Year 4, August 9th-11th, 2019: Back to School?!

Are we ready?! Not quite, but we are getting there.  I tidied up the extra supplies shelf, which wasn't too bad, and made sure there were enough supplies in the kiddos pencil boxes to start the year off right.  Keturah chews or picks off the erasers of her mechanical pencils, so I had to find a new pink eraser block for her, but she also tends to lose those, too.  Sigh.  Justin has plenty of mechnical pencils with erasers still intact but no lead, so I didn't refill the pencils (I probably should have), but made sure there was some lead refills in his box.  I couldn't put any plans down on paper because  I don't have assignment books yet.  I know Aldi's has a pretty day planner that Keturah might want, so I check there first and then go to Meijer or Staples. Otherwise, besides maybe some glue sticks, we don't need anything.  That's the advantage of homeschooling is that we can keep track of all those supplies, keep our colored pencils in their original boxes, make sure caps stay on markers, and the scissors get put up away from Abishai, lol.  And, I just don't do alot of art projects so they don't use many of the supplies up.  Except red colored pencils, those seem to go missing.  Even Benaiah found enough from last year, including paper and binders, that we didn't need to go shopping for much.  Just a $130 calculator and a mini usb thumb drive. I found the calculator on eBay for $90 total, so I'm running with that for now.  Sigh.

But, as soon as I sit down with Keturah about math, we can get started on math, and perhaps reading next week.  I'm not ready for history yet because I'm busy with appointments this month. Science is iffy, too.  And language arts, not so sure either.  But math is easy, and reading they can do. I also need to sit down and declutter the preschool stuff and maybe even ask Abishai what he wants to work on.  I want to use all the fun preschool stuff I do have but he hasn't been interested, just like the other kids, in a lot of coloring, cutting, and pasting. I don't have oodles of preschool stuff and I don't play a lot of games, but we'll see what we can do.  Oh, I just though of something for the alphabet that has to do with toy cars!  Bingo! I'm not pushing anything formal with him, but I want to start the habit of sitting down together.  So, maybe start with a game or playing at a certain time each day.  Laying down the rails, as Charlotte Mason insiders say.

It was a pretty laid back Friday with a 2 1/2 hr playdate with our homeschool friends at one of the parks closer to us, Southeastway.  We took Nora and Everly with us since it was our last full day with them, and it would help Keturah not be bored, and I'd have two other pairs of eyes on Abishai. I actually got to sit down and talk to some moms today!  Yeah! Then the girls went to Grandma's house and I brought the boys home for lunch.  I took a nap for a bit and the boys had electronic time.  After I fed them again, they went to Grandma's house to watch Detective Pikachu with the girls.  Grandma brought Abishai came home earlier than Justin because he was bored.  Ava was over, so Abishai played with her and Benaiah.  And fun little update, Ava was being annoying to her mom (teasingly), so Ava's mom said, "Why don't you just go to Benaiah's house?"  Sweet! Amy's mom trusts us to keep those two under control.  Lol. And that's it.  Pretty boring day.  Oh, Benaiah had to throw out a whole catering order of 175 sandwhiches because they were made too early.  Then 30 minutes later, they had to start making a new batch.  All due to health regulations.  The cost! The food that could have fed the homeless! Ah! But yes, health code, I get it.

Oh no! They are closing one side of the highway completely or repaving for two weeks right in our 1/4 of the circle!  It's going to make the side streets even MORE of a nightmare!  And then they'll do the other side of the highway for two weeks! Good grief!

When I told him we were going to the park with the fireman pole, he wanted to bring his fireman hat along.  Well, he chickened out about the pole, so he didn't go down, but I'm glad he made the connection!

I love having bigger kids around that can lift the little guy up to do big stuff.

To fly on the missile, you have run, jump and grab the handles.  Even big kids like it!

Mad skillz!

Abishai, the big guy, can put one hand on the first ring and then swing to grab the second one! Amazing!  Check out the footage below!

Swinging with Nora.

Keturah and Everly happened to be wearing the same shirts today! And all the older kids can do flips on the bars. Sweet!

