The Magic Tree House

For those of you who know Gavin, you know how difficult it is for us to cut his hair. We even tried bribing several family members a hundred bucks if they would get his hair cut for us, they figured out quickly it wasn’t worth trying.  Gavin is extremely scared of getting his hair cut and it takes two or more people to get the job done.  Well one day I had enough with how long his hair was getting and so Clark and I tackled the beast

Oh and this took place in October, so hopefully we can get 6months out of this haircut before the next.

Here he is trying to run away in his car from us, can you see his concern?

Afterwards, much better!!!

This past July we were able to take a trip to Galveston for the day to go the beach.  The kids had so much fun and I think I was the only one who got sunburned.  I forgot to put sunscreen on my legs and boy did that hurt for a couple of days afterwards. 

This is me very pregnant with Dylan relaxing with Jonathan, the water was so warm.  And Gavin, he wouldn’t  go past ankle deep in the water, he was too scared.

Cutie Jonathan and no front teeth Ethan

So, I am way behind on blogging and hope to play catch up.  Yes Ethan’s birthday was way back in June and I feel terrible about blogging it so late, but life (ahem 5th baby) got in the way

This year marked a big year for Ethan turning 8.  He was so excited.  Unfortunately he got terribly sick just before his birthday and on his birthday I had to take him into Urgent Care to make sure he didn’t have appendicitis.  Luckily it wasn’t that, but the poor kid felt terrible.  We ended up celebrating his birthday a week later.

You can see in the pictures that he looks skinny, poor guy had a really rough illness, but feeling all better.  We just pretended his birthday was June 12th this year and had a birthday breakfast and cake later in the day.

He then was able to have kid birthday party the next day and everyone had a blast playing in the backyard and Clark made cake #2, a Lego man cake.

Then on Saturday, June 19th my baby boy was baptized. He was so excited and it was a wonderful day for him.

And lastly, he had a 3rd cake to celebrate the baptism and birthday.  What a lucky boy!

 We love you Ethan and are so proud of you and grateful to have you in our life.  You are smart, caring and very fun to be with.  We hope the next 8yrs do not go so fast

Disclaimer:  Nothing gory below, but it is a birth story.

Well now that Dylan is 4wks old, I finally can write his story of being born

Our little boy arrived on his due date on 9-9-10 at 12:07am.
I have to give a little background on my previous births. My previous 4 were all induction due to PIH/Pre-eclampsia.  I had epidurals on the first 3 and no pain relief with #4 (story here) through the induction and everything went fine, just more painful

Anyways, now onto this 5th baby. My first baby to go into labor on my own.  Since I have had to be induced with all my other kids I always wanted to go in labor on my own.  I am not a fan of being induced, call me weird, but I rather my labor not hurt more by the Pitocin they put in your body to make contraction come harder and faster.  Also, I wanted to be normal and have a baby the normal way without any medicine put in me to make it happen.  Well I got my wish finally.

Throughout this pregnancy I was waiting for the day that my blood pressure would go up high and I would have to be on bedrest, but that day never came.  So then we kept waiting for me to go into labor and I was approaching my due date without much hope.  Then on Wednesday the 8th of September I had contractions most of the day, but I didn’t think it was labor even though they were consistent 5-7min apart. They just didn’t really bother me at all. I did take 1T of castor oil with my morning smoothie that morning with no ill effects whatsoever, so I don’t know if that helped with labor or if it was the tropical storm that just went through Texas or if my body was just ready. Either way the contractions weren’t bad at all and I didn’t think this was the “real thing” yet especially seeing all the ladies in my due date club have contractions all day and amount to nothing, I figured I was in the same boat.

