Weekly Update

We had a short week this week since we didn't come back from my parents' house until Tuesday afternoon and I didn't take any schoolwork along since last week was our week off. However, our week at home was a more productive week than we've had in a few now that we are all healthy again.

English: Kara did several lessons in FLL. She is working on memorizing a Mother Goose poem about the days of the week. Ellie did a lesson on R&S and wrote a letter to her great-grandmother. She also did 2 pages in her editing book.
Math: Kara finished Saxon 1 this week so we'll probably just review her addition and subtraction math facts next week before we move into Saxon 2. Ellie did 2 lessons.
Reading: Kara is working on reading The Hundred Dresses. She also did several lessons in OPGTR. Ellie finished The Wizard of Oz. We are waiting for the movie to arrive; then she will write a book report on the differences between the movie and the book. She started reading Pinocchio.
Latin: With only 2 days of full school this week, we opted not to cram a Latin lesson in.
History: We read ch 21 in SOTW about Cyrus.
Handwriting: Kara did 2 pages in her handwriting book.
Spelling: Kara finished SWO A and will start book B next week. Ellie took the pretest for her list this week and only missed a couple. It was a list on apostrophes.
Music: We finished reading about the storyline of The Magic Flute and listened to the first 2 Cds. We also finished learning the verses to A Mighty Fortress.
Art: We memorized 2 paintings by Van Gogh and the girls each colored their own Van Gogh. Kara's is the first, Ellie's is the second.

My walk this morning

Here are a few pics I took while I was out on my walk this morning. It is a beautiful day here--around 30 I would guess and the sun is shining, no wind. It was very peaceful to be out there all by myself (along with a few birds). However, at one point, I did find myself in thigh-deep snow. :-) That was quite the surprise.

Pad Thai-Style Fried Rice

I made this for supper last night and it was really, really good. I'll definitely be making it again. I got the recipe from Eat, Drink and Be Healthy.

Peanut Sauce:
2 T fish sauce or tamari soy sauce
2 T chicken stock or broth
1 T ketchup
1 T natural-style peanut butter
1 T fresh lime juice

Fried Rice:
3 T roasted peanut oil or canola oil, divided
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 c shredded carrots
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1 t minced peeled fresh gingerroot
1 c thinly sliced green onion
1/2 c diced red pepper
1/4 t crushed red pepper flakes
4 c cooked brown rice, chilled (cooked a little drier)
1/2 lb precooked peeled medium shrimp
10 fresh Thai or regular basil leaves, chopped
1/4 c fresh cilantro, minced
1/2 c fresh bean sprouts
chopped peanuts

1. To prepare peanut sauce, mix together ingredients and set aside.

2. To prepare the fried rice, place a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 t oil and eggs, stirring to scramble loosely; cook until done. Remove the eggs to a plate.

3. Add 2 t oil to the skillet with the carrots; cook for 2-3 minutes or until the carrots begin to soften. Remove from the pan.

4. Add the remaining 2 T oil to the skillet with the garlic, gingerroot, green onion, red pepper and crushed red pepper flakes. Cook for 1-2 minutes or until the vegetables begin to soften. Reduce the heat to low and add the cooked rice. Cook for 1-2 minutes; stir in the eggs, carrot, shrimp, basil, cilantro and peanut sauce; cook until heated through.

5. Taste for seasoning and salt if necessary (I didn't add any). Garnish with the bean sprouts and the peanuts.

6. Enjoy!!!!!

A couple pics

I took a couple pics this morning that I thought I'd share. One is of the sun as it was rising this morning (not the best picture) and one of a couple of deer. We are all having a good time here relaxing at Mom and Dad's house and we were able to watch the lunar eclipse the other night too. There is no light pollution out here so our views of the sky are fantastic!

Week in review

We didn't get much done for school this week since we were all sick. We didn't do any history, science, art or music so we'll have to do them this week to catch up (this coming week is our scheduled week off). Also Kara was pretty sick this week so she didn't get any schoolwork done. Here is what Ellie got done.

