Hello Katerina!!!

Holy Rain this morning! The poor dog was drenched after only being out for a minute. But, it looks as though it's passing without too much whoop-la. So, quiet day inside, and I was even so organized as to have had the kids pick out a movie and books at the library yesterday. Perhaps there's hope for me yet.

Kori had a great time at the McComb's last week. She was pretty ticked to be leaving....aparently someone had to fish her out of the pool and put her in the car, where she didn't say a word for 130kms. Stubborn, eh?

Raiden enjoyed a quiet week as an only child...fishing, sleepover with Grandpa, visit with Abigayle, bought his first set of hockey equipment.

So we begin our end of Summer wind-down. We'll add in our read alouds this week...one 'interesting' and one for enjoyment. That's the goal anyway...I'm hoping 'Interesting' will fall into someone's definition of 'educational'...Oi! Wish me luck!

I have discovered a technical marvel called 'the Scanner' and have managed to put a few pics up without messing up our technically advanced network arrangement. I hope. We'll see when Bri gets home, won't we??!

Otherwise, I am enjoying some knitting/crochet...a few babies have popped up on the radar..or will be popping sometime in the near future...They will need cute knitted things!! And Janie popped by yesterday to tell me about her dream of my new baby (!!). Let's hope it was just a lingering psychological kink from being in the the delivery room when Kori was born....Thank's so much Jane. Payback is a bitch tho...Jane is moving out of her apartment today...in the biggest rainstorm we've seen in years.

Cheers!

Today, A Pidgeon Was Squished

Ok, well...just so you know how upset I am about it...it was more 'popped' than 'squished'. And, sue me, all you die hard HSers that would have me turn this into a learning opportunity for the kids. May I say EWWWW!!
I thank my blessings that Kori was not in the car....Not only would she have identified the correct name of the bird - it escapes me right now, but she told me in the Spring when she was studying Birds of Ontario for a Brownie badge she was working on - but she would have insisted that I DO something about the poor, dead (squished!) bird.

My loving husband prudently pointed out to me that pigeon parts stuck in tire tread will smell. Thank you Brian for being an ever-practical presense in my chaotic exsistense.

Less stressful things happened today too....Kori has called home only 3 times in 24 hours. She's fine, having a great time and was careful to inform me that she tricked Grandma into buying her a whole case of Frutopia at the grocery store. And that dinner was chicken nuggets and french-fries with carrot cake muffins avec cream cheese icing for dessert. Aannnnddd...that she's only had 4 mini-Mars bars...they're really Uncle Gary's treat, but he shares...so she let him blow bubbles with her. ...to be 7 again...

Raiden purchased a new car at the WalMart with his allowance today. He choose to self-check-out and did the whole transaction by himself.

We met Michelle today..Matt came over for a nice visit. It was great to see him and Raiden was particularly pleased. He's been keeping tabs on Matt the whole summer and was a bit put out that Matt wasn't able to visit right away after he came home from Camp Pontiac.

We're off for some large muscle activity at the farm...I think that would be safer than Rai's present game of "Keep Off The Floor"....

A Day In Our Summer

We had a busy day today...but it was good. Brian would have been so proud of me (really!) as I got everyone up and out and stayed on task without crashing from stress and although running 10 minutes behind all day - we managed to catch up by the day's end.

Kori was dropped off to spend a few days at the farm with the McCombs. It will be her longest time away from home so far (4 nights, 5 days)....a fact I noticed yesterday...so really, I've only lost one night of sleep over it so far. Pretty good, considering.

I'm hoping to accomplish a lot this week as I am feeling the need to organize and gear up for a busy fall. I would like to be somewhat more academic with the kids this school yearas they seem to be asking for it...however I know I need to balance that out with a continuation of our unschooling ways. That will be the hard part for me. We followed a loose schedule for most of last year. I intend to schedule a bit more into our weeks this year. Most things are planned out in my mind. I am trying to include the kids in our planning. We still need to sit down with a calendar and set it in stone, as they say. That will be a gradual process as we figure out activity schedules and such. I am gearing up for an official 'start day' in about two weeks and we will resume our regular read aloud time and Library Days. Perhaps we will be able to start some regular Music time as well. Then as schedules fall into place and we get used to the new pace, we will need to add in Science and Everyday Work. The big deal this year will be to keep some semblance of organization around the house so we can fit everything in. Why is it that everyone seems to think it's the kids that learn a lot in the homeschooling home? The kids are fine; leaps and bounds ahead of me...who is struggling to keep up. Oh well, wish me luck!