School is going very well, home school and nursing school are in full swing. Life has been busy around here, but overall things are running smoothly. The girls are liking the adjustments we made to our earlier curriculum choices. We love Simply Spelling! We also really enjoy Writing With Ease. The girls enjoy the literature selections used in the lessons and they are getting very good at narration. They are starting to listen critically and pick out the important information in a passage. Its very exciting to see! Latin is also going very well, I'm amazed at how quickly they are picking it up. Owen has been doing lots of montessori exercises, cutting with scissors, sorting colors (he is finally learning them! I was starting to think he was color blind!), patterns, water color painting, play dough, and listening to lots of stories. He also knows more about Egypt and the river Nile than I thought he would, just from listening to me read to the girls. It's amazing what they pick up when you think they are not listening. Jim did an experiment with the kids on Saturday, they talked about flight, and lift (I think), and made cool gliders out of straws and a pizza box. They used the scientific method to carry out an experiment on how far they would fly based on the size and shape of the wings. What fun!
Marney is enjoying swim club (I'll post some pics soon) she is in the pool 5 nights a week. She has been sleeping much better these days! Madeline is loving soccer and dance, she is on the go 3 evenings a week. Owen is playing soccer on Saturday morning. It's been busy but fun.
BTW, despite my teasing, I am very proud of my husband. He has really stepped up to the plate by taking control of our finances. I don't know very many men who would drive that car! Except maybe Bob (I hear he is jealous). There is nothing he would not do for his family. How lucky are we? He also has been amazing about this whole homeschooling thing. Again, I don't know many men who would jump, no leap, on board with teaching our own children. He has been supportive, encouraging and always willing to help. Did I mention that when I was stressed out about the kitchen not being painted before school started, that he surprised me and painted it while I was at work? How great is that? Wonderful husbands just do not get enough credit these days! Thank you Jim! We love you very much!
This is a picture of Jim's "new" car. Step 1 of Jim's Living Within Our Means Plan: eliminating car payments. We paid $300 cash for this beauty. Hopefully this small investment will give us the big return we are hoping for. No car payments while I am in school and until Jim gets a much hoped for promotion. So far we have only had to put in another $150 in repairs. Sadly this car has caused much excitement in our home. Some of us are obviously way too easily impressed. Jim, Marney, Owen, and Grandpa Feldkamp are thrilled with this new addition to our driveway(you can see them all piled in going for a test drive in the picture above). Madeline and I are still undecided (although Madeline has been doing the math and decided that if this means her clothing budget increases from $0 to something, maybe its not so bad). I still think she will be riding on the floorboards through the neighborhood though. On the bright side, Jim finally found a hobby, he hasn't spent this much time in the garage since we met. Had I known it would only cost $450 to get him out of my hair, I would have wrote him a check a long time ago! Never a dull moment around here. Hang on, the cops just pulled in the driveway behind Jim and the gang....(No Joke)
