The best birthday present

I love being at an age where the best birthday present is nice weather, happy kids, and good friends!  We had a small Easter Egg Hunt in the backyard today and had way more fun then I could have ever predicted!  The sun finally came out and warmed up the yard and 6 amazing kids and one cute baby had the best time running around, swinging, sliding, digging in the sand, and oh, yeah, eating candy!  I know I've mentioned this before, but good friends become even better friends when they love your children and their children can play well with your own children.  We made it two hours in the backyard without any arguing or misbehaving of any sort.  Rachel was very diligent to walk along the fence and follow pretty much the exact trail I made of hiding the eggs to get her eggs.  Ford put his basket around his neck like a feed bag and stayed in the safety of his sandbox to eat candy.  Ruby acted like every egg was a present from Santa on Christmas morning, "Look at this, Mama!!!!"  They had so much fun.  It's amazing what some stickers, some candy, some plastic eggs, good friends, and a great husband can do to make a birthday awesome!!  I can't think of a better way to spend the day.

I love my children

You know what makes me proud of my children?  Being able to leave our house at 9:30 in the morning and head to a town 30 minutes away and not returning until 1:00 and not having one.single.argument!  Seriously!!  I can't even believe it.  We made it through Target with only one small incident (a spilled bag of gummy bears...surprise! Ruby was touching things.) and through Costco with no incidents at all.  Not one complaint, not one whine, not one scream, not one "I'm ready to go home." These kids can be so incredibly awesome and I just love being able to spend time with them.  We had some Easter things to get, some snacks to get for our Easter Egg hunt, and, of course, wipes, because who goes to Costco with small kids without getting a box of wipes?!?! (or diapers or toilet paper...whichever one has the coupon this month!)  We had to renew our Costco membership, so we stood in line for just a little while, then we went and did our shopping and everyone was just so well behaved!  There weren't too many samples today, but they ones they had were Ingram Crowd Pleasers....ham sandwiches, yogurt, Sister Schubert rolls :) and Coconut Water.  I'm not going to lie, the Coconut Water was nasty, but boy did the girls love it!!  Then after we had checked out, we got hot dogs and pink lemonades instead of smoothies today.  Those kids ate and drank every last bite and drop!!!  We had a picnic in the car while I filled up the car with gas.  I know I sound like a Costco spokesperson, but the gas alone saves us the money for our membership every year!  On the way home, Rachel and Ford finished their lunches and Ruby took a little cat nap.  They were so good that I'm letting them watch a quick little show now before we head out for art and violin.  Little do they know, I secretly like that it keeps them awake so that they'll go to bed a little early tonight :)  I mean, let's face it, tonight is my birthday eve and I'm prepared to get a full night's sleep to rest up for my birthday!!!!  It will be a wild day tomorrow with 8 kids five and under hunting 650 eggs in our backyard!!!

We were able to sneak in a little work time this morning before we left.  Rachel did some skip counting dot-to-dots and Ford practiced writing his numbers.  He wanted to write 0-11 and he did an awesome job!!  Ruby did lots of coloring and puzzles while Rachel and Ford did some handwriting and cutting.  We had a full-blown arts and crafts table for a while and honestly, didn't end up with any finished products, but they had a ton of fun just drawing and cutting and drawing and cutting.  

What we can do

People go back and forth all the time about the benefits of public school and socialization vs. the benefits of homeschooling and individualized education.  As an educator, I can see both sides, but as a parent I can't.  I know it sounds ridiculous and some of my dearest friends would disagree with me, but here's what a do know:
--If I send my kids to school, I can't spend ten minutes with the girls watching a squirrel out the window going for acorns and sitting in a sunny place eating his acorns and then going for more and coming back over and over and over.  They were truly fascinated.
--If I send my kids to school, I don't get to take the kids with me shopping for goodies to stuff Easter Eggs and letting them pick out what they think the kids will like while keeping in mind what will actually fit INTO the egg!
--If I send my kids to school, Rachel can't take her time writing 0-100.  With no time limit, she literally sits at the table, takes a break when she needs to, watches out the window to find cardinals when she needs a break, and discovers it's more fun to write 11, 21, 31, 41, 51, etc. straight down instead of going across.
--If I send my kids to school, we can't have dance parties at the drop of a hat.
--If I send my kids to school, someone else has to take care of their bathroom issues.  I don't know why, but I'm grossed out thinking about someone else dealing with that for them!
--If I send my kids to school, they don't get to spend time with each other during the day and play whatever they want with each other.
I know that those are all things that can happen at home after school hours, but those are all things that happened within two hours this morning.  I love being able to take life at our pace and actually getting more done.  I feel that when you're rushed or pressed for time, life doesn't go so smoothly.  I know when we're in a rush, I try to stop and take a breath and get my act together.  Otherwise I lose my patience and no one benefits from that.  We rarely have to be anywhere at a certain time.  We don't ever have to stop an activity because time's up or there's no more time allotted for it.  One day we'll concern ourselves more with getting things done within a timely manner but right now it's nice to just worry about getting things done.

