Cupcake party pictures

I just realized that I never posted pictures of the kids' cupcake decorating efforts!  When we had our Cupcake Decorating Party, it ended up being just our family, and then we delivered cupcakes to people who donated to our cause, as a "Thank You" gift.  The kids had fun decorating the cupcakes (and they got to eat a few, too!).

Toilet Time

Our toilet needed some repairs.  Brad bought the necessary parts, and also decided to try one of those water-saving flushing devices.  It's got two different buttons to use less water or more water.  Both the boxes were sitting in the bathroom.  They were noticed by Henry who proceeded to be so fascinated by the flusher that he decided to carry the box around the house, as well as plead with any grownup within earshot to please, please let us fix the toilet today.  He did this for about a week.  He brought it to dinner (it was clean, okay?).  His little engineer's heart was in love.

The big day finally came.  Toilet repair day.  Henry was ecstatic.  He and Brad proceeded to fit the new parts into the drained toilet tank.  Then disaster struck.  The new flushing mechanism would not fit in the toilet.  And to top it off, the flushing button that replaced the handle just wouldn't work with the toilet and the lid.  It was almost too much to bear.  Tears were imminent.  Brad and I discussed using the flusher in the downstairs toilet, and Brad almost made the fatal decision to put that repair off until another day.  At the last moment, with a very solemn, almost-crying-but-not-quite-because-he-wouldn't-let-himself boy following him up and down the stairs between the two bathrooms, Brad decided that this would have to be The Day.  The consequences were too severe to not accomplish what they had set out to do. 

I am happy to say that the parts fit in the downstairs toilet, and we are enjoying the use of a better-working toilet upstairs, as well as a water-saving toilet downstairs.

April Flowers

Crocus Blossoms in the Front Bed.  April 5, 2011.

Crocus Blossoms.  April 5, 2011.

Magnolia blossom from our new tree.  We still have to plant it.  It came with one still-unopened bud; all the others had bloomed and fallen off.  April 24, 2011.

Easter Dinner

Happy Easter!

A note from Holly

Here is a letter that Holly worked very hard to compose.  She is (we all are, actually) hoping to raise a good amount of money toward this cause.  Read on, and I have a little more info at the end of this post.  It's the same as what I wrote in an email I sent out.  Maybe you've already read it.

Hello everyone, this is Erin.

The tenth annual Celiac Walk is happening on May 21st, as Holly said.  Everyone participating is collecting donations that will go to the University of Maryland Baltimore's Center for Celiac Research.  We would love to collect donations in any amount. The donations will go toward research for a cure for celiac disease, as well as insight and help for other autoimmune disorders like Type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis, to name a few.

If you'd like to join us in the three-mile walk, we'd love to see you there!  There is also a timed 5K run that day, with some of the registration fees going toward the same cause.  For more information on the event (including the prizes to win--an NFL-player autographed football and a World Series baseball autographed by Paul Molitor are a couple of the prizes) you can visit the event's website at http://www.twincitiesceliacwalk.org/home.html.  You can even donate through the website if you'd prefer to do it that way.  If you do donate through the website, please consider letting us know that you donated (dollar amount isn't necessary)--Holly is very excited to do her part in this fundraiser.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this and considering helping our cause.

Erin

--If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!  You can use the comments here, ask on Facebook, or send us an email.  Thanks again!

It's a learning process

Homeschooling is a continual learning process.  And by that, I mean a learning process not just for the kids, but for the parents.  I feel as though I'm continually checking--mentally--to see if things are working for us.  There is always one thing that needs tweaking.  Usually, more than one thing needs adjustment.  Maybe we're not reading enough, maybe there's not enough math.  Perhaps we're having trouble with time management.  The list goes on.  Of course, we are usually doing "enough", but we could do what we're doing better.

This week, in the interest of improvement, I'm tweaking our reading sources.  We've used quite a few online texts of living books this year to save money.  I've discovered that this is convenient, but I don't like reading from the computer.  Plus it tempts me to do things on the computer that I need or want to do when the kids aren't needing me for the moment.  This never works.  Distracted Mom equals distracted kids.  So, what to do?  Library?  Well, that won't really work for some books.  We use them over such a large amount of time, it's not practical.  Instead, I looked into LibriVox a little more deeply.  I discovered many of our Ambleside Online books read aloud there!  Today I worked on downloading these books to the iPod, and printing out chapter lists so that we can find what we need quickly.  My next step with this is to create CD's of the kids' favorites, so they can have them in their rooms or in the car for trips. They're listening to a selection from The Blue Fairy Book right now upstairs.  And with the folder of chapter selections living right next to the stereo, they can choose a story to hear whenever they feel like it.

I've been feeling like we've drifted away from our Charlotte Mason-style learning a little more than I want, lately.  I'm hoping this adjustment will help us get back on track.  So far I feel good about it!

Of course, in the next few weeks, there will be something else that needs tweaking.  But that's the way it is with homeschooling!

The Latest

Here I am, avoiding housework as usual.  What better time to update the blog, really?

Spring is here after a very long, very wintery winter.  I like winter more than some, maybe most, people, but it was time for it to be over.  In a big way.  Now we're planning our yard projects (nothing huge--but I'll blog about it later!), thinking of camping trips and trying to get out and walk more.  We do need to get in shape for the three mile walk in May for celiac research!  We're also preparing for severe weather season.  The very last little tiny snow patches were gone about three days ago, and now we're getting our weather radios dusted off and tested out.  The first round of the season is expected tonight and tomorrow!  Good thing I got my weather spotter class this year.  Tornadoes, hail, and 70+ degree temps, here we come!

The weather spotter class was something I've wanted to do for years now, and this year I got to go with two friends.  Spotter training is by the National Weather Service, and it trains you to be able to watch severe weather and call in the details to the Weather Service.  It really is an important thing, since (as they explained to us) Doppler can't catch everything and they really need people verifying the radar or even seeing things it can't see.  It helps the NWS send out accurate warnings and save lives.  I've always enjoyed watching the weather, and this was a fun, informative thing for me to do--I learned new stuff and I'm excited to be able to put it to use.  As a matter of fact, my first "activation" should be tonight!  Not that I'll be able to see anything at night, but...there's always tomorrow. 

The kids and I took a "spring break" week, and I let them just play while I did my basic jobs around here, and also worked on finishing some projects I've had around.  I'll be posting about those very soon on my project blog.  One was a big project I've been working on for a long time and I'm glad it's done!

This week, we're back to school, and it's been nice.  The break was refreshing, I think, for all of us.  Henry will be doing his annual testing soon, and we've got the next level of things like math and art waiting for us, when we're ready for it.  We'll most likely wait a while with math and handwriting (probably until Fall), but we'll start our next art book as soon as we finish the one we're working on now.  We really enjoy the art lessons and projects.

So that's what we've been up to lately, in a nutshell.  Now I really should get down to the laundry room and get going on that mountain of laundry down there. 

I guess.