I can do it

I received a "squirrel house" for Christmas. It needed assembly and looked complicated so I set it aside. Today I took it back out to finally assemble and still felt that it looked too complicated. Tristan said "I'll do that for you".

And so he did!

THANKS Tristan!!!!!

More boys stories-communicating, cub scouts

A couple more articles the boys have written for their cub scout newpaper and as part of earning the communicating achievements.

Beethoven by Tristan

For the music pin I'm learning about a composer that I enjoy. That composer is Beethoven. Ludwig Van Beethoven was born in Germany in 1770 and lived until 1827. Beethoven grew up in an unhappy home and had to go to work playing music from a very young age, to earn money for his family. His father was a mean person who punished Beethoven if he made mistakes on the piano. Beethoven eventually became deaf and some people thought he was insane. One of Beethoven's favorite foods was the same as mine, macaroni and cheese! Beethoven wrote a lot of music and it is very good music. People wonder what Beethoven was thinking about when he wrote his music, some think a bird, the yellow hammer sparrow, was the sound Beethoven copied for the da,da,da,daaah, sound in his famous 5th symphony. My favorite symphony of Beethoven's is the 6th but they are all good and you might like to listen to Beethoven sometime. If you play Beethoven on windows media player you can watch crazy shapes on the screen, it goes extra crazy during the loudest parts of Beethoven's symphonies. Beethoven was a wonderful man, composer and pianist who changed music forever.

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Skiing by Colin
Skiing is fun, I like to go fast when I ski. I took lessons at Mt. Sunapee this year and learned a lot. In the lessons I started on smaller hills and then moved to bigger ones. I like the bigger slopes the best! One of the most important rules of skiing is to stay in control. Also you should know your limits and not try a lift or ski slope that you're not ready for. Another important thing is to wear the right equipment. Helmets keep you safe and goggles help you see better when it's sunny or snowy. Mt Sunapee is my favorite for skiing. Pat's Peak has tubing as well as skiing. Tubing is very fun, a lift carries you up the hill and then you ride the snow tube very fast down. The snow at Pat's Peak felt a little fake, I think it snows more at Sunapee and they make more snow at Pat's Peak, I like the real snow better. I like to go tubing too though so I hope to visit both MT. Sunapee and Pat's Peak again before winter ends. I wish I could ski every day, it's a great sport. It can be cold skiing but you can stay warm by wearing lots of layers. Dressing warm helps prevent you from getting too cold or getting frostbite. If you're getting cold take a break and warm up for awhile. After skiing it's nice to get hot chocolate. If you haven't tried skiing before you should give it a try. See you on the slopes!

by COLIN

Webelos-We'll Be Loyal Scouts

Today was the Blue and Gold Dinner for cub scouts in our pack. This is when the highest ranking cub scouts move forward into boy scouts. Next year Colin and Tristan will be doing that! Today they got their Webelos Badge, which means basically that in one year they will be Boy Scouts. They also got some other pins and achievement awards for things they've been working on.

Colin and Tristan are acting silly because I want to take a picture! Tristan is wearing a table decoration on his head. He did most of the work on it and loves his table decoration. We were supposed to make something patriotic so we put a map on a poster board and made it a cylinder so it would stand up on the table. Decorated the map with regional stickers (which came with the map) and made "fireworks" coming out of the top. Hard to explain so I'll post the pictures Tristan took of it.

Table decoration.

Receiving their Webelos patch. They will transition to the khaki shirt of the Boy Scouts now.

We enjoyed some dinner there although being vegetarians we brought our own since the meal was hot dogs and beans. Soon it was time to clean up and Tristan helped a lot with that. He's very good at pitching in and helping as needed.

Night Skiing

We tried a different ski area today as a special treat. This mountain offers a special deal on Saturday afternoons-evenings. The boys had a lot of fun but it was so busy (must be that special deal thing!) a lot of time was spent in line for rentals or in line for lifts. One thing the boys wanted to do was ski at night, which the mountain they had their lessons on doesn't offer so today was their time to ski under the lights.

Tristan and Colin are in this picture somewhere around the middle, Colin in front, Tristan coming down behind.


Tristan is doing SO well now, he's going fast! The kids lessons have now ended so Colin has been teaching Tristan more. Colin is very good about looking after his brother when they ski.


This mountain has another big draw....snow tubing. The tubes are attached to a lift and pulled up the hill.


