Happy Happy

Last night after tucking the boys in Bear said "Mommy, will you write me a note for the morning that says 'aquarium'? ". I did. And this is what I got when I got up this morning...

It doesn't get much sweeter than that.

A Special Day for Mommy

This outing was supposed to be part of my birthday celebration. Daddy took a couple days off to spend Spring cleaning the yard and doing "something fun for Mommy's birthday" which is actually tomorrow. Now they say fishing was ultimatly my choice. I'm not so sure about that. My idea of a beautiful day spent enjoying nature at its Spring finest ended a little differently than I had planned.

Doesn't Walden Pond sound like the perfect spot for the boys to catch their first fish, enjoy nature and have a fantastic family day? I think so too. Well, the fish weren't biting. How about our nature hike? The pondside trail is fenced in as part of an anti-errosion project... It felt how I'd imagine a walk around the grounds of a medium security prison might feel. Not to mention how the drive through Concord made me covetous of living in a big old colonial with some dead minuteman's name on a plaque by the front door. Back to the car we go... no fish, no nature walk. So we head toward home. And ended up fishing off of a bridge in a local park. Not the pictureque historical landmark I imagined but these fish were biting. And everyone had a wonderful day ... celebrating Mommy's birthday... hmm. Maybe tomorrow.

Now before you think I am selfish or squeemish or heartless - I had alot of fun too. Their faces as they each reeled in their first catch were priceless, and the memories that we made today are better than 100 "me" focused days by far. I chose this version of "my special day" and I got what I just what I wanted for my birthday.

And no, we didn't take any of them home for dinner.

The Home Stretch

Today begins the last ten weeks of school before we take time off for Summer vacation. The home stretch. In these upcoming ten weeks we need to do the following:

In that time we need to complete Sing, Spell, Read and Write and the remaining weeks of Tapestry of Grace, Year One. Pretty much everything else will spread into the next school year.

I had a little Phonics meltdown last night when I was planning the week but I got over it. Bear is reading really well but he's bored with the SSRW readers and I don't want this to affect his attitude toward reading - so we will modify the last ten weeks to give him more variety and keep his interest up. I'm considering switching to Explode the Code for him instead of the Christian Liberty phonics that I already have. At least it was very inexpensive.

Over the next few days I will post our plans for the Summer and Fall. Last year at this time I was sweating over what I wanted to see at the convention. Since we are not going this year I did most of my sweating and planning in the early months of this year. I'm very happy to be free from that pressure. Now my challenge will be remindng myself of why I made the choices I made for this upcoming year. With all this free time on my hands I will be tempted to re-think.

I am most excited about Tapestry of Grace Year 2. I think it will be really interesting for all of us. The Ancients were fun but we had to skip quite a bit because we are choosing not to teach mythology at this young age. The Middle Ages will be packed with stuff to explore - and oh the knights - how nice that we will have yet another use for the multitude of little playmobil knights that live in our home already. Let's see, and the three play castles, dozens of swords, helmets, shields... yup... we're all set for the Middle Ages.

Let's go Geocaching!

Yesterday seemed like any other day. The boys (Daddy included) got downstairs first. Both little guys had lamented "Daddy, I wish you didn't have to go to work. What little actors. When I got downstairs some "inconsiderate" person and plopped our Geocaching bag on my desk chair. The boys were peacefully snuggled up on the couch under a quilt. I exclaimed in my nicest pre-coffee voice "why is the Geocaching bag on my chair?". Then all three jumped up and yelled "surprise, we're going geocaching". They were all dressed and ready to go. What a sweet surprise. We spent the day out in the early Spring sunshine in Pawtuckaway State Park. There was more snow cover then we would have liked but the temperature and the scenery was awesome. We did some geocaching (one of our favorite family activities), saw a huge hawk, and did lots and lots and lots of hiking. I think we all have sore legs today. Fun fun. My guys are so cool.