AARRGH!!!

Sometimes I swear that I'm going to pull my hair out by the ROOTS!!!!

I think that oftentimes, Reilly sets out to simply be as stubborn as she possibly can. To look at things in the most obtuse manner available. We had a very simple exericise the other day: look at the picture and put an X next to the sentence that best describes the picture. The picture was of a child in a bed with a mom standing over with her hand on the child's forehead. The sentence choices were
1.) Jenny had a cough so she went to bed
2.) Dan is a tough little boy.
3.) Dad sanded the wood because it was rough.
4.) She had enough candy for one day.

Reilly chose "Dan is a tough little boy." When I asked her why she chose that sentence, her reasoning was because, despite the fact that it was obviously a picture of a child in BED (which would lead some to the sentence with the word "bed" in it) the child in the picture didn't look like a girl and why would someone go to bed just because they had a cough? I mean, she doesn't go to bed when she has a cough. What?
I have such trouble teaching in moments like that because it's all I can do to not just look at her and say, "Are you KIDDING ME?!? LOOK AT THE STINKIN' BED, for crying out loud!" It is so unbelievably frustrating! I know that being detail oriented is a good thing, but how on earth can I teach when someone is so detail oriented that it gets in the way of LOGIC?!

And I deal with things like this on a daily basis, where I just want to scream because I'm faced with a child who is SO literal that she has a hard time getting things done because they don't make sense to her.

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Yeah...no title. Because I'm THAT interesting.

We're kind of winding down things here at Morning Star, actually. Reilly is still (yes, I know...still!) trucking along with Red Book and I'm so proud of her. Yesterday, I realized that she would need to do an average of three "lessons" a day instead of two in order to completely finish the curriculum by the end of the year...otherwise, we were going to have to go into the first week of June. So, I showed her the calendar and told her what was up, and she readily agreed that she wanted to finish by the end of May and didn't have a problem with doing that many lessons each day. Now, it remains to be seen whether or not that will stick, but the nice thing is that as long as she averages three lessons a day, there will probably be at least a few days that she can do just two, or even one lesson. Regardless, she is really doing great at working on her own which makes me very happy. The added bonus is that she's starting school earlier than we used to, which means that we're not getting done at 2:00. Today she started at about 8:45 - we got a bit of a late start this morning because we were all cuddled up together, watching Carrie Underwood on YouTube! - and she got done just before 11:00!!

Today, I "officially" introduced Reilly to addition with carrying and had her do some worksheets from a 2nd grade workbook that we got from Sam's at the beginning of the year. I really felt like I was beating a dead horse with all the flashcards and things we've been doing to practice math facts and I think we were both getting a little tired of it. She knocked it right out of the park and completely understood what she was doing. Yay! I've not decided yet if I'm going to start Beta in this last month of school, or just introduce her to different things out of the 2nd grade Sam's workbook. Oh, we did some basic money counting, too. I tried to introduce this concept at the beginning of last year, I think, and it's amazing to see how much more she understands it now. Last year, it was impossible for her to switch from counting by 10's to counting by 5's and 1's and today, while it took her some thinking power, she was able to do it.

Poor Deco! He's just getting lost in the shuffle lately! He is so good about going in his room and playing that I tend to just let him do that so I can concentrate on Reilly. He knows all the letters and letter sounds, all his shapes and colors, all of his numbers by sight, so I'm a bit at a loss as to what else to teach him that's preschool! The only thing that he's lacking is writing skills, but he knows how to do a fair amount of his letters and I've just been putting that off as a kindergarten thing to do next year. Oh well, I don't guess he'll be any worse for the wear!

He loves playing with the magnetic letters and a cookie sheet and yesterday, Reilly told him he should make some of the words that are in the book he was looking at...so he made "people" with the magnetic letters! I said, "That's the word people!" and he said, "OH! Like the people of Ninevah!" (It was a Jonah book!) Funny guy!

