The Summer So Far

First a note about the blog:

I'm so sorry, blog world. I really miss you. I do. And I miss the readers I used to have which I'm sure have mostly gone away now. 

At one time I had a kind of little bit of a well read blog. Sort of. I was happy. I got comments. We interacted. I read ya'll's blogs. It was a fun little community. 

But I do not dare walk away because this is where I have documented our lives and especially our homeschool for the last what? 6 years? 

Speaking of which, it scares me to think that Blogger could just go away one day and bye-bye blog. I know you can get blog books made (cha ching!). I know you can self-host. (ack!) What should I do to ensure that I have these memories? Start printing? Suggestions?

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We have been doing summer school three times a week. We are mainly doing math and language arts. Really we're just trying to get a jump start on the things that fell through the cracks last year. And keep going with math, which is never-ending. The girls have complained a little, but even they realize that an hour or 2 three times a week is not a big deal.

But we are oh so excited about next year! I've been planning and planning. I've had to make myself stop last week. I will resume getting ready for next year when we return from....

our first ever family vacation!!!

Yes folks, I am so excited! Wednesday is our 20th anniversary and so soon we are loading up the family and taking off on a road trip for a week. S has NEVER taken a whole week off of work to my knowledge. So I'm spending my time until then getting the house in order (I even tackled the inside of Little Bit and Bee's closet) and packing, etc. Then when we return, I will resume next year's school planning. 

Nothing but fun in my future! (I love planning.) 

We have had a little bit of fun this summer. I was kind of thinking how we hadn't done many fun things for the bigger girls but I looked back at our calendar and realized we had done some things. It would be better if we had other people to go do things with. Sister came over with her girls once and we all went to the splash pad. Those kind of things are much more fun with friends (or cousins). Our church had a swim party on the 4th of July. That was fun. Um.....

Well, we're going on vacation so there's always that!!

Gee whiz. Mama needs to get out more! It's raining this week so swimming is out. We're going to the library today but that really doesn't hold the promise it did when they were little. What do you do with big kids in the hot summer? Maybe other people stay at home a lot too. Maybe Facebook just makes it look like everyone else is out having fun except us. Maybe. 

OK. Some pictures to share:

My parents have been going to the mall to walk early every morning. We joined them one morning but there are WAY too many of these stupid things all around the mall. There was a lot of crying until we finally stopped. The mall is dead to me. 

Splash pad.

Mrs. Carrie had an American Girl party to watch the new Saige movie. 

Sweetheart got rid of her toys this summer.

The girls have helped a lot with Bee. It's getting harder. She's big!

We tried Kool-aid dye.

Constant

So, we are rearranging today. I haven't rearranged ANYTHING in this house in exactly 2 months and 2 days. So, give me credit.

But Sweetheart wants her room rearranged before next school year. It's been the same way for a year so I'm cool with that. Of course you know that rearranging her room creates an avalanche of events that involves pieces of furniture from 3 other rooms. In the end, we will be better organized, will have the toys out of the living room, will have more space in the homeschool room, and her room will be very nice.

Later this summer, I've got to tackle the stored clothing issue in Little Bit and Bee's closet. That one will require a babysitter for a few hours.

Not to mention that S is in the middle of a forced bathroom re-do in the girls' bathroom. I say forced because a leak caused us to have to knock out a wall of tile. It's not like you can match and replace 45 year old tile...so...bathroom re-do! He's been working on that a little each night and making really good progress too.

And then the washer stopped draining. He got that fixed last night after church. I think the dryer is dying. And our computer has a bug we can't get rid of.

But all I can think about is how blessed we are! We serve a risen Savior Who loves us so dearly. I have a beautiful family and we are all together and healthy right now. We have a home, cars, a job, food in the kitchen....we are blessed beyond anything we deserve.

Summer school starts back up tomorrow. Having Friday through Monday off is really nice. I don't know how much we're actually accomplishing on our 3 days of school, but at least we're keeping their skills sharp and getting a little bit ahead for next year (or not so behind). I really have no idea how we are going to get everything done next year. Sweetheart is going to have to get started a WHOLE lot earlier than 9am, that much I know!

Ah well, today is not a school day. Here's to tearing up the house!

