And the countdown has begun!

Before I share about our week this week, I want to direct people to an article. Let me preface this by saying I'm not shoving this down the throat of any public schoolers. I have, nor will I ever, bash or judge those that send their children to public school. I don't think those people are weird, or cult-like, or that they don't want the same things for their children that I do. We just go about things a little differently.

I found this article on a friend's Facebook page and had to share it. I hate standardized tests. I would go so far to say that I abhore them. I don't believe those test results can tell you anything about a child, other than whether or not a child can test well under pressure. I can't even limit my blanket dislike to just standardized tests. It's all tests. I want my children to study to learn. To remember what they read about and worked on. To enjoy the learning process. I don't want them to study to test, then forget half of what they learned once the test was over.

Ok, back to that article. Here it is: When an adult took standardized tests forced on kids

With homeschool statistics showing us that more and more families are making the decision to homeschool, and more and more colleges and universities are accepting homeschoolers (even from those states where testing is not required by homeschool laws), I'm exceedingly happy that I don't have to put so much emphasis on testing around here.

Alrighty then. Just wanted to throw that out there. Now back to our regularly scheduled program. :D

This past week was good for us. I finished my Christmas cards AND got them in the mail in an appropriate time frame. We took the boys to see Arthur Christmas and really enjoyed it. They did their Toys for Tots shopping, and thanks to a GREAT Nerf sale at Target, we dropped $100 worth of Nerf toys, and two board games, in the local TfT box. The best, BEST part of that whole experience was walking out of Target and both of the boys telling us that they loved the feeling they had inside, knowing that they bought so much cool stuff for kids they didn't even know. I was so proud of them!

Other than that, the boys have been liking their "sloth days." All is well...

This coming week starts the countdown to Christmas. No, not so much emphasis on the gifts as just the pure craziness that is our life at Christmas, lol. We have four separate occasions to gather and celebrate. It's nice, but time consuming and very filling, lol, as we eat with everyone we see.

This week we are going Christmas caroling twice; with the Scouts and with our homeschool group. We are so looking forward to that! We are also doing some holiday baking for the first time. The boys decided that they wanted to make cookies for everyone this year. So we are going to attempt to make a gazillion dozen cookies. No, not really that many. At least I hope not. But I'm sure it's going to feel like that, lol...remember I don't spend a lot of time in the kitchen. :/

This week the boys won't really have a lot of time to do much, but they expressed an interest in Hanukkah, so we are going to try and learn something new about the Jewish holiday on each of the eight days. So instead of eight days of gifts, they will get eight days of holiday facts. :) The site we use for our homeschool spelling curriculum (yep..shameless plug, lol) has some Hanukkah word lists. I probably won't make them test on the words, but they can use the lists for game play.

Today we are finishing the last of our shopping. The boys wanted to make their two new cousins a Build-A-Bear as a gift (it's a tradition for new wee additions to the family that started when we made Bailey - now 12 - his first one when he was born!) so we are taking care of that. And then grocery shopping. Blech.

Tomorrow the boys are in a Christmas parade with the Scouts. We finally got our new camera so hopefully I will have photos to post! I can't describe this parade. Honestly. No words. So you guys will have to see the photos to understand why, lol. It's a country parade. Everything from high class floats to decorated lawn mowers and tractors (nope, not kidding) are in the parade. AND...people actually travel from out of state to see this. It's in the middle of nowhere! Not even a gas station. Nothing.  And yet it's the most anticipated holiday event of the season for some. So freaking weird.

Ok. That was long. Too long. Hope some of you actually made it to the end. ;) I hope everyone has a splendid week!

And in case I don't get to say before next weekend, we wish you all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

This Week...

I don't have a lot to say this week...funny, huh? The hubs and I were introduced the to TV show "The Big Bang Theory" this week, and have completely fallen in love with it. I honestly cannot remember the last time we have both laughed so hard, and so often, because of a 30 minute sitcom! I have already gotten seasons 1-4 and I expect we will blow through them at an alarming rate, lol.

We are almost done with our Christmas shopping which is pretty astounding. Usually I'm scrambling on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, my neurosis are kicking in and rather than enjoying myself because I'm just about finished, I spend my days fretting and worrying about whether I have forgotten something/someone. *Sigh* At least I provide laughter for my family and friends with my crazies. :D

The boys are still on break. Yep, the flexibility of homeschooling really IS mucho fabulous. Bailey has finally almost finished the Lord of the Rings trilogy and will begin reading the Eragon trilogy by Christopher Paolini. He has been wanting to read those since he saw the movie, but his excitement about them really grew when he found the books on HomeschoolLiterature.com (the site we went to, to find books by homeschoolers) and he discovered the author was homeschooled. Since he likes to dabble in creative writing, this is very motivating for him.

