Week In Review

Psalm 34: 1-3 "I will bless the Lord at all times;

    His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

My soul makes its boast in the Lord;

    let the humble hear and be glad.

Oh, magnify the Lord with me,

    and let us exalt his name together!

We survived our first week of school. It was a huge adjustment for all of us. I feel like we were starting to get a routine down by the end of the week. I absolutely LOVE My Father's World (the curriculum I chose for this year)!! It is a great fit for our family and all the different levels I teach. I love how God's Word is the focus of every subject. The girls are enjoying the work as well. Micaela and Joella have been working hard on their creation books and learning their letters. 

It is cute to hear Joella try to keep up with Micaela. One quick, adorable story from this week. I had to leave the room and help Abigail with something. I had been working with Micaela and Joella. As I was coming back, I heard Grace in the room with them teaching them the "Continents" song we learned at CC. This is what I walked into in the room.

We are starting to find a routine that works for us. Usually we start around 8am. Depending on the day, I tend to start with the older three on their group work. Micaela and Joella can stay busy during that time if Abigail is unable to read to them. They are so excited about their school time that they do interrupt and ask if it's their turn yet. We begin with Bible, vocabulary (we are learning Greek Root words), Science, History, Handwriting, and Art. I love the science and history texts that we are using for My Father's World!!

 I then move on to teach the two little ones. Their work takes us about 30-45 minutes to complete. When I am done working with them, I tend to help anyone who needs help with their math, grammar, or reading. After lunch, I work with Grace and Naomi doing their Essentials work. This is a program that Classical Conversations used and I am still using parts of it with them because I think it is an excellent program. Here is a sample of some of the things we do together during that time: Editing-we go through some scripture verses with errors that they've inserted and we find the errors (spelling, punctuation, etc); grammar - we learn some different parts of speech and how to diagram them; and writing - we are starting the year out using Institute for Excellent Writing (IEW) Student Writing Intensive. Once we finish the Writing Intensive, we'll start on Ancient History writing lessons. 

As you can imagine, our days are busy and time flew by this week. I am still trying to figure out how to squeeze my personal time in for exercise. By the end of the day after teaching and grading, I'm just worn out. You can pray for me that God helps me balance everything and that I depend on Him this school year for strength. The first day I told Wayne, "I don't know how I'm going to survive this year!!" The great thing about that statement is that I was able to encourage another mom who is new at homeschooling this year. Abigail told her about our first day and what I said. I'm glad my story could encourage her.

We finished our school week off on Friday afternoon with a pool party. We met up with four other homeschool families and the kids swam while the moms caught up. It was a great way to finish off our week!

Saturday I took Sophia out on her birthday date. We went and picked out some jewelry at Claire's to go with her dress. We ran a few errands together and finished our date off with some frozen yogurt. She was so thrilled to be able to select any yogurt and toppings she wanted. I think a little of every chocolate topping ended up on her frozen yogurt. It didn't look too appetizing, but she enjoyed it.

Wayne is finished up his fourth round of chemo tonight. This round hasn't been as nice to him as the last round. I think part of reason is because they gave him the wrong dose. After taking it the first night, Wayne and I sat down and re-calculated the number the NP had walked through with us (which sounded correct at the time). We realized that Wayne should have been given 450mg instead of the 480mg (for his max dosage the last three weeks). We had to adjust his medication accordingly for the next few doses. Just pray that his body recuperates from this extra high dose of chemo. Please also be praying for us as next Thursday, the 17th, Wayne is going in for another MRI.