Both of the kids have had birthdays and both of them say they don’t feel older and ask when will they feel their age. Alice is wondering when she will feel six, I told her she’ll wake up one day and just will. I don’t feel 29, what is 29 supposed to feel like? I don’t worry about age though, so maybe that’s it.

Jake had a great day - he’s such a happy, easy going, good natured kid. He and Chris worked out a plan of what we were supposed to do today: watch a movie, play video games, eat at Chick Fil A so he and Alice could play in the play area. Once we got the pictures (JCPenney’s this time and WOW the girl was awesome, the prices were much better then Sears and I walked away very happy) taken, we ate then went to the craft store. Jake picked out a few things and when we checked out he asked to have his things in his own bag and told the checker we were headed to Target where he was going to “buy whatever he wanted” because it was his birthday. haha, love that.

We met Chris at Chick Fil A and the kids played in the play area, walking out completely sweaty and having made five or six new friends. We chatted with the Dad of three of them until they left - Jake asked if the dad knew it was Jake’s birthday and that he is four now. When we left a woman who works for Chick Fil A gave him a balloon and a little cow (you know CFA right? They have cows in their ads talking about how chicken tastes better, etc.) - he was so happy! He smiled at her so big and softly said thank you. When she walked by me I thanked her and she said just to see a smile like that over a balloon made her day. My Mom called this evening and Jake was so busy playing video games, he listened to her sing and talked for just a minute before getting off the phone.

Now we have a birthday party to plan for! Anyone think it is crazy to change from an at home party with a taco bar to a bowling party and ordering pizza? I’m just not in the mood to clean. Hahaha

How about a combo post for the Encyclopedia of Me me started at Bella Dia.

Something I enjoy the most about being able to stay home with my kids is being able to cook whatever food I want, whenever I want. And I am so taking advantage of it!

A couple of days ago I wanted chocolate chip cookies - and waited until last night to whip up a batch. I love bar cookies more then regular cookies and Chris said maybe it’s because I don’t like the edges of cookies. No idea if that is true, but mmm they are so good!

There have been a handful of times over the past few weeks when I’ve had a quick “oh that sounds good!” moment and jumped up to make it. I tried a batch of scones (didn’t come out at all!) and a fruit salad. We have a grocery store five minutes away and have only had to quick run over there once or twice, otherwise I’ve been lucky to have all the ingredients here. Last night I found a box of baking soda that I didn’t even realize I had! Thank goodness because I just wasn’t in the mood to run out.

I’ve tried to be mindful of what I am eating, of course I will gain weight but it doesn’t have to be potato chip weight! Okay, or cookie weight either. I am starting to write our meals out each week in hopes I won’t wake up and wonder what will be for dinner or have to cook half frozen meat. We are still rotating through the same ten or twelve meals, but that’s fine with me.

I did just find a recipe for skillet goulash that took minutes to prepare and then just about twenty minutes to cook. Here is the recipe if you’d like to try it! I did modify quite a bit - I left out onions, celery, a few spices they wanted me to add. I did find the recipe online but when I looked I had ten (or more!) tabs open and didn’t save the page.

Cook one pound of ground beef until it’s brown, drain. Add a can of tomatoes, 1/2 cup of water, 1/4 (or 1/2?) teaspoon of pepper, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, spices (I used italian spices) and 1 1/2 cups uncooked pasta. Once all the ingredients are in, let cook for 20-30 minutes, checking on it so you can add more water if necessary. We added parm cheese on top and oh my gosh, delicious! The kids loved it and I’m making it again this week.

I’m not going to talk about how I didn’t get a chance to post yesterday. I will say that tomorrow is another birthday here! We have pictures, lunch and no idea what else. Jake turns four and as is tradition, he gets to pick where we eat and what we do! He’s excited, it’s as if he doesn’t dictate life as it is.

Today was full of making gift bags for the birthday party (almost done so I’ll get pictures later) and cleaning up the house. It seems whenever we clean downstairs, the upstairs gets messy. At least downstairs still looks decent. We are having dinner guests in a couple of days because they can’t make the party this weekend so I also have to figure what to make for that.

I did get two new paperbacks at the bookstore last week (yay for the clearance section!) and found out that there is a used bookstore not too far away that also does trade-ins! I’m excited about that, I already have two stacks of books that I held of taking to Goodwill in the hopes that I would someday find just such a bookstore. It’s probably a good time to go through my bookcase, just in case there is something I’m willing to part with. There probably isn’t.

School is starting in just over a week! Alice is getting excited because we are going to do a reading group/get together with the neighbors. I was so disappointed when I found out the library reading program stops at five years old - I knew we couldn’t go. Sure Jake would fit right in, but that leaves Alice out. It wouldn’t be a big deal except there isn’t a program for older kids.

I brought up the idea of a reading group with the neighbor not too long ago and she agreed it would be fun. We haven’t figured out a structure yet and I’m thinking getting the kids together a few times a week will be good. My neighbor also mentioned she was going to have her daughter watching PBS for an hour a day (I can’t remember which program) and I’m going to suggest having the daughter come over here to watch and then Alice going over there - have them watch the show then talk about it afterward. That will keep them occupied for an hour giving me time to clean up or just hang out with Jake.

