Homeschool Conference!

Last night after I picked Megan up from dress rehearsal, I headed down to the Century Link Center for the homeschool conference. I had all three kids along and I wanted to go to a session, so I was curious to see how this would work.

I got checked in and decided on a session that I thought the kids would find some interest in. It was "How old is the earth?" and it was about the debate between evolutionists who say the earth is "millions and millions" of years old creationists who believe it is only about 6,000 years old. It was very interesting and I wish Matt could've been there to hear it. Megan paid attention most of the time and the two younger ones played and colored and entertained themselves.

Afterwards, we took our sack lunch and ate in the halway and then headed down to the curriculum fair.  I knew I probably wasn't going to get them to sit another hour in a session and thought they might like to go shopping instead, so we headed downstairs.

I was right about the shopping! We mingled in that hall for over an hour! And in the end, I couldn't get Courtney to leave! They were supposed to close at 9 pm and at 9:10, we had people coming up to us telling us that they were shutting down.  Courtney didn't get the hint too well and we practically had to drag her out of there! So much for the kid who didn't want to go in the first place!

I am heading back down there today by myself, but have to be home by 4:30 or so to help Megan get ready for her recital tonight. I told Megan I could probably take her back down on Saturday.

It is such a crazy weekend!!

DONE!!!

Ok, so Megan is finishing her English test, but we are DONE!!!  So exciting!!

We'll see how long they can entertain themselves...I remember last year after school had ended, it was hard for them to go play all day, they just weren't used to having so much free time.

We are definitely going to have to find things to do this summer!!

My Naturalist strikes again!

I swear Courtney is going to be a Naturalist someday. (somebody who studies the natural environment).

For awhile, I thought she would be an entomologist, which is somebody who studies bugs, but lately, her interests have expanded.

For example, last night, she brought me a mushroom she had picked in our yard and wanted me to tell her all about it. Unfortunately, I don't know a lot about mushrooms! I told her what I could and said we needed to do some research.

I then showed her some old logs in our backyard that have mushrooms growing all over them, she thought those were neat! From here, we went on a mushroom hunt throughout our yard.

We ended up at a spot where we had cut down a tree a couple of years ago and found these things in the dirt. They looked like mushrooms, but we didn't quite know, so we dug them up. Courtney took them inside to show dad and he said to put them back! I still don't know what they were!

While we were looking at the ground, we noticed little ants, so I took a scoop and scooped up a little hole. Inside this hole were more ants with little white spots. Courtney said, "Look, ant eggs!" She was right! I told her to run inside to get her magnifying glasses so we could look at them closer. She ran in, but couldn't find them anywhere. We filled the hole back in and watched another pile of ants and eggs for awhile.

Very fascinating!

And what was Megan doing through all this? Just sitting back, she had no interest in this stuff at all!!

Let the crazy weekend begin!!

This will be the craziest weekend I have had in a long time.  I signed up to go to the homeschool convention here in town thinking, "It won't interfere too bad with Megan's recital," but it may be more hassle than it is worth.

Here is today.

AM here at home- finish school, get everybody through showers

11:30 lunch

1:00 pm Megan has to be at Elkhorn South High School in her dress for a four-hour dress rehearsal.

1:30 visit eye doctor because something is bothering me with my right eye

4:45-5:00 Go pick Megan up from the high school and then drive downtown to catch the evening sessions of the homeschool conference that is in town.

(My conference technically starts at 5 but because babysitters didn't work out, I am going to take the children with me to the evening portion tonight. Kids are welcome and I know some other moms who are bringing their kids, so they are just going to have to be good. Matt has a meeting tonight, otherwise he could watch them.)

5:30 Park, register, haul 3 kids into the conference, attend two workshops if I can.  I think I am going to pack sack lunches to take tonight, even though they told us not to bring food in.

9:00 Head home.
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Friday

9:30 Conference Starts, so I will be back downtown by 9 am if possible
Matt works from home, so he is going to try to work upstairs if he can and keep an eye on the kids.

