Alex says the famous words...

This morning I asked Ariz to wake up her brother (Adrian) and get ready for school. Well, she stood in the middle of the bedroom and shouted "Brother, wake up, its time to go to school". Greg waked in to say goodby to them all and layed down for a quick cuddle with Alex who still had his eyes closed and sleepily said "I don't wanna go to school".

LOL!!!! So freaken cute <3, and hes only three. I was wishing that I would have to hear him say that for a few more years.

Woking out!! *finaly*

Okay like a lot of overweight people out there I've started a workout program (video, class at the gym, my own schedule) and quickly gave it up after one hiccup. So, I enrolled in a bootcamp program that is for six weeks 4 days a week for one hour starting at 5am <--yikes.

Monday was day 1 and all we did was talk about fitness and practice what our morning warm-up will be. OMG...I was out of breath and I got really really dizzy (I later found out it was because I was dehydrated, oops).I was scared to go on tue thinking I was totaly gonna die if day one was just the warm up and I felt faint.

Tuesday they made us run a small lap around the baseball field. I was told on Monday that MY running shoes (nike with the springs on the back) are not the right shoe for the class, so I took Gregs shoes that are a bit big AND my foot wobbled because the shoe was already a bit worn to HIS step. I was the LAST PERSON to finish the lap, I felt bad but my calves started to cramp 1/8th of the way around due to the shoes (that never happened with MY running shoes). I felt a little embarrassed but I just kept repeating to myself it would be worse to quit then to be the slowest, this way at least I'm doing something about it.

Last night after class I was soooo sore that I decided to drag the family out to the gym. Greg and I took a nice yoga class. I cant believe Greg actually liked it also. Then we took the kids into the pool with us, we had a nice time.

Today I'm off to a Pilate's class and day one of training my body to run 5k :)

This weeks highlights and moments

This was so cute I had to jot it down. Greg and I have shown Ariz (4) and Alex (3) to play rock-paper-scissors to end squabbling. It is soooo adorable to see them with there dimpled little hands and squeaky little voices saying "1,2,throw". The fact that they totally understand the rules is supper adorable.

.....


The night before last we were in the car traveling home after spending most of the evening out and the kids were feeling a little rambunctious in the car so Ariz decided to start playing SIMON SAYS, she was first caller and it went like this.
"Simon says touch your nose"...
"Simon says stop......awwwwww, I lost"
LOL, shes such a dork....but it was cute and funny.

........

Yesterday I went in to finish my crown work and was pulled aside to talk with the financial clerk in the dentist office and found out that completing my work would cost me $700+ OUT OF POCKET AFTER what my insurance covered and I needed to pay it up front :( . So I had to drive back home almost in tears. I'm the type of person who believes that each person is in charge of there own happiness so I took charge as soon as I got home in my almost tearful state and stood in the middle of my room and yelled "everyone get up and get dressed, we are going to the beach!!!" (everyone was still in bed). This took Greg by surprise but it was still only 8 in the morning so they all popped out of bed and scrambled around like little excited squirrels and got ready and packed in the car :).

What an amazing day, we spent the day at Beach Park then drove down to Pismo and purchased some rock candy and a butt-load of salt water taffy (mmmmmmmm), then we drove back to shell beach to a nice little park where the kids burned off the rest of there energy then they slepped on the 2+ hour drive back home were Greg and I talked about everything that we never get to do during the evenings when the kids are around, I loooooove my life <3.

.............

Last night I picked up supplies to make some headbands and skirts for my etsy store and yarn for making some slippers for my boys and I'm now half way finished with my first crocheting project of making a blanket for Ariz twin size bed. Her bed sits next to the wall and she happens to be a perfectionist and not being able to properly tuck her blanket between the wall and her bed is a cause for a lot of crying and whining each morning (and I'm serious about the crying, she ACTUALLY cries because she cant get the "bumps" out of her blanket) odd child, but every day she sits next to me and supervises my progress with her blanket.

Well that's all for now

Wow, what an awesome weekend. This was week 2 that we put a hold on homeschooling, one due to a rotation of sickness in the house (it always happiness this way, doesn't it?) and then the next week of Dr and Dentist appointments (weee, fun <sarcasm). Anywho, this week was just a BLAST!. We soo needed this break and we took up every opportunity to just go and have fun and mostly money free.



Saturday the kids and I got up early and kinda lazed around the house a bit then popped up and went to pick up our weekly delivery of organic fruits and veggies. We came home and spent some time outside on bikes and reading then after the little ones were bored of that it was time for a nap. They layed down and I hit the kitchen, baked some bread (which I gotta get to right now) tossed some veggies and seasoning in the crock pot and sat back and picked up my book and waited for Daddy to get home.

When Greg got home we spent some nice time cuddling, then he started a mission in the garage that he ACTUALLY completed on Sunday afternoon of cleaning it up and thinning out the junk we had in there. We ate dinner then decided to go buy a really cool game we had seen on the Internet for the wii.