I talked to my mom before bedtime and said don’t worry about coming over, I am sure the contractions would go away as soon as I lay down for the night.  So Clark and I went to bed and I laid down for a few moments and then felt and heard a tiny pop at the top of my belly and I told him "I don’t want to get up, I am scared my water broke." I timidly got up and went to the restroom and nothing, so I thought maybe I was wrong. I laid back down again and a moment later I heard and felt two more pops up high, and much louder, even Clark heard it. I got up and thankfully no gush, and went to the restroom again and could tell this time I was leaking fluid this time. I quickly got dressed and called my mom and dad to come over to be with the kids and we got ready to go to the hospital. This was around 11:15pm.  I could tell things suddenly picked up contraction wise, they felt like the real thing now and memories came flooding back from having Jonathan and I was thinking how I don’t want to be in pain this time. I had a couple of contractions before we got in the car which was like 15min after my water broke. It took us about 10-15min to reach the hospital and I had a couple more contractions in the car. Clark dropped me off at the doors to the hospital so I wouldn’t have to walk from the parking lot. I went straight up to L&D where my doc was waiting for me and I told her I wanted the epidural because I "thought" I had a couple of more hours of this and it was too intense. They quickly got me a room, no need for triage, and I was trying to change to my gown thinking all along that it is going to take them way too long to get me that epidural. Clark walked in with our stuff and the doc and nurses left to get whatever they needed and suddenly I had a contraction that brought the baby down and I told my Clark to run out into the hall to get everyone, the baby was coming now. They all came running back in and I got my pants down and was able to start pushing. It took four pushing contractions and out he came. What a relief that was. It was so quick and painful (ring of fire OUCH!!!), but oh am I glad it was quick. No wonder why I was saying I wanted an epidural because I didn’t realize I was in transition. I had no idea that he would come that fast after my water broke. He came about 20min after I walked into the hospital! It was crazy and fast, but turned out to be the best thing ever. No IV, tiny tear that didn’t need a stitch and made it for the easiest healing I have ever had out of all of my children’s births.  The best part of all was not having an IV.  Having a full term (40wk) baby has been a huge difference too. He nurses with such ease, the difference is so remarkable compared to my other 4. He is less jaundice and you can just tell he was truly ready to come at this time. It is so funny how he came 7mins onto the day he was supposed to be born, it makes for such a fun story.

Now that I had the birth that I had always wanted and was blown away by how fast it happened we went home uneventfully two days later.  The Tuesday after he was born I started to not feel well.  I can’t really describe how I felt, just not well is the best thing to say.  My mom came over and she thought I looked yellow under my eyes and pail.  So from her urging I decided to call the doc and we went in to see them.  I thought maybe I had low iron or low blood pressure because I felt week and fuzzy/shaky.  Come to find out I had extremely high blood pressure (171/110)  which is really high for me.  I had post-partum pre-eclampsia.  Which come to find out is not that uncommon.  So what I was waiting for all throughout my pregnancy happened afterwards instead and it was a lot scarier.  I felt very out of control on what was happening to my body and was very worried that I was going to end up back in the hospital. Clark and my mom stuck by my side through the night and luckily the medicine they prescribed worked well despite the side effects.  I was able to come off the medicine by Friday morning thankfully.  I am very grateful for all the help I received during this trying time and very thankful for my mom and all the hard work she did, don’t think we would have survived without her

Well despite all that had happen we are just now trying to survive life with a newborn and 4 kids. It is definitely tough at times and always hectic, but not sure I can function any other way   I think things would be too boring for me.  (Mom I know you are laughing now at that statement)  My only wish for now is more sleep, but in time that will come, thankfully from experience I know that there will be sleep in my future someday.

Here are some pictures from 2 wks ago.  I promise to get more updated pictures soon.  He is growing like a weed already.  I think he is getting close to 10lbs already. His face has changed so much since birth.  He looks more like Gavin now as a baby.

Dylan was born on September 9, 2010 at 12:07 am.  He waited all the way until his exact due date (9/9/10) and then made a super speedy delivery.  We arrived at the hospital around 11:45pm and he arrive 22 minutes later.

He is, of course, super sweet, super cute, and super “up most of the night”

Here are pictures…

Just minutes after being born…

Little Baby Toes…

Not too happy about my first bath…

Peacefully sleeping…

Snuggling with Grandma…

Getting sleepy…

Sleeping in my cocoon blanket…

Wide awake…

Hanging out with my big sister…

I came across this recipe on allrecipes.com and wanted to use up my strawberries in the fridge.  I doubled this recipe and made some changes.  They turned out really good!