Starfish

I'm hoping that while we have some time with an extra adult or two around for Spring Break, we will be able to go to the Aquarium.  Rachel was on the number 5 today in her handwriting book, so to tie those two together, we made starfish and colored and cut and numbered the legs.  Here's how you differentiate that instruction (good teacher terms, huh?):  Rachel wrote out her number fives, then drew, colored, and cut a starfish.  By herself, she numbered each leg and wrote her name on the starfish.  (She is five in case you've forgotten.)  I drew a starfish for Ford, he colored it and I helped him cut it out by himself.  I usually hold the paper for him if we're cutting out a specific shape and point him in the right direction.  Then I wrote numbers 1-4 on the legs and he wrote the 5 by himself.  We had done some practicing of the number 5 before we did this.  He wrote his name on the starfish, too.  (He's 3 and a half.)  Then I drew a starfish for Ruby, wrote her name on it and she counted 1-5 while I wrote the numbers on the legs.  She does not get to be close to scissors!!!  I cut out her starfish.  (She's 2.)  Then we put all of the starfish cut-outs on our number wall under number 5 since they have five legs. (***Update***Rachel made me move the starfish to the number 15 on the wall since there were three starfish with five legs each.  She's way too smart for her own good!) We talked about how we might see them at the aquarium next week and this afternoon (or should I say, this afternaptime) we are going to look up some pictures of starfish so they can see what it looks like on the back side!!  They really wanted to know where to put the face, but we didn't have a whole lot of time to look that up this morning, so I told them they'd have to wait.  Rachel did such a good job writing 0-100 yesterday that I didn't want to burn her out today by doing it again.  So, I had made little squares with the numbers on them from 0-100 and she put them in our 100 chart on the wall in order.  I was impressed by how quickly and efficiently she was able to do that.  Ford loved watching her do it and wants to try tomorrow.  I think he just wants to stand on the chair like she did, but whatever works!  While she was finishing up, he said he wanted to count, so I pointed to the numbers and he made it all the way to 50 before he got tired of counting!!  Such a smarty pants!
Today was our big Easter Egg Hunt at Story Time (one down, two to go!).  The kids had such a fun time and really enjoyed being a story time today.  They were so well behaved and I was so proud of them, that I let them eat every bit of the candy they got in their baskets (they were limited to four eggs each, so it was really not an overload of candy).  When we got home, they didn't even want to eat lunch because they were so stuffed from an Easter party and candy, so we just read some books and laid down for a nap.  I'm not sure how much sleeping will happen with Ford and Rachel today, but that's okay.  I still think a good 30 minutes of rest is super important to the rest of our day!

Here's a video I found on You Tube of a Starfish eating...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A100m5EpfFI

Counting to 100

It's a short week at Ingram School, but I'm hoping to keep Monday-Thursday pretty normal around here.  If, by normal, you mean that last weekend we saw 70 degree weather and just now I saw some snow flakes in the back yard.  Or if normal means I can't convince Ruby and Ford to take a nap, but Rachel was asleep in two minutes.  Luckily, Ruby took the hint and she's asleep now, too.  So, if Ford will fall asleep, I'll consider us back on track (and maybe I can get some rest, too!)  Allen gets Friday off and all of next week, so we are going to take a break from "regular" school.  Some people might call it a Spring Break!!
Today, however, I got everyone to the table so we could get on with our work.  Ruby sat at the table with markers and traced some plastic stencils we have of Easter Eggs and bunnies.  She had a great time while Rachel and Ford worked on writing the number 4.  Rachel worked in her workbook and Ford used chalk on the slate and then used a marker on paper.  He even drew a square with four sides and then put a number 4 inside of it.  Pretty smart fella if you ask me!  We all watched Mr. Steve's math lesson today during snack time.  He talked about skip counting by 10s and counting to 100.  It was all review for Rachel, so it didn't matter that Ruby was trying to skip count while he was talking and Ford was chewing loudly and talking about trains.  After Ruby and Ford finished their snack, they hopped down to play Jake and Tinkerbell together while Rachel actually wrote from 0-100 (with a few numbers already provided for her).  I didn't know if she'd be at the table all day or not, but she did it!  I am being completely honest, too, when I say, I gave her absolutely no help.  She is just that amazing!!  I wasn't sure what to expect, but she just sat there and wrote and ate a pretzel, then wrote some more and ate a pretzel, then erased and wrote and wrote and wrote.  She was pretty doggone cute about it!  We read a few books together and Rachel even read Ollie out loud to us.  Then we did our chores and did some exercise and then made it to the playroom for some Lego time.  Ford built a truck all by himself out of Legos and Rachel had fun playing with her new Lego Treehouse that she bought with her own money this weekend.  Ruby had out her cupcake Legos and had a great time.  I am really liking using the "train" table for all of us to play on at the same time.  If we can just keep it from falling apart, we'll be great!!  Vanessa and the boys stopped by for about 30 minutes of play time after they went grocery shopping, then when they left we ate lunch, hit the potty, and read stories for nap time.  This afternoon is music class and Chicken Chili for dinner!!!

Pancake Saturday

As much as love homemade pizza dough, the next best recipe would have to be our homemade Ingram Pancakes.  Like any good recipe, this one has evolved over the time we've used it.  A few years ago Allen and I decided to give up as much processed food as we possibly could for Lent and found many things we could make ourselves.  Pancakes became something that we ate for breakfast as well as dinner sometimes (at the time, we had a baby and a two year-old who loved them, too!)  Now we only eat pancakes on Saturday mornings, but we make a double batch and sometimes that's not enough for just the kids!  I'm seeing triple and quadruple batches in our future!!

Ingredients:
1 large egg
1 cup flour (all-purpose or whole wheat)
3/4 cup of milk
1 tablespoon sugar (or brown sugar)
2 tablespoons oil
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
butter (for the pan)

Beat the egg in a bowl, then add the rest (pretty simple!).

You can add anything you like to the batter and we have tried walnuts, blueberries, bananas, peanut butter, cinnamon, chocolate chips, and combinations of all of those.  I will say one time we tried to do peanut butter and jelly but the jelly just burned, so I would advise not putting jelly in your mix, but adding it later.  We put butter on the pan every time we pour new batter.

