Rough Weather.

We had some very rough weather around here last night, even tornado warnings, but we're all okay. The youngest member of our family, who is a bit scared of storms, slept through the whole thing, so that was good. Max climbed up in the bed with me until it was over, but he made it too. I'm ready to get back to winter-type weather for a few more weeks. I'm not fond of these storms.

Notebooking pages for WW2.

We finished studying about WW2.

I think my kids know more about the war than most people now. They made notebook pages, which turned out really well. The thing about notebooking is that they now have a scrapbook of their studies to look at and show people and when they look at it or show it to their grandparents, they're reinforcing the memories. ;-) We've got one more book in the Joy Hakim History of US series and then we'll be done with American History. After that, I plan to do a world geography study. I may add some science in. I need to look at the curriculum book I have for world history and see how much science is in it (probably a little, but not enough). I also want to do an art study. I'm not an artist, but I got a book out of the library called "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" and I want to try a few lessons from it. As this American History study winds down after 7 months, I'm starting to feel the need to revamp what we're doing a little bit, can you tell? I've quit trying to go with the regular school calendar and plan it for next year, if I think of something I feel like we need to add, I just go ahead and add it in now, while I'm thinking about AND while I have some enthusiasm for it. If I just write it down for next year, then next year when I'm planning, I'll think "why did I want to do this?" or "how was I planning to accomplish this?" My memory is not what it once was!

I didn't get anything done on the home improvement front yesterday. I feel better today, but today I have to work. Blah. Besides, it's raining and who wants to do anything like that when it's raining? Not me.

And another one ...

All three kids are now sick, with what I believe is just a cold. I just went through a checklist to see if I thought it was the flu and I don't think so. They don't have really high fevers or chills, body aches, etc., just runny noses, sneezes and mild fevers. Still, it's not fun. We are behind in our school, so we're doing a half day today. Nobody feels great, but we can manage half a day. I really wanted to get up today and feel great and get a lot done. I wanted to paint the kitchen but I got up feeling kind of horrible myself so I don't know if I'll get anything done besides school. It's very frustrating!

Another one sick.

Our youngest is getting better, but now our girl is sick - runny nose, sore throat, fever. No fun. I went to town and stocked up on Tylenol, Cold Eeze and Fruit Breezers and she's hanging out on the couch in her PJs today.

Today's Project.

My daughter and I collaborated on making this wreath today which means, it was my idea and I offered suggestions for how to do it, but then she did it her way without using any of my ideas. It turned out cute though, didn't it?

The Green Glow.

My youngest son and daughter are currently having to share a bedroom. They have chosen a color scheme of blue, purple and bright green. A few weeks ago, we picked out some green fabric to make curtains and instead of asking my mom to sew them, I decided to do it myself. It was my first effort at making curtains and they turned out a little crooked at the bottom hem, but the kids don't mind. They say they'll pull them to the side. The day I made them it was cloudy, but a couple of days later, the sun came out and we noticed that the sun shining through the curtains makes everything in the room glow with a weird green light. This picture is of the door of my older son's room, across the hall.

One sick today.

We had one sick child today. I could have predicted it really. On Monday when we went to the baseball museum, our guide had a terrible cough and I just knew some of us would come down with it. It turns out it was youngest son. He had a headache all day yesterday and then began with a runny nose and fever today. I'll probably be next but I can't deny the little guy snuggling when he feels bad. He's almost getting too big, so I enjoy it while I can. I still made him do a half day of school. We're studying WW2 and so close to the end that I just want to get it done, so I had him listen to the chapter reading and do a notebook section today. Then we watched a History Channel show on the production of war planes for WW2.

The rest of us carried on. It was a light day of work because everyone has 3"freebies" on their list - 3 things on the list each week that we don't have to do - and we usually save them for Friday. I need to do a few record keeping things tonight, check everyone's attendance lists and write the supplemental materials we've used for American History in my oldest son's record book before I forget. We may start reading a novel about WW2 tonight. It's called Number the Stars. I got it out of the library and it's a very good book but I'm kind of ready for this war study to be over so I may not read it. We're ready to move onto the 50's and then get done with history so we can go into our world geography study.