Classic "Jake"

This is classic Jake (and Aaron for that matter), almost every.Single.Day.  A super hero t-shirt.  I made him put a long sleeve tee under it since it is Winter.  Winter in the South means 70 degree weather one day, and 30 degree the next, which means we are rarely prepared. 

Jake was excitedly showing me (and testing me on...blah...) the notes in math that he and Aaron had taken while working together the day before.  Because he was so excited about what he had learned I of course needed to document it.  I told him to hold it up.....

I meant hold it up so I could see it and him...Classic Jake.

So I laughed and said, "Okay, very funny!  Now hold it up so I can take your picture." 

And then he did this....

Classic Jake....oh and notice his shirt.  Classic.

Not as funny the 2nd time but I chuckled.  And then he posed for this picture and it turns out you can barely see the page any way!  I guess the joke is on me! Hahaha!


This happened last week.  I uploaded the pictures and in my mind I had written something to go along with said pictures and posted it...Wellllllll...I didn't so I am doing what?  Playing catch up.  The story of my life!  But it is a good life. :)

LDSHE Confernce Part 2...and blubbering...

 It is amazing to think just over two weeks ago I didn't even know there was such thing as a Mormon homeschool conference (in on the east coast at least-I am sure they have them in Utah) and now I am back from it!  It was so great, and inspirational, and re-invigorating, and now I am back to reality....and I am ready for reality!

 I still can't believe that our child is a few short months from being a teenager...It was so strange for me to watch Jake go to his seminars while I went the other way to mine.  When did he get old enough to do that?

   I was just going through old photos to find a few to frame.  I could wallpaper my house with all the pictures I have taken.  I have quite a few of these three before there were three others to follow.  When did these guys become "the big kids"?!

 In one of the seminars they had us chart out the milestones (becoming an Eagle Scout, getting driver's license, etc) that would be coming up in our children's lives.  As I looked at it I realized that Jake would only be a full time resident of our home for 5 more years....That was the point of charting it out-to see how little time we have with our children.  It is slightly depressing to me....

 Where has this time gone?  What do these words have to do with these pictures?  Nothing!...But everything really.  I am still in a season of my life where my whole world revolves around Jake.  The most important part of my identity is  described in my favorite title: Jake's Mom.  I would wear a badge to declare it if it was socially acceptable.  I have other titles: Aaron's wife, Daughter of God, Primary President, Conservative Republican, etc.  I will always be Jake's mom.  But I am not exactly looking forward to that not being my full time job.

 This is Jericho Road by the way...But back to my blubbering.  I know I will look forward to seeing him as an adult but I am just not ready for it.  Which is okay since he is 12.  Basically I have been reminded and learned (again) that I have a lot I want to teach him before he leaves me.  :)

But back to the conference...




 They gave us a great schedule/program that let us know all the seminars we could attend and handouts that the speakers had prepared, and there was room for us to take notes.  I old schooled it (while everyone was using their smart phones) and took pictures of the extra quotes with my camera.  I have pages of notes and so much great information that I am ready to get back to reality.  All the sudden I can't type the words next to the picture...Why does that happen?...

And now it is back to letting me type beside the picture again...

 Jake was excited that he quickly solved this little puzzle that Tina had while we were eating dinner one evening in the hotel.  He actually wanted me to take a picture and I never turn down the chance to document a memory!

And while I was at it I took two.

   Here is the cool shirt for the youth from the conference.  We Are Warriors of Light-I love it!  The theme for the youth conference was Come Unto Christ.

This is the conferences 10th year.  I wish I knew about it 3 years ago when we started homeschooling!  Wow...we have been homeschooling for 3.whole.years.  Time flies...

 Jake showed Saku some of the mad skills he learned about making your shirt into a flotation device.  Jake earned his swimming merit badge last Saturday and thought the hotel's pool was a great place to practice his new found skills.

We actually skipped the Family Dance to get in a little beach and pool time. 

There was a storm rolling in and the sky was gorgeous....

