Princess Shoes?

Since it has been nice out lately, Micah wants to go outside ALL THE TIME!1

I am usually teaching a kid, and he has learned that Megan will usually take him out.  I hear "DeeDee, outside little bit?" all day long. (DeeDee is Megan.)

The other day, Micah was begging to go outside and he knew Megan was upstairs doing homework. I saw him go over the door and get her brand new sandals I bought her for church. He took them all the way upstairs to her, so she would put them on and take him outside.

Megan came down a little bit later and said that Micah had brought her her "princess shoes" because he wanted to go out!  They are a little fancy to play outside, but Megan thought it was cute that they called them her "princess shoes!" I haven't heard that phrase in this house in a long time! They do look like "princess shoes," don't they?

Sleep Much??

I am really hoping Micah sleeps through the night tonight. I don't know what is up with him, but he has been up the last THREE nights! This is not funny anymore!

This all started Monday night. He fell asleep on my lap in front of the TV, and I put him into bed about 8. This happens frequently, and is not a big deal. I was just ready to turn my light off at 10:30 pm and I heard him crying. I went in there, got him a drink, and he went back to sleep pretty easily.

He was up again at 12:30 am! This time though, he had woke Courtney up and she came into my room looking pretty irritated! I think her exact words were, "Are you going to do anything about him?"  I looked at her and said, "You are up; you can take care of him! I am tired!" She didn't think I was so funny and just continued to glare at me! Finally I got up and got him back to sleep again.

2 AM came and here he was crying and screaming again! What this time??  I just let him cry and cry and cry. I was tired!!! I am not used to this anymore! Courtney was also up again, but I heard her shut her door. He was saying, "Time to get up! Time to get up." After awhile, I finally went in there and rocked him a little bit. He really thought it was time to get up! It was about 3 am before he got settled back down in bed.

7:00 am came too early for me Tuesday morning!

He fell asleep on my lap Tuesday night again while we were watching "A Case for Christ."  I put him into bed again and hoped he would sleep all night. Well, I was wrong. He woke up about 2 AM again and Matt jumped up right away to deal with him. He said he gave him a good "talkin' to" and he went back to sleep. Thank you for letting me sleep! :)

Last night was round 3. He fell asleep at 6:15 PM on our way home from dinner. I held him on my lap until about 8.  I was kind of hoping he would wake up for an hour or two, but he didn't. Eventually I put him into bed and said good night.  Again, I had just turned my light off about 10:30 PM when he woke up. I could hardly believe it! Again, "Time to get up!" I went in there and said, "No, it is NOT time to get up. It is time to go to bed." He had already been sleeping for four hours.  I rocked him and eventually got him back to sleep. I went back to bed about 11:30 pm. I didn't see him until 7:30 this morning. 12 hours! NICE! 

He has not had a nap today, so hopefully I can put him to bed like usual. I enjoy reading him books before bed and going through our night time routine. He is still awake at this time, so that is good. Maybe he will sleep all night tonight?? I sure hope so!!

Reading time!

To finish up the school year, Courtney is just reading some various Sonlight books to make it to May. We finished up "Drawn into the Heart of Reading" program about a month ago, and I didn't want to start anything new in April. This was the reading curriculum that went with our Heart of Dakota curriculum. I want to start something new next fall, so we just need to finish out the year.

Today, Courtney finished up the book "Island of the Blue Dolphins" that she had picked to read from Core F.  I read this book to them right before Micah was born, so I didn't assume she would remember much and she really didn't! She read it and enjoyed it.

After we finished discussing that book, I asked her what she wanted to read next. I am not being too picky, but I prefer that she picks a book from Sonlight since they provide comprehension questions.

She looked at me and said, "You know, that one about a dog! I want to read that one!"

I responded with, "A dog? I have read many books about dogs in the past few years. Which one are you talking about?"

"You know, the dog one. He gets saved in the end. That one was my favorite!"