5:30 Megan has to be at the high school for her recital. All dressed and ready to go, so I will need to get home by 4:30 or so to help her do that.

7:00 Megan's recital!!!!

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Saturday

9:30 Conference Starts.

I knew Megan was going to have a performance today, but I assumed it was going to be in the evening. I was wrong, it is at 1 pm!! So guess what? Head back out west about noon because nobody else can do her hair and I think the poor thing would be in tears if I wasn't there to watch her.

This performance gets over around 2...is it worth it to drive back downtown to finish out the conference until 6???  That is still up for deliberation.

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Sunday- Stay home, breathe, and determine how much I spent on gas and parking for the conference. :)

School is done TODAY!!

As I was hoping, we are going to get school done before Megan's dance recital.

We have one lesson of history to go over and an English test to take and Megan is DONE with her individual subjects!

We have one science lesson for both girls and then they both will be finished with school!

What an accomplishment!!!

Bedtime!

I was not wanted by Christian tonight at bedtime.  Dad wasn't either.

Christian wanted Courtney to read him books and he wasn't taking no for an answer!

I asked him, "Do you want me to read you books?"

He replied, "No, I want Courtney!!"

She's such a good sport and I get the night off. :)

Week #36

This is the last Sunday night that I will spend (for awhile) getting school ready for the week. I am changing my lesson plans out ONE LAST TIME!!

I can hardly believe we are done with school this week! I have had a great time teaching my children, I hope they have had as much fun learning!!

We are just finishing our Sonlight subjects this week, this includes science for both girls and language arts and history/ reading for Megan. It should not take long at all!!

Hmmm. When should we start back??

Last Dance Class with Miss Jennifer!

Thursday was Megan's last dance class at Morningstar Ballet with Miss Jennifer. She had recently bcame engaged and will be getting married in the fall. She will no longer be teaching ballet because she will be moving out of state. In honor of their last dance class, Miss Jennifer presented them all with roses with a special note to each girl. It was really sweet!!!



Megan's dance class from this year. Miss Jennifer is in the back, in the middle.

 

Megan and her rose and special note.

Luckily, Jennifer has found another ballet instructor to take her place and she is super-sweet. She has the same philosophy of dancing for the Lord and I think she will be a great replacement. Hopefully these girls will love her just as much as they loved Miss Jennifer!!

Field trip!

We were on a field trip to Fontenelle Forest and I had to laugh at certain places of our field trip.

1.  All the kids were asked to "line up" to go into a classroom. You know what happened??

1. Some kids lined up like they were supposed to.
2. Some kids did not line up and it was sort of an amoeba shape at some parts of the line.
3. Kids clung to mom because they did not want to line up. (Courtney!)

Ok, so "lining up" is not something we practice everyday!

2.  Once we were all in the classroom, the teacher started her presentation and was getting little response from the kids. She seemed kind of puzzled.

Our response, "It's too early for us. We're homeschoolers." It was 10, so it wasn't really that early, but everybody was looking tired and in some families, there is probably some truth to that statement.

3.  Somebody else made the joke about starting late and I heard, "Homeschoolers are notoriously late."  I don't know if that is a good trait or not, but there is probably some truth to that one too!

4.  We were leaving with our friends and I said, "I don't think the girls learned quite that much today," meaning that there wasn't a lot of substance to the program and we walked through the forest, but didn't go out of our way to learn anything.  My friends' reply, "Oh, but they did learn something. They improved those 'socialization' skills that everybody is always so worried about!!!"

Do see why I laughed??

Finishing Math!

We finished Courtney's subjects yesterday and I got some pictures of her finishing her math book.



Working on her last math lesson!

All done!!! 160 math lessons!

 

Put the book away, she is all done!

(Now the question is, should I use Horizons math again next year?

The more I use it, the less I like it...)

Much Better today!

After having a fit at bedtime last night, I let Christian sleep as long as he wanted today. It was 8 before he rolled out of bed, much better than 6:30 yesterday morning!

He is in such better mood today and is being much more cooperative!

We are winding down school today, so things are not as structured as usual and we are not as busy.  He is getting more opportunities to play with the girls and that is what he really likes!

