A little bit of "Normal"

 The more we use the "Teach your child to read, write, and spell 100 easy Bible verses" the more I'm really appreciating this!  The girls faces light up as we talk about what the verses mean and they are busy coloring enough to give each other time (instead of one finishing way before the other and causing problems!)

The video above is of my 7 year old working on her Bible verse page.  ... Along with some silliness at the end from the 4 year old.  It's just kind of how it goes.  We aren't very strict or quiet.  I'd be miserable if I was supposed to enforce the quiet classroom and no questions and no jokes.  I think that being silly together helps us remember what we are learning even more!  I'd like to start all our days with tea together and doing our Bible verse art. 

In church today I kept my own journal going as well and wrote and colored the verses that were in the sermon.  As I'm learning more about my own personality type ---ISFP, (and this video I think is the most accurate about what this type is about and what it's not about but his voice is annoying, so.. be warned.) I'm understand why the coloring is so helpful (and even vital) to what I need to be doing as a person.

 I kept myself busy not only with writing and coloring on my own but on sharpening all their colored pencils!  The pencil sharpener gave out a couple times and I had to let it cool, but it made it in the end.
(The Jamberry I'm wearing on my thumb is called "Word to the Wise" I thought that was funnily appropriate for this moment.)

 The 4 year old claimed one of the DIY journal type books, but she's so adorable I let her have it.  ;)


And a little video below of some of our school time... and silliness. 

 I finished coloring a picture (while they worked) in a "Day like Tomorrow" and my girls oohed and awwed about it.

 My oldest has been working through her "Dyslexic Games" series B books and is to the word scavenger hunt.  She found most of these words around our chalk board!  Being on camera was making her nervous I think so I was trying to help her laugh.  It's amazing how much better our school time is if we can laugh a bit together as well.  :)

 Also, I changed our "work box drawers" up a bit.  Instead of having them all separate where the kids would get into them on their own I really needed to have it more for my own order as use.  They aren't doing a lot of independent work yet so it's a lot easier for me to plan what we are going to do in the moment.  The red is my 9 year old (with a few things in each drawer to choose from for a topic) and the 4 year old is the yellow, and the 7 year old is the green drawers.  The shelf beside that is a bunch of read aloud books and my own journaling stuff and Odyssey cds and that sort of thing.

 The colored paper is on with Velcro so I can use them as markers for what we have or haven't done in a day so I'll remember.  My planning feels very fluid because often we keep going with something and don't get to the other things.  Like reading a whole first chapter book in one sitting (over an hour of me reading out loud to all three of them!) and there was just so many cheers of "another chapter" that I couldn't make us stop.  So the organizing is a little more topical and visual so I can at least make things happen in the moment even if I can't very well describe how I do it.

 My youngest is now old enough to climb the little tree outside of our apartment now.  Sort of bittersweet to have the baby old enough to do that on her own, but I'm glad to see her enjoy the little tree so much and it just makes me wish I had more of a backyard for her to play in.

 The cat is a problem as she can OPEN THE SLIDING DOOR herSELF.  And today I found out she can do this even when the sliding door is locked.  It's pretty frustrating because she isn't supposed to go outside without a leash.  Too many cars and she was saved from a shelter when we got her. I don't want her to end up there again!  So we are really careful, but when the kids come in and out it can be pretty stressful to try to keep her in.  She wants to be with her girls!

 I'm realizing a little something about organizing our school time and days and you know all those little things you have to do, empty the dishwasher and make breakfast and so on, just little stuff that ends up taking a long time.  Well, I realized my 9 year old was old enough to help make bread.  I mean -- of COURSE she was and she's helped me before, but as she was doing this while I was doing dishes and making breakfast it just hit me how helpful she can be!

Our kitchen is very tiny (I can't open the dishwasher and the fridge at the same time) so it's a struggle to help the kids learn to cook when the kitchen is really made for just one person, but having her do the bread while I moved around doing the other stuff was great!

We also made little pumpkin pies.  Because that's how we roll.  ;)  Gluten free crust turned out great!  And the only difference I usually do with the filling is add about twice the amount of spices the recipe on the back of the pumpkin can calls for.