I'm Stressing.....

Today is the first day back at school for Lena and for me. Lena is starting fifth grade and I am taking two courses, Chemistry and Anatomy and Physiology 2.
I guess because I have been so stressed and nervous about today I woke up at 6 a.m.!!! I laid in bed hoping to fall back asleep but that never happened...instead I made myself some coffee.

Then I went back to bed to do some reading. That always calms my nerves.

By this time the girls had woken up. Lena made herself some coffee and went straight to work. Since this is her last first day as a elementary school student I had to take her picture.

She is so super excited about her German classes. Fifth grade has given her lots of homework already. Saturday night I logged on to her homeschool and printed out all her papers and assignments for today. I seriously think I printed out about 20 pages!!! I had to tell Emil to buy more printer paper!

Lena also got a hair cut Friday...this is hers....the inspiration photo and her style.

It's shorter than we wanted but she is loving it! Especially when we put in some mouse and blow it out!!

My A&P teacher seems like a nightmare. I am so terrified. She has tons of rules!!

Example:

*If you are 15 mins late you are counted absent.

*After 4 tardies, every time you come in late you are counted absent.

*If you are absent it is up to you to find out what your assignment is. There is NO make up days.

*Homework is turned in when you WALK into the room. NOT once you sit at your desk.

*She has the right to take your cells phones if you bring them into class. (I have children and a husband who owns a small business... I NEED my cell phone!)

*All supplies should be brought to class the first day, NO EXCEPTIONS, however, she lovingly didn't tell us what those supplies are other than to say we could bring color pencils if we choose.

*If you miss a test, for any reason, you automatically get a zero. NO EXCEPTIONS!

*There is NO excuse for absences. Period.

I can tell this will be a wonderful semester!

Show Us Your Life - Homeschool

Today at KellysKorner she is featuring Show Us Your Life - Home school Ideas. I really have been looking forward to this week because I am homeschooling a fourth grader and a ninth/tenth grader.
Our decision to home school stemmed from two main factors: Morals at school and the actual education being received.

We live in an area in which families have a nice living. With that it brings drugs to the schools. There are no gangs, or school uniforms or fights but there are drugs because the children here have access to large amounts of money. In my daughter's middle school there were children making out in the hall way's. One girl in particular was kicked out for skipping school in the middle of the day, getting high, having sex and then coming back. They found a powdery white substance in her backpack, which she claims was crushed children's vitamins. Her father is a single parent working hard to keep them in an almost million dollar home and has a parade of young 20-something girlfriends. It was a sad story all around. Anyway, I didn't want my children exposed to this, especially at such a young age!

Our second reason was the quality of the education being received. Things weren't taught to be learned or memorized, such as the multiplication tables. The kids were taught to pass tests and I'm sorry but that is just not good enough for me! You have kids entering High School that can't multiply and that have no idea what a double negative is. Simply not acceptable!

So we decided to homeschool. The basis for a sound individual starts at home, so why shouldn't educating be done at home too?

Most days my table looks like this.

My oldest, CC homeschools through Global Student Network. We pay a low fee for 365 days of schooling. They supply the online curriculum and keep all the school records. I grade the assignments and send them back to her completed and graded or marked as a redo. She is able to see exactly where she is at any moment and there is online help available. They offer AP classes and electives. And a HUGE bonus is that she is able to work ahead. She just finished ninth grade (where she should be) and has now started tenth grade. Her goal is to be completely finished by next year and get a huge head start on Vet school.

Homeschooling offers us so much flexibility. We are able to do so much more together as a family. One of our favorite things to do is have park days. We pack up and the girls study in the fresh air. It doesn't even seem like homework this way! We always leave feeling refreshed!


Lena, my fourth grader, is enrolled in K12. This is a completely free online public school. She is still a Texas public school student, she just does her work at home. We do drive to testing sites for her TAKS tests. K12 provides all the books, all the project materials such as paint, a canvas, rock, etc. You name it! They also provided her with a brand new computer and printer/scanner as well as head phones, a microphone and other items needed for her classes. We have a daily schedule given to us that needs to be completed by the end of the day. There are some things I do have to grade and then verify that she has done her work. She takes benchmark tests on line and does study island as well. We also get progress reports (report cards) every nine weeks. K12 has worked great for us. It gives structure and discipline and what I love more than anything, it will not allow the student to make below an 80 with out it having to be redone.



Homeschooling is not for everyone. It is hard work and does take effort, but in the end, I know what my children are learning and I know what they are NOT being exposed to. Lena took a placement test on reading. The scores ranged from 300-750. She placed 1500!! Homeschooling works! Lena was doing some pre-Algebra work..and excelling at it!