School Stuff

I don't know why I feel like I need to title each post, even though the posts are about...school...seeing as this is my homeschooling blog!
Nothing really fantastic is going on right now. (Other than the fact that I'm apparantly choking on a pretzel!) How's that for an update? Ha ha, just kidding.
Sorry, this has become less of a post and more of a stream of consciousness....

Anyway, Reilly is doing really well with being more independent in doing her schoolwork. I decided the other day that we were going to change our morning schedule a bit. Previously, we would have breakfast, The Kids would do their Morning Routine (dress, make bed, brush teeth and hair) and then they would play while I showered and got ready for the day. The problem I was facing was twofold. First, we were constantly starting school at 10:00, which just puts us being IN school later, and second, despite giving a "we're starting school in 5 minutes" warning, Reilly would almost ALWAYS complain that she had just started whatever it was that she was doing, and then she'd be in a bad mood and school would start with an argument. Blegh! Not a good way to start the day.
So I decided that, given the fact that she's able to do her work much more independently now, we would go straight from the Morning Routine into schoolwork. She can get started on Red Book or something like that while I'm getting ready. It's been going pretty well so far, although I'll admit that we've only done it for two days.

I'm a little frustrated with math. Not the program, because I still think that MathUSee is awesome, but just with the fact that we're not progressing faster. I mean, she certainly has a better grasp on addition and subtraction facts than I did at her age, but I'm really, really TIRED of doing addition and subtraction facts!! I'm tired of reviewing them, I'm tired of trying to come up with new and exciting ways to practice them, I'm tired of having to re-explain for the five bajillionth time how to subtract 8 (or 9) from a bigger number. I'm ready to move ON, already!

OK. I'm going to stop now. This is just turning into a complaining post!

Today...

...we had a good, if short-ish day. I had to go to a store meeting this morning, which means we were all up and out of the house by 6:15. Once we got home, at about 8:30, it was a little bit hard for me to get up the gumption to start school. It's kind of cloudy and misty here today, and I would much rather have stayed in my jammies. But that wouldn't have gone over well at the store meeting.

But, we ended up doing school.

Each book in our language arts program lasts for 20 lessons...or is it 25?...I can remember. Anyway, the books are several chapters long and each chapter lasts for 5 days of lessons. At the end of each book, the kids do a project, the last of which was a diorama that Reilly made about the farm. Well, today we finished "In, Out, and About Catfish Pond" and I decided to break away from the project ideas that were given in the book because 1.) I didn't want another diorama sitting around and 2.) Reilly didn't want to write a sentence about each character and those were the gist of the ideas given in the book.
So, I told Reilly that she could make a movie poster as though the book had been made into a movie and she jumped all over that idea, although she decided that it would be a poster for a play instead of a movie. She cut out the pictures and colored them, put a little blurb under each of them on the poster (example: "Try on Beaver's new shoes...and meet the cast!" "Will Duck tell Turtle's secret?) and she made "coupons" at the bottom of the poster - one for a free popcorn and box of candy, one for a free kid's meal. She had such a good time putting it all together! If I get my act together sometime soon, I'll try to take a picture of it for the blog.

OH! And we always start out school with prayer, each of us taking turns giving our day to God. This morning, Deco says "Lord, some people trust in cherries...and even bananas or apples or even horses, but we trust in the name of God!" Somehow I think he misunderstood his Sunday school teacher just a smidge, but he's got the right idea!! (For those who may not know, there's a verse that says something along the lines of how some may trust in horses, and some in chariots, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.)

I'm a Horrible Homeschool Blogger!

I don't know why I've found it so hard to post lately! Maybe it's because I continue to feel like we're not doing anything worth blogging about. No big projects, no exciting unit studies, nothing. It's just sort of...school. BUT, in a continuing effort to keep all three of you updated, I'm going to try to do better.
So here goes.
In a handy list format.

