Focus

I ran 20 minutes this morning. I'm so incredibly excited and shocked. Jasmine didn't think I had it in me (thanks, kid!)
Life is changing. And, as it always is when it's us, it's changing quickly. We're hoping to get the house on the market in 2 weeks. TWO weeks.
So that means I spent yesterday starting work to get the house ready. Want to hear what I did?
~Pfaltzgraff dishes are packed (I think I still spelled that wrong. Too lazy to look it up)
~Three boxes of stuff from the back room are packed and labeled.
~The kids' toys are in their bedroom, instead of in a play area in half of the dining room
~some hooks are finally taken out of the wall from 3 (4?) Christmases ago
~a decorative vinyl sticker is off the wall of the living room
~a box of doll clothes got packed away

That looks pretty good, until you realize I tackled something little in just about every room in the house. Which means you can't actually see any change. And the whole point of organizing to me is the finished LOOK.
So today I'm going to tackle one room (the back room, which is the school/laundry area) and see if I can actually SEE some progress before I leave for date night.

I took pictures of our bedroom on Monday. It's not completely done, but almost. I want excellence. I want better pictures than I've ever taken of a room, and I want it looking better than it's ever looked! Here's what I have right now.

Changes

I think it's time to put this blog together with the other one.
http://joshandcharlene.blogspot.com/

It's just too hard to write on both, so I tend to just give up and not write in either!!
If you are interested in hearing my occasional school stories, feel free to subscribe for email updates to that one!!

Thanks for reading :)

Decisions

Yesterday, Jasmine couldn't decide between spelling and math.
I told her she had to choose, and that if she didn't, I would.
Her response: "If I can't choose, could you please choose math??"

Three Weeks Off

So we're taking our equivalent of Summer Vacation now.
No comment on the fact that it's supposed to snow tonight. What kind of summer is that?? (*giggle*)

Bekah wanted to earn a "help mommy" badge yesterday. I haven't broken it to her that we're not doing badges next year. If she wants to volunteer to clean up, who'm I to turn that down??
Jasmine wanted to make another hideaway, since we skipped the last 5. But they didn't interest her (or me) enough, so we ended up doing one of the other activities from the Creating Clever Castles and Cars book. She wasn't happy with the results and I wasn't exactly happy with her reaction to the results, but they did enjoy running around it for a few hours last night.
(no pictures...it really didn't turn out to look like anything!)

I'm gearing up for second grade. Going through the book of Science activities to figure out what all we need to buy ahead of time. I just ordered a teacher's book specifically for homeschoolers to track what we do each day. It should make things run more smoothly and keep me on task, even though we're going the more unschooling route. I still have to report to the school district, so it's good to track what we're covering for those lovely quarterly reports.

I promised Jasmine an ice cream party (with homemade ice cream!) for completing first grade.
So here's the story:

We made ice cream. From scratch. From So Delicious Coconut Milk for Josh and Bekah, and regular milk for the rest of us. (milk and sugar in a little ziploc, put inside a larger ziploc full of ice and salt, and then wrapped in a towel and placed in a plastic shopping bag. shake for 15 minutes, rinse of the water/salt on the inside bag, and enjoy!)

Pretty exciting, non?

Unfortunately, we were nervous to rinse the bags for long, because we didn't want it melting in the water.
So it didn't get the salt off.
When we put the ice cream in the bowls, some of the salt came off into the bowl.

YUCK.

I'd like to try again and see if we can get actual eatable ice cream out of the process this time.

Finishing up First Grade

Today we finished reading the last of the Encyclopedia of World History (with appropriate editing in the reading, like mentioning that maybe GMOs weren't quite as perfect as they thought when the book was published ;) ).

And with that, I am now the mother of a second grader!!

I'm so incredibly proud of Jasmine. She's been quite a trooper, with all the changes we've made over the past 11 1/2 months. She is definitely breaking me in to homeschooling, just as she did with being a mom. But that just makes it that much easier for the next ones coming up!

I'll keep blogging for next year, though now the title of the blog is outdated.

Congratulations, sweet Jasmine! I'm so proud of you!!

Braille

Yesterday Jasmine and I read about Louis Braille and his Braille alphabet.
She thought it was a fascinating pattern, and wanted to try it for her copywork.
(drawing the dots, not actually making raised bumps on the paper).

She decided two words was enough work:

We have a goal for ourselves...I think we might be able to finish first grade this week with a little push. It means we won't do all five of the hideaways left, which is perfectly fine with me. It would be awesome to finish and have time to get second grade put together before we start that in May!!

Mary Poppins, an interview

Me: Jasmine, tell me how the book, Mary Poppins, was different from the movie.

Jasmine: she was crosser in the book.

Me: What does cross mean?

Jasmine: not nice.

Me: which would you rather have as a nanny?

Jasmine: Julie Andrews' Mary Poppins.

Me: Bekah, what was your favorite story?

Bekah: the last one.

Me: Why?

Bekah: Because there was a letter.

Me: What did the letter say?

Bekah: It said that she would come back.

Me: was that written in English?

Bekah: No, it wasn't.

Hudson: Mine favorite was, um, in the book. Mine was, um, when they was going to a place. Like going home. They goed home.

Jasmine: Mine was when they went Christmas shopping.

Me: Are you excited to start reading Mary Poppins Comes Back?


Jasmine, Bekah and Hudson: YEAH!