Adventures in Homeschooling!!! (and some other stuff)

For many years I had considered homeschooling, but put it off because I was afraid it would be disastrous. The kids don't listen to me very much when I'm NOT trying to teach them stuff...so how am I going to spend an entire year teaching them several hours a day? So when Jade finished off her 6th grade year with several F's and D's, yet passed all her classes since the teachers knew she was smart enough and didn't want to make it worse by making her repeat classes, I knew we had to do something different. At first I looked for an alternative school option, but there really isn't something we can afford like a private school. I did find this program called PARADE where I would home school her for 20 hours a week and she would go to a class twice a week for some important courses. Sounded great! But what to do for the 20 hours of homeschooling? Then, after talking to a good friend, I found Columbia Virtual Academy. There are no in school classes with this, but by the time I found it I was already starting to get excited about homeschooling so it was less scary. Turns out this school, run by the state, would provide all homeschooling materials and I could even pick them out myself if I want. Now I will say, it has been frustrating at times. Getting all the materials we need is slow going. (Still don't have Math, History or Science) The advisory teacher is very nice, though perhaps a tad slow, but I figure she's probably dealing with a LOT of students so we're doing our best with what we have. We started a couple weeks ago and I have to say, I am very impressed with Jade!! I was worried that we would clash when I asked her to do things, but she has accepted that when we're homeschooling she needs to do the work and I think for that time I am Mrs. Mom instead of just Mom. She is SO freaking smart! I have also had some moments when she asks me to explain something and I have to drag myself back to high school to figure it out. Long division, different nouns, and spelling tests. But I have to say, I think I have learned a better way to do long division from this so I guess we're both learning together. :) She is also learning Russian and seems to be enjoying that. Sadly our microphone keeps breaking so it's not as easy as it should be, but she's a really great kid who muddles through with what she has and gets it done! Next week I want to go to the Science Center and get her a membership to the YMCA. I think they will be great learning tools for us.

Aside from the new schooling schedule, we have been doing pretty good. My house is much, much cleaner then it used to be, we dropped a Judo class and now I feel like I'm not ALWAYS on the go, and the kids are doing pretty darn good! Isabelle is so smart and so funny. She's learning things that I don't even realize she's learning. She draws amazing pictures, says big words and tells her own little jokes. Nicholas is doing so much better in school then I imagined. I knew he'd be OK, but he's actually doing great! We really need to start cracking down on him wearing his glasses though. Drake is such a great guy. He's funny and smart and really is pretty responsible. Sometimes I forget to notice, and I really need to stop doing that, because he's great and I want him to feel good about that! Aside from school, Jade is growing up so fast. Everyday she is more and more like a young adult. Sometimes it's hard to remember that she's only 12.

Michael and I are doing SO much better right now. We went to a couples clinic last weekend in Seattle and learned SO much about communication and have been really talking about our feelings without getting defensive or angry. I have learned that he can tell me how he feels about something without it actually being about ME and that sometimes it's OK to be disappointed as long as you find a way to express that without being hurtful.

As I sign off...I just wanted to say that my basil plant is actually growing and I am in shock because usually plants turn brown and wither in my house. (Or the kids pull them out of their pots and swing them around, which results in the same thing!)

Six down!

I started the South Beach Diet on December 31. I decided to do it a day before New Years because I didn't want it to be a resolution. Resolutions never work...at least for me. So, today is my fourth day in and I am six pounds down! I'm certain some of it is water weight, but I have cut out ALL sugary items, no breads or pastas, no junk food and no calorie/sugar laden drinks. I have 2 cups of black tea each day and eggs for breakfast. TONS of vegetables. Like 2 cups of vegetables with each meal. I love the mushrooms and peppers!! It's difficult when I get hungry and I go into the kitchen and it's not meal time. I really WANT to munch on chips and make toast with jam because it's tasty and so easy, but now I have to find other options. Turns out there are plenty of tasty snacks that are much healthier than what I was eating before. Turkey pepperoni, Swiss cheese wedges, Turkey bacon...these things I would never have tried before, and they're so yummy! I can even have cut vegetables with some homemade Ranch Dressing!! So these first two weeks will be difficult I know, but if I can lose six pounds in 4 days, then I am happy to imagine how much I can lose in another 10!

