Week 2

Okay so week two was really the second half of week one. We finally got all of our school stuff in the mail so for week two we did all the week one work that we hadn't had before. Things are getting easier as we get a routine set.

First off we started using Handwriting Without Tears. After only one lesson I have noticed a huge difference in John. I really have high hopes for this program for us. I got a book for Bella too and I think it will help her as well. She writes pretty well on her own but forms a lot of letter the wrong way so some extra help should do her good. And I found some wipe off letter books at Walmart for them to practice in. It's great to be able to use dry erase markers and then wipe them off, instead of wasting a ton of paper everyday.

John's least favorite part is when I read aloud to them. We're now reading from chapter books and he hates it. He just really gets bored and doesn't follow along well. I'm not sure that he'll ever really get into it but for now he's just going to have to deal with it. I did buy a copy of Charlotte's Web to read them, I'm hoping reading a story that he's familiar with and can compare to a movie he knows will help him follow along better.

Bella least favorite thing is phonics. It's hard and she doesn't like things she's not good at. We're starting out with Hooked on Phonics for now. The first part of the video is "at" words. Bat, sat, cat, pat etc. The lady in the video says the words and she repeats it, then in the second half she's supposed to say the words first before the lady in the video. So when her turn came up she burst into tears, crying about how it's too hard and she's not good at it. She said she can clean really good but she's just not good at this. After calming her down we tried again and what do you know, she was able to figure out every single word by herself before the lady in the video said them. We're taking phonics VERY slowly for now. Bella gets frustrated with it easily and John's just not ready to combine sounds yet. I had the hardest time learning to read as a kid so we're not rushing this.

Ninja Turtles

The kids obsession with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles continues. Yesterday Corey decided to draw a picture of them on the kids board and I remembered this old picture of him with his drawings when he was younger (much younger.) So I of course had to take a comparison picture. I think they're both cute.

Pictures

I usually don't have too hard a time getting pictures of the kids together. Today however it didn't go all that well.

This was the best one, and actually the first one I took



Then Phoebe decided to make funny faces



And John needed to pick his nose



Then John got sick of sitting there



Really sick of sitting there...





Then John decided to be happy and everyone else got fed up



And finally we gave up on trying to get a real picture and everyone cried or pretended to cry. And ironically this is when Hazel finally decided to stop crying.

Ants

So for a fun science project we bought an ant farm. Mostly because I've never had one before and had always wanted one. So anyway our ants arrived in the mail yesterday, they came from in state so we got them faster than expected (good thing we decided to check the mail.) The instructions say to put them in the fridge for 10 minutes to slow them down and make it easier to transfer them to the habitat, so I did. Well it slowed them down all right, so much that I was convinced we had killed them (0nly one was moving at all.) So we dumped them in and then most of them fell into the water that had collected at the bottom of the farm, at this point I was pretty sure we were going to kill them all for sure. After about an hour though they woke up and quickly got to work. It's been fun to see how much work they've done in less than 24 hours. They are certainly hard workers. We plan to order more sand and ants after these are gone.

Hazel

So Hazel went to the doctor today. The prevacid seemed to be making a difference at first but things got to being even worse than before we started it. So we went back to the doctor today to get her dose increased. We discovered an ear infection while there too so we got antibiotics for that. I hope something helps soon, she is miserable and so am I.

But in exciting news at 2 and a half months old she weighs 11 1/2 pounds. Which is huge for our family. She is now sharing clothes with Phoebe, it's crazy. She actually has fat rolls on her thighs, that's something I've never seen on one of my kids.

And in the beginning I thought she looked just like Phoebe, but we recently looked at some of Bella's 2 month pictures and Hazel looks exactly like she did. They both seem to look more like Corey.

Art

I was searching local craft stores for fun art activities for the kids and ran across these kits at Michaels. They come with the wood, sandpaper, glue, paint and everything needed to make little model toys, all for $1 each. So we picked out 6 of them and yesterday the kids each built one. They spent an hour and a half straight working on these and had so much fun. Totally worth a dollar. Lego men fit in them perfectly too so that's a plus for the kids.

Oh and they're wearing headbands because they're Ninja Turtles.

