I can do this....maybe, possibly, probably....

Yes...I'm starting to believe in myself a bit more and feel like yeah...i can do this...I can educate my kids.
We went with the flow today - total change to schedule.  Hubs was home for about 12 hours...came home while we were all sleeping and had to leave again at 11:30am.  The girls were so excited to see him - my heart told me to let school go for the morning...my mind was saying "NOOOO...it's only the second week...you can't veer off the schedule yet...it's too soon!!!  But...I went with my heart and I decided to push it off till the afternoon.  And I'm soooo glad I did!
Today was an absolutely killer beautiful day - sunshine and no humidity...our kind of weather.  Wish it could be like that all summer.  We were outside all day...

picnic lunch....

fairy house...

Foo Young...right before she went in for nap time...

Whippersnapper negotiated with me and I let her skip "rest time" and do school with Maguillacutty.  I brought everything outside, with the exception of Math & Handwriting, because you really need a table for that stuff.  It was fantastic...we had no interruptions, no screaming, no fighting, I was so calm and patient and just loving the breeze and the beautiful clouds. We continued our Egypt study and I found an Egyptian headpiece online and had the girls color it while I read our lesson - we then cut them out and put them together.  They loved it...

Had a great science lesson on the weather - including the clouds...it was awesome to be able to look at the pictures in our book and then find which type of clouds we had today.  Girls did great in Language Arts - I read 5 different lines from Goldilocks, which were out of order...girls had to put them in the right order.  It took them some time...but they got it...all while they built up their fairy house some more. Funny thing for the day - overheard Whippersnapper say "Oh, cute little bugga bugga" and then pick up something off the blanket - I glanced over only to see her holding a TICK! So, then we had a lesson in burning ticks...that was cool.  And then after a quick shower for myself - we were off again...dinner outside with friends and then some VBS action...as I was headed home with Foo, wanted to do some house cleaning before we had to pick the other two up...I got a text from my pal to come over for some sangria...hmmm...let me think about that - sure, OK! Foo had a blast on the trampoline while I got to socialize without the pressure of keeping 2 eyes on 3 kids, for once...1 kid is so easy when you normally have 3!

Don't Cry Over spilled Smoothies and Mac-n-Cheese Powder....

Yes....horrible spills today....Whippersnapper spilled her smoothie before Foo Young was even up. Cleaned up and we moved onto some schooling - I'm finding that it goes better if we do Science, History/Geography and Bible upstairs at the kitchen table before Foo is even awake.  They are the subjects that require me to read more in depth material and have to explain things a little more - much easier to do without Foo running around destructing and then distracting.

We have wheat fields all over our area - they are so beautiful and the girls ask every time we pass one 'Is that wheat?" I've been meaning to pull up a video of some sort on the interwebs showing how wheat is ground into flour.  Today was the perfect opportunity - we opened up our History book to learn that the first farmers grew wheat and ground it into flour!  What a coincidence that we have been talking about wheat into flour and flour into bread, muffins, cakes, etc. for weeks! So, I found a cool 7 min video online that showed the whole process. 

A field near our house - I took one stalk from this field to show the girls up close how the grain has a hull or shell around it - and Maguillicutty said "you better hope the farmer doesn't give you a ticket!"

So, we moved downstairs around 9am....I brought Foo's breakfast down with me - we worked on Math, Handwriting and Language Arts. It was great - I used some supplemental materials I found thru Pinterest...and the two were totally engaged.  Worked on letter B and number 3 and had the girls write number patterns on pretend dominoes for numbers 1-3...and we learned about tallies....I explained if we kept a record for every time Foo Young says "Poopy Pants" - this is how we would do it.  They got a chuckle out of this.

When school was over for the morning - we headed upstairs...Maguillicutty and I were a minute behind the other two because we had to mark our map with where my Dad and sister were (they are currently trekking across country...Asbury Park, NJ to Stockton, CA)...Whippersnapper came back down to tell me that Foo Young spilled Maguillicutty's smoothie...NOOOOOOOOO.....

Got that cleaned up and told everyone to get shoes on and go potty - we were headed to a farm to get some black raspberries....only to get to the farm and find we just missed the season by 2 days!  2 Days!!!!  So, instead we got apricots and 2 ears of corn - Maguillicutty asked why they are called ears and the farmer told us it's because a stalk only grows 2 cobs of corn and they poke out of the sides like 2 big elf ears...but sometimes you will have a stalk with 3 ears and usually when that happens the 3rd ear isn't very good.
Headed back home to make lunch - as I was cutting up apricot and strawberry slices for everyone, Maguillicutty was playing with the package of cheese powder that was going into our Annies Organic noodles - when it came time for me to put the power into the noodles, I shook the packet down like anyone does to get everything down towards the bottom of the packet and the packet just flew across the kitchen - here Maguillicutty had torn open the packet already - cheese powder EVERYWHERE.  I hate meal times....you would think it would quiet time...everyone stuffing their faces...but it's always so loud and annoying and someone is always complaining about what is in front of them.  I need to look up on Pinterest how to improve meal times with little kids.
After "rest time" - we made a little scene to go along with our current read aloud The Boxcar Children....the other two have been playing nicely with this for about an hour...pretty cool!

Now to get these dirty kids bathed and fed and then off to their 2nd night of VBS!

Tough day on the job...

It was a struggle today...I was dealing with 3 extremely tired kids from a long weekend and one very late night. They won't be fully back to "normal" till probably Wed. 

But I could just sense it was going be rough at breakfast...they just couldn't keep their hands to themselves. So I introduced the weeks new bible verse and as I did this...came to find the two older ones had the first verse from last week completely memorized! Yay for all of us! But then I chose to skip our bible story...I find this part doesn't hold their attention very well...so I need to find some hands on activities that tie into the stories...something as simple as coloring pages.

Moved onto history/geography...we did some recapping of last week...the first food, the first clothing, the first houses and then moved into the first means of traveling...we lost Whippersnapper immediately...she was in the reading nook with Foo Young telling me to be quiet!

So, I quickly moved onto handwriting...something they both enjoy...introduced capital B...and then did some math...after 2 lessons in the math workbook, I called it quits. Told everyone to go potty and get shoes on cause we were heading to the rec trail before the rain started. And it was good...we had a great impromtu science lesson on our walk...until the whining started up over the humidity.

Throwing rocks into creek...under bridge that we drive over everyday...

They wanted to know what these beetles were doing....

Maguillacutty asked if the hungry catepillar did this....

These little butterflies or moths were all over the trail...girls enjoyed chasing them...a bicycle ran one over so we got to take it home for our nature box....inside it's wings are a beautiful blue color.

Tough day on some levels...but good overall...tomorrow is another day.