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup extra virgin coconut oil
• 1/2  teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup sugar (I did half brown and half white sugar)
• 1/2 pint chopped fresh strawberries
• chopped nuts of choice (optional – I did pecans)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Grease 12 muffin cups.
2. In a large bowl, mix flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg, milk, coconut oil, vanilla, strawberries and sugar.  Stir strawberry mixture and nuts into oat mixture just until evenly moist. Spoon into prepared muffin cups.
3. Bake 18 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Well we are into week 4 this week and I am seeing where we need to tweak some things.  We have dropped First Language Lessons, it just does not mesh well with Ethan and I.  So I am on the search for a different grammar program.  I have also given myself the permission to drop a book we were reading because none of us really liked it and at first I felt we had to finish it just to finish it, but I changed my mind and said it’s not worth the torture.  I can also start to tell we are all ready for our one week break   Only two more weeks to go.

I came across this article today about misconceptions public school parents have of homeschool parents.  It was fun to read and so true. 

Hope everyone has a great day!

I had a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend.  It started off with Carly’s wonderful dance recital (post to come), followed by a fun dinner with my family.  Then on Sunday Clark surprised me with a new foam topper for our bed in hopes to relieve my aches and pains and a 4 slotted toaster.  I told him it would make lunches go quicker with all the bread I have to toast   He thought it was funny that he bought an appliance for me, but I don’t care, it’s what I wanted.  Clark then made me this strawberry stuffed french toast breakfast and it was sooooo good!!! Later that night after the kids were in bed he made me chocolate covered strawberries.  It was such a treat of a day!  This makes up for last years mother’s day because Clark was sick then   I feel so blessed to be the mom of my kids and am thankful for my Mom and all the wonderful things she has and does for me.  Thanks everyone for making it a great weekend!

Ingredients:

Finished product:

The chocolate covered strawberries:

I finally found a program that is working for us in the schedule department.  This is something I have struggled with for awhile, but I think we have found our groove now.

I came across this blog post on scheduling for 6 weeks of school and tweaked it a bit for us.

I bought 6 folders each for Ethan and Carly.  Ethan’s are blue and Carly’s are purple.  Each folder is then labeled Week 1 – Week 6.

Inside each folder is the schedule for the week and all the worksheets that they need for the week.

I found this blank homeschool schedule grid and filled it in to fit each child.  Each day we go through the assignments and they cross off what they have completed, preferably in highlighter so I can see what we have done in case I need to go back and look and for documentation.

We then have six weeks planned out and ready to go for the most part   Since this is still new to me I still have a few things to do before each week has started, but it doesn’t take that long and at least I know what we are doing now.

The plan is then do 6 weeks of school and then take a week or two off and start another 6 weeks.  That way during the weeks off I can plan the next 6 weeks and tweak anything that needs changed.   I will reuse the folders and just take out the completed work and put them in binders to store away.

So far the best part of this system is the personal schedule and having all the materials needed for the week in one place.

I have revamped our homeschool program again and I think I finally have come to love our program now.  Everything is falling into place much better now and things get done.

First I will list off what curriculum Ethan and Carly use and on another blog post I will show our schedule.

ETHAN:

Math:  Singapore Math 2A (couple pages left to do!) and 2B.  Math is done everyday of the week.

Spelling:  Use list words from http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/.  I then plug the words into http://www.spellingcity.com/.  Day 1 he looks at spelling city and plays around with the words, Day 2 he alphabetizes the words, Day 3 he unscrambles the words, and Day 4 is the quiz.  If he gets any wrong, we will practice and retake quiz on Day 5, otherwise, Day 5 is free from spelling.  The unscramble and alphabetize worksheets are on the superteacherworksheets.com website.

Copywork/Narration:  Writing with Ease level 1.  I am in love with this program.  I have been trying to do these things on my own for some time and this program makes it so easy for me in the preparation department.  I bought the text book off amazon.com, but I am not sure how much it is needed.  I went ahead and bit the bullet and bought the PDF version of the student level 1 workbook.  Now this is the best thing I have done.  I love it so much and it is so easy to print off what we need for each day and I will be able to use it for multiple children in the future.  This is definitely worth the money for your time and if you have multiple children.  This program is a 4 day a week program, so we do it Mon-Thursday.

