She wants to look surprised, but she had too much Botox

You know, once the kids hit four years old they just start to look all wrinkly and aged. That's why in our house we like to start them on Botox at age 5. Ha!

We went to the Dermatologist to get one of Chloe's warts frozen off. She was so very brave that the Doctor wanted to give her a treat. Since she can't have candy with the artificial colors, the doctor gave her this shirt!!! It is her favorite color purple, and its sparkly. What's not to love? Cracked me up! They also gave her a juvederm headband that matches.

Next stop the Preschool pageant Circuit!!!

Using the Wii Fit for Homeschool

Okay, can we pretend for a minute that you can't see how messy my house is? Cause really, I almost didn't post the pics. These were taken very close to Christmas when I was in full craft mode (not cleaning mode).

Anyway, we got the Wii for Christmas. It has worked unexpectedly well during our homeschool hours. I have used it for TV on rainy days. And we have used it to get the wiggles out in between classes. When I need to do classes with just one girly, the other sister can take advantage of the Wii. I feel very much that it has done what it advertises, it has upped the fitness of our family without any of us realizing we weren't just having funtimes.

AD Players: Do you hear what I hear?

We went to a holiday play this morning by the AD Players. It was really nice. We have enjoyed all the plays we have gone to by them.

For this one they dramatized the Christmas Carol "Do you Hear what I Hear?". They added in lots of physical comedy which made the kids laugh.

I wish I had better pics. If I take a pic with my cell phone, no one can breathe, or blink, or it blurs out. You can imagine how difficult this makes it with wiggly children... New mantra: must remember camera, must remember camera.

Homeschooling in December

This past Monday we met our friends at the Space Center for a play date. We LOVE space center. Perfect for a laid back play date. Which has been awesome, because save for this play date I would have nothing to post about.

I am almost beginning to think that trying to school during December might be an exercise in futility. And it has nothing to do with the kids, this one is all me. Being "Santa's little helper" is exhausting work. It tends to eat into my time. This is my FAVORITE time of year. I can barely stand it, I want to do everything, wring all the holiday cheer out of the season that we can. And I find that my mind is just... elsewhere. I am the one with the sugar plumbs on the brain. Plus, we have had wonderful field trip opportunities. So, although we have managed to squeeze our reading in faithfully, I have been elfing around on the rest of it.

It was also probably a mistake to give the family the Wii early. We knew we weren't going to be able to do Christmas on Christmas day, so it just got to be "why wait?". Well, to be honest, I was the why wait person and being that we are both HUGE gamer nerds, it wasn't hard to talk Brian into it. So, I should amend that to: "We have faithfully done our reading, and our PE on the WiiFit". (I highly reccomend that PE part, we have a BLAST!). Also, I might have Wii elbow, and that is embarassing. I have been officially injured by a video game, and hoping it will heal, I don't look forward to explaining that to a DR.

So, I still wanna have fun. I am not overly worried, we do school all year round, but I would like to do a tinsy bit more of our regular work so I can save us the awful "review period" after the holidaze. How do you cope with Decembers?

Nutcracker 2009

I left my camera at home and had to take the pictures with my phone. So the quality is lacking. We went to see the Nutcracker this week. The kids had a BLAST! The performance was
wonderful, and I loved how they stopped at intermission to explain how the props, costuming, and stage managers contribute to the show. The second picture is of the device they use to create realistic snow. Is sifts the fake snow down onto the stage in a realistic manner.

I also realized it has been awhile since I have posted. Man, the holidays, or the holidaze has set in full force. Thankfully, I have all the shopping done, most of the crafting done, and all the presents are already wrapped. So I am looking forward to settling back down to school this coming week!

Weekly Wrap Up

Well, I am starting to think that our schooling this week was like a wagon slowly sinking into the mud. Seemed like the more we attempted to move our wheels and make some progress, the deeper in we stuck ourselves.

On Sunday, I took Emma to the Urgent Care center. She had been either bitten or stung by something on her little finger and it had swollen up to scary proportions. So we got some steroids. The week before we had been fighting off some kind of cold, so Sunday was supposed to be my catch up day. Wave goodbye to the catch up day Mommy. Because of that, Monday we decided to do basic school so I could attempt to catch up. We did manage to do a candy experiment.

On Tuesday we were still catching up, so we ran errands and did our basics (spelling, reading, phonics, math). Which was probably a good idea since the child who had started her steroids was having emotional meltdowns every fifteen minutes. As a mom, even though I know its medically induced, its still emotionally draining. When its 10:30am and the patience fund has run dry, that is whey you know its going to be one of those days.

On Wednesday I had another root canal (we are up to #4) on the same tooth. Oh Joy! Since I don't really respond well to heavy medication, we decided to take the day off totally. Unless playing the playstation could count as school? Please?

On Thursday, we had fun!!! Thank Goodness!!! We went on an Aquarium Field Trip. We had a blast, it was a ton of fun and very educational.

Today, we spent a quiet day at home. We did our basic schooling, and I am finally caught up around the house (for now, I should be knocking on wood). I think we will take some of the fun stuff I had planned for the week and do it over the weekend.

I don't think the week was a total loss, we did get our basics done. But I really do like to have more "fun" in our schooling each day. The kids vote for fun too. We had less fun and more errands. Apparently, even if you throw in a slushy from Sonic, its still just errands. According to my kids "you just can't make that fun, Mom".

Too much Halloween Candy? No Problemo.... Hello Science

We have a lot of Halloween candy we can't eat. So we decided to do experiments with the candy we couldn't eat because of the colorings in it.

Our first experiment was "Does it contain Acid?". We took candy, put it in water, then we added baking soda. If the solution bubbles, its an acid. If it doesn't, its not an acid.

Nerds are definitely an acid. M and M's are not. It was fun, the kids loved playing mad scientist with the candy.

We plan to do more experiments this week. We have a whole bucket of candy to make it through!