School of Life

Ok, sorry that there's no pictures this week. I did take pictures but already posted them on Instagram and Facebook. There were only a couple and so I decided not to repeat them in this post. So, if you're not following Homeschool Campers on Facebook or Instagram, now might be an awesome time to start doing so as there's sure to be plenty of pictures posted on both while the weather is warmer!

And, I didn't take notes all week long ... nor did I sit down to update this post every night as I usually would. Yup, again life happened and I just wanted to relax and crochet once the babies were asleep. I've had mainly early nights myself sleeping all week long, in bed usually no later than 10:30 (which, is early for me considering that I used to stay up until at least 1 AM). 

This week we did lessons each day except for Tuesday when Noni came out to watch movies with us. I'd love to tell you what we watched, but I can't for the life of me remember. We'd rented three cartoons from RedBox and I made Bagel Melts for lunch (I'll include the super simple recipe for those at the bottom of this post). We also had appointments almost every day this week!

Saturday was Saint Patrick's Day! We celebrated by cleaning Monkey's room (O M G - so much stuff!) and I made Corned Beef and Cabbage in my crock pot version of the Instant Pot! It turned out so good! Follow this link for the recipe to make it using either your crock pot or Instant Pot. I also crocheted for a while and watched part of the fifth season of Game of Thrones.

So, here it is Sunday and I'm catching you guys up on my not so exciting week worth of life. We just had so many appointments and so many campers and grand-campers doing all kinds of things to do with life that it seemed like the week passed before I knew it was even here! Today we went scrapping (and got a load almost as big as our summer loads!) and then I came home to do laundry, wash the washing machine, get the ham in the oven for Sunday night supper, make ranch/bacon noodle salad to go with the ham, and juggle grand-campers and campers while they came in and went back out into our nearly 70* day!!!

I'm going to leave off here with a big smile and go outside and play with all the kiddos until the ham is done in the oven.

Bagel Melts

• onion or plain bagels
• cream cheese
• ham or bacon
• onions - sliced thin in circles
• tomatoes - sliced thin in circles
• favorite kind of melty cheese (we usually use mozzarella or provalone)

Place open bagels on baking sheet. Preheat oven to 350*. Spread cream cheese on top of bagels. Top with ham, onions, tomatoes, and cheese. Bake in oven until cheese is melty and slightly browned. Serve. 

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In Like a Lion

Saturday and Sunday at the beginning of this March were spent entirely relaxing and spending time as a family. I made quick and simple meals so that everyone could continue to just hang out with each other. We did not end up going to mass on Sunday because our car needs it's brake line fixed and our truck just doesn't fit everyone so that we could all go. Instead we did some Bible reading, prayed the rosary together, and had some intentional prayer for those whom requested that we pray for them. The campers and grandcampers watched a lot of Sponge Bob Square Pants and other movies like Despicable Me 1&2 and Minions. The spent both days getting along and hanging out with each other. We also watched Aliens in the Attic together as a family. Sunday, Grandma and Papa stopped by our house while out on a ride!! They brought us two paper bags filled with newspaper to use in the bottom of Sugar Baby's rabbit cage AND three twelve packs of toilet paper! (Yup, I'm a mom that gets excited over toilet paper lol)

Monday and Tuesday we worked on some basic stuff with everyone. I got out the flashcards for ABC's, 123's, Multiplication, Division, Sight Words, Adding, Subtracting, and major land marks throughout the world. We made a game of school both days. Daddy had an appointment on Tuesday morning with the neurologist (everything has come back normal, it doesn't explain the migraines but I'm still very thankful) and Little Man and I went with him to the doctor's office. Both Cracker Jacks and Peanut, plus Sweet Pea, stayed home while we went to the doctor office ... and other than spilled on clothing for Sweet Pea everything went swimmingly. Of course Sweet Pea isn't yet two years old and we're all very well aware of how messy toddlers can be. Monday night I made turkey meatballs, mushroom/onion gravy, and noodles for supper while Tuesday night we had a "fend for yourself night". On fend for yourself nights the children can pick whatever they want to eat and so long as I don't have to cook it for them they can eat it. I cheated a little bit and took over the oven to make four personal pizzas for the kids who could eat them (I didn't want anyone to get burned because the Cracker Jack's aren't yet used to using the oven with a toddler in the house). Daddy and I ate subs for supper and (most exciting to me) Little Man ate a bowl of rice cereal!!! He just started eating cereal so he's still practicing on how it goes to eat something other than a bottle of formula and I'm being reminded that I have to try to remember what ages babies eat certain foods again. (Any tips or pointers for that, please feel free to comment!)