One of those days...

Did you ever have one of those days when you thought it would never end??

When you had a 2 year old up an hour before he usually gets up and is cranky and whiny for most of the day???

You know how hard it is to teach school while the boy won't stop bothering you, needs juice, can't go play by himself, climbs on the chairs, spills his juice all over the floor, and proceeds to pee in his pants all within 10 minutes??

I was waiting for Matt to hear all the chaos and come up and rescue me. He did and I was very thankful! My stress level went down as he proceeded to clean up his potty mess in the bathroom and gave him a bath.  I cleaned up the juice all over the floor! During this time, Megan was waiting patiently at the table waiting to finish her English lesson.

How about at the library this afternoon? I think the whole library heard him crying because I had to put him in time out while we were checking books out. Courtney was on a stool and Christian wanted on the stool too and wasn't taking no for an answer.  Megan was also in time out at the same time. Christian wasn't listening to her and she pushed him over.  It was sooo much easier checking books out with two kids in time out!

Tonight as I was cleaning up the kitchen, he kept bringing the stool right where I was and was standing up on it while holding himself because he needs to go potty.  I took the stool and shoved it away, he shoved it right back. I then took the stool and put it in the laundry room! Then Matt came in and asked what was going on.  He gave Christian his stool back but it had to stay in the bathroom. He agreed and finally went potty.

I am so done with today! I think Christian should go to bed NOW and give me some peace!

Courtney's favorite subject

I have taught Courtney phonics all year out of "Rod and Staff" grade 1 Phonics book.

She has learned sooooo much and has excelled in reading, but she says it is her worst subject.  The book is very plain and boring, it has no pictures or colors, but it does get right to the point and I think it does a great job! 

Today is our last day of phonics for the year.  This morning she said, "It's the best day of my life!!!"

Too bad we have to pick it up again when we start school next fall!

(To keep her learning out of this book this year, I only did 3 lessons a week and then we did something "fun" on the 4th day.  I knew we were not going to finish it, but that is ok, we homeschool and can spread things out if we have to!)

The lights work!

I took Christian potty this morning and he was there first, so he turned the lights on.

"Look mom, the lights work. The batteries are still good!"

When should I tell him that lights aren't run by batteries???

Studying galaxies

Here is a craft we are going to do tomorrow in science class- it should be messy!

http://members.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/astronomy/glittergalaxy/

You know Courtney's theory- the messier, the better!

Counting down!

This week is our second to last week of school. The countdown is on!

We are tapering until the end of the school year.

Megan finished math last Friday. I am hoping not to use Horizons math again next year, I am still on a hunt for a better math program.

This week is the last week for Bible, spelling and handwriting for Megan.
 It is the last week for phonics, spelling, readings, sight words, and math for Courtney.

We have to finish science with both girls next week. We are going to be talking about Newton's laws.

Megan also has to finish her history and reading. I am going to have her read her last two readers and not do her questions that go along with them. They are pretty quick reads, so she could get them done in about a half an hour.

We also have one read-aloud left to do! It is the thickest book of all year and I got half way through and was completely confused! It is called Swift Rivers if anybody is wondering.  I am sure that it is a great book, but I put it down because I wasn't understanding it.  I will probably read it to them and I'm sure it will make much more sense when I have a list of vocabulary words and a set of questions beside me.  I was just hoping to get everything done before her dance recital and our weekend in Des Moines, but this will probably not get done! (Do I even start it then??)

Another weekend has come and gone!

Do you ever feel like you were so busy over the weekend that you didn't even have time to sit down and relax yourself? That was my weekend!

Friday night we hung out with our neighbors until about midnight! Yikes!

We had to get up by 7 or so the next morning because Megan had a class at the zoo from 9-12 am.

After we got done there, we stopped and got some groceries on the way home.

By 3:30, we were on the road again to Lincoln to go to a neice's birthday party. We arrived back home about 10 pm.

Sunday we tried to sleep in, but Christian fell out of bed at 7:15 and woke us both up. Luckily the girls slept until about 9. We were up late two nights in a row, we were all exhausted!