What are they missing?

There are many days where I wonder to myself, "What are my kids missing by not going to formal preschool?"  Fridays are a great time for me to try out things that I think they would get in a different setting, but that we can do all together.  We go to a music and movement class on Mondays, but I really want them to get more exercise then what we get there.  If Rachel had continued at our church's preschool, she would have attended a class at the local YMCA on Friday mornings and I was really looking forward to that for her, but things didn't work out, so what's a mom to do?  How about create a Jungle Gym and Exercise program in our living room?!?!  We turned on Pandora to the Raffi channel today and any time there was a song that had directions or a specific dance (think Itsy Bitsy Spider, Wheels on the Bus, etc.) we stopped and did what the music said.  If it was just a fun song for dancing and playing, we ran laps, did jumping jacks, made a slide out of the couch and did forward rolls down it.  We had our own little exercise program going on.  I've been trying to get in more leg lifts these days and the kids wanted to try that.  They thought leg lifts would make them faster, so they did leg lifts and then ran a few laps and they were totally convinced that they had gotten faster!  They had such a great time and I love listening to music with them and singing songs. We also got out the piggy banks today and I went through their charts with each of them.  Ford did not do such a great job at staying in his bed this week, so he only got 75 cents instead of a dollar, but I got out a stack of pennies and I told him that if he could count out 20 pennies without needing any help, he could put them in his piggy bank.  He zoomed through 20 pennies like he'd been counting past 14 his whole life!  I was so proud!  Rachel, of course, filled in every box on her chart and earned her dollar.  She did such a great job on her math test today that I gave her an extra quarter.  I was so proud of how well she did her math problems independently.  Ruby also got a dollar today because she actually pooped in the potty THREE times!!!  I showed the kids different ways to get a dollar by giving Rachel four quarters and giving Ruby 10 dimes and we skip counted by tens to show Ruby 100 cents.  I'm thinking we're going to be ready to get the box of play money out soon that they got for Christmas and talk about money.  It will be a little over Ford and Ruby's heads, but Rachel's ready for it.
Another thing that I have trouble managing that I know they would get more of at a formal preschool is time with Play-Doh, so we cleared off the train table today and spent at least 45 minutes building, smashing, rolling, and bouncing Play-Doh.  They actually did a great job and not once did Ruby try to put any in her mouth! Amazing!!  I keep meaning to get the Play-Doh out to let Ford build letters with it, but I'm just always so worried about Ruby eating it while I'm concentrating with him.  She gave me confidence today that we can try that next week.  I wanted to just keep it fun today and just build and smash.  Rachel and Ford do a great job of coming up with a project to do together.  Today he would build "stones" and then cut them in half and hand them to Rachel.  She would then take the two pieces and put them back together again.  Then we all took the tan Play-Doh and flattened it, sliced it into pieces, and rolled it up to look like Penne pasta.  Ford said he was a Cooking-Talent Fairy and baked the pasta for us.  It was super fun!
After we cleaned all of that up, Vanessa brought the boys up to play for a little while and then they went home to wash diapers.  We ate lunch and did a quick Wal-Mart run (I was making pizza dough for dinner and realized we didn't have brown sugar or oil...oops!).  Ford and Ruby took great naps, Rachel rested and then we played violin for a little while.  Ford and Ruby woke up in super cranky moods so Rachel tried her best to do funny things to cheer them up, but it wasn't until we built a fort that they decided to snap out of it and be in a good mood again.  They couldn't quite keep the fort from falling down, so we eventually turned it into a tent for a "sleepover" which was super fun, too.  We finished our school day by playing with the little Legos and then Papa came home.  I think we covered many things today that are just genuine fun and imagination-inducing!

Handwriting for Birthday Cards

We did some real world handwriting today to make birthday cards.  March is birthday season around here.  Grandpa's birthday is today, Mac's was on  Tuesday, and yours truly will be the ripe old age of 37 next week.  Rachel made the cutest cards for Mac and Grandpa.  I had written out "Happy Birthday, Grandpa!" and "Mac" on a piece of paper so she could see how to spell everything.  While we were focused on that, Ford had a piece of construction paper out and was writing his own version of Happy Birthday.  I was shocked when I realized that he was actually writing the words with upper and lower case letters on his paper.  He's a great copier!!  Unfortunately, the letters weren't exactly in the write order, but it made for a super cute card.  Don't worry, he turned both of his cards over and drew trains on them!!  Appropriately, our buddy Mac loves Wolfpack red, so Ford drew James the red train for him who just happens to be #5 which is how old Mac will be.  Ruby just wanted to trace her hands and draw all over the paper, but her cards always turn out pretty cute, too!  I forget how much fun it is to just throw out some paper and crayons or markers and let the kids just color.  We ended up coloring and drawing for a long time.  If I wasn't afraid of Ruby drawing on all of the walls and furniture, or more likely, eating all of the crayons and markers, I'd just leave them out all the time for everyone to use.  We'll be there soon.
Ford was so proud of himself when I asked him to count from 0-20 today.  He yelled every single number with a huge smile on his face and made it through perfectly.  I love watching him when he's so proud!  Rachel finished up her lesson on +1 and will take the test tomorrow.  I'm sure she'll do great.  Next week she's going to start counting to 100 which she can pretty much do but I'm excited that it will lead us into talking about the 100th day of the year (instead of the 100th day of school).  I think we will all start making our own collections of 100 things...could get interesting!!
We've done a lot of reading and a lot of playing today and everyone was so worn out that Ford actually asked me if he could take a nap :)  Normally, we just rest for a little while on violin/art day, but since he woke up at 5 and asked for a nap, they are all snoozing right now.  I'm just going to have to make sure everyone is up and in a good mood before we need to leave.  After our activities this afternoon, we'll head over to celebrate Grandpa's birthday!  The kids are excited...they just love a reason for cake but they love Grandpa and Hobo will be there, so it could get pretty wild!!!

