Legoland 8/30

8/30/07 --- Legoland with grandma.

We were there a bit late. We got off to a late start due to my headache and then we had to check in with the plumbers for the pool to make sure they are doing the spa jets correctly.

After driving up to pick up my mom and stopping for fast food lunch I think we were in the park around 2:00. It was very hot... around 82, but not as crowded as last week.

We did some same & some different rides and actvities than last week.

We were able to get right onto the Safari Ride and I was happily surprised that my mom got on the DinoCoaster! We were the only 5 people on the coaster!

Next the kids went on the cars they drive themselves. I missed the big kids. They have to go in line alone while I waited in line with Derek for the 3-6 year old car driving. They finished before Derek did.

We always go through the Adventure hunt. You hunt for "keys" in the rainforest, egypt, arctic. It is dark in there but a lot to look at.

I didn't want to go on the new Pirate boat ride. It was more fun to take pictures and video. Here's my first video post.

Next it was hilarious how wet grandma got on the Pirate Ship Water squirting ride.Her hair was completely wet. She looked like she just got out of the shower! My pants were fairly wet and the top of my shirt, but not my hair.

We ended the legoland day with swirled ice cream cones. And the 4-D movie "Spelbreaker".

Then drove across the freeway to have dinner at Sammy's Woodfired pizza.

I had their chopped oriental salad, Derek had macaroni & cheese, Katie had angel hair plain pasta & mom & James shared a cheese pizza. We finished it off with my coupon for a free messy sundae.... Oh I forgot to take a picture. They have a tall sundae glass filled with vanilla icecream. They top it with so much caramel & hotfudge that it runs down the sides of the glass and onto a plate. Goooey, yummy, messy! so much for the diet.

Aqua Rider - with grandma at legoland

There's my mom in the blue shirt, and Katie & James in the skimmer 2 behind her.

at piano lessons

Katie & James started piano lessons with a group at the end of May. (thanks Lissa!)

They really like the class and are enjoying practicing at home.

Pool construction - rebar installed

8/28
The rebar started today. One man is doing the whole pool.

Where oh where have I been?

OMGoodness..... I can't believe it has been a month!! since I have posted.

Not that I haven't conceived of posts SEVERAL times a day, and taken pictures for posting ---
but have I been typing... nope.

So here it is time for a marathon of posting.

I'm going to start with the proper dates in each post so that those of you on google reader will see that I've posted in the past few hours..... for days and weeks ago.

I'm behind in reading blogs too. But I do appreciate Alice's post "To Everything there is a season": about not needing to apologize for being absent. Moms all know that life is just busy. . busy.. busy!!
You'll see a lot that's been going on around here...... new curriculum, new charter school, new Zoology 2 oceanography Co-OP <>, new schedule, new classes,
new POOL construction, new haircut ;>)...............

And today was the "first day" back to school...... all the way to the table.!

We bought new clothes last week and the cashier said, "oh back to school."
I said no, back to homeschool, but we still want to look nice for our classes and church.
We like to do school in our pyjamas!

Art History class.... day 1... doing homework

8/27 -"Art History" class started today. D & K are in morning class 2 hrs. and James right after them for 2 hrs. It is a History class studied through the art & architecture, people & writings of the time. This semester is Middle Ages. They also study astronomy/constellations, learn Latin phrases, read books & stories, do art projects and probably more I don't know about yet. There's also some science.... last couple years they studied bones & muscles of the body.

As soon as we arrived home the boys started their homework and worked for a solid 2 1/2 hours! They Love the class. I'm Very happy with it too. I was anxious about the class because I have never met the teacher. But I've only heard Great things about the class. I put a lot at stake..... I pretty much only joined this charter homeschool so they would pay for this class. It is $350 a semester, the charter pays $300. So after trying out the charter, paying for this class and using as much of the free curriculum from the resource center I can.... I'll decide if we stay with the charter school or not. If we don't (highly likely) we'll just have to find the $$ for the class. But it already looks well worth the money. It's way cheaper than the Catholic school they were in and we found the money to send 2 kids there for a few years. So I'm not too worried.
Derek completing his flower - and the close up..... The lines are curvy but hey, he's only 4 and he did the coloring correctly. The assignment was to draw straight lines out from the center and then use a light color next to a dark color all around the flower.... which results in a 3-D effect.
James is making his own "monopoly" looking game board. He worked hard coming up with consequences and funny things to happen to the player.
Katie shows off her flower.
The boys are filling in their constellation maps. One map shows the lines and they are assigned to fill in the constellation lines on a map with just the stars.

First Day of home "School"

8/27
Officially the charter school started today.
so that means we started school today...hmmm

So we looked at our books from the school.

