Friday, July 25, 2008

Mid-Summer Slump

I usually love lazy summer days. I'm not a keeper of the schedule type. I generally like to fly by the seat of my pants. Get up and see what we feel like doing. Go with the flow. Until about the 3rd week of July.

Now, I'm beginning to grow weary of lazy, summer days. My creativity is drying up. My desire to wrangle 4 kids and all their stuff to head to the pool is waning. The casual days are beginning to feel a little bit long. I'm beginning to feel the itch for a little routine.

I have enjoyed the summer break. We've spent many afternoons at the pool, played at the parks, and had a couple cartoon-marathons. We've stayed up late and slept in. And there are a couple of things I'd still like for us to do, like a camping trip, and a trip to the big zoo.

But, I'm starting to look forward to mid-August when we start school. It might take us a while to find our routine this year, since we are starting to homeschool. I think it will be nice to get settled in and have a little bit of a plan. You never know, I might even start to enjoy a schedule.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Before and After

Before:



After:



My boy is growing up right before my very eyes! Isn't he a handsome kid?!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Strange Dreams

When I am embarking on a new experience, I often have strange dreams about it. Whenever I've been in training for a new job, I would find myself dreaming about the processes I had learned that day during training. I don't really enjoy those dreams because it doesn't feel like I'm really getting good rest. It's a toss and turn kind of sleep.

This fall, I'm embarking on a huge new journey. The journey of homeschooling my 4th grade son and 2nd grade daughter. Up until now they have been going to a Christian school. This year we felt God's leading to bring them home.

So, guess what I dreamed about last night?? Yep! Homeschooling. My dream was that I couldn't find a book that my Instructor's Guide said that we needed. While I tossed and turned in my bed, my mind looked through lots of books from the homeschool bookshelf. I wonder if this dream means that I need to spend more time familiarizing myself with our stuff.

I do plan to spend some time each day looking through our curriculum. I want to ease into homeschooling and have a good feel for what we're going to be doing these first few weeks. We aren't planning on officially starting our homeschool adventure until August 18th. I sure hope that I don't spend the next few weeks having strange dreams about it!

Monday, July 21, 2008

Creative Discipline

Situation: N is relentlessly tormenting K by mimicking and making fun of High School Musical 2 while she was trying to enjoy it. This eventually leads to shouting from K, which wakes up the baby. That's bad news.

Creative Discipline: N is granted his desire to imitate HSM2, but his tormented audience member must leave the room. All of a sudden, it's not so fun to sing along and mock HSM2. After some histrionics from N about how horrible his discipline was, he did complete the assigned discipline. I may have even seen him crack a smile.

The jury is still out on whether this was effective or not. I hope it will be helpful because I'm exhausted by the amount of sibling squabbles we're seeing at our house.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

WFMW: The Five-Ingredients-Or-Less Edition




This week for Works For Me Wednesday over at Rocks In My Dryer, the theme is recipes with 5 ingredients or less. This particular recipe is one of my all time favorites. It's about the only way that I will eat cottage cheese as well. This recipe makes me think of my grandma, probably because she has served it with family meals many times. I love it and I hope you will too!

Orange Jello Salad

1 small container of small curd cottage cheese
1 8oz container of Cool Whip, thawed
1 can of mandarin oranges, drained
1 box (4 serving size) of orange jello

Mix the cottage cheese, Cool Whip, and jello together until well blended. Fold in the mandarin oranges. Easy-peasy, and so yummy!