Corrections

     As parents, we constantly have to correct and redirect and make sure that we do this without sending everyone into a temper tantrum or a crying fit.  Just so you know, around here, Ford and Rachel are most prone to crying if they do something wrong and Ruby, well, she's Ruby.  There are times, though, when I think it's cuter not to correct things they say because I love the way they say them.  Two things in particular I hope I never forget our children saying.  One comes from Ford who always refers to the afternoon as afternaptime.  Such as, "This afternaptime, what are we doing?"  Super cute!  And depending on what question she's answering, Ruby is so cute to say "I can't know." instead of "I don't know."  As in, Ruby where are your shoes?  "I can't know."  I think it's a combination of the words and the look on her face when she says it that just make me laugh every time unless I ask her something like, "Ruby, did you break this?"  Then when she answers, "I can't know." we have a problem!
     We are having our spring celebration dinner tonight and I was afraid I was going to have to correct the weather, but the sun decided to finally poke its head out and grace us with its presence for our welcoming of Spring.  This morning we made placemats with bunnies and eggs and chicks and flowers on them.  We just used construction paper and colored them with markers, then covered them with packaging tape so that they don't get ruined when someone spills something.  Rachel found some pieces from our wooden workshop of different colors and built a really cool flower on the dinner table all on her own.  Then we took some flowers, bunnies, and spring-colored scarves and decorated the light fixture above the table.  Rachel and I have decided we are party-talent fairies!!
     We've had a really cool morning of just hanging out here together and having a great time.  It's so nice not to rush around and have to load and unload the car over and over.  Rachel did her math work while Ruby and Ford worked on puzzles on the floor next to her.  We got an egg carton out and numbered the bottom of each egg space 1-18 (we get the big carton!) and put it up on the wall under the number 18.  Ford counted from 0-20 TWICE without missing a beat!  Rachel read an Olivia book outloud to us and was able to read most of the words on her own.  Ruby did so many puzzles today and would sit and talk to herself about each piece.  "This is a circle...Mama, what's this shape?  I can't know."  "It's a circle, Ruby."  "OK."

Lions and Lambs

Just like March, the Ingram kids can start out like lions but end up being lambs all in one day or even in a morning and sometimes even over the course of an hour!  We had a wild morning with biting and crying and pushing and shoving and ended up having a great school session with counting and reading and writing and creating flowers for our number wall.
We figured out today that Ford keeps getting stuck in his counting because "fifteen" makes absolutely no sense.  In the Math-U-See program, Rachel has gotten so confused because he likes to say "one-ty one, one-ty two, one-ty three, one-ty four, one-ty five, etc."  We just skip over that part with her because she understands the teen numbers.  I'm thinking Ford might do better with this concept because he is trying to count with this idea, so he just skips from 14 to 16 because there is no "five-teen". Hopefully, by Friday we can bust through 15 and make it to twenty, but we'll see.
We read a few books today about Spring and looked at all the spring flowers and spring colors and then we made our own spring flowers.  We colored popsicle sticks green to be the stems and then took coffee filters and used markers to color them with spring colors.  After they colored the filters, we sprayed them with water and made some really cool designs to be the flowers.  Since they each made one, we had three flowers, so Ruby wrote a 1 on her flower, Rachel wrote a 2 on her flower, and Ford wrote a 3 on his flower and we put them up under the number 3 on our wall.
After eating a quick snack, we loaded up for story time.  We had a great time at story time talking about bananas and owls.  The kids made owl puppets and did a little puppet show in the puppet theater at the library.  We came back home and played and ate lunch with Vanessa and the boys and the kids were super good.  Now everyone is resting or sleeping and the calmness of those lambs has taken over the house.  We're planning to get outside once everybody wakes up because the weather is beautiful!!!  I'm thinking we'll be heading out on a family walk when Papa gets home!

Counting to 20 in Springtime...

Spring will officially arrive this year and we can't wait!  Warm weather is welcome in this neighborhood for sure.  We got a taste of the warm weather this weekend, but today it's back to being cold and rainy, so it didn't make for such a great day to talk about Spring's arrival, but the weather should get better throughout the week.  Back in the Fall, we had a very last minute, but super fun Fall Dinner that included sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, and placemats made with colorful leaves, so I'm planning to do something similar for Spring on Wednesday.  I'm hoping we can get outside tomorrow and/or Wednesday and collect flowers to put in vases and to flatten on placemats and have a fun Spring Dinner Wednesday night.  I don't know that there is necessarily a "Spring Food" that we could eat, but I think we'll just grill out and enjoy spending some time outside if it warms up like it's supposed to.
We are also focusing on counting from 0-20 this week.  Rachel can already count that far on her own, so I'm having her learn how to spell the numbers.  Ford can make it to 15 before he gets stuck, so he's going to work on getting all the way to 20 by the end of the week without getting stuck.  We'll just see what Ruby does.  Some days she counts and some days she doesn't!
We're also going to read lots of Spring books this week.  We found a book at the library last week about the Science of Spring and talked about water warming up, buds forming on trees, and baby bunnies being born.  It's fun to be riding in the car and the kids spot buds on trees or to go for a walk and spy them outside.  It's kind of like a real-life Spring version of I Spy.

