Updates

I was just thinking about how much the kids are changing and growing and realized I'm way overdue for one of these. I like to look back on these and see how we've progressed so it may be a bit boring and long winded for other people to read. Sorry :) So here goes..

Katie

Things are going amazingly well with homeschooling, 100x's better than last year. I think going to school for a couple months made her realize how good she has it as home! She has been very focused and gets all her work done quickly with a great attitude, it's wonderful. I'm mainly using the Sonlight curriculum and adding to it as I see fit.

In math, we've been working on the multiplication tables and while she can figure them all out, I really want her to have them memorized WELL. I bought her a CD that uses music to memorize the tables and it's really working. We run flash cards daily and she has about half the tables down cold, answering without a pause. I predict by the end of the year she will have them all memorized. We're also doing a lot of work with fractions and graphs. She is building a very strong, solid foundation in math and really seems to enjoy it. I'm thrilled because my math education was pretty weak and I ended up hating math. I don't want that to happen to her (which is exactly what WAS happening when she was in school. The difference in her attitude towards school now is incredible. She is really understanding the concepts and learning to enjoy learning, it makes me so happy because this is the educational foundation for the rest of her life.)

I noticed she was misspelling a lot of words on her papers from school so I started her on the "Sequential Spelling" program from Sonlight and it is phenomenal. I have seen a dramatic improvement in her spelling. Did you know the majority of 3rd graders cannot correctly spell "beginning"? The program starts off with that word and word family in the first week (inn - inning - begin - beginning) and teaches how words are formed so that kids can figure out HOW to spell words not just memorize a random list. It is a daily program with new words every day, no tests and the child learns to correct their own mistakes. Katie actually looks forward to spelling now, she always asks to start the day with spelling! She used to HATE it with a passion but this new program has not only changed that but is also greatly improving her all around spelling!

For Science she is studying Biology this year. We are currently working on Taxonomy and classifying living things. She knows the order of "Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Genus, Species" and knows all 5 Kingdoms (Monera, Protista, Plantae, Fungi, Animalia - do YOU remember them?! I'm relearning stuff I forgot!) Each day we are going in depth with each Kingdom. Today we studied Monera and read about Bacteria and looked at pictures of different Bacteria. I REALLY want to get her a cellular microscope for Christmas because the one she has sucks. She also went on a nature hike and collected things and then classified them by Kingdom. Once we get through Taxonomy, we are going to start studying cells. See why I want the cellular microscope? The crazy part is, I don't remember learning any of this stuff till high school and college. She is loving it though and having no trouble understanding any of it. It's amazing, kids are capable of SO much more than they are exposed to through the regular school system.

In History we are studying the history of North America. We have gone pretty in depth with the Indians, which fell in nicely with Thanksgiving. This is probably the subject we spend the least amount of time on though. For some reason, neither of us seem to be able to get too excited about it. I'm going to try and work on it earlier in the day when we are less tired to try and see if that helps the enthusiasm level.

She has been reading like crazy, I have her alternate between the readers that came with her curriculum and the books she likes to read for fun. She is really into Judy Blume right now and has read the whole "Fudge" series and is now reading "Are You There God? It's Me Margaret." She is pretty much always with a book in her hands. Many nights, after the boys are asleep, we both curl up on the couch together and read, it's our "girl time"" :)

We've also been working on language arts, grammar and handwriting with the Sonlight curriculum, big improvements there as well. HUGE improvements with handwriting - her cursive is near flawless and print is much nicer as well. I also got her some Mad libs to help reinforce what she is learning in grammar and she has so much fun with them. We do a lot of dictation where I will read passages from a book and she writes it down. It helps with her spelling, vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, etc.

We are also doing a lot of Art & Spanish which she really enjoys. The Rosetta Stone spanish program is awesome.

Overall things are going very, very well. She is making incredible progress and enjoying learning again - which is the most important thing of all.

We're taking a break from gymnastics, she was getting tired of it and I was getting tired of the drive (half hour each way) so she wants to try Karate now. There is a martial arts place less than 5 miles from our house so I'm cool with that.

