It's Friday

Well...I made it. Every Spring our schedule change tremendously. My two boys play baseball so 4 out of our weekdays are filed with practices and games. Imagine juggling every thing in one day, school, chores and sports. I constantly look at time making sure I have something left to make sure I can prepare dinner and we have something to eat when we get home.
I love being a mom but sometimes it really takes a toll on me. I want a BIG break from it but I know I can't. I just don't want to disappoint my kids. I know how much they enjoy this. School is almost over but we haven't gotten closer to finishing stuff. We are still doing our best to catch up. I am trying my best to save energy for our daily readings. I just wish I have more than 24 hours to spare in a day so I can finish all my chores and be happy and satisfied and never left with guilt that I am not doing what I am supposed to be doing.
Well it's almost 4pm and I just caught a small break, enough to write this one. We will be soon of to practice until 6pm tonight. Hope I can trust my 13y/o boy to stick a whole chicken in our rotisserie:) We will see...

2 years already

I did not realized it has been almost 2 years since the last time I wrote on my blog. Time surely fly so fast. I wanted to blog more but having a toddler in the house makes it harder to track time. Adding the pressure of homeschooling ,wanting to just get done in a reasonable time before hubby gets home from works; at least look decent for him to atleast notice me.
But hey, hubby is out of the country, finally was able to get on track on some much needed to do chores; I finally get to sit and write. And what? what to tell...
Well, did you know that I have a highschooler now? Who would have thought. I never did think I will survive homeschooling this long and have almost all my children are being homeschooled by me. Tempe is almost 3 and ready to start her journey. She knows her alphabet, can count 1-10, knows her colors and shape and can now say sounds of every letter. And all because she joins us every morning, everyday at our kitchen table. She's done quite well without me shedding a tear.  That is why I love homeschooling, for that matter. They pick up stuff from siblings. Things you don't even try teaching they get from books that are scattered around the house.
What else? I started baking more. I find baking to be relaxing. It calms me and I enjoy it. Kids for sure love it.By the way, it's baseball season again. So 4 times a week we are out, either on the practice field or a game. My two boys love it and what can you do when your kids love to do something. You just go for it no matter how busy it can get. Jhoshua, my eldest is getting out of the house more often now. He gets to stretch his wings a little bit farther. I am glad about that. He meets friends, help kids at the library, attends a swimming club. I enjoy watching his small moments of freedom away from Mommy. I guess kids are all thriving and soon enough they will be out of our house. I just hope I taught them good things that will be fruitful for them.

School is coming...not yet.

Why do I have this feeling of laziness? I don't want to start school yet. Actually, this is the first year I ever felt this way. I am usually eager to start and I usually plan ahead. And yet as of today, nothing has been bought yet, I haven't started planning our activities and surprisingly I am calm about it. Maybe because I am so indulged with my little girl. It's been a while since we had a baby in this house. But having a baby girl is totally new and exciting for me. I spent most my days looking for pretty clothes and shoes for this little munchkin we have at home. Actually, instead of planning school, I am so excited planning her 1st birthday party on September 2. All the stuff I wanted to get for her, decorations and give away stuff for kids, are things that are important for me lately.
Anyway, just giving you a reason or call it an excuse for not thinking about school yet. I have learned to not worry too much about homeschooling. I have learned to look at my kids and realized that they are doing well and starting a little late is not going to mess them up. I have also learned to embrace motherhood and enjoy every bit of joy it brings in my life.
So if we ever start school late this year, I guess I deserve a little break. I know my little girl deserve all these attention we are giving her right now.

Here I am, still ALIVE!!!

Well...it's been a long time. So let me fast forward and give you some updates of what is life been like here at home.
1. Baby girl ( Temperance) came last September 2 and everything seems so busy. I did not think or plan ahead, so things are kind of out of order in my house hold at the moment. I promise myself that the coming school year will be planned ahead so I won't be this way ever again. (I doubt that, but will see, just the perfecttionist in me talking.)

 2. School is wonderful. A lot of things are neglected along the way of having a baby, but luckily school went well and almost done. Which I thought would suffer once the baby is here. But I guess, the willingness inside of me to let go of some chores and things around the house made it possible for us to do school on a regular basis.

3. I have decided to make myself a daily schedule. This is really helping me out. Sorting my day from the most important chore to the least. I try not to fret when all things on the list are not done. One thing I have realized for the past months is that things will be done when you decide to do them and not just look at the list and make excuses. Another important lesson is that, nothing bad will happen if all chores are not done. It's better do be sane all day accomplishing one important thing than trying to finish everything and be a horrible person to everyone.