Homemade just tastes better

Okay, due to popular demand (or at least a request from Vanessa :) I am going to put more recipes on here for our favorite things to make at the Ingram house.
When time allows and I have the right ingredients on hand, I love to make my own pizza dough.  I seriously could eat the dough by itself and not put anything else on it.  seriously.
So, here it is, the recipe I use for Pizza Dough which I found by googling homemade pizza dough a long time ago and I think I've changed it a little, but not a lot:

Ingredients:
2 1/4 tsp yeast (or one package)
1/2 tsp. brown sugar
1 1/2 cups hot water
1 tsp salt
2 TBSP olive oil
3 1/3 cups All-Purpose Flour

1.  Dissolve yeast and brown sugar in hot water, let sit for 10 minutes.
2.  Stir in the salt and oil.
3.  Mix in 2 cups of flour.
4.  Knead in the rest of the flour little by little until it's no longer sticky (about 1/3 cup at a time).
5.  Place in a well-oiled bowl, cover with a cloth, and let it rise for 1 hour.
6.  Bake it at 425 for 15 to 20 minutes (you can stretch it out on a cookie sheet or see below**)
7.  Then I add pizza sauce, cheese and toppings and put bake in the oven until the cheese melts.

**My Kid-Friendly version:
Same ingredients, same process, but instead of making "crust", I grease up two muffin tins, and then put a little chunk in each muffin space (no more than halfway up), bake the dough, then add a little bit of toppings, then put back in to melt the cheese.

Pizza Night!!

It's Friday which is crazy.  This week has flown by thanks to Allen's mini-vacation and our list of crazy things we've gotten into this week.  We had a great playdate this morning with Kristin and Wyatt.  We were also joined by Vanessa and the boys and then had a surprise guest appearance by Mandy who was out for a run.  I love having friends feel comfortable at our house.  I'm thankful that the weather is warming up so we can play outside more because it is becoming a little cramped in our space.  I'm so ready to sell this house so we can make a space of our own that lends itself better to playing and enjoying each other's company instead of being right up on top of each other, but it is what it is and everyone seems to have fun.
Rachel and I did a quick review of +1 addition this morning and she did great.  She also performed on her violin for Ms. Kristin as a birthday present.  We decorated the playroom with streamers and a banner and made cookies to help Kristin celebrate and I think that's what got everybody wound up, but it was fun.
Tonight we will have pizza night at the Hollifields and Amanda and Webb are going to come, too, and possibly Kristin and Wyatt as well.  I love our circle of friends and I love being surrounded by other people who put their children first and want what's best for their children.  I think being a parent has really made me appreciate my friends more and be closer to my friends who have the same values and ideals as Allen and I do.  Life changes a lot and people come and go, but I feel like we have a strong bond with our tight-knit little group and have lifelong friends for our children and that is a great feeling.

Whirlwind of a Day

What a day, what a day.  I'm pretty sure we loaded and unloaded the car about 6 times today which is a LOT.  My grandmother says that I stay in shape just by getting everybody in and out of the car and today I completely agreed with her!!  After a crazy week of being here and there and everywhere, we sort of got back to normal today.  Rachel is at the point in her handwriting book that she's reviewing her numbers, so we started with "1" today and she and Ford thought it was so funny to talk about how hard it was to write a number 1 and then laugh and laugh!!  Ford even said, "Can I do a 2 now?"  Like I wasn't even challenging him :)  Oh, just wait, that 2 will come tomorrow!!!  Then Rachel started her +1 addition facts.  Again, she caught on super quickly and we made jokes all day about "How much is 325 plus 1?" or things like that.  She was really funny!  Then we read a TON of library books because they knew we needed to return them to the library today.  After reading, we all needed to get up and move around for awhile, so we started bringing more toys into the play room and getting them out of the living room.  It's starting to look awfully crowded in the playroom, but hopefully that will help us only have one major space to worry about cleaning up toys if someone wants to come look at the house (please, somebody, come look at the house!).  Before we knew it, we were running behind and had to get going to make it to story time today.  We went today since we missed Tuesday.  Mr. Jason was there with some St. Patrick's Day antics and the kids laughed and laughed when he didn't know his colors or when he pinched himself!  After story time, we came home for lunch, then the library called and said they had the book Rachel had requested, so we went back to the library and got her book, ran by and got some gas, went and got a few groceries and then came back home. We ended up reading most of the book (it's a chapter  book!) and then loading up in the car AGAIN for violin.  After violin we came home and planted some flowers in the pots in the front of the house and decided it was just too cold and windy to be outside any longer, so we came in and FINISHED that chapter book!!  Now we have to go to the library and get the next book in the series...my goodness, the rainbow fairies need to all be found and returned to Fairy Land!!!  Allen came home and he read them more books (don't worry, they were all able to check off "reading" on their charts today!) and then we had dinner and pie (since today is Pi Day 3.14) and then played some more before bed time.  Phew...now it's time to rest!

More Questions

Rachel and Ford had their dentist appointments today and they did GREAT.  I was so proud of how grown up they were.  Rachel went right on back without worrying about where I was and stayed in her own room and chatted up the lady cleaning her teeth.  It was so cute to be down the hall and hear her carrying on a conversation.  Ford was ecstatic that he could watch TV and was in quite a fog while his teeth were being cleaned.  The lady finally said, "Do you want me to stop talking so you can hear your show?" and he perked up and said, "Yes!"  Pretty funny!  He made it through the whole flouride treatment without swallowing any of the stuff this time, which is a big deal for him, so even Rachel told him how proud she was!  

