First week of school: Part 1

First week of school, or so I'm told.

A few weeks ago I decided it would be fun to celebrate our little homeschool in a different way. I realized that since school always starts the day after Labor Day here, that it always starts on a Tuesday which happens to be Toddler Tuesday at the Mall of America.  On Toddler Tuesday wristbands for rides are half off and kids eat free at many restaurants (with each adult meal of course), and.....everyone else's kids are in school.

Score.

As the day approached I became nervous as Demand kept talking about how we always have fun gifts that day and Happy kept talking about being a 1st grader.  Eek. Would they be ok not doing school?

They seemed fine.

We got some wrist bands for the amusement park and rode rides till we were sore; at least I was. Some of those rides are intense!  We met up with my sister-in-law and some of her littles who needed some fun as well.

Time went way too fast and before we knew it we had been there five hours, and it was well past nap time.  We ended with some gelato (most of which was free) before heading over to Grandmas house.  My sister in law was going to watch the kiddos while Mr. Sloth and I ran to a counter top distributor because (hangs head, sighs) we are remodeling our kitchen.

That. Is. Another. Post.

Here are the kids on the school bus....I'm sorry the Diego bus ride at the Mall.

We finally headed home ten hours after we left. Needless to say Rooster and King were beside themselves.

Here's King at the mall during our lunch break. I extremely offended him when I went to the bathroom for thirty seconds. The selfies were me trying to show him how awful he looked.

Afterschool, snack anyone? Free ice cream? Yes, please!

Actually, everyone was beside themselves. Demand was really off. After a week or more with cousins and a fun day at the mall she said she needed a break and wanted to do school on Wednesday instead of something fun.  O......K......

Happy was excited for school too. He couldn't stop talking about starting 1st grade.  (We did most of Kindergarten last year so I guess we move forward even though he's only five.)

So Wednesday we started school. Ready or not.  I was not.  I spent an hour panicking Tuesday night when the only Math book I could find for Demand was a first grade book, and it wasn't done. Did we not finish first grade math? Are we that far behind?? Then I realized it was a book I bought for Happy and that Demand was much further along. Whew.

It was a very casual day as I still have some preparing to do.  I know what you're thinking. Didn't you buy all their books back in May? What else is there to do? Well there is copying, cutting, organizing, planning, etc... But I put my 'keep calm and homeschool' hat on, grabbed some books and did stuff.

I then went through the five stages of homeschooling grief.

1) Denial: The summer isn't over. We're not really schooling yet, just reading some books and writing some letters and numbers.

2) Anger: Why can't children stop asking me for things for thirty seconds so I can teach ten minutes of math??

3)Bargaining: If you leave us alone you can watch Mickey Mouse later.

4) Depression: Does she remember anything from last year? Am I ruining her education?

5) Acceptance: "I can't wait to do more school tomorrow."  I have not ruined our relationship nor their education in one day.

Then I see the cuteness that is this guy,

 and remember why it's all worth it.

More about Less

Did I ever publish that post about minimalism? My Mama brain fails me on this issue. Oh, well let's pretend I didn't.

A year or so ago I was following the blog The Year of Less. I probably found it through one of my organizing blogs I follow. Any-who, I was happily reading along when the blog came to an abrupt end, but I still read through all the old posts for inspiration. That's when I realized this blogger got her inspiration from a book called "The Joy of Less" which I promptly bought, promptly read, and promptly loved.

As I read the book I was often inspired to get right to work. I did a decent job of purging my kitchen a few months ago, then of course you remember the garage that I never updated you on. (It's wonderful though.)

In fact I loved the book so much that I off handedly suggested it to my book club. They voted on it and added it to the read list. While I was on vacation I missed last months book club but found out the next book is in fact, "The Joy of Less" and I'm hosting. Yeah, I love hosting! Yeah, I love book club! Yeah, oh no.... I need to have less stuff before people show up at my house!

Nothing like hosting a group of friends over to talk about having less stuff to poke you in the motivator. (And no I can't not exactly tell you where my "motivator" is located).

