Woo Hoo!!! First day of school :)

We're starting our 13th year of home schooling today \o/ The first year schooling only 2 in years and years. Jordan graduated this spring and is now working full time. Where does the time go? Only 2 more first days of school ever!! Ok, I'll stop that now before I get all sniffly :-P

It is the perfect weather for school starting; rain, gray, rain, dark, rain, cold, rain, rain. All week until Friday even! Great weather for hunkering down and reading. I'm so glad we delayed starting and enjoyed the beautiful, sunny, dry, warm weather last week!

I am so blessed to have the privilege of educating our boys at home. Thank you Lord!

We have finished the first week of our 12th year of home schooling!

WOW! My kids are getting old :::snort::: We just started our 12th home school year. Jordan will graduate this year! That is such a bitter-sweet thing. I've been doing a lot of pondering on his last year at home. Very deep stuff.

So anyway, we started school on Wednesday. We did school Wednesday - Friday, and only math and science. I was whipped on Friday! I am very glad we decided to ease into things slowly this year. Next week we will be doing a full schedule of school.

But we have spent the summer staying up late and sleeping in. I've only been sleeping in until 9am, but gosh, some of these boys will sleep until 11 or later.

So starting easy to get into a routine was more important to me than doing it all from the first.

It went really well! I hope this is a good sign of a great year to come. I could really use a good year.

Everybody was up by 7:45 and downstairs doing chores by 8. Allen did get up at 7 so he could do chores and then work out before breakfast.

School started at 9 and everybody was finished with their work and discussions with me/correcting work by lunch.

We eat our dinner at noon, so I cooked on Wednesday. Thursday we went to the lake after lunch (which was McDs) and yesterday Doug came home.

It feels good to be getting back into a routine, even though I am doing it kicking and screaming this year. I just wasn't ready to start. But we will keep on doing the next thing :)

So it's Tuesday, eh?

I was able to go meet my internet friend yesterday. I had a lovely lunch with her, her husband and her 3 sons. I wish I had taken Isaac and Allen, but they were apprehensive about having to endure strangers :::snort:::

Today we're on day 4 of school. Still not going wonderfully! The boys are working hard, but it seems to be taking forever! I wish I knew how to make the correcting easier. I am exhausted by the time we get to correcting. What I normally do is sit with each child and go over all their work with them. That takes a LONG time with 3 boys doing different things, kwim? Especially when one of them needs a lot of help because he has neglected to read his assignment book and actually do what he was told to do :::groan:::

Jordan asked for homemade mac & cheese, so we had that for dinner/lunch.

Now they are heading up for quiet time. I'm hoping after quiet time I am able to get 2 out of 3 boys' work corrected.

I have a 3pm massage/torture session :::snort::: Then I'll come home and finish correcting, finish laundry, put my feet up with ice on my back and knit a while!

I am not so sure how I'm going to survive the school year with Doug's work schedule. I am exhausted! I am lonely! This is just plain HARD!!

A bright spot is Mom just called and asked me to go to lunch with her and my sister tomorrow :) I'll toss PB&J at the kids and I'm outta here!!!!!

Thrilling Thursday???

So it was our 3rd day of school. It was also gorgeous outside! And we all know that pretty soon it won't be gorgeous and nobody will want to go outside for months and months!

So Isaac and Allen finished their math and science in record time! I cut some watermelon, made a salad, and had the boys load up the fishing stuff and weed eater and we were off for the lake!

Jordan stayed home because he had to work before we'd be home.

We had a beautiful day at the lake. Isaac spent much time fishing in his little boat. They mowed the lawn. We had pizza. I knit for hours and hours and also took a nap. It was so nice.

We left about 8:15 and stopped by Wal-Mart on the way home. Not my favorite place to shop! I'm on the lookout for a wireless card for our Compaq laptop. I was utterly confused and walked out without that, but with lots of other stuff.

Got home and cleaned the bathroom and picked Jordan up from work at 10. Then I stayed up WAY too late playing Scrabble at Scrabulous.com! Have ya'll seen that site?? Oh my am I addicted LOL.

Today we're wrapping up our first week of school! I'm glad it's over! I'm equally glad we only have 3 days of school next week :::snort::: School is getting in the way of my life this year LOL.......

Day 2 is going much better :) Now instead of bickering, they are goofing off! I'd prefer they sit and do their work quietly! Gee, wonder if that will EVER happen during our hs'ing career ::snort::

Allen is always the one to get up and do what he is supposed to do and start school early! So he was finished early. Remember, we are only doing math and science, his 2 great loves!

So after his schoolwork, he rummaged through the old science supplies and fiddled around.

He made this little light bulb light up with wire and a battery. Can you see it? It is really tiny!

The other two were working hard at the table! This ABeka Consumer Math has a LOT of busy work in it! Did any of ya'll use it? Did you assign ever problem every day? It is taking him 1 1/2 hours! a day to do this stuff! And he's using a calculator! Lots of work!


We had French toast for breakfast. I've cleaned that up and cycled 2 loads of laundry (guess I should go for #3, eh?) and am getting ready to heat up the grill and turn on the oven for dinner.

I liked eating at noon when Doug was on afternoons, so most days we eat at noon, especially if Jordan is working.

I love not really having to do anything after school and eating. The evenings are much more relaxed when they are just grabbing whatever they can fix themselves for dinner, like we used to do for lunch.