 The conference keynote speaker was John Bytheway, who is an LDS author/motivational speaker.  He was great!  We headed out right after it was over-but not before we could get a picture of the the three "big kids" in their conference shirts.
I have to admit, this conference was not as relaxing as the on in Greenville-or at least the circumstances around it were not.  I got to drive home and sleep in my own bed each night (a big deal for a germ-a-phob) and I was there by myself and didn't have to coordinate with anyone else...But in some ways it was better.  Perspective, great resources, memories, new ideas....all things I am taking with me after the LDSHE conference...It was great.



One more thing...We stopped at Cracker Barrel on the way home and Jake found these awesome glasses.  I am so glad he isn't grown up yet. :)

Happy Mother's Day to Me!

I always feel extra loved on Mother's Day by my two guys.  Aaron got me my favorite flowers in the world: Daisies!  And they are going to be the gift that keeps on giving because we get to plant them in our yard.

Jake made me breakfast in bed....

...and read me a book I found at the sale that was a memory from school a few years ago for him.

He also made me a very special card.

Me need to add "deserve" to his spelling list  (he takes after Aaron in that department) and at the moment my mind is not working correctly...so that may or may not be the right your...Should it be you're?  I can't remember right now...And really I don't care one bit (...except maybe I care if you are judging me on the whole which your do you use there...) because it is perfect and I love it because I know Jake loves me.  It kind of cracks me up that he says I help with him math because I really am not a whole lot of help in the department! 

I love that he has bed head.  He got right out of bed and made me breakfast.  I am so glad I am his mom.

Happy Mother's Day (a few days ago...)  to my mom, my mom-in-law, and all the women who have taught me how to be a better mom!

I'm Word Smart...and a few things I have accomplished.

Ahhhh....It is so nice to have accomplished something.  It has been about a week since I have accomplished anything other than being sick and getting better.  That is important but you know what I mean.  I probably over did a little...but I vacuumed the living room (after picking it up), the dining room (after kind of picking it up), and the kitchen after cleaning it.  And I mopped the floor.  I folded a load of wash and put another one in.  I helped Jake memorize the Scout Law, and made a menu/grocery list.  I took breaks and put my leg up and  I am feeling pretty good.  Hopefully I can get back to the gym in a couple of days.  I am saying that as if I was some regular before...That is something I am working on!

 I also sat outside in the glorious Spring weather (with my leg up) while Jake jumped on the trampoline.   And then Jake unwrapped the spicket from it's winter protection and screwed in the hose and Sadie loved her first spray of the year!  Spring is finally here!  We skipped co-op today because the church we meet in is a winding labyrinth of staircases and long halls that I just wasn't ready to try to traverse.  I know I did a lot on my feet at home but I worked and then sat and propped my leg up.  (Keep in mind this is my list of accomplishments...Jake did school.  He started the day with math outside on the porch.  Gotta love Spring!)

Jake is outside with Papa Harmon pressure washing the porch and I just read a little bit of the birthday present I got for Tina (this is a belated gift...Her birthday was back in November...) and a book I got myself (after we read them we can switch).  It is a book by Dr. Kathy Koch (pronounced Cook).  She spoke at the The Great Homeschoool Convention (which I am still going to blog about) and she is AMAZING!!!

  I was inspired by her!  In the little bit I was reading and based on things she talked about at one of her seminars I attended I have learned I am word smart.  Here are some characteristics of a word smart person:  reads for fun (yes), reads for information (yep), accurate oral reading (read to Jake all the time),  interest in vocabulary words (I am in love with my 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary), write for fun (doing it now), writes to inform (well maybe), writes to engage the reader (I'd like to think so), enjoys talking (mmhmm)....etc.  I am word smart.  I very much enjoy words and using them.  There are 8 intelligences: word, logic, picture, music, body, nature, people, and self.  I am sure I will find I am some of them also but for the moment I KNOW I am word smart.  I can't wait to read more and learn about what "smarts" Jake and Aaron and everybody are!  How exciting is it to know how you are "smart" and then go on to use those powers for good....I am word smart. :)  What kind of smarts do you have?