Problem was, A) I was on vacation at the time, hard to purge when you aren't home. B) I only had five days between getting home from vacation and heading to IL for a family visit, and C) only four days between leaving family and book club! Yikes!

I was able to get all of the boys clothes sorted, reorganized, restored, and relabeled before heading to IL but they have yet to make it into their final resting place,aka,the garage.

Todays spark of inspiration came from the fact that a friend is having a garage sale at the end of the week and invited me to drop items off.  What a perfect opportunity!  I remembered seeing a few items in our board game armoire that we never use so I thought I start there.

First I took before pictures and prayed the kids would stay occupied. Here's the before pic. You can tell things are often just thrown inside and doors quickly slammed hoping nothing falls out. I bought this armoire on Craigslist this past winter by the way....

Second I emptied the armoire out and started to sort out items in my room, which was thankfully clean.

Third, I merged a few things to save space including making preliminary plans to make these beauties I found on Pinterest a while ago.  By the way my, 'preliminary plans' consist of me asking Mr. Sloth to make them this week and him saying, "OK."

Next I reloaded all the keep items back into the armoire in an efficient order, ie, we probably won't be doing the Christmas puzzles for a while so they went on the bottom.

It took me an hour total. And that included breaking up some fights, changing two sets of batteries on toys the littles wanted to play with and helping King with puzzles he hadn't done in a while.

This is my toss pile as I won't need these boxes anymore.

This is my garage sale pile from the armoire alone.

I'm really excited with the outcome and with the board game frames we'll save space in storage and have fun art work in our playroom! Much nicer, huh?

I normally just drop items off at charity instead of garage saling, (It's a word. Don't judge.) but Mr Sloth has it in our marriage contract that I am never to have a garage sale. But our contract doesn't say I can't sell items at someone else's house...

Whatever, if any, money I get from the sale will figuratively go towards a new dresser for our bedroom and new shelf for the homeschool room.

Whoa......whoa....whoa...."Did she just say she's buying more stuff? I thought she was getting rid of stuff?"

Hold your horses.

I'm actually selling both our dressers because I think they are unnecessary, especially since I've gotten rid of so many clothes, and I'll replace them with one dresser. This way I can also bring our rocking chair back into our room as it doesn't get used in the boys room and for when we have another baby it makes sense to have the rocking chair in here. As for the homeschool room, it should come as no surprise that we are just gaining books every year. I may sell some at the end of next year but for now, another shelf. I also want to the kids each get their own cubby storage for their own books. Demand had this last year and it worked great but her cubby bin just sat on the desk. We need the space this year with a 3rd grader, K/1st grader, and preschooler......and busy-body toddler.

I'm happy with results, so much that I'm motivated to keep going. I'll spend the rest of this week going through cabinets, drawers, and bins looking for items to sell on Thursday.  If I am ever so brave I will go through the emotionally forbidden baby girl clothes.

Random Lunch Hour

Because I'm not physically prepared to show you pictures of the update on the garage makeover, and because I am not emotionally prepared to write about Sarah Harkins, I bring you-

Random Lunch Hour with The Sloths

Curtains open. It's 12:40, an hour and forty minutes after our regular scheduled lunch time. 

We've just arrived home from a morning of errands including Sam's Club. As  the boys and I unload the van of supplies of overstock goods Demand starts making burritos for everyone.

Happy is in charge of holding the garage door open as Rooster and King, yes, King, assist in carrying the groceries inside and putting them away.

Happy swings the door every three seconds causing a mind numbing squeak to resonate throughout the house and tries to perfectly time the door to close on Rooster as he passes by. King thinks everything is candy and demands I open the package immediately or relocates it to an undisclosed location. When I refuse to open the lifetime supply of Motrin, King throws the box across the room in a fit of rage.(I might just need to open the box after all. )

Just then Rooster announces that he doesn't feel like helping anymore because he is "not strong enough to carry toothpaste" upstairs.

Demand then calls out that she can't remember how to make one minute and forty seconds on the microwave as she is still new at cooking this way. I stop to assist.

