Week of February 17, 2013

Homemaking

I have been working the 40 Bags in 40 Days.  I managed to get rid of the school desks that we no longer use, I crushed down boxes from things we no longer even own that were up in our attic 'just in case' we needed them, I got rid of 6 bags of stuffed animals that were up in our attic.  I have more to do up there, but I feel good getting rid of all of the things I have gotten rid of.  I've hung on to baby clothes and toys, these teeny tiny rocking chairs my in-laws made my girls (maybe I can give them to the girls for their own kids?) and home decor things from our other two houses that really are not my style anymore....I have to figure out what to do with all of those things.

Jason makes us Boston Cream Pie around Valentine's Day every year.
The girls got a Candy Chemistry kit for Valentine's Day and learned about tempering, melting points and different types of chocolate this week.

I didn't really cook that much this week.  We had some special events at work and I had to work late, plus the girls' activities and Jason's tradition of making us the most amazing Boston Cream Pie for dinner around Valentine's Day--it's a once a year tradition!

Parenting

I completely lost it one day this week.  Just lost it.  Wigged out.  On my poor husband--they always get the brunt of it don't they? It went something like this: I have really taken on too much this term and overscheduled us.  So~ anyway, one day this week we had too many places to be at once and I called my husband and he had stopped by a friend's house after work to help him with something and I completely lost it.  Now, I had not asked my husband to come straight home after work or told him of my plans or told him that I needed help.  Since Jason's work schedule is so crazy--he can be home anywhere from 4pm to 9pm on any given night--it was completely irrational for me to lose it that he wasn't home.  Honestly, it was because he was with a friend when I was trying to figure out how to be in three places at once.  It would have been different if I had called him an hour earlier and said, hey I need your help.  But I didn't.  I just expected him to read my mind.  Oh, the end of March can not get here soon enough!  I don't know how you mamas that can have all kinds of activities going on can do it--my hat is off to ya!  I obviously can't cope with too many activities at once.

I love how Piper dresses.
Piper spends HOURS every week making videos and posting them to her youtube channel.
The girls and I have been doing Shanti Yoga on Netflix several times a week.  The girls are starting to understand why Jason and I love yoga.  They are actually asking if we can do it and telling me that if we skip a few days they miss it.

Homeschooling

I love the way my friend Susan at Learning ALL the Time organized her weekly post last week and so, I have decided to copy her!

What we're doing

• Allie has a job tutoring my friend's daughter, she has saved the money she earned and bought goldfish, last week one got fin rot and she researched what to do about that; this week she did a 60% water change, added some water conditioner, had the water tested and then added a new fish!  She also researched betta fish and has saved up for one of those, as well!
• Pet Shop Math 
• Latin & Greek Roots
• creating posters about people & subjects that interest us
• Candy Chemistry - temperature, transferring heat & volume 
• Rosetta Stone Spanish
• Mindbenders

We love MindBenders.  They are like potato chips...my girls always want to do one more!
We have been learning about how to look at art and engage with it.
Cuddle time is taken very seriously around here.

What we're reading

• Laura's Album: A Remembrance Scrapbook of Laura Ingalls Wilder (Allie)
• Laura Ingalls Wilder: Storyteller of the Prairie (Allie)
• Going Vegetarian: A Healthy Guide to Making the Switch (Piper)
• The Twelfth Night (for co-op)
• Come Look With Me: Exploring Landscape Art with Children
• A World Away (Allie)
• What Every Girl {Except Me} Know (Allie)
• Umbrella Summer (Allie)
• Indigo Blue (Piper)
• Starring Sally J. Freeman as Herself (Piper)

What we're creating

• Drawing the puppies from the new American Girl Magazine
• Piper spends hours writing scripts, filming, editing, adding special effects and then posting videos to her youtube channel AliPitter--sometimes she acts in them, sometimes her dolls act, sometimes her friends act, sometimes she gets the whole family to be in them...
• Cook's Illustrated Boston Cream Pie--yumalicious!
• Our own youtube show---more information coming very soon!!
• Scribble drawings and watercolor backgrounds for our art journals
• Chocolate candy--learned about how molecules change when the candy is melted and change again when it re-hardens

We read about Phases of Matter this week.
We watched 'The Twelfth Night" on youtube.
We did this cool Scribble Drawing exercise for our art journals.  We scribbled all over a page and then looked for a figure of some kind in our scribble and colored that in, then cut that out, prepared a nice background in our art journal and glued our scribble drawing on.

What we're watching

• Downton Abbey
• Ancient Civilization for Kids: Ancient Rome
• The Twelfth Night 

Favorite Apps

• Germy World

This Weekend...

I am working Saturday and Jason is taking Allie to art.  We are having some friends over Saturday night and the girls are having friends sleepover.  My plans for Sunday are to stay in my pajamas all day and read!!!!