Mother's Day Weekend

The Friday night of Mother's day weekend our church always has a father and son camp out.  It is a great way to start the weekend.  They guys have some bonding time and I get to have the house to myself-which doesn't happen very often, so when it does I like it (I watched Safe Haven and the whole 1st season of Downton Abbey and then slept in)!  Here is the traditional picture of the guys taking off.  Aaron works out of town now (1 hour, 15 minute drive one way) so we meet at a gas station by the highway.  It was a little strange, and I wondered if people thought we were divorced and it was the weekly trade off or something.  I hope not!  I even put my camera in a Ziploc bag for them to take with them (and be safe it it rained) and take pictures. 

And here is the pictures they took!...Oh wait this is a blurry picture of me...?  Oh, that's right they didn't take any pictures at all on the camp out!  No surprise there...Jake made me breakfast in bed all by himself at 6 am on Mother's Day...church doesn't start until 11, but I didn't care if I woke up early-it was my day!  I am glad that picture is blurry because I was dead asleep just moments before...My Mother's day gifts were daisy's (my fav) and one of those dutch oven's covered with porcelain.  I am totally blanking on what they are called right now, but I wanted one and I LOVE it!)

We spent the afternoon at the Martin's having a Mother's day picnic.

My little buddy. :)

This picture cracks me up.  The kiddos were playing hide and seek and Addie Kate couldn't think of a place to hide.  Nee told her to hide under her blanket (it was a little chilly, which is totally unusual in SC) and the kids couldn't find her.  They were trying to get us to tell them where she was in this shot!

Jake wasn't totally ready for this picture of 3 generations.

Nana wasn't totally ready for this picture of 3 generations. :)

Ranee with her girlies.

And me with my boy. I love that face...

Life is good when you are the mom of the best kiddo in the world. 

Brain Declutter: Because random is the best I can do right now....

Yes, we have been busy.  Yes, I do have pictures to prove it.  No, I am not going to post them because I just don't feel like it. I have been slightly anti-blogging as of late.  Not sure why but I am just not feeling it.  It could be because Aaron is home more (only 4 more days of 3rd shift!!!!) and I would rather hang out with him (....or maybe because I love the mindlessness of Pinterest.  I think it is a little of both).  Two weeks from yesterday we are going on a date.  We don't have any money so it may just be a throw back to our courting days-Taco Bell; but that works for me.  Aaron will be home past 9:00pm and not have to sleep during the day...I think I remember what that used to be like...

Jake has been sick this week so there has been a LOT of TV watching and video gaming.  I know that sounds really pitiful but I think if you are really sick (not just faking) than you should be allowed to do things that cheer you up since you are all pitiful otherwise.  Jake was coughing up a lung and asked me to give him and hug and to say: "Oh my poor baby!" which apparently I used to do when he was little much more frequently than I do know.  It makes him feel better he says.  So I have been saying it a lot.  A few coughing fits he had to say "say it Mommy..." to remind me.  What can I say?  He is growing up and I am kind of okay with it (I don't really have a choice). I have learned when bigger kids are sick it okay to treat them like they are little.  I am making that note to self so I won't forget it next time.

On a similar topic, I just realized the other day that I don't have to cut the crust off Jake's bread anymore...I don't even know when that happened!  What kind of mother am I to not notice these changes?!  Just kidding.  I have beat myself up enough over not really remembering what his first word was (I am pretty sure it was Mama...) so I don't feel so guilty about the whole crust thing.  Am I the only one who isn't really the mother I thought I would be and it took me several years to realize that is okay?  I am a good mom.  Good enough that Jake tells me I am the best mom and that I am his best friend.  That is something right?   He has others too (best friends...not mom's) of course but he doesn't "hate" me.  I have seen some kids "hate" their parents by this age....so sad they don't rock as much as me.  I am humble too... :) Good enough that having a slumber party with me is still fun...even if we are pretending to be Ninjago (if you don't know what that is than you don't have a Lego lover in your house...) characters and in the middle of a battle (not acting it out jumping around-just doing the voices) I hear him say "okay it is time to go to sleep" because I am already dozing off...I don't remember what his first word was!  So shot me.  I do remember he said it to me and he still says a lot of things to me that parents don't hear from their kids at his age.  I am good with that. :)  I am trying to remember that he won't care if I didn't write in a journal every day of his life (that was my plan...that never happened) to make of a record everything thing he did.  The only person that puts that amount of stress on me is me.  In 2012 I will not do that to myself any more.

