Done!

As of today - we are officially done with Kindergarten (homeschooling)! and we are very excited about it!
It's been a long tough year, but Braden managed to learn a lot and I even managed to teach him a little bit. We celebrated tonight by renting Mall Cop (eh...) and watched it during dinner.

Braden cannot wait until he gets to go to a "regular" school.
Bob remarked today that he can't wait until I start cleaning the house and making dinner preparations during the day again. Funny guy.
I'm just glad to be done. Now that we've done it though, we know it's not impossible and is something that we might look into doing again if the need comes up.

1 More Down!

Braden and I just finished up his Phonics lessons!!! Yes! Nothing gets us more excited than seeing that 100% in the progress bar!

Now to finish up History and Language Arts lessons in the next few days. Can we do it?

1/4 DONE!

Let it be known! We just finished Braden's Math lessons today!

1 subject down, 3 more to go.

Someone found this card a few nights ago - it's from Braden's kindergarten graduation.  The stem of the flower says: "I'm giving you this flower because I wanted you to know that I'm grateful for your hard work in helping me to grow.  For your constant understanding and always being there to tell me that I can do it and to show me that you care."  The petals of the flower are made from a tracing of Braden's hand and then folded into a flower.  So precious!

Not fun & games anymore

Wow - Braden and I are both BURNT OUT with homeschooling! We've just got about 2 weeks until the official end of the school year and I'm not sure we're going to make it there alive. He's not motivated and I can't seem to find the motivation to make him motivated... It's not fun for either of us anymore and we end up arguing 75% of the time. Me mostly begging him to focus - he mostly beggs to be done for the day.

Help!

Braden's Kindergarten Graduation

Lots and lots of pictures ahead!

Idaho Virtual Academy's End of the Year Picnic was on Friday, the 8th of May and they also did the Kindergarten Graduation then too.

We got there, signed in, and got tickets for some ice cream later in the day. We walked to the graduation tent where Braden got to make a cute flower out of a cut-out of his hand while we waited for everyone to arrive.

When all the kids were there, they took them out behind the tent to show them what to do and where to walk. While they were doing that, the apache helicopter came (flown by the husband of one of the IDVA teachers) and everyone stopped to watch it land.

Then they brought all the kids back into the tent, sat them down and started the ceremony.






We were caught off guard when they called his name first! Fun, but we weren't ready with the camera, so this picture is all we got of him "walking". They had the kids walk through two "doorways" - one symbolized entering Kindergarten and the other symbolized entering the 1st grade. They were given a "Certificate of Completion".












Braden checking out his cool paper!
















Not thrilled to be posing for the camera after the ceremony.
We ate a picnic lunch that we brought and then went to check out the helicopter. It was huge!











We turned in our tickets for our ice cream and then played around a bit in the park.

We took these 2 pics at home afterward. What a cute kid!

Yesterday

was a fun relaxing day!

We went on a homeschool class field trip to Rafiki. What a fun place! We stayed for 2 1/2 hours, but could have stayed a LOT longer. There was sooo much for all the kids to do. Braden was adorable and just went around from activity to activity, sometimes playing with kids, sometimes just watching them, and sometimes just doing his own thing. My favorite part was went he went to the dress-up section and tried on every hat he could find and did funny poses for the camera.

On the way home we stopped for lunch at McDonalds. We saw the mom of an old friend and chatted a bit with her and then relaxed just enjoying our lunches. Not once did Braden beg to go play with the toys there (thanks Rafiki!). Then on the way out we stopped at the Redbox to see what movies they had. A man was just leaving and gave us a code for a FREE rental. What a sweetie

We got home at about 2:00 and were able to get 5 school lessons done and the house cleaned up a bit before Daddy got home. Then we had FREE pizza for dinner. Thanks to Domino's and All American Publishing. AAP sold some ads to Dominos in exchange for tons of free pizza coupons and Bob was able to score a few of them. Any pizza tastes good when it's free.

Then last night we watched a movie (or mini-series) that we got from Netflix. Bob is into Zooey Deschanel's music right now (she's the girl in Elf) and she's the main character in the movie we watched last night.

Random-ness

Today at dinner, Mylie grabbed a bowl of corn, tipping it over. There was corn everywhere.

She LOVES eating! Once she sees that I am making her a bottle or a bowl of cereal (w/fruit or veggies) she'll fuss until the MOMENT something gets into her mouth.

Braden got all 3s on his IRI testing (highest marks). Such a smart kid.

He is currently laying on the floor with a marker in one hand, a crayon in the other hand - making shooting noises. Why do we buy this kid toys again?

Bob has GREY hairs - like 5 of them - above each ear! Yup, GREY hair.

He has finally gotten his school schedule worked out so that he has a bit of time late each evening to play with the kids a bit.

I get to go to a card swap this Thursday and I am very excited!

We just made plans to go visit Nikki for the last weekend in Feburary! Yea!

Random thoughts

1. Braden learned words using the letters S, T, A, & M today. He was able to read Sam, at, mat, tam, sat and learned to sight read AND.
2. Have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE my baby sling. Mylie has been sooo fussy today and the sling is a lifesaver!
3. I have had a headache all day long.
4. Braden dislikes most everything I make for dinner. Recent likes included meatloaf and chicken stuffing rolls. Exciting stuff when we don't have to bribe him to eat dinner.
5. I need a vacation.

