March 24, 2011 3:57 p.m.

In my life this week...

We had a nice, quiet celebration of Sweet Girl’s 8th birthday on Tuesday.  She doesn’t ever specify what gifts she wants or expects; just trusts us to know what she likes.  We hit on some winners with a scrapbooking kit, a bean bag chair,  and some Polly Pockets.  She was also happy to get a replacement kickball and hula hoop.  It isn’t easy to keep those kinds of toys in good condition for long.

And Spring is in all its glory here these days.  Today, especially, Breezy Point is more like Gusty Point!

In our homeschool this week...

Plugging and chugging along.  Chips turned in his second test set last week and is up to lesson 46.  Sweet Girl is on lesson 55.  We gave her a day off from school for her birthday, of course.  She especially enjoyed her science lesson this week, which involved Oobleck. 

Places we're going and people we're seeing...

We try to schedule a Saturday between birthdays for a family outing for celebrating Chips and Sweet Girl’s birthday.  But birthday plans for our family outing are on hold.  It is a long story, but Chips really needs to learn not to shoot off his mouth.  Character training never stops around here.  Long sigh..  (How to create consequences for one without the other having to pay, too?)

My favorite thing this week was...

Giving a Russian-English New Testament to our violin teacher, who I don’t think has ever read the New Testament.  She seemed to be happy to receive it.

What's working/not working for us...

What’s working for us is when I can manage to stay off the internet until we get through most of our lesson day.  If I get online for anything, anything at all, all order and productivity goes out the window.  Just like speaking on the telephone.  I’ve learned this time and time again.  I just have to live by it now.  So, help me, Lord.

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have...

I am thinking that I want to start keeping up with the sixth grade readings in history and geography, now, as well as science and literature.  History is getting more into ancient civilizations, and geography is getting into in-depth covering of all the eastern hemisphere and its individual countries.  I never remember getting any of this in middle school (or, perhaps, I slept through it all) but I am happy to be getting it now.  Having said that, though, as much as I want to do this, it will not be easy because it is all so time consuming.

Photos to share...

Sweet Girl, here, is making a friendship bracelet for her little friend at church.  She pretty much did it with very little support from me.  Just goes to show how “8” she really is!

Chips was a savvy shopper with some of his violin award money.  He found a great indoor flying helicopter for only $26.  This one works particularly well, and has many metal parts.  Air Hogs were cutting it for him anymore (too flimsy).

Here, Sweet Girl can be seen talking to her Mimi while opening her gift.  A lovely set of fresh water pearls!

Who says “School in a Box” is dull?  I’m making Oobleck for my studies in physical science this week.

This is the weirdest stuff, Chips!  Do you remember doing this?  It acts like a solid when you slam something into it, but then things sink if you leave them there for more than a second.  So is it a liquid or a solid?  Hmmmm..  ??

I cannot believe Calvert had Chips balancing chemical equations this week.  I know I never had any of that until high school chemistry.  It was a bit difficult for him to teach it to himself, but once I explained it to him, he understood, and even finds it enjoyable.  I guess I really taught something this week.

New bean bag chairs for all!  I called this a “book nook”, but they prefer to call it a “cozy corner”.  Whatever it’s called, it is a great place to read and write journal entries.

March 21, 2011 11:06 p.m.

Our homeschool group issues a yearbook every year.  It contains photos of all the families in the group.  So a good friend photographed our family at church yesterday, just for the yearbook.  We were pretty pleased with the results.  It has been a long time since we’ve gotten a decent family photo.  I thought it should go on our blog, too, so it is now our new profile photo.

p.s. Happy Birthday, J.S. Bach.  We are so glad you wrote music to the glory of God.

and

p.p.s. In just 2-1/2 hours, Sweet Girl will be eight years old.  I simply cannot believe it!  Happy Birthday, in advance to our dear daughter, who will always be my baby girl.

March 10, 2011 4:54 p.m.

Chips and Sweet Girl went to a friend’s birthday party this week.  They had a great time.  The weather was gorgeous, too.

You can see that a lot of fun was had.  This party was different because it was on a “school day”, throughout the later afternoon and early evening.  But it sure did break up the routine.

November 29, 2010 11:02 a.m.

….. it is Christmas time again.  How did we get here again so quickly?
Wasn’t it just summer?
There are no flies lighting upon Chips and Sweet Girl when it comes to getting the house decorated for Christmas.  Only the lighting of hundreds of small multi-colored bulbs!
It all begins in the garage, where Self-Reliant Man lets down many boxes, bins, and bags.

Our Christmas tree, a plastic one (yes) is in its 16th Christmas this year.  It is large, nine feet tall, and to distribute its weight in the attic, we long ago began the habit of sorting its branches by alphabet letter in several trash bags that get reused year after year after year.