Kobe

This boy has always been and continues to be a ray of sunshine. He is such a sweet kid and just such a good boy. He gives me the least trouble of any of my crew. Always agreeable, always happy, so tender and sweet with Kaleb. He's patient, he listens, just not the typical 2 year old at all. Don't get me wrong, he has his moments when he is tired and has the occasional meltdown but they are very few and far between. He looks up to Katie and follows her around and plays with her all day. She will sit and read with him for hours, it is such a great combination - she gets reading practice and he gets read to. He LOVES books, more than either Katie or Kyle did at his age. He never gets tired of hearing stories and has half his books memorized, his favorite is "Go Dog Go". I have a feeling he will be an early reader. But what is impressing us the most right now is his ability to count. I don't mean just say "one, two, three, four...and so on" which he can do, but actually count objects. He can accurately count and fully understands the concept of adding and subtracting. I will hold up 3 fingers and ask him "how many?", he'll answer "3", I'll hold up 2 more and ask "if I add two more then how many?" and he'll count them out and tell me "5" so I say "ok then, what's 3 plus 2?" and again he'll say "5". He counts everything he sees as well, when we read a book he will count whatever is on the page "one, two, three, four dogs!" It's really incredible, I don't think any of my other kids got that concept till they were at least close to 4 years old. He is only 2 1/2.

He also knows all his shapes and most of his colors. We haven't started on letters yet but I just went on Amazon today and bought him some ABC books since he seems to be ready to learn. He is also drawing extremely well for his age and loves to paint, which we do pretty much every day. He has SUCH an imagination, he comes up with these hilarious and elaborate stories most of which revolve around him being the "hero" and saving everyone. He has such a good heart :) He keeps us all laughing. He also loves to dance and you should see him when the "Lazytown" theme song comes on, it's hilarious, he jumps around with his hands on his hips. He's also really into puzzles and can do most of the ones we have by himself. The photo above is him with a puzzle he did on his own. He's my little boy genius. :)

Kaleb

Oh Kaleb. He's my most challenging child for sure. Good thing he's so darn cute! He has such a temper and is in the throes of teething & separation anxiety and wants to be carried all the time. He FINALLY got his 1st tooth a couple days ago. 2 full months later than his older brother and sister got their 1st tooth. He still hasn't slowed down with the drooling though and tooth #2 is right under the gums about to erupt. He started crawling a few weeks ago (he had been doing the "wounded soldier" crawl before) but only crawls far enough to find something to pull up on and then he's standing. He wants to walk so badly. He cruises around on the furniture only holding on with one hand and sometimes gets over confident and lets go completely, which usually doesn't end well with the hardwood floor and all. He is into everything and I'm freaking out about the idea of a Christmas tree this year, how will I keep him away from it and all the ornaments?! His favorite thing to do is walk around in his walker and pull down everything he can reach. He looks hilarious running around in his walker, he can get it going pretty fast. I'm torn between trying to enjoy his babyhood and wanting him to get older so things ease up a little. He is such a huggable little monkey though and I will definitely miss all his chunkyness, which is going away fast now that he is on the move. He is at that age where they have those hilarious belly laughs, he is so much fun to tickle and toss in the air as he shrieks and laughs hysterically. He still has that wonderful baby smell which is something like a mix of milk and cookies. He is still nursing, though not as much during the day anymore, mostly just at nap and bedtime. He is still co-sleeping with us night and wakes up a couple times at night but it's not really a big deal since I pretty much just pop my boob in his mouth and go back to sleep. I started putting him on the potty when I see that he starting to push (you know the face), not so much to start "training" him yet but more because I hate changing dirty diapers! The added benefit is that he starts to associate pooping with the potty. I think all my kids were pretty reliably poop trained by 16-18 months, I just cannot stand changing poopy diapers! I see kids 3 and 4 years old running around in diapers, crapping their pants and just shudder, I don't even want to think about cleaning that up. I see what Kobe does in the toilet and I can't imagine it all smashed up in a diaper. Ew.

Anyway! On the grown up front, we have been playing with the idea of renting out our house and getting something bigger. We are just so cramped up here. When we bought this house we only had two kids and I was wasn't working. Now we have 3 kids and I have a home business, we just need more space. I want something with at least 4 bedrooms but preferably 5 so each kid can have their own room plus a dedicated guest room since we have guests so frequently plus an office. I put our house up for rent on craigslist for quite a bit more than our mortgage payment just to see what kind of response we'd get and I got 3 calls in 2 days. One family REALLY wants the house and calls me every day to try and come see it. So I'm excited that it looks like we'd be able to rent it out fairly quickly. I've been looking around for something closer to Denver but still in the foothills, there is an area called Genesee that I really like. It's much closer to the ski resorts which is another plus. This is all just in the "idea" phase but maybe in the next few months we might make it a reality. We'll see.

Well I think that's about it. :)