School - and Day 9 Pantry Challenge

 It's Tuesday.  Which means it's a school day and, this time of year, a farmer's market day.  Some days it's difficult to balance everything.  It's even more so when you have 2 children with special needs and a farm.  Fortunately, currently, the only real "farm work" that needs to be tended to daily is care for the animals.  In a couple weeks the animal situation will change a bit as my meat birds will be ready to process.  I'm also looking to get a ram goat so I can breed 3 of my goats.  I think I'm going to hold on to one of my dairy goats to give her another chance.  But I'd also like to breed my 2 meat goats.

Willow, my Boer (meat) goat breeder

Different days always look different for the homeschool life.  Today while Scrappy was doing animal chores (he even fed them today in addition to his normal chore of watering), I mixed up a double batch of rustic white bread.  My kids love this bread so much I think I'm going to have to be constantly making extra for the house!!  It is SOOOO good!  They will eat a whole loaf in one meal, if not just for snacks.

Today we started the CAT5 test for Scrappy. 

In Minnesota once kids reach the age of 7 they must have annual testing.  There is a variety of tests to choose from, but I prefer the CAT5 because I can proctor it myself.  Sometimes we do it all in one day, sometimes we spread it over a few days.  It all depends on our schedule.  Scraps started his this morning, he may do a section tonight when we get home, but he'll also work on it tomorrow morning before we go on our field trip.  Once he's finished, I send it in and in about 2 weeks I'll get his test results back.

While he's doing this today, Monkey is watching some history with Pipo on Amazon Prime (today we learned about the Aztecs) and some phonics for the letter D.

This is his normal way to watch his videos.  Some days he's more into it than others.  Today was a day he was actually engaged.

While both boys are occupied, I've taken advantage and started making a list of meals to work into my plan and researching using Supercook.com.  I've found a few new recipes I want to try...

So what's cooking today?

Breakfast I made up the last of my cabbage. My husband is going to be SO HAPPY when we're out of cabbage because of the effect it has 😂

For lunch we had leftovers.  Scraps had a leftover burrito from last night, then a few pancakes when I cooked up the last of the leftover batter for Monkey.  I had "hot dog soup" (which is full of cabbage 😆😆

Supper tonight will be baked chicken thighs for me, stuffed peppers for Hubs, and a mini meatloaf for the boys.  I'm not a big fan of hamburgers or beef meatloaf, and Hubs and Scraps aren't fans of dark meat chicken.  I can bake everything together for about the same amount of time (I have the thighs in packages of 2 in the freezer so they're portioned.)  I'm also going to roast my butternut squash from yesterday and some carrots that are in the fridge. And probably a loaf of bread on the side!

2nd Grade - Week 1 Review and on to Week 2

Well, week 1 of 2nd grade started out pretty good.  We were on track for the first couple days.  All of our scheduled lessons were done and checked off.  It only took, in total, about 3 hours to get all of Scrappy's work done.  I thought that was pretty good!!  I explained to him that if he was in public school, he would be there more than twice as long as that each day to get all his work done.  Here is what a full day, done, in my planner looks like.

A red check mark as each item gets done.  Once each item is checked off, he gets to put a star next to the subject to show that it's all done.  The first 2 days of school looked like the picture above.

This year we even added in Home Ec so he could do some cooking since he likes to help with supper.  Once day a week he will either be making supper or dessert.  This week he made a very simple soup recipe - Iroquois Corn Soup.

We were off to such a great start, I had such high hopes for this school year.

But then life happened.

Wednesday morning I attempted to get him to do as much as we could before we had to leave for my dentist appointment.  We got through a good majority of it.  I had hoped to finish it when we got home, but a stop at the grocery store and a few other interruptions put a dent in those plans.  Oh well, move it to Thursday.  As one of my instructors, Christy, would say, "Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape."

Thursday morning - TOPS meeting. OK.  Then Chubbers had his physical therapist coming because he's still not walking because he's 17 months old and everyone is worried.  I mean, he IS furniture surfing and holding hands.  Yesterday he took a couple steps from the chair to Mommy without realizing it because he didn't want Daddy and he just wanted me :)  (and my big boy just got his hair cut yesterday too - he looks like such a big boy now!!!)

But he's so blonde his hair looks so much shorter than it actually is.