Then begins the process of decorating the tree (after Self-Reliant Man and I artfully place the lights). 

It is interesting how I remember exactly who gave me ornaments that we received 25-35 years ago, but I cannot seem to remember where we got ornaments within the last five years.  For example, this ornament was given to me 33 years ago by a frequent reader of this blog in New Hampshire.  Do you remember giving me this?  It still looks like new, by the way!





And of course, our sweet lab, Beau, is wondering to himself why we do this every year just when the weather starts getting cooler.

The job is mostly done inside the house, except for a few things.

And Chips is seeing to it that adequate outdoor lighting is being installed.  Pictures will be posted later.
If you are interested, I have written in this post tips for using your digital camera to take pictures of Christmas lights.   Have fun with this!

November 19, 2010 4:08 p.m.
The weather is glorious here in our state, and a local homeschool group to which I belong held their annual Thanksgiving Feast and Fellowship in a county park yesterday.  It was a beautiful day! 
We prepared for the day by bringing along a side dish, and cutting up vegetables for the group stew pot.  Both children got in the act or preparing carrots, onions, and celery to bring and add to the beef stew.


We also brought folding chairs, and pumpkins to decorate.  Once we arrived at the park, we happily added our veggies to the stew, which would need to cook for an additional 3 hours.  It was a huge pot!  Our group rented the pot from the county park.  What a neat idea!


The stew pot was monitored and tended to carefully.  It smelled terrific!

While we were waiting for the stew to cook, the children played organized games like Capture the Flag, a Three-Legged Race, and a Scavenger Hunt.

In addition, some of us toured the historical buildings on the park property, including a replica of a fort from the Seminole Indian War. 

Finally, it was time to dig in to that beautiful Beef Stew.  By this time, everybody had worked up a fine appetite.  We thanked our Lord for his numerous blessings on our group in 2010, and then formed a very long food line.  (after all, besides stew, there were numerous other dishes and desserts to be thankful for!)

We spent just about the entire “school day” on this field trip.  It was a wonderful time to build friendships.

November 5, 2010 11:51 a.m.

I am happy and proud to announce that yesterday, Sweet Girl completed her Second Grade course of Calvert School.  One way we celebrated was to go out to lunch at a local fast food restaurant of her choice.  The other way we are celebrating is to exhibit all of her art work from Second Grade on the hallway wall, and inviting friends over to see it.

Sweet Girl's Second Grade Art Exhibit

 We completed the year by finishing test lesson 160, and then put it into the mail for her teacher to see.  Sweet Girl also included a thank you and good bye letter to her teacher, and some photos of herself and Chips.  This ATS teacher has been very thorough and very detail-oriented, and provided the challenge that Sweet Girl needed this year.  The Lord has gifted our daughter with a love for writing and literature; Calvert provides plenty of practice with both, and she rose to the task quite well.  Her Calvert teacher had much to say about her compositions and her read-aloud skills this year (Calvert ATS teachers listen to recorded read-aloud messages as part of every test).  We are also blessed because Sweet Girl enjoys, and does well with, mathematics.  I don't suppose it is often that a student enjoys and thrives in both hemispheres: verbal and mathematical, but Sweet Girl seems to.

Having said all that, I am looking ahead to Calvert's Third Grade course, and there will definitely be new challenges there for our daughter.  For me, it takes much physical and spiritual energy to keep an attitude of hard work and diligence alive in our home.  That goes for all of us, and I can see that the upcoming year will demand a lot from us.  I have rearranged all the books Sweet Girl will need for Third Grade, and she is very excited to look through them today.  Although there is excitement at the thought of beginning a new grade, there is also a tinge of sadness within me.  I no longer have a second grader.  Now she is in Third Grade.  That seems so much older to me.  Second Grade is a little girl in my mind, Third Grade is not so little.

Sweet Girls' Third Grade Calvert books . . . .

. . . .all organized and read to go next week!

So, today there is a lull in my workload because Sweet Girl has a day off.  That's why I had time to blog today!!  Chips still has sixteen lesson days remaining this year, and beginning next week, I will be easing our daughter into a few Third Grade lessons to keep her occupied until Chips is finished up, around the first week of December.  She really is happier when she has lessons to do, as long as her brother is doing lessons anyway.

Then it will be "party time" around here until after the New Year rings in.  Another reason why Christmas is the "most wonderful time of the year" at Breezy Point.

October 27, 2010 10:54 p.m.

It is hard to believe we have been home from our Yellowstone trip for a month, now.  October has truly slipped away.

Here is a sampling of photos to show the highlights of this past month.


 The children were thrilled, simply thrilled, to have Calvert School get underway again.  Look at the excitement and enthusiasm!




