July wrapping up (and unwrapping birthday's for everyone!)

We have had a busy last several weeks. The kids had a lot of fun at drama camp despite that I had to make some complaints about inappropriate content in some songs little kids were being taught to sing and dance to. (totally teenage themed for the WRONG 6-11 age group) It was resolved graciously by the theatre however and there was no lasting damage done :)
At the end of the drama program the kids put on a performance which was just great. They worked so hard. I was just ecstatic to see them all on stage. I love theatre and always wanted to make it part of my children's lives, as it had been a important apart of mine long ago ...before babies, birth, and natural family living became my passion. The kids were supposed to go to the June camp but we waited for July because then our friends could do it with them. Next year I am strongly considering letting the kids do both camps! They had that much fun.





Penelope below is helping me make pizza dough. She's such a mess in the kitchen. She wants to constantly help to the point where I now sneak around to cook!


My parents came to town for a special event: A birthday party held for ALL of us. This was the first year of a tradition they would like to start where each summer they visit and throw our family one big birthday party. Gifts, cake, decorations, the whole thing. This way they don't have to mail packages out 8 times a year and they get to see all of us open the gifts. So without the kids knowing they decorated our home, brought in cake, and wrapped gifts and had a surprise party. We knew, kids didn't though! It was a blast!

Above is the tropical themed party with my parents and all of us.
Below is the cake, which had a "93" candle the total combined age of 7 of our birthday's, also read: 'Happy Birthday Ricky, Shauna, Sage, Ethan, Layla, Penelope.'
The unborn baby got gifts too, but "he" doesn't have a "birthday" yet :)



August should slow down a little bit. July was all about sleepovers, library events, drama camp, cousin Echo being in town, growing caterpillars and releasing them as butterflies, Etc.. Layla's birthday is coming up (party on July 31, actual birthday on Aug 1) In August we have a couple busy weekends, some playgroups, and then a new baby being born. I suspect we'll be home most of August and September. Oh I have 2 kids that need to go the dentist for small fillings in Aug, and Charlotte will be getting braces. Yikes I better get those appointments scheduled (I want those done before baby comes)!!

The excitement and anticipation of a newborn is really building around here.

Homeschool: What we do when we aren't doing anything elseWe have a new program we are trying for Sage at http://www.readingupgrade.com/ And he finally likes a reading program. (FINALLY)

And http://www.spellingtime.com/ had some great sign up package deals I'm not sure I wrote about. Charlotte is signed up now for 1 year at the rate of $59.99 She can do spelling, states, vocab and math. They are broken up into quick daily lessons and it's good quality. We are loving it. I'm thinking about getting Ethan signed up as he needs to hit the spelling lessons.

The spelling and states is great. Charlotte really likes the vocab too. The spelling is so cool because they give the kids the words, they get activities, practice, quizzes, then at the end of the week a test. The results are emailed to the parents. So it's super easy to keep up with how the child is doing with minimal effort!

My favorite Layla Question this week:
"Where do the movies go when you turn off the TV?"

Summer days, life with kids... and no crock pot

What we've been up to...
Our garden is heading right along. The kids have helped me slowly but surely plant cilantro, tomatoes, yellow squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, broccoli and sunflowers. We plan to get some lettuce in the ground soon. We added hay to our lasagna garden but the chickens make a total mess of it and scratched it all up, which uprooted a lot of strategically placed moist newspapers. That was pretty aggravating. But, nothings ruined I just have to go out and pick hay off of the plants every other day. In hindsight I wish I would have skipped the hay because of the chickens. I have a big sheet roll of plastic I should cover the hay with... if I find the energy or time I'll do that. The kids have really been a lot of help this year with gardening. It's turned into a real family/group/homeschool project that they all seem to enjoy.

The kids have been enjoying some nice weather, lots of outside play, parks, the library, and the small local water park. (When I say small I mean small...but fun)

Aside from our regular www.time4learning.com program we have been doing the kids have been working on math with www.mathusee.com materials and Charlotte has been doing www.spellingtime.com I am getting ready to purchase the Big States Time section which teaches states, capitals, facts, abbreviations but I am waiting until she gets more of a routine down with all we've already got going on.

Last week we painted pictures which was nice. I don't get the paint out enough anymore and I'm going to start to. We do a lot of clay/sculpey stuff, crafts, drawing... but we need more painting! And they really don't make too big of a mess with it (even the little girls).

Today the kids asked about currency exchange rates. So tomorrow we are going to spend some time online looking into that. Not sure how that came up but it did.

Layla (4 in August) informed me yesterday that blood is in our veins. I thought that was cool and funny. I have deep prominent veins (runs in my family) and she said, "Mom you have a lot of blood in you, see." And she pointed to my veins.

She is working right now on a surprise picture for me. She's so cute. I am thinking about introducing letters to her via Waldorf style. She needs me to keep her busy this next year I can tell. She is going to bore easily.

Oh and Layla made me laugh so hard yesterday, because you see Layla has a way of having an answer FOR EVERYTHING. She's quite a pain actually. For example yesterday I asked her to please stop hitting the wall with the flag pole to our wooden castle....

Layla: Why?
Me: Because I want to have that for a very long time.
Layla: (keeps hitting it against wall)
Me: PLEASE Layla I want your children to be able to come over to my house and play with that someday, I want to keep the castle nice forever.
Layla: Forever?
Me: yup
Layla: Well... (in total snooty tone) what if my kids break it anyway?

