1st Day of School - We Did It!

First Day of Schoolwork for the year! We started off light, partly because we had a rough day yesterday and partly because my kids are still hip deep in summer mentality. We accomplished journaling, math, english and spelling. I'm pleased for our first day back at it!

And of course I took pictures!
 

 My babies!  

 Claire - 9 years old.
When she grows up she either wants to be an artist or a children's librarian.

Her favorite color is pink!

 

 Chandler - 6 years old
When he grows up he wants to be a Rock Star.

His favorite color is blue!

 

 Fiona - 2 years old
When she grows up she wants to be a .... grown up.

Her favorite color is purple!

 

All working in their journals. Except Declan - he's waiting for breakfast! 

When You Are Tested

It's been a hard day. 

I have been planning on starting school with everyone tomorrow.

So I have a little list of things I need to do to prep and get together.  During the summer everything gets scattered and that's not even counting the disaster the homeschool cabinet has been.  I haven't even had a chance to tackle that.

Daddy has a side job that he is trying to finish so he worked part of the day.

Claire has been very unhelpful.  Any request of her has meant moans and groans. 

Chandler has been whiny, complaining and demanding.

Fiona has been disobedient and defiant.  That two year old independence is working against me.  

Declan has been crying and needy for attention. 

I have a headache and just want to get some stuff done.  It doesn't help that my coping mechanism to stress is disappearing in a book or a TV show.  I am fighting it so hard, especially since it will just make it worse since they won't let me focus on anything and the disruption would not make my mood any better. 

So instead I am going to take a deep breath, eat a piece of dark chocolate and bite my tongue.

I don't like the person I become when I am this stressed.  I especially don't like the parent I become.  I sent Claire and Chandler to their rooms to clean, the few minutes of semi quiet helped.  I worked on some lesson planning and watched an episode of something off Hulu while nursing Declan.  You know what though, I don't HAVE to start school tomorrow.  That's the beauty of homeschooling. 

Our day is what we make it! 

Maybe we won't get all of our work done tomorrow. 

Maybe we'll just go for ice cream instead! 

Maybe we will all wake up refreshed and ready.

Maybe we will declare it a Not-Back-to-School Pajama Day and watch movies all day. 

What I do know is that I need to take a step back and focus on myself and my children and what we all need. 

Family Day

This has been a great family day. We headed down to the Heritage Festival, then stopped by the Airport Open House.   

Beekeeping!

Claire helping carve a wooden spoon.

Airport

Very cool planes to see!

Love these people!

 

Now everybody is spread around the living room eating pizza and watching movie rentals.

Perfect family day!  

Field Trips!

This morning we had our last summer field trip to the local historical museum and the old jail/rock museum. The kids loved it! 

 

Claire and Friend

 The Historical Museum is in the old General Store.  It was really neat.  They had a lot of old Cherokee artifacts, Settler items, old guns, Civil War pieces and lots of interesting information.

Next we headed to the Gem Museum just around the corner in walking distance.  The rocks were amazing.  The had crystals and geodes from all over the world.  One of the kid's favorite rooms was a black light room which showed the colors the crystals and rocks glow when introduced to different lights.  Very cool! 

 ^^ This picture was in the fossil room.  The tour guide is pointing out a fossilized dinosaur egg!  She was awesome with the kids.  She told them to keep an eye on it for her in case it hatched.  They took her seriously.  Haha!

 Then they got to go gem mining in the sand box out front and even got to take some cool rocks home with them!  It really is a great little museum - and did I mention it is donation only?  Loved it!

After we got home I got everyone settled down and I listened to soothing music and sorted books for our homeschool co-op while the kids ran around playing and Declan played/fussed at my feet. But 6 big boxes of books are all ready to hand out at our meeting next week! Now time for dinner and then I am headed to yoga class. It's been a pretty good day.

At the Lake

We headed to the lake today to enjoy the water and play in the sand.

Declan is at the stage where he is too young to play in the sand without eating it, but old enough that he no longer wants to just hang out on the blanket with Mama.  That made it interesting!

 See - there he goes!

Super jealous of his siblings. 

Famiy Pictures 2015

While my sister was visiting from Florida we were able to take a little time and she snapped some pictures of my crazy family.  It's a good thing my sister is patient!

I think they turned out wonderfully!