Our family snowboarding trip was amazing.  I admit I had a lot of hesitation about the trip just before leaving.  Would I be able to learn?  Would I break every bone in my body trying?  Would the kids get seriously injured flying down the mountain into a tree?

My fears were strong.  However, I promised I would listen carefully to Daddy over and over again about how to balance and give it my best shot.  Day one was painful.  I fell a lot.  However, I also got some basic turns!  The kids had about the same success as I did, but their falling was from a much lower height…

Day 2 and 3 were amazing.  I did it.  I am a snowboarder.  And I want to go do it again!

After coming home though it was time to focus on our garden efforts this year.  We have garden plans.  We built the bed, the potato box and the compost box.  The dirt was delivered.  All 5 cubic yards of it.  I can assure you that it was a LOT of dirt.  Three days later it was moved and given away so we could park in the driveway again.  I think I saved money but I am thinking bags of mulch will be EASIER to handle.

We have an extremely busy week with play dates and activities.  We also are going full force in school.  It makes for long days.  I hope next week I don’t get so eager in planning social things.

I admit, once I find a mix I like I stick with it.  When tree nuts were thrown into our allergy no-no list I figured we would be okay.  I was wrong.  Our favorite gluten free items from Bob’s Mill are all processed on equipment sharing tree nuts.  Okay you think, but it’s just a trace right?  Well it may be just a trace.  But just a trace leads to black eyes, diarrhea and crankiness like you won’t believe!  And our Dr. keeps telling us the more exposure to tree nut ‘traces’ the more likely for a severe anaphylactic reaction in Bugaboo.  I don’t want to experience my son gasping for his breath and possible dying when I can avoid these ‘traces’.

On our last visit to Navan Foods I bought some new mixes.  One was of great interest to me since I had heard a lot about this new ‘patent pending’ flour mix.  Jules Gluten Free is supposed to be this wonderful new baking opportunity.  I did not rush out to try this stuff.  I researched.  I found she is using a modified tapioca starch in the mix.  MODIFIED is my concern.  Expandex is the labeled stuff and I am seeing it more and more.  It is not natural.  It is modified.  So I have some hesitancy.  We really try to eat healthy.  Meats, veggies, fruits and not a lot of sweets.  Since I have to make the sweets it is not often, lol.  I really hate doing all the dishes.   So until now I have avoided the Jules bandwagon.  They offered classes using her flour mix to get people to try the flour.  I declined.  I have seen the expensive, large bag of flour on the shelf before and resisted.  This visit to the store Daddy convinced me to try one of the cookie mixes.  Ok, I am always looking for new cookies.  Especially since our favorite graham cracker has tree nuts in it, ugh.  I made a ‘graham cracker’ version on the mix last night.  The first pan went in the trash.  Complete crumbs.  The second trays of cookies are intact.  Very dry.  Even with cream cheese frosting on top I licked the frosting off and dumped the cookies.  A $7 waste.

Allergy people have this cost.  I will not be rushing out to get this amazing, new flour mix to try more.  I will not be buying the other mixes the store offered.  Nope.  I had a feeling I would not like it.  I did not.  There are too many other brands out there that deliver better cookies.  We don’t get cookies every day.  So when we do, they have to be amazing.  Sorry, Jules just did not cut it in our house.

I have added some gluten free/nut free links on the side bar.  Check them out.  I will be adding more as we find other brands we like.  Our favorites are listed here.  Have one you like?  Leave a comment!

We wrap up our week on Thursday this week so we can pack on Friday for our vacation!  Looking forward to snowboarding.   The kids and I are all new to this, but have grand hopes we will have fun and get down the mountain without too much falling down.