In my head, I have the paint color picked out in every room in "my/our house" in SC  Have I mentioned that here yet?  I blog in my brain so sometimes I can't remember if I really posted it our have it stored in my brain...Please tell me you do that too my blogging buddies?  I have looked at a house that is for sale 3 times now.  It is 2 houses down from Nana and Papa.  It is walking distance from the Martin's (the Martin's=cousins that are awesome, and sister/brother/in-laws that are...well they are redonk!). And it is in the town that Aaron was born and raised in. It is a big yard that backs up to the woods we go "4 wheelin!" (picture Aaron saying this in a really crazy voice while we are going insanely fast on the 4 wheelers and having a blast).  It is a great deal (the potential to be very cheap....) and it is a dream right now that I am slightly obsessed with.  What can I say it is fun to decorate a house in your mind whether you are actually going to live there or not, right?  We shall see if it is in the cards to be there in "my house".  If not there will always be other "my houses" but they will all be in Aaron's home town because that is where we want to be and where we know the Lord wants us to be.  We will just have to see if His timing is the same as ours and "our house".  And no that isn't #9 for anyone who is still wondering what that is...Keep wondering because I am still not quite ready to tell yet. :)

And on last bit of randomness that just popped into my head like all the rest of this has:  I have actually seen a movie that was better than the book.  There is a first time for everything!!!  The movie is "The Help".  I read the book and liked it.  I loved parts of it and hated other parts, so that averages out to liking it.  The movie I heard was amazing.  I didn't see it in the theater and I have waited since it came out on DVD for a little while. I finally decided to rent it and LOVED it!  Which never happens to me.  I usually wait too long and build up how great it is going to be in my head and them I am disappointed.  A great example of that would be: "The Blind Side".  Great movie-don't get me wrong!  But I was bummed because I was told by so many people I was going to cry & I knew too much about it...so it was a let down...even though it was good.  Please tell me you know what I mean....The Help was not a let down because it was way better than the book!  My apologies to the author....

Enough for now...I am heading to bed.  As a friend of ours father likes to say: "Church comes early in the morning!"   I chuckled a little when I typed that because I hear it in the voice of mocking from a couple people who will remain nameless...Don't feel bad if you are wondering why I think it is funny...Or if you are wondering why I am typing that at all...because I am starting to wonder that my self.  Anywho!  The longer I declutter my noggin of randomness, the greater the chance I have of dozing off at Church like I did while playing Ninjago with Jake at our slumber party. :) Goodnight!

Something I want to remember so I have to write it down....

I am going to try and make this quick (that is hard for me...) because I need to head to bed, but I knew if I didn't write it down now I would forget.  So, here it is:

Jake got in trouble today because he made a bad choice (he stuck up for his best friend when someone hit him on the hand with a broom by kicking the "bully"...longer story than that but that is the gist of it) and I was yelling at him telling him how I felt about that bad choice.  He was upset (and let me add tired...not an excuse just a fact) so he cried and felt horrible.  I wanted him to feel horrible because he shouldn't have done it...Just not that horrible...Okay back to making this short.  When he was getting into bed, we talked and said individual prayers about what happened and cuddled.  While I was praying, I asked Heavenly Father to let Jake know that no matter what he does we (myself and Heavenly Father...lots of other people too-and we talked about that also-but at the moment it was just us) will always be there for him.  That he can always talk to us. I felt the Spirit come into my heart and after we were both done praying I told Jake what I prayed about and how I felt.  He started crying and said that praying about it made him feel a little better and that he felt the Spirit too.  Then he said, while hugging me around my neck and breaking my heart wide open: "I could never live with out you."  I said I felt the same way. Then he said: "But some day I will have to."  (I paused because he is right, he will have to live without me some day...Scary thought, for selfish reasons-I want to be here for everything in his whole life!  Every second.  Wow how does Heavenly Father let us do this whole mortality thing?!)  To which I said: "But we will be together again and no matter how hard life can be you can always talk to Heavenly Father."  I may have said more but my mind was still stuck on not wanting to miss any second of his life...Then he said (*tear*): "You always comfort me."  If I was smart I would have said something like so can the Holy Ghost and used it as a teaching moment.  Instead I just hugged him back and told him I loved him.  All the eye rolling, the "do we have to do ____ (insert whatever topic we are about to move onto next while homeschooling...) now?", and sighing (all of which he gets from me...) went right out the window.  It doesn't matter (it does but not as much) how good I am at teaching him math.  It matters how I teach him to follow the Spirit.  To pray for forgiveness, and turn to the Lord for peace.  To feel remorse when you make a wrong choice and  to know there will always be someone to help make it better.  And that someone won't always be me...even though I really want it to be...Heavenly Father will always be there for Jake, even when I can't be....

