School time

Last Friday was the first day of Public School that my children have ever had. (Excepting McKay who did go to kindergarten and half of first grade.) A Charter school in our area created a Friday school day for homeschoolers and we decided to take part. So, every Friday my children will be going to school. They had a blast. That morning my girls woke up at 5 AM because they were so excited. They don't even do that on Christmas morning. My children are very heavy sleepers. The school day consists of various one hour classes that they sign up for and is actually totally seperate from the full time students who attend. McKay is in 5 classes. They are Math Motivation, Art, Language Arts, Basketball/Volleyball, and Technology. The math motivation class goes along with ALEKS math, which is an online virtual math program which he will be doing at home, and every Friday they will do fun math activities. He says it is a lot of fun but he loves the basketball/volleyball class the best, and he's so excited about the Technology class. Elena is taking 3 classes which consist of Art, Science Lab, and Children's Theater. She is most excited about children's theater as we have been to a few plays and she has been begging me to let her be in a play. She is extremely shy though, so we will see how it goes. Alexia is taking 2 classes this year. They are storytelling and Arts/Crafts/Math fun. The storytelling teacher is the same as the children's theater teacher and she is fabulous.

I think this will be a great experience as they will get to try many subjects, spend some time apart ( a big plus), and get someone besides mom teaching them for a change. These classes are free, because of going through the public school system, and that is great. I know I choose to homeschool, but homeschoolers still have to pay all the same taxes that public schoolers pay, yet we have to pay for everything ourselves, so it is so nice to get a few tax benefits also now and then.

We are still doing culture studies with some other families (see my first post) once a week. We are starting again Sep 3 and our first country of study will be Sweden, which my family is in charge of for the whole month of September, so hopefully baby boy will stay baking in the oven until October. My guess date is the 6th of October, and I have always delivered really close to the due date so we will see what happens. Still that's cutting it pretty close. I'm very excited about this school year and hope to be able to handle it all.

My baby is growing up.

My baby girl, Alexia has turned 6 years old! I can not believe it. Has that much time really passed? We had a small family party for her. She had a few friends come over for cake and ice cream. I used to do a friend party every year for each of my kids but it had become a time and financial burden that I really did not want, so I decided to give them a friend party at the ages of 4, 8, 12, and 16. This is much more manageable to me. A friend gave me the idea and birthdays are much less stressful to me now, and I think as a result, more enjoyable for the kids, and more special when they do get a friend party. I did not get any pictures. The camera unfortunately was misplaced that day. My sister took some on her camera. But I don't have them yet. I don't know what it is but Alexia seems so much younger to me than Elena and McKay did at that age. Maybe that will change when baby boy comes along, which by the way, is only 8 short weeks away.

Best Friends

Today has been one of those glorious days when everyone is getting along and peaceful. Elena and Alexia have been best friends since they woke up this morning. They have played peacefully and they are being very sweet together. They just finished their chores which they helped each other with, and Elena is going to take Alexia outside for a roller blading lesson. McKay got home this morning from a Father/Sons campout and has been much too tired to do any teasing or worry about the girls. He has just been minding his own business playing computer, reading, and napping. What a glorious day! I am ready for more of these kind of days.