Weekly Wrap-Up: Zoo Field Trip!!!!

It has been a good week here. Lots of packing has been accomplished. I'm already sick of having STUFF everywhere, but this too shall pass. It will surely provide motivation to get everything unpacked once we are moved! I want to give a shout-out to my fantastic, amazing, helpful mother-in-law for helping to pack my kitchen this week (I sat aside the things we'll need for the next couple weeks). She's coming back to help again soon too, and I couldn't be more grateful.

School is pretty much routine right now. I'm doing very little direct instruction outside of math and reading(no history or science right now). The kids are plugging away at their independent work beautifully. We're finishing our read-aloud soon. The weather has been great, so the kids have spent lots of times outdoors, which is so much more important sometimes. Next week will probably be very similar, and then I'll disappear from the weekly wrap-up for a week since April 1st is moving day.

Around the house this week, I managed to squeeze in making a double batch of laundry detergent. That should last us a couple months. I'm using citrus castile in my detergent right now. It smells amazing! I highly recommend it. It's super easy to make. I know I've posted this several times, but, just in case someone new wanders by my blog, here's the LINK TO THE RECIPE.

I started watching the weather early last week since we were getting a nice day here and there. I figured it was time for a zoo trip! Yesterday was the day! It was 68 and sunny. We arranged to meet my friend, Rayna, and her three kiddos and spent 5 hours traipsing around the zoo. The kids had a blast just playing together and enjoying the sunshine and animals (though we picked the wrong region to explore this time of year and didn't see as many animals as usual). Rayna and I had lots of time to chat. It was a perfect day! 

We don't usually stay at the zoo for 5 hours. Since we have a membership, we usually go for 3 hours or so, see what we can see, and head back home. It's more like a trip to the park for us. We love the zoo. I love it as much as the kids. After 5 hours, we were all a little tired (or a lot tired). Lukas wanted to know how far I thought we walked. Actually, he asked "how many miles" did we walk? Interesting to note, I once knew exactly which path was a mile and walked it purposefully twice a day during my college days working at the zoo. The paths are a little different now, but, with adjustments for the added loop in the Congo, I'm guessing we made it a mile and a half yesterday. The kids were troopers (especially the littlest ones).

I didn't take my camera for this zoo trip, but Lukas took his. Here are a few shots that he took.

Last night we were blessed to meet our friends, the Schraders, for dinner at Red Robin. We are super excited for them to move to this area soon. Their kids are lovely, and we had a fantastic time over dinner. It is unfortunate that we're officially moving away from Columbus, but we'll still be close enough to hang out and visit. We're glad for that!

Since we were in that part of the city, we stopped by Trader Joe's for some castile bar soap for the bathroom. It's the only soap that doesn't cause Ava's hands to peel. We then stopped by our friends, the Cunninghams, to pick up all of their recently unpacked boxes. We got a LOT of great boxes that are ready to be re-assembled and packed this weekend! We also ended up visiting with them for probably an hour and a half, which was a blessing as well!

Obviously, we had a busy, blessed week. I'm tired and not really looking forward to a busy Saturday, but I'm super excited for the possibility of a seriously productive packing day! I have spent the last four Saturdays feeling under the weather, and, even though I'm still stuffy and sneezing a little, I'm planning to knock some things out of the water tomorrow! Watch out kid bedrooms...the mama tornado is on the way!

That's a wrap on this week's happenings. For more creative ideas, words of wisdom and general info about the ins and outs of homeschooling, visit Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Snap

 

This week hardly seems to be blog-worthy. We had sickness in the house again (my son this time), and it felt like we barely accomplished anything. The rhythm of our school week felt more like the swift moves of a boxing match. I swung, and they swung back. Yeah. It wasn't our best week.

My greatest accomplishment for this week was washing a gazillion loads of laundry. We were without a machine for over two weeks, and I'm still not caught up. Prior to that, we knew the machine was on the fritz for quite a while, so we had somewhat of a back-log as it was. Doing the laundry is my favorite household chore, so, if I must do an excessive amount of any chore, let it be laundry. Yesterday, I ran out of detergent. I make it myself, and I LOVE it! It is super easy and extremely thrifty. To see the post where I wrote out the recipe, CLICK HERE.

The big announcement of the week came  yesterday when my son announced that he didn't like history. Crash! Bang! Floomp! (All the noises made as his history loving mother passed out in shock and horror). We've been using My Father's World for 2 1/2 years now, and I've been thinking about making a change for many reasons since about a year ago.This was kind of the last straw. I'm looking for great, chronological history that is engaging, not like a text book, utilizes living books and works well with Charlotte Mason's philosophies. Any ideas? I have other plans for the rest of what MFW supplies us, ideas that I think are better than what MFW offers for our family, which is why the change is in the air. I'm not dedicated to making a change for sure yet, but we're definitely leaning that way and devoting time to prayer.

Ava has been using Pathway Readers this year. She loved, loved, loved the Dick and Jane books in kindergarten, and this was the closest match to those. Unfortunately, she hates them because they aren't "chapter books."  She so desperately wants to read chapter books that she has been trying to read her Kit Kittredge American Girl book on her own, and, while I am impressed with her sudden passion, she just isn't ready to read about Kit yet. 

