French & Latin, math, Strictest School

Super quick, battery dying...

President's Day. Jane still had science, she was happy.
Lemon curd, Blue Moon duet, Flora's Windy Day, Knuffle Bunny.
Garden store w/ Jane & WB while Huck napped & Scott made cookies with the other girls.
Bought lettuces, strawberries, seed potatoes (only 3, for fun), freesia bulbs.
Came home, Scott was listening to music on couch w/ Rilla snuggled up playing DS while Bean and Rose played Wii.
Later: bike riding (B&R), planted the lettuces & strawberries & seeds & bulbs w/ Rilla & WB.
Now some of them are watching MASH.

Girls read & narrated about John Bosco.

Lewis & Clark, Missouri River, California condor.

Poetry memorization: Blake (R) & De la Mare (B)

math all round, spelling for E & B

Wind in the Willows ch 2, first time it's ever worked as a readaloud EVER

E finished Son of Charlemagne

Bean read Farmer Boy, CHOW on monasteries

E wrote 22 pages of awesome Warriors fanfic. B helped plot.

then we mostly worked on LH inventorying, prepping orders for mailing. Life skills! Business 101!

afternoon: Zelda, errands, I know not what else

Feast of St Andrew

learned Our Father in ASL (all)

WInd in the Willows chap 1(E, B, R)

Snoopy songs (WB)

dictation passage (E & B)

King Lear (J)

math (all)

painting (baby)

Science, orthodontist, Latin in the car

math for R & B, some spelling

extra ballet rehearsal for Rilla

they rediscovered Zelda

Beanie rediscovered embroidery (and so I need to dig out all the stuff)

set up the little wooden Advent cabin with animals behind each door, baby played with those all day (to R's distress)

This morning, early, Huck was so funny with the cuisenaire rods Rilla had left out: holding each one up for my inspection. "Bee?" he'd ask, and I'd name the color. Over and over for about ten minutes, and then he started seeking out the tiny cubes, the one-unit rods, which he especially adores, probably because they are of a size to pose some danger to him.

Beanie was playing piano, making up a song based on a Harvest Moon riff, and it was very sweet to hear Huck punctuating the melody with his funny "Bee? Bee?" Of course after a while I looked away and he commenced chucking rods by the handful into the fireplace. I think they're still there.

Rilla wanted to know "what are we painting today?" and remembered a tree painting she'd seen on a website yesterday, three or four tall triangle pines in different shades of green. On and off all day she's been playing with color mixing. The tree painting, and then right on the dry erase board which makes quite a nice surface for mixing. A little while ago she wanted to do another "magic" painting where I draw things on the paper with a white crayon and she paints over to watch them appear.

Read-alouds to Rilla:
MIRROR MIRROR (wow!! what a book!)
WOODY, HAZEL, & LITTLE PIP
THE TIGER WHO CAME TO TEA (such a hit)

Rilla pictures painted:
• an autumn tree (had to be repainted after Huck spilled water all over it. we dabbed it dry and touched up faded areas.)
• Cowles Mountain with green snow on top

Rose and Bean also painted fall trees
WB painted another scarecrow

more math, more harvest moon

Rose is reading Betsy & the Great World,
also a good deal of What Your 6th Grader Needs to Know (LOL)
had many questions today about the Vietnam War, the current war in Iraq)

Soccer practice as the sun went down. Played games in the corner of the field with my three littles and a six-year-old friend.

sandwiches for dinner

At WB's request, listened to Hey There Delilah about 15 times in a row, in the minivan

And now I can't stop singing it.

One more note about the eye doctor, a small thing I want to remember: how much Stevie enjoyed reading the letter charts. His nose is still stuffy from last week's cold so it was hard to distinguish between some of his answers (C, B, D, G all sound pretty much the same). So I had him sign the letters too and that worked great. He thought it was a splendid game.

He couldn't see the 3-D shapes or letters at all in that part of the best. Not at all!

Science dropoff, Target run. To buy new paints (plus fifty other things that leapt into the cart).

Scarecrow paintings all morning. Huge success. Hoorah for Margaret, our inspiration!