• Reilly is chugging along in Learning Language Arts Through Literature (aka Red Book). I realized that we were only on Lesson 15 (or was it 13?) of 36 lessons, so we've really picked up the pace so that we can finish by the end of the year. The lessons are divided up into five days for each lesson, so she's now doing two days each day and we're up to Lesson 18. She's also working much more independently, simply because I finally said, "OK, you can read the instructions. So read them, and do what they say, and then we'll talk when it says, 'Discuss with your teacher', OK?" It's working pretty well! The last section of the book is really intended to get them ready for the third grade book, which is much more independent.
• Math is not going as quickly as I thought it would. We just seem to be stalled with subtraction and I'm fighting not panicking because I really thought we'd at least be in the second book by now. I keep trying to tell myself that moving along is pointless if she doesn't know basic addition and subtraction, but we've not really done any money lessons or time or fractions...it freaks me out a little.
• On the math vein, I started doing addition flash cards every day, just to keep those fresh in her mind. I made flash cards on 3x5 cards so that we'd have all the problems, not just half of them like our other cards had. (For example, the ones I made had 5+3 and 3+5 so she'd get even more used to seeing the commutative property at work.) Well, I wrote on the cards with Sharpie, problem on the front, answer on the back, and we were just going like gangbusters. One day last week, she did all of the flash cards in seven minutes! We were ecstatic!! We called Troy, we made a huge deal about it, he took her out for ice cream that night. It was huge!

This week, I realized that she could actually see the written answer through the card. That was how she knew them so well. I was so mad at her! I understand that it's human nature to want to take the easy way out, but I was so disappointed that she hadn't done what she knew was the right thing and told me that she could see the answers. Oh well, she's just seven...I guess this doesn't necessarily mean that she's going to develop into a pathological liar or anything. Plus, after seeing how angry I was, I don't think she'll pull anything like that anytime soon!

• Declan is doing fabulous with the amount of school he's able to do when I'm not dealing with his sister. He can read (well, sound out) almost any CVC word that you put in front of him, which is fun. We do a lot of stuff with magnetic letters and our cookie sheet. I need to work on lower case letters with him, though. He can easily recongize 10 or so, so that's good, and he can write his name in all caps. I want to work a bit more on handwriting with him, but it's sometimes so hard to extract myself from Reilly needing my help!

All in all, things are going well. Reilly was actually sick today, so we didn't have school. She's finished all but the cover of her book for the Reading Rainbow Young Authors and Illustrators contest. I think I'm going to scan it before we mail it, so I'll see if it posts well.

Thanks for continuing to read my drivel!!

Back in the Saddle Again!

Well, Troy has been on vacation for two weeks, so we didn't have "official" school. The great thing, however, is that we did do enough educational things that we aren't losing any days! Yippee! We went to the zoo, we went to a children's museum, and we did Reilly's science project for the homeschooling co-op science fair that was last Thursday.


She did an experiment that we got out of a book, involving using the 5 different senses to try to identify fruit while blindfolded. Our subjects were Mrs. Harris, who isour neighbor, Nani Kay, and Troy, and Reilly did a great job explaining the procedure to them and recording their responses. I'll save you all the boring details and just get on with the pictures.

There is, of course, the obligatory picture with Supey. Because he just loves having his picture taken! Then there's Reilly, looking like Kilroy over the top of her display. Then there's Reilly, talking with the "judge". Now, the actual judging portion of the fair was for fourth grade and up, so Reilly's project wasn't actually judged. But they did have mom's who had volunteered to go around and talk to the un-judged kids about their projects and give feedback to them about their projects.

I was so proud of Reilly, mainly because she said, more than once while we were working, "Wow, this is harder than I thought it would be!" but she just kept chugging on. She did 90% of the project herself, with help from me coming in the form of me showing her how to make the titles on our computer and helping her with the wording of certain things that she wrote.

Now she's working on her story for the Reading Rainbow Young Writer's and Illustrator's Contest. She's got it written, and I showed her how to type and print it from the computer, and she's going to add illustrations next. Fun!

