New things for our homeschool!!

Today I went up to the school and signed up Anna & Jonah for a class. They are going to be joining their public school peers every day for a 40 minute class. The class rotates PE, music, and art. We are all pretty excited. I just hope I can handle the schedule. I will be dropping Anna off at 10:25 and then returning to drop off Jonah at 11:05. We plan on having Mark bring Jonah home. I have little talent in art or music, and PE is just fun. So, I hope this all works out. If not, we can scale it back and only select one of the three to take each semester or cut it out entirely. We've been doing schoolwork in the afternoon while Sarah & Eli nap, so their classes won't interfere (I hope) with our academic work at home. We will have to be more structured with our morning time for sure!

Fresh corn & boys on the prowl

Gardening is big out here in farm country, and we have been blessed with garden cast-offs. Here we are prepping sweet corn for dinner.

Brothers. I am so glad they have each other.

Lunch with Dad

We are so blessed to see Mark for lunch most days. Even after we move waaay out in the country, I'm sure he'll drive the mile home to see us. Don't the kids look happy with their dad? Right now with the house remodel, they only see Mark at meal times.

They have arrived

Last Friday the construction trucks found our street. Every street in the town east of Main Street is completely tore up. I thought the western streets were going on the schedule for next year, but looks like our lucky block is early. We had fun watching them apply the bituminous. The town is replacing all the water mains, so everything is getting tore up. It's unbelievable until you see it. One day I sent the kids to the park on their bikes. It had rained the night before. Dense me didn't think about the eastern side of the city being a big mud pit. The kids wallowed through the streets until the mud was so packed on their bikes that the tires wouldn't turn anymore. Their poor little feet were huge mud clods. By the time I caught up with them (poor Anna called me from just crying and asking to be picked up), they were mud from head to toe. We left the bikes on the side of the street for Mark to pick up with the truck and I drove them out to the farm to get hosed down. That definitely wasn't a trophy mom day. Poor kids.

Meetings

The kids are busy in a very important meeting. So far they have discussed the dangers of smoking and how to help animals. The picture isn't very clear, but I can tell you that I'm chuckling watching them.

Vacation

Mark went to Duluth for 2 days of training last week, so the kids & I hitched a ride for a fun, nearly-free vacation. When we arrived, we were surprised with a complimentary upgrade to a suite. Check out what the 2nd room looked like.

AMAZING! The room had bunkbeds, 3 bean bag chairs, a kid table and chairs, and super cute decorations. They even had a little step so the kids could reach the sink. The hotel even had shallow swimming pools for Anna & Jonah and a toddler pool for Eli & Sarah. Mark's training conference provided us with a free harbor cruise and dinner AND the kids had free sit-down breakfasts at the Holiday Inn. The kids' favorite activity was playing at a harbor rock beach that had huge rocks for climbing. Yet another free item. I am just amazed at what a wonderful, fun, economical time we had. We even got to see a lot of Mark. Well, a lot compared to what we get right now. And, the funniest story of the trip. I'm sitting on the rock beach with Anna, Eli, and Sarah just relaxing. Jonah is out exploring (of course). I periodically glance over at him and life is good. Well, one glance I saw more than I bargained for. I looked over at the climbing rocks and Jonah was standing there with his shorts down peeing on a rock. In full view of everyone who was looking. What was he thinking? I couldn't yell at him and risk drawing attention to his activity. I told Mark that he has some pee training to do with that son. Why couldn't he discretely turn toward a rock and let loose? What's the deal with making waterfalls in public? Is that what really happens with those urinals? Do the men stand back and have waterfall competitions in the bathroom? Tonight Jonah & Eli were watering our lawn together. I don't care that they did it outside in the country. That's what country kids do. But, geez. What's with the whole waterfall fascination?

Hula hoop girl

Two days at 4H camp learning about hula hooping, and she's hooked. She's pretty good at it, and she can keep the hoop up for almost 2 min. The best is seeing her walk around while spinning the hoop.