Rilla wanted to keep going, so she did a snowman one after lunch. I drew snowflakes in white crayon before she painted the blue background (not my idea, that art projects for kids site). Her gasp when she painted a stroke of blue and saw the snowflake appear—magical.

Lots of harvest moon

Eye dr appts for WB & rilla—rose came along to help. they were all so good. mild scrip change for WB, nothing needed for rilla.

The kids hadn't seen that Krissy sent presents for them from Japan (mailman caught me in the driveway as I was heading out for Pasadena last week), so those were discovered and opened. Beanie got a little sun-chick she adores. Came in a little pink egg.

Coming home the sky was gorgeous pink & gold, so I had Rose call ahead to tell Jane to have Bean & Huck put on their shoes & we'd go for a walk first thing. (Also to start the oven for the meatloaf which for once I had made ahead of time.) We jumped out of the van, grabbed the other two, walked to the top of the street. The pink was gone by then, just slate blue clouds and a few rose-colored wisps, but it was lovely (and cold) and they had a very good time. Mostly laughing at Huck's antics. Gathering fallen magnolia leaves. Chatting with a neighbor who was raking said magnolia leaves. Running.

A funny moment: on the way home from the eye dr, before Rose called Jane, I asked her to "call Dad" (because Scott had called just as I was paying the bill & I'd said I'd call right back). Rose put the call on speakerphone and dialed. My father answered! Grandpa! "Well, hello!" After some giggling and confusion we realized what had happened—she'd dialed the "Dad" entry in my phone contacts. Of course that was MY dad!

Rose made two kinds of cobbler to go with our meatloaf: cherry and apple. They were so delicious we forgot to eat the salad!

Wednesday: no piano, as the colds were still raging. I think we played harvest moon all day?

Rose did about 3 fractions lessons during the course of the week. Beanie is working on x12s, about has them down.

I can't begin to keep up with Jane's reading list anymore! She is doing that herself.

Thursday: another sick day, except Beanie was better. Again a Harvest Moon extravaganza.

Friday: I drove to Pasadena to speak with that children's lit class at Providence College. Super-fun. Long drive. Much traffic.

Rose is suddenly into the B-T high school books. Until now she'd only loved (but LOVED) the younger 4 books. Sweet to see her suddenly leap and embrace the older ones.

Six sick kids.

Blue skies! Here in the middle of the day, it's feeling downright warm. Had to crank the ceiling fan.

We're having nice mornings this week. Yesterday afternoon went hairy because of my dentist appt. I was not feeling chipper afterward, to put it mildly. Two very old fillings needed replacing. Ugh. BRUSH, children.

Anyhoo...Scott & I went out early to vote. Check.

Home, much couch-lolling. Today Beanie's reading Ella Enchanted—Rose finished it yesterday. Not the first read for both of them. Dozenth, possibly.

I sent Jane off to get comfy, read, doze. She sounds dreadful. Coughing, hoarse, poor thing. It's lunchtime now and she's chicken-souping.

Fractions lesson with Rose (while Bean read, littles mischiefed.)

Read to Bean & Rose: The Cremation of Sam McGee. Discussed 1st/2nd/3rd person. Great input from Rose re her preferences (first) and Shannon Hale's (3rd). Should post some of this to BG. Very good stuff.

Read, as a trial really (as in, do we want to save this for a read-aloud? or kids go ahead and read-alone?) Preface of The Strictest School in the World. LOVE the voice. Many giggles. So steeped in Victorianism we decided to save it. Still doing a lot of middle ages reading here. But a Victorian tide would be fun, no? I'm thinking kind of an Advent thing, for a change of pace? A Victorian Christmas? Dickens and a bunch of other books I thought of two hours ago but have mentally mislaid now. They'll come back to me.

Anyway, this reminded us of our middle ages trail so we collected all those books that had been scattered by the whirl of October. Bean and Rose both recently read A Door in the Wall, they told me. Rose is finishing Son of Charlemagne. Beanie's reading A Proud Taste of Scarlet and Miniver.

Tic tac toe with Rilla. :) She also had more piano time with Rose.

I want to read her Heckedy Peg today.

