Tid Bits

...been having sever tooth pain so I finally went to see Dr. Crentist, the dentist. As I suspected, I have to have a root canal. Yikes! But here is the kicker...I can not get it taken care of until the referral from my insurance goes through which, on average, takes 3-4 weeks! Wanna know something else? My insurance ends the last day of June. Wanna bet the referral ends up taking longer just so they won't have to pay for it? (Praying hard that won't happen.) "In the mean time, Brittney, do your best to cope with the pain."

...flying out to see my family (Iowa) in July! Can't wait! It has been over a year since I have seen my parents. Pretty difficult to deal with since we are used to seeing each other every 4 months or so. We have some fun activities planned too...Adventureland (Disneyland/world has NOTHING on this amusement park!), day trip to Galena, IL, wedding dress shopping with my soon-to-be sister in-law, and lots of playdates with my cousins and their kids.

...the 100+ degree temps we have been experiencing are more bearable here than in TN. The lack of humidity is awesome! Still don't like the heat though, but it's nothing a day at the beach can't fix!

...Collin's first year of graduate school is almost over! Only 3 smallish (10-15 pages each) papers left to write! Hard to believe we have been here for 9 months already. Only 4 more years to go!?!

...How does a car know it has hit 100,000 miles? Let's just see the things that need to be fixed on it right now: radiator, power steering pump, passenger side window, and the A/C switch (luckily I can tap on the dashboard in just the right place and it will turn on). Also have to get the smog test done so we can switch our tags to CA (Which I don't want to do. I like my TN ones.) and we just bought new tires. Cars...necessary evil. Luckily we only have one.

Summer Is Here!

We have officially started our summer schedule this week. Something I have learned about myself and the boys is that we need structure. We need to have an idea of what our day holds for us. We are going to continue "doing school", but take time off for travel, trips to the beach, park play dates, and other activities. I figured we will have roughly 10 weeks between now and the end of August to complete a few lessons and some units.

Here is the plan:

Science...We are going to be finishing up our Dinosaur Unit in a few weeks. After that, we will start our next science unit when school starts in Sept.

History...After our Dinosaur Unit is finished, we'll begin our Pirate Diary Unit. The boys are real excited about this...what boy wouldn't be!?!

Magnus...
Grammar-We've gotten a bit behind so he will be doing 2 lessons a day to finish the 2nd grade level.
Math-We are just beginning Level C. We're going to do 2 lessons a week and hope to finish C by the end of 3rd grade.
Latin-I have not been consistent with this so we are way behind. He is going to be doing 2 lessons a week in order to finish by the end of summer. Luckily it's just vocabulary and he picks up anything having to do with "words" rather quickly.
Lapbook-The boys are going to be working on a lapbook of their choice independently and Magnus has chosen to do one on Gray Wolves.

Thane...
Reading-He is doing real well. He received Hop on Pop for his birthday and he has read it, by himself, over and over. Very exciting! Anyhow, we are going to complete a lesson a day unless he gets hung up somewhere.
Phonics-He'll complete 2 pages of Explode The Code 3x a week.
Math-He will do 2 lessons a week in Level B.
Lapbook-He and I will be completing a Cooking Lapbook together. He loves to cook and told me he wants to be a chef when he grows up...or a builder!

I am going to try to continue to post about our weeks and our summer activities so be sure to stop on by! Hope you have a great summer!

Parent/Grandparent's Visit

Collin's parents were visiting us the past five days. We had a great time and did some fun things.

We went to the Sacramento Rose Garden on the grounds of California's Governator's office...







We went swimming in Grandpa and Grandma's hotel pool a couple of times...


Thane and Grandma baked his birthday cake...



We celebrated Thane's birthday on the coast...

A Baby No Longer

Happy 6th Birthday, Thane!

Cut From the Same Cloth?

The way that two boys from the same parents can be so different is beyond me!

If you were to have gone to the park with us the other day, this is what you would have seen...

Magnus being a Palentologist.

Thane being a monkey.


This is only a sampling of the differences between them! I receive great joy seeing their individual personalities, interests, and strengths develop. But how the two can be so opposite is something I can not fathom!

Thane's Fish Lap n' Notebook

Thane wanted to do a lapbook about fish, but he wanted to come up with it on his own. We didn't place it in the typical file folder. Instead, he glued his mini booklets onto paper and we placed them in a 3 prong folder. We did a bit of research and reading together, and this is his final creation...

This is the cover.

He was very excited to come up with his own facts to include. This one says, "Big fish eat smaller fish".

The fishbowl reads, "Fish can be pets".

The top booklet shows places where fish can be found and the one on the lower right is different defenses fish use against predators. Both of them can be found at Homeschoolshare.com.

He actually read the words on the label a fish booklet all by himself!

The blurry (sorry about that) red booklet is one that he made. Inside he wrote, "Fish swim and have gills."

He is very proud of the way it turned out and can not wait to start his cooking lapbook.

Independent Lapbook Studies

Magnus and Thane both enjoy making lapbooks. If you are not aware of what a lapbook is, check out this great squidoo lense for an explanation. We create lapbooks alongside our history and science studies together, but the boys also enjoy working on them by themselves.

Thane is almost done with his fish lapbook and I will post pictures of it soon. He really took ownership of it and it was neat to see.

Magnus began a lapbook on George Washington and needs to complete it soon. He'll be working on it the next few days.

The next ones the boys chose to work on are:
Magnus...Gray Wolves. He just finished reading White Fang by Jack London and Homeschool Share has a great Gray Wolf unit/lapbook he wants to do. We went to the library and stocked up on books for him to read to fill in the mini booklets with facts.

Thane...Cooking. Yep, he is my lil' chef. He can't really work on it by himself yet, so I will be involved, but I am going to make sure he does most of the work. We found a Cooking unit/lapbook at Homeschool Share for him to do. He'll be learning about kitchen safety, tools, and nutrition as we work through it.

Putah Creek

A few weeks ago we went for a beautiful walk near campus. These are some of the images from Putah Creek...

Contest!!

My friend, Daisy at the Laurel Wreath, is having a give-a-way at her blog. It's for $20 worth of merchandise from Spindle. I checked out the products and they are great! Earth friendly items such as market totes, coffee cuddlers, and several baby items such as burp clothes and nursing wraps. If you would like a chance to win, you can enter here. Oh, and you have until midnight (Pacific Time) to enter.

Good Luck! (I don't really mean that. I want to win!)

PS...and even if you don't want to enter the contest, I encourage you to just check out Daisy's blog. She is an inspiration! (And, no. That is not a brown nosing comment. It's true! Besides, I am sure the contest is random.)