Reflections

I've spent much of the past week reflecting on life, religion, and our plans for the future. Sometimes we change those plans, sometimes we just adapt a few bits of the plan to fit the larger picture, and sometimes we start from scratch. Life is full of wonders and beauty if only we open our eyes and our hearts to see it.

So, this week I am starting off with a small prayer that I found in a book called Seek Me with all Your Heart, written by Beth Wiseman. It's a fictional book telling a small part of an Amish family's journey. The following prayer is one that the main character starts her day off with even when she's feeling abandoned by God...

Good morning, Lord. ?You are ushering in another day,

untouched and freshly new. So here I come to ask You, God, if

You'll renew me too? Forgive the many errors that I made yesterday

and let me try again, dear God, to walk closer in Thy way.

But, Father, I am well aware I can't make it on my own, so take

my hand and hold it tight, for I can't walk alone.

This simple little prayer, no matter where it actually began, has touched my heart over the last week and I find myself seeking God's hand to help me walk down the streets of my life. I hope that in some small way it has touched you in some way as well.

Two pumpkins, one
with a breast cancer
ribbon.

Teal pumpkin,
represents an allergy-free
option for trick or
treating.

Over the weekend we spent much of our time reading together, watching Netflix, and playing outside. The weather here in Michigan is a bit chill at the moment now that Fall is in full swing. But we're enjoying every minute that we can get outside before we have frigid temperatures. I worked on several crochet decorations for Fall and Christmas, the campers actually got along for most of the weekend even when discussing their favorite video games and their different ways of approaching the challenges in said games, and Daddy got to relax. Poor Daddy has been feeling out of sorts for over a week now with a migraine that just won't stop. My reflection of the entire weekend is that when you have your family little else matters... Sick or well, as long as you have your loved ones cherish every moment.

Monday we began our regular five day school week. Book lessons and computer lessons were completed within just a few hours and that left time for the campers to do some of the things that they wanted to. YCJ finished another chapter book, Peanut colored several more pages in her favorite coloring book, and ECJ got to spend time in his room without his sisters "bothering" him. Daddy and I watched a NCIS marathon on Netflix while I worked on larger pot holders that fit Daddy's hands better than the original ones I made (original ones are the red ones, the new ones are the green ones).

Tuesday we didn't do lessons in favor of relaxing and watching Netflix together. We had catechism that evening so it makes for a really long day. We're not all back from catechism until after 8:30 PM!

So, Wednesday we did double lessons. This is not as hard as it sounds and the campers voted to do this so that they wouldn't have any lessons over the weekend. The day practically flew by and we were still done with book lessons in about three hours and our online lessons only took an hour. When they buckle down they can get a lot done. Considering that I still had half a crock pot full of sausage and sour kraut we made Wednesday night a leftover night. Which left my evening free for talking with Daddy, watching more NCIS on Netflix, and crocheting some Christmas ornaments.

An envelope for a letter to Santa Christmas ornament

Thursday we did our lessons in record time! The girls watched Magic School Bus The Human Body again. Not because I'd asked them to but because they actually enjoy watching it. YCJ not as much as Peanut, but any excuse for TV during the day is a good one for her. We don't have cable so we watch antenna TV most of the time or Netflix. The campers don't watch much TV at all. They each have their favorite shows and we make sure to remind them each week when their show is on so they don't get upset about missing it. Yes, if we didn't remind them that it was time they usually forget about it about half of the time.

This has been a challenging week to say the least. As I look back and reflect on it I find many things that upset me. Each of the campers pulled an attitude at least twice this week, they're not perfect and neither is our family. Someone, we haven't figured out who, set bread soaked in antifreeze next to our porch steps in an attempt to poison our dogs. Thankfully we're vigilant and neither dog even licked the bread. Things could have been very bad. And Daddy and I both quit smoking this week! So our attitudes weren't the best but I'm very proud of us for having quit again. Perhaps this time it'll stick.