This week was another great school week for the most part.  We have finished up some subjects and took the week off from them, but when we return we will have a full subject load again and I think the longer day will be hard for all of us.  This week though the kids continued in their math and did great on their lesson test(every 10 lessons).  Both are reading daily and love our read aloud books for History.  We are studying Michaelangelo this week and wow(!) I did not know much about his life.  It is really very interesting.  The kids are very impressed with his works of art.  We are continuing our way through the Period Table.  No experiments this week but will get back to it next week.  Music lessons went fantastic and both kids have eagerly practiced all week!

Happy weekend!

Wow, what a busy, but fun week!  We are moving into a completely different routine than we have been since the new year.  It is extremely busy, but so far, fun.

School this week went FANTASTIC.  I have no idea what was different but we finished all our subjects this week in record time with no complaints and in some areas extra work done without being asked!  It was one of those weeks to treasure.

Both kids are moving into new areas of Math.  Bugaboo is doing division(and loving it!) while Cutiepatootie is doing multiplication.  As usual our program has tons of other stuff in there.  Like bushel and pecks.

We are in the Renaissance for History.  I wish our program spent more time here but it’s our first pass in this time period and we will be there again in the middle school age and spent more time then.  We are reading about artists and the time period and then looking at their works.  It’s been interesting to see the art and what the kids think of it for the first time.

We are learning about the Periodic Table in science by reading about each element and how it is used.

The kids are really enjoying their gymnastics class.  They worked on the bar this week as well as trying to climb the rope to the ceiling!

Music lessons yesterday were a hit!  I think the kids have found their calling.  After begging to play all week(even though they knew nothing about their instruments, lol) they did great at their lesson.  They came home and practiced.  And I woke up to Bugaboo practicing!  He has memorized the first part of his song.  His teacher is printing out his own compositions for Bugaboo to learn.  Cutiepatootie is just learning about her instrument this week and is excited and hopeful next week will bring out the bow.  It is so neat to see them find something they LOVE and want to do so  badly.  Oh, Daddy and I both are trying to learn the ukulele as well, but Bugaboo is much better so far.

We also had playdates this week and we are always thankful for our friends.  We have met some wonderful people here in Virginia.  Who knew moving here would bring us to this spot in life…happy and settled.

Our weekend is full of packing for our snowboard trip in a week.  It will be warmer here so lots of outside time too!  Happy Weekend!

You would think it spring here the way I have been cleaning and purging the house this week.  I was shocked by how much dust was on the baseboard in our bedroom.  So once I started cleaning it the entire bedroom had to be moved so I could get to all the baseboards.   Next I went through my craft items.  I am very focused on my scrapbooking for the time being.  While I love card making I know I will not be doing it anytime soon.  So I packed up most of my stuff and listed it on Ebay.  I kept some things for the kids and I to use for our craft times, but the majority of it is leaving this house!  At this point I like how it’s shaping up.

I need to rework the school room shelves but nothing will be thrown out.  In fact, today we got a new shipment of Usborne books and the kids read for HOURS.  I love Usborne books.  Once you become a consultant you can order for life!  I always have another list going for the next order in the fall.  The garage was cleaned up some this weekend but nothing dumped out yet.  I am waiting on the group to leave the donation bag and I have some major stuff going out!

I also just got some new kitchen gadgets and so it means something has to go to make room.  I have some things to donate and some to give to family.  Funny thing is…I gave this stuff away before.

So it’s not yet spring but what are you purging?

Well this year is certainly turning out to be an interesting one!  Cutiepatootie asked to play violin recently.  I figured we would wait until fall to sign her up.  Bugaboo has an interest in guitar but many teachers encourage kids to wait until 10 so it’s easier to jump in and play.  We visited the local music store this weekend and they had a ukulele for sale.  The owner came out and played it for Daddy and Bugaboo.  They were impressed.  It was a great deal AND the owner of the store offered to teach Bugaboo personally if he was interested since that was how he learned and then moved to guitar.  They also had violin lessons open at the same time for Cutiepatootie.  So in 30 minutes once a week Bugaboo will learn ukulele and Cutiepatootie will learn violin.  I get 30 minutes to read a book.  Wonderful situation that worked out just right for us all!

