Makin' Money

The boys are crushing cans to take to the recycling center.... not exactly the way I would do it, but that's okay. I just need to keep myself from looking out the window. *I* can do this!

Months of saving cans, 30 minutes to crush them all, a drive downtown to the recycling center (we'll already be down there so it's not that big of a drive), and who knows how long we'll have to be there... yet I predict less than a $10 profit on this venture. We shall see.

Pumpkin Festival

This one of the brief times when the big boys deigned to be seen with me. Most of the day, they were relishing their independence by running around the fairgrounds with their friends. You can see Matthew with his spoils of the day, a cardboard engineer hat, a balloon from our church's booth, and licking the cotton candy from his fingers. Evan lost his balloon shortly after refusing to let me tie it to his wrist.This pumpkin weighs over 300 pounds! The biggest one there was over 11oo pounds! Matthew preferred this one though b/c he was tall enough to reach the top for drumming!Although you see a pumpkin in Ryan's arms, I guarantee he and his friend were discussing football. In fact, amongst all the booths of pumpkin bread, pumpkin dip, pumpkin fudge, pumpkin butter, and salsa (not made of pumpkin but there's was lots of salsa for sale), they managed to find the booth selling football cards. Ryan even asked if we could back today so he could buy the Carson Palmer card he didn't buy yesterday.

Evan and Matthew both painted their pumpkins for the contest. Evan was making a cardinal and Matthew was making a black bear, both to fit the Wild, Wonderful West Virginia theme.

Why We're Skipping School

One of the benefits I envisioned when we started homeschooling was a close relationship between all the boys. Over the years, I've seen glimpses of this mythical homeschool benefit but it seems more often than not, I'm refereeing, punishing, and begging them to be nice to each other. Or, they're not being mean or nice to each other because they're not even in the same room. They're off doing their own things, in their own space, with their own stuff.

That's why we're behind on our schoolwork this week. When I saw this happening, I couldn't bear to interupt. It's been going on for two days and I don't even mind stepping over roads and cars to get from the computer to the tv. Teachers don't mind a day off either!

The littles are playing without whining. The bigs are playing without bossing. No one is arguing over who has the best car or which way the road should go. Listening to my kid play makes me realize what a blessing they are to me and to each other. It's one of the many benefits of homeschooling!

Weekly Wrap-Up

I would definitely call this a successful week of homeschooling. We had three days at home to do all our bookwork and two days out in the world.

I finally found Evan's motivation, which is both good and bad. He just picked out a Nintendo DS Star Wars game as his birthday present. Since he's not allowed to play video games until after his schoolwork is finished and he really wanted to play his new game, he was highly motivated to finish the boring bookwork this week. He took the initiative to start on his own each day and even rushed me along when he was ready to do the subjects that require some mommy help. What's so bad about that you may ask. And that's a good question to which I have a good answer. Why is it that it took much longer and much more whining and complaining to get schoolwork finished pre-Star Wars game??? Okay, that looks more like a question than an answer but the point is still valid. The kid was capable (which I already knew), just lazy... or I guess I could say unmotivated, but I won't.

Tuesday found us at our homeschool co-op. The co-op has almost doubled in size this year. We're having a few issues with space and class sizes but it's great to see so many families with similar values and goals for their kids. The older boys are taking a new class based on The Dangerous Book for Boys. It's so much fun for them, though it hasn't yet eclipsed gym as their favorite class. They also have a cooking class that's lots of fun and very useful. I wonder how long it will be before I can turn them loose in the kitchen to fix dinner.

Thursday we had our first field trip of the school year. We drove about an hour up the Ohio River to visit Pt. Pleasant, WV. It was a fun and educational trip. Details and pictures are here. The problem I had was trying to get my kids to realize they were still supposed to be learning! There was so much historical information and it was presented in new and interesting ways and all they wanted to do was talk to their friends about FOOTBALL, my nemesis, football.

Speaking of football, I guess I should mention that I only have two kids involved in fall sports! So, we only have practice and/or games on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Adam is playing competitive soccer with the YMCA Middle School League. This is the league set up for middle schoolers b/c the public schools don't sponsor soccer. I guess the $9,677 that our state spends on EACH student only stretches so far. But it works out for us b/c Adam gets to play and he loves it. Ryan is playing flag football through Upward. It's so much easier (on my schedule) than the Little League tackle football he's played the past two years. And he loves it too.

I've probably written way too much already so I'll close with a Happy Birthday to my honey. He loves DQ ice cream cakes but this year I decided to try making my own ice cream cake. It was so easy and yummy, definitely one of those dishes where the end result is much greater than the sum of it's parts!

• Layer unwrapped ice cream sandwiches in the bottom of a casserole dish


• Spread with a layer of whipped topping


• Sprinkle crumbled Oreos across the whipped topping


• Add additional layers of ice cream sandwiches, whipped topping, and cookie crumbs


• Cover and freeze for 1-2 hours


• When ready to serve, top each piece with hot fudge (this step wasn't in the original recipe and I didn't do it, but I'm definitely doing it next time!)

For more Weekly Wrap-Up, visit Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Point Pleasant

Today we visited Pt. Pleasant, WV, one of the oldest cities on the Ohio River. It was named by George Washington and he even owned land in the area.

We started our day at The River Musuem. We learned about life on the river and life in the river. The museum focuses on commercial enterprise along the river and also has a new 2400 gallon aquarium featuring fish from the Ohio River. The kids got to drive a tugboat simulator and see many different artifacts.

After the museum, we crossed the street to Tu-Endie-Wei State Park, at the confluence of the Kanawha and Ohio rivers. We had lovely weather for our picnic lunch followed by a tour of the mansion house and a tour, given by a park ranger, of the monuments in the park. The Battle Monument commemorates the Battle of Point Pleasant where Lord Dunmore led the colonials against Chief Cornstalk of the Shawnee Indians. Chief Cornstalk and the united Indian nations were defeated and Chief Cornstalk later became a friend to the soldiers. His remains are interred at the park.

When we finished at the park, we walked along the city's flood wall to see the history of the area depicted through giant murals. The murals are a work in progress and the detail and talent displayed is amazing. I plan to return when the murals are finished. They present a history lesson no book can match!

See more pictures at accheonline and Adventures in the 100 Acre Wood.

Self-Esteem

Matthew was singing his own song today. It goes like this, "I'm the smartest boy. Yes, I'm the smartest boy."

Then he asked me, "Mommy, I'm the smartest boy, aren't I."

To which I replied, "Yes, but who told you that?"

And he said, "Nobody! I just knowed it."

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School at Home... or Not

We followed last week's post about getting back to the books by spending a week doing everything BUT book work. We had a Labor Day picnic, a fantasy football draft, camping, and three different activities with three different homeschool groups on three different days. Add soccer and football practice to all that and we were barely home!

This week our calendar is blessedly empty during the day. My plan is to make a dent in our textbooks so we won't have to feel guilty when the field trips start. After this week, there is at least one homeschool activity every week for the next five weeks. And we're not even going to every planned event! Whoever said homeschoolers were unsocialized hadn't seen this homeschooler's calendar!