Isn't it amazing that when you are taking a moment to teach your child what is really important, you realize you are the one that needed the lesson? 

Homeschooling is hard...That is my excuse for not blogging.

I knew it would be-don't get me wrong.  I just hoped we would have it all figured out by now...but we don't.  I know it is what we are supposed to be doing.  (I keep telling myself that when Jake is driving me crazy. :) ).  I have to admit: I heard the bus go by last week and wondered if I could chase it down and make them take him with them...But that was for one brief moment and then I was reminded that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing.

I had a plan.  We were going to follow the Thomas Jefferson Leadership Education style of homeschooling...But I wimped out.  I still want to because it makes so much sense: to teach Jake the love of learning again.  Some where a long the way that gets lost in the conveyor belt that is our public education system....But it is SOOOO much harder than I thought letting that system go.  It is in grained in me that we  must go chapter by chapter in a book that teaches exactly what they are supposed to learn for the test at the end of the year...That isn't a true education.  That is teaching for a test-one of the many problems with our school systems and one of the reasons we decided to leave it.  I want Jake to study the things that interest him, so that he wants to study even more because he loves learning...I guess that part takes a while and we are not there yet...Especially since we are pretty much on the conveyor belt just at home...

We had a break through day last Monday.  We started really early and got done what we "had to do" and moved on to celebrating Aaron's birthday.  (Yep-that's right I have been so preoccupied that I didn't even post about it birthday...Happy b-day Aaron!...)  We had to run an errand and in the process we decided to surprise Aaron and clean out  his Jeep.  Because homeschooling had gone so great it was exciting to be doing this little unplanned act of service with out murmuring.  There has been a lot of murmuring going on lately in our house..."Do I have to do that right now?"..."No I haven't finished started reading my book club book yet" (even though it was a book he loved and choose himself and he has read like 5 other books instead...)..."Can't we just take the day off?".  I have to admit I have threatened, daily on occasion, to send him back to regular school the VERY NEXT DAY if he doesn't focus, stop complaining, and JUST DO IT!!!!!  Yes, I am the one murmuring right now...

I know that this is what we are supposed to be doing.That is my new mantra.   And yes I will admit: for every bad day there is an amazing day too.  We all have had head colds this past week so it was a LONG week.  We didn't get everything done we needed too...But the world didn't come to an end and there is still time to cram it all down Jake's throat another day. :)  Just kidding...I think...

The good part of the struggle is that I have had to rely more on the Holy Ghost (to remind me that I really do like my child.  I love him, but on occasion it is a little more difficult to like him...).  I have felt that peace reminding me that I can do this, because this is what Heavenly Father wants me to be doing and he doesn't give us anything in our lives that we can't handle...I keep telling myself that and when I forget to tell myself that the still small voice reminds me.  It has made me be even more excited than I usually am for General Conference, because there are specific questions I have, that I am anxiously awaiting guidance on.  I know that I will be comforted and hear exactly what I need to hear-because I always do during Conference.  It is a great reminder that the Lord is mindful of me and my family. 

Is homeschooling a walk in the park? Nope.  But maybe taking a walk in the park would help...Can we do this? Yes.  Will we kill each other in the process?  I hope not. :)

I am over here today...Being a part of this...