Then I continue to bring in various items from the van including, but not limited to the trail of boxes Pax took from the van and placed elsewhere.

As Demand continues to crank out burritos, I employ Happy to dry sweep the house and gather all the crumbs into one place.

King is still trying to open the Motrin.

Rooster, being surprisingly obliging, is trudging items upstairs. I tap into the decade of Tetris experience from childhood and reconfigure my pantry to fit the newly purchased groceries. "Why did I buy so much? ", I think "We're leaving town in a few days. "

I notice Happy is parading around the house with dry mop as though he is carrying a crucifix up the aisle at Mass and I'm reminded to check his work.

"I did it, Mom. I made lots of piles like you said."

Nope. Not what I said. One pile, not many, I feel like there are more crumbs now somehow.

King, giving up on the Motrin,  realizes his hunger and expresses himself the best way a two year old knows how. Rage.

I place him in the highchair and hand him a container of blueberries that has been sitting out since breakfast.

He giggles.

I finish up my game of Tetris and shut the pantry door victoriously just as Demand and the kids sit down for lunch.

I apparently forgot to make reservations as Demand didn't make me a burrito.

King is no longer pleased with the blueberries. I hand him his burrito.

I put a burrito in the microwave for myself and Demand requests I read about the Saint of the Day.

I sit down and read two lines of the biography of Blessed Frederic Jansoone, and as I speak the words, "he lead an interesting life" my foot catches the dry mop which falls down across the kitchen island and knocks over a glass of water.

The kids seem confused as to why I have stopped reading as I clean up the mess.

I continue reading.  I take a bite of my molten burrito.

Happy gets up to get water and is asked to get some for everyone. I take a bite of my flaming burrito and continue reading.  Two lines in Happy asks for straws.

"We don't need them", I say, desperate to take a third bite undisturbed.

I attempt to continue reading when he insists I find them. "The cup is for King.", he says.

I get up, locate a straw and hand it to Happy.

I take another bite of my warm burrito.

I continue reading. I am interrupted first by a grunt, and then by King saying, "Mama...I poop."

"You're pooping?"I ask assumingly.

"Yeah. ......(shutters)"

I continue reading.

"Ow-y" , King whines.

"You hurt? " I ask.

"Yeah." King says.

"Let's change your diaper. " I concede.

Demand simultaneously finishes her burrito and now wants the coveted pears promised upon completion of the burrito.

"No pears until Mommy finishes her lunch. "

King has a new diaper on,  but he is now roaming free, not in a high chair.  I wash my hands and sit back down.

"Done. Pears please? " says Happy oblivious to the previous statement.

"Not until Mommy is done."

At some point as I finish my burrito I mention how nap time will immediately follow lunch. Rooster then spends the next ten minutes trying to around the idea of a nap instead of eating his burrito.  Demand seeing me finish my cold burrito, opens a can of pears. I tell her, a little irritated, that  I had already opened one. I dish out pears for Demand, Happy, and King. Rooster cries because he hasn't finished his lunch yet. He continues to try and talk me out of naps.

Everyone demands more pears. I open the second can regretting my comments earlier. I leave the room and comeback to find King following me around carrying his plate with pear juice dripping behind him asking for more. While he's distracted I take the pear he threw on the table and put it back on his plate then open a third can.

Rooster, suddenly infused with the concept of scarcity,  starts to panic about our pear supply. I assure him we have plenty. We just went to Sam's Club.

Happy repeatedly requests his fork be retrieved from the can of pears and brought back to him.

Finally Rooster finishes his dilapidated burrito and ask for pears. I open a fourth can, noticing that we've plowed throw half a box in one meal,  and announce naps are in five minutes.

At this point I am reminded of the gentleman at Sam's Club who asked me if 'this' was all mine, inquiring about the twirling little people at my feet. Upon confirmation he declares my hands are full. I wasn't annoyed, I never am, good grief, my hands are full, but as I left the aisle, I thought, "I'm at Sam's Club because my family goes through one box of cereal a breakfast, one loaf of bread at lunch, (and apparently four cans of pears), and 80 K-cups of Caribou Coffee a month. Why are you here? "

So there you have it a random lunch date with the Sloths. Wait. Did we say grace? Crap.

