End of the Year Homeschool Pictures

We finished our school year just before Memorial Day, and looking back, we sure did we read some good books this year!

I still feel like I would homeschool them until High School!  Even though they are registered for public school in the fall, I am storing all of my supplies in Sarah's basement, just in case the schools go back online.  We will pick back up right where we left off!

In the meantime, they are all looking forward to going back, and I love seeing their teachers again, so I can't complain too much. = )

later days

First Week of August

148th Day of Quarantine.

The high today was 86F.

Emily's replica arrowheads came in today!  She ended up with 50 of them, but sorted them by color and size and didn't seem to mind. = )

For dinner we had a platter of meat cheese with chips.

My temporary crown came off yesterday (this is the first time I've ever had this happen!)  I went on a walk to Carl's to get some Fixodent, since it is a weekend and my appointment is not until Tuesday.

We watched some episodes of Supernatural, and Billy was interviewed for a game that he is playing online.

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Today was the 147th Day of Quarantine.

The expected high today is a pleasant 82F.

I started my morning by walking down to a garage sale here in town.  I only spent two bucks, but got a couple of glass storage containers for Sarah, a length of pretty purple fabric (not that I need any,) and a pointless arrow for Emily and I to mimic when we make our own.

The kids finished up their art this week with origami.  William did track down his star in time for the picture. = )

Alice made an elephant in pajamas, Emily a butterfly, William (and I) made a ninja start, Grace made a paper doll house, and Juliet made a swan. = )

When I came home, everyone was awake and it was time to finish up our summer schooling schedule!  Next week I'll be prepping all of our materials for us to start on the 17th!!!

We finished most of everything, and loaded up to go pick up summer reading prizes! = )  The kids enjoyed their trinkets (and I really liked my chocolate and stainless steel straw. The books were a nice variety, and we added a new Fly Guy to our collection.

Sarah came over to mow the lawn.

For dinner we are having mac and cheese.

We watched several episodes of Kimd Possible.  Then I found that The Princess Bride was also on Disney plus, so Grace and I watched that too. = )

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Today was the 146th Day of Quarantine.

Today's high was only 78F.

William throwing the "ninja" star he made in art this week (origami.)  It is currently MIA which makes me sad, since I was going to have an "art show" at the end of summer so that they could see all of their lovely creations in one post!

After our summer schedule this morning, I headed out to the thrift store that was closed on Tuesday. They were still having their sale, and they were picked pretty clean.  I found out that they have moved to a new location.  (whew.)

I returned to the thrift shop I went to on Tuesday and tracked down a book I had seen, from next year's booklist (just in case.)

Then I went to the new location of the VoA and was wowed by the size.  It is so massive!  I found 2 more titles from the book list, some for our series and a few other fun books.  I also got a few treasures for Christmas for the kids.

I grabbed a late lunch from Chick Fil A then dropped off the presents at Sarah's so that I don't have to find a hiding spot in my house. = )

Billy, Alice, Emily and I worked through lots of the puzzles in Eight Ate: A Feast of Homonym Riddles.  Family time doesn't always look like my preconceived notion. ; )

For dinner we had spaghetti and meatballs.

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145th Day of Quarantine.

The high today was a slightly warmer, but still very cool 75F.

The summer reading program at the library officially ends Saturday, and I've scheduled a Friday pickup time for our prizes. One of the activities worth some points was an Impressions 5 science experiment.  So, after finishing up our summer lesson this morning, Emily and I poured a cup of water, clear soda, vinegar, milk and cranberry juice, then dropped a tums in each.

The experiment was supposed to represent how drinks affect the calcium in your teeth.  Vinegar was by far the quickest to dissolve, followed by Soda, then Juice, next Milk and the least aggressive was water.

For dinner we are having baked ziti.

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144th day of Quarantine.

The high today was an impossibly cold 67F for August.

After we finished our summer activities on the schedule, I went to the thrift store, only to find out that their hours have changed and the are now closed on Tuesdays. = (  So, I went to the smaller, more expensive thrift store at the other end of the shopping center, with all the other people who were thwarted in their shopping expenditure.