This week, I got tired of the fight and decided to return to my Sonlight reading list routes (which is what I used for Lukas for grades 1 and 2). Today, she willingly read the first "chapter" of Little Bear. I don't know where that puts her as far as grade level goes, but I have decided that I don't care. I reserved most of the 1st grade Sonlight readers, and, what I have pleasantly discovered is that she is doing just fine. Other than one word that caused a full-blown meltdown (for me...ugh, not my greatest moment), she read that "chapter" like a pro. Maybe she'll  fly through these readers in the next couple weeks. I don't know what's next. Sonlight 2nd grade readers? Ava getting ahead of the game in reading would be mind-boggling at this point, not because she isn't capable, but because she has had a pretty hard anti-reading stance. 

Having Baby Z in the house has continued to be more manageable than I could have imagined. Of course, I'm busier than I was before, but she has become a part of our daily routine with ease. We even took her to a doctor's appointment that I had this week, and she was an angel. An ice storm kept her away from us for two days, and we actually kind of missed having her here.

So the title of this post must be addressed. Snap! I'm pretty sure that's what I did today. The past week hasn't been the most encouraging week of school, and I may or may not have snapped today. Okay, so I completely snapped. There's no maybe to it. I am imperfect, and my children are forgiving. Praise God that he fills in the gaps for us. Monday will be better. It has to be. Today I am thankful for the grace shown to me by my children. They're amazing. Thank Jesus for that!

To see other weekly wrap-ups, visit Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

Last December, I made my first batch of homemade laundry detergent. I had been considering this option since I first heard that it was possible (What exactly did I think people used to wash their clothes before chemically laden detergents were mass marketed???). Ava has extremely sensitive skin. The only detergent I had found that was semi-mild enough for her skin was the 365 brand at Whole Foods. Whole Foods is in Dublin, which is technically only 30 minutes from where I live on the south side of Columbus, but, when you live in a city, you have no reason to travel 30 minutes away to shop because nearly everything you need is five minutes from your front door. Going to Dublin once a month (or two months if I had enough cash to spring for 2 containers of detergent) wasn't really that difficult, but, as I said, the detergent was only semi-mild enough for Ava, so why would I travel that far that often if I didn't have to?

Eric's lay-off at the end of October 2009 gave me the push I needed to dive into the detergent making process. I chose a powdered detergent recipe(it involves much less storage space) after doing more research than anyone ever needs to do for such things. It contained borax, liquid castile soap, vinegar, baking soda and washing soda. It doesn't sound like it would end up as a powder, but all the chemical reactions and lots of stirring resulted in something that was almost a powder. Sort of. And as far as the stirring goes? When I say lots of stirring, I mean that I stirred until I thought my arms were going to never move again. Eric and I took turns. The author of the recipe made it sound like it took 5 minutes to make that recipe. I promise you we stirred for 45 and still had rock-hard chunks in our detergent. It was a pain in the patutie, and I didn't love that the recipe contained borax because it made my skin itch when I was making it thus making me wonder if it really was the best for Ava's skin.

Over the summer, this recipe wouldn't mix well at all. The extra humidity in the air prevented it from becoming a powder at all, although we used it anyway. It was hard as rock at times, but we made it work. The clothes were clean. That's all that mattered, right? No, that's not all that mattered. The detergent making process was becoming super frustrating!

Thank goodness I discovered  that my friend, Sarah, makes her own detergent. I asked if her recipe was difficult to make. She showed me her stash, and it was somewhat pasty. She copied her recipe for me, and, when I was ready for a new batch, I very happily gave it a try. It's easier, has fewer ingredients, no borax and works just as well as the previous recipe I was using without 45 minutes of hammering away at the rock-hard lumps caused by the chemical reactions. This recipe really does take only 5-10 minutes to make a double batch. 

It's frugal. It's all-natural. You choose your scent or none at all. Ours smells fantastic! We used a bottle of peppermint scented castile for 11 months worth of detergent and now we're using a bottle of citrus orange castile. We all love the scent, but Lukas raves about it.

So where is this fantastic, inexpensive, easy to make detergent recipe? Here you go! Give it a try. Even if you aren't an all-natural, crunchy, granola-type gal like I am, you might find yourself smiling when you try this and like it and realize that you're saving so much money while doing something so great for your family!!!

LAUNDRY DETERGENT

8 T liquid castile soap (I get Dr. Bronner's which you can find on-line or at many local health food stores or chains like Whole Foods or Trader Joe's)

3.5 C baking soda

3/4 C washing soda

2 C warm tap water

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl that is permanently designated as your soap making bowl(you can buy one at Dollar Tree for $1 if you don't want to give one up). It takes 5-10 minutes to get the lumps out, and there is no pounding necessary. The detergent may seem to be more like a thick liquid when you are done, but, once it sits for a day or two, it will become thicker and more paste-like. It can be used immediately and stored in an air-tight container. I use 1/8 C per load.

Please let me know if you give it a try! I love the smell, the cost and the fact that it's all-natural and easy to make. One batch lasts us about a month or so. I make a double batch most of the time. Anyway, let me know how it turns out for you if you!

Here's what it looks like when you're done