got treats before browsing around for almost an hour. I love Barnes & Noble the way a lot of other people love the library - I'll go and sit there for hours reading books (given the opportunity), or working on my laptop.  The kids seem to feel the same way - we'll take over a few chairs in the kids' section and read books together for a long time.

Browsing :-)

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.