Homeschooling and other things

Last week was all about finishing up our homeschool year.  I had my county review on Friday so I spent the week getting the kids' portfolios ready and making sure I had all my ducks in a row.  The last two years I only had to do a phone interview for my end-of-year review so I was a little extra nervous this time.  I needn't have been.  The reviewer was very easy going and said everything looked great.  Yay!  Now we can "officially" move into our summer schedule of light school work in the morning and playtime and pool time in the afternoon. 

On Saturday I went to the IHM Homeschool Conference in DC.  It was a nice day out for me without the kids.  I really didn't need to go.  I know what we are planning on doing for school in the Fall.  I've already purchased most of our books.  I guess I've been doing this long enough now that I feel like I know what works for our family.  And not quite so long that I feel burnt out and need to make changes.  So we are in a pretty good spot right now.  Although there is that slight worry in the back of my mind that everything is going to change in a couple of months with the arrival of the new baby.  But we just wont dwell on that now.

In other news... we checked on the nest by the front door today after several days of leaving it be and we found this:

I think there are three little baby birds there, but the kids are convinced that one didn't make it.  It's hard to be sure.  We will keep checking on them and hopefully will be able to tell for certain soon.  It's amazing to think that just a few days ago they were curled up in those tiny blue eggs!

Front yard nature

Yesterday evening we discovered that a robin has chosen the bush right next to our front door as the place to raise her babies.  For a couple of days I've noticed her flying away as soon as we open the front door.  Yesterday, the kids and I finally took a little time to investigate the bush.  And sure enough, this is what we found:

I hope we haven't scared the mother robin away permanently.  The kids were so excited to find this so close to our house.

I often lament the fact that we live in a "sterile" sub-urban neighborhood instead of further out in the country where nature is all around.  This is a good reminder that if we just take a little time and are quiet and observant, then we can find nature here, too.

Summer is here

I'm not participating in Ginny's Yarn Along this week.  Mainly because I have nothing new to report.  My Baby Surprise Jacket is on hold until someone can explain to me how to pick up stitches.  And I haven't even made much progress on any of my other little projects.  I have started reading a new book.  I borrowed Sidetracked Home Executives from a friend.  It describes me to a "tee."  But I'm leery of trying their solution which involves writing everything (and I mean everything!) that you have to do to keep your home running smoothly on individual 3x5 index cards.  Then you somehow organize these cards in a way that you pull a stack for each day and do what the cards say.  And then your house will be neat, clean, and organized.   I'm tempted to try it.  I just have this feeling that after the initial excitement of trying a new system I will be right back to where I am now.  Only with the added disappointment that yet another system failed to help me figure out how to get my house neat, clean, and organized (and keep it that way.)  I did swing by the office supply store yesterday while we were out and I picked up a card file and a bunch of index cards...just in case I decide to try it.

This weekend summer really arrived here in Southern Maryland.  We are still in the middle of a heat advisory.  We didn't let that stop us from spending Memorial Day at our favorite park.  The kids really wanted to take the canoes out on the lake and have a cook out.

Ray is not the type of guy that enjoys cooking out.  As he says, "We have a whole room in our house dedicated to preparing and consuming food.  Why would we want to pack everything up, haul it to the park, cook and eat in inconvenience, and then haul it all home again?"  Once a year, though, he does just this because the kids love it.

When we got home from our Memorial Day activities we discovered that our A/C wasn't working.  It was 93 degrees upstairs in our bedrooms!  The main floor was 89 degrees.  Thank goodness the basement was still cool.  We had to sleep down there for two days.  I am happy to report that we were able to get the A/C repaired fairly quickly and inexpensively.  And now I am planning on spending a day indoors enjoying the cool and possibly trying to get caught up on some knitting and reading so that next Wednesday I will have something to share with the Yarn Along.  (Although, you may notice that my girls are all wearing the summer knitted tops that I finally finished.  Yay!)

Painting with friends

Today we had a nice afternoon catching up with some friends that we haven't seen in a while.  And the kids (well, the girls, at least) created some artwork a la Jackson Pollock.  Lovely way to spend an almost-summer afternoon.

This one is my favorite:

Yarn Along

Yarn Along with Ginny @ small things

I finished J's summer top that I spoke of last week!  Well, almost.  I finished the knitting.  Now I just need to sew up the sides and weave in the ends.  I'll get that done today or tomorrow.  Pictures to follow.  I'm still working on the Baby Surprise Jacket along with a bunch of other ladies in this knit along.  It was going along fairly quickly but then I got to a part in the pattern that I just couldn't figure out and had to wait a few days for further instructions.  I kind of lost my momentum, but hopefully now that I think I know what I'm doing I will get back into it.

I tend to get bored with knitting projects pretty quickly.  So I've found that if I have a bunch of different things to work on at the same time I actually do much better.  I can just switch to a different project  when I start getting tired of one.  So I am also working on a Five Hour Baby Sweater with Patons Classic Wool in winter white.  I know this will take me way, way longer than five hours.  But that's okay.  I still have at least two months before baby comes.  And I doubt baby will be needing it for a least two months after that.  I have time.

We are still really enjoying The Little White Horse.  I'm also still reading Simplicity Parenting.  Great book!  And we are reading some character development stories out of Everyday Graces ed. by Karen Santorum and The Children's Book of Virtues ed. by William Bennet.  My kids have been rather restless lately and common courtesy is a bit lacking around here.  I find that reading stories about other kids behaving or misbehaving helps get my own kids back on track much better than me harping on them and nagging at them. And it's much more fun for me.

Peaceful Morning

It's 8:00 and the kids are all still sound asleep after a very busy day yesterday.  And I don't think they will wake anytime soon.  We had an early morning and a late night with a lot stuffed into the middle.  It's days like this that I'm so glad we don't send our kids to school.  I love that we can let them sleep in on a Tuesday and catch up on some much needed rest.  I also LOVE that it gives me a couple of unexpected (and also much needed) hours of solitude.  Ahhhh.

Weekend

We spent this past weekend picking strawberries (30 lbs!) and making jam.  I think I was able to make almost enough to last us the year.  When I count the blackberry jam that I'll make later this summer, we should have more than enough to support my kids' pbj habit.

While the kids and I were making jam, my husband was in the city at the final interview and tryouts for Jeopardy.  So sometime in the next 18 months he may (or may not) get called to be on the show.  Whether he gets the call or not, at least he didn't leave empty handed.  He won the mock game at the tryout and won the Wii Jeopardy game.