August Homeschool

 After the first week of school, we were ready to start into our full routine. One of the things I'm most excited for this year is the rotations we have scheduled for our neighborhood homeschoolers. Science, Utah History, PE, Cooking, Drawing/Art, and FIELD TRIPS! It's going to be such a great year.  

Girls learning about beavers, then building a beaver dam. (Science)

Making "Crunchy Munchy Chocolate Globs" as a measuring (and cookie) lab. (Cooking)

Making "Utah" out of tortillas, cheese, pepperoni, and chocolate chips while learning the "Utah, This is the Place" song. (Utah History)

Field Trip to the Dinosaur Museum, just because. 

Austin and his Rotation Group: studying Kangaroos, Bees (Field trip to the Butterfly Biosphere), and board games as part of the PE rotation. 

Some other highlights: Austin and his Lego Boost robot (Tech Class)- he's loving this so much! And his new math curriculum. 

Lydia and her digital art program on the iPad, watching tutorial videos to learn how to improve her skills. 

We're in it to win it! 

Homeschool Kickoff

The first week of school is always one of the best, and this year was only made better because the Haderlies were with us. Last year they were with us because they'd just moved back from Iowa and this year I was watching them because Baby Molly was born the first day of school. (!) We might just try to make it a tradition that we always celebrate the first week of school together.

Of course, we started with our "NOT BACK TO SCHOOL" day.

donuts. swimming. friends.  

one bonus day of summer before we start school. 

Then jumping right to it, with "About Me" banners and a rainbow mini-unit. I got books, printed a rainbow first-day-of-school sheet, and planned a few science activities. We learned how rainbows are made, what colors/order they have, how each of us are unique and together we make up a huge rainbow. It was simple but a great way to kick off school. 

The best thing, though, was that during one of those rainbow books we started talking deeper about food and colors of food and how our bodies need us to eat a variety of food/colors to grow healthy and strong. The kids got really excited and asked if they could plan a rainbow dinner. 

They planned out exactly what foods they would need and what they would have to do to accomplish their project. Lydia and Camille coordinated their siblings and cousins to plan and prepare the "official first-annual" Rainbow Dinner: a six-course, color-coordinated meal put on by our resident "Kid Cafe". The kids washed, chopped, and prepared foods for each of the color groupings then served them in six courses. 

It really was the best. The kids officially named it "Rainbow Day" and it's already marked on the calendar for next year. First week - a success!

#cousinsmakethebestfriends & Baby Molly

My sweet sister Jenna just had her baby, Baby Molly. She's perfect and we love her so much. Adding one more to this cousin crew is just what we needed. I'm grateful that even though we don't have a LOT of cousins the same age, these kids are developing good relationships with their cousins. 

I got to go by myself to meet Baby Molly and it was such a special night. As I held her in my arms the first time, I couldn't help the tears springing to my eyes with how wonderful she is. She's got a special spirit in the tiny body and I'm so grateful I will get to be part of her life. (Maybe not favorite Aunt status, because she will have a LOT of Aunts, but hopefully a loved and supportive role in her life.) 

We loved having the Haderlie kids at our house while Jenna, Kevin, and Molly were at the hospital and afterwards. This crew of 7 (now 8!) really are the greatest little friends. 

And we can't forget little Juniper! When Matt and Brooklyn came to visit this summer - we spent some time with Juniper. Lucy and Juni playing together is just the sweetest thing. They could be twins. 

 We also were able to go and celebrate Zachary for HIS birthday! We have some set traditions that we do with Zach and I'm grateful for that relationship and the time we get to spend with this family, too. We are looking forward to our annual Gardner Village excursion this fall. 

Thus summer we were also able to get together with 

Renchers + Indiana Peadens

We love having the Renchers so close and even though their kids are older than our kids, they are always attentive and loving to them. The Renchers play with them and entertain them and our kids adore them. Even though we don't see Matt & Julie's kids very often, the boys play together really well and we are grateful for them, too.

Even though we aren't close to all of the kids cousins, we are grateful for the relationships that we do have any we try to nurture those relationships (both as adults and for the children). These kids are lucky to have such wonderful cousins because #cousinsmakethebestfriends

Homeschool 2021-2022

It's that time again! We had a great summer but are ready to get back into our school routine. It makes me so happy to know that I will still be able to spend all the days with my children rather than having us be apart for most of the day, and it makes me excited for the change in schedule that we will have together. (Who knows if we will homeschool forever, so I feel like every year of homeschool is a gift. Sometimes I feel like I'm sneaking these days of my children's childhood away from someone else and that every week is a bonus 7 days that I have with them. So even if they go back to public school eventually - I will always have these days with them.)

We have such a great year planned! Last year was so tricky with Covid and everything that went with that but this year we are planning to (carefully) do some really fun things. We have a great group of homeschoolers in our neighborhood (one of the best things that Covid did for us was get other people homeschooling, and even if it's just for this year again - we will enjoy every minute) and we are planning field trips, rotation classes, and lots of playing together!

Here are the kids and their school schedules:

Caleb Samuel

Age 4.5, Preschool

Preschool at Miss. Jessalyn's New Beginnings Preschool

Waterford Upstart (learning program on computer)

Lots of books, lots of play!

