Whew! It Has Been a Long Time....

Luckily, I don't think my blog falls into the "I must read this before I can start my day" kind of blogs for anyone, so, while you may have noticed that it has been a while since I posted, I am pretty sure nobody has been devastated.

It has been a crazy, busy spring and I have been trying to keep my head above water....and really just try to enjoy the moments that I am getting with the kids.  D-man is a senior in high school, so I am starting to have those little epiphanies about that fact that he won't be here next year for all those little things we take for granted.

I honestly have a ton to update you guys on.  Some good stuff.  Some bad stuff.  Some scary stuff.  Some funny stuff.

I will start with some birthday updates:

S-girl turned 9!

Sorry about that picture.  One of my other things that happened is that Rainman and I both upgraded to smart phones!  Gasp!  I  LOVE two things about mine.....I can Facetime with my mom (well and other people, but she is the only one I have so far) and I can take really nice pictures.  The problem was that I didn't know I was taking those "live" picture thingies....which is what happened with S-girls'.  Oh well....

S-girl is at that interesting phase where she is very much little girl, but is getting more and more like a little lady everyday.  She  takes time and plans outfits, including her shoe and accessory choice.

L-girl even straightened her hair for her.

She chose  me for her birthday meal companion. We went to Subway.  Her choice.  Then she asked if we could go to the playground my our house.  See?  Still a little girl.

The funny thing about S-girl is that if you were to line up my kids in front of strangers, everyone would say she is the most shy.  But, get that girl alone and she talks non-stop.  Like, really, non-stop.  It is like she is storing up all her ideas and plans until she gets a captive audience.  LOL

We talked and talked and talked over our sandwiches, while we drove and while we walked back into the house.  She told me about her tree house plans, her desire for a real tea set, what her friends have done and said lately.  Her plans for her sleepover that she was finally getting to have with a friend from church.  Seriously.....non stop..

We went to the playground, but it was spring break, so there were a ton of kids there.  Other people may love that, but.....

We are spoiled homeschoolers.  When we go places during the day, usually there is nobody around....restaurants, grocery stores, libraries and even play grounds.

So, she and I wandered over to the old buildings in the park and took some pictures.

We came home and spent the afternoon with babies, where she got to be my main helper.  Special treat/privilege. (because usually they are all fighting over who gets to feed them lunch, hold them, etc.  Although somehow it is all me when a diaper needs to be changed.....)

We opened presents at night when Rainman got home from work.

I made her a french silk pie for her cake.  It was super yummy, if I do say so myself.

I think S-girl had an awesome birthday this year.

Trying a Little Something New

I am going to try something.

I am going to try to see if I can blog a little bit everyday.  So for you occasional readers, sorry, if I am going to start bugging you.

For family and friends, sorry if I start boring you.

Just an experiment though.....so don't worry.

I felt pretty good last week.  I have bumped up my calcium consumption(ice cream) and supplements (ginormous horse pills that I cut up into teeny tiny pieces) and my numbers are increasing.  I am still below the normal rates so I have to have more blood work done in a few weeks to make sure that it is steadily increasing....otherwise we do something else.

I was actually able to have the air conditioning off for a few days last week.  It was heavenly.  Then the humidity came back and I was a wimp and shut the windows and turned it back on.

I made chili, a pot roast with mashed potatoes/steamed veggies, AND a hot dish last week.  Oh, and an apple pie and an apple crisp.  Just call me "Betty", "Ms. Crocker" if your nasty.  (Did I just totally age myself there?)

We went to Walmart last night and Rainman and I purchased 2 things.  Yes...just 2.  I have learned that Rainman and I do not make good shopping partners - at the grocery store or anywhere.  We have completely different styles.  So, I spotted a few things that I will make a return Walmart trip for.  But, for this time, we walked out with a Carpenter's CD - at the request of a few of our children.  Yes, that is the truth.  Yes, those Carpenters...Karen and the blond brother.  They have become little 70's music lovers since I got Rainman the Sirius XM radio reciever thingie that means he can listen to his old Casey Kasem countdowns from the comfort of our home.