4. Baby is doing well, being spoiled and all that. Kids and my hubby are happy to finally have a girl. What a difference it makes in our house. Everyday she is thriving. Right now, she is trying her best to figure out crawling so she can chase our dog. And the giggles that come out of her is such a beautiful music to our ears.

5. Boys are busy doing other stuff outside. Made a rule that I plan to follow through out this year. No electronics until school is done. They can have a break and play outside but no electronics. Which is really working well. They spent a lot of time outside digging the ground and play pretend and they actually spend their afternoon biking, which I am very happy about. I thought I will never be able to break their attachment to their iPads and video games. I was wrong.

 6. Baseball season is going on right now so we are pretty busy on their practices and games. All these will end until August.

So what am I trying to say is that the world will not come to an end because I had a baby. It's all in my mind. The panic inside me was just the idea of fear. I know now things will be ok as long as you don't expect too much of yourself. Allow yourself to just be miserable sometimes and accept the situation wholeheartedly. AND PRAY A LOT. And 8 months later, things are almost the same as they used to be.

31st week, 8 more weeks to go

I am starting to feel tired of being pregnant. My belly is huge and my feet are starting to swell. I get tired easily and I can't walk very far without my back hurting. And to think I still have 8 more weeks to go. I guess what is making me complain is that I have always been active and actually enjoyed doing chores around the house. And I am very good at it, too. Now, I have to ask help from my eldest, whom of course doesn't like doing it very much, ending up with sloppy work, making me even more upset. But what can I do...nothing. Just have tons of time to sit and rest and complain more until the baby comes out and I can complain even more for lack of sleep. I know time fly so fast. I just have to live each day until the morning of September 2 comes when I will see Temperance for the very first time and will make me feel all of these are worth while.

Almost there...

Today, I have been counting weeks before I deliver this baby by cesarean. Ten more weeks and I get to see and hold this beautiful and most awaited baby girl in our lives. Every kick and every hiccups gives me that warm feeling of excitement I can not hold. Every night, I can't sleep, usually I complain about sleepless nights but this is actually a wonderful sleepless nights. All wiggles and light kicks just comfort me each night. Letting me know I am not alone. Knowing this will be our last bundle of joy, I wanted to live in the moment of being pregnant and enjoy the beauty of life that is growing inside me.

Just being lazy and I have a reason for it

I have been lazy lately writing something on my blog, actually for 3 months now I have not actually written anything. The reason for that is because since found out I was pregnant everything became slow. The morning sickness was bad and the school schedule was actually not helping. But I tried my best not to skip days or call it quits when it felt like it. Though we are late and slow, I know we can hang in there just enough to finish it before the baby gets here. I just need more patience and strength to actually do my job as a teacher to my kids. If I can continuously pull myself out of the bed every morning early enough to start our day, we will be fine. I'm on my 5th month now and everything is starting to get better. My moods are getting better, my diet is starting to improve and morning sickness is totally gone. So I think I am good until my final 2 mos. Hopefully, I can use the next months finishing up our lessons. I know next school year will be a little tricky and frankly I still don't know how will be able to do school with 3 kids and handle a baby at the same time. But that is another day to ponder and complain about. Just want to share why I haven't been on my blog lately. And now you know.

Books to read this week

For Jhoshua this week, he will be reading:



and



He is finishing this book this week.

For my read alouds to my 2 younger ones ( Alden and Taylor)

We are reading this classic:



And for our science books this week, I chose:



and



We are studying birds right now, so this is our supplement reading for this week.

Our 14th Week

This week is a very relaxing week for all of us. Everything went smoothly. Most of the things were done on a timely manner. No crying and complaining about work this week. The weather is a bit cold and a few showers this week so we weren't able to go nature walking and spent little time outside. P.E. was also canceled due to wet field (kids didn't like that). And the only thing we were able to do this week outside of our home was AWANA night which was on Wednesday night. Here are some pics of their art projects this week.


My first grader's work (Alden)


My 6th grader's work (Jhosh)






Here is what my 6th grader did this week:

Math: He is slowing down right now, using Life of Fred for review and fun. I also have him do some problems from BJU 6.

Grammar: He did review questions from R/S and did very well.

Writing: He is learning narrative writing on first person view right now from Writing Strand. We are also on Week 6 of Writing with Ease and he is doing great. Some of the dictation exercises are long but he is able to hold it in and write it down easily.

Science: We just started the second book of God Design for Heaven and Earth, Our Planet Earth. So far I like this curriculum. It's easy to use and not too busy, gives us time to read outside source to supplement our studies.