I hope I will be back here in a few weeks talking about how I need to buy smaller pants!

Catching Up

It's been awhile! Isabelle got her cast off finally on Halloween. She's doing awesome! She has a little brace we keep on her when she's really active but she gets to take it off for bed, bathing and eating. I actually really can't wait till it's completely off because she's learned to crawl! She's fast too. And she loves to see what's in the other room. Doesn't matter what the other room is. lol It is so amazing watching her learn so much so fast. I bet her brain is making new pathways like crazy!

In other news...Halloween went off without a hitch. Everyone had a costume and we went to daddy's work to trick or treat. We made it through the whole building in about 40 min, which is amazing compared to last years about an hour and a half for the same building. Unfortuneatly, most bowls were already empty (only 5pm!) so we didn't get as much as last year...but I'm ok with that. :D

So now it's November and I just can't believe it's already less than 2 months till Christmas! Today I used a pumpkin from Halloween (we had 6 sugar pumpkins and we didn't carve them because momma is lazy) and I made pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting. They are YUMMY! I also recently made a big batch of fresh raspberry jam which turned out Fantastic!

Oh and I got a job! I'm a ChaCha guide now! I did so good my first week I made top guide and now I get 20 cents a question. I've made over $100 so far, so I'm pretty happy! Tomorrow I'm going to get a bank account to hold all my earnings and hopefully I'll save it up for something good.

The sun is Shining!!

But WOW is it cold!! Last night it was SO COLD. I think there will be no more warm balmy days here anymore. Sun will be paired with brisk cold. Oh well, at least we have sweaters, and it sure is beautiful!

Halloween is coming. We're working on getting costumes for everyone and we're almost done. Isabelle will be a Pink Princess, Jade will be a Vampiress and I think Drake will be a Ninja. Still need to get one for Nicholas, but we do have his cow costume and Drake's old ninja costume we could use. I'm doubly excited for Halloween because we should get Isabelle's cast off.

Some very very nice friends of mine gave us some great clothes for the boys. Now I need to go take out at least an equal amount of their old clothes!!! I WILL declutter! We also got a HUGE bag of Rescue Heroes, so we'll purge some old toys too. Nicholas is building an army of Superheroes and Firemen I think. lol Hopefully he'll share one with Isabelle because I think she wants to play with him.

I can't believe it's already October 22. 3 more days till Isabelle's birthday and she turns ONE year old. Where did the last year go!? She finally started sitting up on her own and I think the cast actually helps her because it's so heavy, it helps hold her leg down. She's also trying so hard to crawl so I can't wait till it's off and we can catch her up on crawling.

Drake, he did SO good at his Tournament on Saturday. He placed 2nd and came home with a very cool silver medal. (Which he played with so much it broke off the ribbon. lol) I am SO proud of him, he went out there and he kept going till he got the point. It was his first tournament win, and his first tournament Ippon. :) His reward for getting up early and going there and doing his best is a Steak Dinner. (That's really what he wants!)So I think he'll get a date with Daddy to go have steak soon.

Gotta go to the post office today, I hope it's painless.

Pink!

I took Isabelle to get her cast checked out today and they did another xray. The bones are looking wonderful and she's dealing with the cast very well! They took off the ace bandage and put a pink cover over the cast. She looks pretty cute. :) I was thinking that it will match her Halloween costume (Pink Princess) but they told me she gets to have it off in TWO WEEKS! (Yay they origionally said 4-6 weeks!)Well it turns out that 2 weeks from today is Halloween so I guess it doesn't matter. haha

Tomorrow is Drake's Judo tournament. It's only his 3rd tournament so we're pretty excited. I really hope he gets a medal tomorrow I think it would make him SO happy and I think he'd improve in Judo if he did because of the esteem boost.