Just another day in paradise

Today Anna & Jonah rode their bikes to the swimming pool. It was Jonah's first time going without me. Even though I was nervous, I felt better after giving them the stern "brother and sister forever" talk. They had a great time and the trip went well. Their only points of interest were Anna's bathroom break on the way there (She got off her bike, stood in the grass, and went. She's a problem solver.) and when Anna couldn't find Jonah at the pool. She called me nearly crying. Guess she took the stern brother/sister talk to heart. Since there were only five kids at the pool, it didn't take her long to figure out where he was once she calmed down. On to the interesting pictures. Check out these eyes. Don't they sparkle? Iraq man. Just in case someone invades our little Mayberry. Anna making breakfast for everyone. She offers a choice of egg sandwiches or scrambled eggs.

Our little plum lover. She's been spending time eating plums on the counter where I can find her while I cook.

And.....Eli in the naughty chair. My poor little guy just needs more time and training than the others. He is just STUBBORN. Interestingly, he's more helpful than the others at the same age and he is very loving. He does best when I keep him busy at my side. Tomato staking. Have you heard of it? Do you do it? It works really, really well but it gets tiring for me. Eli needs to be tomato staked, so I do it for him.

I can finally post this without

my blood pressure surging. It's been a few weeks since this incident. We drove to Watertown (almost an hour away) for a big Walmart shopping trip. We're one of those families who uses two carts for our little pilgrimage. Anyway, my Jonah fell asleep on the way. He is a terror to wake up. Usually he throws a huge tantrum - which I dutifully ignore. When I saw him asleep, I knew our trip wasn't going to be easy or fun. So....here it is. We parked and I went in the back of the van to wake him up. Well, he had slightly wet his shorts while he was sleeping. Not an ideal situation, but I figured he could live through it. I woke him up and told him it was time to get into the store. He stood in the van throwing a HUGE screaming, crying fit. I couldn't understand a thing he was saying, and honestly, he's getting a little big for me to manhandle his body out of the back of the van. What do you do when your 5yo is unreasonable in the middle of a parking lot an hour from home in 80+ degree heat with three other kids waiting? Spanking would be an easy option, but I haven't found it to be effective and it certainly wouldn't help Jonah get control of himself. What to do? I told him that he could come or not but that we were going into the store. Then we started leaving. Since Watertown is a decent sized city, I couldn't really leave him in the van. I was hoping that he would come out of the van by himself. He didn't. I went back to the van to physically remove him, and do you know what he did? In the midst of his tantrum he unloaded his bladder IN THE VAN. What do you do with that? I was over-the-top-furious. This kid has absolutely no problem urinating in nature. Why in the world did he not get out of the van or TELL me that he needed to use the bathroom? Grrrr. The best punishment I could come up with at the time was to make him complete our shopping soaking wet. He was completely embarrassed. I'm kinda glad I didn't have a change of clothes for him. I would have been tempted to change him. I can only hope that this experience was enough to (1) stop his sleeping tantrum issue and/or (2) convince him that talking is effective communication. Some day I will remember this day fondly, right?

Just pics

Not every moment is fun at our house. Well, for this little guy, half his moments are fun and the other half are not. After 6 months reprieve, I think we're entering yet another Eli stage. Cowboy Eli. Here's a funny story from this weekend. We were outside and I noticed that some flies were bothering Eli. I thought it was weird but didn't really think twice about it. He started getting upset with them so I walked over to him and discovered why they were bugging him. He had a rotten, gross, stinky diaper. That all brought back memories from my farming days where poop = flies.

The other cowboys with our neighbor boy.

Last week's play date. The boys love playing with their pretend guns. It's a relief to finally have peace and safety around here. :)

Day 1 Activities

Mondays are scheduled to be fun schooling days. We are starting the year slowly and steadily. We did an nature scavenger hunt which was pretty fun. The most exciting thing from the scavenger hunt was a dead bird that Jonah found.

Drawing pictures for their freewriting journals. They draw pictures and narrate the stories to me. It's fun to see what they come up with.

School is in Session - Introducing the Class

The clan!

Our reluctant kindergartener The one who wants to be involved in everything but who is too young for preschool and too old to be a toddler!

The excited 2nd grader who needs a haircut