History: He has been doing 2 chapters of SOTW 4 every week. One chapter per day and all mapping and time lining are done on Wednesdays. He also outlines 2 pages of Children's Encyclopedia of American History. It seems to be a lot of work but he loves History and enjoys reading about it.

Reading: He picked the book for this week. He is reading The Hound of Baskervilles. He likes mystery stuff. He was talking about this book a lot so I didn't feel like making him write about it.

My first grader:

Math: We did measuring by inch this week, a lot of it. Everything he can measure, he did. We also use our balance scale this week. Alden and Taylor had fun comparing weights of everything they can put in the scale. He is doing great in his addition facts.

Reading: Getting there... He loves to read about insects so he is reading Nature Reader 1 for his daily reading practice plus other stuff he picks up around the house.

History: Finished reading Squanto, Friends of the Pilgrim this week and started reading Stories of the Pilgrims.

Science: Read about birds today, why birds have different bills and why some birds can't fly. Kids enjoyed the readings.

Writing: We are on week 6 of Writing with Ease 1. Everything is good.

These are our accomplishments this week. I am not going to complain, it has been a great week for us.

Have a great weekend!

Week 13

This week we started our school with some changes. Jhoshua is getting to the point where Saxon 8/7 is becoming confusing and he started to get frustrated. And this is my advanced child in math that have always enjoyed doing math every morning. But I think he started hitting a wall and was vocal enough to tell me. So I thought I'd give him a break and hand him something new and enjoyable to do that will recover his joy in math again. I got him the Life of Fred Fraction and Decimal books. And he can't put it down. He laughs while reading, though he thinks it is easy for him but willing to do them. I think going back and reviewing his math skills will give him more confidence when he goes back to Saxon again, which he said he will, not just now.

He had also started using Writing with Ease Level 4 combined with Writing Strand. I think we have found something that he can do that I don't get too much complaints and generate good results. His dictation skills are being developed and does help him hold his thoughts longer enough to be put in the paper. I like that he is learning to identify main points of the story and focus on those rather than narrate everything that happened just for the sake of narrating. This greatly helps him in his outlining. Writing strand helps him a lot in organizing his thoughts, writes it down and builds sentences, in a small chunks of work that it does not frustrates him. That is good. I think frustrations in kid's work hinder them greatly to develop their skills. It is not that they do not want to do the work rather it puts them to a negative vibe that stops them from trying.

The rest of their work this week were done. I am amazed how quickly we finished each day this week. I hope it carries on for the coming week.

Alden has been doing well in his reading, more fluent and less difficulty in decoding. Finally, I think he is getting there. We are almost done with Saxon 2 and I bought Math Mammoth 1 for him as a review material when we finish Saxon. We are right on track on his science schedule using Elemental Science. Finally, I found something that we can use that I don't have to tweak a lot. History is fun. Just started reading aloud Squanto, friend of the Pilgrims this week for him.

We were busy today. We went to our biweekly nature walk in a marsh area near our place this morning. It was very cold but we have seen a lot of birds around. We were also able to watch an education movie about marsh land in the visitor's area. We ended our nature walk with a lunch picnic with their friends. Wonderful day.

I know sometimes, starting school again after a long vacation is difficult. But I am grateful for the attitude that my kids have shown me this week. They have been good and cooperative this week and I hope this will continue.
Have a wonderful weekend!

School on Monday

We are almost done with our 2 weeks vacation and everyone is not so excited about it. Of course, why would you want to start school again after all that fun. Everyone had fun including me. I had spent most of my time decorating the house, baking, cleaning, reading and just hanging out with the kids. Though it rained most of the days, it did not dampen the spirit of vacation around here.Kids had so much fun playing and just being kids. And now that vacation is almost over, I can barely look at my lesson plan again and start school on Monday. Not to mention I have to submit the semester report of the kids to our PSP school and that takes me forever to do. I don't do well with deadlines and it seems I have a hard time keeping up. So for the next 2 weeks I will be busy making the kids grades.
Well I guess, I just have to stop complaining and move on. Just like what I have told the kids this morning. Vacation is over and time to do school again. One step at a time, we will get there and soon enough summer will be here.
Happy New Year to all. And welcome back to school.

Our 11th Week

This week was very exciting for us as a family. We were able to attend a filed trip to Sacramento riding a train. We always wanted to travel by train and we could not just find the right time and the save enough money; traveling by train can be very expensive and we are five in the family. So this week, Amtrak had a homeschooling field trip enabling us five to go in much cheaper expense. Here are some pictures I took from that day.