Garage Makeover

A week ago, out of frustration Mr. Sloth said, "You know what I want for my birthday? I want a usable garage."  Well that caught my attention. "Really? Do I have a budget? Like, can I hire someone?", I eagerly pressed.  I don't recall he actual response but to my intrigued ears he seemed to be saying  "Do what you need to do" playing out like a scene from the Wedding at Cana. A few days have passed as I brainstormed what to do, but no real plans. Then the kids and I came home from Rooster's  "Amazing Athletes" class and I parked the van perpendicular at the end of the driveway so the kids could ride bike and not be tempted to go in the street and I, I was going to use the leaf blower on the garage.

Have I ever used it? Nope. Did I know how to start it? Nope. Were the kids hungry and want lunch? Yep. I started the oven to reheat left over pizza from Demands birthday but gratefully the boys wanted theirs cold so they were content. While Demand and I waited for our pizza to heat up I emptied the garage of bikes and tried to figure out the leaf blower. After many texts to Obscure I still couldn't get it going. It would have to wait. Then Mr. Sloth came home for lunch and started it up for me. My word that is one fun tool.  Somehow tons of grass had gotten into our garage along with years of dust, dirt, sand, cobwebs and who knows what else. It was a good clean start. I'll do it a few more times before the project is done I'm sure but it was enough of a boost to really get me started on this project.

It was time for King and Rooster to nap. Rooster goes down easy if I'm in the room with him. Sometimes I nap too other times I read or do work online. I had my minimalist book and Pinterest as my friends. As I pinned away Obscure would shoot me an idea or two over text, most of which were beyond awesome.  Once Rooster was asleep I got back to work. This time I started emptying all the shelves I could and making piles across the garage including most of all, "Things to leave the house". Plans have become more solid the more I Pinterest and the more I clean and purge.  There are four stages.

1) Purge and Clean. You can't organize unless you know what you have so we're getting rid of what we can and then organizing according to categories and then I can't decide how to store things.

2) Paint. We're painting the walls and I'm renting a sprayer.  No question about it. Not 100% sure on the colors right now but we are mostly likely going to do white walls with black door and doorframe because that door gets disgusting.

3) Organize. Once we know what we need to store and the walls are painted we can arranged shelving accordingly and get better feel for what we need. (this will by far be the best part)

4) Paint. Once all the wall storage is up we are going to paint the floor. It will take two steps as I don't know what we're going to do with everything while the paint dries.

5)  Finally storage solutions and organizing.


Here is a starter list of projects

-paint walls
-paint floor
-screen for the garage door so Mr. Sloth can work without battling Minnesota Mosquitoes.
-shelving that will separate the garage into two areas.

We have a lot of organizing material all ready which is nice we just haven't had the time to purge and start over.

Here are some humbling before pictures. Keep in mind a lot of this is due to the extreme cold of the past winter keeping us from stepping foot in this garage.

This corner is supposed to be Mr. Sloths work area. I don't see why he thinks it's unusable.

This is where the bulk of our storage rests right now.  Things have just gotten thrown somewhere as needed instead of having a designated place.

Yard tool area, not bad but could be better.

Lifted the rug up to see how dirty it really is in there. Eww.

This is after I used the leaf blower, notice the difference?

Already looking better.

I have more pictures to take already as I've cleared most of the shelves and taking the shelving down off the wall. Next step is to finish clearing the walls and paint them.  

Eight is Great!

Occasionally this insomnia business comes in handy. I woke up at 4:30am this morning I can recognize the early signs of insomnia so instead  of trying to go back to sleep I just went with the flow and jumped right into my day. It's just as well today is Demand's 8th birthday.  In addition to getting a shower in before starting my day I was also able to decorate a bit before she woke up. I pulled out the "Happy Birthday" sign I made with my Cricut a few years ago for a different birthday.