And played gamecube.............


Here's a snack of bagel pizzas.

looks like my camera is off a day.....

Katie did look at her Math U See manipulatives.
Both kids did a lesson in Reading Mastery.
Katie is in III and James is in V .

James did a religion lesson, Seton spelling and looked at the Singapore Math. But I ordered MUS Epsilon for him.

Derek has been doing worksheets as fast as I print them out for weeks, and suddenly today... nope... not going to get any schoolwork out of him today.

I think I made too big of a deal about my Kindergartener! During Mass yesterday he wanted to sit on my lap and for me to hold him up - well he wants that every Sunday. But I was just too tired. So he moped and I whispered that he is almost 5, and he will be a Kindergartener tomorrow, so he has to be a big boy. Well that didn't help much. I sent him over to Geoff so I could hear mass. Then I ended up carrying him at communion time. It was more of a snuggle than a holding. My baby is getting so big. I try to melt these memories into my mind. The days when I'm still able to hold my 42 pounder in my arms. He can wrap his legs around me and his arms around my neck and someday he will be taller than me. I like to stand him on the pew and look up at him and tell him someday I really will be looking up at him because he will be taller than me someday...... Then I'll search my memory banks back to the days when I could lay him across my lap, across my leg with his head at my knee and his feet touching my belly. This was about homeschool........... but that's exactly it, I want to homeschool to spend every moment I can with my kids, before I know it they will be out on their own and we'll just have the memories.

stretch your Dinner idea

A couple weeks back I had a coupon for the Bertolli frozen dinner, and they were on sale.



I chose the Shrimp with penne, asparagus, grape tomatoes & spinach.



The kids usually eat plain noodles, so I figured that this dinner for 2 would make the plain noodles more delicious for dh & me.





I was very surprised that all of the kids enjoyed the dinner.






Katie liked the shrimp and James liked the sauce.






Luckily, they were still on sale - $5.99. They are expensive. Usually $7.99



I bought 6 to keep in the freezer. We eat 1 or 2 a week.


But I stretch them out by adding veggies I have on hand. Broccoli, red pepper, grape tomatoes. And 1/2 package of pasta.

Tonight we had the Chicken, rigatoni & broccoli. I added the red peppers & more broccoli. with some butterfly pasta.

my ocean artwork

drawing has kept me from blogging for a couple days.

The inspiration is from the

Draw Write Now books.

Derek tests his Halloween costume

We were in the Children's Place shopping for a few new shirts and Katie found some skirts for $7. I had a 20% off coupon so when Derek was looking at Halloween costumes I said OK.
Even though it is in the 90's he wanted to test it out.

Grandma's Retirement Party

8/23/07
After working for this company for 25 years my mom retired.
They had a barbeque and a nice cake for her.

A BIG hole for the Pool

8/22 - The start of the day: Derek, Geoff & James check out the progress and watch the digging.







The end of the day!






The kids are having a blast playing in the dirt.
Since we hit the water level, our area has underground springs, we have some water in the bottom. We'll have to (unexpectedly) add a hydrostatic valve under the pool to pump out excess water.

We're building a POOL!

.........................August 21, 2007
Construction started today to dig out the hole for our pool.
Day 1

the bobcat arrives and moves rocks

Gonna Party like it's Aug 17, 2007..... HSM2

8/17 Our High School Musical 2 Party.
If you have a daughter
if you watch the Disney Channel,
then my guess is that you were inside watching the movie on Friday night.


We planned weeks in advance. We were at various stores stocking up for our party.
Friends were coming, the house was cleaned and decorated.
We made our own school banners.


At walmart I actually found plates and napkins that afternoon. We bought cute bags filled with HSM2 gifts for the girls, nail polish, lip gloss, mirrors, notepads & a picture frame.

James did this decorating up on a chair. Katie handed him the pieces of streamer & tape.
I did the twisting streamers.


Walmart was doing a givaway, I read on the website, way too late. But when we were shopping there the checkout girl had this HSM2 blue tag and card around her neck. I asked for more and she said we missed it. I said I knew that but we liked them for our party. She was so kind and gave us hers! They did have more of the blue lanyards so we took 6. I scanned the origianl card and printed out HSM2 "passes" for everyone and hung them on the lanyards.

Our game for the evening was "Can you find Troy's Lips". I printed out a picture of Troy and the girls put on lots of red lipstick. Then they closed their eyes and tried to get him on the lips.
It was cute and fun.
Our menu was pizza, breadsticks, veggie tray, and cheese & ham on crackers
Dessert was popcorn & jello stars, m&m's, brownies and m&m cookies.