While we were there, I was asked the question again:  What made you decide to homeschool?  I know this is a super sore subject with lots of people and I was a little on the defensive about it at first, but now I realize the problem with the question is that you're never really sure how to answer.  A lot of times when someone asks you that question, they already have an idea of how you're going to respond, so I used to just give a quick answer and move on.  Today, I think I finally was able to give the best answer I've ever given.  I simply said, "We just want school to be different for our kids than what they would get in public school."  I could tell that was not the answer she was expecting and I didn't feel like expanding, so I left it at that.  It's just hard to explain more than that when the reasons for homeschooling are so personal.  If people who homeschool didn't want something different, they'd just send their kids to school, right?  The woman who asked me about it, also said she was glad that her youngest child is a senior because she is tired of dealing with public school.  It's amazing how many times I hear people saying they wish they hadn't had to send their kids to public school or they wish that school had been different and I just don't want to find myself saying that 10-15 years from now.  Earlier in the week, I was at a meeting for church and I was talking to a lady about our kids.  She mentioned how she lets her grandchildren watch TV and I started talking to her about how we watch about one show a day but have been trying recently to not watch any shows (you know, unless they turn it on at the dentist :)  She jokingly remarked that my kids would think I'm the devil when they get to school and find out how much TV their friends watch!  When I told her we were homeschooling she went on and on about how smart that is.  I think I just realize that public school comes with the need to be "normal" and we don't really know what our normal is right now.  I know that I don't like marketing and I don't like sitting in front of the TV for long periods of time instead of playing with my kids or helping them learn and explore, but I also know that every now and then a TV show can be fun and entertaining and (gasp!) they might actually learn something from it.  I also know that even if we could afford it, I'm not going to buy everything my kids want for them.  One of the most important lessons Allen and I want to work with them on early in life is that if something is worth having, you need to work for it and appreciate it.  I don't want them coming home every day sad because they don't have the things that their friends have or we don't have the channels (or the TV!) that their friends have.  It's taken me a long time to learn that I need to quit competing with other people and only compete with myself, so that is part of what I want to instill in these kids and we have enough competition in our own house already.  As a society, I think everyone is looking for acceptance.  People are looking for it in the clothes they wear, in the cars they drive, and heck, they're even looking for it on Facebook (don't get me started).  I want our kids to feel loved and accepted at home first and then by the people important in our lives so that when other people out in the world aren't so accepting, they know they have a strong group of people who are.

That turned into more of a rant that I intended it to, but I think you get the idea...

Rain to Sunshine

Today was one of those weird weather days that started out rainy and dreary and ended in beautiful skies and warm weather.  Allen had a doctor's appointment, so he was able to be home with us for most of the day and that always makes for fun.
Rachel took her first ever math "test" today and she did awesome!  I read the questions to her but she did all of the work by herself and got every single one correct.  While I was in the shower the kids practiced writing some numbers with Allen...again counting to 20 since we're talking about teeth.  Well, we're supposed to be talking about teeth.  Maybe tomorrow we'll talk about teeth.  When Allen went to his appointment, we trekked out to our favorite library for getting books and came home with easily 25 new books that we've never read before.  We found chapter books, science books, math books, Thomas books, a Dora book, and all kinds of books.  We left that library and went to Ms. Lisa's for a playdate because her daughter, Abby, is home on spring break.  The kids LOVE Abby and have so much fun playing with her.  I have so much fun playing with Ms. Lisa!  Allen met us there and with three adults and three kids, we had a great time.  Lisa loves our kids like they're here grandchildren (or nieces and nephew) and they love her more than just about anybody else in the world.  If we could ever sell this house, we would be so close by and that makes the kids happier than anything!  While we were at Lisa's the sun started to shine and things started to warm up.  By the time we got home, ate lunch, and took short naps, the weather was great to go outside.  Since it was still muddy, we went on a family walk and strolled around the neighborhood.  It was nice to get outside and go for a walk with everyone walking and enjoying the time.  Rachel and Ford wanted to run or jog most of the way.  It's hard to explain to them that if they run too fast on asphalt it's really going to hurt to crash, but I think that's a lesson you have to learn the hard way.  Luckily, no one learned that lesson today.  After walking, we came home and had some painting time on the back porch.  It was so nice to sit outside and paint and just hang out.  Okay, painting can get a little stressful, but it was still fun.  Then we got an invitation to come down the street and combine our dinner with Vanessa's dinner and have some play time with our buddies.  Now everyone is in bed (not asleep, but in bed) and the sun is starting to set.  It was a great day!

Saving Daylight

The whole Ingram family caught up on their sleep this weekend with some amazing naps, but now it's back to business as usual.  In other words, Ford and Rachel are playing instead of napping while I type this.  Ruby fell asleep at about 2:00 instead of 1:00 most likely because everyone slept until 7:30 this morning.  It will definitely take us a little while to adjust to the time change.  Secretly, I don't really mind when the big kids don't nap because it means bedtime will go a little easier, but I do miss quiet time during the day.  They are being kind enough to play well together, though, so we're all practicing a little compromise today!
We started talking about teeth this morning in preparation for our trip to the dentist on Wednesday.  Ford wrote the word tooth on one side of a piece of paper and then wrote teeth on the other side.  He and Rachel and I talked about how to change from one word to the other and the sounds the letters make.  Rachel finished up some L words that she never got to last week and then she did her math.  We read a few books out loud and Rachel even read most of Fancy Nancy:  Too Loose Tooth by herself.  She and Ford are both so ready to find out what happens and what it feels like when your teeth get loose and fall out.  I'm not sure I'm ready for all of that yet!!  Vanessa and the boys came up for lunch and played for a little while.  I finally got around to making egg salad at Rachel's request and it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.  We are going to music class this afternoon and hoping that Allen will be able to join us today so that I have a little back up for these crazy kids and their antics.

