Mojo is BACK!!!

I am SO glad I am doing this blog. If not, I might forget how things USUALLY are and get trapped into believing they are how they feel at a different moment, when things aren't as good. Yesterday, I just felt so tired out, so uninspired...it was just not a terrific school day. But today....my energy level is back up and it was a WONDERFUL day!!!!

Kids started out with Bible verses...they seem to be doing well with the new additions (from what I could hear while nursing the baby). Kat and Dane went on to Math while the littlers did work with "Z"...zig zags, zero, zipper, ZEBRA! Very fun. I also got a Facebook notification during that time where my friend, Olivia, told me her daughter was working on "Q." She was thinking of "qu" words and I guess she said, "quah, quah, kowalicks!" Hahaha--I loved that! How fun.

Grammar included diagramming today (my favorite!) We worked on adding in Possessive Noun Adjectives as well as the Possessive Noun Pronouns we worked on last week. The kids are great at identifying the prepositional phrases. Dane gets a little stuck sometimes when he's supposed to write in an "understood" pronoun as the subject noun...today, the sentence was, "Look inside John's barn for the surprise of your life!" So he was trying to find the subject noun, which, of course, was "You." He also has trouble at times identifying whether the sentence has been inverted or has an irregular adverb, but for the most part, they do such a great job with all of it. They ended with Vocabulary today--Dane is never thrilled about that, but Katarina loves it.

We started a new History book today, another G.A. Henty book called, "Wulf the Saxon." It was so much fun that the kids did not want me to stop reading when I needed to do my workout. (Either that, or they didn't want to do Latin flashcards, but it was probably some of both.) The story really DID start out fun! The preface was fascinating, as Henty wrote about the dynamics of bringing the Normans into England and how that impacted the future of Great Britain as well as Australia and America. What a melting pot we are! The first chapter has our young hero, Wulf, running up against a young Norman fellow named...Walter-Urse? I have to check on that. Anyway, Henty deftly demonstrated the tensions that likely existed between the Saxon subjects who were serving King Edward, a monarch who was raised abroad and seemed to prefer the Normans to his own people. The supposition made in this chapter is that Earl Harold will end up as king. Apparently, Edward was considered rather monk-like and had little interest in running a kingdom. Fascinating! I think we are somewhere near 1050 A.D.

I did my shorter workout today, but it did me well! I was able to get through it, but it was a good workout. Karen arrived during this time--she brought me a Thai lunch....AWESOME!!! A nice change from sandwiches and mac n' cheese, as yummy as those are. :) Ooh--I forgot to share with Bailey...sorry, Bails! ): Karen also brought a treat for the kids, which she often does...mini-cupcakes--yum! The kids loved them...I had one too...mmmm.

Bailey read from Robin Hood and then she actually finished the Earth chapter for Science too so I could see Karen a bit more and nurse the baby. I was hoping to do a couple experiments with the kids, but we ended up doing a BUNCH of laundry instead. The kids cleaned their room up a bit, tidied the basement, did their main floor chores and folded and put away laundry. It's amazing how much laundry is left to fold...it's mostly Dave's. Since he works out daily, he has two sets of clothes into the wash every day...I need to find a better way to keep on top of all this during my school daze! :)

Oh, the experiments I WILL plan to do, either later or another day, are from a link sent to me by my friend, Rene'. She has a super-fabulous blog called 100Digits.com, and it is such a great resource. Anyway, this link is www.candyexperiments.com...looks like the PERFECT thing for our family! We might just have to squeeze these in at night, since they look so fun.

Time to go make Minestrone...I thought we were going to have it last night, but the plan was changed. So here I go...can't wait--it looks so delicious! Also from the 100Digits site...:)