Braeden is still working on reading The Polar Express. He really wants to finish it because he wants to watch the movie (No, we haven't seen it before. Crazy, I know.) and we won't watch until he's done.

This weekend the boys are doing their Toys for Tots shopping. They have made lists of things they want to give children, and are super excited about finally buying off of that list. After that, we are hitting a Build-A-Bear because the boys want to make one for each of their cousins, Brooklyn and Mariska. Aside from printing out photos and placing them in frames (of which I have already purchased, go me!), and picking up a couple of gift cards, that will wrap up our holiday shopping.

How. Weird.

That means next week, there is a small chance I will finish up my Christmas cards and get them out, kinda on time even...but then what the heck will I do with my time? ;)

Hope errbody has a fantastic week!

A Christmas Parade!

We participated in the Athens Parade of Lights for the first time on Thursday and we had a great time! The boys got to ride on a float with the other Masters Academy children and they really enjoyed that. The theme of the float was "Hot Chocolate" so they got to hold giant forks with giant marshmallows on the end, and giant spoons to stir the cocoa. While they handed out candy like other parade participants, they also handed out packs of hot cocoa mix, lol. Everyone was color coordinated so the kids all matched...it was so cute! Of course, I only have a couple of photos that I took with my phone (and honestly I'm actually only using one of those, lol, the rest I stole from Tracy's facebook!), but when I get some pics from Tracy, I will try and post more photos. As a side note...we have a new camera coming, so hopefully this means my picture taking skills will improve. Maybe. Hopefully maybe. ... :D

Bailey and Braeden, on the float and waiting to start!

Q and Z, putting on some finishing touches...

Tracy and Scott, trying to stay warm. I'm not sure what Scott is doing...guessing his beard was cold? Heh...

The hubs and I. We couldn't believe how cold it was, especially considering that we were wearing shorts just a week ago!

This appealed to my inner geek...it's the 501st! We were surprised to see a legion in the Athens parade, lol...

So on to this week's plans...

I am working on my Christmas cards. I will be working on said Christmas cards until probably just after Christmas, lol. Ah well, it'll be like prolonging the excitement of the season, right? ;) The boys are planning on watching holiday movies on Netflix all week. Yes, really. I'm hoping they will continue with their reading (so far, so good) and I might be able to work in some spelling games. I'm sure there will be Christmas crafts at some point this week as well. The last couple of years, they have enjoyed making ornaments for our tree, and ornaments for family and friends.

Sometime later in the month, we will start on some little mini-studies we are wanting to do, to learn about other winter holidays and celebrations. We do celebrate Christmas, but one of the great things about homeschooling is we can do and study what we want. :) We don't use a Christian homeschool curriculum, or attend a church, but we are Christian in faith (shocking, I know, lol!) and celebrate as such. But we don't have to be Jewish to learn about Hanukkah, or Pagan or Wiccan to read about celebrating Yule. I like exposing the boys to different opinions/theories/beliefs. They can get a little understanding (and in a perfect world, understanding brings acceptance) of how other families and children celebrate this time of year. To be honest, I'm looking forward to what I'm going to learn, by helping them learn.

Not a lot else going on. I plan on watching one of my MOST favorite holiday movies this weekend (only the first time of many this holiday season, I assure you). National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I love that ridiculous movie, lol! I will probably quote it all month long....

At some point, I have to finish shopping. Every year, I am buying something on Christmas Eve. Hear's hoping that's one tradition I can break this year!

Anyone else still have a lot of shopping to do?

I can officially listen to Christmas music...

...now that we've had the turkey and done the shopping! That's the law that the hubs lays down. We have to get through Thanksgiving before we start decorating and everything. The music is all part of the "and everything." :)

Thanksgiving dinner with part of the family went well on Thanksgiving day. By 830pm I was in line at Best Buy, lol (even though I had ordered what I wanted to wait in line for from their website at 630 that morning!). It was actually a fun night. There were tons of people, so the people watching was fun. They had an outdoor screening of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 while everyone was waiting, and that was pretty cool. When we were finally let in at midnight, things were going VERY smoothly. Much more so that I expected. They were letting people in by groups of 30 so there were no trampling issues and they had maps they passed out beforehand of how the check out lines were going to work and where they started. We were impressed.

After Best Buy, we hit IHOP and found ourselves at Walmart by about 330am. It was basically dead and everything had been picked through, and I was on my way home (with seasons 3, 4 and 5 of Supernatural, yay!) by 4 or so.

Now, we are on the way to my parents for the weekend where we will have dinner and fun with them!

Next week is the boys' last day at Masters until after the New Year. After their last day on Thursday, the Masters' kids are in a parade of lights in town...that should be fun.