I have so many things to be thankful for each and every day. Some days with the hustle and bustle of daily life, I forget that each day is a gift. But, each day I'm gifted with life, I wake up to a loving family, we have a roof over our head, and we're in relatively good health most of the time. Life is good and God is everywhere ... you just have to take the time to look.

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A Blur

The last two weeks have been pretty much a blur. Not that we did all that much inside of those two weeks, just that I don't remember specifics of most of the first week. A lot of outside time at the beginning of the week. We did a lot of movies and reading at the end of that week, none of us were feeling very well and it was easier than pulling out the text books and getting lessons going in full swing. I finished a toddler blanket for a family friend during this week.

This past weekend we really just relaxed around the house, still not feeling well (nothing major just the sinus issues that come with the change of season), and played on various electronics. The campers played outside a bit when they were feeling up to it. All in all it was a very relaxing weekend.

Monday we called text book lessons off in favor of watching educational history and science DVDs because of the sinus issues cropping back up in the morning and causing sore throats. And while the campers watched those I spent most of the day working on Peanut's Christmas blanket (one of her gifts this year). 

Tuesday we were back to our regularly scheduled plans. Book lessons happened while I supervised and made supper in the crock pot (sausage and sour kraut this night). Computer lessons happened during the afternoon in turns while I again worked on Peanut's blanket. Due to no one feeling 100% we did call off sick for catechism classes, feeling it was better safe than sorry.


On Wednesday we again pulled out the DVDs and books. Sore throats but no fevers along with sinus drainage tells me that we'll get through this without going to the doctor but that there's no reason to do too much at any given time. I spent a good deal of the day making sure everyone was staying hydrated with warm drinks and crocheting on the blanket, determined to finish it inside of a week. (Just a random goal of mine, not because there was a deadline of a week to make it.) And I did finish it right before going to bed!

Thursday it rained all day long. We spent the entire day working on lessons and cleaning. To show off a simple chemical reaction we got the girls to clean the drains of the sink using baking soda and vinegar. They now want to build a volcano and make it erupt! (Sometime this winter we'll do that just because they want to.) After lessons were finished the campers watched some videos and then played on their electronics while I worked on some more Christmas ornaments for our tree.

What we learned this week - Here's a short list of things we learned this week... brain storming for story writing, greater and less than, punctuation and capitalization, all about bees and other insects and why they are important, early American history and how colonists and pioneers lived, information about the upcoming election, and how much we really don't like college level algebra (we will be purchasing a more grade appropriate algebra book shortly).

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The Unintentional Break

This past week was very interesting! We ended up taking a break instead of doing the schedule for lessons that I had laid out last week in my planner. It was not a bad way to start October.

Snowman goody sack.

Over the weekend we played outside and watched movies. I crafted. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.


I had scheduled us off of lessons on Monday because it was the third of the month and I always schedule us off of lessons on the third. The third is the day each month that we do the majority of our errand running. And that's exactly what we did this Monday, run errands almost all day long. BUT, we did stop at the park in the afternoon for the campers to play on the playground and go for a small walk. Tuesday I had scheduled for us to do our regular lessons ... however, we hadn't finished our errand running from the day before and so we put off lessons in favor of getting the rest of the errands finished.

Wednesday the campers all had dental appointments and that's exactly what we spent our morning doing. ECJ, YCJ, and Peanut all had no new cavities. Peanut's dental work (that has been ongoing for a few months) will finish up next week with her last appointment until her six month check up. After the dentist office we went to Grandma and Papa's house and helped Daddy scrub their big back deck clean. You can just see Peanut through the window blinds spraying off the cleaning agent we used to scrub that old deck with. It hadn't been done in at least six years so there was a lot of cleaning, scrubbing, and water involved. As well as close to ten hours outside!

