February 13, 2007

We've had a lot of excitement recently. All good, of course. Lillian celebrated her 4th birthday on Saturday, Feb. 10th. We decided to have a small party for her at Michaels, the craft store. Miss Mindy organized it, and all I had to do was bake a cake, provide drinks, and paper plates, napkins, and that kind of stuff. We had 10 children there, including my own 3. Darshani's daughters came, Rebeckah's sons were there, and Tiffany's 3 older sons were also there. The kids made their own mosaic frames. Unfortunately, we had some digital camera issues, and I had to send Mike out for a disposable camera in the middle of the party. He missed the actual crafting time, and the cake-eating time. He came back when Lily opened her first present, and took some pictures then.
After Michaels, we met my in-laws at home and drove to Chuparosa Park for a birthday picnic. The kids had a really good time. :-)
Yesterday was hs park day. We again went to Chuparosa Park, and met with some other homeschooling families. Jeannine Markandeya was there with her two boys, Malhar and Tejas. I really enjoy talking to Jeannine, she's a fun woman.
Darshani also came, and we had a pretty good time.
I should work on making a sign for our hs group, though, to make it easy for us to be recognized. There are always some new faces in Summit View.
I didn't feel very good this morning when I woke up. It really put a damper on my day, and I let the kids watch too much TV while I was trying to get myself feeling better again. I did, however, manage to drive to the allergy clinic for some shots. I want to get them twice weekly, in order to speed things up a bit. The last time I had a terrible reaction that kept my injection sites swollen and itchy for days. But today was no big deal. I'm not sure why, but I'll let the "allergy people" know, lol.
We didn't start homeschooling until later this afternoon, and obviously didn't get very much done. C and A both were able to finish their math work, though. I am mostly pleased with their work, and their progress. They've made A LOT of progress. Annika often confuses plus and minus, so she needs to work on that some more. I'm not too worried about that, because it's more of a "technicality". I keep reminding her what plus means versus minus. She will understand it in time. Oh, and she is also struggling a bit with problems like 50-10. She just routinely adds when there are tens involved. I make her "build" the number 50 with her manipulatives, and then take one ten-bar away and tell me what she has left. She also confuses 50 with 15, 20 with 12, and so on. Again, I'm not too worried. She's ahead in math anyway, according to her Oak Meadow 1st grade curriculum. Both children are working through Math-U-See at the same time, and she is nearing the end of "alpha". Once she starts "beta", I will let her slow her pace. "Beta" is far more difficult, and I don't want her to start disliking her math lessons.
Christopher is doing "gamma", and moving along at a pretty steady pace. However, he still likes to rely on manipulatives quiet a bit. I'm pleased with how well he understands word problems.
He finished reading "Stuart Little" by E. B. White today. So, it was time for him to write his very first book report today. Christopher hates writing. It is his weakest subject. This is his book report (he spent about 2 hours on it today!):
Stuart Little is a mouse that lives in New York and trying to find Margalo and Snowbell is a cat George is a human and he is Stuart's brother Stuart's parents are human to.
Christopher also drew an illustration of Stuart's New York home, and a picture of Margalo carrying Stuart. He did a really nice job with the drawings.
I'm not really sure what else I can do to improve his writing. Christopher is very happy with his report. I may write a simplified version of a book report on Stuart Little and let him read it. It may help him.
Another person suggested buying a book on "book report writing" from Lakeshore Learning where he is given a template and just fills in the blanks. I may do both.
In other news, I took some time today to get caught up on some medical bills. That felt good. We got our tax refund from the state, and have nearly spent the whole thing! Not on things that we want to buy, but on reducing our debt. We don't owe very much, just enough to spend most of our tax refund on bills. How boring! Mike thinks we should replace our windows with any left-over money, and I think he is right. We've had a springtail problem for years, and have finally figured out that those little thingies are walking right into our home through our very old windows. We've spent sooo much money already on exterminators, but none of that has ever done us any good. Then Mike caulked up one of the bathroom windows in an attempt to get a tight seal. He did succeed with that, and I've had no more "springtail sightings" since then. They will still be able to invade our home through other windows until we get them replaced. At least I now know that this situation is not hopeless. I seriously considered selling our home over this.
Tomorrow is Valentine's Day! Mike and I don't have anything grand planned. I want to get the kids each their own frosted heart cookie (you know, the kind that are sold in every coffee shop around this time of year). They will be so thrilled, since they never get these frosted cookies at any other time. Mike wants to pick up a couple of cheesecake slices from The Cheesecake Factory and eat them in front of the TV when the kids are in bed. I'm too tired these days to plan anything more elaborate than that, so that's what we'll do.
Tomorrow will be a busy day, just like any other Wednesday. Christopher will have his chess practise. Wildflower Bread Company is on at 3:30pm with their free craft, free milk, and free cookie per child. I have already decided to treat myself to a house cappuccino and perhaps a chocolate croissant. Annika has her choir practise in the evening. I plan to bring my knitting along again, and look forward to chatting with the other moms in the baby room.
I'm off to bed now.