Wrap-Up Collage Journal

In Our Lives 
Oh, man...just getting back into the swing of things after our two trips. There are still suitcases in the hallway, but they HAVE been emptied.

My car got rear ended in the terrible traffic our town always has. The resulting damage was not as bad as the massive thud we felt (and the SCREECHING scared scream from Baby). And everyone was fine. Now I just have to get an estimate for the other guy's insurance.

If you look at this picture as googly eyes on top of his closed eyes, it's just kind of silly. But when I squint and look at it like those are his eyes, it freaks me out.

In other Dash news, I thought Uncle Matt would be happy to hear that "first Illinois but then the yellow Missouri Tigers" are his favorite football teams. He just announced this.

Ryan was away this week on business. We were excited to have him back and very sorry he had to carry out so much trash upon his return. I really meant to get to that.

In Our Homeschool 

For one of our tea times, we drank hot Hawaiian tea sweetened with agave and these Vegan Carrot Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (topped with an orange glaze). Still reading Farmer Boy.

I forgot to say in my Tennessee trip post that we (well, the kids and Ryan, anyway...my mind has a difficult time focusing on audiobooks, especially if they are in a fantasy genre) listened to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. They loved it. Even more than I expected. They are anxious to start the next book.

In other subjects, we had a lot of math, science, phonics, and spelling to catch up on for our homeschool academy classes. The two middle kids are listening to their teacher read Charlotte's Web in one of their classes.

I subbed in Tornado's Thinking Skills class this week. The teacher had left me pictures ripped from magazines. Everyone picked a picture and started writing a story. After a few minutes, they passed their story on to the next person. They passed around their stories several times until I said it was time to wrap the story up. There were some verrry interesting stories. I enjoyed being in a 5th/6th grade class; it was a nice change from the nursery, which I also do. I enjoy watching Tornado interact with his peers in a classroom setting, which is pretty...comforting on a good day.

I LOVE Sissy's classes at our other co-op. She takes a kindergarten class and an American Girl History class. Here is her notebook she is working on in AGH.

Something Else We Baked 

After reading a chapter in Farmer Boy about the Wilders harvesting their maple syrup for the year, I looked up "maple recipes" and came up with this Maple Apple Crisp. Delicious.

Extracurricular This Week

Last week the kids became fully emerged into their fall extracurricular activity schedule, which is, I have to say, much fuller than I had planned it to be. (We do have Saturdays free this semester, which is a huge relief. Friday-Sunday off: yay!) I am really loving everything they've got going so far, and I have strategically scheduled everything in groups. Although I am on the road a lot, going here and there,  it helps that most of their activities are back-to-back/at the same time.

This is an project Tornado completed from the last couple of weeks in his community art class.

And this is a picture Sissy drew at her art class. She said it is her and her cousins, W and C. So sweet.

Places We're Going and People We're Seeing

On Friday, I took the kids to World Fest in Little Rock. There were different booths and activities set up at War Memorial Park to celebrate culture and diversity.

Next, we met Aunt Tracy at Dempsey's Bakery for lunch. The boys also had to get haircuts at Pigtails and Crewcuts. Since it was only $9, and she needed her hair washed, anyway, Sis got to sit in a car for the first time. She got a wash and blowout, which was really fun for her.

My Favorite Book We Read 

I highly recommend this book by Jef Czekaj. Great alphabet book with a similar feel to The Scrambled States of America. X is tired of being at the end of the alphabet and underused. He is calling for a new alphabet. It's very clever and educational. "Why does [A] get to be in so many words?...And I and E, aren't you tired of having to switch places every time C comes into the picture?"

What's New With Baby

I think this picture probably best describes what Baby is up to these days. Wreaking havoc everywhere he goes!!! Well, not that bad, but it HAS gotten very difficult to sit with him and even stand holding him (because he's no longer content to just cuddle - he wants to move!). He desperately wants to MOVE but can't quite crawl yet, so he's in that in-between stage.

He reaches out for everything, whether we are sitting at the table, the counter, the computer, etc. I was just standing at the counter, making supper, when he pulled Sissy's bowl of miso noodles off to the floor (when resulted in hysterical sobbing on her part because that was all that was left). The dogs were very pleased with their special meal.