Thursday we went back down to Grandma and Papa's house to paint the deck with deck stain. All of the railings and bits and pieces had to be done before the main part of the deck. It was a really big job and Grandma and Papa were outside with us helping to get it done. Hours and hours worth of happy work and now the deck looks almost brand spanking new (it's a 21 year old deck too).

So, Friday popped up with us unexpectedly haven taken the week off of lessons! We'd planned for lessons every day but Monday. Instead of getting frustrated I just smiled as we called lessons off for Friday as well. Instead we went to the cider mill for lunch and then came home to craft a bit and watch our history videos that will need to be returned to the library in the next day or two.

Peanut worked on her first plastic canvas piece that she actually understood. YCJ worked on her new puppy toy sewing kit that she got at the beginning of the month. Both were excited because these were the items they'd asked to buy with their money that they earned from completing their summer reading maps that I had assigned them. Since they finished them all before the first official day of fall they earned their rewards.


I worked on a few Christmas ornaments, dabbled with my cross stitch, and worked on a toddler blanket for a friend's baby. 

What did ECJ do? Well, he played games and watched YouTube on his tablet. He was exhausted even though he was the least active of all of us this week. But, then again he's a teenager who's growing every day so I shouldn't be too surprised. 


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What's Up, Mamma?

Not everyone in the world, or even in my circle of friends and family, knows that I battle Bipolar Depression and anxiety. Well, now I guess that they do. It's not often diagnosed until someone is in their twenties or later because one must not only have a depression related episode but also a manic episode as well. And sometimes after the very first two it's still not caught right away or people tend to self medicate instead of seeking help. 

I was diagnosed in my early twenties. Honestly, in my case, it could have been diagnosed while I was still a teen. Why wasn't I diagnosed sooner? I self medicated. I drank ... a lot. I'm not proud of how much I used to drink nor my reasons for doing it but to be honest with y'all that's exactly what I did. It wasn't until I stopped drinking and went to seek help for my destructive behavior that I began to understand that it was all part of the same issues. I was put on medication for depression for the first time not related to post pregnancy related depression. I stayed on it for over a year and then, because I was feeling "better", I took myself off of them. Not a good idea ... EVER!

I was off of medication for the better part of a decade. Only getting back on it when dealing with post pregnancy depression and sometimes indulging in minimal drinking to "keep myself even" .... OK really stupid of me, I know. BUT, in the past year (and it's been a hard year) I went back to therapy for some professional help. I was crying all the time at literally everything. I wasn't sleeping for days, sometimes up to a week, at a time. I was so anxious that my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder was making itself known very clearly. In the last decade I handed back my drivers license because I'm too anxious to drive and had to take a Xanax just to drive to the store, which is not a good idea by the way. I was becoming more and more a homebody where I would spend weeks at a time not leaving the house because I was too anxious to deal with people that I didn't know. I was letting my disorders win.

So, earlier this year I walked into a mental health clinic for the first time in around a decade. I sat down with my new therapist and explained what I was going through, my previous diagnosis, and what I'd been doing for the last decade. I was nervous, I don't like new people and new situations, and I felt embarrassed. It went surprisingly well. Within a month I'd seen my new doctor who immediately put me on some mood medication to get me to some kind of level. It took a couple of months to find the right pick and dosages. I still go see my therapist just about every other week and talk through what's going on in my life and how I'm dealing with it or not dealing with it. 

Sometimes I'm doing fine and sometimes I'm not. But, the disorders that I battle daily aren't easy to see from the outside. My mother had issues figuring out that I battle them and she's a registered nurse. Not everyone out there would know right away what I'm dealing with and that can be a good thing. 

I'm not writing this for sympathy but simply to let others know that some of us who look fine on the outside, who may act fine in a public setting because we've learned to hide our problems, and have very few symptoms that one would see at a glance ... just because we look "normal" doesn't mean that we're not fighting our own personal demons inside. 

Be kind to your fellow human beings because unless you've lived their life you can't know what one harsh word might do to them.