At this point, I was thoroughly confused because the only dog book I remember was "Old Yeller" and that dog dies in the end!

She ran downstairs and I saw her go into the storage room where we store our old Sonlight cores. By the time I got down there, she had found the book. She said, "This one!" She had pulled out "Ginger Pye."

I looked at her and said, "Ginger Pye? Sure you can read that book."

Do you know when I read this book to my girls?? It was when Megan was in 2nd grade!!! It was the first year of homeschooling! Courtney was 5, and she is now 11!

How in world did Courtney remember this book out of ALL the books that I have read in the last seven years?? And to say that it is her favorite?? I will never know!

A little distracted??

Today we had a full day of school. I started where I left off yesterday (we do a "loop schedule"), so the first thing up today was Christian's math.  Once we were done going over his lesson, I set the timer for a 5 minute break, and then I expected him to sit down and get it done.  I always encourage him to get his homework done as soon as he can, and then he can have the rest of the day free.

Well, apparently, I didn't keep close enough tabs on him after his five minutes because he didn't have it done by lunch time. I sent him back up to his room after lunch to finish it.

I continued going through lessons with the girls and after I had gone over his language arts, it was nearly 4 pm.  I asked him if he had his math done yet, and he said no.

At this point, he started telling me about all the plans he had for the hole in the backyard that he was going to dig.  I said not until your math is done!! My motto lately is, "No fun until your homework is done."  I sent him back up to his room to finish his math, again.

I ended up making a few phone calls, and I kind of forgot about him. The kids were outside and all was well.

I just went to tuck Christian into bed tonight (at 10:15 pm) and Megan says to me, "Hey, did you know Christian snuck outside today. He said he had to sneak out because his math wasn't done yet."  SERIOUSLY!!!! This is while Christian was sitting there doing his math at 10 PM!!!

This made me upset; he deliberately disobeyed me! I went into Matt who was already half asleep and told him what Christian did. I asked him what I should do and his response was to take his perler beads away. He has LOVED these lately and this would hurt! So I did!!! I cleaned them all up right in front of them and put them in my bedroom. Then I told him he needed to GO TO BED! He went, but he wasn't happy!

Tomorrow will be a new day.  I need to find a better way to force him to do his homework. Having him take it up to his room to do it is not working; he gets easily distracted. But sometimes I have to have him take it up or else he and Micah are constantly fighting.  He also gets easily distracted downstairs and bothers everyone else. It is a no-win situation!

New Chores and Chart!

As part of a family, we expect our kids to help out around our house, but some of my children don't like being told what to do (who does, right!).  I can really use the help, but I got complaining every time I asked them something. This just became a circle of arguing, and Matt came up with a solution!

He said he could write a program that gave everyone their chores, and he would use the program Trella, which they use at work to divide up tasks.  He bought a new computer, and he mounted it on our wall in the kitchen. He then wrote this program, and he assigned certain chores to certain children. The kids can now EASILY walk up to the computer and see what tasks they have to do for the day WITHOUT ME TELLING THEM! Yay!  When they are done with their task, they go to the computer and move it to the "done" column.  If it is not done by the time listed, it goes to "uncompleted" on its own.  They kids have required tasks, such as bringing down the laundry,  and optional tasks, such as helping with Micah.

Matt has also written the program so that each task is assigned a dollar amount, for instance, they earn a quarter when they empty the dishwasher. When a task is moved to the "done" column, the program will give them their set amount of money.  This has been the biggest motivator! Now the kids can see how much money they have earned as the time goes along. We have been doing this about three weeks now, so they have a running total until we pay them. 

Everybody that comes over to our house sees the computer on the wall and asks what it is about. We show them and then everybody says, "Hey, I love it. Can you do that for my family??" We have yet to have a family seriously ask Matt to make one for them, but he should really sell it! It has been amazing!!!