We also try to do fun things like crafts. I'm not a crafty person and have absolutely NO imagination but we do what we can. I love that I have found some great easy crafts on blogger that have really fun and inspirational for us. Think coffee filter wreaths!



CC also took care of several snails and their babies last year. She had so many it was overwhelming. It was so fun to watch them eat cucumbers and play around.



I love that we can go to the bookstore and read books or listen to music or sit in the cafe and drink coffee and do homework. School work doesn't always have to be done at home.



CC even gets driving lessons...and she is getting really good at it!

We go downtown and have lunch at historic hotels in the city. We first look up information and learn the history of different areas then go and visit them. It is such a fun way to make it personal and retain the facts. Thankfully San Antonio has lots of historic areas for us to visit!

But I think the best part for me is the flexibility. We can go out of town if we want without having to worry about the girls missing school. We just take the laptop along and let them do their work while we are driving. We can stay out late drinking coffee or seeing movies.

The first thing people always asks me is about socialization. My girls still stay in contact with girls they went to school with. They talk on the phone, text and my oldest goes to the bookstore and has coffee with her friend in our neighborhood. We are fortunate that we live close to their friends, so them visiting is never an issue. I have another friend who I just found out is homeschooling too. She is also married to a Russian and she said when someone asks her about her girls socializing she tells them, "I'm married to a Russian. There are parties every weekend and there is no shortage of socializing for my girls!" It's true. Occasionally we will meet during the afternoon and let the younger kids play at McDonald's or go to the bookstore. I also joined a homeschool group on MeetUp.com. These girls are not with out friends!

Again, homeschooling is not for everyone. I think it may be more work than having a student enrolled in a public or private school. As the parent and learning coach you know that the education your children receive is wholly based upon how much you put into their learning. It can be tiresome and we don't always have perfect days. Some days we are racing the clock to get work turned it. But I love it and I wouldn't have it any other way!

Homeschool in the Park

Yesterday the weather was nice so I decided to load up my girls and take them to the park for homeschooling lessons. I remember when I was in middle school Mr. Johnson, my science teacher, would take us outside when it was a more challenging lesson. It always helped us focus!
Mom met us at the park and we went for a nice walk.

Afterwards it was home, deliveries and cooking dinner. I watched Eat, Pray, Love...it was amazing! At 11p.m. we went to Wal-Mart and then drove around and looked at Christmas lights. I love that about homeschooling and me not working...we can do fun things like that at night and if we sleep in, it's ok!

We got a late start this morning..very late! But we visited Mom, went to Ross for a dress I wanted but they had the wrong size on the right hanger...hate when that happens! Afterwards, Bath and Body Works for hand sanitizers, H-E-B for a few items and back home for me to cook dinner! The first thing we did this morning...or afternoon! HA! was go to Game Stop and get Lena and CC Just Dance 2 for Wii. They are dancing their butts off right now... Lena is dripping sweat!! I love it!!! That is exactly what I had hoped for!

First Month as a SAHM

Monday marked my one month anniversary of staying home with the girls. And I love it!!
So what have I been doing this past month..besides spending alot of extra time blogging????

Spending lots of snuggle time with this angel. I love when he cries at my legs to pick him up and then he snuggles his sweet little head in my neck or beside my ear. I love to hear him snore when he puts his nosey in my ear. He recently started sleeping beside me at night. Usually he would lay on my tummy for a while then move down to my feet or to the top of my pillow and suck on my hair. Now he sleeps beside me and it feel sooooo good!
I have also been cooking more than I think I ever cooked in my married life! J/K! But when you worked around 50 hours a week, cooking wasn't at the top of your list of things to do!

It's a good thing I love to cook. Because I am literally in the kitchen from the moment I wake up until bedtime.

But I'm not complaining at all!!!!

And neither is anyone else here at home!
Since I cook all day, I am also washing dishes all day!

I cannot stand dishes in the sink over night!!

So dishes never stop piling up and I never stop washing. Since I've been home, in one month, I have gone through an entire bottle of dish soap!!

Another thing I have been so happy to do is ....CLEAN!!!

The bathrooms are cleaned.. my closet is 3/4 clean (I just need Papa Bear to go through his side, or his 1/4!), the tea sets are out of my bedroom and I started on the laundry room yesterday. I eventually want to paint the laundry room and add some shelves in there.

Now that I'm home I have been more on top of the girls homeschooling... I prepare their homework on Sunday night and am actually HERE to help them do it!!

You cannot even imagine how good that feels!!! I love homeschooling my girls. They learn so fast in that one-on-one environment. They love to take "field trips" to Sonic for happy hour!

And I've even ventured into crafts... this is a fuzzy flip flip we've been making. I made one flip flop for each girl. I guess I need to finish the other ones! Ha!