After church, we went out for lunch and then came home and cleaned our house until 4 pm.  Then we had our small group over from church.  This ended at 6 or so.  Supper and homework and showers for the girls and we are ready to head to bed.

Wow, that went by fast!

Next weekend is just as busy!!

A year ago...

As many of you know, we have a lot of allergies in our house.  As of today, things got a bit more confusing, but I wanted to recap what has happened in the last year.

In May 2012, we found out Courtney was allergic to peanuts, eggs, milk, gluten, citrus, soy, and yeast.  She was getting really sick and by taking all these items out of her diet, she has improved tremendously!!!  As of today, she has citrus, gluten, and yeast back in her diet. She has been eating items with eggs and milk, so those are probably on the way back in.

Many people ask us how we figured it out and I tell them that I really knew something wasn't right after we went to the dentist one day, she got super-sick afterwards and that is what really prompted me to take her to the doctor. She was getting sick until that time, but I didn't think it was a big deal.

Today, a year later, we went back to the dentist again for our 6 month checkup.  It just made me remember last year and how sick she was that same afternoon.

Instead of Courtney getting sick afterwards, we went to the same doctor and got Christian's allergy tests results.  He got tested a couple of weeks ago. It's funny how a year ago, we started this whole allergy process and we are still going today, just with a different child!

We were having trouble with Christian last year at this time, but instead of drawing blood and getting him tested, we just put him on the same diet as Courtney to see if things got better. They did get better, but about the last six months, things were getting worse again. He was getting bronchitis every three weeks and was having GI issues.  We had always suspected food allergies with him,  but now they do a finger poke, so I agreed to finally get him tested.

He is allergic to bananas, green beans, blueberries, cantaloupe, oats, oranges, chili pepper, pineapple, white and sweet potatoes, salmon, yeast, and a bunch of seasonings.

It's funny because he is not allergic to anything that has been pulled out of his diet all year! He is NOT allergic to gluten, wheat, eggs, peanuts, soy, and cow's milk!!! But I can't put all this back into his diet at once, little by little or he will be sick!

Now, what to make for dinner?? My head may be spinning awhile!!

Found it!

Don't laugh, but I finally found my bedroom floor! It's been missing for about a month!

Between summer clothes, containers for summer clothes, baskets of clean clothes, those clean clothes spread over the floor from children looking for clothes, art projects, children's toys, art supplies, etc, etc. etc, the floor has just been covered in "stuff" for awhile now and I just haven't had time to deal with it. There has been a path around our bed. Yes, it was that bad.

I decided that since we have to go to the dentist today and do some other errands, we were going to take the day off from school and go clothes shopping while we are out and grandma is in town. :)

This was the motivation I needed to clean this up.  My main purpose was to go through the summer clothes we had, see what fits, and make a list of who needed what. But before I could do that, I had to clean the mess up.  Matt says I am "pressure orientated" when it comes to doing things and he is 100% correct!

Now all the clothes that we don't need are packed back into their respective boxes, laundry is put away, art supplies are packed back away, but I have THREE laundry baskets of "stuff" that does not go in my bedroom.  This may range from hangers I don't need, to art projects, to school books that we are done with, to toys from Christian's room and from the playroom, etc, etc. This stuff now needs to be put away, BUT before I can put anything back in the bedrooms, those need to be cleaned up too!

Can yo see a theme going on here? Can you see what happens to the house when you homeschool your children all day?? Luckily summer is coming and we will have time to deal with this all again!

Actually Matt came into the bedroom last night and said,"Wow, there is carpet under there!" It is wierd to see the floor, I have to admit!

Matt saved the day!

Yesterday while it was 101 degrees out, our capacitor decided to go out on our air conditioning.

Luckily Matt heard the air conditioner not running right and tried to figure it out right away.

He found the broken capacitor, called Millard Heating and Air, met a guy at a gas station to get the new part since they had just closed, came home, installed it, and we had cool air again!

Yay for a husband who knows how to fix things!!!