;

Much to do

Every week I break this down into what we did almost each day. Well, before I get into that I wanted to do a little list about what each child is basically learning right now.

ECJ is plugging away at writing compositions and reports (which is one of his least favorite things to do, write a comic book = great ... write a report for me = frustration), Algebra which he's getting without any issues he's plugging away at his college level Intermediate Algebra and seeming to enjoy it. As for science we're working on the basics again for general Earth science with a splash of chemistry and robotics tossed in. And for history he's learning about Early American History again, no matter how many times we go over it history just isn't one of his strong suits and he doesn't retain it for very long. For civics, along with learning about the presidential elections by watching the news and asking questions, he watches CNN Student News each day just to catch up on what he misses from the regular news (which he finds hard to sit through due to the time it takes, welcome back ADHD tendencies).


YCJ and Peanut are both learning basically the same things, even though they're three grade levels apart! Sometimes it just works like that when using curriculum from the same company for both grades. In Language Arts we're reviewing all the sight words for spelling all the way from Pre-K up to whichever grade each girl is in and then they'll get their own spelling words. This means that YCJ will have a longer review period than Peanut. They're both working through their text books from Seton and covering punctuation right now as well as doing daily copy work from the Bible. YCJ is reading through the Magic Treehouse series and doing some worksheets that go along with each book that I found here. While Peanut is enjoying reviewing and learning from Teach Your Monster to Read, currently it's her favorite part of the day. Both girls are in the review stages of Math so they're doing each day's assignments with no issues. And for History both girls are also doing Early American History starting with the Revolutionary War ... we covered this in part last year as well but plan on delving much deeper into it this year and moving more slowly through the pioneer times. As for Science we're doing another week on the human body this week ... I'd determined that we hadn't quite gotten enough covered about it last week for me to be pleased.

Raichu Pokemon
for ECJ

Ornament

So, what did we do this week? Well, this past weekend we really didn't have anything planned. I crocheted and postponed finishing both girls shrug sweaters for them to wear to church with their pretty dresses.Instead I turned my hook back to Christmas gifts and gifts for friends and family because those little sweaters for the girls weren't exactly what I was looking for. I may still finish them but then again they may just sit there in my forgotten projects pile. ECJ caught up on the math he owed me and his Bible reading paragraphs. Both girls spent nearly every waking hour outside this weekend, the weather was much cooler and they are enjoying being able to run without sweating as much. They also discovered that Peanut's new tablet has mini videos they can access from some of their favorite cartoons, so when they were inside they were watching Sid the Science kid videos and My Little Pony.

Front

Back

Pumpkin Treat bag

Tree ornament

Monday was a drizzly, chilly, Fall day and so once our lessons were done during the morning we spent the rest of the day watching educational movies, playing with electronics, and working on individual hobbies as the fancy struck. I managed to finish a Christmas gift for ECJ over the weekend so I made three new Christmas decorations for the tree and a Halloween pumpkin treat sack (of which I will be making many more, but most likely not giving them out to the nieces and nephews until next year). I also worked on Christmas crochet ornaments this week.

On Tuesday Noni came out and I called off book lessons for the day and even the online lessons. The only learning I required was to watch The Magic School Bus: Human Body and Liberty Kids ... along with daily required reading. Each child has a different amount of time they're required to read for each day: ECJ reads for an hour, YCJ reads for half an hour, and Peanut practices reading for fifteen to twenty minutes each day. Noni and I took the campers for a walk down on the boardwalk here in town and through some small shops. We picked up all three campers Halloween costumes at a consignment shop and checked that item off of the list. We also saw some awesome sidewalk art while we were walking. A quick stop at the dollar store and grabbed a few movies from RedBox and we were back home sipping on some hot coffee or hot chocolate depending on age.