So tonight I'm going to make crock pot Chicken Noodle Veggie soup to bring with us. :) I think if it cooks till we have to get up (6am OUCH!) I can add the noodles then and it should be ready when we leave at 7. I love homemade soup!

And last, tonight I did my second Judo class! I did it last friday (then afterwards I took Isabelle to the hospital because of her leg) and then today was class #2. It was good, but a little hard for me to do. Not because of the workout, I can handle that but I'm the heaviest girl there and tonight I was paired with someone who's probably almost 100lbs less than me and I felt bad when she had to carry me around the mat! Eventually I said I couldn't go on and she had someone else work with her for the end. I was mostly worried because tomorrow is a major tournament that she's participating in and I don't want her to get hurt from carrying me around! Other than that, I had to do a bunch of pushups and situps. OMG I am OUT OF SHAPE!!! I can't do a situp more than just my shoulders. Pushups I had to do on my knees. And when we have to squat or kneel I feel like my thighs are going to burst into flames. LOL Well hopefully it'll get easier!

Sticks and Stones...

No name calling but we do have a broken bone! Friday afternoon baby Isabelle tried to fly off her changing table but gravity won out. I think she probably hit the shelf of the table when she fell down and hit it hard enough to break her right femur! She sure was upset when it happened!! But after about an hour she calmed down and we even managed to get her to sleep. We knew she wasn't feeling so well but since she wasn't crying anymore and even ate food and napped...we figure she'd be fine. So a few hours later when DH noticed she was crying when he moved her legs, we decided it was hospital time. They took the xrays, which was horrible. (Of course - she had a broken leg and it hurt when we stretched it out to xray!!) and did a CT scan to make sure her brain was ok from the fall. (It is OK!) When they figured out it was broken they sent us to Children's Hospital by ambulance to get her taken care of. Poor baby did NOT like that at all! She had to be strapped to a stretcher and all she wanted was momma to hold her. At Children's, they did another Xray and had to get an IV in her poor arms to give her medicine and just in case she would need surgery. It took SIX tries to get the IV in and by the last try she had pretty much given up and fell asleep through the pain. They gave her some morphine and after a 30 min nap she was awake and loopy. lol Next the Ortho put a big heavy cast on her leg. So by 3am we were finished and ready to go home. We had to take a cab back to the first hospital to get the car and were home by around 4am. She was LOOPY! She kept humming. lol So now, a few days later we're dealing with the big cast that cant' be wet, definitely can't be bumped and a baby who needs to be held a lot. She's worst at night I think her leg hurts from being dangly all day. Tylonal only does so much. We go back on Friday to make sure it's looking ok and then hopefully in 4-5 weeks she'll get it off. I would gladly take a broken leg to spare her!!

Day Number One.

October 9, 2008. It started before now but today will be officially day 1. My goal is to live more simply. Create a budget and stick to it, reduce clutter, eat better foods and help my family be strong and healthy.

In May, we started using cloth diapers. It's been a little bumpy getting to where we are now and since we've outgrown most of them we need to get more, but we are doing the best we can and our goal is to be 100% cloth by May next year. I will also start making clothes for the children in the hopes of saving money and hopefully creating items that look good and are well made.

I hope to have a garden in the spring which we can use for most of our veggies and herbs. I also would love to be able to can food, but that's more long term right now. I will keep making dinners and snacks from scratch and hope to be able to use whole foods with the money we're going be saving.

We will create a budget and stop all unnecessary spending.

If all goes well, we will be able to take a family vacation somewhere fun in 2 years!


***We have WAY too many clothes. Goal #1 will be to reduce the clothing to about half. We have already donated 5-6 big trash bags of clothes and I can see 4-5 more to go. Definitely way too many clothes! (Laundry here is rough!)