Laid Back Friday

Yesterday was such a great day that I never even got around to writing about it.  I decided we needed a day to just hang out and enjoy playing and not worry about having any formal schooling.  The kids were so awesome and played all kinds of games together.  It was amazing how when I left them alone and went to clean the bathrooms and wash the sheets, they got along marvelously and enjoyed playing.  I heard all kinds of teamwork games (always with a fairy and a treasure to find!).  Kristin and Wyatt weren't able to come play and Vanessa and the boys were busy, so it was just us hanging out and having a blast.  They played so hard that ALL THREE of them took two hour naps!!  I was actually able to sit down and read the last 100 pages of my book for book club...seriously, unheard of!!  Today the sun has been shining and we had a great time playing at the park with Webb and Amanda and eating lunch at their house.  Then we came home and....are you ready for this...everyone took naps for THREE hours!!  Seriously, exhausted!  I'm hoping it will work out in our advantage for this whole time change thing.  No matter what we do, we always get messed up at DST, so maybe a long nap and staying up a little late will help us out tomorrow.  Somehow, I feel sure we'll be up at the same old time, but who knows?!?!?
Next week Ford and Ruby both have dentist appointments on Wednesday so Allen is staying home to help out with that.  We will talk about teeth and T and dentist and D.  We also are going to go have Allen measured for his Master's regalia :)  Pretty exciting that they will get to see their Papa graduate!!  We are going to have a great family day and I'm sure it will include a trip to Costco for some supplies and lunch!

A leg up on things...

We had one silly L activity today and that was to trace our legs.  I think I enjoyed the process much more than the kids, but we now have three legs up on the wall showing how each child's leg gets progressively longer.  (I've decided to just go ahead and put stuff up on the wall, no one's coming to look at our house and if for some reason they do, I'll just take it all down.)  Other than our legs, it was a pretty regular old day here.  We wrote some L words, Rachel read a Biscuit book to us and did some math, Ford wrote Ls on the slate and the word L-E-G.  We did a lot more playing today and tearing up the house.  It's nice to just forget some times that our house is on the market and not worry about keeping it clean every second.  As much as I really really want to sell this house, what I really want even more is to be able to live in a space that doesn't constantly have to be kept clean and in order.
Vanessa and the boys came up to play and then we ate lunch and played some more and I'm letting everyone take a super quick nap before I wake them up and shuttle us to art and violin.

When life hands you lemons...

We did some reading and some writing and even some math in our pajamas today.  We wrote about Legos and legs and lions and lips and lambs.  We read books about trains and Biscuit and alphabets.  We added zero to just about everything.  Then we went through our usual routines of getting teeth brushed, using the potty, and getting dressed.  By that time it was 8:00!!  Seriously, I love having the basics done quickly and then being able to move on with whatever we want to do for the rest of the day!
Again, we are fortunate enough to have our Spanish and Art Instructor right down the street.  Vanessa did not disappoint us today!  We glued a yellow luna to a black piece of paper and then used glitter to make stars.  Ford and Rachel were able to tell Vanessa the letters in luna and why it works this week for L week.  Ruby and Kingston did their thing and loved the glitter part (who doesn't?!?!).  I had the bright idea yesterday to make lemonade for L week so we had gone and borrowed a juicer from Baba and brought lemons.  All of the kids had turns smooshing the lemons and rolling the lemons and then after I cut them, they each got to take a turn squeezing the juice out with the juicer.  Vanessa filled a pitcher with ice, we threw in the lemon juice, added some water, and then a cup or so of sugar.  We stirred it up and realized it was still a little sour, so we added some more sugar.  It was terrific!  Lunas and Lemonade!!  After we drank most of the lemonade, Vanessa added more water and tried to squeeze some more juice out of the lemons and for lunch we had what we'll call lemon-flavored water.  The kids loved it.  We had a great time playing and hanging out with our buddies.
While everyone naps, I'm trying to get some more reading done and we are all looking forward to a fun evening with our friends, Amanda and Webb!!

Some days are better than others

I was just really not into school this morning.  Maybe it was the constant, "Quit touching your sister!" or "Please don't tear that up!" or "Could you just give me two minutes to put the rest of this laundry away?"  Then suddenly, everything gets done and everything gets vacuumed and your children decide to quit being crazy and it all comes together.  I got Ruby and Ford to make Ls on the chalkboard and they had a great time.  Ford even asked how to spell certain words so that he could write them on the board.  Ruby kept drawing "letters" and telling me what they were...super cute.  Rachel read a Biscuit book out loud all by herself with seriously no help and even flew through her math lesson getting the word problems right on the first try.  A little bit of calm always helps and a little bit of success keeps them going for more.  We went to story time this morning where we were supposed to hear about lions, but instead read a book about snow and watched a movie about lions.  Then we made the bird feeders we were supposed to make last week (oops, guess I need to get those out of the diaper bag and up in a tree!).  Vanessa and the boys came over for lunch and some play time and we all just kind of hung out with no agenda in mind.  Everyone is resting or sleeping now and I'm ready to get a little rest and read my book that I need to finish before Friday.  Today is one of those days where nothing flashy or exciting really happens, but it turned out to be a great day.

