Walked out. :(

I don't usually leave field trips in the middle of them, but yesterday I did.

We went to this horse barn and they were going to teach us all about horses and then give the kids rides.
We were also supposed to bring lunch because it was going to go from 10-2.  They said we were going to be in a barn most of the time.

My expectations were wrong.
1.  It was 40 degrees out and the barn was as cold as it was inside.
2.  We were not inside at all!
3. I was expecting a nice, heated barn. HA! It was an old run-down wooden barn.
4. I thought we would actually be learning about horses. HA AGAIN!
    We got there at 10 and had to sign in.  I thought the people who were leading the field trip would start around 10 or shortly after. Yah right!! They didn't even call everybody's attention until 10:30!!
In the meantime, the kids were supposed to look at the horses, all 4 of them!
Once they got started at 10:30, the only thing they did was take 3 kids into a stall AT A TIME to brush a horse.  Let me remind you, there were three other people working there, but they weren't doing anything.
Guess what the other kids did during this time? And there were about 30 kids here...they ran in circles! This head lady had nothing for them to do!

Luckily, my kids were the first ones in the pen to brush the horses and then they were done.
Soon the kids were running all over the lady's haystacks and she was beginning to get mad at them, so she opened up the gate to the pasture and said they could run around in there!

It was now about 11 and Courtney is freezing and bored out of her mind (she didn't want to come in the first place), Christian is bored and I don't want to give him freedom to run in the pasture because there was farm equipment in there, and Megan is actually running around and having fun.  I am bored and cold myself.  I'm starting to think that we are not getting much out of this field trip and start to consider leaving.

I didn't know what else this lady had planned, but if it was anything like brushing horses for half an hour, I was not going to stay.  They were going to ride horses too, but who knows what that would be like. Probably one by one and would take at least two hours!

About 11:15, I pulled Megan away from her running and talked to her. I asked her if she would mind that we left. I told her that her brother and sister were cold and bored and we weren't really learning anything anyway. We had been there for almost an hour and a half and all we have done is brushed a horse for about a minute.

I asked her if it would really bother her if she didn't get to ride a horse and she said no.  Thank you!

I went up to an assistant lady and told her we were going to head out because we had many other things to be doing.  She went and got the head lady and I kind of told her what was going on without making her feel bad.  She gave me the "well, this is my first field trip with so many kids, I need lots of time." ok, ok, but this just isn't working for us. I told her that private horse lessons would probably work a lot better for us and I got her phone number and walked away!

Who knows what happened for the next 3 hours or where everybody ate lunch, I didn't even see any bathrooms around!!

I am very glad we left, I have so many things swirling around in my head that I have to do now, I didn't want to waste my time at this horse farm learning about nothing!! I didn't go there so my kids could run around in a pasture!!

5.  I obviously did not dress my kids warm enough. When we left our house, I thought it was kind of nice out and THINKING we were going to be in a nice warm barn, I had the kids grab their spring jackets and then we all ran back in to get our winter coats.  I didn't bother to grab gloves or scarves! I should have! We were cold.

6.  Another reason I walked out is that during the day is "school time" and I want the kids to be constructively learning or at being productive. While I am not against having some time to run around, this was not part of the plan and I was not happy that these people were wasting my time.

7.  Good thing I didn't pay for this! This field trip was free, but a bunch of moms were going to go together and give her some money.  I didn't even offer. sorry! Improve your field trip and it may be worth some money to me and my kids.

Again, I felt bad that we left only an hour into it, but I was very glad we did!

Word mix up.

Ok, I have to admit I messed up on our Christmas letter and there are only a few people who I think will figure it out.

I wrote "etymologist" instead of "entomologist."

Who knows the difference???

I did print out half my Christmas letters with the right word and half without. I felt terrible, but I didn't want to print them all out again, so I put them in the mail and hopefully nobody will see my mistake. :)

Pick out your pajamas!

Tonight after Christian's bath, I let him pick out what pajamas he wanted to wear to bed.  He sat there for awhile and stared at all of them, but didn't pick anything out.

I said, "I'm going to count to three and then I'm going to pick them out. 1.....2.....3," and I reached down and picked out a pair and shut his drawer.

His first words out of his mouth, "No mom, I wanted 4!"

Apparently he wasn't mad about the pajamas, but that I didn't count to 4!

Christmas Decorations

Yep, we're totally skipping school today to put Christmas decorations up!

Do I feel bad? Nope!

The girls did a great job cleaning and they helped put things up. 

We also put up a new tree we bought last night, but I am not sure if it is good enough, so we left it for Matt's approval before we put the ornaments on. Instead, the children have chose to play with the ornaments until the time comes to put them on the tree. :)

I also realized the other day that the only Christmas exposure my kids are getting are what I will be teaching them! Wow! I made some new plans and now we are doing an advent calendar, singing Christmas songs, reading Christmas stories, and doing Christmas crafts everyday!

Megan is so funny, she doesn't want to do anything that doesn't have to do with Jesus!

School?

I had planned on taking the two weeks around Christmas and New Year's off of school, but I'm beginning to think differently now!

I think we need to take the two weeks BEFORE Christmas off!!

I have so much to do around here. Put up the Christmas tree, decorate, take down thanksgiving items and put those away. Shop and wrap presents, etc, etc. etc!!!

It is already Wednesday and we only have one day's worth of school done this week!!

I think we are going to take these two weeks and do one week's worth of school and then do the same for the following two weeks.  Then we won't lose all that we have been learning.

Did I mention that I got my laundry room painted the other day, so I have baskets of dirty laundry in my dining room and my dryer in my kitchen? I haven't had time to mop that disgusting laundry room floor yet, I want to get that done before putting everything back.

Plus we are having some friends over tomorrow that we are just getting to know, so of course we want a clean house!

UGH! Anybody want to come and help me???

Wrong Subject

We are in the process of changing the way Christian asks for things.

When he wants something, he says, "My would like..."  We need to change that to, "I would like..."

Sounds very much the same, but when you are teaching your 3rd grader proper subjects, I need my two year old to follow propor grammatical rules!!

Cookies

On Saturday, Megan had made cookies for her and Matt.

When Megan makes cookies, Courtney usually wants to make cookies too because we need to use special butter, egg replacement, special chocolate chips, and oatmeal flour. And if one gets something, the other does too, right?

I didn't have any butter on Saturday, so after getting groceries this weekend, we made cookies today.

Christian made me laugh though.  Before we even got the batter mixed up, he was at the silverware drawer getting a spoon to eat the batter! He knew we were making cookies because we were getting the mixer out.

He sure has learned young! (the best part about this cookie dough is that there are no real eggs in it, so I don't feel bad eating it at all! Or even letting my children eat it!)