Some first day of school pictures, in no particular order:)

Jordan working on his math.

Lilly enjoyed her first day of school! She's curled up in Allen's school basket!
Allen did NOT want his picture taken!
I took it anyway.........
Doing a science experiment! He did a great job on it and the lab sheet is fabulous!
Our "official" first day of school picture :::Snort:::
Isaac poses with his science book.......

We had an OK day. Tensions were running high. Much bickering between the kids and Jordan refused to finish his science assignment! I only assigned math and science this week. He "only" had to read for an hour and write a few paragraphs about what he read.....it's going to be a long year UGH.

So we got up and I made waffles. The kids started working on math. I helped with science experiments and showed Allen how to fill out the lab sheet. I made pizza dough and they had inidividual pizzas for lunch.

While their pizzas were cooking, I ran to Sam's and completely forgot the main thing I was going for LOL. Then I went to Curves, but not to work out, but buy progesterone cream. I must be nice next week, right?? LOL......

I came home and cleaned a bunch of lettuce and had a huge salad and 4c. watermelon for lunch. Note, do NOT eat 4 c. watermelon and then try to take a nap! I was up every 15 min. going to the bathroom :::snort:::

I took Jordan to work at 3:30. This was the most productive part of the day for me because the other two bicker much less when Jordan is gone.

They did I don't know what, but it wasn't allowed to be electric :)

I made 24 bacon, egg and cheese English muffin sandwiches for the freezer and also 18 stuffed pepper halves for the freezer. I baked some salmon and sauteed some veggies for dinner.

I knit for about an hour, visited with my Gramma for a bit and then Isaac and I took Tucker for a 2 mile walk.

I went and got Jordan from work. Everybody had to go to bed early because of bad attitudes. Sounds good to me! They are up there reading and it is quiet down here. I took chicken out to thaw and poured in the marinade for tomorrow's dinner (at noon again........)

I called an internet friend that lives in Washington so she could explain Write Shop I to me. I feel much less overwhelmed about that now :) Thanks Jan!

So that was our first day. I am officially exhausted!

Starting school today.......

Not sure whether to be excited or sad. I am so sad summer is over. I am excited to be starting our 11th year hs'ing. We only have 5 years before everybody is graduated! The years are flying by, but the days are dragging on :::snort:::

So this week we're starting with just science and math. We'll add in something every week and by Oct. will be going full schedule.

I'm rather overwhelmed with the thought of adding school into my already exhausting life. Doug isn't home much at all, and well, I'm sure it will be OK once we get going, right?

Everybody is up and doing chores. I'm about to make them breakfast. Yeasty Waffles and I'll post the recipe later on.

Goals for today:

~Breakfast
~School
~Laundry
~Make pizza dough
~Run to Curves and Sam's Club
~Sleep
~Take Jordan to work, then to the church, then home
~Collapse into bed :)

Gearing up for school!

I spent yesterday working on the boys' assignment books. I still do the old fashioned way of paper and pencil. I use the home school high school journal that you can get for less than $8 at Rock Solid I have everything ready to go EXCEPT for Write Shop. I've never used it before and am feeling a little overwhelmed!

We are starting our 11th year of hs'ing. I've always, always just jumped in with a full work load. This year we are doing it differently. We'll start with math and science next week, the following week add in history, and the week after that language arts. Not sure why I'm feeling freaked out about that :::snort:::: I just don't do change well, kwim?

One of the reasons for starting out slowly is we want to have our afternoons free to go to the lake and fish some more. I'd like to go as much as possible through Sept. and Oct. if the weather is nice. I am NOT looking forward to the long, dreary winter months this year!

Another reason is I do not want to start school at all this year. I am sure once we get started, it will be OK. But with Doug only home on weekends, I am not looking forward to having another thing that is solely my responsibilities. I miss my honey!

What are we using for school next year??

I've finally had enough of a summer break that I can feel excited about planning school. I am not ready to START school (although the routine and schedule to our days that school brings would be nice), at least not the work of school lol....

Jordan will be 11th grade, Isaac 9th grade and Allen 8th grade. What happened to my little babies that were struggling to read?? They grow TOO fast (oops, I keep saying that, but it is SO true). I am looking forward to some of the things we're going to be doing. I'm also looking forward to having routine to our days again. Last year was hard with Doug on 2nd shift. Now he is gone all week, which is also hard, but we'll have routine to our days at least, right??

Jordan:

BJU English including grammar and composition and also literature
ABeka Consumer Math
ABeka Government
Forensic Science (thanks Chris Brock for those links :)
Music~Bass and electric guitar, he's in a weekly small group and also plays on the worship band for main service and also youth group as needed
Hopefully some woodworking with my FIL

Isaac:

Write Shop and Wordly Wise for LA (also SL literature)
Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra (OR MUS pre-algebra if the funds allow)
Sonlight Core 100 American History
Apologia Physical Science

Allen:

Write Shop and Wordly Wise for LA (and some remedial spelling work)
Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra
Not sure about history. In 8th grade I let them choose what they want to study before having to "get down to business on earning credits" in high school. We may not do history for him this year *gasp*
Apologia General Science

Sounds like a good year. I pray that Jordan will do his work and not argue with me. I really wanted to continue SL with him, but he wants "the least amount possible", and is wanting to go the textbook route. So.....we'll see how that works out :)