The mail came, which means WB had to bring it in, which means Huck had to make a break for it. Clockwork. We wound up going for a sudden barefoot walk, the bunch of us except poor Jane (who was happy, I'm sure, to have the quiet house). Saw many roses: pink, white, orange-tinged. Many yellow daisy-things, not daisies. Somethingosperm, I always forget the name. And a tree loaded with tiny green lime-balls that are actually oranges in progress. One or two big ones just starting to chameleon. We'll go back to note the changes soon.

Home, lunch, and baby fell asleep in about ten seconds flat. Now it's quiet time, Blue's Clues, and I'm doing this.

Ooh, such a fun half-hour reading poems from The Poem Farm!

Then lunch and quiet time (which wasn't very quiet). Now some girls are computing, two are back at the piano, and the boys are getting up to mischief. Business as usual.

Rose gave Rilla a long piano lesson. Very sweet. Now they're having a jumping-off-the-couch lesson. Slightly less sweet.

Now Rilla's doing tricks with the shopping cart and Rose is practicing piano. Loudly, with verve.

Around the house: much candysnarfing, Rose reading Ella Enchanted, Beanie reading Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Jane reading User's Guide to the Universe; WB painting; Rilla & Sean playing Dr Seuss ABC on computer

Baby dismantled Beanie's wizard's staff (fixable, fortunately). Resulted in a cool impromptu lesson on light—we could see the three light bulbs alternating their glows, changing from blue to purple to red to gold to green....

Jane told me the red, blue, green bulbs are the three primary colors of light. She read about it in Macauley's THE WAY THINGS WORK.

I love being homeschooled.

Beanie: reading D'Aulaire's Columbus

Rose: printing out coloring pages for littles, made smoothie

Jane: reading DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY

All kids sick with colds. Jane skipped science today (to her regret). Missing an All Saints party too.

OK, trying this new tack. Typepad now has a quick compose feature which has an interface a lot like Twitter and therefore may be exactly what I've been wanting (as in, for like years) to speedily log what the kids are reading & playing, etc. Consider this a test post!

Sorry about that—accidentally posted Journey North stuff to the wrong blog.

These are my contributions to our online quilting bee, which has to be one of the most enjoyable groups I've ever been a part of.

My block for Theresa. She sent the batik fabric and asked for a "things you'd see on a nature hike" design.

This was my first real attempt with freezer paper foundation piecing. I loved the process. Super fun.

***

My block for Margaret. She sent the Dick-and-Jane words print and asked for squares for a baby quilt. I had great fun cutting-and-pasting (stitching) the words into a little poem for baby. The reds and oranges look a little garish here—in real life they just look pleasantly bright.

***

My block for Meredith. She sent the brown floral and the blue-with-brown-flowers and asked for log cabin for the design. I discovered I love, love, love log cabin. I could seriously make log cabin squares all day long.

I got to use some of my own favorite fabrics in this one—the blue checks, the two pink florals, and of course those sweet little teacups.

***

My block for Amy. She, too, asked for wonky log cabin. Yay! She sent three fabrics: the purple lattice print, the red floral, and the one with the plaza scene. I added the other purples and greens. It's been fun to see what colors everyone picked up in Amy's fabrics. I can't wait to see her whole quilt when it's assembled. (That goes for all these quilts.)

***

My block for Christine. She sent the lovely soft gray fabric and asked for a simple nine-patch for a limoncello quilt she is making for her daughter. Swoon. I was really happy with the combination of fabrics I found, but I have to admit that one off corner is tormenting me! 

This photo is very dark; the pinks and peaches look much prettier in real life.

And Melanie's block is below. I've made one more for the bee, Michele's block, but I have a question about it before I post a picture here.

I'm feeling too rookieish and shy to post these to the main blog right now, but if I ever feel brave enough for that, you faithful BGUP readers might see this post twice. :)

Our group photo pool is here.

I know, I know, I know. Great huge gaps in the record again. My notes for November and December are in the paper notebook.

Highlights, though, for the blog, since I so much prefer paging through old posts than my notebook scrawl.

November was eaten up by doctor appointments. Bleh. But also: good things: a visit from my parents (hooray); a week of deeply satisfying decluttering; the children's singing group; Shakespeare Club; a very happy Thanksgiving weekend.

