Still full of Turkey and all shopped out...

The boys were with my parents all last week, and I missed them terribly! I know, I know...I need to learn to let go and all. But I hate it when they aren't here. They had a good time though, and that's a good thing. They helped my mom and my grandmother cook for two days. They put up my parents Christmas decorations for them. And they got some extended play time with cousins, which is always happy making. :)

The hubs and I enjoyed a quiet Thanksgiving dinner with Tracy's family and then I went Black Friday shopping with Tracy and Scott. Wanna know what I had on my B. F. shopping frenzy list? 

Nuttin'. 

And I still went! Lol. I was very lucky in that I found the few things the boys had asked for prior to the big event, online. Between Best Buy and Amazon, I got everything I was looking for, at the Black Friday price, shipped right to my door throughout the week. It was wonderful! I still enjoyed going and keeping the shopping tradition going though. We had a good laugh at everyone running around like crazy and trying to get these insane deals on big ticket items like TVs and computers. Scott and I picked through discount movie bins and got some incredible deals on blu-rays (Caddyshack for $3.99 and the Lethal Weapon collection for $34.99! Wooooo!) and we enjoyed our normal IHOP late night meal. 

Saturday morning, the hubs and I headed down to pick up the boys and do our family dinner that evening. It was enjoyable and we came home yesterday. Short trip, but sometimes that's all the time everyone has. :(

We normally start our winter break right after Thanksgiving. We aren't officially on break this week, but I am only making the boys do their core curriculum on the days that I am here this week...which is today and Wednesday. Tomorrow and Friday I will be working at the tax office, and Thursday is their last Master's class until after New Year's. 

Tomorrow and Friday, they are going to play around on the educational game sites we frequent. They like the nature games, and hopefully they will do some math games (although, knowing my boys, I'm not going to hold my breath on that, lol). 

Other than that, they are going to work on their room. It's 500 square feet of chaos and I told them Santa wouldn't be happy dropping off any gifts, if he didn't have room to walk through the room.  While my oldest understands the Santa thing, I still love when the season rolls around and I can use the big guy as a threat. Heehee. :D

Okey dokey. Off to do some work then try and conquer Mount Laundry. Hope errbody had a great holiday, and you enjoy your upcoming week!

Gearing up for Thanksgiving...

Whoa. How the heck did the holiday season creep up on me? Every year. Ugh.

The boys are leaving on Tuesday morning to spend the Thanksgiving week with my parents. My grandmother is also going down, so I imagine it will be a fun week for all of them. The hubs and I will join them all over the weekend, and we will have our big dinner on Saturday evening. Looking forward to it!

Since they will not be here, I have to do a little planning ahead of time. Fortunately, their homeschooling curriculum is online and they can access it from either of my parents' computers, or even their iPads (technology is SO nice, lol), so I don't have to worry too much about that. I'm going to use the free word search maker at SpellingCity to make a couple of printable word searches they can work on as well. There are some great Thanksgiving themed word lists on the site that I'm going to use, so it won't be the same old words for them.

Honestly, that's probably all I'm going to hope for. It's hard...trying to enforce "school time" when you are two hours away from them. And it's a holiday. But, at least we are comfortable with the "meh, we'll make it up" frame of mind. :D

Anyone doing Black Friday shopping? I am doing a little. Mostly, I'm finding the few things I want to get online ahead of time. So I can relax and spend my time Friday just people watching, lol. Some dear friends and I kinda have an annual tradition. We hang out. We buy movies (yeah, that's my addiction). We laugh at people who appear to have lost their minds. Then we eat IHOP. Even though there is no "big ticket" item that I'm on the hunt for this year, I still plan on going. I guess that puts me squarely in the middle of the crazies, lol.

I hope each and every one of you enjoy your Thanksgiving with your family, friends and loved ones. I know I have SO much I'm thankful for, and I truly enjoy this holiday!

Happy Sunday!

No whining this time, promise. :)

Last week saw a return to our normal, so I am very thankful for that. We got back on track with work and school, and even had time to visit with my mom each day, since she was up for the week visiting my grandmother. It was a good week.

