Ordinary Time

Today is G., L., and B.'s birthdays. We gave B. his presents on Sunday when he was here, but G. and L. wanted to wait for their presents until the actual day. They decided between them that they wanted lentil dal and naan for dinner with a store bought cake. (They chose red velvet.)  How can they be twelve?! Weren't they just this big? Alas, they are not. And then there were gifts. G. says thank you to Grammy for the CD player. (Because you need to be able to listen to your recorded books on the go.) And L. says thank you to Grammy for the very large plastic dragon which is the thing she very much wanted. Happy Birthday, my three birthday sharers. I love you!!

I have begun the homeschool planning for the upcoming school year. I think I have mentioned before that we will be learning about Ancient Greece and chemistry. I've actually been more excited about chemistry (which is probably making my mother laugh to read that), mainly because it is something new, and I like nothing better than researching and planning a new subject. Greece? Not so much. I figure this is about my fourth (maybe fifth?) time through Greece. We have always cycled through the eras of history, spending a year each on Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. Anything past that we would handle as a separate unit study. After the Enlightenment, we would head back to Egypt (again), because there were always younger children ready to start and older children who could do more in-depth learning. Around and around and around. So here we all are back to Ancient Greece. I was feeling it to be a little difficult t...

G.'s big birthday gift was four horseback riding lessons with the trainer that I take lessons from. This seemed like a good way to help her build a good foundation. She was very excited, and today was her first lesson. I had done some work with her here so she wasn't a complete beginner. G. really enjoyed it and did very well. She even trotted independently around the arena and began posting. Her legs were pretty sore by the end of the lesson, though. The one picture I didn't get, which I wish I had, was her enormous smile when she finished her lesson and walked over to me.

Actually, their birthdays are tomorrow. B. turns 25, while G. and L. turn 11. It was easier to get everyone here to celebrate today. We took full advantage of the fantastic weather. First, J. and B. finished repairing the culvert so that in the next big rain all the gravel wouldn't wash from the drive into the creek. Looks pretty good, huh? There is wire mesh under the gravel which is screwed to wood underneath the logs and staked down under the road. The idea is the railway tie and logs will stop the gravel from going over while the wire mesh will stop it from washing out underneath. I think the rock makes a nice addition (J. and B. rolled it from the front yard where it didn't make any sense), plus it holds the logs in place. The other part of the process was to gather the gravel that did wash down the creek in the last storm and bring it back up to cover the wire mesh. Here is K. with the wheelbarrow in the creek trying to push it back up the bank. The mower t...

Mondays can be tough, especially when you are homeschooling. It is the day that you have to spend reminding everyone of the math they knew on Friday, but seem to have forgotten over the weekend. I will now publicly apologize to my mother for all the text books I threw across the room in frustration during my school years. I do this because I now have a book thrower. I can't really get upset with this particular child because I so deeply understand the rather automatic reaction to throw things in the face of frustration. (Would you think less of me to know that it is still a trait I am trying to out grow? I can still throw things if frustrated enough.) The moment of book throwing passed and life continued. I'm happy to report we all survived the day. I share this mainly to remind everyone who homeschools, both by choice or by circumstance, that not every day of learning goes smoothly and swimmingly. There are bumps along the way, but they pass. I think the key is to remind yours...

I decided to stick to easy basics for the most part this week. It had been a while for some of these dinners. If you hadn't noticed, I tend not to repeat things more than once a month or so. I get bored easily. Monday Macaroni and Cheese      Homemade, a request from a child Sauteed spinach      With garlic and balsamic vinegar Tuesday Chili      Because it's easy and I have a lot of ground beef Cornbread      Homemade Wednesday BBQ beef sandwiches      Once again, because I have beef in the freezer. Cooked in the crock pot because Wednesday nights tend to be a little nutty. Cooked carrots      With butter and dill Thursday Chicken noodle soup      I found some frozen chicken bones from roast chicken in the freezer, so decided it was a good week to make soup. Biscuits      From scratch Friday Chicken gyros      I am total...

I don't know about you, but we have been hit full force with the Yoda phenomenon. I would blame this on Baby Yoda, but I can't. (And yes, I know Baby Yoda is not his name. According to D. his actual name is Nigel. I will continue to call him Baby Yoda, just like I still use the terms Marshall Field's, the Sear's Tower, and Comisky Park.) What I blame it on is the recorded book G. and L. brought home that has something to do with Origami Yoda. Since I try very, very hard to not listen to the endless recorded books which are nearly constantly playing in my house, I can't actually tell you what it is about, except that it seems to be a school story which also has a character named Origami Yoda. I am still very unclear how this works, but don't really care to have someone explain it to me. What it does mean is that the house is awash with origami Star Wars characters, mainly Yoda. Origami Yoda by L. This would be fine. I could deal with this. But the other ...

If you are a long time reader, then you are familiar with L.'s rather strong and unique personality. She was an easily frustrated baby and toddler, which didn't always make for easy parenting. I had a feeling when she was very little that there was just a lot going on inside her head, and it was frustrating to not be able to do anything about it. As she got older, this very definitely proved to be the case. There is a lot going on inside that head of hers. Reading has been the very best thing for L. Here is a picture I took of her earlier today as she was reading. I know, it doesn't look comfortable, but she was quite happy. Being able to read as many stories as she wants to hear has been wonderful. I used to have to travel with books because when life got to be too much for her only a listening to a story would bring her back from the brink of total meltdown. Of course, being able to read also fills her head with even more ideas... for better or for worse. Take he...

G. and L. continue to crack me up much of the time. Neither of them is your typical ten year old; they are rather unique, even if there are two of them. Currently documentaries are their big love. They can't watch enough of them. Today they asked if they could watch the documentary we own about wonders of the ancient world. I'm pretty sure they have it memorized, but of course I said yes. An hour was happily spent learning about Stonehenge and the stone circles of Avebury. I have to admit that all I currently know about the stone circles of Avebury is from L. following me around this afternoon and telling me about them. She was a little disappointed that I didn't have more to add to the conversation. Later in the day, as I was doing something in the kitchen, L. starts expounding on her personal thesis of how the monoliths of Stonehenge were set in place. "I think that since Stonehenge was built in the bronze age, that the druids build cranes out of bronze and used ...

The Midwest Horse Fair is this weekend, starting today. I hadn't planned on going to it, but thought it looked interesting, and filed it away so it would get put on the calendar early next year. As J. and I were talking about it, he decided I should go for the day. (He's great like that.) On a whim, I thought it would be fun to take G. and L. (my most horse-loving children who are in the country) with me. When I asked them about it, they were extremely excited by the idea. We are back home now after four hours of driving (round trip) and nine hours at the fair. We had a wonderful time together and though it would have been far less expensive if I had gone by myself, it was worth every penny to have them with me. I don't get to do things very often with just my two youngest, whom I realize aren't quite so terribly young anymore. They were troopers. We were up at five and out of the house by five-thirty. They sat through a couple of jumping clinics which they weren...