I had a seen a cute idea on Pinterest to stuff balloons between a bedroom door and streamers but I feared she would wake up in the night and panic about the door being closed and then get scared to death when balloons came pouring out at her. So Just taped streamers all over the doorway to greet her when she opened the door. She loved it.

Then I had time to work on another Pinterest idea, but this one was part of her birthday presents.  I made a dresser for her American Girl Doll using a small tupperware drawer unit and some scrapbook paper. It took me maybe 10 minutes to make and it is SO cute! She'll love it.






Then I still had time since it was so early so I wrapped all her gifts, although by this time Rooster was by my side, and I set out the bunch of balloons and candy I bought from The Dollar Tree last night. Love, love,love that store. Balloons and giant boxes of candy for $1 each who can beat that price??




The day was fairly average we didn't have quite so much going on as we have been lately. No swimming today since it's a rather cold 70 degrees out so that cuts 3 hours out of my day. I had a chiropractor appointment in the morning then it was home for lunch and quiet hour.

Later I had a Pilates class at the gym. Demand was excited because you get a star on your name sticker in child care when it's your birthday.


She requested Papa John's Pizza for dinner and Rita's Ice Cream for dessert. I couldn't get pictures of her opening her gifts as my parents were FaceTimeing but  I got one of her eating her treasured ice cream with one of her gifts ( An American Girl travel bag....really it's the Target brand but she doesn't care) .

Thanks for Eight years Demand!

Reboot

The Sloths needed a reboot this summer.  Two weeks ago I had the priviledge of going on a retreat. I had written a long post about it but never finished nor published the piece.  (Piece? What am I a journalist now?) Anyway the retreat boiled down to a few bulletpoints. 

1) Silent, which was surprisingly wonderful and easy for me. 

2) Fruitful, at least I hope it is, time will tell. 

3) Penetential, not only did I not sleep while I was there,

 but I consumed some spoiled food. 

Don't get me wrong though, it was peaceful and intimate. The retreat was planned well because I returned home on Sunday night and Monday morning was the first day of Vacation Bible School. At first this made me nervous. The kids clothes would have to be set out the night before, we'd have to leave the house by 8am (which is gasp-worthy for homeschoolers like ourselves). Turns out it was a great way to ease back into the real world since I wouldn't have Things 1-3 for the mornings. Just me and the 'baby'. (Yep. He's a baby and I'm sticking to it.) 

The only downside to my retreat is, well, how do I say this delicately, Mr. Sloth put the house on survival mode. Actually, he put it on entertainment and survival mode. The night I left he had about twelve people over for a cookout including his brothers family who stayed at our house for the weekend.  I thought I would have time during the week to catch up with housework I was rather crunched for time.  I did get to take King to the little zoo for an hour or so and run some errands that aren't "Wow-are-they-all-yours" friendly.  Mr. Sloth on the other hand was having a horrible week. His stress was becoming quite visible so by Friday I made an emergency plea to Obscure to watch the kids while I take Mr. Sloth out to dinner. I realized half way through the day that it was a Friday and no longer during the Easter Season which means we don't eat meat. All I had was luxury fish sticks from Trader Joe's. Mr. Sloth hates fish. Mr. Sloth hates fish sticks. I don't know how he feels about Trader Joe's. When I told him we get to go out to eat his first words were, "Can I eat meat? "

Yep. 

I was able to convince him to head a favorite restaurant that is known for being an oyster bar. Mr. Sloth has been there many times for drinks but never really to eat. I reassured him that there was at the very least a burger on the menu (as well as duck, and pork, and lamb....) It was an ideal night for dining outside. It's a French Restaurant that even has the outdoor chairs you see all up and down Parisian Streets. At the last minute we both "settled" on steak. We had the Pommes Frites with Bearnaise sauce for an appetizer as we always do but I was pleasantly surprised to find out they came with my steak as well. More potatoes? More Bearnaise? Yes, please!! 