V-girl and S-girl frequently request Paul McCartney and Jim Croce (although V-girl pronounces his name Croaky), while we are driving around running errands.

Our only other purchase was good, old fashioned Carmex because poor little S-girl has cold sores.  She had these spots at the corners of her mouth that, at first, just looked liked cracked skin or that she had licked too much.  Then, one night they seemed bigger so I actually called her over to examine them more closely.  Sure enough, they are little blisters.  So, we are slathering them with Carmex to see if that will take care of them.  She has never had them at the corners of her mouth before, just on her lower lip.  Not sure if there is some medical meaning or reason behind that.  I just feel sorry for her.

I gave V-girl some bangs this weekend, on a whim.

She, as usual, had followed me into my bathroom because whatever she had to tell me was way too important to wait until I had actually finished my business.  While she was telling her tale, she kept pushing her hair out of her eyes.  So, I said, "Should we just give you bangs?"  She did that deer in the headlights thing - where you could see her mind wheels turning - Was I serious?  Did I mean right now?  Can we really do it?

We decided that she would just get up on the toilet seat and cut them instead of cutting hair in the kitchen like I normally do, so we could surprise everyone and have a little game going on to see how long it would take every one to notice.  Everyone, even Rainman, which is a miracle on its own, noticed immediately.  Probably because she had this big old grin on her face the entire time she was trying to walk around the house all cool and pretend like nothing was up.  She is totally adorable....and looks waaaay older.

 
In my Sunday School class yesterday, we talked about some exerpts from the book The Confident Woman by Joyce Meyer.


Some really good quotes and ways of thinking about things.

Anybody read it?  Have any feedback?  Should my class do it as an actual Bible study?

On a closing note for today, my laptop is acting up.  Like a cat - or a toddler - it is only cooperating when it is in the mood.  I am sure I have some stupid virus that snuck in.  Grrr.  This is when I miss having a real job, with a real IT guy to sweet talk into helping me.

Goings On.....Summer 2014....Part 2

When we got back from our road trip up north, it was time to start school.  Literally, like, the next day.

This year, D-man and A-girl are both attending the local college prep high school that was started by homeschoolers.  The beauty of this school to me, is two-fold:  They only attend class 2-3 times a week (so I still get to see them a lot!), and it is a college prep school (hard classes with high expectations!).

D-man....11th grade......ignoring the woman who got up early and made him a hot breakfast for the first day of school, saying hello (and, I am sure, other mushy things) to J-girl on her first day back to school too.  (They don't attend the same school.....poor things.)

A-girl with her slightly nervous grin.....9th grade.

See?  She can look at the woman who got up early to make her a hot breakfast on the first day of school!

Off they went.....with their huge backpacks!

I had originally planned on starting our home school students on the same day....but we got home late Saturday night/early Sunday morning....Sunday was my birthday.....and I am just not that organized....so the other 4 got another week of summer break.  Really though, considering A-girl and D-man started school on August 4th, the other kids still started earlier than a lot of people!

Rainman was off on Monday, so we could co-teach on the first day of school.

L-girl, as usual, was very self-sufficient and hit the books hard while I was still sipping my coffee!

L-girl.....7th grade.

Look at her little coffee cup all full of freshly sharpened pencils!  Love this girl!

A-man....4th grade.

 

Captain America t-shirt made by L-girl for him.  Nice fake smile for me, dude!

 

 S-girl....2nd grade.

Must be the day for crazy smiles or something.....

And, you may have seen a preview of this in some of my other pictures....

V-girl.....

Yes, she started Kindergarten this year....how can that possibly be?  I also realize it is time to change her (and the other kids') picture on my sidebar...she is not really my baby anymore, is she?!?

 

I just love their diligent little faces as they do their school work.  

We have some days that don't go as well as others, but on the days that do go well....man, there is nothing like it.  

I still love, love, love that we can homeschool.  I love that I get to spend lots and lots of time with all 6 of my kids.  I really do.  I can't explain it to people.  

I love that I get to hug and snuggle with them during school hours, just because.....or, because they are struggling with reading or writing or arithmetic.  We snuggle.  We wipe away tears.  We try again, until we get it!