Then they slide down at quite a speed.

Tubing after dark

Skiing after dark

Tired and Happy!

A scattered day

Today was somewhat scattered. I worked on reading with Tristan for quite awhile this morning since he was the early bird. He likes it that he can read more and more every day. I worked on some cub scouts communicators items with the boys. We went to the library I use in another town. I joined the library in the town where Hayley's girl scouts meets because it is much bigger than my local library. I had to sheepishly return a paperback that Freeze the puppy had chewed. I felt so bad about this that I didn't return it until all my renewals ran out. The librarian was very nice about it and said her dog has chewed a few library books too. The cost was $7.99, I must think of a way for Freeze to work off this fee!!

We went shopping after the library because we needed to get some items for the cub scouts Blue and Gold dinner this weekend. I need to make a dish, going to do pasta salad. We need to make a table centerpiece for our den and the last thing was that both younger boys needed new pants badly, they have both outgrown the trousers I was using with their scout uniforms. I found them each a nice pair that will go with their current blue scout shirt nicely yet will also match the tan shirt they'll transition to after the Blue and Gold when they officially become Webelos, the last step before Boy Scouts. The pants also had big belt loops, which is essential since they wear a cub scout belt, which holds metal belt loop awards. So finding pants to go with their uniform is not as simple as it might seem!

While at the shops I happened to notice some kids knit pants and sweatpants for $3 each so I got the kids 1-3 pairs of pants each depending on what sizes were available. Tristan still fits in little boys sizes so he ended up with 3 pair, mostly little kids sizes were left. He needed new clothes badly so this was a good find. For some reason boys clothes don't last through Colin so Tristan doesn't get many hand me downs...I wonder why! Colin went through a shirt chewing phase during the year he attended co-op. Looking back co-op was terrible for his ADHD. So many kids, fun but overwhelming, trying to behave in classes and all the cakes and things full of colors and preservatives that are given away there. All that to say that a whole years worth of Colin's shirts were not able to be handed down to Tristan. The necklines and sometimes the sleeves were chewed! Pants don't seem to last anyway with active Colin!

I need to find a pair of Khaki pants for Hayley who is right in between girls and women's sizes. Her Girl Scout troop has started requiring that the girls wear full uniform of scout vest, white shirt, khaki pants for any official outings or events. In the past they only needed their scout vests. I didn't find suitable khaki pants and then realized, once home, that the pants I need I may well find in the BOYS section. I'll try that next time! There just weren't pants in that color in girls or women's.

The last thing we were searching for was a ski helmet for Colin. We've been accumulating all the needed ski stuff as we come across deals. Both boys got goggles but so far only Tristan has a helmet since we found one in his size highly discounted. Now we need one for Colin. Didn't find one though so he'll have to continue to rent a helmet. Now that the boys are out of the beginners area I want helmets on them!

It was a bit of a wild goose chase trying to find many different, and quite specific, needed items but at least we found the main ones for this weekend. I really don't like shopping at all so this day was a trial for me.

Communicator-cub scouts part 2

Tristan's book and movie reviews.

Movie Review
Beethoven's Big Break
by Tristan

Beethoven's Big Break is a great movie. This movie has some interesting parts and some funny parts. It's a movie about making a movie. Beethoven is a Saint Bernard dog who often gets things wrong in the movie they're making but the people think it's funny. One of the funny parts was when Beethoven was supposed to take some food off the movie dad's plate but he jumped on the table and made a big mess. That was a mistake but the director like it. I recommend this movie to others, I think people will like it.

Book Review
One Wide Sky- author Deborah Wiles, Illustrator Tim Bowers
by Tristan

The book One Wide Sky is a Poem. It's about Squirrels and the things they do in a day. The story is about things in a yard but the pictures are about things some squirrels do in a day. The illustrations are very nice, one picture is a funny one of a a squirrel holding a sandwich crust with all the middle eaten. Another funny part is that the squirrels carry away food and the kids don't even notice. You might like this book if you like poems, squirrels or books with some pictures.

Communicator-cub scouts

The boys are working on the communicator requirements in cub scouts as well as extra communicating belt loop and pin requirements. They need to publish some of their written work they will be working on a den newspaper and I will publish some of their writing on my blog.