I am a guest poster over at Welcome to the Madness today and am lucky enough to be a part of :





  If you haven't been over to Welcome to the Madness, Chocolate on my Cranium, The Redheaded Hostess, and We Talk of Christ, We Rejoice In Christ than you are really missing out!  They have amazing prizes you can enter to win just for reading and being involved in Celebrating the family.  I have been so busy enjoying the Celebration I haven't had time to post on my own blog.  I will get back to that eventually. For now I am going to sit back and enjoy being inspired by some very amazing people in the LDS blog world. :) 

Brain Declutter...

 Jake is doing science right now with Papa G. so I thought I would take a minute to declutter my brain a little.  Papa G. is a pilot so he is the perfect person to teach Jake all the fun weather related stuff you are supposed to learn in the 5th grade.   And it gives me a few minutes to do something productive...or blog!  Blogging is productive right?

*We did a quick Science experiment yesterday with salt, water, and eggs.  It was pretty cool to see the egg float in the salt water.  Picture Jake right here doing the science project because yes I did take a picture of it...but my blog won't let me upload any more pictures.  I have really been wanting to blog, but I really don't want to have to figure out this whole "no room for any more pictures need to fix it" thing...So,  I am avoiding blogging...But my brain needs a declutter so here I am.
*We got a new car!  New to us at least-it is a 1998 Chevy Malibu.  Jake wants to name it Kirby but my brother-in-laws, brother (did you follow that?  He is the one we just picked it up from.  It was my brother-in-laws car, he gave it to his brother, who then gave it to us) calls it the Malibomber and I am kind of LOVING that name.  I spent a couple of hours cleaning it the other day and it looks like a brand new used car!  It talks to you while you drive.  The blinker dings off and on a lot. Even if you aren't turning and it is off.  I guess it should be annoying but I am just assuming it is talking to me.  How can you be annoyed by a free car!? Thank you Tina and Allen!
*I hadn't received the follow up email saying we were in fact approved to homeschool so I called them and they resent it to me.  Just to let you know, if you emailed me between June 30th and July 20th I didn't get it...Not sure what happened but I have no emails (including spam) between those dates and that just doesn't happen...The point of this ramble was really to tell you that I saw our homeschool name (you have to have a name in NC for your school), Harmon's Learning Academy, on the list of homeschools and was AMAZED at the number of schools in just the county we live in!  I will have to go back and count them when I get a chance.  I had to keep scrolling down just to get to the H's!  Now if I could just find a homeschooling group that has kiddos around Jake's age.  I was looking on line and there was a lady starting a "homeschool group" for her 18 month old...Isn't that just a play group?  Is it really called homeschooling when your child is 18 months old?
*Aaron is on his last semester of school!!!!  HORRRRRAAAAY!!!! He graduates in December and we are just a little bit excited to not be living the crazy schedule we have been living the past 18 mos.  Say a prayer that he finds a teaching position starting in Jan.!!!
*Have you ever heard of a "Common Place Book"?  (I mentioned it a long time ago.)  Thomas Jefferson's mentor had all his students write what they had learned in a "Common Place Book" so they could share the knowledge they were gaining with each other.  I really wanted Jake's blog to be called "Jake's Common Place Blog"...Get it?  He wasn't feeling it, but that's okay it's his blog...But anyway we made our own "Common Place Book" so we can all write down what we are learning.  You will never believe what we just missed!  I was on line looking up cheap or free places to take Jake on field trips and there is a plantation museum that actually had a class for homeschoolers on September 2 in which they made "Common Place Books"!!!!  We are so going to check this place out!  It also has this class that he can take for $5 called "Plantation Children's Life".  They get to see what children that lived on plantations here in the South would have done during a normal day.  FOR $5!!!  I am so excited to check it out.  I want to do it too!!!  I love homeschooling!..Even though I wanted to ring Jake's neck yesterday because he wouldn't stay on task and it was driving me CRAZY!  He just doesn't seem to get that he could be done with whatever it is he needs to do a whole lot faster if he would just do it-instead of spending 10 minutes trying to get out of it!!!!  Love that kid even when he is driving me insane. :) Is it wrong for me to threaten to send him back to public school if he is being disobedient? :)....
 *Our first field trip (or what we are calling it any way) is tomorrow and we are going to the homeschool store that is about 15 minutes away.  How cool is that?  There is a homeschooling school in the next town over! 
*I also found out while looking for cheap or free things to do in our area that there is a park that is fenced in that is a leash free park!  Sadie will love it.  After running free for a month in Vermont she is not loving having to be back on her leash AT ALL.  I don't blame her.

