Wonderful Wednesday

I'm not going to lie, Wednesday started out as WTF Wednesday!  Thank goodness that all changed.  It's amazing how much potty training can affect homeschooling, but after Ruby peed on the floor, then later pooped in her underwear during math, I wasn't sure we were going to get very far today.  I admit it, I threw in the towel and just put a pull-up on her after that and amazingly, there were no more accidents today!  We also had to do a lot of reminders early this morning about Ingram School Rule #1:  KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF!!  I literally watched Ruby push Ford down because he wouldn't give her the toy he was playing with.  So much for place value...time for redirection.  Luckily, Rachel and I were finally able to play a place value game and she quickly told me where all the places are and what their values were and so on and so forth.  I had Ford practice his As and Ys today because those gave him the hardest time yesterday when he wrote FAIRY and Rachel did a page in her handwriting book.  After deciding that I would speak to Ruby again, she crawled up in my lap and we wrote some straight lines together and turned them into capital Rs to which she would yell, "For Ruby!!"  Like I always say, it's a good thing that girl is so cute!  Rachel read us one of her books with repetitive words and did a great job.  Ruby actually picked a book with fairies in it that didn't have Tinkerbell.  We took some balloons and used Sharpies to decorate them for our friend, Vanessa's birthday today for our art project.  After all of that I decided I could take them all out in public again and we went by the dentist's office for an insurance form and to Wal-Mart  for more pull-ups...one day pull-ups won't be on my list!  By the time we got home it was lunchtime so everyone actually played nicely together while I fixed lunch.  Then we worked together to make cookies for Vanessa's birthday  and the GRACE Girls (I'm sure you'll hear more about Vanessa and the GRACE Girls at some point, but I won't elaborate now.)  Ruby fell asleep quickly for a nap, thank goodness!!  Ford and Rachel rested quietly and after one quick show and a taste of our homemade cookies, we played outside for a couple of hours.  Ruby started feeling kind of feverish while we were outside, so she sat on my lap in the swing while Rachel and Ford played an awesome game of pirate ship.  They used funnels for their telescopes and made the sandbox below the fort be their pixie dust stash so that they could fly the ship.  These kids know how to stick to a theme!!  We really had a great day after we got past the potty crap (pun intended!).

We ended the evening by playing one of their favorite games that is so easy for anyone to play if you have a loop in your house.  Basically, they run two laps around our house (our loop goes from the living room, through the dining room, down the hall, through their bedrooms and back to the living room).  Then they sit on the rug and complete a puzzle.  Then they run two more laps, then complete a puzzle, then two more laps, and so on and so on until they just decide to stop.  Tonight our puzzle was using Kapla blocks to make designs.  I would set up the design while they were running, then they would sit down and make the same design with their pile of blocks.  You could do the same thing with Legos or actual puzzles or even silverware.  I don't know why, but it keeps them occupied for a long time and uses up all their energy before bedtime.