Book Review by Colin

The Moon
I read a book called The Moon. It is written by Melvin and Gilda Berger. This book is interesting because it's about the sun, the earth and the moon. A fun fact I learned from this book is that the moon takes about one month to go around the earth. There are many illustrations and fun facts in this short book. I think other cub scouts would like this book.

Movie Review by Colin

Space Buddies
Space Buddies was a great movie, I liked everything about it. The buddies are 5 golden retriever puppies who find all the fun in life and have adventures. In this movie the Buddies are accidentally launched into space. The funniest part of this movie was when the buddies said "don't pull his paw" about Budderball. You will have to watch this movie to find out what happens! I give Space Buddies a High Five, go ahead and watch it, you will laugh a lot!

A Warm Up

A good warm up in the temperature today meant that we could do several things. One was give the ferrets a much needed bath. The kids handled that. Another was that we could spend some time at the lake without freezing. It was a balmy 50 degrees farenheight!

The boys read their news. They have really enjoyed getting their own copies of God's World News this year. I didn't go exactly with the age ranges suggested for each magazine but spread it out a little more so that each child could have a unique version of the newspapers. Tristan gets Early Edition, Colin-Taking Off, Hayley-News Current and Trevor Top Story. This has been a fun addition to our homeschooling, they like getting their own newspapers.

Homeschoolers were in the news today on tv so we made sure to watch that. There is legislation in place to try and put much stricter requirements on homeschoolers in our state. We couldn't get to the State house to protest this due to the timing, we were thrilled to see the huge turnout though!

I'll Help you with that math Tristan, the ferret says!

The afternoon was spent outdoors sledding and at the lake.

Tristan sledding.

Colin Sledding.

The boys were having a snowball fight. Tristan went indoors and got on his ski helmet and goggles for protection. Good thinking Tristan!

At the lake

Freeze loved fetching sticks in the lake during the summer, he is thrilled with this massive stick pile left from a broken tree back during the ice storms. Freeze seems to think all these sticks on the ice were put there just for him!

Self-control

Today I was comparing the Boy Scout Law with the Fruits of the Spirit with the boys. They're learning the scout law because in one year they will graduate from cub scouts and become boy scouts. Part of this transition is learning the Boy Scout Law. The scout law is not the same as the fruits of the spirit but I thought it would be interesting to compare the similarities. We came to Self-Control. Colin said that's a very hard one. I was glad that he seemed to acknowledge that self-control is hard for him. He does well at home but in busy or large group situations Colin seems to find self-control a lot harder. He seems to feed off the energy in groups and gets very ADHD-ish. I mentioned that I think he is getting better at self-control as he gets older. I thought to myself that he must be maturing to realize he has difficulty in this area. He thought about this for a moment and then said very seriously "yes that Tristan he really needs to work on self-control it's hard for little kids". ROFLOL, Colin thinks he is fine but his little brother needs some work. He after all is a big mature kid and is doing just fine! Let's just say our discussion didn't stop there. It was hard not to laugh and to make a serious point right then!

Boy silliness when winter starts to get old: Tristan and Colin were playing hide and seek today. I suddenly noticed that Tristan didn't have his glasses on. I asked where his glasses were and Colin said we're playing. I in all good faith thought to myself they put the glasses away in case they play rough so nothing happens....I quickly realized that they don't generally do this and hide and seek isn't rough so I better clarify. I asked are the glasses put away safe while you play? Colin said no the game is that I hide Tristan's glasses and he tries to find them, you know like hide and seek!

I re-directed them to a new activity and the glasses were put back on the boy!

Mixed up Monday

Freeze, your ears are inside out.


Am I cute or what?

Today was a little convoluted. A mixed up Monday in some ways. I think part of the problem was that I tried to fit too much into the day. In our 365 days of celebration and praise book the day was Boy Scout Birthday (yesterday actually but I was using it today). We have been doing a lot of cub scout and girl scout things lately anyway and I tried to fill in a few blanks that the kids needed towards badges. I'm big on tying things together but all that resulted in today was a big knot of confusion! The kids are using a learn to play guitar DVD and also both Hayley and the boys had a few loose ends in music requirements for scouts AND I had some musical things I wanted to show the kids. It all seemed to go well together but all the parts were interesting to the kids so it all took longer. For instance in some cases we needed to listen to 1 or 2 samples of a musical genre but Tristan loves singing so wanted me to keep playing more samples of folk music and historical music. Also I had found a video online of John Williams conducting an orchestra in a medley of his Star Wars music. The boys were all so surprised and wanted to watch it again and again. Seeing the Star Wars music played by an orchestra gave it a whole different light to the kids and they were fascinated.