Well that is all I have time for. Jake and Papa just finished up and Jake is getting ready to do his "Wednesday's Wonderful Words" post over at his blog.  He is also doing an online book club that you or your kiddos can be a part of.  He is reading (we listened to all the Chronicles of Narnia on our car rides to and from Vermont and he loved them all!)  "A Horse and His Boy" by C.S. Lewis and his book club is going to be on Friday September 30th.  I am trying to make writing bearable  fun for him.  It is like pulling teeth to get him to want to write anything...These math and science guys are really hard for me to figure out. :)

Summer posting...Not really feeling it...

As many things do in the summer, posting has become a chore.  It really is much more fun to lay in the sun in 98 degree weather and spray myself with the hose when I am supposed to be spraying Jake as he runs by...I looked at a ladies legs at church on Sunday who had white hose on and realized that my hoseless legs were the same color...I have not pool to tan by (except our little $10 Walmart kids/puppy pool) so the hose will have to do, because another summer with out tan legs just isn't happening.  I bet my cousin Mallory (who is the tan queen every summer and who lives in VERMONT for goodness sake!!!  How can I live in the the hot and humid South and be whiter than a Vermonter...It is sad...) that I would be tanner than her this year and I am not going down with out a fight!  So, that is just one of my excuses for lack of blogging...Another excuse is that we are having too much fun homeschooling.  We have our...We still can't think of a name for them...Mine is "my compass" (it is what is leading us in our educations) and Jake's is his "Case-It" (the name brand of the big binder all AIG students had to have at his former school and it broke half way through the year so we had to replace...but I wasn't going to waste our money again so I let him use a cool Stephen Covey planner/small briefcase I found on clearance at Sam's Club for $12 a few years ago....), but I am trying to convince him we should have a really cool name for it...Jake isn't buying it so far.  But any way, I took pictures of our "whatever you want to call 'ems" because I am really into paper products and pretending I am organized. :)

This is my "Compass".  How cool is that name? The whole idea behind it is that we can take these binders with us wherever we go and have what we need to homeschool.  Some one with more homeschooling and grammatical knowledge tell me if homeschool is one word or two please...When I type it is says it is spelled wrong, but when I type homeschooling it is right...Things like that make me wonder just what kind of education my son will be getting....Any way I love the idea of an education from the classics, but I have to say that I don't think I am ready for it.  So, this is my happy medium.  No, we don't have a curriculum we are following.  I have the list of what Jake has to know in NC for the 5th grade and we will of course cover all of it and then some.  Yes, we are going to focus on reading and studying the things that interest Jake because those things will lead easily into the things he "needs to know".  In the Thomas Jefferson Education books they believe that you must educate yourself as you help your child educate themselves, so I made my own "Compass".  In the book it tells you to make a list of what you want to study  and get to it-that is your compass.  We made the list and the binder is just something I thought would help us focus.  So, here it is:

Have you heard of Peter Walsh (I think that is his name) he was on an organizing/redecorating show and he has a line at Office Max of organizing "stuff".  I could spend all day in Office Max...I am a paper product junkie-that is one of the reasons I retired from scrap booking...I liked to collect the paper not actually use it.  Any way, his line is called  [IN] PLACE and I am kind of in love.  It is just the fancy version of regular things like binders, page protectors, and subject dividers...but I still love it.  I bought this binder a long time ago and never had a reason to use it (at least not a good enough reason to use it...It was too special for just any old paper holding job...) until now!

I have this cute pencil case so that I will have pencils and pens on hand whenever we need them.