It was sometime during this week that we realized that we had completely forgotten to plan our vacation. Huh. Didn't make lodging reservations or even concrete plans. Huh. We decided to postpone our trip until later in the summer. Then all the kids sports will be over, we'll have more time to plan what we actually want to do and we'll be able to find affordable lodging. It wasn't long before we realized how providential this decision was. Some might be disappointed that they can't go on their vacation when planned but God's timing is perfect and I prefer to just go with the flow of the Holy Spirit. In my mind I thought, "Oh, well. We'll make it work sometime." 

Sunday ended up being the most awkward Father's Day yet. It started out normal but on the way to Mass King started fussing in the van for what seemed like no reason. I turned around an noticed that he had spit up his Cheerios a little bit. That was odd, but he didn't have a fever and it didn't smell like vomit. I decided try and hold him myself all through Mass in case he did throw up, I didn't want him throwing up on Mr. Sloth. Half way through Mass I realized he wasn't drinking his milk which is NOT like him at all. Then I started to kind of smell vomit. At the Our Father King insisted that Mr. Sloth hold him instead of me. Two minutes after Mr. Sloth and I did the prisoner exchange of King for Rooster King burped and threw up ALL OVER Mr. Sloth. 

Hello fellow parishioners. That just happened. 

I don't know what the etiquette is for cleaning up vomit during the Consecration but I'm apparently a trail blazer for standards.  The good news is that it turns out it was just something he ate, probably too much popcorn the night before. He was feeling better by 11am just as the clouds were breaking. We thought it was going to be storming all afternoon and we'd have to miss German Fest. At the last second we packed up the family and head to the city for our beloved once-a-year family event. It was so much fun. Perfect weather! It was pouring rain last year but we went anyway so it was nice to have great weather. 

Monday I was finally able to get some good house cleaning done in the morning before we went to get groceries. Then it was lunch and naps before we drove to private swim lessons. The daughter of a friend of mine is a lifeguard and they have an in ground pool in their yard. Perfect set up for private swim lessons. Even though I have to drive 40 minutes I can get their lessons done at the same time, one on one and pay a really decent price. I would have taken pictures but King LOVES being in the water so my hands were rather full. Thunder rolled just as our lesson was wrapping up so we packed up and started the trek home in a storm. Being rush hour and having to make one slightly out of the way stop we took a bit longer getting home and had a quick dinner thanks to my crockpot that had chicken tacos waiting for us. 

Today the house was still nice and clean so I treated the kids to a day at the 'small' zoo and some early afternoon ice cream before heading home for late naps. It's already time to make dinner. Time flies when your having summertime fun! 

Here's some pics from the zoo & ice cream. 

King at the water table in the Children's Learning room. 

Rooster showing me what the tiger eats. 

Happy & King looking for koi in the conservatory (there were none) 

King looking adorable in the conservatory. 

King enjoying some Italian ice. 

Rooster enjoying his Sour Apple Italian Ice. 

Demand enjoying her Birthday Cake Italian Ice. 

Happy needed to try every single flavor in order to make a well informed decision which is why I don't have a picture of him by himself. He finally decided on mango. The kids are already plotting how to get back to the ice cream shop to try out some more flavors.

The Bounty

There are about ten days a year I look forward to with much anticipation.  The Catholic Homeschool Conference is two of them. This year I dragged brought Mr. Sloth along with me so he could get a feel for the conference in all it's paperback glory.  

I was proud of myself for sticking with my new minimalist goals and I didn't buy anything we didn't need or love.  I came with a decent list and stuck pretty close to that list aside from a few extra fillers and Christmas gifts. 

I suddenly feel like an old pro as I had my rolling suitcase to carry all my loads of book to and from the van, and I had my list prepared for each of my kids as to which curriculum I painstakingly picked out over months of thinking and weeks of research. 

The talks were pretty good. Dr. Meg Meeker was the keynote and the one breakout session I went to was Lacy from Catholic Icing. Not only was it nice to see her I got a few ideas for keeping the littles incorporated into the school day.  I'm sure you'll see more about that in another post. 

I was also wise enough, knowing that the second I walked in the door I'd be ambushed by the kids wanting to know what books I'd bought. Thankfully I thought ahead and had a fun book for each of them in my hand when I came home.  Not only were they completely excited and engrossed by their new books but I was able to sneak the rest of the materials in the house and sort them first and keep their little eyes from seeing some possible Christmas gifts. 

