First Day Of Spring

Today was a perfect day to head to the zoo with some friends. The weather was beautiful!

We strolled around the zoo for a few hours then went to the river and had lunch.

Here is Elijah and his buddy sitting at the river visiting.




Elijah with another buddy at the zoo.

Dakota took this picture. Even though I don't like flowers, I think it is a good picture.

I missed LOST!

Jody and I went to a meeting at the church we have Thursday co-op at. They were voting if we could return for next school year. I am happy to report we will be allowed to return. :)

I had asked Dakota to try to get the VCR to record LOST for me.

After the meeting Jody and I decided to go have a date and then go visit his mom in the hospital.

I called Dakota just minutes before LOST was coming on to see if he got the VCR to record. He couldn't get it to and thinks it has something to do with the converter box. I was about to panic.
I told him to go get the video recorder and video it. HE THOUGHT I WAS JOKING!!!

This morning I was so happy to learn that my friend, Juliann, has it on VHS and will let me borrow it. It's all I can do to keep from driving out to her house, on the other side of the world from me, to get it. I'm not sure I can wait until I see her next Wednesday. I guess this way she knows for sure that I'm coming to Wednesday co-op next week! LOL

Lapbooking VS Notebooking

Earlier this week Elijah and I started working on a St. Patrick's Day lapbook. As we got into making things for the lapbook he asked if we could make notebook pages instead. This lead us to discussing lapbooks vs notebooking. Hands down he prefers notebooking. I secretly do too, but I've never said that out loud.

Dakota and I made tons of lapbooks back in the day and Elijah and I have made a load of em too.
We also have a collections of notebooks that we add to as we study something.

I really like notebooking. I felt I like the notebooking so much better because I was burned out on making lapbooks, but I still tried to give Elijah the experience. Now that he has admitted that he likes notebooking better I can drop the guilt and enjoy notebooking.

The past few days we enjoyed learning about Ireland and Saint Patrick. Here is a sample of the pages Elijah made for his notebook. We decided to put these pages in his Geography notebook under the Europe section.

Dakota is 17!

My baby turned 17 a few weeks ago and I'm still trying to adjust. I can not believe he is already that old, he was just 8 playing Legos.

I don't know how I got so lucky to have a kid like Dakota. He is just a wonderful young man. He is very helpful and never complains about anything. He is a great big brother to Elijah. He also has an awesome sense of humor. I am very thankful for Dakota.

Happy St. Patricks Day

My kids don't trust me so I have to prove that it really is St. Patrick's Day.
A couple years ago we had a fun day of pinching and trying to find something green to wear.

That evening Dakota went to a party, wearing his green and while he was gone I realized it was not St. Patrick's Day. I was a MONTH early! Then I had myself a very long laugh wondering if Dakota would pinch anyone at the party that was not wearing green.

When he got home I asked if he pinched anyone. He said "no." And I said "Good, because we are a month early!" They will never let me live that one down.



Elijah and I are making a St. Patrick lapbook today.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

That can be a scary question. Anytime someone ask Elijah that I hold my breath waiting to see what he will say.

Several years ago (maybe when he was 3 or 4) his answer was "Kidnapper!"
What? Do kidnappers really start out with that being their goal at such a young age?
I have no idea why he would say that.

A year or so later Elijah was asked what he wanted to be and his answer was "Bank Robber!"
Where did we go wrong?

At that point I decided we would be thrilled with anything on the other side of the law!

You know how people will ask little kids "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
This happened at story time at the library and I was praying "don't ask Elijah." We escaped without him telling his illegal career plans.

So the other day we are sitting there at college waiting on Elijah and other children to come out of Literacy Clinic. Class lets out and the children start coming to their parents I see a little boy carrying a fireman, and different ones with characters. I knew what their project had been. I cringed waiting on Elijah to come out.

I'm pleased to announce my son plans to work on the right side of the law now. At literacy clinic they had a project to make a person showing what they would like to be when they grow up.
Then they had to write about this job on the back of the person.
Elijah made his person a Veterinarian.

In the Vet's right hand you can see something green, that's a $100 bill. I hope he didn't rob a bank on the way in to the office!

Elijah working on workboxes.

We are loving the workbox system! You may be tired of reading about this system, but it is been such a blessing for us.

One day last week while Elijah was going through his boxes doing whatever was in the boxes I snapped some pictures.

This is Elijah working on his fun foam pyramid project for the SS fair.


Dakota is such a good big brother. He came and helped finish the project up using the hot glue gun. This is a real HOT glue gun that gets very HOT, so I didn't want Elijah using it. I know they make cool glue guns now, but I can't make myself buy a new one when my old one that I've had for about 18 years still works fine.



Elijah working in a skill workbook that was in a workbox.

Rocksolid sells something called Banana Grams that comes in a cloth banana bag, this is the same thing except it's called Apple Scrabble and come in a cloth apple bag. I had Elijah to make words with the tiles. Then he wrote this for me. He is so sweet!

Oh I bought the Scrabble Apple at Wal-Mart. It was hanging with the card games.

Elijah and I were playing catch with the subtraction cube. We throw it back and forth, when we catch it we have to say the math problem (and the answer) closest to our right thumb.

If it weren't for the workboxes Elijah still would not have this pig painted. I collect pigs so Elijah bought this wooden pig to paint for me. He kept wanting to paint it and I kept saying tomorrow.

Tomorrow finally came! I put everything he needed in a box the night before.

The pig turned out really cute and I put him in my kitchen.

The workboxes are really helping me do the little things with Elijah that I want to do but never get around to doing. Also each morning he can see what he has to do. It also motivates him when he sees something really fun in a box on the bottom shelf and he has to work through all the boxes to get to it.