Short and Sweet

Apparently, my mind is mush. I know this week was FULL of wonderful memory-making moments, life-affirming anecdotes, and tickle-your-funny-bone hilarity . . . but, alas, I cannot recall a thing.

Some school was done. Books were read. The Saints won. Who Dat. Mom, Dad, and Tootsie (wonderful hubby's equally wonderful grandmother) all celebrated another Year of Life. Happy Birthday. Delicious meals were consumed.

Um, yeah. Is thirty too young to be losing your memory?

In other news, on my personal writing blog, The Ending Unplanned, this week I wrote about Pulling A Rachel, my current work in progress notes, a wonderful series on writing a pitch, and book reviews on two of my favorite books. I'd love it if you checked it out!


What about you? Do you remember this week? Do you ever end an entire week asking yourself, What in the world happened? Please let me know I'm not alone!

Have a great weekend!!

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School has now become a Reward--Wow!

Um, yeah, my brilliant children have decided that school is now fun and a reward for cleaning up their toys and listening!!

See, we took a break from "formal learning" in April after going pretty much non-stop for 2 1/2 years. We still read books together and had discussions about things, but no workbooks or lapbooks or formal anything. It was good, too, because I had been starting to get a little bit of pushback. They wanted to play and groaned a bit, and that is not what I wanted.

Well they are over that, now! It started Thursday night during the Saints game. Jordan brought down her History and Science binders (His Story--America's History and Wonderfully Made) that we put their work in, along with her workbooks for Math and Language Arts. She laid them out on the sofa between me and my husband and said, "Okay, I'm ready to learn and do school."

I said, "Great! That sounds fun." And I turned back to the game.

Apparently, what she wanted was for me to teach her. . . in the middle of the Saints kicking Viking butt. Not gonna happen! As much as I love their desire to learn and what to fan the flame of loving to learn, I have my limits and in the middle of a Saints game at 7pm is one of them. :-)

But this week, when we got back from Mississippi, we started school. The mornings have been best for me to get my writing done, and they get to play outside or upstairs. After lunch, I walk on our newly bought treadmill (loving it!) while they do water colors or art projects. BUT after that, if they clean up their mess while I shower, we GET to do school! And that makes them all excited!! They start busting butt to clean up so we can get school in! I used to have to bribe with a dum-dum sucker but I like this approach much better, ha!

So everyday we have been sitting on the coach and all working together. Cali is working through Language Lessons for Little Ones 2 and Critical Thinking Press Math Reasoning A. Jordan is working through Critical Thinking Press Language Lessons first grade and Math Reasoning B.

Both their language lessons are review for them mainly. Cali made a huge leap on her own this summer in teaching herself to read, so she is kinda beyond these lessons now, but I think it is good to reinforce what she knows and to let her see how far she has come. These lessons go really quickly. And for Jordan, even though she is on a 3rd grade level, I got the first grade level on purpose to make sure we lay a good foundation. And the way they present the material is fun and engaging so she doesn't mind. Math for both of them has been surprising--since we took so many months away from adding and subtracting, as well as the thinking skills they present in these books, I thought it would be slow going at first. But they picked up right where they left off.

What is working well is that we sit on the sofa and take turns--one day I start with Cali's language arts, then we do Jordan's, then Cali's Math, then Jordan's. I used to think I had to keep them occupied while the other did her work, but it has been amazing to see them be as engaged watching their sister to their work. Cali is seeing advanced concepts--and picking many of them up!--and Jordan is getting review and also being a good role model for her sister.

And then, if they do all that well, they get super excited because then they get to choose what two page spread in the Science Encyclopedia we read for the day. They are still obsessed with the Human Body so we are going through that one . . . again.

In family news, we spent the weekend in Mississippi and loved it. Their house is smack dab in the middle of a zillion acres and all I saw was green everywhere. I read two books (Return to Paradise by Simone Elkeles and The Duff by Kody Keplinger), worked on my outline for my manuscript, had MANY wonderful talks, and had MANY amazing meals.

On The Ending Unplanned, this week I reviewed The Duff and I shared how my current project is going. There is also a link to one of Cali's favorite songs of my story soundtrack, Mean Girls by Sugarland.

Have a wonderful weekend!

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Family Filled Holiday

This week has been, and will continue to be, all about family!

Saturday brought Gregg's dad, stepmom and stepsister's son, Guy, up for a three day visit. Guy is two weeks older than Jordan and has the same energy level as Cali, so the kids always have a blast when they are together. It isn't exactly quiet around here during visits, but they are fun.

We also had some excitement--apparently something is in the water over here because Guy lost his first tooth while he was here and his second fell out the day he got back, ha!

