One of those wonderful days
OK, I was going to post about our trip to Williamsburg, but I have not had time to download the pictures yet and we ended up having a really fun, comfortable, easy-going day today. So I want to record it for posterity (and so I have something to go back and read when I have "one of those days" that seem to inevitably occur).
Woke up to wonderful, crisp autumn weather. I absolutely love this time of year, especially being able to sleep with the windows open! The boys played video games while I got a few things done on the computer. Got my shower and made some lemon poppy seed muffins (from a box, but they were organic! I finally have realized that even though I can make muffins from scratch, I never seemed to find the time. Seems better to have organic muffins from a mix then no muffins at all! And the boys love them.) Made some pancakes (also organic from a mix…do I detect a pattern?). The boys started playing yu-gi-oh, so I started cleaning out the garage. After the crab fest, we had gotten to where I could not get my car in the garage and did not want to go there again. Most of it was breaking down boxes to take to recycling.
The boys were in and out doing miscellaneous things. A lot of lego building (and smashing…they love throwing their creations down from the second floor onto the foyer floor.) Also built a small fire with toothpicks (outside) which involved some discussion of different ways to put the toothpicks so that the fire would burn better. Jason wanted to build a tee-pee, but could not get the toothpicks to stay up. Eventually chose to use a log cabin type approach which worked extremely well. Every once in awhile we need to do little unit studies on fire to keep Jason's curiosity from getting the better of him. I am sure that the neighbors think that we are a bit nuts.
At some point, we did a couple of games from Family Math and we read an issue of Ask Magazine about finding new species of wildlife. That led to some really interesting discussions about species and general biology. Ask and Moo Cow Magazines are consistently a hit around here. And I love that both boys enjoy them, each at their own level. The single focus topic/issue seems to work well…and these two magazines seem to really know how to pick interesting topics.
Jeff came home a bit early and stayed with Jason while I took Kyle to his first soccer practice. I am sure that Jason enjoyed his one-on-one time with Dad. Kyle had a blast with his soccer team. Many of the kids are back from last year (as is the coach) and Kyle really had fun.
Came home and had some errands to run, including my Wednesday trip to the library. I absolutely love our library and am totally spoiled. I am trying to figure out how I can work volunteering there into my schedule. I also realized today (ok, I realized this awhile ago, but re-realized it today) how absolutely wonderful LibraryThing is. I have been adding in books that I want to remember to check out from the library using tags like "to read-boys", "to read-Jason", "to read-Kyle", "to read-homeschooling". All I needed to do was go into my library, click on the appropriate tag, print out the list and take it to the library! How cool is that. No having to sort through tons of emails to try to find those great books that have been recommended. It took all of about 5 minutes. I am in heaven and at least I feel this part of my life has been simplified and <gasp> actually organized!
Found lots of fun books for the boys and picked up Math Power which has been highly recommended over at LivingMath (which is an awesome resource in and of itself!). It is subtitled "How to Help Your Child Love Math, Even If You Don't" which is not a problem for me as I really do enjoy math (and am loving it even more re-learning it this time around with the boys). But it is supposed to have some good suggestions for teaching math so I am looking forward to reading it.
All in all it was a day that just seemed to flow really well and felt (should I actually say it out loud?) amazingly balanced! Let's hope that we can keep it up. Tomorrow should be fun…we are going over to Kathi's to start our weekly Science (we are getting together to do science experiments) and then they have Games Class at the YMCA which is always fun. Plus it is pizza night, so who can beat that?