Anyway, back to school.  Thursday afternoon I had so much trouble getting Scrappy back on track.  Our schedule at the end of the day ended up like this:

obviously not done :(  Friday morning I had a doctor's appointment, but by the time that was done and I picked up my prescription, then got our roofing permit, it was after lunch.  Fortunately Beau fed the boys while I was gone.  Half the day was gone.  Tried as I could, we didn't get Friday's work done and ended up carrying our schooling into Saturday because of a very uncooperative student.

Yesterday didn't go much better.  I didn't expect Monday's to be very easy anyway, which is why I schedule Monday mornings to be library time, plus a light schedule for the rest of the day.  We accomplished Math yesterday.  That was it.  And that was after Daddy was home.  Today Mommy had to be strict and is making Scraps sit alone in the office doing his work while I keep an eye on Chubbers.  Beau is gone this week at camp and won't be home until Friday.  Figured it's time for me to get in the habit of not having the extra hands to help me before she goes back to school.

I suppose I better go check to see what Scraps is up to... it's a little too quiet in there....

Last Week of Home School Break

I've spent the last few weeks getting ready for the new school year, which starts on Monday.  Wow, Monday already!!  Where does the time go?!?!  I know that I'm more excited about it than Scrappy is - obviously.  The last 2 years - k-1 - I've been flying by the seat of my pants, not really having a lesson plan, no set curriculum.  We just read whatever struck Scrappy's fancy for Science, did a few workbooks, fought over doing some copy work to improve him handwriting, and didn't have any real schedule per say.

Well, 2nd grade is going to be a wake up call for him.  Especially when it comes to his "I don't wanna do it/I want a break/I'm still hungry/I did enough homework" attitude.  I checked to see what the Minnesota state regulations are for school.  There is not a set number of hours that he must complete, but they do have a few classes that are required, but they're pretty basic.

Today's summary is just about how I have everything set up for the school year.  Later on I'll post how I set up my curriculum if anyone is interested.  If anyone is reading this.  

I finally got the office mostly cleaned up since that's where the school supplies are stored.  We do some of the school work in there, but since I have Chubbermonkey to watch too, most of our work is actually done in the living room so that Chubbers has room/stuff to play with.  But this is what we find in the office:

 All of walls in the office are plaster, so my hubby had to drill into the wall to hang theses rails so we have something to hang our posters, etc on.  Currently, the only thing hanging here is our weekly class schedule.  This isn't necessarily the order of our classes, I just kept the order consistent so it was easier to see at a glance.  I still need to update that every other Thursday is also Girl Scout night for Beau, which is a factor into planning our lessons.

This bookshelf is in the corner of my office.  The top shelf is my miscellaneous books and supplies.  The second shelf is filler paper, new and used notebooks, folders, and miscellaneous school books, mostly too young for Scrappy but that I'm holding on to for Chubbers.  The third shelf is the books and supplies for this school year, including a small tote with stickers and another with pencils, erasers, and other school supplies in it.  The bottom is just overflow.

This file box is how my weekly lessons are arranged.  There is a green folder for each week and a colored file folder for each class.  If for some reason a class gets pushed back for something comes up, the file can get moved to the next folder.  The Bible Study, Music, Math, and Art folders are kept in the front of the box because they are not used every week and are only inserted when they are needed.

Having 2 children with Cystic Fibrosis and only having one steady income, I don't have an unlimited amount of money to spend on curriculum.  Plus I didn't want to go with a boxed curriculum that decides everything for us.  I was able to put together a pretty good and interesting set of plans for this year.  My biggest struggle was how to lay it out.  

Fortunately I have been following several homeschool blogs, and one helped point me to a book that, after reading through it a couple times, answered almost all my questions.  I would HIGHLY recommend reading Blueprint Homeschooling especially if you're lost on your planning!!  It gave me so many great ideas and set me on the right track.  I adapted a few things to what works for me, and voila!!  Ready to go!!  Here is what my planning looks like...

Scrappy's "English" book information - what book(s) we're doing and what pages on what days, along with what days we have field trips written in.

This is how our Science plans are written out.  I use the same method for History/Social Studies/Geography (which are all combined this year because of how the study units are being done.  More on that later.)  Each numeral is for a week.  The purple is what text/DVD is being used and the pages, red is experiments, green is worksheets.  All of this information is gathered and put into the file folder for the week with the heading on the label such as for week I) Cells.

After I have my daily plans laid out for my classes, I pull everything together in a composition notebook for my class schedule.  I use one page per day.  I list the date at the top and the classes down the sides.  All the pages that we will read are listed, worksheets and experiments and activities are listed.  At a glance we can see everything that we will do for the whole day.