I found some transparencies for science (hard to find as they are currently being used in homemade face shields.)  I also managed one book from our list, and a handful of others for fun.

When I arrived home, Emily and I walked down to the park to "look for arrowheads."  They are discussed in the book she's reading, Brian's Winter, and I thought it would be fun to go search.

Unsurprisingly, we did not find any, but Emily did return home 15cents richer.  Which is no small feat in the middle of a national coin shortage.

For dinner we had hamburger helper and popcorn.

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Today is the 143rd day of Quarantine.

The expected high today is 75F.

I was out the door early to drop a load of recycling at Sarah's, then a quick trip to Menards to return all of the extra drywall repair that I bought Saturday, then gas and groceries. I rounded out my trip with a run by the bank.

Only Alice and Juliet were awake when I got home, so they had unload the car duty.  But, they were the first to see that we got some Dunkaroos this time!

Also, after my 4th call to reschedule WGJs dentist, I finally got them on the calendar for later this month.  Sadly, it is the week we start school, but hopefully it will be okay, since it is late afternoon.

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Today is the 142nd day of Quarantine.  I do like to point out every so often that we are currently self imposed with our solidarity, almost everything is reopen now.

The expected high today was 74F.

For at home church, the kids were learning about the parable of the sower, and made some flowers from cupcake liners and pipe cleaners.

We had 'clean out the refrigerator' leftovers for lunch.

For dinner we had teriyaki chicken breasts with rice.

later days

26th May, 74th Day of Quarantine, 44th Day of School at Home

The expected high today was a respectable 89F!

Before starting school the twins wanted their hair to be matchy-matchy and Alice wanted to be in the picture too. = )

School work moved slowly. Billy had several meetings.  I worked on more certification classes.  True to form, the day after a holiday is hard to get back to work!

For second recess, we walked down to the park, and the kids waded in the high river!

I also got in another round of books and I'm so excited that my printed manuals arrived today too!  Just in time to sit on the front porch and pour through them in the lovely warm weather. = )

For dinner we had teriyaki chicken and rice.

It was finally enjoyable to sit out on the patio after dinner and enjoy the evening on the front porch!

later days

21st May, 69th Day of Quarantine, 42nd Day of School at Home

The high today was a sunny and pleasant 73F!

I spent a good chunk of time on the phone with my bank and Orkin, trying to resolve a double charge. The manager was supposed to call me back, but never did.

Schooling on Thursdays is pretty good, as the workload gets progressively lighter during the week, and my kids are pretty good at front-loading their week.

I ran to pick up some goodies from Deb's porch for our MOPS MAD night, and left a box for Hanna, since we failed to meet up at the park.

I spent some more hours on my teaching certification.  150 hours is so daunting, so I'm trying to push through while I have the motivation. = )  I like the new program well enough, but I am still disappointed that they removed all the 'free' courses from the Gateway platform.  In the new platform though, you can watch the videos at double speed which is way cool!

We also got in the field guide we were instructed to order for school in the fall, and it is so cool!  Emily, William and I spent some time outside trying to identify the plants in our yard.  We didn't find a perfect match for the tiny white flowers, so I'm not sure what they are, even now. We identified the bird that has nested on the backside of our carport: a house finch!

Sarah came by and mowed my lawn for me (score!) so now I don't have to worry about that for another week. = )  I also sent a bag of school supplies that is destined for the school to live in her basement until next October when school is well underway it will be welcomed instead of a burden.

Grace must have been MIA yesterday when we were building the trolley, because she didn't even know about it.  She had a good time pretending to be a doctor and passing out medicine (milk duds) and giving shots for sore throats...  At least I know these will get use even if we discontinue homeschooling!

We all contributed some names to a 'drawing' for what we should call our book trolleys.  Emily and Juliet submitted the winning names: "Candyland" and "Homework Trolley."  I wanted Holly & Molly, the book Trolleys. But I didn't win. = (

It was warm enough that the kids set up the slip and slide for some outdoor water fun!

For dinner we had PF Changs freezer sweet and sour chicken for the first time.  With the exception of the bag recommending only cooking one bag at a time (so i had to lengthen the cook times) I was very impressed and will buy it again!