We are officially on break, so I don't really have any plans for them as far as school goes. At least not right now. Reading and spelling, but that's about it. We are going to look into which of the homeschool writing courses we are going to sign Bailey up for in January. I really wish we had done it sooner, but time and money are always factors in everything. At his grade level, they have courses in mechanics, paragraph writing, essay writing and more. I'm sure he will be taking more than one, but finding a good one to start with is important. Fortunately, we have a writer in the house (Shameless plug for the hubs: You can totally go download his ebook from Amazon for only $.99 right now! :) Click here: Celadonian Tales Vol: 1 Blood and Brass), so he is going to have a good bit of input on where to jump in.

I didn't know that the same website offers elementary online writing courses too. Even though it might be a little too much for him right now, we are going to toss around the idea of signing him up for the youngest course they have...if nothing else to help with grammar and sentence structure. We'll see. :)

Alrighty...off for more turkey! I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving with their loved ones! :D

Vocabulary, Thanksgiving and Black Friday!

This week was a good week for us. I'm still sucking with my time management skills, but the boys had a good week. My grandmother had a couple of doctor appointments that I helped her with, and I spent all day Wednesday at our first tax meeting of the season (Aaaaahhhh, it's already tax season?!?!), so the boys, and the hubs, had a good trial run of what things are going to be like while I'm out of the house for those six weeks or so I'm at the office.

This week is our last official week of school, as we are on track to take our winter break from Thanksgiving until right after the New Year. We never do nothing for those few weeks, but it's entirely different. We focus on holiday studies (like mini unit studies) rather than our normal curriculum. They will work on spelling, but I will only ask them to play spelling games rather than do their normal spelling lists. They will still do their independent reading, but will more than likely spend that time reading holiday stories.

I have no idea what Bailey will read over the holidays, he hasn't decided. Braeden is going to tackle The Polar Express. He has improved SO much lately with his reading. We are loving it! Things are just clicking for him, left and right. A lot of the improvement came after we focused on helping him with his reading vocabulary. He concentrated on sight words in spelling, and played a lot of vocabulary games online.

We also tried to continue the vocabulary focus when we were away from computers too. One way we did this was by playing word games in the car (we spend A LOT of time in the car, lol). We started playing our own version of "The Alphabet Game." Most people play where you follow the alphabet...for instance, Bailey starts and he uses the word "ant." Then it's Braeden's turn and "b" is his letter so he uses the word "bat." And it keeps going. Sometimes you can lay down restrictions, like the words can only be animals or can only be foods.

We play that way, but our favorite variation is where one person starts with any letter of their choice but the next person's word has to start with the last letter of the previous word. So Walter uses the word "skill" and then I'm next and use the word "love." Then Bailey's next and he uses "eat." And so on. When Walter and I play, we don't try to choose only words that the boys know. We use whatever words come to mind and if they don't know what those words mean, then we explain them and use them in a sentence. So we're helping Braeden, but Bailey is benefiting too. :)

This coming week is going to be kinda hectic, much as it is for the majority of the country, lol. Tomorrow I am taking an entire Saturday for myself. Horrible, I know. I am spending the whole day, from about 9am until midnight, with Tracy and her SIL Jen. We will be scrapbooking at Archivers. I love these ladies, and Jen lives in Connecticut so I don't get to see her as often as I would like. I haven't really scrapped in a long while, and I'm so looking forward to it!

The rest of the week will honestly be leading up to Thanksgiving. We will be cramming in last minute school things before our break. Thanksgiving day we will have dinner with my grandmother and that night Tracy, her husband Scott, Jen and myself will head out for Black Friday shopping!!!! It's going to be so much fun! Best Buy is handing out tickets for something we are getting the boys as gifts, and they will start handing out the tickets at 10pm. Doors open at midnight and the frenzy begins. Last year we didn't really hit Best Buy. We did the Walmart thing. I wasn't going to buy anything, but I ended up with over $200 in $5 and $10 Blurays. This year, I'm not even going to pretend I'm not buying anything other than the boys' specific gift items. I'm almost as excited for the movie buying this year as I am about their gifts we are hopefully getting. Scott and I are the Bluray/movie addicts, so we already have our lists of what we want to fight over! ;) Once we are all shopped out, we'll go eat at IHOP and deliriously laugh over what we saw and how excited we are with what we bought, lol.

After shopping, we're heading to my parents where they host a huge Thanksgiving dinner that Saturday. About 50 people huge. It's crowded and crazy, but fun and there's tons of good food.

I have so much in my life I am thankful for, and each year, even through the craziness, I love being able to spend this time with family and friends and give thanks. I hope each and every one of you have a fabulous Thanksgiving with your loved ones!

Little Bits of Random...