After Noni left I styled both girls hair with items that Noni had given to us when she showed up. And made sure that they were presentable for their first catechism class that began at 5 PM. I also double checked the beef roast and veggies in the crock pot, love that kitchen appliance since it allows us to have a hot meal ready for us after any type of busy day. I can tell that Tuesdays will now be a crock pot night as next week ECJ and I also have religion classes in the evening and we won't be home until after 7:30! Late night dinners mean late morning Wednesdays but that's fine with me. Go with the flow homeschool scheduling!


Wednesday and Thursday we finished our lessons before 11 AM!! So Wednesday we had a movie marathon with the kids. We watched Zootopia, Open Season : Scared Silly, and Paddington! All were great movies! Thursday we did a library run and we home before noon. I picked up several movies to watch next week as part of our History work, several more books about the body (really is going to take about three weeks total to cover what I want to cover, they'll go through it in more detail in middle school levels, and another book or two to read. Daddy built up my bed so we no longer are going to be sleeping on the floor which I LOVE ! And then the rest of the drizzly rainy day we spent watching more movies together as a family. A bunch of them were Goosebumps movies but one was about The Flintstones meets The Jetsons!

So, it's now Thursday night and I'm getting ready for bed. I hope that all of y'all had a great week! I'm also still working on more Christmas decorations, Fall/Halloween treat bags, and Christmas gifts in my crochet ... so, I may be up for an hour or two more while I crochet and relax.

And here's what we'er doing about ECJ's schooling.
And you can check out a day in our life here.

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What to do With ECJ

Oh the horrors of facing the choices for homeschooling high school!

We thought we had a plan to public school at home with ECJ this fall. We thought that it would work because it was all done for us and it was a compromise between us and ECJ who insisted that he wanted to go to public school. We thought we had it all figured out. We thought wrong!

Working with K-12 at home has been an exercise in frustration. Each and every day the schedule they have laid out for him has changed, so one morning we're up at 7:15 for an eight 'o clock class and the next we might not have to be up and ready to go until 11! Each night we've been checking and sometimes, even by morning, the schedule changes again. This is a minor irritant that I could overlook if I were so inclined, but mixed with the other irritations it's just not a good mix.

ECJ does NOT like doing his lessons through K-12. Some of his main complaints are the same as they would be if he'd joined the local brick and mortar high school. He has to get up too early most days, it takes all day long to do his school work, he doesn't like his teachers, the other kids (in chat) are annoying during class because he can't hear the teacher or see their typed instructions ... the list goes on like that. Many of these things were things we told him he wouldn't like about going back to public school. I'm above telling my 14 year old son "I told you so" ... but just between you and I? I told him so!

And even though it's still the beginning of the year, I'm upset that their main assignments are to listen to an hour long lecture and then type a code word into an "exit ticket" to prove that they were paying attention. This irritates me to no end! An hour of a lecture to boil down to one word because it's all on information that they were supposed to learn (and in many cases did learn) last year! UGH! I don't know about you but I can think of better ways to fill his time than that.

So, what are we planning to do about it?

What ECJ does now: K-12 online public schooling, Discovery K12 online free curriculum, Easy Peasy All in one High School online free curriculum, and Intermediate College level Algebra.

What's staying: Discovery K12 online free curriculum, Easy Peasy All in one High School online free curriculum, and Intermediate College level Algebra.

That leaves just the K-12 online public schooling that is leaving. Why? Because it's not a good fit for us. Part of his grade is that he participate in each hour long class discussion each day Monday through Friday. We'd been told that he could just watch the videos at his pace and it wasn't required for him to be on at specific times... well that was a half truth. He CAN watch the recordings at his own time and pace BUT he'll sacrifice 10% of his grade in each class for not participating in the hour long discussions each day. He has several appointments every month as well as the fact that we're not home at all on the third of every month and sometimes the fourth as well, top that with the fact that Noni comes every other Tuesday to do something with the children around 10 AM and stays for the entire afternoon and you've got a problem in that he's missing those class times. Yes, we'd have the same issues if he were in public school but it's one of the (minor) reasons why the campers aren't in public school.