I love it.  I really do.

S-girl Cuteness

I got a real laptop computer this year.

It is mine.

Mine, I tell you.

Little hands and even Rainman's big hands are banned unless there is an emergency....in other words, unless there is blood involved from a family member.....and the bloody person had better not be the person looking up information!

Up until my laptop purchase, our whole family shared 1 old (yes, something purchased in 2009 is now considered "old") desktop computer.

I had 2 ancient laptops that I used in my life as a transcriber/minute taker.

They died long ago, but the kids have kept them to use when they are playing house.

Recently, I noticed S-girl sitting next to me looking deeply into her laptop.  She would look closely.  She would type something.  She would write something on her screen....yes, write something....with a pen.

(Apparently she was also looking like a crazy woman while she typed)

I will admit I freaked out a bit when I saw her using a pen on the screen.  Yes, I know the computers are dead and gone....somehow it just made me think that the kids would try to do it to our regular computer too.

Then I walked around to the other side of her and saw this.

It is her "Fathbook" page......taped to the screen.

And her "Pintrest" page.

Her "pins" crack me up.  I am assuming this is for a fashion/beauty page.

She has created numerous other replacement pages for her work and other on-line activities.  Honestly, she can play this game for quite awhile, just working away at her computer.

S-girl is 7!!!!

Yes....it is true.  She is getting big.

We had a little trouble scheduling birthday celebrations this year.  Rainman has switched to a new schedule.  He really likes it because he can easily get plenty of sleep and never has to deal with traffic.  The kids and I don't love it as much as he does.....because he isn't around.  He alternates between working 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. or 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

So, because of his weird schedule, S-girl opened her presents the night before her actual birthday, and we spread the rest of her celebration (birthday lunch out with mom, cake, etc.) for the next few days.  This same scenario will repeat itself for A-girl and L-girl's birthdays too!

V-girl did her usual "shop off the floor of our house" gift that she wrapped up special (in a big, black garbage bag) for big sis!

A-man is actually a very thoughtful gift giver.  He gave her a fake cell phone and a painting kit.  At first glance, you wouldn't think my little pink and purple, sparkle loving girl wouldn't be excited about an Avengers paint kit.....but you would be wrong!  She loves super heroes.  Maybe not quite as much as A-man....but they are always creating costumes for "She Hulk" and girly Captain America.  So, it was a really, really good gift.

D-man, all sweaty from baseball practice, gave his usual "coupons" for special time spent with him.  I know it is sort of cheesy and cheap....but, honestly, the kids all love their D-man coupons!

L-girl and A-girl went together on their gifts for S-girl this year.  They pooled their money and got her 7 little gifts....the biggest was this miniature real sewing machine.  She loves it.  One of these days I will show you pictures of our craft/sewing room.  (I cannot believe I actually have one!)

We have been waiting for Frozen to come out on DVD since movies at the theater are a little too spendy for us.  As you can tell, she was surprised that I actually got it for her.  (She had to wait another 3 days until we were all around at the same time to watch it though....poor thing).  The best part of this picture is L-girl's reaction to S-girl's excitement over the gift!

The other big gift was a "new to us" big girl bike for her.  She has only fallen and skinned up her knees about 4 times since her birthday!

She had requested a Frozen cake.  I did my best with this seven fingered Olaf cake.  As usual, I had a different/better idea in my head of what it would look like when it was finished....and, as usual, she didn't care what I thought.  She LOVED it.

Happy birthday, my sweet, sweet S-girl!

A-man is 9

You know how all those older moms will tell younger moms to pay attention....because time moves so quickly?

Consider me another one of those older moms.

It really moves quickly.....and you don't even notice it.  You have to pay attention.

A-man turned the big 9 a few weeks ago.

Following in his big brother's tradition of a not so fantastic celebration on the actual day of his birthday....A-man didn't have a lot on his special day.  It was sort of spread out over 4 days.

A-girl was on a youth retreat on his actual birthday, so we wanted to waited to celebrate, as a family, until she was back.

So, on his actual birthday, I made him pancakes.....