December has been lovely. Our morning rhythm is working pretty steadily this year. Lauds, talks, math, Latin, The 24 Days Before Christmas, a smattering of other things. Flylady. Macbeth. Lots of Christmas carols on the piano in preparation for next week's recital.

My sewing machine came back from the shop at last, and I got a couple of VQB quilt squares done. Here's the cross block I made for Melanie: I was going for a sort of stained glass effect and was pretty happy with how it turned out. 

Last post was November 5th. Today is the 21st. But I think I can remember the past two weeks well enough to make notes...boring notes for the rest of you, but useful for me. :)

Week of 11/8-14

HOUSECLEANING EXTRAVAGANZA. No lessons. Worked through whole house closet by closet. Started on Sunday when Scott & I tackled the garage. Rearranged (and trashed a good bit) enough so I could access it from the inside door, which had been completely blocked. The outside door is too heavy for me to open.

Monday (science, errands, park), hall closet, my bedroom (gym)

Tuesday craft room, kitchen, living room

Wednesday (piano, Costco, Shakespeare Club) girls' room

Thursday Steve's room, backyard (kids had colds, missed singing)

Friday patio room, laundry room, mowed lawn, did overall odds & ends through house

All that week I was getting our Flylady schedules going. Have worked out a very good weekly schedule  now.

Saturday the 14th, we opened the garage again & I did more rearranging, now that I had inside-the-house stuff to move out. Left the Advent & Christmas stuff accessible.

By this point the four youngest kids had come down with the virus. Stayed home, let them have lots of movie time, kept plugging away at house.

WEEK OF 11/15-21 (today)

Sunday

early Mass with two oldest girls

Mom & Dad arrived, yay!

Old family friends came to visit. Fun afternoon with pizza and stories. 

In the evening, Scott & I went out to a dessert place—YUM. He had an Irish Cream mousse/cake thing, mmmm (yes I ate my share of it), and I had a black forest mousse cake thing. Oh. So. Good.

Monday

I took Jane to science; mom & dad kept everyone else. WHOA. This meant I had an hour and a half ALL ALONE during Jane's class. Went to Sephora for sample-testing fun, then to Ikea (where I only spent $8, for which I deserve a medal). Delightful.

Nice afternoon hanging with my parents & kids, despite kiddo sickness.

Dad took Rose to gym; Mom made hamsteak dinner. ::::contented sigh:::: Could they please live next door?

Tuesday

Baby was really sick by this point, not himself at all. My mom held him almost the whole day. We all bid the grandparents a sad farewell around dinnertime.

Wednesday (piano, Jane had girls' club)

I held the baby all day & missed my parents a lot.

Thursday

Baby was up all night crying & feverish. Clearly something more than just the cold, so I called the dr first thing in the morning. They gave us a 3:15 appt. Looonnnngggg day. Don't even remember what the girls & I did. Not much of anything, I'm thinking. Maybe some math? And Beanie did Latin, I remember that.

Dr appt (was 4pm before we actually saw the dr) showed: ear infection. Stopped by pharmacy on the way home. Bought rotisserie chicken. Fell asleep on couch before 10pm.

Friday

Scott took a vacation day b/c I had to take Stevie to the big G/I appt. Kids spent fun morning playing Wii. I had minor meltdown at midday over the rapid unraveling of all the hard work we'd done on housecleaning week. Whoops.

Dropped girls at singing & headed to Children's for appt. Long afternoon. Baby was much better but still fussy.

This is a boring post with no photos.

Lauds

Yeats poems (Second Coming, To a Squirrel)

Rescuers chap 1 & 2

K: read Landmark History, Instant Cities/newspapers

Rilla painting

Bean read Jean Fritz Pilgrims book

Rose working on story

Bean read Round Buildings, chap about rooves. "They make you feel a bit more connected to the building because you can see the rooves no matter what. You might not be able to see the actual building. There was this church, and it had you looking down from the Tower of Pisa, and I got to look at how it would actually look if you were on the Tower. "

Bean did typing lesson

K painted with Rilla

Bean: cursive

snacks & stuff

choir