And along with reading - have you seen the list of 100 top Children’s Books posted at the NEA website? The list was compiled in an online survey and looks great. I’m debating how to use it - read it in a year, pick a section to work with for a few months, etc. I’ve read the majority of the books so I’m thinking it would be easy for us to dive right in.

Yesterday was so fun! I mentioned Chris told Alice happy birthday first thing, he said that she said it was too early to be her birthday, turned over and kept sleeping. That so sounds like her. When we got up, Jake said it wasn’t her birthday until we had a cake, but she quickly corrected him.

I decided when they were babies that I wanted to get their pictures taken on the day of their birthday every year, last year we didn’t but every other year we have. So we headed off to the mall to get pictures taken, stayed there to have lunch and shopped a bit. Alice picked out a huge Strawberry Shortcake coloring book, as well as another coloring book and a Strawberry Shortcake book that has lip gloss with it. Jake was happy because he also got a coloring book and for a moment was disappointed that he didn’t get as many books as Alice, but I reminded him it was her birthday. He then declared that he loved Alice’s birthday because he got a coloring book too. We decided to do a couple of small gifts on the actual birthday and the bigger gift at the birthday party.

A note about Sears Portrait Studio - I was so annoyed with them! I said I wanted just head shots or waist up shots, I don’t know why, I just did. Then the woman said they were required to take full body shots. Required? I doubt it, they just want the chance to get me to buy more! They took nine pictures of her, and about half had a very fake smile. I was disappointed in the girl who was trying to get Alice to smile because she would miss the real smile by seconds and then get the fake smile. But the other half were cute. So we go to view the pictures and she starts showing me all the enhanced ones - black and white, sepia, birthday borders, birthday collages, etc. - and I said I’m not interested in any of those can you remove them so I can just look at the regular pictures. She said no she couldn’t remove them. Slightly irritated me, but let’s just move on. The girl gets up to do something, leaving us to look at the pictures, and Jake clicks the button on the mouse - and a menu pops up with the first thing being ‘remove picture’ - *sigh*. I was very irritated at that point but let it all go. I probably shouldn’t have, I should have deleted the enhanced pictures or said something to her.

We are going back next week for Jake’s birthday pictures but I admit I’m not looking forward to it. I may call JCPenney’s instead, but otherwise I just don’t know where to go! We used to go to the Picture People because they had a birthday coupon where you got a free 8X10 and no sitting fee - which is all I would walk out with. I just use the picture to hang on the wall, we don’t send them to anyone because we do holiday cards.

We went to see Underdog at the theater which turned out to be a great movie. I wasn’t looking forward to it at first because it didn’t look that great, but I’m glad we went. Afterward we had dinner at a chinese buffet restaurant where they sang to Alice and gave her a little piece of cake. She is easily embarrassed and hid behind me while they sang, but did blow the candle out when they all walked away.

It was a fun, tiring day. And we are doing it all over again on Wednesday!

Curriculum
What curriculum do you use? Where do you buy it? Have you found a “gem” that you must share with others? Was something in particular a complete failure for you and your kids?

We were out and about all day yesterday but I didn’t want to miss out on the last day of the week of homeschooling!

I love that Randi posted the curriculum list for her daughter’s first grade year. Alice is starting first grade as well…and I have to say we have probably three times as many books as Randi! But that’s the worksheet/’playing school’ person in me that picked those. Sure Alice wanted one here or there, and most are a continuation of the kindergarten version of the book, but I realize we probably won’t get to all of them - and that’s okay.

I think of my neighbors when I think of how long school ’should’ last. I know the oldest daughter follows a curriculum and has work to do for three to four hours a day. Last year I think we only spent about an hour a day really doing stuff - sure we cooked, crafted, did flash cards, played with a Barbie computer (said Christmas gift that still rocks the house) and more - but only about an hour was spent on worksheets and structured sitting down and working together time. I remember trying to stretch that to two hours but Alice just wasn’t having it. I agree with the thinking that kids will get it, work with them, don’t force, and they’ll just catch on. Sure they need to keep learning and moving forward, but it’ll happen. I like to think I don’t stress about stuff, but I’m sure my Mom would remind me of times that I have.

I remember when Alice learned a concept with addition - she was counting on her fingers but say it was 4 + 5, she would count four on one hand, then five on the other, then count them all together. Then one day it hit her - she had five fingers already so bam start counting at five, eliminating a step. Seeing her so excited to realize that was awesome.

And so far I’ve bought the curriculum online or at Barnes & Noble (where I should buy stock, I’m so not kidding!). Every time we are in there I’m looking for a new workbook or a new book for the kids area in the house. I like the Evan Moor workbooks. I did venture into at least looking for a full on curriculum from a publisher but got overwhelmed very fast.

Find the last day of the week of homeschooling posts over at I Have To Say…

I’m headed to bed but doing so great at posting every day!

Today Alice turned 6. She woke up when Chris left for work, he said happy birthday and she said not yet it isn’t! We had a good, fun, long day - which I’ll write about tomorrow!

Cap it off with a movie, Chinese food and hopefully falling asleep fast. I’m finally over my cold and starting a new project tomorrow. Hope your weekend is off to a great start.