Rain has given way to heat… oppressively hot and sunny heat. The kids were very impressed by all the sunshine and lack of rain or hail, myself – not so much. I have been hoping for a middle ground, not raining but not mind meltingly hot! Less mosquitoes would be nice too! Even with the bug spray Trinity got bit, it definitely proved that she is starting to have an allergic reaction to them. I cannot believe how quickly the bites rash up… FRUSTRATING.

We enjoyed the heat by placing Echo in the shade of the fence and running the bubble machine. She was rather adventurous and eventually went right after the bubble machine. I need to post a video tomorrow!!!

Bubble baby

The other 4 enjoyed time with the chalk paint they received a couple years ago from the Davey family for Christmas. I have 4 sets which each came with a brush. I made up ONE set and had left overs that I have put away to see if we mix it back up whether or not it will still work. The kids were so excited to get creative with a new medium on the sidewalk.

Painting on the sidewalk

Busy kids

Once the fun was had with the chalk paint the bigger ones threw on swimsuits and played in the backyard. The neighbour kid stopped by but then Zander seemed to have temporary deafness to the point where both Ken and myself had to chastise before bringing them all in to cool down. I am not sure if it is the kid showing up or just an excessive amount of energy in the heat.

Trinity in the pool

Earlier in the day we did another set of math, sight words and chapter work. Gavin opted to play first and then work while Zander plowed on through. We are out of our white cardstock sadly so tomorrow we may not do our chapter but instead work on a new craft.

Math time

Zander's favourite part of his sight word stuff

Trumpet of the Swan chapter

Kristen and I went out to a Stampin’ Up card making party. We made 3 different cards. It was a lot of fun though we worked a little slower than we thought we would. I didn’t buy any of the stamps she had on “garage sale” style. It was nice to get out with a friend AND without baby. 

the neutral card

Inside

Butterfly themed

Inside

The play around and do your own thing card

Inside

Ken is back to the old house one last time tomorrow and then we SHOULD be basically done in the city. Fingers crossed he is going to have the time to get to our favourite produce store. I would love a good salad, fruit or otherwise. 

And of course... one more baby and bubbles!! Come back for the video tomorrow

Today I drug out the “environmentally friendly lawn mower” (you know, what used to be called a push mower) and mowed the front lawn. Love the mower but if you have long stalks of vegetation it won’t cut some of them. So that led me over to our weed whacker which I plugged in and… nothing. So the lawn IS mowed but it still looks rough… and my good intentions were for not.

To make it somewhat better I packed up the 4 bigger kids while Echo was sleeping and left Ken in charge of the house. It is a super short walk to the convenience store and a 2L of A&W rootbeer. Which, while it did not SOLVE anything certainly was a pick me up for the whole family.

Sunny day, GREAT for a walk to get pop!

Our schooling today was more of the same… math, sight words, and of course our chapter book. What I am trying to do is give them a set goal for the amount of everything the HAVE TO do in a given day and then allow the boys to decide when and for how long in a sitting they go at it. There are some definite differences, Zander likes to plow through and be done. Gavin, on the other hand, likes to divvy it up with some artistic personal endeavors mixed in. Both styles seem to work well. 

Zander and his sight word work

Gavin supervising Emanuel and his letter work

Another chapter!

We went out AFTER lunch and naptime to work on the backyard. Everything IS still rather damp so the poor mower couldn’t go through the whole thing in one go but we did a good chunk. I put Echo out on a blanket with the umbrella propped up for shade and her siblings standing watch.

Baby in the shade

After supper we made an evening run out to Walmart for a VERY, ok TWO very special purchases – one – the much lamented after PINK potty seat. This one is not collapsible and the right colour so I am HOPING this will speed along our training. She already sat on it twice before bed!

Prin-press seat

Now for the other purchase … THE shoes for the wedding in August! And for only 15.00! They are labelled “pewter” in colour and are not really copper or silver or brass… a lovely flat sandal that I could even see wearing another time. Now to hunt down the 3 pairs of black pants and we are all pretty much clothed and ready to go (if you ignore the make up issue).