Austin Scott

Age (almost) 6, 1st Grade

Official Classes: Language Arts, Math, Science, Tech Exploration (Robots) and PE. This year he will also be working on Speech, Cooking, Life Skills, Family History, and Utah History/Social Studies. 

Lydia Elise

Age 9, 4th Grade

Official Classes: Language Arts, Math, Utah History/Social Studies, Digital Art and Music. This year she will also be working on Science, Cooking, Life Skills, Family History, and PE. Self-directed project: Wild Canines of the World Research Book. 

We will be doing rotations each Tuesday and Thursday. The plan for right now is

Girls (4th grade): 

Tuesday- Science & Cooking

Thursday- Utah History & Drawing (and/or PE)

Boys (1st/2nd grade): 

Tuesday - Science & PE

Thursday - Science & Cooking

We are looking forward to a great year! 

Sick, sick, sick

This post is probably going to come across as fill of complaints with a good dose of self-pity. So let me start by saying how grateful I am for the typical good health of my family. I'm grateful that even when we are sick we have a safe, warm, home and all of the comforts we need to take care of our family. 

That being said, being sick is the pits and we've been sick with one thing or another for over a month! It started with an awful stomach flu (throwing up every 15 minutes for about 12 full hours and then feeling pretty crummy for several days after that) that went through our family. Luckily not everyone was sick at the same time but it passed from person to person and was awful. 

I'm not going to detail out every sickness or the timeline or anything but for the sake of my 

-Stomach Bug for everyone but David 

-Head Colds/Sore Throat for everyone but David (COVID test for Shantel, negative)

-Ear Infection for Austin

-Stomach Bug for David

-Croup for Caleb

-4 day fever of 102 for Lucy

-Colds for all the kids

-Ear Infection for Lydia

-Horrible cold/sore throat for David (COVID test for David, negative)

-Stomach bug for Caleb

-Lingering coughs for all kids

It's been rough, especially because we missed so many fun activities which was such a bummer. We had to cancel: 

-Pizza Party at the "Mansion" 

-Camping with Walker/Haderlies at the Summer Range

-Primary Movie Night

-Library Summer Reading Pool Party

-Middleton Thursday Adventuring

-Kayak/Paddleboarding

-One day late for our Maple Canyon trip

-Loads of playing/swimming/summering

Some of those things we tried to make up for by rescheduling- like the Pizza Party and the Summer Range (minus the Haderlies) but some we just missed out on. The night that we were supposed to be camping at the Summer Range our kids were SO sad that we decided to set up the tent and sleep outside. We weren't throwing up anymore but were pretty sure that we were still contagious - so David stayed inside and the kids and I slept outside. 

Things like that happen. Kids get sick and families pass it around - but it was a bummer to end our summer with so much sickness. We were at my parents house after the Walker Family Reunion when Caleb started throwing up and when I came in to tell my mom, she immediately pulled me into a hug and expressed how sorry she was because she knew how tired I was and how hopeful I was that we were on the road to being healthy. (I'm grateful for my mom.) We ended up quarantining for this past week, the last week of Summer, because we NEED to get healthy before school starts. I especially feel that way because Jenna is having her baby this week and we are watching the Haderlie kids. I don't want them to get sick from us and take it back to their baby! 

A few other things: When we were on our way back from Colorado I started coming down with a sinus cold. I didn't realize it at the time- I had just sneezed a few times but mostly felt fine. However, when we were descending on the airplane into Salt Lake I suddenly felt a huge pressure behind my right eye and heard a "pop". Immediately I felt a shooting pain all the way from my right temple wrapping around my eye. I gasped and put my head down trying to breathe deeply, thinking that a blood vessel had popped or something even more awful. My hypochondriac ran through a thousand horrible options, most of which ended up with me in the emergency room. But by the time we were landing the pain had subsided to a dull ache and I felt better. It took a couple of days before the ache went all the way away, but after talking to some medically-minded people, I realized that my sinus-cold had already started and the pressure build up didn't have anywhere to go. I had the cold for the next week, but recovered and didn't have to go to the hospital for blood clots or anything horrible like that. It was just a crazy experience and I thought it was worth noting. 

I also mentioned above that both David and I got COVID tests this month. David did a whole separate Covid post but I thought it worth noting here that the Delta Variant of Covid has some different symptoms and sore throat is one of them. When David and I were sick we each had a family event scheduled soon after and we just wanted to be SURE that we wouldn't be transmitting Covid. Neither time did we really think we had Covid, but it was so nice to know that we wouldn't get other people sick. 

At this point in time David is ALMOST better from his awful sore throat/cold. The kids have the occasional cough but are mostly healthy. I'm crossing my fingers and sanitizing our whole house in the hopes that we are finally past all the sickness. Of the past 30 nights I've only slept in our bed about 5 of them, whether that was because I was with a sick kid, trying not to get David sick, trying not to get sick FROM David, or because we were gone camping/with family.  I'm so looking forward to a full week of sleeping in my bed and hope it happens soon! 

I'll end by again expressing gratitude for our health, for medical professionals and medicines to help us feel better, and for our home that takes such good care of us when we aren't feeling well.