It just doesn't fit our family.

That means that eventually I'll have to pick up some ninth grade level curriculum books for ECJ. And over the course of the next couple of months I'll round out his text books to my satisfaction. Do I know which books I'm purchasing yet? No, but I have a general idea of what works for him and what doesn't. In the meantime for Language Arts he'll be reading novels and poems and then giving me compositions and reports based off of his reading. For Mathematics he'll continue working through his Intermediate Algebra on the college level. For History he'll be doing an intense study of America just prior to, during, and directly after the American Revolution. And we'll be following his interests in Science right now, which is centered around robotics and chemistry at the moment. He'll be working through Spanish on both Discovery K12 and EPAiO High School. And for Bible he's got his catechism class every Tuesday evening starting next month and his daily reading of both his Bible and a study book that I assign him. And until the spring he'll be running the local track (weather permitting) twice a week, playing (hanging out) with friends on bikes and skateboards (again weather permitting) each afternoon, and exercising as he chooses because he's attempting to stay fit as his appetite grows ... and I'm counting that as Physical Education.

I'll buy his science, history, and language arts text books over the next couple of months and he'll most likely begin those in January. Sometime in the spring he'll be taking up Karate and that will count towards Physical Education and Health (which we'll discuss on a later post). His credits for this year will be fine and will look close to the following on his transcripts

Bible 1 - 1 credit
Literature and Composition - 1 credit
Early American History - 1 credit
Earth Science with lab - 1 credit
Intermediate Algebra (using college text) - 1 credit
Physical Education - 1 credit
Health - .5 credit
Spanish - 1 credit 
Art Appreciation - .5 credits
Music Appreciation - .5 credits

Total for ninth grade : 8.5 credits 

I think that's plenty for ninth grade ... don't you?

* Instead of doing chemistry this year, he'll tackle it next year but he'll spend a good deal of time this first semester learning the periodic table and how things work and what not. We'll do some simple chemistry experiments this year to fulfill his want to do more chemistry. *

** We're currently living in Michigan it's only required that I inform the school that he's being withdrawn to homeschool. Make sure you check you're state's laws before you begin homeschooling ... a good place to start is at this link. **

A Day in Our Life

I sat here thinking just what could I write about our lives that might interest everyone, what's different about us, what don't I post about each week? Then it occurred to me, y'all haven't worn my shoes and each family dynamic is a little different. So, I decided to break our dynamic down a little bit and pop in some reality to this real life post.

Only three of our campers live at home, two live with their mother (from Daddy's first marriage) and they go to public school only coming here every other weekend. We soak up as much as we can with them before they head back home. There's also another camper who's all grown up and lives across the country with our little bitty baby grand-camper.

ECJ

ECJ is the eldest that lives with us full time, he's 14, and in the ninth grade this year. I keep posting about how he's been adjusting to the K12 curriculum that he wanted to try this year and what we've been doing while we try to decide if we're going to stick with the program for awhile and see if we can all adjust or if we're going to go back to doing our own thing. Anyway, we're going to start our day with ECJ and Mommy (that's me).

Moragon

I wake up at 7:15 AM Monday - Friday and wake ECJ up after turning on the coffee pot as I pass it. Then, as I go back to my room to change for the day and brush my hair, ECJ takes Moragon (Daddy's five year old medical assistant dog) out for her morning ritual. Followed by hand washing and breakfast and finally him getting ready for the day. By 8:00 ECJ is sitting on the floor in front of the couch with his laptop ready for his lessons to begin. His first class connect session begins promptly at eight each morning. While he's listening to the teacher's lecture and responding as necessary, I'm sipping my first cup of coffee and sitting down to my own computer. This is one of my productive times during the day, where I check correspondence and social media ... not to mention when I begin jotting down notes for new blog posts.

