I'm a horrible blogger!!!!

       Its official, I suck at blogging.  I honestly think I just have sooo much other stuff going on that I forget to blog.  So from here on out, I'm going to make this a weekly thing, and will write every Wednesday, rain or shine lol.  I think its important to have the blog, and to document our life, so I need to make the effort.

      In other news, we received Sophie's portfolio assessment and..... (drum roll please)......  She is a fifth grader now!!!  Woo hoo!!!  I'm so proud of her!  I really feel like we've made great strides in the last couple months together.  She is really retaining the things we learn about, and that's what is important.  So, we'll stick to what we've been doing, and go from there.


      A little info on what we've been up to:  We have been doing typical summer type activities.  We have been out on the boat once now.  Lil Man went into the water for real this year, the first time everrrr, so that was a big deal.  He finally realized that life jackets actually do their job and keep you up lol.  We also did a little real life math at Chuck E. Cheese over the weekend.  We bought 180 tokens that had to be split up, and then they had to split the tickets 3 ways as well.  We visited Cabelas for the first time and I love that place.  They have  a TON of stuffed animals (the real taxidermy type) that the kids were totally in to.  And not just the animals in our area either... there was even a polar bear!  It was too rainy and nasty to do much else, but we had fun with our indoor activities just the same.  Sophie has been reading like crazy lately.  We purchased the 50 books for $50 from scholastic and she is thrilled!  There were two scary stories books that she read the first couple days, and then you read two A-to-Z Mysteries books, and now she's reading "Super Fudge" by Judy Blume.  I love that she's reading so much!

      I don't know what we have in store for the week coming up yet.  I'd like to get outside with the kids and do some exploring, if the weather will hold up.  We've been trying to be quiet for Gary, since he is back on night shift.  That's hard when you're only 5 and 3!  Sophie on the other hand has no problem as long as she can stick her nose in a book or computer lol.  I guess we'll continue to play it as we go ;)

:( AWOL and sorry

        This is a quick update on the monkees....  I have been sooo sick.  I have kidney problems that occasionally raise their ugly heads, kidney stones being the most common.  The other day I was hit by a really bad attack of stones at 4am (after the hubby left OF COURSE) and I've been pretty well medicated since.  Because of that, we've done less around here.  Sophie has been helping out A LOT while I've been laid up in bed, feeling awful.  I explained about kidney stones, and why I was in so much pain, trying to lessen the scariness of the whole situation.  The boys both started a little game of what has kidneys lol, like cats, dogs, and horses, versus things that do not, like cars.

        Sophie hasn't done much other than play Animal Jam on NatGeo kids.  She likes it because she can be a variety of animals, she is socializing with other kids, and there are a lot of mini-games on there.  She's already learned several codes that you have to enter to do things, and I feel like its teaching her language arts skills in a very "Real" setting.  She is typing conversation back and forth with other kids her age and developing friendships.  She is on a limited account right now, but is requesting membership for her birthday.  Its $50 for a year of membership, which isn't too bad, but definitely a present type purchase.  If she is still super interested in it by July, I think I will get her the year package.

        Lil Man is becoming more interested in writing and reading.  He has been writing his name a lot, and does quite well.  He has also been asking how to spell other things, and how to make those letters, with minimal mistakes.  He is noticing words in his environment as well, and will ask me what things say, or will trace a letter in the air and ask what it is.  His natural curiosity is a great learning tool and I'm amazed by what he can absorb in a day.  I print out worksheets for him when he asks, but he quickly loses interest with those, so I'm not in any hurry to purchase a curriculum for him.  I wish he would stay home with me longer, but he is dead set on going to kindergarten next year.

      Hopefully I will be back to posting more regularly, again, but there are no promises with medical things lol.  I'm going to be researching our "curriculum" for next year in the coming months, so there will be a lot about that going.