Thursday night is the weekly meeting with the other parents in Alice's class.  Since MAD was right after, I tried setting up the webcam on my upstairs computer so that my phone wouldn't die during the meeting.  That computer was too old, so Billy moved up my CPU to use with the upstairs auxilaries.  I had to bring up speakers, then headphones since the speakers weren't loud enough.  Sadly, the wifi is just too slow, and I ended up at the parent meeting on my phone anyhow.

Thankfully, it was a short meeting, so I was able to return everything to it's proper place and re set my downstairs station before the MOPS event.

We played a little bit of a game, but mostly just enjoyed chatting.  It's so nice to not be in this alone!

Because of the double meeting, it was a quick group bedtime for my crew, and a slightly late bedtime for me.

Tomorrow William has a local doctor's appointment, and they will be coming out to the car??  So many new adventures!

later days

May 16th, 64th Day of Quarantine

The high today was 66F.

I woke up as the sun peeked over the horizon, at 5am.  I spent a while trying to reclaim my slumber, but at 7am decided to start the day.

I had a long to-do list, and knocked a good portion of it out before my children joined me downstairs!

I called the hospital tech hotline to get all of my children registered for their virtual appointment.  I called the warranty people about a 'sound' the refrigerator was making.  We fixed it over the phone (for now!)  I paid some bills.  I started to research the stack of books for the kids next year.  I ran some laundry, unloaded the dishwasher, made some breakfast and stored things away in the basement.

Once everyone was awake, I went on a hunt for some of the books in the free little libraries in the front of the schools in the district.

Starting with the kids' school made me particularly sad, as Alice will never return to that building as a student, and neither will Emily. = (

Despite checking 6+ boxes, I did not find anything from the list, but I did pick out some fun titles to add to our collection! = )

Since I had exhausted my cheap options, I headed home to order books.  I bought everything for both age groups (A/E & W/G/J) for the morning work and first term.  It was a tedious process, checking links, looking at freebies, digital versions, and physical copies on multiples sites.

I had to pause my searches to prepare Bueno Nachos for lunch, but then it was back to the search. Now I have a pile of books headed my way and a few downloads in my kindle queue.

Billy checked the weather and told me that we are expecting rain for the next several days. So, that meant that today had to be my lawn mowing day.

I enjoy riding around on my little lawn tractor once I actually mount it, but psyching myself up to get out there takes some doing. The rain clouds held off until I finished!

The requests for food came minutes after I came back in, so before I showered, I set everyone up.

Finishing another load of laundry, unloading the dishwasher, prepping shots, and catching upon  blogging were on the agenda before dinner.

For dinner it was a hodgepodge of leftovers.  Dessert was also sporadically offered.

Billy, Emily and I played a round of pandemic.  This time we won!

After an early morning, I am ready for bed!

later days

February 25th

The expected high today was 36F.  It was cold and windy and a snow/rain mixture, so I have no idea if we even got that warm. = (

This morning Emily had student council, so we had to be out the door early.  Despite this, the kids managed to knock out a good chunk of their 'afternoon' homework!

Emily was on time, and the wait in the car wasn't too bad.  After dropping off everyone else, I headed to Walmart for Easter buckets.  They had a large selection.  They did not have many 18" doll accessories, so from there I went to Target.  I bought Emily's small gift (for her to open at her party) and Swimsuits for Alice and Emily.

From there I braved the VOA for some books, and a few other assorted items.  I dropped off part of Sarah's birthday gift, then headed home to put everything away.

At pick up the kids were ready to get home and work so that they could go to the pancake supper with avia at her church.  Billy and I walked to Charlie's as soon as he got home.

It was a fun day over all.

later days

January 21st

Today we did not get above freezing, the expected high was 29F.  The main roads were good, but any roads that were not plowed in a timely manner are now just ice sheets with ruts on them. Ew.

This is the grand river as it cuts through the west side of Lansing.

After dropping my children at school, I came home to wait for our cleaning lady and the orkin guy.  I was working on the main body of Billy's cape when Sarah called.