*************************************************

OK, so here are some random pics for you! First we have Supey the Supercat, terrorizing the farm animals in Reilly's diorama. Oh, and a video to go with that as well. Then we've got a couple of pics of our 3rd Annual RFHG Valentine's party. You know, the one that I took Reilly to while she still had the plague? Yeah, you can practically see the germs swarming in the pictures!

OK, now I'm literally sitting here, falling asleep at the computer, so I'm going to call it a day!

Vay-cay!!

Well, my dear and wonderful hubby is on VACATION for the next TWO WEEKS!! Yippee!

I planned for us to be completely off for a week when I was making out our calendar for the school year, but then he had to take two weeks in a row - a first for him! - so I imagine we'll do some educational things while he's off. That way we won't be "short" on days this year...although, that's not really a huge concern of mine. The way I see it, homeschooling is like undiluted apple juice straight from the can - because of the one-on-one setting, the school that we do is more concentrated than what she would be getting in a public school setting.

Yesterday we went to the zoo for a good portion of the day - it was such a beautiful day!! I took about a bajillion pictures, but right now I'm feeling too lazy to go and get the camera and download the pictures to my laptop! Suffice to say, everyone looks completely, ecstatically happy in every picture, as thought they're having so much fun their eyes are about to pop from their heads. OK, well, except for one picture where Reilly had just fallen down on her knee when she was Heely-ing . She didn't look too happy in that picture!

Today, we went and got the display board for her science project because the science fair is next week, and we got some books on the senses from the library. We'll start getting everything put together for that over the next few days. I'm excited that Troy will be able to help with that! Oh, and we all went to the grocery store together...I'm sure that was educational in some way!

I think that we might go to a children's museum sometime, and we'd really like to go to visit Troy's grandmother while he's off, just for the day. Those things will probably happen next week, seeing as I work quite a bit this week.

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin', Keep That School A-Rollin'...

Here's a quick recap of our last few weeks of school, seeing as how I somehow always forget to post anything about school on my homeschooling blog!

• Reilly has written a story for the Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators Contest. At one point, she said"This is harder than I thought it would be!" She actually wrote down the first half of the story herself, but then I let her dictate the last half; she seemed to be getting bogged down in trying to spell everything just right and make sure her words were spaced just so and I figured that the most important thing at this stage of the game was just to get the story on paper. She'll have to rewrite it anyway when she puts it in book form with the illustrations. I'm so proud of what she wrote, not really because it's a fantastic story or anything, but just because the story is hers. I gave a small amount of guidance so that she was able to stay within the 300 word limit, but that was pretty much my entire contribution. I'll make sure to post pictures when she's done with the whole thing.
• The week before last, we went on a field trip with our homeschooling co-op to a farm and home store. It was fun, but not quite what I thought it was going to be when we signed up, because I sort of read the sign up sheet wrong. I thought we were going to Ockmeyer's FARM, somehow missing the "and Home Store" part of the sentence. So imagine my surprise when I realized that it was...a store. "Oh well!" I thought to myself. "It will probably be a really big store and we'll learn all sorts of things about what is needed to run a farm!" Ummmm....no. It was about the size of an average Ace hardware store. And the lady running the tour talked about animal feed. I mean, she was really nice and all, and it was a fun day because we rode up there with the Sheppard family, but it wasn't the huge, educational experience I thought it would be. Oh well. You can't win 'em all!
• We were off for an entire week last week because Reilly was sick with some sort of mild flu that left her just lying on the sofa with a fever for seven days. OK, well, she was actually only lying on the sofa for 6 days because I actually thought she was better on Thursday and we went to the RFHG Valentine's Day party...and she came home with a 101.5 fever! Oops! So she was back to the sofa for Friday and Saturday and was finally fever-free on Sunday. Poor girl!
• On Monday, for review, we did addition flash cards. She was able to do all the addition problems, from 1's to 9's, in 9 minutes! I am so proud of her!
• On Tuesday, we had school at Hibdon Tire because one of our tire's was leaking and I needed to get it fixed. Aaaah, the flexibiliy of homeschooling! I love it!
• Yesterday we had a Teamwork and Home Economics Day. What this means is we worked together to clean the house because if I had to look at the dust and clutter any longer, I was going to go crazy! And that would have not been productive at all. We dusted, vaccumed, sorted, de-cluttered, and folded clothes. The only thing that Reilly didn't get to do was Swiffer the kitchen floor, so I may see if she wants to do that today. It was a good day, and I feel much less stressed out now.