Movie night!

On Wednesday I figured that it was time to get back to the book lessons, we really have several books to finish by the end of August so that we can "grade up" when September rolls around. We school year round so I really don't see this as being a problem, but with the past several months being more unschooling than book learning I feel that need to check those boxes that certain curriculum is completed. So, out came the Prairie Primer for the girls as we began Little House on the Prairie , the second book in the nine book series ... we're really enjoying this unit study and I might pick another next year (but, more likely, we'll be using The Good and The Beautiful language arts exclusively). After book lessons the campers went back to working on individual projects: video creation and editing for both girls and online computer program program for ECJ. We topped the night off with watching Aliens Ate My Homework and Daddy's Home 2.

(SweetPea was giving him a pat on the head)

Thursday and Friday were pretty uneventful. We did lessons both days, the campers played video games, the grandcampers watched lots of Spongebob Squarepants season 2 as they both are very entertained by watching the same episodes several times each day (we rotate the three disks every three days, they just pretty much get played on repeat as background noise when we're not doing school or watching other movies together). Little Man still isn't enjoying tummy time too much but we got him a new jumper this week and he's absolutely loving it!


Saturday and Sunday (ok, I forgot to publish this Friday) ... Saturday we spent much of the day grocery shopping, leaving ECJ in charge on and off all day long of the younger children. He's very up to the task and for the most part doesn't complain (though there are days he doesn't like being the responsible one). We managed to completely fill our refrigerator and both the regular freezer and the deep freezer! We only need to pick up some canned goods for the pantry sometime during the week. We do our main grocery shopping once a month so being able to fill everything, and possibly not need to buy as much meat next month, is wonderful! Saturday night both Little Man and SweetPea had issues ... Little Man slept fitfully on and off throughout the night and SweetPea did much the same and constantly wanted "Aba" (her grandfather, my hubby)... for that reason Daddy and I were both very tired Sunday morning and almost overslept and missed mass! But, we did wake up and manage to get four of the five kiddos ready (ECJ stayed home as he doesn't have his driver's license yet and there are not enough seats in the truck for seven people), get out the door, and drive the 45 minutes to get to Gaga and Papa's church for mass! We enjoyed mass, had breakfast with Daddy's sister and Gaga and Papa at the church, and then went over to Gaga and Papa's house to visit for awhile. The time change really threw us off all day long, eating meals at the wrong times because of it ... getting caught up in cleaning the house Sunday afternoon/evening (and putting together SweetPea's new bed!!!) to the point that it was seven o' clock before we were eating supper! 

And SweetPea is sleeping in her brand new big girl bed!!!

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Linking up for the Weekly Wrap Up and Homeschool Highlights this week.

February 2017

Ok so it's Sunday, February 4th, and I'm sitting amid my family while ECJ plays Call of Duty WW2 with a friend, YCJ is watching YouTube videos, Monkey is napping with Little Man on the love seat, and Peanut and SweetPea are playing amongst the chaos. Daddy has gone off to an appointment that he has nearly every Sunday. We missed mass this morning because most of us are still getting over the creeping cruds, praying that we're better any day now. The campers have plans of playing Minecraft on multiplayer survival mode together later after the grand-campers go to bed. When Daddy gets home we're planning on turning on Game of Thrones season two and vegging out (meaning he might take a nap while I crochet and mostly watch the shows), and for supper tonight we're planning on scrambled eggs and fried potatoes. It's currently still snowing outside and is supposed to continue until sometime over night. ECJ will be out shoveling at least one more time this evening. (I'm typing this part up at noon on Sunday so we'll see if we stick to the plans laid out. I'll update tomorrow if we did or not.) Tomorrow morning brings book lessons back to the campers full time.

