Our Schedule, So Far

Here's what our days look like so far this year (including what we plan on adding when Options starts):

Monday:
Options from 8:15-3:15
Sierra: PE, Drama, Science, Computer Skills, Piano, and Art
Bailey: K program combining Science, Art, Reading, Math, PE, etc.

Tuesday-Friday Mornings:
starting around 9am and going from one subject to another until complete, usually in this order
Sierra: Cleaning, Piano, Math, Handwriting, Dictation, Spelling, Grammar, Computer Work
Bailey: Cleaning, Math, Handwriting, Spelling, Copy Work, Reading

Tuesday Afternoon:
Together: Latin
Sierra: 30 minutes reading

Wednesday Afternoon:
Together: Latin and History
Sierra: 30 minutes reading

Thursday Afternoon:
Together: Latin and Science
Sierra: 30 minutes reading

Friday Afternoon:
Homeschool Playgroup

Boulder County Fair

A day to remember. The kids got all day passes on the rides, and were loving it. We did see the animals, art exhibits, equestrian competitions, and such, but the rides are what the kids loved most. No surprises there.

Believe it or not, Sierra actually went on this ride and loved it!

Bailey was too short to go on the older kids rides. She was so bummed. She still had fun anyway.

Blake was scared and practically cried the first time he went on the pirate ship. He got over it though and it became his favorite.

Daddy had fun too.

Sierra got to go on a lot of the older kid rides with one of her friends. They had a lot of fun together.

Back to Normal-FINALY!

We started school this week.

It's really nice to have a semblance of routine to our days again. I didn't realize before how much I appreciated that. Really.

These last few weeks have been listless blahs. Cleaning, shopping, cooking-they all went haphazard. Oh, there were fun days too, like when we went to the fair, but most of it was spent sitting around being very unproductive. Reading binges, anime binges, playing at the pool. . .it all gets boring after a while.

Don't get me wrong. Vacation is very nice. I've just realized that there can be too much of it too.

I'm thinking next summer we'll only take one month off. Two, while nice, was way to long.

Let's Get Organized

Our summer vacation time is swiftly coming to a close, and we're starting to get exited.

Yesterday morning, the kids and I went to the store and got all of our school supplies; binders, crayons, pencil boxes, pencils, paper, etc. They were so excited by it all that we were soon pulling packaging apart, putting school boxes together, coloring binder labels, and having a grand old time. I even went so far as to put together their math and language arts binders, an activity which involved pulling apart a number of 100+ page workbooks, hole punching them, and organizing them with deviders. I even made and printed out and hole punched a bunch of experiment pages for science. It took me a good few hours. Before we knew it, it was time for dinner!

I still have to get History ready, which involves pulling apart another workbook, scanning the pages, making a disk, printing them out, and hole punching them all. We also need to finalize our daily and year-long schedules, but there's still time.

We start school the second week in August.

We're almost there.

Vacation is nice, but we're getting ready for life to be normal again.

Kasper

Every time we go out to visit my family, I ask if I can have my brother's cat, never really expecting them to give him to me. Oh, I pout, act cute, and eventually grin when they don't take me seriously. But seriously, I love my brother's cat! He's one of the best kitties I've ever met; social, good with kids, laid back, doesn't bite or scratch, and isn't needy.

So, I got a surprise when I asked if I could take him home with me this time.

Turns out, a friend of my niece found a stray kitten and asked my niece if she could take care of him until the girl convinced her mom to let her keep him. Well, my sister consented, but then the girl wasn't allowed to keep him after all. Unfortunately, my sister already had three cats, the maximum allowed by city ordinances, and couldn't keep him either.

So, with us being in town and knowing my adoration of my brother's cat (who the kitten resembles in personality), they asked if we would take him.

Long story short, we now have a kitten. His name is Kasper. We don't know exactly, but I think he's somewhere around two to three months old.

It's almost strange how naturally he has fir into our house. Seth and I both grew up with cats, so having one seems so, well, natural. He's good natured too. He loves to play, explore, go outside, be around us, and sleep in the window sill in the basement and on Bailey's bed. He gets along well with the kids too and even our rats (though we have to be careful when they "play").

I like having a cat. I like it a lot, and it's a decision that I seriously doubt we'll regret.

Mint.com

After deciding to get my finances in better order, I started to look for a program to keep track of my spending. I've used Quicken before, so I went to their on-line sight first. Turns out they have a free on-line financial tracker called Mint. It acts similar to the old pre-2004 Quicken programs, which is what I used before, plus the added on-line capabilities. Very basic, but very useful.

Pros:

It's FREE

Easy access from any internet linked computer

Works with my Mac

Quicken style program

Create budgets

See data in chart and graph forms

Track your spending/income/net worth

Automatically downloads bank info

Info/advertising for other financial opportunities without being obnoxious

Cons:

No immediate downloads of transaction data (this may just be my bank)

Transaction data can take a few days to download

Information is all on the internet

It is only a basic program without all of the bells and whistles

Anyway, I like it. It covers all my basic needs and then some. Very nice.

I definitely think it's worth checking out.

Dry Night

Blake, for the last few nights, had been insisting on taking his diaper off to go pee in the toilet. Very annoying for us, because we had to then put it back on and deal with his whining.

Well, after a bit of debate (we're leaving for vacation in less then a week), we decided to let him sleep in underwear. He loved the idea. And what's more, this morning, he woke up dry!

I guess he was ready.

Now lets hope that vacation doesn't ruin it.