Friday, February 22, 2013

Peek at our Week {salads, sketches, and snowstorms}


I’m not sure about you, but nothing says Good Morning quite like “Mom!  The cat peed on my dolls!”



A close second though would be, “Mom!  The toilet is clogged!”



I’ve just about given up on trying to figure out how to stop the little one from using too much toilet paper, but seriously….the cat peeing on the toys?  Sounds like vindication to me…



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I guess it was a good opportunity to weed out the broken figures and occupy a bit of my extra time.


Which by the way is going super duper great!  I feel a bit ashamed at how long I’ve allowed myself to be so distracted by technology.  I have so much more focused time for the kids, and my energy levels are sky high.  Not to mention my giant never-ending “to-do” list is getting shorter.


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I’ve been teaching Elaina to draw flowers this week.  Maybe it’s all the snow that’s making us wish for a bit of color?

We’ve also been reading a ton.  This weeks read-aloud is The Sign of the Beaver.  The boys love it, and Elaina is surprising me by listening in most of the time.  It coincides perfectly with our history right now, which brings it all together nicely.

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I decided to scale back with Nate in order to work with him on his penmenship.  Despite teaching him the proper letter formation, somehow along the way, he’s gotten a bit off track.  He fought it at first, but is accepting that it’s necessary in order to move forward in school.  It is better in the long run too, for him to learn now, rather than to have to keep re-writing his school work over and over again.  I’m a bit of a stickler about the boys handing in neat school work…

Nate started keeping a journal this week, in hopes it will help him in his aspirations to become an author.  I think it’s an awesome idea!  The other kids though are less than thrilled to hear him shout out, “by the way, I’m journaling about you right now.”  Isaac keeps asking Nate to stop writing about me in your book.  Oye!

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We are about a week away from finishing our Abraham study, and though we’ve enjoyed it, we are all ready for a break.  We started new journals on the Proverbs this week, and plan to do one chapter a day.  This is a very special time for the boys and I!  Another new thing we’ve done this week, is to do oral spelling drills rather than our written ones.  Both Isaac and Nate are enjoying this, and we’ve covered twice as much material.  I think I may continue this for awhile, just to keep things fresh and new.

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On Wednesday the kids went to the Denver Aquarium with HSA.

They loved it!  I really wanted to tag along, and spent a great deal of the day fretting over it, partly because I wanted to experience it through their eyes, and partly because it was snowing pretty hard and I was anxious for them to get home safely.  I was amazing to hear from them all of the wonderful experiences they had there.  The each got to touch a manta ray, a star fish, and learn and see all kinds of neat things about ocean life.  Elaina was most excited to see a “real” mermaid!

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We ended up getting about 10 inches of snow Wednesday, and keep hearing that we should expect more as the new week starts.  Even though schools were cancelled, we kept on with our studies with an exception to a nice long recess to play in the fluffy white snow.  Both of the boys helped shovel the driveway and sidewalks, while the girls made snow angles and froze their lips by licking icicles. 

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Elaina had a decent week of school and resisted only once to her reading lesson.  I found a couple of older workbooks that I never used with the boys, and they seem to hold her interest better.  I’m so reluctant to buy a whole new system, since we own so many awesome reading tools and emergent readers.  Saul thinks we should just keep trucking with what we have; if she is still resistant in a few weeks, then we’ll take a bit of a break.


I think I’m on board with that…


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Olivia kept herself pretty busy this week.  She did a lot of solitary playing during our morning school routine. 

She’s slowly working her way out of taking an afternoon nap.  Honestly, if we can make it through the extra drama that seems to come in the evenings, our nights go so much better.  She is more ready to go to sleep on time, and more likely to stay in bed all night long too.

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Besides the dozens of outfit changes a day, and piles of toys strewn all over the floors, she’s a really easy going kid.  Unless she’s having a tantrum.  But that will have to wait for another post….

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Saul decided he was going to cut his own hair and while he was at it, he cut off his go-tee.  He left these ridiculous “chops” on the side of his mustache, until after lots of laughing, we all convinced him to shave them off.  I ended up cutting his hair, despite the flat-top comb getting broke by the girls…

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Roasted Asparagus

I’ve been back to my healthy cooking ways and only made one sweet for the week.  Lots and lots of salads including a new one: Fig and Walnut Salad.  Do you ever roast your veggies?  If not, you should try it.  It’s simple and always delicious.

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Don’t be too deceived; if you look closely you can see fries

Peanut Butter Cookies

I made Peanut Butter Cookies and used my uncles recipe.  They were good, but nothing like the way his always turn out!

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I’m really looking forward to the weekend!  Saul is off work.  I have girls night out on Friday, and an entire weekend of family fun planned.  I think we are supposed to get more snow by Sunday too. 


Our Weekly Wrap-Up

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