Shoes

I finished a few bows last night. One a pretty blue with the last of my blue and brown flowered ribbon and a little selection of button flowers. I am actually running out of 3/8 ribbon of differing patterns. There may be a ribbon hunt in my future (and I certainly am NOT complaining).

Blue stacked

Bright buttons

With another day of schooling done and gone and a family trip to the store not overly painful I think it has been a good day! We need more of these to be sure!!! Oh and more ribbon…

Gotta love the shorts

As the only homeschooling family in both of our extended families and among our close friends at times I feel a little alone. While we do have some wonderful supporters and a great cheering squad (who have honestly told me they would NEVER take this route but applaud us doing it) there are a large number of people in our lives who simply do not understand or only see the examples of homeschooling that are extreme and negative.

One thing I wish people would realize is that this is NOT the easy way out… in fact, sending the boys to school would be WAY easier. Instead I look at it this way – Ken and myself have decided to take on the responsibility of teaching out children. This is a great honour for us and as much as it can be frustrating or upsetting from time to time I LOVE it. We work VERY hard to ensure we get in as much learning, both practical and book in a day as we can and do it year round. We feel that this is beneficial for our WHOLE family and not just the ones we are teaching. In fact, the kids in turn teach us!

The other thing is that we DO socialize our kids. Homeschooling is NOT an excuse for us to isolate our family. We do group field trips, Sunday School, playdates, VBS, and even just going out to a park and letting them play. While the kids are not surrounded by others constantly as they are in a school setting I do not do this so they can never meet other kids OR so that they ONLY associate with other homeschooled kids. The unsocialized homeschoolers you see on tv etc are NOT the norm, HONESTLY!

I am coming to the end of our first officially registered year and I DO feel we have accomplished A LOT! The boys are well on their way to LOVING learning which is one of my first priorities. If I can get them to WANT to do their schoolwork then the rest of the education comes along all the easier. It is now time for me to start working out our goals for NEXT year… with another year behind me and a facilitator’s support I am starting to feel out a good rhythm for our kids and their learning styles. I am confident that with a new support group here I will proceed with even more confidence than before!

I realized that when I posted after Canada Day I did NOT include the instructions for the bacon covered peroghies… well you can find the ones we went with here. Again a definite hit with pretty much everyone there.

Today we jumped into our schooling with both feet… Emanuel spent a large chunk of his morning working on letters in his Pre-K book. We are hoping to finish that book this month and start him on some more difficult Kindergarten level stuff. His focus is improving at a great rate lately!

Hard at work

The boys finished off their Canada sheets and put them into a folder for saving. They also worked on both Math AND their Sight Word books. I have two different books – one for each so that they are not working together or on top of each other. I figure this way I can better gauge how each of them is doing individually.

The two new books (top is Gavin's)

Perler beads are back in full force in this house once again and along with that a desperate need to continually check the floor for dropped ones. With Echo more than a little mobile and basically having run of the upstairs I am working with the boys to make them understand how SAFE things really need to be!

BEADS

We not only worked on our newest chapter in our novel BUT found the missing chapter pages! YAY! So we continue on, now Louis is working at a nightclub…

Finished chapters

Karyn brought Victoria over for a brief visit and baby cuddle before heading out to drive her home. (She lives a short drive out of the city) Both are leaving for trips imminently – Victoria to Ontario and Manitoba and Karyn to Alaska! While Karyn is gone I plan on finishing up my crafting area so I can have space for her to help me sort out anything we can add to the stash for the scrapbooking table at the August wedding.

Speaking of weddings… I finished up Echo’s headband for her wedding outfit. I tried to make it a little more fancy while still keeping it smaller and contained.

Hopefully it works

Tonight I hope to make some more button flowers, tidy and hopefully get in some relaxing anime watching time… But there is no guarantee!

SMILE