Our Weekly Adventures - Week 15

In my life this week....

It's been a rough week with the schedule.  Physically I have been a bit on the edge with my fibro, and it's the stupid little pains that turn into bigger pain that interrupts life more.  I basically have been behind and running at full speed to try and keep up all week.  That facebook pic that says "My house was clean last week...you just missed it."  It sooo applies to me.  I am barely keeping the kitchen dishes caught up, their schoolwork finished....and I beg that no one comes over and sees the pile of dirty laundry.  There are still suitcases unpacked and mail not opened from our trip.  The recycling is falling out the back garage door.

It's just one of those busy and stressful weeks.  It could be worse, we were gone almost 3 weeks.  But I just hate being behind on everything!

In my homeschool this week....

We had lots and lots of trips!!!  We started the week out with our first Art Class of the year.  There were 17 students at the class.  I didn't make Joey and Brayden go, they did their projects at home.  The next day we went to a local historical village....it was wonderful.  There was a huge group from our homeschool group.  Lydia thought it was great getting to hang out with her friends all day and see all the cool things.  We just didn't to see everything, so someone is going to set up another field trip this fall...we are excited!

Another wonderful mom in our group set up a Sketching Club at the zoo.  So we went to that on Wednesday.  We learned about Reef Tip Sharks.  And then explored the aquarium, because our zoo aquarium closes in a couple weeks for about 3 years!  The girls and I are going back next week to explore one more time before they close.  We also did some cooking Wednesday...and made some yummy..yummy pumpkin choco chip cookies!

Today we stayed home...did some schoolwork and walked down to our local library.  Did more cooking...and then got our stuff packed up for tomorrow's first elementary co-op for the girls.  Busy week....the only thing we fell behind on was History.  I have some reading to do with the kids, but really this week we were going to look at Colonial Life and the way kids would spend their time.

Lydia and I are working our way through the Marie-Grace and Cecile American Girl books.  We started Book 4 and after her not really liking Book 1 & 2 I am very grateful that Books 3 & 4 so far have been much better at keeping her attention.  We have had a couple good discussions too on topics in these books.  We also cooked a New Orleans favorite of Gumbo.  She and I liked it, but Daddy said he didn't care for it.  Probably because I added okra.

I'm reading....

I am trying to pick a book out to read.  I have decided that I really need to start trying to read more for fun.  The kids rarely see me doing that anymore.  I checked a few books out from the library to see what might keep my attention.  I couldn't even decide on a type of book to read...lol.  Any suggestions??

I'm cooking....

I decided to add some more fun this week.  So we baked choc chip pumpkin cookies and made pumpkin pudding this afternoon.  Lydia helped to cook Gumbo to go with out American Girl unit.    Today we made fried rice, hm egg drop soup (as in broth, eggs, no extra junk), and we bought frozen egg rolls to go with our FIAR unit study for The Story of Ping.  We made pizza casserole this week, and used the Red Gravy recipe from a couple weeks ago (American Girl study of New Orleans Red Gravy Spaghetti).  This month's World Travelers Club Country was Turkey.  So we made Kofte (basically meatballs).  We ate the Kofte with hummus and some ate them with lettuce and pita shells.

Question.....

Book recommendations for me.  Any good books you have read?  I read fiction and non-fiction.

Our week in pics.....

We did have an unusual week fitting schoolwork in.  The girls had a lot of field trip learning.  And everyone still did Math, Reading, Grammar, etc.  It was just around all our activities.

This is our Gumbo and Cornbread.

At Art Class on Monday.  The assignment was to draw something that had happened in everyday life.  Both girls chose to draw their kittens.

 This was one of our many FIAR science projects to go with ping....they were working on reflection.

 Our meal from Turkey...

 Field trip to Sauder Village.

 Caty loves these Spider Crabs....she had to draw them.

 Lydia drawing the black-tipped reef shark.  The microphone is her pencil case for drawing class. It screams Lydia...doesn't it.

 She was trying to draw a Lake Sturgeon.

 Then we came home and made hm pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

 We were privileged to be invited to be in a local busy bag swap.  I pulled a couple activities out this morning for Caty while I was working with Lydia.

 She decided to hang up their Barbie clothes too.

 Working on our Story of Ping projects for FIAR.  They took turns locating China.

 This month in World Travelers Club we were to learn about Turkey.  We didn't get any full projects done, but we were able to at least do a little geography on the country.  We were watching videos on youtube that were tourism for Turkey

 This was Brayden's geography sheet from Enchanted Learning.  I had to take a picture of it.  Question 1 told him to color Turkey yellow....so he literally colored the word Turkey yellow.  It was a good snicker yesterday about how literal he could be.

 This was our meal to go with The Story of Ping.  My egg drop soup noodles did not stay "noodles" because I stirred them too much.  But the kids loved it.  I didn't make hm egg rolls, just no time this week.  So did store bought.

 I did make hm fried rice...and it was yummy!!!  Oh and Joe is having Duck Sauce with his egg rolls....Lydia was puzzled because of the name, and I let her know that Ping really wasn't used to make it.

 Another Ping Activity...we wrote out a small family tree for their notebooks.  Lydia enjoyed this project.

 Some of the books we used for The Story of Ping.