Happy Mother's Day

I hope all you wonderful Mommies had a wonderful Mother's Day. I have a table covered with flowers to prove how much I'm loved. LOL Or, at least how much the Sunday school teachers think I'm loved. Along with all the Sunday school flowers, I got some daisies picked from the creek bank and a beautiful flower basket from my Secret Sister. I could take some pictures with my new Mother's Day camera (yay!) but uploading them is more work than I want to do on a dreary Monday morning.

So, it's back to the grind today. The cupboards are bare so we're heading to the grocery store as soon as I finish here and get everyone dressed. We'll do some school this afternoon while Matthew is napping. I think this year is the closest we've ever come to finishing in a regular school year. We've finished our Bible study book. We're nearing the end of Math and Science. Sequential Spelling is behind b/c we had to finish last year's book so we didn't start this book until November. We finished Winston Grammar a couple months ago and started Writing Strands for Language. We're not even close to finishing that. We very far behind in Mystery of History. We'll most likely be doing spelling, language, and history throughout the summer as time allows.

Tomorrow is our co-op's year end picnic. I checked the weather and it's supposed to be sunny and 74*, the only sunny day on an otherwise rain-soaked week! There you see the power of prayer (and a few more wouldn't hurt, ladies!).

Digestion

Does studying the digestive system somehow grant permission to make poop jokes? My boys seem to think it does. But how can one talk about digestion without mentioning poop? And I just cringe when I read anus or rectum. I'm so immature... but not as immature as them! Cringing is better than giggling, right?

Spring

I've neglected the blog so long it's hard to know where to start. So, I'm just going to jump in here and spare everyone a month of updates.

I guess spring is officially here. I found a tick on my head! EEK! I just reached up scratch my head and felt the little bugger crawling around. Ick! Ick! Ick! I seriously have not been anywhere I could possibly get a tick. I never go outside except for soccer where I sit in my chair, well off the ground in an open field. My best guess is that it came from Ryan's head while we snuggled on the couch watching Dancing with the Stars. He was playing at the park today while dh had Adam at soccer practice. I'm going to have nightmares about bugs in my hair.

Evan had a great game tonight. There's a kid on his soccer team that hogs the ball and the coach always plays them together. But tonight, that kid wasn't playing like he normally does. So Evan actually got a chance at the ball and he scored two goals! Go Evan!

Adam and Ryan had their spring band concert last night. The band sounded good but I'm pretty sure Adam was faking. I heard him practice and he's NOT a good trumpet player. He gave up on trumpet a long time ago. He's decided to just take piano lessons next year. But there's no way to fake the drums when you're the only drummer! I was impressed with Ryan's playing.

Soccer

Ryan had his first soccer practice last night... with the "woman" coach. She wasn't exactly a woman, being only 16 years old, but she was awesome. I think she may be the best coach he's ever had, man or woman or teenager. LOL

And guess why this 16 yo is coaching soccer instead of playing?? B/c she's homeschooled (!!!) so she can't play for the local high school. I thought that was pretty awesome but when I told dh, he thought it was horrible. It's great that she's coaching and mature enough to handle all those little punks but sad that she can't play on a team. But I think Jeff has delusions of grandeur when it comes to Ryan playing football so he's worried about where he's going to play football when he gets too old for the city league. What do you think? Um, about the soccer coach, not about Jeff's delusions of granduer!

In other soccer news....

Adam has had one practice. One got rained out and it looks likes this evening's practice will be cancelled b/c of a thunderstorm. Spring may not be the best time for outdoor sports. LOL He loved the one practice he had and they'll have their first game on Monday.

We still haven't heard from Evan's coach. I'm expecting him to have a practice next week since their games start next Saturday.

ruined :(

Tomatosphere sends tomato seeds into outer space. Then they send two packets of seeds to anyone that requests them. One packet has been in space. The other is a control packet. The boys were looking forward to seeing how this experiment turned out.

We planted our Tomatosphere seeds in two egg cartons on Monday. The boys helped. Yesterday, I moved the egg cartons to the front of the house so they could get the morning sun. This morning, as we left for the park, I scooted them out from under the car port so they could enjoy the morning drizzle.

This afternoon, as I was turning onto my street, I saw the neighbor's juvenile deliquent running out of MY driveway with MY egg carton. And her friend was still in my yard. I stopped right in the middle of the street and rushed over to save my plants but the little punks had already dumped them into their own planter! They're ruined. :(

Standardized Testing

Our state requires a yearly assessment so my kids test every year. It's just easier for me than keeping a portfolio. I also like the peace of mind that comes from knowing my boys can fill in bubbles. ;)

Unfortunately, I'm a little worried about Evan filling in bubbles. It's his first year testing and he has already decided that he's not doing it. I've got happy thoughts though. We'll go in with bribes and threats and lots of preparation and maybe, just maybe, he'll cooperate.

To that end, I've spent the past half hour, a ream of paper, and lots of expensive printer ink, printing out practice tests for him. I don't usually bother with test prep. Usually the boys don't even know about the test until the day before when I tell them they have to get to bed at a decent hour. They've always looked at it as a day off regular school and time spent with friends. As a bonus, they always score very well. I'm not worried about Evan's academics. I'm worried about his fear of the unknown. I hope a few days spent playing with these practice tests will make him long to color in bubbles for Miss Sue, his tester.

And ya know what??? I also printed some practice tests for the older boys. They really do look like fun to take and I'm curious if they really know all this stuff. I read through some of the 4th and 5th grade tests (this site only had up to 5th and I didn't want to bother searching more) and I'm not sure how *I* would score!

Spring

We've got tadpoles! Remember that visit to the 100 Acre Wood where Matthew rode the bulldozer? I also snagged some frog eggs while we were there. Some of them hatched the very next day! So we have four tadpoles, a bunch of bug larva, and a gooey pile of eggs that have yet to hatch (even though it's a week later). Maybe we'll get some frogs this year!

I've known for a long time that pi=3.14. I just never knew why it did or why we would even care. But Adam has entered the world of circumference and area of circles. You knew that compass was leading somewhere! We've started using the calculator for the arithmetic parts of Geometry and it makes our day go so much quicker and smoother. Adam can concentrate on the formulas more easily if he doesn't have to stress about the multiplication. It is a time sucker if you have to multiply those big numbers by hand.

Spring must be here! Our first soccer practice got rained out last night. Adam's favorite coach is coaching again this year so he's really looking forward to soccer season. Well, he was already looking forward to it but he's extra excited to have Tall Paul as his coach again. Ryan is both excited and bummed. One of his best friends is on his team - exciting! His coach is woman - big bummer! Last time he had a woman coach, they lost every game. I know this b/c he reminded me when he found out this year's coach is a woman. She has her work cut out for her, but hopefully she can change his opinion of women coaches. I haven't heard from Evan's coach but I requested the guy he had last year so I hope we get him. We've already got practices Monday, Thursday, and Friday of next week and we'll have another one when Evan's coach calls.

We've got our yearly assessment testing next week. Please say a prayer that Evan will actually take the test. I introduced him to his tester on Monday and he said, "I'm not taking the test." He's just contrary enough to do it, too! I can see him curled up in a ball under the table refusing to do anything. It only takes him a month to acclimate to his new Sunday school class every June. I'm not kidding when I say this kid is not good with new experiences!