YCJ and Lily Cat

Peanut with her security blanket

Sometime around 8:30 AM ECJ (fifth grade) wakes up. She's our little bundle of sunshine each morning, while the rest of the family isn't at our best before noon she always wakes up with a smile on her face and a song in her heart. Just because she's awake doesn't mean that she always comes out of her room right away however. Most mornings she's snuggled in her bed getting her brain in gear by playing her Nintendo DS3, happily in her own little world while Peanut (second grade) sleeps in the bottom bunk. Normally Peanut wakes up around 9 AM and both girls stream down the hallway to quietly get their breakfast and by 9:30 I am joining them at our little table to do our book lessons. YCJ takes just a little longer to do her lessons than Peanut does and the three of us are at the table for at least an hour each morning before Peanut is ready to move on to her computer lessons.

Shadow dog

Around 10:30 AM Shadow (our 15 year old buddy dog) wakes up and tells ECJ that he needs to go outside, giving ECJ a few minutes break away from the computer. By the time ECJ is back at the lap top Peanut is in front of my desk top working on her online lessons through Easy Peasy and Discovery K-12, which are both free and we all enjoy them. The campers find them fun and informative while I like knowing that I'm covered if I forget something every once in awhile. And we're all pretty quiet until around 11 when we know for sure Daddy will be awake, he doesn't sleep well most nights and so doesn't get to bed until almost when I'm waking up!

At 11:30 we have our first read out loud on the couch while ECJ moves to the table to plug in the lap top and keep working. The girls and I sit on the couch and read our science book for the day (gotta love the local library). After I'm done reading to them it's time for the girls to watch whatever DVD we're watching about science that week (usually one of the Magic School Bus episodes that coresponds with what we're learning, a non fiction DVD about our topic for the week from the kids section, or even an educational non fiction DVD from the adult section depending on topic). While they watch that and ECJ finishes up with his morning classes I go sit with Daddy for another cup of coffee and chat. 

Around noon ECJ makes himself a quick lunch, typically a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or left overs from the fridge, knowing he only has about an hour and a half before his next class and he likes to do his course work. If he's caught up with his regular course work he hops on Easy Peasy Highschool or Discovery K12 and does that day's assignments. And around 12:30 Peanut goes and has some individual play time either on her tablet or off in by herself in the bedroom while YCJ jumps on the desk top to do her Easy Peasy and Discovery K12 assignments. (Honestly most days doing both of the web sites assignments take each child no more than 45 minutes which is why I don't have them doing them to the exclusion of other work.)

By 1:30 PM ECJ is back to his main assignments on the lap top and both girls are done with their lessons for the day. YCJ typically makes noodles or sandwiches for herself and Peanut while I hop online really quickly to check my email and other correspondence. After the girls have started eating I make lunch for Daddy and myself. Everyone is usually done eating by 2 PM and both girls trot off to their bedroom to straighten it up and then play together for awhile while ECJ finishes up with his lessons for the day. Sometimes he's still at his lessons until 4 PM because he's also working through an Intermediate Algebra college level text book on top of everything else he's chosen to take on this year. But, by 4, everyone is outside enjoying the weather and fresh air.

Currently dinner is around 5:30 PM followed by more time outside, Peanut's evening medicine, and some evening hugs. Around 7:30 it's independent reading time after showers or baths and at 8 I read the girls their Bible study stories before tucking them into bed. Daddy and I go to bed around 10:30 every evening and ECJ soon follows us now that he must get up each morning. He no longer has a set bedtime so if he's tired in the morning it's a natural consequence of him staying up too late the night before. 

Our evenings will change beginning this week because Tuesday nights we have catechism and RCIA classes through our local parish. Second semester will bring more changes as we'll be adding ballet classes for the girls and martial arts for ECJ. 

* This is a typical day in our house now. It by no means shows what happens every day in our house, there's appointments and other things that tend to happen right in the middle of lessons. We tend to go with the flow. Since we homeschool year round which means if we don't get everything done during the typical school year that's OK we'll get around to it eventually. *