Thankful

Day one was wonderful, my wonderful husband took yesterday off from work so baby blessing and I could attend the curriculum fair and actually spend some time thinking on the things there (well, as much as possible with a baby along, but he is a good baby and makes things easy). This was my second year of being able to attend the keynote breakfast and I was not let down at all. Tammy Duby was the keynote speaker, she is great! She is the Tobin's lab and  "lapbook" lady. If you lapbook or have read anything about lapbooking you probably already know her name and she is so precious and encouraging and absolutely funny! She and her husband make a great team and I have enjoyed meeting them. Another workshop speaker I enjoyed was Nancy Bjorkman.

I must be off now and wake up blessings and feed them and load up and out for the day. I will be making a lapbook with Tammy Duby today!!!!!

Please pray that my cell phone shows up today, I lost it yesterday at the curriculum fair and it hasn't shown up yet.

May the Lord find us faithful.

No title, too eclectic

Hey, this is interesting to me...I was the only one online when I logged on to hsb just now, I don't think that has happened before. Do you think things have slowed down here since the big facebook wave has hit? I hope not, I truely love the blog but I do like the almost communication factor of facebook.

My woe this week: O dishwasher, where art thou dishwasher? Sitting empty and unusable! Some thing has happened to our dishwasher. Now, I am the dishwasher. I have spent a lot of time washing dishes this weekend. I don't know when we are planning on replacing or if it can be repaired, until then we will hand wash.  We will survive. I will be calling in reinforcements once I am finished with the curriculum fair. Tomorrow and Tuesday I will be off in the bliss that is the curriculum fair...two days of workshops and looking at books! My favorite. Of course, this is sponsered by a state run program so there is not a full representation of all things homeschool but it fills a need here in AK. Some day I will find a way to attend on of the big "real" homeschool conventions in the lower 48. So, ya'll let me know when there is one in your area and I might just end up getting to meet you! Wouldn't that be fun?

I haven't uploaded any new pictures this week although I have taken plenty! But for now, I must go get some rest, gotta get up early for the keynote breakfast. Tammy Duby from  Tobin's Lab is our speaker!

 

 

May the Lord find us faithful.

Back

One down side to getting back to my normal is not spending much time online. That is good and bad. I am accomplishing things at home that's good, but there are some things that need doing online that fall to the wayside (like keeping the blog updated).

Here are a few pictures from Resurrection Sunday

 

 

We are all doing well and enjoying the spring thaw. It has thankfully been a slow process and with all the snow we had this winter, that is a good thing. Our road is mostly cleared which is great because it gets slushy and rough to drive on there for a few days. I wanted to wash the van after being out last week and seeing all the people washing their vehicles at the car washes, then I drove home on our part snow/part mud road and remembered why our van hasn't been washed yet!

The bigger blessings are enjoying getting outside everyday after school work is finished. They also enjoy the extra time outside due to the increased sunlight hours. It was dusky dark tonight at 10:45 PM, we love that sunshine. We are beginning to get blessing #4 out a few days a week for short times, it would be longer but it has been quite windy lately.

School is progressing well. We began Beyond Five In a Row last week and are using Volume 2 (I think) and reading Sarah, Plain and Tall  and notebooking using a lot of wonderful things from Homeschool Share. We are all enjoying this little change in our learning routine. I want to do some FIAR with blessing #3 next  fall as she does not remember us rowing books back in the day!

Hideaways in History Updates:

We have been moving along in our History overview studies, we had two weeks off from our building helper Mrs. L so last week was back with our visits and fun. Last week we built a Medieval Cathredal complete with stained glass windows.

This week we started on the Taj Mahal and it will be painted white tomorrow, they also made a Winnie the Pooh cake. As you can see she lets them do the decorating and I like that alot.

 

The most important thing that happened around here lately? The two oldest blessings were baptized.

This is the other thing that blessing #2 had made up her mind about. Blessing #1 had been asking questions and waiting as well. I am glad they did this together!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Next week

Well, tomorrow begins a new term for us....state mandated testing is over with and we can now sigh a great big sigh of relief and do some fun stuff. You know I am all over the place in my educational philosophies in some respects, I have kind of put together a little classical education with a lot of Charlotte Mason ideas and a little more of this and some more of that. I have always loved Five in a Row, and we have used most of the FIAR volumes and I even used BFIAR when my blessings were younger. I just ordered the complete Beyond FIAR a few weeks ago and have been waiting for testing week to be over before beginning, this week we are beginning Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan. This is mainly for blessing #2 who usually gets through in with older brother or younger sister but we will be notebooking our studies and I am excited about that. I went supply shopping on Thursday while waiting on my testers to take their tests. I love office and school supplies!!!

Dad, I will try my best to post pictures tomorrow.

 

May the Lord find us faithful.

More information

For those of you who began blogging about the same time I did and read my early blog posts you know that I used to blog more about home education. I have kind of lost my "blogging bug" that I once had. I am by no means giving up blogging but I think I now blog more out of need than want these days. I also know that I need to get back to my blogging roots and blog about our process of home education with a little other stuff throw in there just because it is our lives. I remember the days when I posted about what we were reading and movies that I think are worth watching (not just the latest movie at the theater, what is showing there anyway? Probably isn't that good or at least not up to our sophisticated movie palettes, yes I am creating movie snobs in favor of good books or good meaningful movies) My children have already found out for themselves that the movie usually isn't as good as the book. Maybe my completely miserable pregnancy slowed things down for a while and then there were the nursing nights (which are fewer and fewer inbetween!!!).

Right now the blessings are working on some notebooking mini books for science, they should be finished but it seems to take them a while to complete things these days. They are going to be sorry when the keep that habit up as we are not taking a summer break per se, we will slow down but we will take a break in July for a trip and a few days here and there  but we will keep up the good pace we have going. Anyway, they all just got a firm reminder and we will see what happens. The rest of the week will be out of the house for testing. I have a love/hate relationship with testing week. It is nice because the weather is warmer and the snow is generally melting during testing week (as it is this week) but I am not a huge fan of testing as some test well and some don't, so I am not sure where I stand on testing. Anyway, I am also proxying some testing at our church's school this week as well. I pray it goes quickly as it is only one child. I will be able to have my little baby with me and blessing #3 usually gets the run of the place from classroom to classroom, although she could spend some time with Mrs. L, hum, might have to think on that a little more today. They are great chums and blessing #3 doesn't see age, she has always thought anyone I know is her friend and that anyone who walks through our door must be here to see her.

 

May the Lord find us faithful.

My new enjoyment

I finally (after about a year of having this recipe in my "recipes to try" pile) made these granola bars. They are so yummy to me. I used a cherry blend dried fruit mix from Sam's and golden raisins, if you are wondering. I have had an addiction to these ever since...they will be moving from my to try pile to my keep pile!!

May the Lord find us faithful.