Cindy's Life as She Knows It

...it's off to work we go!  Thanksgiving is over (can that possibly be true??) and it's time to get back to business and a schedule around here. There won't be any official homeschooling, as in new units etc, because we had our first yearly review on the 18th, took all of last week off for the holiday and now we have lots of cub scout homework that's due tomorrow including reports, posters and projects that we have been putting off.  Of course, all that stuff is educational and I am sure I will be able to record it in our log, but, as always, I wish I was more organized today and knew what I was supposed to tackle first and had my supplies together. After a trip to the pediatrician for both Natalie and Dakota and a stop at my job to drop off and pick up work, we got home and had lunch and then started our school day.  Dakota read and then went onto Spellingcity.com to practice last week's spelling words that were introduced, but never worked on.  We tackled the bo

This has been a full and crazy busy Thanksgiving week, thankfully with a healthy family, much unlike last week.  My husband had the week off for vacation so we took our little son and our granddaughter to Arundel Mills with us to get a new cell phone.  Dakota got in the hamster balls at the food court and wore himself out while we let Natalie sit on the table and entertain us.  Tuesday we left early and took our boys to Ocean City for an over night excursion.  We stopped for breakfast at Bob Evans and then went to Blackwater Wildlife Refuge in Cambridge on the way down.  We stopped and walked a trail and Dakota got the idea to "try out" this dark black mud that they have put down near the water and before we could get to him he was sinking and lost both shoes on the way out!  Dad to the rescue, holding onto a tree branch and leaning out with a stick to scoop up the shoes, getting his shoes black and almost sucked off in the process.  It was histerical and my older son and I e

Today has been a quiet day with videos and reading as our base for homeschooling.  Dakota and I are both recovering from a nasty bout with the stomach flu and it's nice to have a pj day and keep things quiet.  As I write this, however, Dakota must be feeling back to normal because he is thumping his chest and singing Cotton Eye Joe :-)  We started our next Magic Tree House book this morning - Thanksgiving on Thursday.  Again, I print the word wall vocabulary strips from Edhelper.com and Dakota is so excited to find out that he is familiar with many of these words.  I find that he stumbles over an easy one, though, and it opens the door to further explanation.  We read three chapters and do the simple comprehension questions we find posted online at http://www.mce.k12tn.net/reading31/thanksgiving_on_thursday.htm .  Next we watch the first episode of Liberty's Kids, The First Fourth of July.  It's a little too old for him and we have to watch carefully and I point out the p

Today we had a field trip to Sharp's Farm in Brookeville, MD.  It was a gorgeous drive and we had lots of great people who joined us on the trip.  The kids sat down and learned about what the pilgrims used to survive when they came to the new world.  Dakota was amazed that they used shells and gourds for plates and bowls and pitchers.  Then we went to the Pilgrim Chores building where the kids learned what chores were done by the men and what chores were done by the women.  Our next stop was games, of course a favorite for all the kids.  They got to run around and burn off a little energy and then hop up on the wagon and take a fun hayride.  The kids all squealed and giggled when the big tractor took us all through the water!  Our last stop was the corn maze.  It was a little sparse this time of year, but enjoyable all the same.  The rain held off, the temps were mild and we got back into the car two and a half hours later feeling tired, hungry and happy.  You can't ask for mor

If you are a follower of my blog you know that I am an Archbishop Spalding Cavalier football mom.  Every season is emotional for me, watching my son from age six to eighteen, but this season was his last and it was a special one for us all.  Our coach, Mike Whittles, is an awesome man.  He is the friendliest man you will ever meet and he truly loves football and his players.  He expects alot from his boys, but in return, he gives so much more. We have been involved with alot of teams over the years, but never before have I witnessed the emotions that play out on the football field at Spalding.  Coach Whittles and all his assistant coaches, including my husband, not only give football instruction, they give love.  They hug the boys often.  They express their feelings openly. It is not unheard of to hear the words "I love you" from coach to player or player to coach.  It has been an awesome experience being a spectator to such love and I feel very blessed that my son got to ex

This past week I have felt like I am on a merry go round moving at top speed and I just want off!  I have been running, running, running non-stop and when I am not running and I am home there is so much to be done that I am overwhelmed.  Today I was supposed to do all my shopping early and then clean the carpets and do my work tonight while the guys went to the Towson game so that I could relax tomorrow.  Right......NOT.  I ended up shopping all day, bringing the last of the groceries in at 6:00.  I spent way too much money trying to shop for the two weeks and also for Thanksgiving and spending money on some Christmas things too that I really shouldn't have.  Oh well.  So now tomorrow, instead of relaxing, I will be cleaning this filthy house, cleaning the filthy carpets, wiping up the filthy floors, doing the laundry and then working.  Sigh.  It just goes round and round and round. 

Today, Dakota, Natalie and I went to Goucher College to see the Thunderbird American Indian Dancers.  It was Natalie's first show and she loved watching the dancers, but the applause had her jolting around and stiffening her body.  It was unexpected to her and she was startled.  Dakota really enjoyed it.  When we got home I had plans for lots of schoolwork, but I am wiped out from the constant go, go, go of this week and we are sitting together munching popcorn and watching Pochantas.  Maybe we'll get some reading in.  Maybe not.

Today we had a program at our co-op to Meet the Composer.  Mr. Keith Derrickson runs a program where the kids gather around and Beethoven appears via time machine, complete with whirling disco lights. He arrived and captivated the children, talking about his youth, playing pieces of his music and making them giggle using a ventriloquist dummy.  He took them through his growing up years and through the time in Vienna when he was studying music as a young adult.  He acted out how Beethoven looked ot be snubbing people (and got a bad reputation for being grumpy and rude), but in reality, he was embarrassed by his hearing loss and couldn't bear to let people know. The hour program was just right.  It was fantastic and I can't wait until the spring when we will invite him back to do a program on Johann Sebastian Bach.  Great job, Mr. Derrickson!  Thank you so much for making Beethoven fun!

Friday night, November 4, was one that I have both looked forward to and dreaded for many years.  My "boy of fall", my eighteen year old son, Brian David, would play his last game at "home" at Archbishop Spalding and one of the very last games of his long, thirteen season football career.  Brian couldn't wait to start playing football.  At the time, Anne Arundel County was starting it's first year of 65lb ball, the youngest they had ever had, and Brian was so excited to start!  A friend of my husband's called and asked him to help coach and there you had it...history in the making! Coach Baublitz began his long and successful football coaching career, leading his son and "running the table" through his football years.  From that late summer day in 1999 to this late fall evening in 2011, my son has put his heart and soul into more games than I can count.  He started out at 42lbs, small but full of fire. There was never a player he feared, no

I used to be really good about taking a few minutes each day to write in my blog and I enjoyed it, but I let life get in the way and I am behind.  I am going to try to improve!!  Today was not a perfect homeschooling day, but we are salvaging what we can.  I had to work (transcribing from home) to get my work in by noon and we got a very late start.  I let Dakota sleep in and then play for awhile and then he sat beside me reading while I finished.  The baby played and slept and after lunch I had Dakota watch a video on music with great vocabulary called Magic Musical Voyage while I got myself together and had my own lunch.  He read a book to the baby while I opened my computer and prepared and then he hopped up in the recliner with me and we read/discussed the thirteen colonies and the French and Indian war.  He had some great questions!  We stopped after briefly touching on the Revolutionary War, which will be our topic for the rest of the week.  He took a blank map of the United Stat