Math: 1 test and 3 lessons. She missed 1 question on her test. I cut down the number of problems she has to do so her lessons have been going better.

Latin: She reviewed the last 5 lessons.

Reading: Ellie continued to read in the Wizard of Oz. She'll finish that this coming week.

Spelling: Ellie took the test over the word list we started last week. She missed 4 (out of 25). The word list was on whether or not words had 1 consonant or 2 (such as committee).

Bible: She continues to work through her Genesis book. We didn't do any family devotions this week.

English: The mommy was too sick this week to help with this so we'll do it this coming week.

The dangers of good-tasting children's medicine

A conversation I just had with Darin:

Darin: Mommy, can we take my tempature?

I felt his forehead and he didn't feel warm so I said, "Darin, I don't think you have a fever."

Darin: Oh great (complete with pouty lip).

Me: Darin, you should be glad you aren't sick.

Darin: But I want medicine.

Ughhh! We are ALL sick. :-(

We've all managed to get the crud that has been going around. Kara woke up again with a 103 fever and a very sore throat so I decided to take her in just to make sure she didn't have strep. Turns out she just has the same thing the rest of us have. Unfortunately the recovery time is 2-4 weeks. We're hoping for a much quicker recovery. We've all been feverish, achy and coughing since Sunday--all to varying degrees. Ellie is the least sick of all of us and has still managed to do a fair amount of schoolwork--much to her chagrin.

While I was at the doctor's office this morning I picked up a prescription for cough syrup with codeine for me. I've spent the last few nights doing more coughing than good sleeping so this should help. And hey, who needs to do sit ups when you can hack up a lung instead. :-)

Hmmmm. I had more things to say in this post that I was thinking about while trying to take a nap, but all those thoughts have left me. So I guess that's it for now.

Weekly Update

We did fairly well keeping on track this week so I am pleased with the progress we made this week.

History: We read some books about the Greek Olympics, the Minotaur and the Trojan horse. We were going to start reading The Story of the Greeks but didn't get to it so we'll start it next week. I imagine that it will take us a few weeks to get through since it is quite a lengthy book.
English: Ellie is almost done with her chapter on pronouns. She'll be taking a test over it next week. Kara got through several lessons in FLL--she has the definitions of a common and proper noun down. She also memorized another poem. She also did several lessons in OPGTR. We usually do 3-4 lessons a day in that book.
Latin: Ellie did lesson 15 in LC1 this week. She'll do a review of lessons 11-15 next week. Then we'll take a week off.
Science: We read more on our chapter on Mars. They narrated what we read.
Math: This has been a continual struggle for Ellie. She hates math and takes forever to get it done. She got all of her lessons done but not in the time frame we had been working on. She has been using a timer so that she can work towards getting that done in a shorter time. Next week we'll implement some other changes as I'd really like her to have a better attitude about it and get it done in 30-45 minutes. Kara did several lessons and she'll be finishing up Math 1 next week.
Handwriting/Editing/Spelling: Kara did 2 spelling lessons this week and several pages in her handwriting book. Ellie started on a spelling lesson but I haven't tested over it and she still needs a little more review so we'll finish it next week. Ellie did 4 pages in her editing book.
Reading: Ellie is currently reading The Wizard of Oz and she actually likes it!!
Bible: We are still reading through the Psalms and Proverbs (there were some days we didn't do from last month). Ellie did 4 lessons in her Genesis study.
Art/Music: We listened to Mozart's Requiem during breakfast and the girls colored their own Van Gogh pictures. Today we need to go over a hymn and do picture study.

The crud. . .