She needed a ride from the airport where she was dropping off my mom's car.   From there we went to the thrift store for leather straps, and I found books for our Scooby Doo & Fairy collections.

I also bought a book that has been quite enjoyable to read so far.  When I got up from reading, this is how I found William watching his tablet (his legs were up on the side of the couch as I was pulling out my camera.

For dinner we had BBQ sandwiches.  They were a hit.  In fact, William scarfed down 2.5 of them!

After all the kids, Alice as the exception, were in bed, I was calling for Alice when poor Juliet started retching. = (  We set her up on the sick bed, and she fell back to sleep.  Here's hoping for a smooth night.

later days

January 2nd

Today was a mostly sunny high of 46F with very little wind and no precipitation.

If all my days this year mimic today, I think I'll be okay.

My sister called me from a thrift shop (twice.) The first time to ask if I needed anything, the second time to let me know that she had collected the only thing I was after!

Alice got to enjoy almost the entire day with her friend Willow at her birthday celebration. Her mom kindly retrieved and returned Alice today, since I was homebound for my plumber window.  Alice came home full of sugar & exuberance.

I cleaned out some unused games and boxed up some German books to mail to a friend and knocked out 2 load of laundry.

Grace and Juliet decided to spend some of their Christmas cash on Minecraft (the Microsoft version) to play with the big kids.  I loathe the Microsoft Minecraft set up.  Once they are connected it is great, but the set up is brutal.  And to make matters worse, I bought and 'gifted' the wrong version - the xbox version.

So, I had to spend hours chatting to try to rectify my mistake, and also set up a Microsoft account, then an xbox account for each twin. Of course, setting everything to private and adding their siblings as friends and adding back up x2 just takes forever. Once the accounts were set up, I 'gifted' them the game, because we do not put any of our credit card info or sign ins on the kids' machines.

Since Alice was gallivanting, I took the opportunity to play with Emily and the twins for a little while.

The most exciting thing that happened today, by far, was that the plumber came to install our new faucet! The spray handle of our old one had some sort of failure inside, and was spraying water down into the cabinet. Billy and I both tried to see if we could replace it ourselves, but the people who redid the kitchen did a few questionable things. The repair actually required him to break out a power tool and saw off the old apparatus. Then he had to scrape off some sort of epoxy or sealant that they had used on the base. It was enough work to merit the price.

Thankfully, we were able to leave the handle pulled out and dangling*. I am sooooo happy to have a fully functioning faucet again. I do keep leaving the sprayer pulled out though. = )

Alice came back home and was quick to take over her computer and play Minecraft with her siblings, but it was time for me to start on dinner a-n-y-h-o-w.  

I made a macaroni & ham casserole with some leftovers from yesterday.  Not my favorite, but very few complaints.

And when Billy got home he got to start the fight with William's PC that has some sort of virus that kept kicking him off the internet and out of applications.   He's trying to avoid formatting, but it's not looking good. = /

Hoping to wind down the break tomorrow with a less exciting (and hopefully less frustrating) day.

later days

*The wait was because we had something leaking in the basement.Billy went down a few weeks ago and sealed off the water filter connectors in the basement, so I was waiting to make sure the basement dried out and I didn't need him for a double purpose before scheduling. 

Book Fair, At Home

My kids LOVE the book fair.  I too love the book fair.  Of course, my kids don't usually want a book from the book fair.  They like all of the other things: pencils, posters, diaries, toys, etc.  So, after this year's book fair at school, I started shopping around at a few thrift stores, yard sales. My mom also sent over a pile of her findings, so many, that I was able to stage an "at home" book fair for them. = )

When they came home from school, I gave them each an envelope with 10 monopoly (literally) dollars in it.  They were able to shop until they ran out of 'cash*.'

The best part, they were so excited to do their reading time that night!

This picture is my favorite, they look so staged! Just like an advertisement for a book fair.... ; )

I plan on collecting a few new titles, and then we'll do it again.

later days

*They almost bought me out, and really only read one (maybe 2) of the books they "bought." So, next time, I plan on giving them less to spend, or maybe up the prices so that they only buy what they'll read while they are still excited. = )