I can't win with her very often. She is so good at comebacks! Arugh!

Layla told me she wants to go to Australia to meet Bindi The Jungle Girl. I told her we would have to save up money to go there someday. She said in that ever so cute kid voice, "MOM! I got lots of money in my room we can use!"

BROKEN THINGS...
A couple weeks ago I broke our crock pot. It was really a bummer because we use a slow cooker a lot around here, plus I had it a long time (One of the first things Ricky and I bought as a couple together). Well to replace it Ricky and I went and bought the biggest one we could find and spent a decent amount of money on it. Well today, only one week and one pot of chili later, Ethan broke it! It was in the sink waiting for me to wash it and he tossed his plate into it and it broke. Ethan was horrified having to come tell me. I really could not say anything other than, "What?!! Okay. Okay.... It's okay. Hold on..."
I went to my room and told Ricky quietly, "OMG Ethan broke the new crock pot $$%#! I came in here because he already feels so bad but I am still so mad."

You see, I didn't want him to know I was mad about it so I just left the room for my first reaction to get out of my body.

He peeked his head in our room a minute later sputtering (in near tears) about how he thought the crock pot was our gigantic plastic mixing bowl in the sink. They match in identical color. I told him I totally could see how he could make that mistake. He wasn't even being careless. At that point I hugged him and said, "Ethan it's okay. You didn't mean it. It was an accident. You know we need that crock pot and you would never want it to break." I then hugged him and said, "At least you aren't broken, right?"
He smiled up at me.

I LOVE IT

Well the kids love http://www.time4learning.com/ and so do I.

I'm always looking for ways to make things easier so I wanted to share what we have been using in case it could help some one else too. We have been using http://www.time4learning.com/ for a little over a week now and my kids are going nuts over it. They want to do "school" everyday. It's very cartoon like and TV like so some parents may not like that, but my kids love it and are really excelling and learning in all subjects. It's cutting my work and prep in more than half because it's all preplanned and taught online. (The best is that the site actually teaches not just gives work.) I help them when they need help and we have verbal discussions etc.. It also tracks (by day, week, or month) hours, subjects completed, lessons, quiz "grades", and so forth. Sage, who I have mentioned before hates every reading program or attempt I try loves this and is really thriving with the phonics section (finally something clicks and works for him)! The cartoons are actually pretty hilarious. There is also a story builder section (and writing program for older kids) and to my surprise Ethan is bringing me 2-3 sentence stories daily that he types up by himself with a picture. A "reward" system is set up within the site also. You can go to the "playground" and play games when you finish your work. (Parents can set the work and play time limits to whatever they want.)
I'm thrilled with Sage's progress. Sage is easily frustrated and bored with other reading/phonics lessons/workbooks. Ethan excelled with http://www.clicknkids.com/ but Sage couldn't get past the lessons after around lesson 13 or 15. He hated it.

So anyway it's really exciting that they all love it SO much! It's a great way to get school time in when I'm busy. I can also listen for when they have problems with a lesson (makes a sound when they make an error so then I know when I need to run over and help them). I find my self watching and participating in the lessons quite a bit. They are creative, engaging, and some are just funny. Charlotte just got signed up for http://www.spellingtime.com/ and I think that is going to work really well for her. We will see soon.

Today Sage wanted to know what a metaphor was and conveniently http://www.brainpop.com/ has a video about similes and metaphors.

This summer the kids will be attending a week long drama camp for 6-11 year olds. Their cousin will be in town and will also be going. It should be fun for them. Sage is a little nervous (and wants nothing to do with being on stage) but he is going because everyone else is. I really hope this is a fun experience for him. He is shy and doesn't like direct attention on him. OTHER We have spent several nice relaxing days inside and out. The kids are a tiny bit bored because we didn't go to playgroup last week and we have been staying in and saving money for our trip on Thursday. We leave for Las Vegas (my "home town") to visit family and attend my youngest brothers wedding. (I am the oldest of 5 kids.)

I'm really happy with how our kids are doing. I have been seeing a lot of learning going on and with little effort on my part. Ethan and Charlotte are reading a lot out loud to each other and their siblings. (Ethan and Charlotte read to Sage). They have a monster book (mythical beasts) and another book called History's Grossest, Wackiest Moments. They have been discussing everything from Dracula to Foo Fighters (I informed them that is also a band:) They also have learned about vikings, life before toilet paper and so many other things I can't recall now.

ART!
We recently learned how to make darling faries out of pipe cleaners, felt, flowers, and wood beads. My dear friend Molly taught us this craft and we have been having fun ever since. I didn't capture the best photos the other day but here are some samples. Pictured below is a group of fairies & fairy babies in buntings, a close up of a boy fairy Ethan helped make, and a purple haired fairy Layla helped make. They are now all happily housed in our wooden dollhouse.





MASSAGE
Today Charlotte learned the art of massage (and pampering lol) as we got treated at a day spa. We had an hour massage, and a spa pedicure/manicure! Oo-la-la! :)


ANIMAL SCIENCE & BIRTH!
Did you know opossums are marsupials? I did not know that. I'm going to ask the kids if they knew that and tomorrow we are going to watch animal births on http://www.youtube.com/ Here are some we picked out for the kids:
Kangaroo birth
Orangutan birth (Orangutan one is mine and Ricky's favorite)
Giraffe birth
Dolphin birth
3-D simulation of human birth (they've seen me give live birth more than once :) This simulation is very neat though.