They are so excited and ask me literally all day to hold their instruments.  Remind me how excited I am about this when practicing time comes around.

Oh my, what a week!  What should have been a great week to push through and get TONS done just did not happen the way it could.  It snowed some which led to a snow play day.  We slept late too much which led to hectic mornings to get everything done.  I have no regrets about not plowing through extra stuff though as last night at dinner Daddy asked the normal, “What did you learn today?” question.  Bugaboo did not miss a beat and replied immediately about the South American Native groups.  WOW.  We haven’t done them all but from our map study he knew all their names and where they lived and extra details about their pyramids and lifestyle.  I had no idea from 15-30 minutes of reading he had learned so much.  And that just from today.  He knows even more from every day we do History.  He makes me proud!  Cutiepatootie took advantage of Bugaboo’s playdate yesterday to scrapbook AND paint.  Whew.  She kept me busy.  All the kids had fun though.

School wise the kids are doing a lot more math until the end of the school year.  Not faster, more.  They do a daily drill for math facts.  They do a page in Miquon Math.  It teaches math in a different way than traditional textbooks so we use it as a supplement to advance their thinking.  They LOVE this program.  It only is 3 grade levels though.  Both are working below level in the program since it’s a supplement and meant to offer them another way to think about what they already know.  Cutiepatootie is seeing multiplication in the first book meant for 1st grade.  Bugaboo could finish this series quickly if it was his only program.  It’s been a great supplement!  Then they do Horizons Math, a lesson a day.  This could be 20 minutes or an hour depending on them, their attitude, and whether their brain is awake.    It is varied with many subjects in a day.  Some is new material, some is review.  They like this program most of the time, except when it’s hard.  LOL!

So in History we focused on South America.  They want to travel to see these ancient sites.  *sigh*  Wouldn’t it be great to just travel the world to study History?  It truly is their favorite subject.  We move on to Columbus next week.

We are in a transition for language arts.  They finished the grammar book and copybook.  We won’t be done in this area though.  Spelling continues and I have copywork printed out for them that is related each week.  They continue to read several assigned books daily.  They tend to come to the school room at the end of day near dinner and curl up on the couch to read.  Daddy often comes home to a quiet house of 2 kids reading and they don’t even notice him, lol.  I need to get some new books for the shelf.  Nothing hard.  Easy chapter books.  Something new.  I know Cutiepatootie has read some of her books over a hundred times!

Science hasn’t been a large presence this year and we don’t like that very much.  We will be wrapping up Chemistry soon.  We have plans for Physics though using a solar car project to learn the basics of Physics.  Daddy will be a huge help in this area.   Next year we are going back to daily science rather than weekly since we like science and it just hasn’t been as fun or consistent this year.

So yes, school got done this week.  Not as much as we could have done had life not interupted, but it’s why we homeschool.  A day playing in the snow here is RARE.  The memories we have from our snow days this winter are priceless!

I like snow.  I enjoyed the snow we got.  I look forward to our snowboarding trip in March.  I am laughing as I read about the snow about to hit D.C. this week.  They have 2-3 feet already with many people out of power and another 20 inches may dump on them.  If we had no power it would super cold in our house.  The gas logs haven’t worked in years and the service tech told me it wasn’t worth fixing for heat purposes.  Yep, that gas fireplace is for ‘ambiance’.  So we chose not to pay to fix it.  And in a room with 4 windows I doubt it would heat up much like the guy said.

So I hope all the D.C. people are enjoying their snow.  We will get some tomorrow morning but nothing that will stick.  Kinda glad about that!

We haven’t done any sports this year.  It’s been nice having our weekends free to spend together as a family.  The winter has been much colder than in previous years so we signed the kids up for a homeschool gymnastics class.  They got a great workout and had loads of fun.  They will do this until summer when we may take a break and chose a new activity for fall.  Will try to get some photos soon!