I also took some pictures for their last day of P.E. for this year. We don't do P.E. until next year because of frequent rain and wet field.





The rest of the week went well. Most of the stuff we needed to do were done. And we are of to our one week Thanksgiving vacation. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Our 10th Week

This week we had our windows replaced and the work took 3 days. It was loud with all the constructions going on and my kids, of course get distracted easily. All I heard myself saying for 3 days is "Stay in your chair and focus!" With the men, in and out of the house, I can't blame my kids trying to wonder what was going on.

So our goal this week was at least to finish the important subjects, Math and Language Arts. We were able to squeeze some history readings and Alden and I was able to do some Science stuff. We are still on mammals this week and we were able to watch Discovery Channel and found out more about whales.

Jhoshua, on the other hand, has been good with keeping up with his list this week. Every Monday I would give him a list of his work for the whole week and he had to check it off and make sure it was done. At the end of the day, he has to give it back to me and I had to check his work. For a couple of weeks , he has been struggling keeping up with his weekly assigned work, he either forget something or skip something. I keep reminding myself to be patient with him since this is his start of being accountable to his own work. And I am so happy that of all the commotion in our house this week, he was able to finish his work without complaining.

Jhoshua and I were also reading Oliver Twist and Shades of Gray this week. He wanted to read on his own this year and we would meet to discuss after. I thought this will be difficult for me keeping up with his reading so I tried scheduling my reading at night now and at least I don't have to worry the next day for our discussion. He has been asking questions now, more of the hows and whys, so I know he is starting to ponder more about what he is reading about and enjoying it more.

Alden has been picking up his reading pretty well. Finally, decoding is kicking in.
We were not able to go to our P.E. this week because of the window repair and the boys were not happy about it but there is always next week. It's starting to get cold outside so Nature walk had been moved to morning walks instead of afternoons.

So to sum it all up, I think we have done pretty good despite of the noise and distraction we had this week. Have a great weekend!

Our 8th Week

This week we started with a wonderful fieldtrip in Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was great to see the place again. My kids never get tired visiting and seeing those wonderful creatures. I am always in awe of those jelly fishes. They are so beautiful.
Tuesday... we kind of start slow and lazy. Nobody wants to do school but I had to pull them out of their bed to at least do something. Math has always been the first subject we do everyday, no matter what. Next to that is grammar or reading. We break for 30 minutes after this, eat some snack and do some stuff again, usually I read history stuff with them, my eldest then goes off and write his narration and read some more on his own. As my 1st grader do some reading and narration with me. He loves mapping the globe so we do that before lunch. I make him color maps as I prepare our lunch. Afternoons are reserve for Latin, memorizing verses and reading for fun.
Wednesday...this is our busy day. P.E. in the morning and AWANA at night. This week is Holloween week so we had to carve a pumpkin for my eldest to bring and I did holloween crafts with my 2 young ones to bring with them as well.
Thursday... Same as Tuesday but a lot faster and more focus. We were able to do all stuff in our school list in a decent time. Lately, we are having a hard time doing everything on time. It's been hard to distribute my time equally to my 3 boys. My eldest needs more discussion time, my 1st grader needs a lot of one on one and my preschooler is just on his regular clingy days.
Today...half day. We did math, writing, reading, latin and science. Then we spent our afternoon in the library and a playdate in the park with their friends. Just running around and being silly.
This has been a fun week for us. Have a nice weekend to all!

Monterey Bay Aquarium Fieldtrip

Here are some of our pictures from our recent field trip to Monterey. Every year, this time around since my eldest was 6 we take him here. He loves this place. Now, we take not just him but my first grader and my preschooler and my eldest is in 6th grade. I can't imagine how time fly fast. How kids remember that October is our Monterey Fieldtrip month. This year is the flamingo year. I haven't seen a flamingo up close but this time I did and they were beautiful.

Our 6th Week

This week has been a busy week for us. For the past 2 weeks, my kids and I have caught some kind of a cold virus that lingered for 2 weeks. It would transfer from one kid to the other and then to me. We had 2 rounds of it and finally this week we can say, "Thank God, it is over." I don't know what caused that virus to stay that long but I am just happy that we are all well again.

This week we tried to take it slow and accomplish what we could. With my eldest, we tried to just do math and reading (science and history) and we discussed "Oliver Twist" chapter by chapter. He loves this book and wants to dwell on it. So we did. It was fun actually.

