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!"