Which he realized flipped over would be a "P".


He chose Rainman to go out to lunch with him....at McDonald's.  This year it wasn't actually because he was excited about the food....it was because they had Lego movie cups as their "toy" for Happy Meals!

That is all that happened on his big day.

The next day, Rainman took him golfing for a full 18 holes, as a special treat.  In A-man's words, "It was sort of boring, but then Dad let me drive the golf cart....then it got fun."

When A-girl got back in town 3 days after his birthday, we had our family party. 


A-man is VERY into superheroes....but especially Captain America.  So, I did my best at his cake.  He told me that the colors weren't exactly right, and I needed some blue by the star, but it was a really good try.  :)

(Isn't his face changing?  He doesn't have that little boy look anymore....)

Then we proceeded to open presents.  My kids get so excited to give each other presents that it is loud, and extra chaotic come gift opening time....but love abounds.  Like here, where A-man is thanking V-girl for her gift....with a little tackle hugging.

Here is one where they are a little more calmed down....

And thanking S-girl....with a little smushed face loving.

Now, before we move on, let me share this little insight into our family dynamics.

Out of all my kids, the ones who fight the most are A-man and L-girl.  Hands down.  They are always up in each other's business and trying to push those buttons to get the other one mad, which leads to them doing something bad, which ultimately leads to someone getting in trouble.  Ideally the one who didn't start the whole thing.  Any parents out there know what I am talking about?

But, the thing is, they know each other.  What I am about to show you, gives me a little hope that they will someday be the best of friends....once their little power struggle....or whatever it is, is over.

Here is what L-girl got for  A-man.  She spent time researching on-line,  asked me to order it for her, then she gave me money to pay for it..

I have to put this next one in just to show a little creepy D-man.....and A-man looking like a cool, floating head, kind of dude with his hat turned backwards.  D-man gave A-man his old baseball hat from his high school team.

A-girl shopped on her retreat at Fort Sumter.  She brought him back a Civil War bullet and a shiny belt buckle.

Rainman and I got A-man a pair of walkie-talkies.....which he is totally in love with.

Funny thing is, he and his mortal enemy, L-girl, have been quite the buddies with them.  They each take one to bed at night and I hear the crackle of them telling each other they are signing off for the night.

There is most definitely hope.

It makes a mother's heart sing.

Science4Us.com Review

Yup.  Review season has started back up again....and this is a review.

But, even if you aren't a homeschooler, please keep reading.  I have gotten some really cool resources to share with you this year, that would be a great supplement to "normal" school too!  :)

This review is for something called Science4Us.com.



It is an on-line science curriculum for K-2.  S-girl is in 1st grade, so she is using it, but I am also having A-man (3rd grade) do it to review stuff he has hopefully already learned!  They say that you could use this program up to 5th grade for this purpose.  There are over 350 lessons included....so they will stay busy for a while. 

Science4Us.com is from the same people that created Vocabulary SpellingCity.com  (I liked that one too!)

I will start off by saying what you really want to know......the kids love, love, love this program.  A-man actually asked if this was a review that we can keep.  That doesn't always happen, even if they like a product we try.  Sometimes they are happy to just use it for the short period of time and then just forget about it.  But, this time was different....they want more!

My kids are usually pretty fond of computer school anyway, since I limit their on-line "screen" time, so any computer school means more screen time for them.

But, this one was different. 

They were excited about it, every time.  They would fight over who got to do their computer school first.  (That part wasn't so fun for me....but, oh well....)

The program itself was really fun and easy.  They have 4 "books" of science.  They are Inquiry, Physical, Life, Earth/Space.  See?  On the right side of the page, under Log Out.  Oops, I typed them in the wrong order....


(No, I do not have any children named, Katie...this is a generic screen shot!)


Now, if S-girl and A-man were part of my first born bunch of children, I would have spent much more time in the Teacher/Admin. section creating assignments for them.  But, since they are children number 4 and 5, I really just let them loose in the program.  They really didn't have any problems with this approach. 