More Adventures in potty training

Christian has been potty trained since Christmas, but we are finally getting to the point where he can take himself to the bathroom. He has had a hard time getting his pants up and down until now.

Now he can get his pants and underwear off, but not back on.  His new thing is to go into the bathroom, take his clothes off, go potty, then bring me his clothes to put back on.  This has helped a lot!

Except today. I hear from the bathroom, "Mom, come clean up my mess!"
Me: "What did you do???" (I haven't heard this yet since he's been going on his own.)
Christian: "I peed on the toilet!"
Me: "Did you push 'it' down?" (We sit to go potty.)
Christian, "Uh, no."

I guess we have to work on that yet, he's usually really good about peeing IN the toilet. I also think we should start him young on cleaning up his own messes!!!

Bunch of Sleepyheads!

I can't get my kids out of bed this morning. We had a very fun-filled weekend.

We spent many hours playing outside, we saw a play at the Rose Theatre, we visited friends at local campground, we saw my parents, brothers, and nieces at another campground, and ate too many hamburgers, beans, and potato chips.  We also cleaned the girls' bedroom, which took 3 hours, and went to church Sunday morning. And of course, we celebrated Mother's Day!!!

Christian fell asleep in the car last night as we were coming home from Fremont, it was about 7:30 and I just woke him up at 7:30 this morning! He has had the same shirt on for about 24 hours..

Megan is struggling to get out of bed.

I am still tired and Courtney usually doesn't have any trouble getting up. She pops right out of bed in the morning and goes and finds dad, she did the same thing this morning.

It really feels like it is summer and we should be done with school.

But no, three more weeks left.

Hopefully we will finish our math books this week and get those done, but everything else has a little bit yet.  I am definitely starting earlier next year.

Off to continue to encourage Megan to wake up and get everybody ready for the day!

Rain, rain go away, you are ruining our picnics!

This week is crazy busy, just like the rest of our schedule until the end of May. We were supposed to have a picnic on Wednesday for the homeschool learning center, but it got rained out. It actually got rained out last week and they changed it to this week. Now they completely cancelled it. I was kind of bummed. Today we are supposed to have another picnic for a group that I am in. There are about 90 people signed up- crazy!!! But it is wet out again. I hope it dries out a little bit. I kind of want to get out and do something fun, but actually 90 people is a little much for me. I will probably find my friends and stick with them. Before we go though, we need to finish school up for the week. I always seem to be going over Courtney's last lessons on Friday mornings. I'm not quite sure why we are not getting them done on Thursday, but it's alright, they don't take very long. Finish school work first, then off to the picnic. And maybe a stop at the library.

Amelia Bedelia

Have you ever heard of the "Amelia Bedelia" books? Courtney loves them!

We have checked about every one out from the library and have read them to her, but since she loves them so much, she is now reading them herself.

For about a month now, I have really noticed her reading has excelled! We have been moving past the beginning books for awhile, but I kind of wanted to find something that she would want to read by herself.

I found them. One day we sat down and read "Amelia Bedelia" and since then, I have heard Courtney reading this book to her brother on quite a few occasions. She keeps reading the same one over and over.

Yesterday I told her we were going to read another one ("Good Driving Amelia Bedelia") and she didn't like the idea at first, but once we got going, she read the whole thing with only a little bit of help! They are long books too!

I'm so happy that reading is coming a lot easier to her, which is great! I am thoroughly impressed!

She is also starting to read things around the house, road signs, etc. and the world is opening up to her!

Her favorite thing lately is to spell things out to us. for example- C-a-n  I  p-l-a-y M-a-r-i-o? and of course we spell everything back. We have a lot of fun with this and it's fun to watch her brain work as we spell things out back to her.

Yay for reading!!!

Thoughts on this spring day!

1.  It IS ok to skip your homework and go outside and play.

2.  Mom really enjoys going outside too. She is personally tired of being cooped up in the house.  She especially enjoys getting active with the kids, either playing soccer, basketball, "ring around the rosy," exercise is good for everybody! But she wears out a lot sooner than the kids do!