So, there you have it!

Computer Skills and Science Fair Projects

Our homeschooling co-op is having a science fair in mid-March and Reilly was very excited to sign up. She's not old enough for her project to be judged - that will come in 4th grade - and I was very proud that she wanted to participate anyway. She's so competitive that I could easily see her not wanting to do a project if there's not a chance that she could win a ribbon.

We got lots of books on science fair projects from the library, and she decided on a project about the senses. This morning in school, we figured out how to make a form where we could write down all our "data" from the experiment and I guided Reilly through how to make it on the computer. Then we got three "subjects" - Troy, Nani Kay, and Mrs. Harris from across the street - and blindfolded them. They had to use their different senses, one at a time, to try and figure out which fruit was in various containers. They started by shaking the container to see if the sound helped, then they got to touch, smell, taste, and see the fruit in that order.

It was a lot of fun to do, and I really enjoyed watching Reilly guide the experiment and ask the questions. I've tried really hard to let her do most of the work on this project and sit back and offer advice and guidance when needed. I can really see how easy it is for a parent to want to step in and make everything look neat and perfect and I'm fighting that urge a lot. But it doesn't make much sense for her 2nd grade project to look like an adult did it. So, while I talked her through making the form and what we would need to have on there, she actually did the lion's share of the actual work on the computer. Same with the experiment itself; I guided her through how to ask the questions, but she recorded all the information herself. Knowing how competitive she is, I'm hoping that she will have the most satisfaction with the amount of work that is hers when we're all done.

Speaking of competitive, I've realized that sometimes playing games to practice math facts can backfire because she begins to get upset if she thinks she's not going to win. She won at hangman this morning, but began to get mad when I started getting some points on another game we started to play. The idea of "it's just a game!" is completely lost on her and she kind of struggles with finding a balance between competetiveness and having fun.

Well, sometime when I get them loaded onto the computer, I'll get the pictures up of our experimenting! For now, I'm off to BED!

In Which I Compare Homeschooling to An Ugly Medical Condition

Well, things have gotten better as we near the end of this week, I'm thankful to say! While we had a bit of a rough start Monday and Tuesday, yesterday and today could not have gone better.
I switched things around with how we do spelling and I think that helped a lot. I used to do the pre-test on Monday and have her do part of the workbook work, and then on Tuesday and Wednesday she'd choose five words each day and write them in sentences, as well as finishing up the workbook sheets. At some point, we'd have the final test and then we'd move on.
The sentence writing was, more often than not, a huge ginormous struggle, so I pretty much did away with them for this week and found other ways for her to practice the words. I made a crossword puzzle - thank you, God, for the internet - and did some things on the whiteboard, like I'd write the list of words and misspell them and she'd write them correctly. MUCH less struggle - YAY!

Here's my theory: I think that there's something about school that could be compared to a boil. I mean, things tend to build up and build up until we have some type of blowout and then things are better. So, I'll keep praying taht I handle the blowups better, because when we have days like today, I really realize how great this is!

Hello! It's Me Again!

Well, after a really, really loooong Christmas Break due to the 9-day power outage, we're back in the swing of things with school. Yay! I love the break, but it is nice to return to our regular schedule.

Last week was pretty hard, though. In fact, if I had had to make a decision on Tuesday if I wanted to continue homeschooling or wanted to send Reilly to public school, I would have chosen to send her to PS. Yes, the day was THAT hard. But, we got through it - with a lot of prayers and some crying thrown in for good measure...her and me both - and forged on and I really think that this week is going to be great!