Pumpkin Patch

Braden had an IDVA school fieldtrip to the Linder Farms Pumpkin Patch last Friday. He decided to invite his cousin Savanah to come play with him. So we met Stephanie & Savanah there for some fall fun. They ran through the hay bale maze a few times, each picked out a pumpkin and rode on 2 hayrides. The sun was shining pretty brightly and made it pretty warm out so we didn't stay long.

He might have some redeeming qualities after all...

In History class, Braden and have been learing about continents. Recently, we've been talking about Europe and we learned a bit about England yesterday. We talked about the London Bridge and then the lesson suggested that we sing "London Bridges" complete with actions. I could NOT remember what the actions were for anything, so I just started singing. Not three words into the song, Braden popped off from his chair, took hy hands in his and showed me the actions.
"Did you learn that in Primary?" I asked.

"Nope, I just watched the kids on BARNEY do it!" he replied with his 'Braden-in-authority' voice.

So now I guess that have to admit that there might be something good about the purple dinosaur who humiliated me in the 7th grade...

Long story short - There was a newspaper article published in the Idaho Statesman about my babysitting skills...and it mentioned that I sang barney songs. Which "hello!" like I so DID NOT! And then my 7th grade math teacher READ the article to the entire class... Ugh!

It's Raining, it's pouring...

and it's SNOWING! And it's cold! burr!

We had to get out the Princess's new carseat blanket because it's soo chilly outside. I just love these things. My OB gave me a blue one with cars on it after Big Brother was born and I just had to get a pink one for the Princess. They're soo cuddly and warm and you don't have to worry about them being cold in their carseat.

Today Big Brother bowled his 1st two games in an IDVA bowling league we just joined. He'll get to bowl 2 games every other week for a few months and have lots of fun with other participating kids. He gets to use bumpers and got to bowl the first game with his dad! Hope to remember to take pictures next time.

Fieldtrip to the Zoo!

We had an IDVA fieldtrip to the Boise Zoo today. All the students from IDVA and their families were invited so it was one crowded place! We met at the front entrance where we got our name tags and free tickets into the zoo. Then we went to the picnic area across the bridge and ate our picnic lunches. There we saw my cousin, her husband and their two girls. Their oldest is in 4th grade and the youngest is doing K like Big Brother. They also have an almost 2 year old boy at home, who was spending the day with his Grandma.


After our lunch, we got into groups by classes to meet the other kids in our "class". Each teacher has approx. 60 students in grades k-5. They did a little get to know you worksheet and then we were free to roam the zoo. Big Brother couldn't wait to go see the animals!

The Princess was wide awake all through walking to the Zoo and all through lunch, but must have decided that she didn't want to see the animals and slept almost the whole rest of the time.

Scary Story of the day: Just before we were about to leave, the Princess decided that she was hungry, so I told Big Brother to play on some toys right by me. I shook the bottle and looked up to see Big Brother missing! AAACCK! Rememer when I mentioned earlier that the ZOO was full of people?!? I looked and looked all around me, but didn't want to leave too far from the bench just in case he were to come back to find me. I couldn't see him anywhere. So I expanded my search just a bit more but still kept that bench in my eyesight. Luckily I found him a few minutes later playing in a sandbox with another little boy his age. Yikes! I was so upset and reminded him that he needed to tell me if he was going somewhere. "But MOOOM - I just wanted to play in the sandbox!" was his only reply. OH My Goodness!

1st Phone Conference

We had our first phone conference with Big Brother's teacher today. I expressed to her our struggles with "History" where he is supposed to be learning the names of the continents and where they are. My biggest problem with this lesson is that for all he knows, Boise could be on one continent and Meridian could be on another. Ok - not really, but he just has no concept of the WORLD right now and distance. She suggested that we just skip the lesson for right now and move onto something else, saying that "he's only 5 and someday he'll understand about continents." Which yes, I understand, but is not knowing them RIGHT NOW going to hinder his learning next month or next year?? I have no way of knowing, so I guess for now, we'll take her advice and skip the continents lessons and just try to teach him about distance and the continents in our everyday adventures.
Boy, this homeschooling thing isn't easy. Good thing I was fairly sure that it wouldn't be.

Kindergarten & Mylie update

Don't know if you've heard, but we're trying out homeschooling Big Brother this year for Kindergarten and we started this week on Wednesday. We're using Idaho Virtual Academy which is a public charter school. They supply you with a computer (if you need it, we do not) and a partial reimubrsement for your internet access. You log onto their website in the morning (or whenever you're ready to start the school day), figure out what lessons you need to prepare for, print out any necessary items and get started. Our lessons mostly consist of Math, Language Arts, and Phonics. We also have a bit of PE and History mixed in a couple of times a week. So far, he is LOVING the Math and declares it "EASY!" We struggle a bit with the Phonics but only because he likes to guess.

The Princess turned 5 weeks old on Wednesday this week too. She's definitely getting bigger and we can't wait for her next Dr appointment to see what her actual growth is. She's smiling a lot more and continues to sleep about 6 hours at night, sometimes almost 7 if I'm lucky. She loves being in the carseat (Big Brother didn't) and loves when Big Brother talks to her and tells her funny stories. She gives daddy big smiles when he rubs her bottom lip with his finger - and of course only wants one or two things from me (food and/or helping her to go to sleep).
Almost daily, we get comments about how her name is "like Miley Cyrus", but I have gotten 2 comments about how her name sounds Hawiian.