New blog....

Ok-  I am deleting this blog at the end of this week.  I have started fresh at www.queenofmycountrycastle.blogspot.com.  Come see me there!  :)

The end and a new beginning!

I am deleting this blog. I have ideas for a blog but I want to start fresh, new. Please follow me over there once I get it done. It will be different from this one...less of a journal and more of a place to write about things I enjoy or am learning along this journey of life. But I lost telling a good story (and I am mom and it is my job to embarrass my kids as often as possible) so there will be lots of those too!

I hope to see you over there. I'll post a link when I have one...probably sometime tonight.

I'm Back!

I've decided to start blogging again. I know I know...I go in spurts and stops and give "followers" whiplash. (by the way I can't get my "followers" to show up on the page-it is really irritating me). I've been inspired and helped by several other bloggers (check my blog list for some of them) and am thinking "well shucks. Maybe I can be inspiring and helpful too." I'm trying not to set the bar too high. ;) At least, I enjoy sharing things; funny stories, experimental recipes, homeschooling successes (and disasters), opinions (I'm really good at those). So the blog world needs me. I am important. And I am inspiring. And helpful. To someone. Somewhere. I hope.
Well, anyway, I have a lot going on. So I'll see how often I can fit in writing about it and how often I can say something worthwhile or useful. Check back often (but not too often-I still have to figure out how to fit this into the day).

PS- If you happen to know about or be one of the 8 people who follow my other blog that never really went anywhere. I am going to try to combine the two. Give up on it already... :)

Term 2 = Complete!

In our homeschool, we have 3 twelve week terms...or that is at least what we did this year. :) And today we finish Term 2. We've learned about the human body, and finished another phonics book (Aiden and Maverick). Aiden started learning subtraction and is doing very well and Maverick just started addition and is also doing well. Let's see, we are currently reading Little House in the Big Woods aloud and they like it. Aiden is reading a Boxcar Children book to himself and Maverick enjoys Frog and Toad and Amelia Bedelia books. Aiden enjoys his Reason for Handwriting and likes choosing who to send his special paper to each week. For Maverick, handwriting of any kind is the "bane of his existence." I am going to start a different program with him in third term to test it before solidifying the plan to use it next year. Got my fingers crossed. We just started a new Bible devotional that I think may actually be usable. So many Bible things are either to "storybook" and redundant and boring or far too "deep" for my boys....we may have finally found a happy medium. :)

Overall, it has been a productive winter...albeit a long one. With severe snow and ice storms and power outages (although we got off easy only losing for 24 hours), we have been cooped up for a large part of the last couple months it seems. We are ready for warmer days where we can go outside and play. I am ready to a garden and have big plans (I wonder how they will turn out). In the next term our science is going to be a study of plants (I planned that!) so I am ready for spring and plants and sunshine and time outside.

So we are taking the next 2 days off and will start the last term of this school year on Monday. Oh how time flies!!!

Diggin in my heels vs. getting creative!

When I am faced with a struggle I am much more inclined to dig in my heels and "win" the fight. This is especially true with the children. But if I must win, then, conversely, they must "lose." Granted, sometimes they need to lose to learn about submission to authority and all that but that really isn't necessary all the time.

Today was one of those days...and although I started by digging in my heels about them doing their school work, I stopped myself. I decided to try another way. Maverick was freaked about writing his phonics and, really, so was Aiden. They each had to write 7 or 8 words and I was seriously thinking, 'Oh for Heaven's sake, just DO it!' I gave them the option of doing the work on a dry erase board...still no dice. So, I pulled into a bag of tricks I don't really use all that often and decided to let things be. But they didn't get to play. I gave each of them (Griffin too) a tray with a layer of rice...and told the big boys to write their phonics words in that. Maverick did one that way. Aiden didn't. But they played. They made hand prints, and face prints, and mountains, and "pictures." While they were drawing in the rice, I read their science to them and we talked about it. Then I read the "Little House" book we are reading for our read aloud. And I read twice as much as I usually do without any complaining. Then, I just left them to play in the rice...it isn't hurting anything, they are doing little "experiments" and it is good for Maverick to "feel" things since he freaks so much about how things feel most of the time.

THEN THE MIRACLE OCCURED!!- Aiden left the rice and did his phonics, math and handwriting WITHOUT any nagging or yelling from me...and just a little help when he needed it. When he left the table, Maverick went ahead and did his phonics as well (he doesn't have handwriting now and had already done his math). So school is nearly done on a day when we ALL could have dug in our heels and fought about it. I HAVE to remember this and use it....I much prefer this to what the day could have been.

Still, I think we are all a little overtired and we are going to try napping this afternoon...no reason to not try to fix the "cause" of the original melt down after we have dealt with it. :)

***Breaking News-This just in***

On this, the 10th day of February, we in the Cessna house experienced a monumental occurrence. This day will be forever be celebrated as the day that Griffin pooped in the potty! It will be soon forgotten that before "finishing up" in the potty, Griffin took off his own pull-up and pooped on his bedroom floor. And only when mommy caught him, did he go on the potty. Once on the potty he cried and despite his wails, he was surprised and happy when he "pooped some out."

Mommy, Aiden and Maverick were equally as happy and did the celebratory dance and looked at it in there. All things that are very important when one has their first poop on the potty. Nanny was called to share the good news and Daddy has been told via instant messenger. Needless to say, all are happy and proud. Griffin declared "Pooping on the potty isn't hard at all."

PS- Chances are we will not forget that he pooped on the floor before he went to the potty...especially since I just posted it to cyberspace and fully intend to write it in my journal later today.

PPS- We are equally grateful that Maverick did not step in it when he went in the bedroom to lay down for rest time...by my estimations he was within inches of hitting a very unpleasant land mine.

School Today!

This could also be title "I love bookadventure.org"

My boys are all boy and are not avid readers. They are good readers but they would just rather be running around, or playing legos or cars, or anything that involves a possible trip to the ER and is loud enough to give me a serious headache.

Enter www.bookadventure.org

It is a lot like I imagine AR at public school is (but I don't know this since my kids have never done it and I am too old to have used it myself). They read a book and then take a quiz. Since they have never really taken any tests, they think the quizzes are great! AND THEY ARE ASKING TO READ!! I don't pretend that it will make this easy forever...but it is a way to encourage them without me nagging. It will also give them some direction when picking out books at the library instead of yanking books off of shelves willy nilly. Plus they can win prizes!

This is them reading, voluntarily, today. It makes me so happy!

Aiden curls up like his mama to read! This is actually one of my favorite winter reading spots...right next to the wood stove.

"Play ball, Amelia Bedelia" is a great book. Gonna find some more Amelia Bedelia at the library!

Maverick likes to sit on the floor. I think it is easier for him to point and keep track of where he is. It makes my back hurt to look at this picture too long. :)

Griffin is drawing a monster on the dry erase board. I read aloud to him later....it distracts the big boys when I read to him and then I am more easily available if they need help on a word.

Of course, now that school is finished for the day and they are crashing cars and yelling...that is more like what I am accustomed to! :) But I'm hoping Aiden and Maverick will take to reading another book in the afternoons when Griffin is napping...they need to find something quiet to do during that time.