Thursday was the hardest day of all, but in a way completely unrelated to school. We had to take our little dog, Joey, to the vet and have him put to sleep. It was very sad for me and Troy, and for The Kids as well, although I think their sadness was mainly because of seeing their parents upset. I wrote a post about Jo over at my other blog, if you'd like to read. So, when we got home, I didn't really feel like teaching a whole lot, but I felt that at least trying to keep to our routine would help, so Reilly made a diorama as part of her Learning Language Arts Through Literature lesson. She had so much fun making this diorama that it completely made up for the bad days we'd had earlier in the week.
She was to color and cut out the little pictures of the characters from the stories she's been reading and then make some kind of scene with them. Now, as you look at the pictures, I'll admit that I came up with the idea for making the barn, and I showed her how to use little cardboard strips to set up the figures, but she did everything else on her own. She was so proud of her work that she took it to karate that night to show it to her friends, The Cox Girls.

Then, of course, Supey had to get in on the action!

"La, la, la...I'm an ejookated kat. Look at me, ignoring you..."

"Oh, hey, are there any ducks in that pond?

"

So, there's the final product! I was so proud of how well she worked and the thought that she put into it. (Now I just need to figure out what in the heck to DO with it!) Our homeschooling group is doing a science fair and Reilly really wants to participate. I'm looking forward to watching her work on her project for that. I'm pretty sure she's going to have a lot of fun!

moar funny pictures

I Have No Clever Title to Put Here!

I've been SO bad about updating this blog! I guess it's because we've been in a weird mode of school lately. We're still doing enough sit-down work that I feel like Reilly and Declan are being educated, but it's been a whole lot more unschooling-type lessons lately.



For example, last Monday I found out my dad was in the hospital with pneumonia and, through a series of events in his life, he had nobody to be up there with him. So I packed up The Kids, some crayons and paper, some movies and my laptop, and we went up there to be with him. I figured that the lesson that they were learning is how to serve and minister to people, even when it's not "convenient" or "fun". (By the way, I could not have been more proud of how well they acted while we were there!) A week before that, we had to take Holly to the vet in the morning, so I packed up some worksheets for Reilly to do while we were waiting.



Yesterday, I decided to take The Kids to the Veterans Day Parade here in town. I'm so glad that we went! (I realized that I really love parades.) Plus, it was so emotional for me to see all these older gentlemen and ladies in their uniforms or their VFW hats going by. It really got me to thinking about my grandfather, who served in WW2 and being thankful for all the men and women who choose to join the military. The Kids really loved seeing all the bands and the old cars, waving their flags and cheering. It was a great way to spend the morning!



Today was just a typical day, really. Since we're so close to Thanksgiving, I'v been reading a book called Eating the Plates: A Guide to Pilgrim Manners and Food which is a really fun book. They also made a Thankful Turkey which I took pictures of but I can't find the cord to get the pics on the computer right now, so I'll post them later. We pulled out the "Feed the Pilgrim & Indian" game today and used it to review addition facts (Reilly) and practice letter recognition (Deco). Who would have thought when I made that game two years ago that it would still bring The Kids so much pleasure? Amazing! I think it's the best idea I've had yet for school!



My job is going really well. I love the company I'm working for and the people I work with are really fun. God is really blessing us in that it's not been a hard transition so far! Since I don't go in until 5:00, I still have all day with The Kids and, thus far, haven't had any trouble getting things done around here. The only down side is that, as an employee, I can have free coffee from the deli if I bring in my own cup (or pay 25 cents for an employee cup!) and it's really good coffee!! So I drink at least one cup per shift, sometimes two, which means I don't really feel like going to bed when I get home at 10:30...which explains why I'm up writing a post right now...and bouncing off the walls!



OK, goodnight! I'll try and post those pictures tomorrow because they're really cute!

Frustrated...