With my first grader, we also did math and just read him tons of stories and let him practice his reading, which by the way is really getting better. I am so proud of him.
He is into fairy tales, and he has been asking me so many times during the day or before going to bed to read to him a fairy tale.

So this week, it's just playing catching up. Read tons of books, stayed in the couch a lot and just rested pretty much. I hope next week, we are all back to our normal selves and we can resume P.E., nature walks and park days,things we all love doing and have missed during our "sick days".

Have a Great Weekend!!!

Our 3rd Week

This week we had so much fun outside and did as much as we could in our school. We had a picture taking for the kid's school IDs and after that the PSP school we are enrolled in gave a lunch picnic for all. It was fun. That was our Monday. Tuesday, we had a regular school, pretty much did everything we needed to do. We even had a chance to do some art works, which my kids love to do, simply because they have a reason to make a big mess. Wednesday is our P.E. day held in the morning. They are usually very hungry afterwards and took them out to eat, rarely this happens but I am tired and didn't wanna do any cooking for lunch. We went home, rested and did some math, grammar and history later. AWANA night happens also every Wednesday. Thursday, we did our regular school and later I took them to our friend's house who had a swimming pool and did some swimming lessons. We have been doing this, this summer trying to teach them how to swim. And today, we had a half day school and attended our very first homeschool event, an Ice Cream Social Party. My kids are not ice cream lovers (I know, weird huh.) but they really enjoyed the camaraderie among other kids. And I really enjoyed it too. So I hope our 4th week will not be as busy but still productive.
Have a nice weekend to all.

Our Second Week

Last week was our first week of school and it went pretty smooth. Of course, first week is usually a time for getting use to a school schedule again and everyone is in a very good mood. P.E. did not start until this week so last week we had plenty of time. Usually our Wednesdays are full of outside activities that we hardly get to do school stuff.
This week we have our full schedule with all the outside activities we have. AWANA will start next week and after that we are back to our usual school year schedule. This year I have decided to join two homeschool groups that I thought will add a little bit of spice to our homeschooling. One group is a weekly park day group, that meet every Friday afternoon. Kids get to see their friends and have the chance to play and talk to other kids. The other one is a Nature outing group that meets every other week in a Recreational park for a walk. I have been looking for this kind of group for a long time now and it is surely more fun to walk in nature with other people and other kids. Plus you get to know more about plants and animals with people who really know more about nature.
Though I am still deciding whether to sign up for a field trip kind of group which I thought will help us decide for field trips we go to this year. I have to sit on this one and ponder a little bit more. I don't want to join a lot of groups and later won't be able to participate because of scheduling issues.
For now, kids are happy, they get to see their friends on weekly basis, play sports and walk in nature. I think we are of to a good start this year. And so far I am contented.
I have some pictures here from our activities this week to share. To all of you, who are also starting their year, I wish and pray for a wonderful year ahead.

One more week!

Kids have been on vacation now for more than 2 months. They can't wait to start school ,but I don't think I am ready to thread homeschooling yet. I just ordered our curriculum one week ago and still waiting for them to arrive. Hopefully the books will arrive soon. I have already planned our year and I already have the library books we need for our first week. I have also printed our weekly schedule for the 6 weeks in advance. Technically, I am ready but physically,I still think I need more days of vacation. Our plan is to start school by August 30 and my kids are eager to start which is a very good sign. Jhoshua will be in 6th grade this year and Alden will be in first grade. Time sure fly so fast. I am beginning first grade again and my youngest will be doing preschool stuff. This is just all in my mind, I am just being lazy and loving my free time. I guess I have to get out of this couch, and condition my mind for another school year.

at home during summer

Here are a few pictures I will post, telling you about our summer. We don't do much. Just hang around the house. The two play summer baseball every Thursdays and Saturdays. Jhosh does some review work in Saxon Math and Alden continues to read daily and occasional math lessons. My youngest one does all sorts of stuff. He starts to read fluently 3 letter words which is amazing how fast he gets reading. I guess all the exposures he had gotten from the 2 boys have paid off. No more worries for Mommy. I guess when they are young, you worry too much. You question yourself a lot if you can ever teach them how to read or teach them math. But eventually, the saying " children are like sponge" is very true. You expose them to reading and do a lot of math manipulative at home, and they will eventually get it. Summer is all about Mommy, as my kids say. I am so busy trying to figure out changes that should be done in our school, assessing curriculum and praying a lot that whatever decisions I make will bring good results for the kids this coming school year.


This is Taylor, trying to play checkers by himself.


Jhosh, doing some math in the morning.


Alden, doing his reading time.