Here are a couple pictures of one of my folders.  The blue index cards stapled to the top of the folder is the list of all the library books that I will need for the week for that class.  In this case, this is a History/Social Studies/Geography folder.  One card is for books I need from our local library, one is for books I need to get via inter-library loan. (Note: Check with your library if you need to do this. Our library advised that it takes approximately a week to get inter-library loan books.)  The yellow index cards on the left side of the folder is for materials I will need for the week for various projects.  This could be for recipes, craft projects, or experiments.

Since I'm not completely sure on all the field trips that we will be having this year yet, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself on the scheduling.  We are running on the 6 weeks on 1 week off schedule, so I have the first 6 weeks definitely scheduled in my composition book.  I have daily plans made up for all my classes so that they are ready to go when I am.

Spring Break for One

Homeschool

This week is spring break for Beau.  Unfortunately Scraps isn't getting the week off from school because he hasn't been consistent enough with doing his schooling to get large blocks off.  I've been trying several different approaches to get him to do his work.  Some things seem to work for a while, but then fizzle out.  The one I've been making the most progress with is Easy Peasy All in One Homeschool, but I think some of the reading is too advanced for him right now, and he is ahead in the math.  We tried getting into some of the history in it, and he has NO interest at all in it.  I'm going to be meeting with another homeschool mom who has been doing it longer than I have to get a few pointers and to be sure I'm covering what needs to be covered.  If I'm doing any extra, that's great!  I'm we're coming up short, well, then I'll need to adjust.  Now that Chubbermonkey is getting older (OMG he's a year old already!!!) I can finally try to set a schedule to follow a little better!!  I'm going to try to work on a spring schedule this week while Beau is home.

The Battle With CF

Scrappy is going to be going into the hospital next month for his tune-up.  Dr P is trying to get it done before we go on vacation.  Yup - we get an all expenses paid vacation this year!!!  Scrappy is getting his wish from the Make A Wish Foundation!  We will be going on a 5 day/4 night Disney Cruise in the Bahamas!!!  He is so excited - but so are the rest of us.  Especially since they are covering EVERYTHING, including flight, passports, and spending money.  We really need this vacation.  

Now just to make it through the 2 weeks in the hospital.  It's going to be a little more difficult this time because Mayo has become an accredited CF center, so any CF patients admitted must be kept in isolation during their stay.  I guess it'll be a good chance to work on homework....

My Real Life

Some chaos is going on here.  My grandma has not been well. Both of my great grandmothers have not been well.  I've been trying to do what I can to help, but there's only so much I can do.  It's very frustrating.

A little over a week ago, we had to have our oldest kitty, Abby, put down. She'd been vomiting a lot and lost a LOT of weight.  The vet initially thought she had an ulcer and thought it was something we could work through.  After she wasn't getting better, we discovered she had tumors in her abdomen and around her heart.  She was the best kitty a child could ask for - she had the best temperament even for babies.  I miss her a lot.

My health has been frustrating too.  I hit my highest weight ever 2 weeks ago.  My thyroid had been on the fritz for a while, so my meds had been adjusted several times.  Then stress piled on top of it.  I was doing great with working out until my grandma's surgery, but got sidetracked with helping her (I know, another excuse) so I slacked off a little.  But I'm trying to get back on track.  I've officially lost 4 pounds in the last 2 weeks.  So far I'm down another 2 this week (unofficially).  As of March 12, I gave up pop.  Coke specifically.  I used to drink a ton of it.  But my doc changed my migraine medication to topamax, which makes Coke taste like crap as a side effect.

Since I've been struggling with my weight, I'm teaming up with a friend with getting back on track.  She has also recently joined TOPS.  As of today, she and I are starting on the C25K program (again) with the intention of running the Tiger Trot next year, along with (hopefully) a few other 5ks.  Wish us luck!!

Better get busy!

I know it's been a while - again - and I know I keep saying it, but I'm really trying to make an effort to schedule my blogging in.  There are SO MANY things I would love to share other than just on facebook, so many things I think could be helpful to others if only I could get them put in writing.

Many of my friends warn me that maybe I need to slow down a little bit and take a step back from some of the things I'm doing.  I know it would be crazy to bite off any more right now!  

