Finished!

Before continuing on with this post, I must insist that you read the title with a French accent. It makes it that much better.

On Saturday we finished putting together the swing set, and we love it! Over the couple of weeks of putting it together we had over my parents, Brian's brother and parents, and our neighbors. It was so fun setting it up, and I'm excited to be able to send the kids outside without them whining, "But there's nothing to do!" I love it.

Life As Usual

I don't have anything terribly exciting to report. There's a lot going on right now, but most of it is just...life.

We're putting up a huge swing set in our backyard. It's one of the big wood ones that normally go for four or five hundred dollars. My parents bought it on sale for two hundred a couple of years ago, and since they haven't put it up yet and don't have plans anymore to put it up, they sold it to us for one hundred. Fabulous! We've got the middle tower put together so far, and hopefully we'll finish the rest of it this weekend. It will be wonderful to have something (besides the hose) to keep the kids happy and busy outside.

Home school is going great. I love it. It's so fun having Alyssa around with us all day, and it is so fun watching her learn. On Monday we picked up a school desk off of Craigslist so she could have a place to sit with her feet flat on the floor and her bum flat on the seat, and it has helped so much with getting her to sit still. Also, by suggestion of my mom, I got her a binder with designated folders for each subject that I put her work into each day. That way she can look through the binder and see what she needs to do to be done each day. The schedule right now is that she has thirty minutes of Phonics, then Math, then we do Language Arts together for however long it takes, then we have snack and recces. Then she comes back in and does Phonics and Math again, then we do either History or Science together and we're done! Thrown into our days is also writing practice and reading time, which we do sometime in the afternoon or evening when we can fit it in, but mostly we're trying to be done with everything by lunch time. On Mondays she has an acting class through MCP in the morning, and Tuesdays she goes into MCP for P.E., an art class, Spanish, and cooking. Really, I am incredibly impressed so far with our curriculum (K12) and MCP.

Ethan is dead set on being a Transformer for Halloween, even though he only knows about Transformers because of the fruit snack. With him being so small (almost four but still fits 2T clothes) I'm afraid that we'll have a hard time finding a cool costume that will be able to fit him, and I have no idea how to make a Transformer costume. When he woke up just a bit ago, we had a little talk about the whole thing, and I haven't made any progress.

Carrie: Hey, Ethan, what would you think about being Spiderman for Halloween?

Ethan: No, I want oo be sumpfing else.

Carrie: What do you want to be?

Ethan: A Ransformer.

Carrie: But I don't know how to make a Transformer costume. Do you know how to make a Transformer costume?

Ethan: Um, Daddy does.

Carrie: I don't know if Dad does either, Honey. Well, what does a Transformer look like?

Ethan: (thinking very hard) I don't know.

Then why do you want to be one?!? He is not budging. Not at all. Looks like we're going to have to make a trip to check out the costumes at Costco (I've heard they have Bumblebee), and if we don't have any luck, Brian and I are going to have to get creative. Alyssa wants to be a moon princess, which should be easy, because all she wants is a "beautiful blue dress with sparkles for stars," and Marcus is going to be Batman, because one of the first things he learned to say (er, sing) was, "Na na na na na na na na...BATMAN!"

etHan

Yesterday, when Ethan woke up, he slowly came down the stairs, and when I greeted him from the bottom, he said in his little half asleep voice, "Mom, I love the letter H!"

We don't know why he loves the letter H so much, but ever since he learned his letters, H has been his absolute favorite.

Last week, at his cousic Tegel's birthday party, we were getting out lunch sacks to put the kids' goodies in, and when I put Ethan's name on his, I asked if he wanted a star or smiley face on it, and he said, "No, I want an H." So he had a little brown bag with his name, and a huge capital H on it.

And now, he's sitting on my lap, watching me type. A minute ago he asked, "Are you doing yours work, Mom?"

"I'm actually writing about you," I said.

"Oh," and he thought for a moment. "Are there H's in it? Mom, are you putting H's in it?

First Day of School

We finally got all of our registration stuff figured out, and we signed up for K12 yesterday, so we were able to start school today. Yea! My neighbor told me that Alyssa told her that I keep saying that we'll start school "next week." Apparently, every week, I say "We'll start school next week," but yesterday I was able to tell Alyssa that we would start "tomorrow."

We started off by saying the Pledge of Allegiance and doing our Daily Board, which we made because Ethan's always asking, "What day is today? Is it Saturday?" Saturdays are the days the kids are allowed to watch movies, so he always wants it to be Saturday.

Then we spent the rest of the morning going back and forth from the computer to the table, doing Phonics, Math, Science, and Language Arts. We're having adapted lessons right now, because our materials will take a couple of weeks to get to us, plus we're flying through some of the reading and math lessons, because they're very much a review, and I want to get Alyssa to her right level as soon as possible. Right now the math is, "How many lady bugs are there?" and "Which group has more?" I think it's good for Alyssa to review some things, but I obviously don't want to spend a huge amount of time on it.

For Language Arts we read a story from Japan about a sparrow who was helped by a kind old woman, and to repay her he sat on her roof and sang songs. The woman across the street, however, didn't appreciate his singing, so she cut his tongue, and he left. It turns out the kind woman and her husband go in search of him, and he gives them a choice to take home one of two baskets. They choose the smaller basket, because they figure the larger basket would be taking too much from him, and when they get home, they find a small treasure in the basket. When the mean old woman sees this, she goes in search of the sparrow, and she chooses the larger basket, which has "stinging and biting" insects in it, and they chase her out of town. It was a fun story to read, and Alyssa drew a picture of her favorite scene, which we're supposed to save for a future lesson. I'm excited to see what we'll do next!

Stand for Something

Ethan is using the toilet like a big boy does, and he couldn't be more proud of himself.