Literature:  I pick a book I would like to read to Ethan and we read it 3 times a week (MWF).  Ethan gets to pick other books he wants me to read to him when we do story time before bedtime.

Reading:  On Day 1 I have Ethan do a reading comprehension worksheet from http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/ and then on Days 2-5 he reads for 20 minutes on his own.  Things that I need to work on here is having him read aloud to me more and I also want to check back through our phonics program to see if there is some areas that he needs to work on.  We never did finish the program because he got bored with it and was doing so well anyways, but according to the Writing With Ease textbook boys sometimes start having problems with reading in the 4th grade because they didn’t keep up or finish with their phonics/reading programs. 

Grammar:  We use First Language Lessons loosely and I am also using worksheets from http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/ to back up things we have learned. We do this two days a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays)

History:  Story of the World Volume 1.  I have started this program before and I could sense Ethan wasn’t that into it and so I stopped.  Now that he is older, he really seems to understand more.  I use the activity guide and have the student pages also for ease of copying for multiple children.  We do one chapter a week and split it up into two days for the week (Tuesdays and Thursdays).  If Carly is willing, she will sit in with us an listen or do the activities.

Piano:  He practices piano 3 times/wk (MWF) using Alfreds Basic Piano Library, Level B.

Group Time: Group time is like our opening exercises and also includes anything that I want both children to learn/do at the same time.  It consists of:

• Prayer
• Pledge of Allegiance
• Calendar
• Scripture Memory
• Song (Hymn)
• Subject of the Day

The Subject of the Day goes as follows:

Monday – Picture Study of an artist.  We are currently looking at John James Audubon.

Tuesday – Geography

Wednesday – Science/Nature Study – We are currently reading The Burgess Bird Book for Children.  Also, the book can be found here for free.  I also made a notebook of each of the birds we will study in this book.  I got this idea from here.  I have 4 pictures of the bird of study on the front of the page and on the back I have the description of the bird, etc. I put this on cardstock and laminated them.  Let me know if you need help making a book for your children and I can share my files.  Also another great help is this link.

Thursday – English from the Roots Up.  I finally bought the index cards for this program, again another time saver.  We do one word a week and will review old words each time.

Friday – Art – We just started using Draw-Write-Now book 6.  So far I like it, Ethan wasn’t too thrilled after our first week because he is a bit too perfectionist.  Carly liked it and did her own thing anyways.  This week I am going to have them trace what we are drawing first before we try to draw it freehand and see if that helps.

Ethan also has karate 3 times per week and loves playing all sports with his friends.  He is really into climbing trees, making paper airplanes and devising contraptions.

Now onto Carly

CARLY:

Math:  Essential Math Kindergarten A (singapore math)

Phonics:  Happy Phonics and substitute in where needed with Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading.

I just received the Happy Phonics in the mail this past weekend.  My first impression is wowzers it is a lot of work to put together. However, I can see this will be very helpful for Carly and hopefully the other children to follow her.  I wish the company made it a little more easier to put together, I am not impressed by this part at all.  This week has been our first week to try some of the games, etc and she is doing well and liking them and it really helps me get a better picture of what she already knows and what she needs work on.

Handwriting:  A Reason for Handwriting.  She does this 4 days a week.  I like this program for the K level.  But next year I will probably move onto Writing with Ease.

Literature:  I pick books I would like to read to Carly and we read them 2 times a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays).  Carly gets to pick other books she wants me to read to her when we do story time before bedtime.

Group Time:  Same as Ethan’s above

Carly gets a lot of free time, she loves to be outside hunting for butterflies, snails and flowers.  She is a real nature girl.  I am excited for our future studies of wildflowers, butterflies, etc.  She just finished up her dance class for the year and I am not sure what she will be doing this coming year.  We will have to wait and see

Well I think I covered everything we are doing.  Let me know if you have any questions on a particular program.