OMG......Just Dance is the name of the wii game and OMG....I have never sweat so hard and not wanted to stop in my life. My dance and aerobics classes at the gym have nothing on this. This is the most fun and energetic game ever!!!!. Everyone MUST by this game, this is what we die the rest of Saturday. <3



Sunday we got up really early and Greg and I finally got to enjoy some morning coffee together (its been like forever since the last time we got to do that). We loaded up all our large thick blankets and our family in the car and headed for the landry mat (where they have those huge industrial size washers). We picked up some doughnuts and milk from across the street and hung out in the parking lot eating then and talking while the washer did its thing; we dropped off the blankets at home then headed to Goodwill. I found some nice jelly jars to store my herbs and the BOYS found 4 gallon size ziplock bags filled with random Lego pieces. And by boys I mean GREG **eye roll***. Then Greg stopped really quick to make a quote on fixing a friends fence then we headed home.

The boys spent about 3 hours without looking up or even hardly talking play with the Legos, it was soo adorable, all three of my boys just 100% engrossed and concentrating on there creations.

Then I decided that I wanted some river water to fill a nice blue corked bottle I purcheased at Goodwill for my altar to use as ceremonial water. So we all loaded up and headed for the mountains LOL. When we got back it was pretty dark so everyone kinda did there own thing, the two older boys (Greg and Adrian) spent more time with the Legos and the yournger two were off and on doing random things and I just layed on the bed above the Lego 'engeneers' and read my book.



What a GREAT weekend, Thank you Gods for my family and health and time to give and spend with them.

Wednesday Work

Wednesday work! , Ariz got to test out the new apple sorting file folder game.

Alex's highlight for the day was shaving cream writing. I spread a small amount of cheap shaving foam onto a cheap shinny silver cookie sheet and spread it out to coat it, then demonstrated how to write and erase his work. He had fun with it :) .

Ariz WAS moving along great with her reading lessons but is now hung up on not being able to sound out the 'a' sound in a word and saying the word -a- by itself, she says 'uuuhhh' when she sees the 'a' in a word in stead of 'aaahhh' I moved her reading lesson to the first thing in the morning but Alex needs something totally self guided during this time because I think its the interruptions that is throwing Ariz off. If this doesn't improve by next week I'm gonna have to take her reading lessons out of her school work and do it later in the evening when Daddy is available to entertain the little man. Then, Ariz can have total one-on-one with me with no possible interruptions or to much noise to distract her. I really hope we can get it to work someplace in the school work day but teaching her to read is THE FOUNDATION to all her learning so if we cant make it work this way then I will have to put aside special time to dedicate to this.

This week we have been doing crafts about geese. We take the craft form the day before and and talk a bit about it. I want to make it into a lapbook and review it on Monday since Monday we don't have a review of the day before theme craft. So far we have done lacing a picture of a goose with yarn, made a goose with handprint tail feathers, made geese footprints with a sponge and paint, colored the letter G that was shaped like a goose and colored and completed a dot-to-dot of a goose.


Apple Sorting file folder game http://www.homeschoolshare.com/docs54478/apple_ff.pdf

Workbox's Work!!

This concludes day 2 of using the workbox system with our homeschooling and I cant imagine how we ever managed without. It takes a total of 10 min. to set up for the next day (and that is because I'm not completely organized as of yet) and making an entire week worth of curriculum took about 30-40 min. This has effected how all of us use up our days. The kids seem to go through the morning routine of washing up, dressing, eating and chore in 15 min. and that used to take at least 2 hours with all the goofing around they used to do. I have actually found a lot of free time TO MYSELF if you can believe that. They are doing so well and I'm adding new ideas daily and finding fine tuning to each of their needs extremely easy to do. There jealousy at seeing me work one-on-one with the other sibling seems to no longer bother them since I have learned how to schedule them so that I am bouncing back from one to the other during school time. We have so much free time and that’s what I was afraid of loosing once we fully committed to homeschooling. I cant wait till Ariz starts the local charter school here and I get to use the workboxes; have her finish assigned work and still have time for fun off beat or spontaneous crafts and outings :)

File Folder Games (Counting and Colors)

I made this by cutting the front flap of a file folder and about 2 inches off the back and taping it to the inside of another to create an inside page to be able to count up to 20.

Along with matching the number to the figure of equal ladybugs, I've also added the written word.

Today was our first day using the workbox system. I opted to only start out with 6 instead of 12 workbox (but plan to work my way up). From start to finish there was a little over an hour of school time, short enought for the first day and long enought to get them used to the new rules. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the 'help' cards. They only get 3 for the day and Ariz asked for help with a folder game that was matching colors to the written name (something easy for her) but challanging for Alex, when she asked for help I new it was just because I was doing a one-on-one project with her brother so I asked "are you sure you need help? you are going to have to give me one of your help cards and that will only leave you with 2" she thought for a minute, smiled and said she didnt need help after all :) . A lot of the workboxes I helped them with or watched them alternatly as the did them.

This is Ariz and Alex's set up after our school-day

Box of finished work!

Some special things I spent a little extra time making.

Schedule Strips I made of cardstock and scrapbook paper then laminated

Clock in and out cards (they loved the stickers)