When the weather grew cooler, Chips chose to take his lessons outdoors.  Here he is reading Science inside his "teardrop trailer".  Too funny!


















   

Unfortunately for us, it was also the month in which Operation Yellow Jacket Attack occurred.  First, the yellow jackets attacked Self-Reliant Man while he was mowing the pasture on his tractor.  BAD.  He received five stings, some underneath his hair on his head.  We know, it could have been much worse.  Then one evening after sundown, Self-Reliant Man and I had the perfect plan to annihilate this underground yellow jacket nest of unknown population and proportions.  Here is the way I dressed for the operation.  I wanted to take a picture of Self-Reliant Man in his "suit" as well, but my digital camera lens froze (temporarily).  It unfroze after the Operation was done and we had changed into normal clothing.  Isn't that always the way?




Chips wanted to celebrate his Gotcha Day by hitting the local ice rink.  Sweet Girl benefited from this, too.  It was their very first time on ice skates.  At first, they both stayed near the wall...


    

But later on, Chips ventured toward the center of the rink.


 
Eventually Sweet Girl did, as well.  The both did great for their first time.  Yours Truly would not get on skates for fear that I would injure myself.  It's not like it hasn't happened to me before.  And Self-Reliant Man doesn't feel so Self-Reliant on steel blades on ice.  So the kids were on their own.

But like I said, they did great!

October 21, 2010  10:34 p.m.   

Ten years ago today we became parents! It happened 9,700 miles away from home, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on account of a beautiful, bright-eyed and curious infant boy who is growing up to be a fine young gentleman. Today, we celebrated by going out for ice cream. Afterwards, he played both the piano and the violin for our listening pleasure. We cannot believe how blessed we have been all these years!

The moment Chips was first handed to me.

 

July 9, 2010 10:19 p.m.

I cannot believe how long it has been since I have blogged.  So many things have been going on, and we are so out of our normal routine, as well.  I suppose this is one of those posts that call for photos and captions.


Let's see.  What's this again?  Oh, Chips is always coming up with his own experiments in electricity.  This one was an LED connected to two button cells and two magnets.  Voila!  The LED glows, but unfortunately my camera flash was too bright to show it.


World's longest lasting Christmas Wreath.  I thought that July 2nd was long enough this year, what about you?  I have to say it still looked good, though.  The children helped themselves to the decorations, but the rest ended up in our fire pit.


After six years, we finally put our Black Forest cuckoo clock back on the wall.  This clock was a wedding gift to us from my husband's uncle.  Self-Reliant Man cleaned up the insides and added some lubricant.  Now we enjoy the chiming very much.  It is quite a novelty to the children, since they don't remember it when it was up in our previous house.

 We witnessed the transformation of four monarchs this month.  My husband's boss's boss went on vacation and couldn't tend to them, so he gave them to us.  All four of them matured healthy and whole, and have since flown away somewhere, to the great satisfaction of our family.


I can sleep soundly at night, now, knowing that if all h*** breaks loose, and the End-Of-The-World-As-We-Know-It takes place, at least our family will be set for toilet paper for awhile.  Who knows?  We could probably barter a roll for a tank of gasoline.

 A month ago, we went to visit my MIL.  Here, Chips is sharing his musical gift with a small audience at her nursing home.  It was very calming...


... and it's a good thing I felt calm, because I met up with a space alien that evening at the campground pool!


Our dear friend from church finished up our mother-daughter apron set.  We are using them often together.  Aren't they great?


Self-Reliant Man wanted another Stetson for Father's Day, and he got one.  How 'bout that?  He was a very pleased man.  So was Chips a pleased son.

Highlight of the Month Award goes to Self-Reliant Man's prize for twenty productive years with the company.  He selected from a catalog of gifts that included consumer electronics, an air compressor, jewelry, home decorating items, a propane fire pit, and THIS.  He chose (without my influence at all) this Premium Belgian Waffle Maker.  Wow - what fun!  So friends, for the next several months if you come to visit me, you're getting waffles.  Don't believe it? Then just try me.  Self-Reliant Man now happily makes all kinds of huge, perfect waffles......


.... and Chips chips in his cooking expertise.

 The results are a crunchy and fluffy culinary delight!


Finally, we just completed a week of Music Camp at our church.  There were sixty campers ranging in age from 5 to 13.  They all experienced chorus and Orff classes together.  They also got to select one of the following instruments to learn during the week: classical guitar, harp, or tone chimes.  Our kids did tone chimes, and they loved them, perhaps more than anything else.
But Orff class was a close second.  That looked like a lot of fun.  I would have loved to participate, except I had other duties to tend to during the camp.


Sweet Girl played a metallophone.


Chips played the bass xylophone.  It was a very memorable week for them!