And as I've said before I am spending so much more time with my Lena. She is such a sweet, amazing, kind hearted girl.

I am realizing how much I have really missed out on learning about her and who she is when I worked so much. It depresses me. And she is so happy to have me home. She constantly comes up and hugs me or kisses me. Her little arms feel so good around my neck! I love her more than words can say!

It's been fun and wonderful spending time with CC and relieving her of household duties. She is finally able to be a teenager and sleep and relax. It's fun to watch her and Lena bond and chase each other and giggle and share secrets! I love what a good and sweet girl CC is...and she's so responsible! I hope those traits stay with her as she goes through life.

So, this past month has been wonderful. I do help Papa Bear with his work and I enjoy doing it. At times it seems I stay busier here than I did working. I get to sleep as late as I want, which usually is never past 8,but hey, it's better than waking up at 4:30a.m.!!

Homeschooling Day plus other things

I have found a system that works pretty good for us homeschooling. I prepare the girls' work on the weekend, which usually ends up with me getting to bed super late, like 2 a.m. But it's ok. I give the girls two two hour sessions with a one hour break in between.

Here is Charlie watching me in the kitchen before the girls began their work.
And of course the bad Mr. Toby had to be included!

Lena checked this book out at the library Sunday. By Monday afternoon she only had about 15 pages left to read. THANK YOU LORD I have two readers!!Monday morning I decided to make my girls some "fried" apples. I had seen a recipe similar to this on another blog and thought it looked so good!! And I had some apples that we never touched and I didn't want them to go bad.

So I peeled and cubed them. The girls wanted them cubed. I wanted them sliced but this breakfast wasn't for me.....

I almost ran out of room on my cutting board!

I got my skillet nice and hot and buttered down... well not too buttered down, but enough so that the apples wouldn't stick!

I added cinnamon. I think the blogger that I saw also included nutmeg but I couldn't find mine. I did find pumpkin seasoning and thought that might be fun to add to it. But I didn't. I just wanted to make a regular batch first...experiments can come later!

Next I dumped in some brown sugar. I wish I could tell you how much but I just grabbed a handfull and dumped. And it was quite sweet, so next time I will surely use less sugar!

I threw in a little vanilla. I mean, vanilla goes with everything right? How could you NOT include it when you are frying apples with cinnamon and brown sugar?!?!?!

Then I super cheated and stuck some waffles in the toaster, buttered them, poured a little syrup at Lena's request and topped with my fried apples! It was good...sweet...but good!

After breakfast it was homework time. Like I said, I break it up in two sessions. 9-11 for the morning, an hour for lunch and then 12-2 for the last session. After school work they do their chores AND THEN they can earn free time to play on the computer or Wii. During their hour break they aren't allowed to play video games. They can rest or read.

This is normally how the table looks at their break time. It drives me crazy when it's this cluttered but it is always picked up when "school" is over.

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These are just some random pictures I found on my camera. I always label the pictures I download with the month and year. Then at the end of the month I combine all folder, delete the ones I don't need to keep and upload the rest to Walgreens.com. This way, God forbid anything happen to my computer, I will always have a backup of my photos.

I have mentioned that Charlie is being VERY aggressive to Luigi lately. Here is a funny picture I found from last week. Luigi was laying in his favorite spot by the front door and was trying to leave. Toby is in the middle "protecting" Luigi from Charlie and Charlie is monitoring Luigi, ready to attack at the slightest wrong move!

Poor Luigi, look how he has his head down, afraid to even make eye contact with Charlie!

And apparently Lena wrapped Toby up in her mimi. Lena was given this blanket when she was 2 days old by our friends. She still has it today and sleeps with it occassionally. When she was little I would have to wash it at night after she fell asleep because she would sit in front of the washer and cry "Mimi...mimi...." We always ended up giving it to her wet. Waiting for it to dry was out of the question!

My two little boys asleep on my bed. I think Toby was mad at Charlie here because of his attacking Luigi and he turned his back to Charlie.

Charlie was trying to make nice and snuggled next to Toby.

Last week CC called me outside and told me I HAD to see this. There were about 40 dragonflies zooming in front of my house. I tried to capture them but it was too hard. They are so fast. So as I was going through my photos I found this one. If you enlarge it you can see the dragonfly perfectly!

Today was such a sweet day. The girls spent the night with my mom. Papa Bear and I rented "It's Complicated" and ate sopapillas and drank Las Palapas sweet tea! This morning we woke up early and ran some important errands. More on that hopefully next week!!! Then we went to our favorite Thai restaurant again, headed to the mall and now we are home.

