Courageous Joy

THREE WEEKS AND COUNTING

“Do we have any food coloring?” ARGH – what a question!!! Jared KNOWS our stance on artificial dyes. BUT he needed some food coloring for a science experiment. I laughed later in the day when Arielle and Nolan chose to make “candy crystals” and we need – you guessed it FOOD COLORING! Thus began our second day of schooling. Well not really – this was before I joined the kids. LOL

We began the day with working on a “family way” from “Our Family’s 24 Ways”. I LOVE this book and the approach. We’ve gone through it before but are working through it again with the younger ones….refreshing the older ones so that they can use it as a tool for training when we are not at home. Clay and Sally do a GREAT job of reaching a child’s heart with the WORD and PRINCIPLES vs. rules, rules, and rules. This is a proactive discipline tool in my opinion. I like it so well that last night I ordered 3 coloring books - they’ve updated the program since we bought the old flip chart version. This is not a homeschool only program.

We still can’t get our printer to work. My computer continues to close out of Outlook and the internet browsers with no warning. I really think it may be the wireless mouse and keyboard as it began doing this AFTER we attached those. The copy machine needs a printer toner (not a normal toner) and so I need to find the time to research a good spot to get such a thing.

School went well for all. Since we are doing 1900’s, I pulled out our American Girl Samantha craft book and cookbook and told Arielle and Nolan to pick one a week from each. I find out tomorrow what we’re doing. I KNOW we’ll be doing those candy crystal things because I agreed that was a FREE choice. I wonder if it will work with rapadura or if it HAS to be refined white sugar…..And we’ll have to make some without food color for Zander. LOL

Josiah and I went out to buy honey. I can’t believe how crippled I am without honey. I plan to bake tomorrow. We also went to the library and dropped off a bunch of books we are done with. I found a few new series that look really great to work in to this unit. I need to go back and get all the rest of the books for the unit but I can’t get the computer to print off the list. . . and I don’t want to rewrite 8 pages of Dewey numbers. :::Snort:::

We also stopped by HEB and bought some produce on sale…..I came home and got 10 lbs of strawberries into the freezer. I love them for smoothies. Though I’ve been using blueberries and they are wonderful! Thanks to Chris’ froggy, I’ve been leery of buying bagged salad but I need the convenience. I really AM visual. I’d HEARD about the risks of bagged salad but “SEEING is believing” around here. LOL I bought some more greens, chopped them all up, spun them all and then put the mixture in Ziplocs. We’ll see. I wanted to add the rest of the salad stuff but I haven’t had luck getting made up salad to last. Any suggestions? During all my kitchen time Zander came in and said, “MOM stole the cookie from the cookie jar”…this game expanded until he and I were yelling for others and the sounds were coming from all corners of the house. It doesn’t take much to amuse us.

I played croquet with Zander. He ASKED me to. Nolan and Arielle joined us for our second game.

Bible Study was tonight. Our group is really gelling. It was FUN. For any local women with base access, you are welcome to join us. Tuesday at 6:30. We try to be done with our discussion by 7:30 but some nights may go until 8:00. We are studying I John and it is RICH. Tonight we discussed life and fellowship…..both topics I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. We are “intergenerational” as we have 3 in their late 60’s and 3 in their 40’s….LOL A HOOT was when Mandy explained that whole “Hitchhiker in the galaxy” thing…..it’s an ENGLISH program. She grew up watching it. She’s from England. Their family loves it. I asked about the naked man but she’d never seen him. I told her I must have missed this program since I was in the Philippines during those years. {g}

I came home and got kids in bed. During the process I heard Zander say, “I LOOOOVE you Stacia!” Ah – great mommy moment. I need to do some more searching for a few more things I need to order…but I’m tired. I decided I’d best update the blog so my family does we are alive and well.

* Oh – the title….well you have to use some title but seriously it’s been 3 weeks since Mike has been gone. I miss you, hon. Josiah drove home today and jumped out to begin unloading. I sat there and sort of thought and then started tearing up….no one to open my door…..