I'd say this is about 50-60% of what we need for next year. Some things we have as certain textbooks can be passed down. I still have most of their math and some history books to purchase online yet. No rush though. 

I put the books in order of subjects. Aren't they purdy?  On the left, Teaching Writing and Structure and then Student Writing and Structure for Demand and myself. Then All About Spelling 3 below (still finishing up 2) then for Happy we have Primary Arts of Reading including the Phonetic Farm and Phonetic Games. However once I got home I realized that they forgot my Phonetic Games, DVD, and Teacher's Manual.  And then for Rooster we have the first three books of "Explode the Code" which is a fun phonetic activity book.  Below that we have New American Cursive. Demand and Happy will both be working through workbooks A & B this year.

Since our normal Science has an age range in place of  an grade style of curriculum we only us it every other year. We used it this year for Physics so next year we'll do some fun physics activities here and there but mostly do Art & Music this year which we haven't done in a while so Demand is excited!  I also found this great Dictionary at my friends Usborne table and Demand and Happy are already obsessed with it. Demand keeps not-so-casually finding a word she needs to look up and it's only been four hours since I've been home.

The next table is the bulk of our History program. While the kids love "Story of the World" and it is easy to use and very classical and in depth it's also written by Protestants. I was planning on getting the "Catholic Version" this year but I ended up being kind of disappointed with the structure or lack there of. There's basically a very rough overview of a teachers guide but then a great number of books to read. All the books are great but it seemed a great deal, 50% were based on Catholicism and I want a REAL study of ALL History in all the cultures of the world, not just the fun stuff. Because it's all important. So we decided to merge the two programs. We'll take out conflicting chapters of Story of the World (for the time being) and then read all the great books recommended from the Catholic History program according to the time period we will be studying at the time.

More History material and then a tiny bit of Math. I'm going to half to buy the bulk of our Math curriculum online, but thankfully I just have to buy workbooks for John as we already have the textbooks and then to be honest I'm not sure what I'm doing with Rooster. He's got his preschool material down so I guess it wouldn't hurt to try Kindergarten with him and just go at his pace.  

Aside from the Math and History books I need to purchase I plan on getting "Classically Catholic Memory" . It's classical in that it promotes memorization which is so important in the younger years and it's also Catholic (apparently there was a protestant version out there first) so you would buy the book that coordinated with the time period you are studying. This year we are studying late-medieval through early settler. Each week the family memorizes facts/quotes, etc from eight different subjects. I'm pretty excited about this supplemental curriculum.

Also, being a history major (yep I have an actual degree in something) I have been finding the history curriculums out there lacking for my taste. To me if you know History and know it well so many more pieces of information will fit into place. This also goes for Geography.  So inspired by this, and I've been wanting to do it for a few years now, our family is starting a permanent timeline on our playroom wall. (It's the largest wall in the house. )As we study subjects and topics we'll add them to the list according to time and country so that we can get a grasp as to what was happening across the world at any given time. For example, our kids were confused as to why the children in Narnia had to 'go live somewhere' out of London for a while. If we were to place the Chronicles of Narnia (either the date it was published or when it takes place) on a map would could see when we study WWI WHY the children had to leave. Or what was going on when Hemingway wrote his famous works, or Shakespeare or when Picasso or Michelangelo were creating great works of art.  And did you know the pyramids existed when the Holy Family fled to Egypt? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph mostly likely saw the VERY SAME pyramids that we can see today, isn't that awesome??  What was it like for the Creator to see one of the worlds greatest creations one that his enslaved people built! The timeline will also be a great work of art on our walls and something to talk about with guests.  So if we study and invention, a poem, a discovery, a war, artwork, music, literature,saints, sinners,  etc it will go on the timeline for whatever country produced them.  We can't wait to get started! In fact we might now wait too long at all, the kids are anxious to get going with their new books! I can't blame them they all look like so much fun!