My appointments for Baby are currently bi-weekly.  Can't believe Tuesday will put me at 20 weeks!!  19 more to go!!  It's no fun having gestational diabetes, pricking my finger 4 times a day (when I remember to do it!), taking pills 2 times per day, and closely monitoring my food (most of the time!! lol!!)  I'm having my A1C tested again on Monday.  My 2 hours post-meal blood sugars are coming back fine, but my fasting is still too high.  Doc said I may end up on insulin injections before the end of my pregnancy.  Because of the diabetes, I was also told that I will not be going to my due date, which is April 1.  If I don't go on my own before, I'm going to be induced during my 39th week.  That means March 25th or later.  Beau is really hoping for earlier.  She wants to share her birthday with her little "sister" on March 24.  (Or so she says - we're not finding out what we're having :) )  The concern of going to my due date is having too big of a baby.  Hopefully he/she isn't too big!!  And hopefully my VBAC goes without a hitch!  Monday afternoon my hubby and I are going in for my next ultrasound.  Can't wait to see the little stinker who's been kicking me :)

Homeschooling has been a little bit trying lately.  Scrappy has very interest in his spelling words, yet he loves trying to read to me.  Last weekend he read book 9 of Cat and Rat to me - such a proud Mommy moment!!  I try explaining that the more spelling words he learns, the more he's going to be able to read.  I don't spend much time focusing on sight words - I'd rather he knows how to spell them out.  We've also been working on basic addition and starting on subtraction.  He does really well with his shapes, colors, and number.  Sometimes, though, it's just hard to get him to focus because he is too busy wanting to do other things.  I try to get at least 20 minutes, if not an hour, of reading in most days.  I signed him up for the Book It! program through Pizza Hut.  We set a goal of 480 minutes per month, or 8 hours.  I've been working on a lot of hands-on learning stuff with him.  Last week we made butter from heavy cream.  It was a learning experience for both of us.

Got our heavy cream, jar, and lid.

Filling the jar about half full.

Making sure we have the right amount.

Put the lid on and shake, shake, shake!!

Our first attempt was with cold cream which, of course, resulted in - WHIPPED CREAM.  After shaking for 20 minutes, we realized we weren't getting any butter, so Google to the rescue! Missed one important step - the cream had to be brought to room temperature :)  Our next batch turned out better, although it still wasn't quite right, but was really good on bread with our goulash at supper time! 

We have a whole bunch of other fun projects we're planning on.  We're using the book Colonial Kids: An Activity Guide to Life in the New World for our current lessons. (Have I mentioned how much I LOVE the public library??)  I got about a dozen books about Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, and Colonial times, along with some other 'fun reading' books.  We try to get to the library about once a week, and this week we got the closest we ever have to the book limit.  We have 45 of a possible 50 books checked out!  To try to keep track of them, I try to return any we've read any time my husband or I will be going by the library.  I'm glad they have a drop box because they aren't open Friday or Saturday and only open a couple hours on Sunday.  I'm going to try to post more of these as we go!!

Of course, every week I still have my TOPS meetings.  And I LOVE my TOPS group :)  A few of my friends there are a little bit concerned about my lack of weight gain with this pregnancy.  Lack of weight gain?  I should say, with my weight LOSS.  At almost 20 weeks, I am down about 13 pounds right now.  My doctors aren't concerned since we have frequent ultrasounds.  I wouldn't be too sad if it keeps up either!  I'm less than 10 pounds from my lowest TOPS weight so far.  I'm going to try really hard to keep it off this time!  We have group walks scheduled 2x per week.  I try to get to them.  I hope to make it to more of them and hoping we get the stroller fixed.  One of the tires won't hold air, but I can't find the leak.  Hopefully hubby can fix it soon!

Every other week I'm busy with Girl Scouts still.  I'm a little disappointed with a few of the girls I have because it doesn't seem like they all want to be there and they don't want to put in the effort.  At the level I teach, the girls are responsible for completing their own badges.  They can do as many of as few badges as they want.

Then there's my business.  When I'm not doing one of the above (or even when I am), I'm usually working on something or another for work.  I'm really loving working for myself - REALLY for myself and not doing direct sales and only getting paid a fraction.  Plus at craft shows/vendor fairs, people want the instant gratification of getting their items immediately and I'm able to take custom orders so people get exactly what they want.  So far so good - I'm just hoping over the next couple shows I do that business takes off a little bit more.  I'm still working on building up my inventory a bit and feeling people out for what they are looking for and what is going to sell well.