So it was a musical Monday but also a mixed up Monday. A neighbor who is a friend of Bobby's stopped by early and wanted Bobby to help him with something and he also wanted to help cut some of our wood. He also wanted the boys to help and so I lost a couple kids for a time and at other times we could hardly hear ourselves think since the chainsaw was right outside roaring away! It's great to have help but Bobby hadn't planned on this and it messed up his plans for the day a little too.

To add to the confusion the DVD player was acting up again and we ended up having to play the guitar DVD on my laptop! Not exactly a big screen. In some ways it was an ok day, we did get a lot done but not everything I'd planned. I had a headache too, maybe due to the fact that the Eastenders Christmas show was on last night and it went very long! We get Eastenders about 6 weeks after it's aired in the UK. We also get a week's worth all at once. Christmas week out there is something like 6 or 7 episodes, rather than the usual 4. So that meant rather than it being on from 9PM-11 PM it was on from 9PM-12:30 AM! I'm not much of a night owl and that it late for me. It was fun to see nasty Nick Cotton back...Happy Christmas Ma!

Hopefully tomorrow will be less crazy. We have two busy weekends in a row coming up so I wouldn't mind if the weekdays stay calm and relaxed.

Future guitar band or just kids who like to make noise?

For Christmas Hayley, Colin and Tristan wanted guitars. I'm not sure that they understood the fact that one can't instantly play songs just by owning a guitar. So far they have made a lot of noise but nothing that sounds much like a real song. We have started trying to learn from a guitar lesson DVD. How well they have done with this so far is pretty much proportional to how old they are. Hayley kinda gets it, Colin gets it occasionally and Tristan is still pretty clueless.

Tristan pays rapt attention to the guitar lesson..



until he drops his pick in the hole...


and has to try to get it out...

again....and again.....It happened 3 times just today.

Colin looks downright baffled here, maybe he does not realize that he's holding his guitar upside down. The chord won't sound right that way!

Hayley is lucky enough to have a guitar stand to balance on, it's name is Freeze.

A wikked new guitar band in the making???

Only time will tell!

The Big Clear Out

How did it comes to this? My shelves are a mess, not to mention over flowing. There is no room for new books and curriculum so those get piled on the floor. The science kits are mixed up and the math manipulatives...where did they go? To the bottom of kids toy boxes? Math is on the history shelf. I can find 25 books my kids have outgrown in less than 5 minutes...with my eyes closed.

I used to have neat bookcases. I really did. I probably need an intervention but I'm trying to sort out the whole situation before that. I have not had a Big Clear out in 5 years. It's time.

This one below is the current bookcase. All that should be in here are the materials we are currently using. I can easily see that many books not currently in use are spending time here.


Here are some of the homeschool books I AM currently using- they're under things I'm not currently using and behind the big lego bin! No wonder it's so time consuming to find what I need for the week.


This book case (below) should be the most organised and I'll give it credit that it's not too bad. Top shelf Language arts, 2nd down math, 3rd down history 4th and fifth general readers and resource books. There is a tall, tall pile on top of this bookcase that I missed getting in the picture and I have no idea what some of that stuff is.


This book case is meant to be teaching resources on the top 2 rows and science books on the bottom three. It's very mixed up. The overflow sits beside it.

The green plastic thing (below) is supposed to be all science kits and math manipulatives. It's not TOO bad but could be better. The plastic shelfs beside it are arts and crafts materials and it's a true mess. It used to be that each drawer was for a specific category but it's all mixed up.

The goal. Sort one category at a time and try selling online or readying for local spring curriculum sales and give away days. I sorted math (most of it) this morning and find that I have so many math books my kids have outgrown. Fully 3/4's of our math books are for grades 3 and under. Even Tristan will be past the oldest of those very soon if not already. I even found half a dozen counting books! I get terribly overwhelmed selling lots of individual items, which is probably why this has all built up. I sell or loan the big ticket items easily enough but all these individual things what to do with them? I do some paperback swap but sometimes that gets too overwhelming for me. I don't always know when I can next get to the post office.

Excuses, excuses, all excuses aside. Math is sorted and ready to put out to pasture and hopefully to homes that need it. Next stop, language arts.