...yes. Again.
And feeling completely inadequate for this job of homeschooling.
*sigh*

Aaahhh, How They Grow!!

I didn't realize that turtles grew so fast! And to think, we've only had Skipperdee for a week and a half!

I mean, look at him! He's as big as my hand now! At this rate, he's going to outgrow the tank in a month!

OK, not really. The Original Skipperdee actually died the day before yesterday. (Only, we didn't realize that he had died until yesterday. Ew.) I think that he pretty much starved to death because we hadn't seen him eat since we got him. It's probably safe to say that being sent through the mail probably didn't do him much good.
The funny thing is that Reilly wasn't really sad that he died. We had warned her that it might happen because we've known that he wasn't eating, so I think that that prepared her somewhat. Add that to the fact that all he did was lay around on the rock in the water, showing about as much personality as...well...a turtle that's not eating, and I don't think she really got too attached to him.
So, this is a new turtle that is actually going by several names now. Skipperdee Two, Dozer, The Deez - Reilly says she's going to change its name every day! She (the turtle) is much bigger, much more active, has already shown that she can eat like a horse, and, thankfully, was purchased here in town so there's more ready access to knowledgeable people...and to an actual store where she can be returned if she begins to go downhill!

Unschooling at it's Best! And on a Saturday, too!

Last Saturday, my mom took us to the Fire Chief's Barbecue, which was held at the fireman's training ground. Unfortunately, my camera battery pooped out on me, so I only got a few pictures of us having dinner. But we got to see lots of things that would have made for GREAT pictures.

We watched several teams rappell down the side of a building and see a guy "rescued" from a window. We watched the fireman team dismantle two cars with the Jaws of Life. (That was impressive, lemme tell you!) We also got to go up in the cherry picker basket on the ladder truck, as well as look at all the different types of firetrucks and talk to the firemen. Oh, and eat really, really great barbecued beef ribs! It was so much fun!

A Look Back...

Monday was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day with lots and lots of fighting and crying and tantrums...not all of which were done by The Kids. Sometimes I amaze/terrify myself with my ability to act like a two year old. It's not a pretty sight. And it hurts so badly when I realize that I've been the exact opposite of a Christ-like example for them.

We got throught it, though, and did a lot of praying with each other. I think that sometimes the "enemy" sees school as a great place to launch spiritual attacks, especially since I've been really wanting school to go smoothly because of my new job. (Click the link to read aaaallll about it!) I don't want to fight with The Kids all morning, then go to work from 5-10! I told Reilly that she can stop me anytime if she's feeling frustrated and we'll pray together. It's made a big difference so far, as she's asked at least once a day during school since Monday. More than anything scholastic that she learns, I want her to learn that God is our strength and our rock that can be leaned on at all times.

The Arrival of Skipperdee

Last Saturday, we had a garage sale and we had told both of The Kids that if they contributed some of their toys and things to the sale, they could keep some of the money to buy something for themselves. Well, Reilly went for it whole-hog because she decided that she wanted a TURTLE! (I thought that she was saving for an Americal Girl doll, but she veered off into the land of amphibians...)

So, because she worked so hard and was so relentless with her culling of toys, on Sunday, Troy ordered a red-eared slider turtle for her. Through thorough tracking online, we knew that we were to expect the arrival of Skipperdee at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning. And, honestly, from all the excitement and anticipation, you would have thought we were waiting for the arrival of the Pope, or something.

At 10:30, on the dot, I saw The Box Man pull up to the house. I don't believe that any UPS man has been greeted with such enthusiasm as was the man who had the honor of delivering Skipperdee to our door. Between the shrieking children and the barking dog, we may well have scarred him for life.

In that picture, she had just gotten done washing her hands so she can take him out of the box. I love the look of pure joy on her face!

I will say, he's a cute little fella! One of the reasons that Troy ordered him online was so that he could get a smaller one. Skipperdee is only about 3 inches long!

(SHOOT! I was going to include a video of him, scooting along, but it didn't upload!)