Thanksgiving Point

My husband is the worst gift giver, well maybe not the worst I think a lot of men just aren't that good at picking out gifts. When we were dating he got me the ugliest pot holders for my birthday. They were from Walmart and had chickens on them (they cost like a dollar) and the worst part was I lived in the college dorms and didn't even have a kitchen to use the pot holders in. I'll never let him forget about that one. And when we got married the gifts didn't get better so now I just pick out my own gifts, it's much better that way for both of us. No sense in ruining special occasions plus I have to admit that I am not an easy person to buy for. So this year for Mother's Day I decided I wanted a new family membership to Thanksgiving Point. We've had a membership twice before and used to go all the time, but after we had Phoebe ours expired and I realized we hadn't been in over 18 months. So the Saturday before we went and got a new one and we've already been to the museum twice, the farm twice and the gardens once. It's fun and nice to get out of the house.

Quote of the Week

Bella takes a pretend drink from her teacup...

"Mmmm, it's calorie soup."

Week 1

So we've finished up week one of school. It's gone really well, the kids are loving it. And the days go by a lot faster this way. Of course teaching them with Phoebe running around getting into our stuff and Hazel screaming non-stop is no easy task. I can't wait for the colic to pass, things will be much easier then.

John is doing better than I expected as far as attention span goes. He gets distracted after awhile but overall pays pretty good attention to what we're talking about. His handwriting however leaves a LOT to be desired. I wasn't planning to buy a handwriting curriculum but after a lot of frustration (on both our parts) I ordered Handwriting Without Tears. I hope it works because we have tears.

Bella loves it, I think she'd be happy to do lessons all day. And she's really remembering a lot of what we talk about. Like pointing out tiles at the zoo and resturaunts that are hexagons.









And an example of the handwriting problems. The first is Bella's page, the second is John's. I'm really hoping to be able to post a comparison picture in a couple months and notice a huge difference in his writing.





And this is Phoebe entertaining herself while we were doing school

Just a Saturday afternoon with the family

This is why I love my life

From the kids

Not sure what happened but this is the part of the conversation between John and Bella that I heard today.

John: "No Bella"

(John walks towards the stairs)

Bella: "Don't tell Mommy, don't tell Mommy, don't tell Mommy. No John don't tell Mommy!"

(Bella hits John, he comes downstairs crying.)

Castle

Our Sonlight box that our school stuff came in came printed with a castle on the inside. Such a cute idea (and my kind of recycling.) We cut it out the other day and taped it all back together and the kids have had lots of fun playing with their animals in it. I bet you didn't know dinosaurs live in castles.

Quote of the Week

The kids asked if they could ring our doorbell so I said yes. They rang it and Corey opened the door...

Corey: "Hello"

Bella: "Um, can we live here?"

Corey: "Sure"

Bella: "Is there plenty of space and fresh air?"

Quote of the Week

Bella wraps her stuffed animal in a blanket...


Bella: "Mommy, what's this called?"

Me: "Swaddling"

Bella: "Daddy, I swallowed my baby!"

Pattern Blocks

When I was reading reviews on our math curriculum before I ordered all of them talked about how much their kids loved the pattern blocks. Sure enough when I opened our box it was the first thing they noticed and they begged to play with them right away. So we broke them out and had fun, they've asked to play with them several more times already today.

School Stuff

The first half of our kindergarten curriculum arrived in the mail today. The kids had fun unpacking it and checking everything out. The other half of our stuff should come next week and Bella and John will both be starting kindergarten when it gets here. We're all very excited about it.

Surviving Colic

My baby screams all day long. So how do I keep my sanity through it? I clean my house, a lot. For some reason cleaning is what gets me through the days, well that and the sound of the vacuum makes her stop crying for the few minutes it's running. Plus then when I sit down in my nice clean house I'm happy, even with the screaming. It's a good thing too because 4 little kids can really mess up a house in no time at all.

So to make the cleaning more entertaining I decided to take before and after pictures. I'm sure no one cares to look at my messy house but I don't really care. On the plus side Hazel has started sleeping through the night. Tuesday she slept from 11pm-6am and last night from midnight to 6am. And really that is how I hold on to my sanity. If she screamed all night and all day I would not survive.