Since the girls aren't here I actually have a few minutes to write this post and just do some things I need to do here that I don't really have time to do when they are home.

Tuesday's are my and Papa Bear's date day..... I love Tuesday's!!

Monday, Monday

While kids all over the city and possibly the state woke up bright and early, removing tags from their favorite new outfit recently purchased, slid their feet into new shoes, grabbed their lunchboxes carefully packed the night before and headed out to their first day of school...
my girls slept!
Yup..they slept right through the motions that everyone else around them were going through. They did wake up and go through their own motions of sorts...

"Oh Mom, do we really have to start this this early?"
"Jeez, don't we at least get some kind of break?"
"What? Two hours????? Why?"

It was our first day of homeschool too!!

Of course I gave them time in the morning to rest up or wake up and prepare for our lessons. I was up til 1:30 am the night/morning before trying to finish enough work to last them a few days. I was able to do it. Lena's work doesn't tire me or stress me out the way CC's does.

After much thought about what would be the best way to go about it this year, I decided to do our usual 4 hour school day but break it up in two parts with an hour break in between each one.

So,while Lena was doing one hour on the computer researching her Texas history, CC was at the table doing her Spelling and Math. Then when that hour was up, they switched around.
They did try to test me of course. Lena kept talking to CC and CC kept getting up to make coffee.... come on! It's only TWO HOURS!!! They took their break and then it was back to work. And they have enough to last them for sure through tomorrow and into Wednesday. By then I will be up and ready enough to make more.



Lately Charlie has been super aggressive to Luigi. Usually Luigi runs away from Charlie and tries to avoid him altogether. But Charlie just doesn't let it go! Just a few days ago Charlie took off after Luigi and Luigi ran behind the table towards the backdoor to try to get away and Charlie followed/chased him there. All I saw was Charlie scratching Luigi from under a chair, he was getting Luigi's chest and later we saw his ear too. And then I saw some of Charlie's fur flying. It was bad. Luigi's nose had scratches and his ear was bleeding. They were barking and hissing at each other. Poor Toby was so scared. He kept low to the ground and his little tail was bushy. After that it was like Charlie and Luigi were ok. They were even standing beside each other closer than I have EVER seen.

....But then today.....

I was in the garage with Papa Bear and Charlie and Toby. Luigi wanted to come in but I didn't think it was such a good idea to have them that close in such a small area.

Charlie started after Luigi.
Luigi ran.
I yelled at Charlie.
He stopped for a moment....and thought about it...he thought....and then....

He shot off after Luigi like something I've never seen!!

He was clawing Luigi on his stomach and legs... but this time Luigi fought back. He was barking...mean....
and he opened his mouth....and this is where my heart stopped.... all I could think was my baby is going to get torn to shreds in front of my eyes.... so Luigi opened his mouth and closed down on Charlie's shoulders and neck.

I FREAKED!!!!!

I got in the middle and pushed Luigi off of Charlie and Charlie, feeling the release went right after Luigi again.
CC grabbed Luigi's collar to put him outside and Emil grabbed Charlie by the back of his neck and took him to our room.

My leg was burning like fire. I was scratched in the middle of the fight.
I went to check on Charlie. He was fine. Lots of Luigi's slobber on his back, which I'm sure he hated. But he was fine. Luigi knew he was stronger and bigger than Charlie and he knew he could hurt him.

But he didn't. He just held him there til we could come diffuse the situation.

I love my Luigi...he is the sweetest, most gentle dog in the world. Any other dog would have let Charlie have it!

They are still being kept seperated. It's nuts having to do this... but as long as Charlie acts like this we have no choice!

This evening after I served our dinner I saw Lena playing on the computer looking so cute in the pig tails I put in her hair. I snapped this picture of her. She's making a funny face because she knew it was for my blog and she had to be as silly as possible. That's ok... I still love it!

My sweet little Lena kept telling me over and over that this is the best school ever and she loves her homeschool. And I'm so happy to be here with them. I just hope I can stay home with them for a while and not have to rush back to a full time job right away......

I am so tired. I feel completely exhausted. I didn't think staying home would be this tiring but it is! It is non-stop, someone ALWAYS needs something. But it's ok..I love doing it for them. I feel productive, like I am really contributing something to my family. I am being an integral part of my family and the progress of my family life. I do believe that the mother should be home with the children. Unfortunately, the past several years it wasn't an option for us. I am using every moment I am home to do something fun with the girls, teach them what I can.... I'm not wasting one moment because I don't know how soon it will be taken away and I'll have to go back to work and I don't want to look back and say "Man, I wish I would have done this differently...." I don't want to regret one thing or miss one opportunity to be with my girls... I am truly enjoying every moment, every busy moment with my family!