And this amazing post-it note thingy-ma-bobber.

I have a calendar, our chore lists (that I believe is totally part of homeschooling), attendance records, a place to keep track of grades because Jake still wants to get report cards, and all other things related to being a homeschooling mom! (I have a section of things I am going to be studying right along with Jake-right now it is the states.  No I do not know all I should know geographically or other wise about this fine country...) I even a list for library books (found it at http://donnayoung.org/homeschooling/index.htm,) and their due dates because we ALWAYS have late books-but not anymore!

I have a section with answer keys to the math worksheets I found at one of my new favorite websites:  worksheetworks.com.  We aren't really going to get into math until we get back from Vermont (in September), but Jake wanted to do some sheets (math geek). Which I think is an awesome idea if that is what he likes to do.

I have my compass which has all the things I want to spend time learning about for the next 6 months.  I am going to do some sewing, canning, and dehydrating-the domestic side of me is dying to come out.  The "academic" side I am focusing on studying: US history, the Constitution and the way our government is supposed to run, the Federalist Papers, (you get it-all the things the founding Fathers laid out for us...).  On the spiritual side I am going to continue to study the Book of Mormon and read the Doctrine and Covenants, that I am going to admit for the first time ever:  I have never read the D&C all the way through...I am a sad person I know...

This is Jake's.  His is binder is broken into the 3 main categories he wanted to study this summer:  The States (location, capital, order of statehood, and interesting facts.), animals (he wants to research a few different animals-you may remember he started a project a week or so ago on the Black Mamba snake), and History (he wants to research Blackbeard, Beethoven..and a couple of others I can't think of at the moment...).  His binder has built in pencil/pen case and calculator.  He loves it and everyone in his AIG class was jealous of his "briefcase".  He has a section in the back labeled "other" with his "Math: Keeping Skills Sharp" section and a section to take notes on things he is reading-especially the Book of Mormon, which he would like to finish reading by his birthday.  Behind the first page (a picture of a compass) is the list of things he wants to learn in the next 6 months, that he can add to any time he wants.

This is his "compass".

We also went to the library and signed up for the summer reading program.  They gave him a bag with info. on the program, a book mark, and some other cool things that I really can't remember off the top of my head...He did get a free book called Extra Credit by  Andrew Clements, since he signed up the book club for it in a couple of weeks.  This is the plastic bag that he wanted to keep but I talked him into taking a picture of it to preserve the memory and then tossing it. :)

Jake checked out several books (he has already read almost 3 of them since Friday) and these 2 DVD's that he thought looked awesome.

This is Jake doing his first math worksheet.  We weren't going to officially start until July 5th, but neither of us could wait any longer!  Our binders are so cool and were just waiting for us to use...

We had fun going through our little turning in and me checking it process (we have a turn in folder and a graded folder in one of those wire magazine holders.) and Jake was seriously thrilled at his first 100%.  So excited that he gave me a hug. :)  I am glad he is so excited to homeschool.  It isn't like he isn't used to getting 100%'s on his math worksheets, but there was just something about it being the first one for our school. :)

It was fun for me to use my red pen to check it and then put it down on my grading sheet. :)

  We also did our first state yesterday: Florida.  Jake decided he wanted to do Alaska and Hawaii tomorrow.

How cute is Jake's manatee?  Did you know that Florida was the 27th state (I thought it was a state way earlier...) and that 80% of the US's oranges and grapefruits are grown in Florida?  It also has more varieties of fish than any other place in the world has.  Pretty cool.  We also learned that while Crayola's eraseable colored pencils are great for coloring or highlighting...they are not so great for writing with...Jake's handwriting really isn't as sloppy as it looks on this sheet. (Seriously-I wised up and switched to a regular pencil half way through my sheet. :) )  He wanted to make sure everyone knew that....but don't look to closely at his math worksheet that he decided at the last second he wanted to sign and date (in case I got it confused with another students)...not sure why he wrote that so sloppy... :) 

I realize that this is an awfully long post about binders and papers, but we are really excited to be homeschooling and I wanted to document this so on days when we want to pull each others hair out we can remember we really do like each other. :)