Monday morning dawned to chores and breakfast (we didn't finish season two of Game of Thrones Sunday night but we plan to finish it Wednesday evening). After the girls did morning yoga, something that Monkey started the girls doing daily and I don't have the energy to do in the morning (me time, yay!), we settled in for our lessons. Lessons were done quickly and without argument ... almost as if we hadn't been away from the books for so long. I think it literally took us less than two hours to complete everything in the lesson plans for the day! The rest of the day was spent with cleaning up ... general vacuuming, laundry, dishes, bathrooms cleaned, etc..

On Tuesday Daddy had a doctor appointment in the morning for an EEG, another test to rule out certain things causing the migraines. The appointment did well. Then we ran another errand and came back home. It was in the afternoon by the time we got back to the house and we decided that instead of doing lessons this day, after asking the campers and including their opinions, we'll be doing school this weekend. That afternoon Daddy and I took naps with the grand-campers in the bed with us! It was such a wonderful nap!

Wednesday morning Daddy and I got up really really early because we had an appointment that is two hours away in fair weather with decent traffic. This morning we had a winter storm advisory, the expressway was bumper to bumper, and everything was slick as dog slobber! We passed several vehicles that had gone into the ditch on our way southbound. Daddy called where we were going once they opened (and it was obvious that we were going to miss our appointment time) and told them what the trouble was, they agreed to reschedule. So, on our way home ... taking surface roads this time ... Daddy and I stopped for a very rare, just the two of us, breakfast out. When we got back to the house Daddy had to run an errand in the next town over and I did lessons with the campers after they finished their morning yoga and apparently video games were a must this morning. Again, the book lessons came off without a hitch and we were finished in less than two hours. SweetPea "did school" by coloring a couple of pages while her aunts did math and history and then we sang and signed wheels on the bus with her a few times. After Daddy got home I pulled out my crochet, while the campers pulled out video games again, and Daddy and I watched the last two episodes of season two of Game of Thrones. The evening was capped off by me reading to the girls. We've started a new bedtime book: So Far From Home: The Diary of Mary Driscoll, an Irish Mill Girl. We're two nights into the book and so far it is fascinating having just found out that it's actually taking place sometime during the great potato famine in Ireland.

...

So, I started writing this at the beginning of February, then life caught up with me and I stopped writing from my notes. Really all I remember from February is doing book lessons three weeks and being sick for a week solid near the middle of the month. We'd had a strong stomach virus that went throughout the whole house, starting with the grandcampers, then the campers, and finally the adults. It was something fierce! While the grandcampers and campers seemed to feel better within 36 hours, the adults took more like four or five days to recover from it. 

Half the month was cold with the other half being more spring like and all mud. Unfortunately the best week for being outside was the week that we were all ill. Such is life. We only logged sixteen hours of outside time the whole of February (basically) and that's no fun! We're ready for spring to come back to Michigan. The grandcampers and campers are getting cabin fever, I need the natural vitamin D from the sun to get out of my winter funk, and even Daddy is tired of the snow and cold of winter.

I've spent several days this past month researching what we'll be doing in the fall for lessons for 11th, 7th, and 4th grades ... not to mention that SweetPea is going to be doing nursery school this fall. I know that she will only be about two and a half when we start but she loves "doing school" with her aunts and uncle. Right now that consists of coloring and drawing while everyone else does school. She mimics my pacing with books while I read and grabs a book of her own to do the same. I haven't really settled on anything particular for next year, but I know that we'll be using a combination of The Good And The Beautiful and Master Books. I haven't settled on if I want SweetPea to do a formal nursery school curriculum (as Peanut did) or if I'm just going to fly by the seat of my pants working on the very basics with her.

Little Man eating his first bowl of cereal.

This year on Valentine's Day Daddy surprised me with flowers and chocolate. We normally don't celebrate the day but he made it special indeed for me, even bought all of the campers and grandcampers chocolate to celebrate! You may notice that there's only a couple of pictures here in this post ... honestly I didn't grab many this past month. Certain moments got captured but the rest of the time life was just too busy!

Here's to March coming in like a lion but going out like a lamb. Here's to me posting weekly again. Here's to life calming down a bit. Now, I'm off to work on a niece's birthday gift for this year and spend the day relaxing with the campers and grandcampers. I hope that February was a good month for the rest of you.

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