3.  Matt mowed the lawn tonight and didn't have to pick up dog poop. That hasn't happened in over 10 years.

4. Christian is finally figuring out to use the pedals on his tricycle.

5. Courtney is not so fond of riding her bike, but you can't get Megan off of hers. There is a first grade boy who lives across the street and they really enjoy riding bikes together down the street. (Yes, they are careful!)

6.  Popsicles are a must after you have played outside for at least an hour.

7.  Who cares if Christian's pants are too short and his shoes are on the wrong feet!

8.  School is so much better when done outside! (And Christian is old enough to entertain himself while having school.)

I wonder what the weather will be like tomorrow!

Week 33 and more astronomy

We are learning about the moon tomorrow. I think we are going to dig a little bit deeper and learn about the first man to walk on the moon.

http://www.kidport.com/REFLIB/Science/MoonLanding/MoonLanding.htm

http://www.faktoider.nu/apollo11_eng.html

Homeschool papers

We got our homeschool papers from the State of Nebraska yesterday.  These papers are the renewal forms for next year.  I kind of forgot that they sent them out in May. They are due back by July 15th for all renewing homeschoolers.

I asked Courtney if she wanted to homeschool again next year and she said, "Yes!" with a big smile on her face. (This is the girl who didn't really want to homeschool last fall.)

I asked Megan if she wanted to homeschool again next year and she also said, "Yes!" I don't think I'm ever going to get her back to public school.

I think I will get those papers filled out and sent back in!!!

Saturday

Why have I woke up at 6:15 every day this week, including today?? 7:30 would be the best!

Matt always says I should get up and stop wasting my day away. I say it's a wonderful feeling to be wasting my day away! For however long I want, I don't have to deal with children, I don't have to look at the messy house, I can stay where I am and think my own thoughts! I love it!

There is no way I am cleaning my house before 10 am anyway! And what else would I do? Sit in front of the TV? Sorry Matt, I am not a morning person like you are! This is the only time I get peace and time to myself. Megan is always still up when I turn my light off at night.

A little bit of peace is nice because our day is packed already. It's crazy how busy our weekends have been lately. Today we have a graduation party at 1:30 and a birthday party tonight at 6.  My house is destroyed, so I don't see much time today to deal with that. (Seriously, I think a hurricane hit the living room, legos are spread from wall to wall and I STILL haven't dealt with the containers of summer clothes in my room!)  We have church tomorrow morning and then small group from 4-6 pm. And of course, we end every Sunday by watching an episode of "The Amazing Race."

 I was looking at our calendar and we are booked every weekend until July! Isn't that nuts?

May is a busy time for us anyway. We have four weeks of school left ( I really thought we had 3, but we are going to be on week 33 this week and we have 36 in a school year.)  We have Megan's dance recital on May 31st and a homeschool convention that same weekend.  A couple days after that, we are heading to Des Moines with some friends to go to Adventureland! Next up is Christian's birthday (our anniversary).  We are having his birthday party and celebrating Father's Day all on the same weekend. The plans go on and on...We also really want to take a big camping trip this year. Matt wants to be gone for at least two weeks, so we will see where that will fit in. Honestly, I think we should go somewhere in the fall when everybody else is back in school!

I am seriously thinking about doing school all summer. Not full-blown 100% like we have done over the school year, but doing some math and phonics twice a week.  We will definitely join the summer reading program so we will be reading everyday.  I am not doing this necessarily for Megan, but for Courtney.  It is always a challenge to get her back into the "school mode" on Monday after being off for three days. I don't think school comes as naturally to her as it does Megan.  I think if I let her off of school for three months, it might be a disaster in August when we go back. I think if I work with her a couple times a week over the summer and keep her in the habit of sitting down and learning, it might not be such a challenge.  I still want to have time to do all the fun summer things, but still keep thier minds engaged. Courtney has come such a long way this year!! I don't want to lose any of the progress we have made. And I was so worried about teaching her how to read!

I am also in the midst of getting things ordered for next year.  I think next year is going to look very similiar to this year except we're going to add a few things with Courtney. 

