Big Day!

Today we start the craziness of extra-curriculum activities.

We are starting our class at the homeschool learning center this morning. They girls are taking a class called "O Pioneers." It sounds fascinating, I want to take it to! But Courtney informed me last night that since she won't have any friends in the class, she doesn't want to take it anymore. We'll see what today brings.

We are going to have school all afternoon and then tonight we start AWANA.  Matt is going to be a Sparks leader with Courtney and I am going to help with T & T this year.  It is really hard "teaching" all day, but I like being involved in my kids' activities.  By the end of the night, I will be exhausted.

Time to get the kiddos up, I am hoping to get some school done before our class this morning.

First tooth lost and lost again.

Courtney lost her first tooth yesterday. It's been loose for awhile and during lunch yesterday, it finally came out. She's lucky she didn't swallow it.  I got a little plastic bag and put her tooth in there for safe keeping.  I put it on the edge of the counter where I thought it would be safe.

Apparently my plan backfired.  I cleaned up the kitchen later, did the dishes, and threw all the trash away.

About supper time last night, Courtney says, "Mom, where is my tooth?"  I looked at the spot on the counter and it wasn't there! Oh no, I thought, I must have threw it away when I was cleaning up! So I went out to the garage and went through the last three bags of garbage- yes, gross and yet I did not come up with anything.
She was pretty sad and I felt pretty bad.  She also said she was playing with the sack, so maybe it is around here somewhere.

So last night, Courtney and Matt wrote a note to the tooth fairy explaining what had happened. The tooth fairy "forgot" to come last night and this morning, Courtney is convinced that the tooth fairy couldn't understand her note because dad wrote it and his handwriting was bad (As she is sitting here criticizing his handwriting- can you tell what we have been working on??)

So maybe we should type the letter so the tooth fairy can read it tonight or one written by me (this was Courtney's suggestion).  We'll see!

Much Achieved!

We got a lot achieved on Saturday.

1. Camper is cleaned out. Scrubbed down and vaccummed! It is ready to be put back into storage for two weeks.

2. I can see the playroom floor! Wow! With some help from the kids, that got achieved. The hallway is not done yet, but that is definitely a great start.

Megan cleaned her side of her bedroom, but Courtney's side and the bathroom are still disasters. (Should we make Megan clean messes that are not hers?? Poor Courtney, if she didn't make such a mess in the first place, it wouldn't take so much time to clean up!)

3.  Dishes are done and the kitchen island is still a mess.

4. Laundry is taken to the laundry room, but not started yet.

Along with all this, I found somebody to work the nursery on the 23rd, so our family can go on another weekend vacation to Nebraska City.

I also went to the eye doctor to see why my left contact is so uncomfortable to wear. I have had allergies really bad this week and that seems to be the culprit. They tried to sell me daily contacts, which were about $600 for a whole year! Forget that!! The doctor thought they would provide my eyes more moisture and be more comfortable. They are, but only during allergy season! I think I will take some benadryl, thank you!

Matt also made a couple trips to Menards and a trip to Scheel's to purchase some zero gravity lawn chairs that were on clearance.

Don't forget we watched the Husker game last night. Matt went to bed right before the safety and final touchdown. Too bad. Better luck next time!

Another busy day today. Working the nursery at church (thanks to the person who I traded with yesterday), church, lunch, take camper back to Fremont and let Christian have his first combine ride with my dad and Uncle Shawn (this is all I heard yesterday "Uncle Shawn's house" or "combine, uncle Shawn"), and then our neighborhood picnic in the evening.

We also have some school to finish up from last week before we start tomorrow.  We start our class at the Homeschool Learning Center this week, we start AWANA on Wednesday night, and Megan has dance on Thursday. Let's get back into the swing of things!

This weekend agenda...clean!

The one thing I like about homeschooling is that I don't have the time to do a lot of housework.  I mean, who likes doing housework anyway, right? But the problem is that the messes keep getting bigger and bigger throughout the week and by Friday, everything is a total disaster that you don't even want to clean it!

Here's what we are doing this weekend:

1. Cleaning out the camper from last weekend. Yep, still haven't done that yet. And I think we are planning on going camping in two weeks, so we should really get that done.

2. Cleaning the kitchen. Yikes! Haven't done dishes in a couple of days and my poor kitchen island. I think things are piled about a foot tall in some places.

3. The playroom is a lost cause. :(  You can't see the floor AT ALL and now toys are starting to come out the door. Actually the playroom is a lot of my mess. Whenever we clean the downstairs, I take a laundry basket and I put everything that goes upstairs in it and then I take it upstairs. If I need the basket, I gently dump everything out on the playroom floor. I think I did this 3-4 times last week with the girls' stuff because I needed the baskets to go camping. I will help with that mess, but some of it is definitely the girls' mess!

4. The girls' bedroom.  Megan does not make a mess in there and Courtney has definitely let it get out of control. We didn't keep track of chores this week, so we didn't make her clean it every night like we should have.  Since the playroom is out of commission, the girls had went into there anyway, got their polly pockets, and took them into their bedroom to play with them. Guess what is all over the floor? Polly pockets!  Not to mention the usual books, clean and dirty clothes, and paper and pencils. When I put Courtney to bed last night, I realized that it is time to clean out her bed again. Clean and dirty clothes, hair clips, stuffed animals, books, I am going to be amazed yet again as to what I find in her bed!

5. The girls' bathroom. Not as bad as the playroom and bedroom, but definitely needs a good cleaning! The trash is overflowing.

6. Laundry. Wait, there is no dirty laundry in my laundry room. How did that happen? Oh, have I not picked up all the dirty laundry from around the house in the last couple of days? nope, I haven't. Maybe I should put away the two baskets of clean and folded laundry before I wash some more!

7. Not to mention taking care of two sick kids. Megan had a 102 fever on Wednesday night and is all better now, but Christian had a fever last night.  Courtney was complaining of a headache yesterday plus she feels she has something stuck in her throat.  I'm not quite sure what is going on there. I think she's making herself sick because we have talked about how we are going to clean all week! (I'm just kidding, I think she really doesn't feel good!)

Motivation

This last week, we went full force on school. Every subject every day, except in the middle of English on Wednesday, Megan started to run a fever and we didn't get English done for the day.

Thursday came and I needed to catch up. Usually Megan has a hard time with English, we didn't do a lot last year, so I feel we are catching up a bit (I changed curriculums!). She usually gives me trouble and I didn't want to deal with it on Thursday. I decided to bribe, I mean motivate, her.  "Megan, I will take you to the library as soon as we are done with English." You should have seen her get busy! She understood it all and in about 5 minutes, we were done! No messing around, no acting like she didn't know anything, plain and clear and that was it!

Ah, do I bribe to take her to the library everyday??

The camper and school

We went camping last weekend and our camper is still not unpacked. Usually we would get that done right away, but this time, I just don't feel like it.  It's a lot of work and it really needs to be scrubbed down this time.  I got the necessities out, but nothing else.

You know what I would rather do...teach school!!! I love that so much more than cleaning out the camper and I am almost wondering how long I can procrastinate cleaning it out....what do you think???

Why do we have to go to school?

Another mind-opening conversation with Courtney.

We were on our way home yesterday from camping in Fremont all weekend and we were talking about school.

Me: Courtney, do you really like homeschooling? Honestly?
C: Well, I don't like any school. Not homeschooling, not public.
Me: Why not? You know you have to go to school right?
C: Why do I have to go to school?
Me: It's the law, mom and dad will get in trouble if you don't.
C: Who's going to find out anyway?  (Said with a very serious look!)

Very funny Courtney! You are going to school one way or another!!!