In reading some blogs this week, I came across a blogger who had a "random" post. She took many things she wanted to say, and just said them. Randomly. This idea intrigued me because so often, I have so much I want to say and I can't find a way to work everything into a post that flows. So, this week, I'm not going to try. I'm just gonna be random. ;)

* I can't believe it's November and I'm perusing the Black Friday sale ads. How crazy. Where have the last 10 months gone?!

* I loved, loved, LOVED this week's episode of Glee. 

* The boys did really well with their online subjects this week, but fought me at the handwriting worksheets. Shocker. 

* Speaking of handwriting... what does everyone think of teaching cursive writing? Still necessary, or gone the way of the Dodo?

* We're visiting my parents and MIL this weekend. Looking forward to seeing everyone. Getting some holiday pictures made with the boys and my niece. 

* I don't sleep at night. I would like to say I don't know why. But the last two months, I blame it on Gilmore Girls. I had never seen it, but I have blown through seven seasons since Labor Day. :)

* I'm a sandwich meat snob. 

* I'm making my own Christmas cards again this year. Every year about this time, I am very excited. I think up a design, pick up needed supplies and pat myself on the back for going through so much effort for my holiday cards. Then, about 4 days before Christmas, I'm cursing the damn cards and I'm swearing that I will never make my own again. Finally getting them all in the mail, half of them running a good chance of getting to their destination after Christmas, I calm down and pat myself on the back again. Heh. 

* We have been talking about signing Bailey up for homeschool writing courses for a while, but as usual, I have procrastinated. We are finally going to let him start his first one in January, when I start the tax thing this year. January is a tough month for us because we are coming off a nice long holiday break AND trying to adjust to me being out of the house again. Hoping the writing course is a good thing; introducing something new to take the monotony out of things. Now, to find something similar to help rejuvenate and motivate Braeden...

* We have several movies we are looking forward to seeing over the next few weeks. The Muppets, Arthur Christmas, The Muppets, Happy Feet Two and finally, The Muppets. What? :P

* I try and start Christmas shopping early every year, but inevitably, my first purchase is on Black Friday. However, this year, I have already started and have 3 gifts ready to go under the tree. Yeah, 3 isn't a lot. But it's a start!

* It's no secret that I'm a rabid TV watcher. Some of my favorite shows are guilty pleasures...like total teen angst drama crap that I wait for every week but I never tell anyone about. My favorite teeny show? The Vampire Diaries. There is a whole lotta pretty in that show. :D 

* I love the seasonal flavors of coffee creamer that are out right now.

* Next week, HomeschoolLiterature.com (one of our favorite resource sites) is hosting it's first ever Virtual Book Release Party. I have never been a part of a book release party, virtual or otherwise. Looking forward to it. If you check it out, you may even win a Kindle copy of the books being released.

* While thinking about books...I cannot believe that there's a new Sherrilyn Kenyon - Dark Hunter AND a Janet Evanovich - Stephanie Plum novel out that I haven't read yet. Darn Gilmore Girls. Guess I won't be sleeping much the next few nights either, lol.

* I love my iPad. Best gadget EVAR. 

* I have thoroughly enjoyed my randomness this week. I would expect to see more little bits of random from me every few weeks!

Music, Art and School Pictures!

This week we had our field trip to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the High Museum of Art. We had a GREAT time! Honestly, I was surprised at just how much we enjoyed ourselves, even if we did have to wake up at 6am (that's 6am in normal human speak, but that's the middle of the night in Katie speak!). Neither experiences were something that we had done before and it's quite possible we've found new interests to explore as a family. 

At the Orchestra, we got to sit in the front row. This was super cool in so many ways, but it was a little limiting as far seeing the whole orchestra. Still, it was fabulous for the boys to say they were in the front row, lol. Besides getting to hear beautiful music, we learned a lot too! I had no idea a double bass was so big, what the difference was in a viola and a violin, or why being the "Concertmaster" is different than being "First Chair." After the performance, we toured the High. It was really cool...they were showcasing the artists Picasso, Pollock, Warhol; as well as few others. No, I don't remember all the names. Yes, that's shameful. Moving on... :) Our experience on Wednesday led the boys to come home and Google quite a bit. They wanted to see other pieces of art by the artists we saw, as well as more information about the orchestra. They also played some art and music games online. Yay for learnin'!

Thursday, the boys got to have their first official "school photos" made. I can't wait to see how they turned out! The photographer took several different shots, all outdoors. I love that there will be signs of fall in the background. We always take our own Christmas card photos (there's nothing wrong with that at all!), but I'm looking forward to being able to gift a different style of picture this year.

This week proved to be hectic, as I knew it would. Next week things will be as normal as normal is for us. The boys are going to work on a Veteran's Day mini unit study, which they are looking forward to. They have been playing a lot of science and math games lately, so I think I'm going to assign some different games...just to throw them off, lol. ;) Some geography games and some health games sound good. 

I hope everyone has a great week!