Science- Sonlight Grade 1 for both
Bible- Bob Jones University Bible, Grade 3 for both
History/ Geography- Sonlight  Core E (American history from 1850 to present time) for Megan, Courtney will listen in
Reading for Megan- Sonlight Advanced Readers that go along with Core E
Reading for Courtney- Books from the Library and Spectrum Grade 1 as a supplement, other "fun" books by Evan More
English- Rod and Staff English 2 for Courtney, Rod and Staff English 4 for Megan
Spelling- Spelling Workout (E for Megan, B for Courtney)
Writing- Spectrum Writing Grade 1 for Courtney,  Sonlight Core E Language Arts for Megan
Math- Horizons Grade 1 for Courtney and I think Horizons Grade 4 for Megan. ( I was thinking about switching to Saxon 54, but I think I am going to stay with Horizons.)
Phonics- We will continue to use Rod and Staff 1st grade phonics.

I think that is it! Of course, art, music, German, health will be thrown in whenever I can get to them. :)  And PE will be dance class and running around outside!!

Immigration info

As many of you know, I am a huge history buff. I always have been and I probably always will be. This is why I love Sonlight curriculum that I use with Megan. She is really enjoying it too!

Anyway, we have been working our way through American history this year and we are up to roughly the time right after Lewis and Clark (1806).  We were talking about immigration this week and how this was America's highest import at this time. (This was actually the name of the chapter, "America's greatest import: people."

They mentioned that the two main groups that came to America during this time were the Irish and the German.  Now we all know why the Irish came over, it was the potato famine (potatos got a "blight" as our book said), but it was also much more than that.  The Irish were being ruled by the English at this time and these poor Irish peasants (potato farmers) had to give all their good potatoes to their English landlors and could keep only what they needed. As the "blight" got worse over five years, the peasants' health got worse because they had to give all their food away. They were starving and disease-ridden. On top of this, the English were Protestant and the Irish were Catholic and they didn't like each other.  Isn't it funny that the Irish came to America not only because they were hungry and sick, but for religious freedom?? But the problem was that once they got to America, the Protestants here didn't like them either! They had a hard time finding jobs and seemed to stick together, but they still made a huge influence on our society.  They worked hard and became very active in politics.

The other main group were the Germans. In all my years of studying, I could never pinpoint one reason the Germans came over.  My ancestors are from Germany, but why did they leave Germany? Were they hungry, disease-ridden, persecuted? What was it? I found out yesterday! In 1816, there was a huge flood on the lower Rhein River and washed away barns, livestock, and flooded fruit trees.  The people lost their way of making money, again, they were hungry and depressed.  Many people from this region immigrated to America.  Again in 1829-1830, there was a really bad winter and everything froze pretty bad. Again, people lost more and immigration picked up. Finally in 1848, there was a revolution in Germany that failed (They wanted to get rid of their king and have a republic and a Constitution like us).  The leaders of the revolution came to America and had a huge impact here.   From here on out, it was just a craze to come to America.  My ancestors came around the 1870's and they were from northern Germany. My theory is that they were allured here by the vast farmland of the midwest.  Germans would pass down their land, but since there is limited land, you could get a lot more in the United States. I know more Germans immigranted in the early 1900's too due to the politics in the country, but we will study that more next year.

Interesting, huh? Ok, to me anyway. :)

Supper...

In honor of the 3 inches of snow we had today, I decided we were going to have chili for supper. One last time.

I went to the store tonight and bought $200 worth of groceries(yes, we were OUT!) and got home and started chili.  I bought tomato juice because I was pretty sure we had everything else. I even bought crackers and corn chips for us gluten-free people to use in our chili.

I got home and went into my pantry to get everything and there were no chili beans or anything other beans besides Pork and Beans in there!

What?? I was JUST at the store!

How can you have chili without chili beans??

Of course, Megan heard me complaining as I was looking in the pantry and said, "But mom, you promised us chili! You said you had everything!"

So we had chili with just pork and beans, it works, right??