The boys' fine arts program had been running a winter coat drive for the last few weeks, and this past Thursday was the deadline to bring everything in. They had made it a "boys against girls" contest, with whichever gender bringing in the most items winning a prize. The boys won! There were 120 items brought in, with the boys having 65 and the girls having 55. 120 coats/sweatshirts/hoodies/sweaters donated! How freaking awesome, right?! They will be going to a local Kids' Camp here, being given away after a Thanksgiving dinner. If there are any left over, the remaining will go to a local homeless shelter. I am so proud of ALL of the kids and their families that donated!

We wrapped up our week at the Drive-In last night. We saw Wreck-It Ralph (this one was fabulous and funny and I *loved* all of the old video game references!) and Frankenweenie (this was wasn't as good as the first movie, but it was alright. I generally love Tim Burton films, but this one took a little while to get into. Good thing it was the free movie following the first one we paid for, lol.). It was cooooold, but we had on layers, stayed under blankets/sleeping bags and drank hot cocoa. We always enjoy the Drive-In, but have never been this late in the season. To be honest, part of the fun was being so cold and wrapped up and shivering.  :D

Blurry, but still cute. ;)

This week, I'm giving the boys a break from their extra spelling that I have them do. That's always our "go-to" when I'm down and out or when we don't have anything else planned, and they've spent a lot of time on VocabularySpellingCity lately. It's ok, they can resume next week. Bailey has been interested in Thomas Jefferson. So, between the homeschool social studies lessons in T4L, and the handy dandy Wikipedia, he's enjoying learning more about him. He's also started the online algebra with T4L. No fighting with me about it yet, so...so far, so good.

Braeden is trying to read The Hobbit. It's really too far over his head, but his anticipation for the movie next month is almost too much to handle, lol. He made it a few pages in, but it's slow going. No matter; I am SO proud of him for trying! He has a couple of art and science projects he wants to work on this week as well, so it should be fun for all of us. :)

Today, we are going to spend the day all slothed out on the couch. We are catching up on the TV shows Grimm and Once Upon A Time. Both fairy tale related, but both very different. Loving them both!

Signing off now, saying a very big THANK YOU to all of our Veterans who have fought for me, my family and this country. I am profoundly grateful for every one of you, and the sacrifices you make. Our men in women in uniform, and their families, are always in my thoughts and prayers!

Holy. Cow.

This is going to be a whiny post. I'm sorry, but I did want to throw that out there...

So my week didn't go as planned. AT ALL.

I had dental work/oral surgery done on Monday morning. I knew that it would affect my Monday. Probably even my Tuesday. I would have some pain, but I thought by Tuesday afternoon I would at least be able to sit at my computer for a little while.

I was very wrong.

I opted for oral sedation for the procedure. As it turns out, I had a horrific reaction to it. I had the surgery, and it went fine. But I was completely out of it (they call it "twilight," I call it semi-unconscious) for the entire day, and all night. I woke up at 6am on Tuesday morning, and I spent the next 24 hours being violently ill. I won't go into details. But I will say this...I have never, not once, been that sick. Not even in college. Just saying. :/

By Wednesday, I stopped with the icky, but I still couldn't really hold my head up. I did start to progress, slowly. By Friday I was able to pay some bills and attempt a load of laundry. Yes, attempt. I started it, but the hubs finished it. Ugh.

Speaking of the hubs. He deserves the most fabulous husband and father of the year award! While in the midst of taking care of me, BOTH of the boys came down with something. Just a weather change cold type thing...coughing, stuffy nose, sore throat and some asthma issues with Braeden. But still, he was so frazzled all week, but never complained. We are so lucky to have him, aren't we? ;)

I spent some down time reading some of the homeschool highschool blogs I have found on LHSHS. While I would have liked to have been mobile, and having a normal week, I do have to admit that it was nice to have a reason to spend so much time with my iPad under my nose, lol. I enjoyed being able to take a peek at so many different homeschooling families and how they are handling high school. We still have no idea what curricula we are going to use, and how we want to approach it. But, I am finding SO many resources out there, I don't feel quite as lost as did a few months ago!

The boys had a mostly unschooling-like week, not surprisingly. I had some things planned out, but with me being down and out, and them not feeling well, they mostly picked around in some books and spent time on Wikipedia. Ah well, we can just move the planned activities to this week and keep our fingers crossed that we are all back to normal come tomorrow morning. :D

Hope everyone has a great week. If you made it this far into my whining, thanks for listening, lol.

Oh...did you remember to set your clocks back last night? I *loved* my extra hour this morning!