My mother-in-law made us a yummy shrimp creole and we watched a lot of football (Geaux Tigers! Who Dat!) It was a nice, noise-filled, high energy visit and the girls are already asking when Poppy and Mamere are coming back again.

Tonight, after the Saints kick some Viking butt, we leave for Mississippi to visit more family. While the 9 hour drive is a bit of a hassle, it's pure relaxation once we get there. Their house is amazing--it's completely surrounded by trees with the closest house a car drive away.

The girls can't wait to ride the four-wheeler and the Rhino around their extensive property . . . oh, and see Nanny Donna, Paran David and Hayley, too :-) Mommy can't wait to visit with family, to relax and gets lots of reading and writing done.

This week around the house, the girls have made countless water color paintings and self-made books (Jordan's latest was on bugs). We finished reading The BFG by Roald Dahl and have begun Mrs. Frisby and The Rats of Nimh. Along with that nightly read aloud, the girls have read a ton on their own (along with the usual favorites of Berenstain Bears and Animorphs, both girls are loving reading through Veggie Tales Bible Storybook).

The girls got their hair cut, and the girls and I drove through a Tropical Storm to get it done! Apparently I need to watch the news more because I figured it was just a little storm that wouldn't last long--I hate driving in rain--but that wasn't the case. Once we got to the mall, I also discovered that the umbrella had been taken out of the van and we were a good way away from the entrance . . . and it was a complete downpour outside! We made the best of it, laughing and walking very fast, and dried off just in time to get wet again when it was time to leave (after hair cuts and a ride on the carousel in the food court, of course).

In Mommy News: This week on The Ending Unplanned I wrote about getting to know the characters in the story I'm writing, My Embarrassing First Date, how my work in progress is going (gotta check out the youtube video for the glee song I chose for my soundtrack) and a book review on Jennifer Echols' Forget You.

Have a wonderful weekend!

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Quick Clarification

We are still a homeschooling family! I may not have been clear when I said we took a break as of Mid-April. That just means we are taking more of an unstructured approach to education. But never fear, we still love homeschooling around here :-)

Have a great weekend!

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What we did (are doing) on our summer vacation. . .

HELLO!

It has been a fantabulous summer. My wonderful husband got me a new laptop for my birthday so I guess I should've been on here blogging, but there was no school going on.

Around mid-April we decided to take a break from homeschooling. . .

Of course, my 4 year old started reading during this break and now stays up at night reading all my old Berenstain Bears and Dr. Seuss books.

Of course, my 5 year old wrote several stories and made various picture books that she reads to her little sister.

Of course, my 5 year old started staying up at night reading books like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG and the Animorph series her cousin Desiree gave her.

Of course, my 4 year old's handwriting improved by leaps and bounds, as well as her drawing skills.

Of course, my 5 year old lost 3 teeth -- what, that's not academic? Hogwash, it is a momentous occasion!

Of course, my 4 year old won a First Place Blue Ribbon at a Rodeo event for riding a horse -- again, it was a momentous occasion!

And finally, of course, we have had TONS of discussions about story plots, characterization, dialogue and setting.

Why, you ask?

Well, glad you asked! It's because during this time, Mama has been taking all those 'learning tools' she researched to use on the youngin's and putting them to use for herself -- in learning how to write a novel!

It started in April when my awesome husband bought me the Twilight series. I admit I felt guilty at first . . . this wasn't Charles Dickens or Charlotte Bronte or Jane Austen. But, you know what? I loved it! It helped me to remember that reading can be a FUN experience, too. It can be for pure pleasure sometimes, although that is not what happened with Twilight.

You see, it inspired me. I started reading a ton of YA books ( I would say I've averaged almost a book a day since that mid-April day--that's a lot of books!) and decided that I wanted to try it. I've always had a passion for writing stories. I have so many written in my various diaries and journals, and wrote many for my classes. Somewhere along the way, I stopped. I don't know what happened. . . oh wait, yes I do. Boys. Boys happened. Oh well.

Flash forward 10-12 years and the passion has been awakened. I joined a local YA/MG (young adult/middle grade) writer's group, made a few local writerly friends and exchanged our work for critique, and have now started a blog about the process: The Ending Unplanned. My current Work in Progress (WIP) is around 20k words! (by the way, you can subscribe there to follow my journey!)

Will I still be here at Keep The Way? Of course! This is our family homeschooling blog. I do need to get back to updating, which will probably happen on Fridays from now on, but rest assured I will still be writing here, letting you know about family happenings and our learning adventures.

So, what did you do on your summer vacation?

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