Pictures, Just Like I Said I'd Post!!

HI! I promised that I'd post pictures of our adventures on Troy's vacation....and I'm always one to keep my word to my, oh, 2.5 readers! (I'm a lonely blogger...I would love some comments...otherwise, I begin to feel like I'm talking to myself. Oh, HI Shery! She always leaves comments. Hint hint to everyone else...)

Anyway, the pics below are as follows:

Troy, peeking through the Indian's arm, trying to see what the Indian is looking like. (We have a tradition of taking pictures of Troy with each and every cigar store Indian that we come across.) Then, there's Reilly, holding the limp magic wand as a helper in the magic show at Silver Dollar City. We've seen the show about eight times, but The Kids always want to sit and watch again! Then we have Reilly and Declan with their new horns followed by The Family in the tippy room in Grandfather's Mansion at SDC.

We took a trip to a nature center and walked around and spotted deer tracks and things like that. You can see Troy showing Reilly how a real Indian would track and shoot a deer. (I love pictures of him like that! He's so rarely silly for the world to see! Although, there's probably a reason for that...)

We liked this arch type thing that was made by the trees...not sure if it really comes across in the picture...but we decided that it was the bridge (arch?) into Terabithia. Then there's Deco, the lone explorer!

Here are The Kids, riding their buckin' broncos at the Cowboy Heritage Museum.

They could have spent HOURS around the cowboy campfire and chuckwagon!

There was a little "town" set up that you could walk through. Or to put yourself in jail. Your choice. We chose both walking AND jail.

But only after I bellied up to the bar. I can't believe I willingly let someone take a picture of my backside! EEEEEK!

We completed our vacation with a trip to the Incredible Pizza Company. Reilly and Declan worked together to get tickets on the "Smack the Gator" game. Then we donned some lovely shoes to ride the go karts, since we all had sandles on...which meant that none of us were wearing socks. I try not to think about all the other people who had had their feet in where my bare feet were. *shudder*

And, what trip to a fast paced, frantic, loud game-themed restaurant would be complete without cashing in those hard earned game coupons on some crap...oops, I mean prizes? Vampire teeth and whoopee cusions, that's what my kiddos chose!

What a great vacation! It was hard to see Troy go back to work on Monday!

What a week!

This week has been so great! Troy had been on vacation, so we've done lots and lots of school...but all of it in field trip format! And EVERYTHING is more fun when Papa's along!

On Monday, we were in Branson and we went to Table Rock Lake. We watched a video about how the dam was built and walked around the visitor center. Then we went down to the (very rocky) beach and walked along, exploring in the rocks.

On Tuesday, we went to a nature center here in town and hiked around there for quite awhile. (OK, quite awhile for me...I'm not usually a hiking kind of girl!) We saw a turtle and lots of deer tracks. It was so funny to watch Reilly and Declan play explorer!

Yesterday, we drove a few hours to a Cowboy museum...notice how vague I'm being? You know, that whole stalker thing! (Not that I really think that ANYONE is reading this anyway! Let alone some random stalker!) Anyway, it was great fun! Lots of art to see, and a whole kids area where they got to dress up like cowboys - chaps, vests, boots, the whole shebang! Then they could pretend to pump water, or sit by a little log cabin and cook over a cowboy stove, complete with tin plates and cups, or play at the chuckwagon and cook a pot of beans over a different cowboy stove. I think that they could have spent hours there!

Today, my aunt is in town and we went on a little garden tour, and tomorrow we're going to a fall party at Shelly's house. (One of the "members" of RFHG!)

Add to these things all that The Kids got to see being done at Silver Dollar City last weekend- someone making a clay pot, someone else making sorghum, etc. - and I feel like we've had a full week of school, even though there wasn't any book learnin'!

I've got lots and lots of pictures, but they're not on my computer right now and I don't feel like downloading them at this moment. Either I have a cold or some serious allergies going on, but my head feels like it's about to pop!