In like a lion, out like a lamb

After visiting Lake Lure for the weekend, it's only fitting we move into the letter L.  We talked about how March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb and the weather has not disappointed us one bit!!  We went to the Biltmore House yesterday to see Papa's friend, "Uncle" Brad run a marathon.  Unfortunately, we were horrible spectators and supporters because the wind and snow was crazy and everyone was shivering and crying and miserable.  After a cinnamon roll and some hot chocolate, though, things looked up.  We caught a 2 second glimpse of Brad running near the finish line and then we went to tour the Biltmore House.
This morning Allen and I both were in kind of a funk readjusting back to Life in Lexington (more Ls!!).  He has parent conferences at school today so he didn't have to go in to work until later.  I was given the most wonderful gift of being allowed to sleep in for an extra 45 minutes or so!!!  Seriously, the nicest thing anyone can do for me at this point!!  Rachel and I did some math and then went grocery shopping and then after unpacking the groceries, Allen was off to work and we all loaded up to head to Wal-Mart to get a new hair dryer (weather that comes in like a lion is not good for having wet hari and a broken hair dryer!).  When we finally returned home, we got back to work.
Rachel completely understands the concept of adding zero to something until we get the word problems and then she freezes up.  I guess this is how most kids are and that's why the word problems are so hard to answer on the EOG.  I'm just glad to go ahead now and start talking to her about how to take the words and turn them into a math problem.  One of the problems today was about reading four stories in the morning and then not reading any after lunch, so how many stories did you read?  I showed her where to put the 4 and the zero and make it a problem.  She then thought that 4 + 0 = 0.  She couldn't get past the "not reading any after lunch" so she thought there were no stories.  Finally she understood that it was asking how many stories did you read ALL DAY.
We all sat down at the table together and talked about the letter L and made a great list of things that start with L:  Luke, Lake Lure, Lizzie, Laura, Lily, Legos,  leprechaun, lime, lemon, lion, lamb, lips, Luci, Lisa....
I think tomorrow we'll try to make some lions and maybe some lambs if we get a chance.  I think story time at the library is supposed to be about lions, so we may wait and see what they come up with there.
This afternoon we have music class and then we're going to go play down the street with Vanessa and her family since Allen will be at school so late.  Maybe we'll sing a song about lions.....

Thursday and Friday...Finishing up the Week

It's been a little wild lately, so I've been off my normal schedule with blogging.  Let me catch you up.
Thursday I didn't get a chance to blog mainly because there was (yikes!) no nap time.  Those words always make me a little queasy!  The fact that we can survive the day without a nap is ridiculous!!  We didn't do a lot of intense school work that morning, but continued practicing Fs....Ford wrote them all over the chalkboard and Ruby tried making lines all over some paper and the chalkboard (one or two might have looked like an F...)....Rachel finished up what she called her "F word worksheet" (her words, not mine!).  She had written February, face, fox, fish, frog, Friday, fix, and maybe a few more words.  She practiced them in upper and lower case and was so proud of herself for keeping up with the paper the whole week!  Rachel also began a new lesson in her Math book with addition facts.  She learned how to add zero to any number and was so excited at how easy it was!!  When she was in the Primer, she caught on really quickly to adding one, so I'm hoping addition facts come easily to her all the way through, but I know it's going to get hard.  I love this book, though, and it's manipulatives.  The blocks do a great job of helping kids visualize the addition.  Ruby had an exciting day of pooping in the potty AND making it to the library AND Wal-Mart without any accidents!!  Then we went back to Vanessa's house because Mr. Russell had found a box at Goodwill for $8 with all kinds of Thomas track and trains and they needed Engineer Ford's expertise!  Ford was glad to assist and we put some track together that morning for them.  We ate a great lunch of fresa and chicken nuggets and then headed home for a little while before our enrichment activities.  Ford made some really cool things at art that day with texture and weaving and sewing.  Rachel had a wonderful violin lesson and is getting closer and closer to starting her first song.  She's very excited!  Ruby said she had a great "Baba Lesson".  She stays in my Mom's office down the hall from violin while Rachel and I go to practice :)  That evening we took Papa back to Vanessa's and he, Russell, Ford, and Kingston had some boy time setting up the Thomas track and figuring it all out.  Let's be honest, Russell and Allen had a GREAT time!  I'm afraid of what would happen if the two of them got to hang out at the Lego table together for too long!!  Since no one napped, bedtime was quick and easy, but the night was kind of rough.  I think Ruby was just thrown off completely without a short little snooze.  However, Friday morning was full of excitement because Ford stayed in his bed all night and earned his dollar for the week.  He added that dollar to the nine dollars in his treasure chest and bought a new Lego Toby!!!  He's so excited!!!  I will say, Toby is pretty cool and comes with a bridge and a crossing and some trees.  His collection is growing again, but I really like these Legos so much better than the ridiculous collection of wooden train pieces and parts we had before.  I really feel, too, that he spends his time making his own stories with these trains and doesn't just constantly reenact the same scene over and over from a Thomas book.  It's fun when he makes a track around the Hello Kitty Legos, too, and picks Hello Kitty and her friends up in his train to take them to the school or the hotel.

Anyway....we finished up our week of F by going back to the bowl of F objects and naming them and remembering the activities we had done and books we had read and everyone agreed that making the Fresas was our favorite activity.  Finally, we talked about the month of February and how it was special because it only has 28 days and what happens during a Leap Year.  Next week we're going to talk about the letter L and how the month of March comes in like a Lion and goes out like a Lamb.  And of course, Leprechauns!