Apparently I am coming down with the crud. Yuck!! I've been not feeling all that great for a little over a week (no appetite, pain in my shoulder and hip joints) so I figured I had something but wasn't sure what (Dan kept asking me if I thought I was pregnant--no, I'm not). Then on Tuesday my left ear started ringing and hasn't stopped since. So I decided to go to the doctor on Friday. He says that my left eustachian tube is blocked which is causing this ringing in the ear sensation. As I was describing my symptoms related to my ear I mentioned that when people talk to me it is like two people talking at once to which he gave me a funny look. We both laughed about that and I said that it wasn't like I was hearing voices but rather I hear 2 tones at once. He is really a good family doctor and we just absolutely love him and have a good relationship so his look to me was only in fun. He said that based on all my symtpoms, I am most likely coming down with the crud that is going around. This is the crud that hits you over the head like a sledgehammer and lasts 2-3 weeks. No way do I want that. So he put me on a 5-day steroid course and told me to stay home from work this weekend. Had I gone to work, there is not doubt that I would have come down with it full force and my critically ill patients definitely don't need it either. So now we are all taking our vitamins and drinking our Xango juice in an effort to keep this at bay. He also told me to plug my nose and blow several times a day to try to open my eustachian tube which interestly enough, is not possible to do while lying on your back in bed.

In other news, Dan survived another week living in a motel away from home. He's glad to finally sleep in his own bed again and today he doesn't have to wear a suit (although he still has to go to work and put a full day in). At least they have finally started having catered lunches on Saturdays. For some reason they never start that until February even though over half of the office works on Saturdays already at the beginning of January.

Last week I went to The Good Food Store and stocked up on a bunch of things. We are really trying to eat healthier and the kids are enjoying it so far. I stocked up on steel-cut oats, flax seed, red lentils, green lentils, brown rice, quinoa and other things. We've been having steel-cut oats for breakfast almost every day. The kids are loving it!! They don't want oatmeal any other way anymore.

We did manage to get our walk in the woods done this week. It was beautiful and the only other footprints were deerprints. I pulled Natalie in the sled for awhile because I knew there was no way that she'd be able to walk the whole way and I didn't really want to carry her, especially since I had the camera around my neck. Here is a pic of them sitting on one of the downed trees. The other is of them playing house under a bunch of branches. They were breaking sticks to make a fire so they could cook their meals and they each had their own sleeping area under a section of branches.




On Friday we went to Toyota to get the oil changed. Here are the girls pretending that they are moms out for coffee (they are drinking hot chocolate). It was quite cute.

Building a snowman

We had a beautiful snowfall this morning. You know the kind--big, fat, fluffy flakes. The kind that is great for building snowmen and really heavy for shoveling.

Building a snowman was not as easy as I thought it would be. I just figured the kids could roll some snowballs and then we'd pile them. Uh. No. That wasn't about to happen with Ellie in charge. First she made a perfectly round snowball and then attempted to pack some snow around it. Of course, not all of the snow stuck so she was convinced that the snow was not suitable for snowman-making. She was ready to give up. Kara, on the other hand, was more than willing to at least try following the directions I had given (I was busy shoveling the driveway). She had plenty of success so Ellie decided that she would also try. Of course, the snowball she was making was not perfectly round so she still didn't think it was going to work. After we got the 2 bottom snowballs on top of each other, Ellie spent some time rounding them out. :-) Tomorrow we hope to go for a walk in the woods to find some sticks for the arms.

Week in review

This will be for the last 2 weeks since we've been doing school-lite since we were living in a motel. Plus I didn't post about last week's school since I was working last weekend.

History: We read about life in early Crete and the legend of the Minotaur who lived in a labrynth underneath the castle and ate 2 children every year. We also learned about the early Greeks and about why the Dark Ages are so called (the barbarians took over and didn't write anything down).

Science: We finished our chapter on the moon and started the chapter on Mars. They watched a movie about the building of Spirit and Opportunity--the rovers that landed on Mars.

English: Kara continues in FLL. She is working on memorizing her second poem and is learning the difference between common and proper nouns. Ellie continues with R&S and just finished the chapter on proper verb usage. She is now working on pronouns. Ellie also does a page of editing each day.

