Life around here lately

September went by in a blur!

Now it's October, and I have a whole month to catch up on. Oh well, that's life I guess

We have made some changes as we started the school year. All 3 older kids are in homeschool charter schools now. I felt like I needed some help in the homeschool area this year, and I found a great one for the boys. They have an opportunity to go to enrichment classes once a week, and we also get help with curriculum. It was fun making wish lists up, and it will be fun to get the books too!

Alex is having fun with his preschool activities. We are doing a preschool co-op with some friends from church. He was super excited when it started, but I am not sure he is too hip on it anymore. He also goes to our homeschool co-op preschool class called core jr. He loves that class because I am teaching it. He has been very clingy lately, including church.

We made candy corn paintings today for art

 Aric started up Taekwondo in September. He has been asking to do it for years. I finally took him to a local class to try it out, and he loved it.

 It has still been beautiful and sunny around here, so we have taken some opportunities to be outside. We went to a park down in Salem called Bush's pasture park as a family. They upgraded the playground, and the kids love the new challenges.

Part of going to the park though, was taking a walk. We sure had some grumpy kids for the walk, but they made it. We definitely need to do that more!

 I have been trying to figure out a good way to communicate to the children what they are supposed to work on each day. I have tried so many ways, but I think I have finally stumbled on a perfect solution for our family. Spiral bound notebooks. So simple.

These are the stacks ready on the table for the next day with their lists on top.

It is a simple way to keep a list each day for the children, without having to type it up. For some reason typing it up for me means I just don't do it. But, for me to pull out a notebook each morning or evening and write up what the kids need to do is much easier for me.

Then, I wanted to fine tune it, and have to write less. Some days they don't get it all done, and to write it down the next day again is a pain, so I went back to an old system of post-its. This way I can take their to do and just put it on the next day.

Now apparently a whole section on food is in order.

We made owl cookies last weekend. They are fun, but my kids really don't like eating them all that much. I might have to find a new recipe.

 April made a few fun treats...moo moo shakes. I think it is a play off of Pokemon.

Then she made lemon bars, and wanted to make them into a Zelda tri-force.

Aric made a cheetos skeleton. He managed to find almost all the parts.

The kids learned about paleontology, and made these fossils at a homeschool day at the library. They turned out pretty neat.