A New Era

Friday we ended up only doing our computer lessons because we watched history in the making. We got up early and watched the entire day's worth of coverage of the inauguration. The campers actually seemed to enjoy it and weren't overly bored by all the pomp and ceremony. It's a new era for the United States with a new president in office and my prayers are with him, his family, and our country as a whole that we can be wise and stop all of this useless confrontation. Give him a chance because wanting him to fail is like wanting to have our country fail. I taught the girls how to make my tuna noodle casserole and we had a blast doing it. Turned out really well too, if you want the recipe for it simply check out this week's menu plan. We were going to do our book work on Saturday but I woke up with the worst migraine that I've had in years and so Daddy took me to the hospital. There they gave me a slurry of medicines with a saline IV and I dozed off for awhile before they released me three hours later with only a minor headache, my Imitrex that I had at home took care of the rest of the migraine and I felt over 100% better.

Sunday we had to go to early mass for Peanut to receive her scapular with the rest of the second grade catechist class. For us it was really early as we usually go to the 11:30 AM mass and this one was at 8:30! YIKES! After we got home and I drank my third cup of coffee for the day we quickly did our math and language arts assignments from Friday, along with writing out our rough draft of our letters to President Trump that we'll be sending out next week sometime. After lessons (which we got done in under an hour) I made a filling lunch (early for us because we'd woken up so early and eaten breakfast before mass) of pancakes and turkey bacon. After a few more minutes of rest I decided that we should make use of the food coloring left over from our oozing pumpkins and some shaving cream that Daddy doesn't use to make some tie died paper. I saw it on Facebook and figured that it was an easy way of using up some objects that we don't need and making something fun for the girls (although ECJ did one as well). Here's the steps and how they turned out:

1) Put down a good layer of shaving cream

2) Add dots of food coloring

3) Swirl food coloring in shaving cream

4) Lay paper on top and kind of press down lightly

5) Sqeegee off the leftover shaving cream from the paper

6) Let paper dry, repeat previous steps as you wait until you're finished

Ta-Da!

While we were making these papers Daddy was making spaghetti and turkey meatballs for the crock pot for supper. After we'd cleaned up from art I made a chocolate cake for desert, then we spent the rest of the afternoon watching Netflix together while I (you guessed it) crocheted. 

Peanut working on a shape project.

Monday when we normally would have been sleeping until around 9 AM, I woke up around 6:45 for the day (after Peanut had joined us because of a nightmare around 4:30) and Daddy was up shortly after I was because he had an appointment out of town that morning. I waited until about quarter after eight before I began waking up the campers. Breakfast and chores out of the way before nine ... well, the girls still were eating dried cereal when we began our lessons just after nine. But, being that I was up and had almost a full pot of coffee in me I was ready to teach so we got started. By 10:30 we were finished with book lessons and Peanut had already finished with the computer lessons. Daddy came back in between appointments to eat some lunch and then he was off again. The Cracker Jack's finished up with their computer lessons and then we were completely done for the day. The campers then did their individual reading and broke out the electronics to play on the drizzly afternoon. I spent the rest of the time Daddy was gone crocheting and watching Netflix (there's a series I'm watching that Daddy doesn't enjoy so I watch it while he isn't at home.). It was a near perfect Monday, the only thing that could have made it better was some sunshine to go with the mild temperatures so that the campers could have gone outside and played.

We called lessons off on Tuesday, it wasn't part of the plan but then again that's ok. I had an appointment at noon that took an hour, by the time I got home the campers had done their daily reading and chores for the entire day (barring supper dishes and cleanup from supper) and we being so very well behaved. Considering that the girls had catechism that started at 5 PM and I had to get a turkey in the oven no later than 3:30 we agreed that it could be a day off of lessons. We also agreed that we'd be making the day up on Saturday this week. You may have noticed that we've sort of done that frequently this past year or so. That's OK too. The campers went out to play for a couple hours during the afternoon because even though it was damp out the weather was mild. The girls enjoyed themselves at catechism, seeing friends that they hadn't seen since Christmas time ... ECJ got some alone time and I made another crochet preemie hat (right on target to get 31 done this month just like I did last month!). So, all in all we had a really quiet day.

On Wednesday I woke up early. I mean like 5:30 early ya'll! I couldn't get back to sleep so I began looking into just what curriculum we might be using next year. There are so many options out there and I do this every year ... "Oh this looks good!", "Oh we have to try this!" , and "This is possibly the best sounding one ever!" Yup, I do it too. You are not alone in the curriculum search that we all fall prey to from time to time. Chances are I won't mix it up too much, but then again I just might ... after all ECJ is the only camper in High School level and it's really easy to do unit studies for the girls with some regular math and call it good. I'll get things nailed down before summer. BUT, speaking of curriculum, I have decided that ECJ might benefit from Life of Fred Algebra so I will be purchasing that before the end of February. I'm hoping that it'll help him get through Algebra without the frustration he's been feeling lately. We had a normal lesson day and leftovers for supper so all was good with the world. Some more outside time was in order as well because starting on Thursday we're supposed to have chilly weather again and this way they could maximize their outside time without being cold.

Thursday was the day that Noni came by to visit. Before she got there Daddy had to run Moragon to the vet because she had hurt her back leg and was limping. Moragon now weighs more than I do and is pushing the two hundred pound mark (pretty normal for a Mastiff) and so when he lifted her into the truck it was an awful strain. I ran with her to the store to grab soda, popcorn, chips, and a couple DVD rentals. We also grabbed some McDonald's for lunch which we don't often do so it was a real treat for the campers. We hung out and watched a couple movies together in the living room and had a blast. Daddy came home without Moragon during our movie day. It turns out that she not only tore her ACL but that she had an infection in her uterus that was so bad that if we hadn't taken her to the vet we would have lost her. She made it through surgery on her stomach just fine, the ACL reconstruction is to happen at a later date, and she'll be home sometime on Saturday.

We visited Moragon at the hospital Friday and she is
recuperating well.

Friday and Saturday we'll be doing more lessons and plugging along with what we do. No major plans other than trying to keep Moragon calm so that she can heal.


This week we learned about descriptive adjectives, whole numbers and fractions, Alaska and Hawaii becoming states, and broke out Daily Devotions for the girls and a Daily Bible study for ECJ (technically it's a whole year worth of Bible study meant for kids but I figured that he could use it first this year and YCJ will use it in 2018). Both books I got from the thrift store for twenty five cents! We're still plugging away with the science book I picked up from the thrift store  a couple weeks ago and are now talking about our five senses and watching YouTube videos to go along with it. I also decided this week with ECJ having so many issues with Algebra 1 that I am going to buy him Life of Fred Beginning Algebra and see if that helps Algebra "click" for him. I'm also researching new curriculum choices for next year so I'll be blogging about my possible choices pretty soon. Keep an eye out for a review of what we've been using for Spanish next month.

What you may have missed this week:
Lots of Big Meals
My Dream

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Linked up this week with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers for the Weekly Wrap Up.