One a side note, Matt just added another part to the program.  It will take money away from the kids if they do not do their required tasks. Hahahaha!! This is because they have been doing about half the chores and leaving me to do the rest. The whole point of this was to help mom out!!! 

It's been a long time!

I think I am falling off the "blog" bandwagon. I haven't blogged in about two weeks.  It isn't that I don't want to, I just get to the end of my day and don't have the energy anymore. I spend my time in the evenings grading papers and by the time I am done, I just want to go to bed. But guess what? Tonight I am not grading papers! Tomorrow is Wednesday, and we are only having two hours of school, therefore, I don't need to have anything graded for tomorrow. Of course, I will spend tomorrow night grading everything for Thursday.

We have been chugging away in school lately. Just last week, we hit the midterm in Megan's and Courtney's math books. I know, it is kind of late in the school year to be hitting a midterm, but that is just where we are! I know there are only about two months of school left, and there is NO WAY we are going to get through our books before then. My children get the lovely privilege of going to summer school at the Ruwe Home Academy! I don't mind stopping history or science at the end of May, but we will keep plowing through our math and English until we are done.  I always like to start the next school year at the correct grade level.  I also know that I do *not* need to finish our books, but I like to. I find that there is material at the end that is important.  Last year, I had to just stop where we were because we went on vacation. I think we will keep going this year! Christian just hit lesson 70 of 170 lessons in math- 100 more to go!

As for English, Megan and Courtney are getting closer to the end of their books, much closer than math! I have been skipping the writing lessons to do later, so it looks like we are further than we are.
It is also nice that English has 40 few lessons than math!  We have been using Spectrum Writing books all year, and the girls are on the last assignment, which is a persuasive essay. When these books are done, I will go back through our English books and do the writing assignments.

As for history, we recently switched to Mystery of History Vol. 2, and the girls are enjoying it! We finished our Heart of Dakota Curriculum, and it is already sold and out the door. I am not sure if I will use Heart of Dakota again, but it was perfect for the last couple of years. Along with Mystery of History, we are reading the literature from Sonlight Curriculum. I really missed all the great literature of Sonlight, so we are back! (I used Sonlight for five years before switching to Heart of Dakota, and now I am switching back!) At the end of May, I will put history on the shelf until next fall. Megan has mentioned that she wants to keep doing it through the summer, so we will see what she decides.

Courtney and Christian are also enjoying their new science curriculum. I was teaching them together out of an Apologia book, but it was too hard with such an age gap. Courtney is now working through Biology on her own, and Christian is doing Earth Science with some help from me. Even though Courtney told me she would rather do NO science, she is still learning quite a bit! She is on a 6 week unit study of plants, and today she learned about ferns. I don't know nothing about ferns, so I am glad I get to help her through it. She is not as thrilled about learning about ferns as I am, though. Christian LOVES earth science. Our next unit is on weather, and he is so excited. This boy could watch the weather station all day if you would let him, but since we don't have cable anymore, that isn't an option. :(  He is currently wrapping up a unit on the planet earth, which includes volcanoes and earthquakes. This is perfect for him!

As for Micah, he is FINALLY to the stage where he can entertain himself during the day. He likes to take our bucket of crayons and put them in the blender and make "apple juice." He will then get a cup for everybody and give us "apple juice", which is really a cup of crayons.  He will also get out my pans and make "sausages" with the same crayons. I love how he plays pretend these days. The other day, he had taken his baby outside for a walk. It was nice out and the baby only had his underwear on. I was inside on the computer and all of the sudden, he came running in saying, "diaper change, diaper change!" He went up to his room and got a diaper and took it outside to the baby. Apparently the baby had pooped in his underwear and he needed a diaper change! I followed him outside and he had already taken the underwear off the baby, and the underwear were sitting on the driveway beside the naked baby. Once we got the diaper on, Micah took the "dirty" underwear and put them in the washing machine. I am so glad we got that taken care of!!!  I wish I could bottle this stage up and keep it around!