Wow, what a beautiful surprise! Happiest of Anniversaries, you guys! May the next 20 offer even more incredible memories to add to the list of things to love. ~Dy

I have three different appointments on Friday, and a substitute teacher lined up (aka - Dad's off this Friday! LOL) It's just impossible to pass up an opportunity to run errands sans children, really. This term, Wednesday afternoons are our Nature Study days, simply b/c the boys have piano in the early afternoon, then play rehearsal in the evening. Since we hadn't heard anything before, we just set our schedule so that we go into town and make a day of it. Are you free on Wed? Or how about Friday the 10th? We don't have anything scheduled that day.

Sounds interesting. I'd love to hear more, before deciding (where does the money come from, for instance?) Anyhow, nobody took us up on the offer, so we've just been going unofficially, meandering and filling our sketchbooks. We'll be doing a lot more of that, now that the weather has turned so absolutely spectacular! (I tend to think of summer as something to be endured - a price to pay for such a beautiful autumn, lol! Yes, I'm a wuss.) However, we're always up for something new and interesting. Just keep me posted! Dy

One-year-at-a-time is a great mindset to take, particularly the first year, as you iron out the wrinkles and find your groove. We're homeschooling three, with two littles in tow. This is our sixth year, and it's a wonderful lifestyle. I know you're a little far North of us, so you may not be interested or able, but I've been taking the kids on journaling outings on Wednesdays - either at the Wildlife Refuge or into Decatur. This last week, we spent a couple hours at Cook's Science Museum and then headed out for a picnic. If you're ever up for joining us, please feel free. I'll try to post more about when we're heading somewhere. :)

Hi Tabitha! It's good to see you here!

DH's 99.5yo grandmother is on her way! She's coming with two of "The Aunts" - the cool one (the incomparable Aunt B) and the wacky one (Aunt Linda of the christmas pants and big rose covered cowboy hat). They're touring the country in a motor home, and should be here tonight! We can hardly wait. We also have cousins coming from the other direction to meet up here. And possibly some friends of Aunt B's who may bring their camper out so they can visit with Gram, too. We're going to be able to feed people! And visit. And laugh. And enjoy the balcony. HOWEVER, they read my blog and I don't want them to know that I've been in panic clean mode ALL DAY LONG. So, I'll post it here. The upper meadow is mowed and looks so quaint. We've completely restructured the school room, moved three bookshelves, decluttered the kids' rooms (I warned them, they don't want Wacky Aunt Linda to go in there and clean it for them - they'll have cheap vanilla candle wax melted all over their underwear! Plus the added joy of knowing she touched their undies... :tongue_smilie:) The bathroom, the linens, the guestroom - all done. I told the boys that any and everything that could possibly be tripped over needs to go away. We're not having a broken hip on our watch, fellas! I shook out the couch cover (LOVING the denim, btw - I think I may just decorate my entire home in denim and accessorize as the mood hits). All that's left to go is washing the windows, mopping the floors, and sweeping the porch. Then I'm breaking out the Mandarin Orange Grapefruit Michelob! Yeah, baby, it's been a great day! And they're almost HHHEEEEEEEEEEEERE!!! DH is going to pick up goodies on his way home (for the guest room) - some Postum for Aunt Linda, some tea for Gram, and some strong wine for Aunt B. :D

than he could articulate his thoughts. So what I get when he's explaining something is a sort of mental shorthand that leaves me with absolutely no CLUE what he's talking about the first time through. So I want to know if he TRULY thinks in sentence fragments, using only internally-referenced pronouns, or if there's a filter in there somewhere that sorts it out before he says something.:001_huh: I could die happy knowing the answer to that.

The boys haven't done a lot of writing up to this point (8yo starting 3rd, and nearly-10yo starting 5th). At least on the part of the 5th grader, it wasn't a lack of ability, but it was like pulling teeth. I jokingly told DH, after getting one decent piece out of DS last year that I was applying for a DDS by claiming "experiential education credit" :tongue_smilie: DS8 just didn't grasp how, exactly, the process of writing progresses. (And I've always been an intuitive writer, with little formal training or background, so I was not doing a good job of explaining it to him - IW does make that easier for the instructor. Or, at least for *this* instructor.) I'd decided that writing would be my focus for this year. I liked what I read about CW, but when I compared the two programs, IW was the better choice for our family. They're very similar, but IW seemed to offer a bit more guidance for the instructor, and a bit more clarity without all the trappings. I liked that. I do also like the difference in price (won't lie to you, there!) So I printed out the example lesson for my Reluctant Writer (5th grader) - and he enjoyed it! (Shocker, and bonus points, all wrapped up in one!) I talked with the 3rd grader about it, showed him the examples, and he, too, was up for trying it. I couldn't find anything IW lacked - it met all the criteria I'd set for us to achieve our writing goals this year. Nor could I find anything that CW offered that would justify the additional cost for us, at this point. (Although it is still on the table for the future, perhaps.) We're just finishing week 2, and both boys have produced nice pieces with relatively little bloodshed. They "get" what they're doing. They have concrete examples to emulate. The process is gentle, thorough, and consistent. We've all been quite pleased, and I think they'll enjoy writing more as the year progresses. Here's a story from this week's work. DS8 did the vocabulary work and definitions, outlined the story, then re-worked and wrote the story in his own words. We sat down together to edit it, using the objectives set forth (plot outline, handwriting, vocab. usage, sentence structure, spell/cap/punct., story line). He knew going into it what was expected, and so he knew what to look for. About halfway through, he said, "I think I need to work on my spelling." (He's right - kid can't spell his way out of a bag at the moment.) But I liked that he wasn't discouraged by that - he saw that he'd done the rest of it quite well, saw what he needs to work on, and was able to call it. WOOHOO! He does his final re-write tomorrow morning, and he cannot WAIT to show DH tomorrow evening. That, alone, was worth it for me. HTH, Dy

There'll be no holding that child back once he's set his mind to doing something, eh? ;) Congratulations, and welcome to the world Sweet Baby Boy!!

That is SO exciting! Thank you for the update!

Seriously, it's not the baking, the laundry, or even the teaching that gets me. It's the constant, unending, streaming redirection. I'm pooped by lunch. So, if anything is going to get done, it needs to be done by lunch or odds are good that I'll fall asleep in the middle of it. So, where'd ya take the parents for dinner? ;) And the routine of teaching four? It'll come. It will. (I have to believe it will, and so, I am going to share my vision with you! LMK if it works, k?) Hey, when did you go off WF cooking? How are you all feeling? Dy