1/4-5/08

Friday

Breakfast: granola and yogurt
Lunch: hot dog and soda from Costco
Dinner: squash soup and wheat rolls

• I told Corey it was "Free Friday" for school and he could choose what he wanted to do. I laid out tons of stuff - flash cards, workboooks, regular books, magazines, projects, etc. He did a couple of games in his superhero activity book, a couple of math pages in his superhero math book. We completed his model of Saturn. I still need to get a picture of it. He chose to practice cursive by transcribing the 7th Article of Faith, but he never got around to that. He also chose to read another chapter from our new history book. Both he and I are enjoying it! It has a coloring/map page for each chapter and then you can choose from several project ideas. What I like about the projects is that they are simple, done with stuff around the house. For example, the project he chose yesterday was to make the White Crown of Upper Egypt out of wax paper and tape. (Another missed picture opportunity - by now the wax paper crown has been pretty well mushed out of shape.)
• It was Jenna's short day at school, so after we picked her up at 1:30 we went to PetCo and looked at the animals (ferrets, chincillas, rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, parakeets, lizards, fish, etc.). We also got a new "toy" for our fish. We've had this amazing gold fish for 4 years! His name is Superman. (I notice a superhero theme here.) We've never gotten him anything new, not even for Christmas. So, we bought a small castle to put in his tank next time I get around to cleaning it.
• I helped with Jenna's homework. With Randy I read a little paper book Jenna made at school about "The Mitten." (We have the actual book by Jan Brett, but I used Jenna's instead.) Jenna had also colored and cut out a big mitten and each of the animals that fits in the mitten, so as I read I helped Randy put the animals in the mitten. I try to do at least one tiny thing with Randy each day. I feel like he doesn't get a lot of attention during the day when I'm helping Corey and doing stuff around the house. Somehow Randy managed to get poop on the carpet - nice.
• Dion and I watched more of The Office. It's one of his brother's favorite shows. It's kind of odd because it's just about people in an office. But, it's funny! (Well, my Dad didn't think so. He could hardly stand to watch it.) There is just so much awkwardness and the characters are like people you know in real life.

Saturday

Breakfast: Grape Nuts for me, scrambled eggs and bacon for the kids
Lunch: left over rolls with lunchmeat and cheese
Dinner: TBA

• I have Dion's cold now.
• It snowed again.
• Dion got a new fancy cell phone called a Blackjack 2. He gave me his old phone. His old one is fancy enough itself! I don't know how to use all the features yet.
• We have early church this year. 9 am. That'll be nice, but I'll have to do prep work tonight (Saturday) to make sure we're on time.
• We'll pick up our nephew (Dion's 2nd oldest sister's oldest boy) from the airport this afternoon. He's going to BYU.
• A lady in the Sandy Yahoo! homeschool email group sent out a message saying she raises chickens and sells the eggs and that she currently has an overstock. Her little farm is quite nearby - 106th S. and 12th E. I think it would be fun to go check that out someday soon - like a fieldtrip. She says the eggs come in all different colors. Plus, the chickens aren't raised in cages and they're well fed, and all that good stuff.
• Here is a list of stuff that I get done pretty consistently, every day. Read scriptures, exercise when my back doesn't hurt, make beds (or have the kids make theirs), wash, dry, fold, and put away one load of laundry, make meals, do homework with Jenna and school with Corey, do dishes, tidy and sweep the kitchen, read scriptures as a family and read books to the kids before bed. So, I think I'll leave that stuff off of my daily log, unless there's something outstanding about one of those activities. (Although, that might leave me with nothing to write about!) I'm afraid that leaving out the dull parts of the day will make my blog more like some other people's who just talk about all the cutsie, wonderful things they do - which often gets me feeling like a lousy mom. I started this blog to go AGAINST that "look-at-all-the-amazing-things-we-do" grain. Being a mom can be a crazy, frustrating, run-of-the mill job. I want to try to keep things realistic here. Like my favorite children's author/illustrator, Shirley Hughes, said, "Family life is a high drama, not a sweet idyll." (I put one of her pictures below.) As I write about each day though, I notice that more good than bad stands out, which helps me see that life isn't as annoying as I sometimes think it is. And, that's a good thing. But I don't want to give a false picture. We have fighting and messes and laziness and disobedience sometimes, too.

I guess I'll go for now. I'm starting to ramble. I notice I included lots of links in this blog. It's one of the few things I know how to do.