Scrappy just finished these projects a few minutes ago.

I think it's time we do a bit of reading now.  Mama's gotta get some meal planning done too....

Oh My! Monday

Today has not gotten off to a very good start :(  I have a list of things I would like to get accomplished, but so far, not so good.  About the only thing I've gotten done is Scrappy's treatments, but he's not being very cooperative about it.  We're supposed to go sign up for taekwondo today, but the way he's misbehaving, I told my husband that we may not.  We have to run to the bank and pick up Scrappy's MAC delivery before we do anything fun.  

Since today is Monday, Scrappy gets his new spelling list.  I really hope he catches on to this week's list as quickly as his did last week's.  He would walk around singing his spelling words and how to spell them - no, off, on, the, at.  I don't remember offhand what this week's list is. But he did get 100% on his spelling test!!

We took a little field trip over the weekend also.  About a week after our hometown electronics recycling day, our big old 32" TV died.  It's been sitting in the driveway since then.  I had seen an ad on TV saying that Refest was going on in Austin and they were offering electronics recycling for only $5!  Admission to Refest was free, and there would be stuff for the kids to do.

Of course, I didn't take my camera and couldn't find my phone (which had fallen to the bottom of my purse.  It is impossible to find anything in a CF Mama's purse since it's a walking pharmacy plus!)  Daddy managed to snap a few though!  The kids each got their pictures taken with their "environmental pledges."  These are supposed to be coming via email.  Scrappy said he's going to use less water.  Beau said she's going to walk more, use less water, and turn off the lights when she's not using them (which we've already had to call her out on! haha!)  We all got to hold a fox snake, even though we missed the snake and owl show since we were still waiting for the recycling line to move.  We did make if for part of the turtle show, which was pretty cool.  There was a baby turtle less than 24 hours old, a couple snappers, and a tortoise.  

I was a little bit disappointed by the "solar powered carnival" that was advertised - the rides consisted of 2 bounce houses and the refreshments available were only popcorn and lemonade.  Really glad we only bought $5 in tickets!  That got both kids into one bounce house and bought 2 popcorn and 2 lemonades.  We did buy some really good apple brats from one of the vendors though.

After a couple hours we headed home.  Hubby went to help a friend with a car project.  I had a sinus headache and pretty much napped the rest of the day away. 

Yesterday the kids started Sunday School again and Beau and I started Girl Scouts.  I am not looking too forward to this year because there is already a ton of drama taking place.  I really hope it doesn't continue because I honestly don't have the patience for it.  I don't need the drama in my life.  I'm seriously considering transferring my daughter to another troop if it continues.  I guess we'll see what happens...

Mi Vida Loca!!!

My crazy life - it's the name of the game.  I don't know what I'd do if it wasn't crazy - and crazy busy!!

I am homeschooling Scrappy this year, and probably the next few years, because of his Cystic Fibrosis.  We are on Week 3, although we don't have a super strict schedule right now since it is canning season.  And canning we have been!! 

Scrappy doing his vest treatments

Salsa!!

Peeling apples in between swimming

Just this last week, we did 27 pints and 14 quarts of applesauce, 21 quarts of whole tomatoes, 4 quarts of tomato juice, and 55 pints of salsa.  I still want to do another batch of applesauce, which I was hoping to do this weekend, but now I'm not so sure about.  I have all next week too..

School starts on Tuesday for Beau.  We decided it was better for Scrappy to start a little earlier than everyone else because he's going to get a couple weeks of for spring break, which Beau only gets a few days.  But once our new little bundle of joy arrives, I'm going to need a little break from home school.

Yup, that's right! We're expecting!!  We originally figured my due date to be March 27, but Dr White said I'm measuring a little bit small, putting my due date closer to April 10.  I have an ultrasound coming up on Sept 24 and she thinks we'll have a better idea then on my due date.  Unfortunately we've already found that my blood sugars are running high again, which means a bunch of finger pricking and changing eating habits.  I guess it's not so bad, since I lost weight once I got on track last time, but it's a huge change away from the pasta-based meals that are so easy to go to and depend on.  So my next series of recipe posts will be diabetic friendly ones.

My business has also launched.  Mama's Gift Corner is all about homemade, hand made gifts.  Since I've been canning, I haven't been doing as much work as I had before, but it's only for a few weeks.  I want to get my inventory built up before the fall craft shows start so I can hopefully get into a few and start selling!!

Well, I need to get some breakfast.  Have a great day!