Weekly Wrap-Up: The Headache Edition

  

Don't worry. I won't go on and on about my headache or whine about how I have felt for the past week. That would make you all come running back to read my blog, wouldn't it? Having a week-long (so far) sinus headache has lead to some humorous moments. On Monday, for instance, I forgot to make half of our dinner. It was almost 8:00 before we ate that evening. Even worse, our entire meal was ham and beans with cornbread. We chose this meal because it was similar to the meal that the grandmother made in last week's Five in Row book, When I was Young in the Mountains. The point was to have Ava help make it. Not only did I forget to make the cornbread until it was actually time to eat (I make it from scratch, so it takes about 45 minutes), but I also forgot to have Ava help. Then, as if I didn't learn my lesson on Monday, on Thursday, I forgot to put dinner in the crock-pot all together before leaving town to take Lukas to his vision therapy appointment. Ridiculousness right? The lesson learned this week is that headaches make me forgetful. Very, very forgetful. Also, if you live in my house and you know I have a headache, you might want to make sure we have milk for the cereal I serve you when I forget to cook your dinner.

This was the first week that the newness of the school year began to wear off a little. We're working an established routine each day, although adding piano practicing has been an issue since we keep forgetting to do it before school. It's a new habit for Ava and one that we allowed Lukas to get lax on this summer. We will all get better at remembering (especially if the kids keep losing afternoon playtime)! Ava's concern this week was about her hand writing practice. Last year, I neglected handwriting a little. Or a lot. Last year was...well, not our greatest academic school year, but we learned many more important lessons about taking care of those we love, moving and settling into a new community. Ava is not consistently forming some of her letters and numbers correctly, and it greatly disturbs her that I am sitting at the table next to her making sure she does it right. I don't watch her do the entire page. We just practice together on the white board before she does her independent practice. I can't blame her for asking, but I am glad to say that, so far, she is getting a lot more of my time this school year.

Since I mentioned the white board, check out these little white boards I found at Hobby Lobby a while ago. I love them! I wish I had them from the beginning of our homeschooling, but I'm glad we have them now. No more scribbled lines to practice handwriting!

I am loving, loving, loving the Answers in Genesis science curriculum that we are using. We're using the year that focuses on life sciences. I decided to do the first unit in the Plants book because it actually has the intro to life sciences in it including the definition of taxonomy and why animals and plants are classified. Since the Animals book is organized by their scientific groups, it made sense to me to do it this way. AIG seems to have it planned so that you teach the entire plants book first, but I decided it just made more sense and made things simpler if we waited and learned about plants in the spring when things are growing instead of when they are dying. Right? Right. We'll be finishing unit 1 on Monday and moving into the Animals book on Wednesday of this coming week. The kids are loving it as much as I am so far, which is great. I've never looked forward to teaching science before this year, so let's hope that our honeymoon season with AIG leads to a long-term friendship.

Today was the highlight of our week. Lukas turned 10 on the 6th, and we finally got around to celebrating his birthday. It worked out well that our local theater was showing the new movie, Dolphin Tale, that opened today. Helping out even more is the fact that our local theater only charges $2 for a matinee!!! Might I just mention again how much I love living in my hometown? All four of us can see a new release movie for the cost of ONE ticket in Columbus!!! The movie was fantastic!!! I highly recommend it. It is based on a true story. The themes in it are heart-warming, and one of the main characters is even homeschooled! This is a movie that we will own on DVD when it becomes available. We all loved it!

After the movie, we came back to the house for pizza, cake and ice cream. Our friends, the Bonars joined us at the movie and at our house afterward, and my folks came over as well. Here are a few party pics:

 Captain America cake

 Pizza time!

 Can you tell he has a headache? Pink cheeks and all. :(

We had a nice time visiting. Unfortunately, Lukas seems to have caught my dreaded headache. It came about just after the movie. Today is the first day that my headache is manageable (i.e. annoying but not exhausting), and now he has caught it too. Eric is feeling the same way, but at least it wasn't his birthday party. Lukas didn't even eat his own cake, but I'm sure he'll have some of the leftovers. All our company left just before 9, and I think Lukas was tucked into bed by 9:15! I'm praying his doesn't last as long as it has for me. I'm so tired of it and would just like to feel normal (of course, now I have the runny nose to go with the sinus headache).

Since I said I wouldn't complain about the headache too much, I'll finish this post. In spite of the headaches, it was a good school week. All subjects seem to be going well right now, which is a blessing. Lukas' written work is taking much less time (yay vision therapy!), and Ava isn't complaining about reading lessons for the time being. It's all good!

I have to give a shout out to my parents before signing off. Yesterday, Lukas and I were in Columbus for vision therapy, and Eric needed to be in Newark, so we carpooled and then had to wait for him to be done working around 5. Ava stayed with my parents who took her to dance class for us. Ava thought this was fantastic, and we were grateful for their willingness to help us out like that! Again...I love living here. :)

If you would like to see how things are going for other homeschooling families and to borrow some great ideas, hop on over to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers to find links to lots of other blogs filled with great ideas!