Wrapping things up

We are at that horribly frustrating, yet incredibly exciting point in construction where we could be moving into our new house any time now.  The weather has not been on our side, but now that it's Spring, we're hoping Mother Nature will be kind enough to provide sunshine for the people installing our septic system (super essential!) and pouring out concrete for our back porch and carport (super helpful!).  In anticipation of moving, I have been trying to pack things up a little at a time and I am now down to the bare necessities which includes school work!  We finished up our Fairy Tale and Tall Tale units, our unit on the Revolutionary War, and we have just three more days in our current math units.  Last fall I bought some workbooks for the kids that have reading/writing, math, problem solving, and following directions activities.  I think next week we'll just stick to the workbooks and throw in some Easter art activities.  I have run out of energy to be too terribly entertaining and most of our toys are packed up, so here's hoping for lots of sunny days and excellent recess weather in the next two weeks!  Then we can get down to business after Spring Break!!

Hard to keep up with...

Doesn't he look so sweet and innocent??!?!  That smile...makes me forget what a handful he's become!!

Even sitting in his drawer chair and playing quietly, I think he's thinking about what his next move will be!

We have been having school time in a basement for almost 8 months.  It has been a hard to place to do school work!  It has its perks such as: not being in sight of the TV, not being near the kitchen--two things that easily distract my children--and having plenty of space for school work, art work, Legos, etc.  Lately, though, it's become extremely difficult to get work done and have any sort of concentration (I call it Distraction School!).  Baxter has discovered every nook, cranny, and sharp object in addition to climbing the stairs.  Ford figured out how to climb to the top of the poles holding up the house. Ruby uses the poles to practice twirling without getting dizzy in preparation for her Roller Derby career.  Rachel has found all kinds of National Geographics and books from the 70's...she's getting an interesting individualized education to say the least! 

So.....I moved it all upstairs!  The only toys  left in the basement (besides the poles) are the Legos and the play kitchen.  I'm going to lose my mind if one more person asks for a snack at 8:15 or to watch shows every ten minutes, but at least I'm not chasing Baxter out of the "workshop" or off the stairs or worrying about how many little Lego hats he's swallowed.  Our time here is less than the Pilgrims had to endure on the Mayflower (66 days I learned yesterday), so I can do this but holy guacamole I can't wait to be in our baby-proofed, kid-friendly, belongs-to-us house!!!

Snow Days? No way!

February seems to have taken the role of "in like a lion" this year, so let's hope March will start becoming lamb-like!  This is crunch time for our house, so the weather has not been helpful to getting people in and out of the land to get work done!  However, Allen has been fortunate enough to be able to work at the house on the snow days where students didn't have to go to school.  Now we have three painted bedrooms plus most of the rest of the house painted.  I think we're down to bathrooms, closets, and the dining room left.  Our kids have been dying to play in the snow all winter and were so glad to be able to sled last week.  However, I was also able to get lots of school work done with them despite the snow days that other schools had.  I explained to the kids that we could take a few days off at Spring Break or finish before summer if we kept on working!  They were more than willing to trade in a couple hours of reading, writing, and arithmetic to be able to play outside more when the weather becomes nice!  We are all on pins and needles waiting for the day that we can move into our new house and we can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel now.  It's nice to know that snow didn't wipe out our Spring Break when we will be hopefully filling up the house with out things and getting a lot more time to play outdoors.