Science4us.com explains what they need to do, as they move along.   There is also a little introductory video they can watch (that is the one in the above screen shot that says "Pinky wants you to watch this video".)  It goes through the books, the modules, the activities, their notebook, etc.

A nice thing for your early readers (or just bad readers) is that they have the verbal announcement of the different options to choose....when you hover the mouse over them.  You even have the option to repeat what was said....which comes in really handy around here. If, and when,  a ruckus breaks out.... it is easy to have the program repeat the question or information after the noise has moved to another room!

A few other things that weres helpful, even though at first it was sort of daunting for the kids was the glossary and  mini-explain (little picture of a brain) sections....under the My Tools section.  The glossary is simply that....a glossary.  The mini-explain section is also just what is says...a mini-explanation of different terms or things.  The problem was that sometimes the kids didn't know what the words were in the first place.  For example, there are explanations for Venn diagrams, tally charters, analogies.  See? Sort of hard words for little people.  However, the explanations and the visuals used are phenomenal and do a great job explaining the complicated terms/ideas in an age appropriate way.

I really thought the mini-explain about the importance of note taking to be really good....and, honestly, both A-man and S-girl have taken this advice to heart in other areas of studies outside of Science4us.com.

Okay, so onto a science lesson.

Like I said, I let the kids loose, so they would pick from one of the four books, then they would have the option to pick a unit, then a module.  Here....look at this...

This is the Life science book, the Living Things unit and the module for Animals.  This particular module has a set of 12 activity areas to work through and the 13th area is an evaluation of how well you know the module.

Here is one of the activities:

This is S-girl's cat.  (A little quirk we found with the drawing labeling portions of this program is that they don't work in full screen mode, so you have to make the working screen small to get those parts to work.  I also learned how skilled my kids are when using a mouse to draw pictures! )

These types of activities and drawings can be saved into the student's notebook.  Here is a list of some of the things that S-girl saved into hers....

It shows the Book, Unit/Activity, the date it was added and then a thumbprint picture of it.

This program was very easy for the kids to just jump in and handle mostly on their own.  There are sections in the activities where it specifically asks them to discuss or talk about things they learned....but, the kids just skipped those portions and moved on with the lesson.

There are parts of the lessons that have the kids "show what they know"....like picking a picture of something.  For instance, in the animals section, they asked S-girl to pick the picture that showed one of the "needs" of an animal.  It showed a picture of a panda bear eating bamboo and a cat staring sort of creepily into the camera.  S-girl picked the cat (what can I say?  She likes cats.)  But, obviously that answer was wrong....you don't need to be creepy to live.  :)  So, the little cartoon teacher voice said something like, "Oops, looks like you need a reminder....let's watch again."  It then automatically took her back to the part of the lesson that explained what a need was and the things an animal needs to live.  Just in case you don't know, those things are food, water, air, and shelter.

Again, the kids really liked this program.  A-man hopes we can afford to continue our membership.  S-girl's only complaint is that the "Explain" section of activities takes too long and she gets bored.

I did let them loose to run around Science4us.com, but I could easily monitor what they were doing, how much time they spent doing it and how successful they were by logging into the Teacher/Admin page and looking over all the reports available.

There is a LOT of information available in the Teacher/Admin. section.  If I intended to be more hands on, I could access a sort of cheat sheet or video cram session before teaching the class.  You can really dig into a LOT of detail within the student reports too.  There are even off-line activities that I could have the kids do.


Side note:  I learned something from the kids in the process of quizzing/interviewing them for the review.  Our school has a weak spot. Both of the kids said that they had never heard any of the space stuff before Science4us.com.  So, now I know that I need to tweak things around here and include more information on space at an earlier age than I currently do it.


In case I missed any key points, or you still have questions about how Science4us.com works, take a look at this video.  I don't get into all the "standards" that this program meets, but if that sort of thing is important to you, the details are all in this short clip.

So, to answer A-man's question of whether we can afford to keep this review or not....the cost of Science4Us.com is $7.95 per month/per student.  (There are options available for "normal" schools too.)  I think that makes this program very doable, even with our tight budget!

Take a look at what other TOS Reviewers thought about Science4Us.com.