Paper Canteen Creations: Picture This!

Friday, September 5, 2014

Picture This!

We made it through our first official week of homeschooling. I am very proud of my kiddos, they worked hard, played hard, worked hard some more and proved to me that they can do this. They focused and were amazing students. Now I understand why their public school teachers always said to them and to me "I wish I had 25 of your children in my class". It always made me proud then but now I truly understand what dedicated students they are.

I hate to do this but I really have to admit that...I.AM.EXHAUSTED. Not the sleepy kind of exhaustion per say but the kind of exhaustion that you feel in your bones that makes you want to climb into bed for a couple of days. It's more mental exhaustion, preparing their lesson plans, making sure we cover what we want to cover during our days, making sure that we get outside for extended periods of time and enjoy the gorgeous weather, and then reign them back in when we get home to continue our lessons. And then there's the everyday stuff that has still has to get done! Meals, laundry, cleaning, errands...you know. But we're figuring out our new normal and so far so good!! (insert thumbs up here!)

Once again, my morning view is just spectacular:

I was not really in the mood to walk/run this am but my darling husband encouraged me and I'm so glad he did. It was just gorgeous out!! (and it felt good to move!)

Today was a little "lighter" in terms of academics than usual but we still got a good chunk of work in. Everyone worked SO hard this week and I wanted to reward them by changing the schedule up a little bit. We started our day with yoga, per usual.

After yoga we had our journaling time. I asked the children to write about their favorite part of our sparkly week. Kendall made a fold out book with a drawing of each science experiment that we did and Ty drew the glittery volcano that we did on day 1. After this we had our first spelling test!!

My son ALWAYS has a lovey with him...yes, he's 8 - and I don't care. It soothes and calms him. And that works for me.

They did a great job! We then did geography and math.

with noise cancelling headphones, of course, to block out his sister and I talking

using the stones to help her work through her multiplication tables

we're systematically working through all of the states one by one alphabetically - these kids WILL know all of their capitols!

They'd worked hard so I rewarded them with a few hands of Uno! They'd never played before and LOVED it!!

My daughter absolutely cracks me up. She is EXACTLY like her Auntie in many ways and today another example presented itself! Before we had kids we used to have people over all.the.time. It was such a fun time in our lives!! We would light a fire, have a few drinks, and play Uno until all hours of the night. My SIL would win frequently because she had the will power to hang onto her Draw 4, Draw 2, Reverse, Skip, and Wild cards until she REALLY needed them while the rest of us would use them willy nilly through the game. More for laughs and to get the person next to you than anything else. But my SIL would strategize and because of this she would kick our a**es a lot! HA! But I digress, look at what my daughter had in her hand:

#justlikemyauntie

Love that kid. After Uno I made them a "carpet picnic" lunch and I allowed them to watch the first episode of the new Cosmos show.

If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it. It's simply amazing. Many of the concepts were way over their heads but they definitely understood parts of it and it generated amazing conversation on our long drive to today's adventure!

We had "Not Back to School" photos today. One of my fellow homeschooling mamas is a professional photographer and offered to do the pics at a super reasonable price to our homeschooling group so off we went!! The event took place at Purgatory Chasm which is about an hour from my house. It's beautiful but it was HOT today and we went pretty close to our scheduled photo time so that the kids didn't get *too* sweaty before pictures. I LOVE how they came out!! These are just ones I took with my phone but the 'real' ones will be in soon.

I love the socks and sneakers with the dress - it's so perfect for her...and yes...she has shorts on underneath. ALWAYS.

Such a beautiful smile! I can't wait to see the real pic! I was pretty far away to get any good light.

just too beautiful for me to even bear!

sweaty and adorable

They did such a great job all week and all day today that after Purgatory we went to a fantastic place down the street called West End Creamery for ice cream and jumping fun!