Reading: Ellie read In Search of a Homeland: the story of the Aenid. Kara is still going through OPGTR and is now reading pretty much whatever she can get her hands on.

Math: Kara is almost done with Saxon 1 (probably another week or 2) and then will move onto Saxon 2. Ellie continues with Saxon 54. She doesn't really like math so she has a tendency to have a really bad attitude about it and she takes forever to get it done. We've been working on having a better attitude and getting it done in a reasonable amount of time. It isn't that she doesn't understand it, rather, she just doesn't like it.

Art and Music: We started reading about Van Gogh's life. We didn't get to any picture study, however, so we will add that back in next week. We read more about Mozart and listened to the Requiem. We also read about the Magic Flute. We still need to listen to it.

Latin: Ellie finished a lesson last week. We didn't do a lesson this week.

Handwriting: Kara has been doing a page a day and her writing is looking quite nice.

Another week in the cities . . .

We spent this week in the Twin Cities again since Dan had to work up there. This time we stayed at the Staybridge Suites in Eagan. We liked the layout of the suite in Lakeville better but this hotel was much closer to where Dan was working (it was booked last week) and offers a breakfast buffet and supper on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We went up on Monday and went to the St Paul Winter Carnival. It was a gorgeous day on Monday (40 degrees or so and sunny) so we weren't cold walking outside looking at the ice sculptures. However, the ice sculptures didn't really appreciate the warm weather (as you can see in the pic of the wizard of oz).

The Winter Carnival was not nearly as large as I thought. There really wasn't much to it, but the ice sculptures were cool to look at. When I had looked online at what was going on, there was a blurb about an exhibit that taught students/people about Minnesota weather and climate changes. I was hoping that this would be a good science class for Ellie and Kara, but it turned out to be a dud. It didn't amount to more than 3-4 posterboards of graphs detailing the average temperature and ice thickness of a couple of lakes over the past several years.

After the Winter Carnival, we went to the state capital and went for a tour. They have a booklet that you can buy for $2 that lists 12 things that you have to find throughout the capital and a bit of history about each one. I'd never been there before. It is really quite pretty with all the marble. They are currently working on restoring the painting on the walls and ceilings so we watched them do that for awhile. The kids want to come back when the legislature is in session.

On Tuesday we went to Lou's house for coffee/hot chocolate and brownies. We had a good time talking and the kids got to play with some new (to them) toys. The girls were most excited about the 2 children's games and bags of craft supplies that Lou sent home with them. We also got to see Dylan's fashion design drawings. They were quite impressive and even at 5 years old, one can see the talent he has.

After Lou's, we went to John and Erika's for supper. Ellie practiced her piano while we were chatting and we even got to see John. Supper was delicious and we had some leftover birthday cake from John's birthday. It was sinfully delicious!! It was an inside-out German chocolate cake--basically a dense chocolate cake with the frosting in the middle and a chocolate ganache on the outside. We only needed a small piece as it was so rich!!

Wednesday we just hung out at the hotel and went swimming in the afternoon. On Thursday we packed up, checked out and went to the Minnesota History Museum. I had never been there before, but Ellie went there for a field trip one year while at Schaeffer and was disappointed that she didn't have more time. I was glad the weather wasn't too terribly cold outside since I thought the museum was at a different place and parked accordingly. :-) The walk back to the parking garage was much shorter since we didn't take the long way around. At least we got some exercise. After the museum we stopped at Burnsville Center and got some ice cream and a coffee (for me). Then we met Dan at IHOP for supper where they serve my favorite pancakes--Harvest Grain 'N Nut with butter pecan syrup. Mmmmmmmm.

It is nice to be back home sleeping in our own beds and own rooms. I was feeling a bit under the weather yesterday so we didn't do much of anything. Today I really need to get February's menu planned and I need to figure out what I am going to bring to a SuperBowl Pary tomorrow. I also need to make some sort of salad since we are having some friends over for lunch after church tomorrow.