Keepers End of Year Ceremony

We wrapped up our Keepers at Home club this year by giving the girls all the badges they had earned throughout the year. They earned a lot! We invited grandparents and let them know how proud we were of them all.

Little Bit and Sweetheart posing by the display table. We had the girls' scrapbooks to share.

Carrie made programs. We are very official.

Grandma looking at things with Sweetheart.

We took turns giving little talks to explain some of the activities they had done this year.

Then, they got their badges!

Very proud of these girls!
Emily--10, Little Bit--9, Sweetheart--13, and Kate--14

My parents with Bee.

Matt got a very special award. :) As the only brother who attended every meeting of a girls' club, he was VERY helpful with Bee this year!

Baby Bee's Birthday

We had everyone over for brunch and served breakfast tacos.

 

The farm theme came about because she LOVES LOVES LOVES Baby Einstein's Baby Mac Donald movie.

We built her a barn to play in. It's not like it needed to be big since all her cousins are way too big to care about playing in it with her. Poor baby. Her growing up years are going to be very different from her sisters'.

She had a great time though.

Playing peek-a-boo with my Sister.

Cousin Gnat with Sweetheart and Little Bit...

Opening her presents.

My sisters...

Happy Birthday Baby Bee!!!!

Summer School Formerly Known as Boot Camp

I was so proud of my idea for the camo themed boot camp this summer. All I was implying was that we were going to cram a bunch of drill into a concentrated amount of time. Thus, boot camp.

So at Target's dollar spot I found little rolls of camo duct tape! Perfect!! I mean, I can't justify spending money on decoration for summer school. I was going to duct tape their binders and find some camo pencils, etc.

But when we opened that duct tape oh my word!! It stank like anything. You know what it smelled like? When a place has new commercial carpet. It was SO bad. It smelled up the whole house. I kept thinking it would air out but after we threw it away you could still smell it every time someone opened the trash.

Humph. Oh well. I'll think of something. Something less smelly.

So here are some of the things I have planned for this summer. I'm trying to make it as fun as possible and not so much like the regular school year.

1. All About Spelling
We didn't do well on spelling after Bee got mobile. We didn't have anywhere we could put the board where she couldn't get into it. So we lost a few months in the spring of doing spelling. There isn't any way to make this different, but we're going to finish their books.

2. Writing Strands
We are beginning this and since its a new program, and I really think Sweetheart will love the author's tone (he wrote it like he is speaking straight to them), I think she will enjoy it. Plus, at the end of some lessons he says, "Now, tell your parents you have a week off of writing" so she'll enjoy that!

3. Grammar/Art Journals
I noticed during the IOWA test that we took last month my girls are lacking in some grammar rule knowledge. So, we are going to learn the capitalization and punctuation rules (each according to their level). To do this in a fun way, I have a plan to use their Art Journals to learn these rules.

I'll have to show you pictures once we get going on this!

4. Other stuff
Little Bit is still growing as a reader. She just finished 3rd grade, but was using Sonlight's 2nd grade readers. There is a big jump from 2nd to 3rd grade (nearly everything is chapter books) so she needs a lot of reading practice over the summer. We're doing that through our library summer reading program, but there are other skills we can work on.
So I found some things on Pinterest like a cupcake matching game to learn contractions. No worksheets. Just some games and stuff. Plus some sight word work. Just things to strengthen her skills.

5. Mama and Me Journals
Want a sneaky way to get writing and reading practice in for your kids? I found these Mama and Me Journals on Pinterest as well. I made them this week for the girls and they both just loved the idea and were full of questions. I had surprised them by having them under their pillows one night. The instructions are for them to write in them and then leave them on my bed, where I'll write back the next day. It's nice and I think is really opening another line of communication for my 13 year old, where she sometimes wants to discuss things with me, but doesn't have a lot of private time with me. This is giving us the chance to talk about some things. Good stuff.

Those are my plans. We won't do every thing every day. But I have a lot of things to pull from and hopefully a lot of it doesn't feel like school.

And they also have math. All of this will occur on Tuesday through Thursday. We're off the other days!

I mean, it IS summer!

Even if I don't get to be drill sergeant.