A friend brought a new board game he got a garage sale.  It's called Sorry Slide or something like that.  You have to slide your Sorry pieces into the middle knocking the other opponents off the board.  Reminds me of a shuffleboard or curling.

I love this big pyramid being connected with the other elements.  It's perfect for the older kids.  Older kids need to climb, too!

Climbing trees.

Chilling in the treehouse.  Then they went for a walk in the creek.

Abishai bossed everyone around during a game of tag of course.

Saturday ended up kind of full and busy.  I got an early morning text from Leah that Gary planned to take the kids out to find books for Bible class and she was going to take Abishai with her for errands.  Then they would meet up and eat lunch together and take them back to their house.  That way Jared and I could have alone time and the cousins could have just a bit more time together.  At first Abishai didn't want to go because he's been looking forward to having a day with both Mommy and Daddy at home.  But once he saw everyone, he was out the door.  So we puttered around until it was time for me to leave to meet up with a friend to talk about homeschooling.  We talked about homeschooling but so much more for over 3 hrs!  It was awesome to connect with someone that shares a lot of the same views on lots of different topics.  But it was also great to encourage her in her homeschool journey with her little ones.  We met through the co op we were part of 3 years ago, but have kept in touch ever since.  Anyway, we lost track of time and barely made it back to our homes before we had to get read for our evening activities.

Jared had to go to Southside Christian School for the mandatory Back to School/Orientation night since he's on staff. I was going to go because Benaiah is working and can't go but when I made the connection that Jared had to be there, I decided to stay home.  Actually, the other three kids and I stayed home the rest of the evening.  We are so ready to be at home more after all this people time of the last 3 weeks.

My sister is in Coloado with her son and fiance, celebrating with a nice walk to the top of a mouutain.  Happy birthday!

This is hilarious!  Always  an FC singer.  Love it!

Time for Justin's turn with this book.

Lance Bass (boy band 'N Sync) was singing on the secular music night at the Indiana State Fair. We aren't going to the fair this year because of health, heat, and finances.

Sunday was almost back to normal schedule.  The boys had Crave, but Keturah didn't have small groups yet, so she had to tag along with our grocery shopping.  The day started off well, the sermon was good, lunch was fine, etc. But I developed a tension headache that I can't shake, back pain, and stomach issues, so I didn't plan or work on anything else today for school.  I still need to get Justin a planner.  I don't know if the one we just picked up for Keturah at Aldi's will work or not, so we'll look for her as well.  I have several items to buy at Meijer, but I've been avoiding it because I always overspend when I go.  Benaiah's school needs paper and cleaning supplies, and the high school youth group wants school supplies.  Plus technology fees for school.  Plus a $90 calendar.  Plus doctor copays and the van really needs to be thoroughly looked at (we aren't fixing the a/c though unless the IRS money comes in).  So, we are broke.  So I avoid the store.  And I'm not ready to start school.  I could put assignments down on lined paper, but then I'd have to transfer them.  And it's not a good week for me to restart anything anyway because of appointments.  Sigh.  But I'm starting to feel guilty, which isn't good.

Ok, my head hurts.  I was in bed by 12:30pm last night, so let's try that again tonight, shall we?  I just can't function well right now.  I have some other things on the brain as well.  The kids were fine today.  The weather was nice, but a tad too warm.  I'm glad I hadn't planned on going to the state fair tonight to see the Christian artists like Matthew West, although I've been wanting to see him for awhile. I just can't deal with the heat and my health and energy levels. I'll have to find another time to go see him.  There's a lot of concerts I could go to right now, but everything is up in the air schedule wise, too.  So, we'll see.  I might take a couple of friends to see Mandisa because it's being touted as a girls' night out.  It sounds like a lot of fun!  Tomorrow is another day!

Yeah, Crave is back! The boys will get to see their friends again!

We had a little helper setting the table for lunch today at Grandma's house.  He loves to set the table!  And he also wanted to rearrange who sat where, too! He does that our house as well.

Shiny wrapper and iPhones don't mesh, but, these "paper" plates are made from sugarcane husks, are kosher for Jews I guess, vegan, cruelty free, etc.....quite interesting!

The End