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Friday, August 12, 2011

Summer Swiftly Sails on By

Lola and the boys

I’m going with the ‘just do it’ posting method tonight. I’m tired and I want to go to bed, but if I don’t post now, it will be a while before I get a chance again!

Life, Unedited:

I’ve been thinking a little about school plans. So many people are already back to school. Not here. Our summer feels like it has barely begun! Our year of Classical Conversations doesn’t begin until September 12th. I missed out on the (Not) Back to School blog hop because I’ve got nothin’. Maybe I’ll do my own Back to School blog series in mid-September.

While I was thinking about school plans, Latin was on the docket. I was trying to decide whether to review Prima Latina or go straight on to Latina Christiana. My sister mentioned she had the DVDs for Prima Latina. I thought we’d start there and go through the lessons quickly. I popped in the 1st DVD one evening just to preview. Luke got so excited, you would have thought it was Transformers or something. I promised he could go to bed with the Latin book if only he would get ready for bed quickly and practice his piano cheerfully. He raced off. Halfway through his piano practice he was dragging. Then he started chanting, ‘Latin, Latin, Latin,’ with a smile on his face and finished strong. He then happily snuggled in his bed with both the Prima Latina book and Song School Latin. I think an alien lives here. Or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at the very least.

The picture on the right, above, is of Lola and the boys watching the 1st Latin lesson on DVD. I guess we’ll start that early…

The boys finished their fourth week of VBS tonight! The evening VBS schedule is really tough on us. We have a hard time getting there at 6 pm without feeling rushed and throwing together something to eat at the last minute, and the boys have a VERY hard time getting ready for bed when they get home and falling asleep. So it has been very late nights for us all.

Lola is into EVERYTHING. And she’s getting very opinionated. And she doesn’t want to sleep much.

I LOVED this season of So You Think You Can Dance (the only season I’ve actually watched). Really amazing choreography and dancing. Phenomenal.

We are headed to the beach tomorrow. It will be Lola’s first time!

Grandpa and Grandma, I’m so sorry I don’t have any pictures of Boys’ Camp to post. I thought the camera battery was charged, but Russ said it went dead after one picture!! I never posted last year’s pictures, so maybe I’ll finally do that and pretend they were taken this year. {sheepish grin}

I’m reading two books at the moment. That it is even worth mentioning should say something, sadly. I’ve done very little reading this year. Thank goodness for book club keeping me accountable for at least one book each month!

I had an awesome visit with a friend today whom I hadn’t seen in twenty years!! She was a wonderful friend during our middle school years. She and her family were visiting from out of state and made the time to come hang out with us for a few hours. Thanks, Sonia!!

Have I mentioned that I love grammar? We’re going to be doing some sentence diagramming this next year. I took a crash course during the teaching conference last week. And then a couple facebook friends posted this link. It is so addicting. Just type in a sentence and the program will diagram it for you. I could play with that all day. Who needs dinner?

Another link for you. I loved Reason Enough to Homeschool by Sarah Small @ Simple Homeschool today:

We started homeschooling for a bunch of reasons, and the list has grown year after year.

But sometimes it is just one reason that stands out above all the others. Forget academics, test scores, long days, busy work, and tedium. What we give them now is this: an August day. A river to wade in. The feel of dry grass beneath our feet, and a sliver of silver moon at night.

Sometimes that whole stack of “reasons why” comes down to a knowing feeling—a conviction that this is the way life should be.

One more thing (if you’ve even read this far), and then I’m going straight to bed. I got the great idea from an online friend to work on a postcard project for our states and capitals study this next year. Would any of you be willing to help us out by sending us a postcard from your state? I think I have the following states already spoken for (though we certainly wouldn’t complain if we got more than one!): AL, CA, CO, DC, GA, IA, KS, LA, MD, MN, MO, MT, OR, TN, TX, VA, and WA (and possibly AK, HI, ID, SD, and UT). But that leaves quite a few that we are missing! Email me at heidi (at) poetsgarden (dot) com if you are interested, so that I can give you our address. And we would be more than happy to reciprocate if anyone would like an Oregon postcard! (I’ll probably post this request a couple more times to see how many states we can cover.)

Good night, all!!

14 comments:

Misha said...

This is a little embarrassing, Heidi, since we've never met in person... but last night at dinner I was bragging about you and how impressed I am with your family.

Even the kids were mesmerized as I talked about you homeschooling your three (including another Luke!) with a beautiful Lola beginning to toddle... all three of my family members were cheering on your fortitude and creativity.

(The whole conversation started because we were talking about our new discipline method we're implementing and I was telling them what I had read about one you use: tomato vine method? something like that? : ) )

So point being - as unedited as your life feels, you are a wonderful encouragement to my whole family! And I think you are amazing. : )

Timi said...

I would love to send you a postcard, but I don't live in the U.S.....maybe from Hungary? You can learn about Europe...:o)

Heather said...

I too would love to exchange a postcard with you, although it would be from Canada, the capital. I'm originally from Pennsylvania so I could send one from there too! :)

We're spending another year with Prima Latina as we only made it through 10 lessons this past year. My son enjoys it too, but he's never clamored to take it to bed! :)

Anonymous said...

Hi! Just emailed about the postcards. We would be happy to send one!
Amelia

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Unknown said...

How about some Canadian provinces? :)

Your site is still my favourite. How's the Dr. Pepper?

Heidi said...

Aw, thanks, Misha! I don't know if you'd be as impressed in person... ;-P Isn't it wonderful how we can be inspired in this virtual world, though?! Tomato staking... yes, we're still working on that to some degree. There were some fabulous talks on discipline at the teaching conference that I attended last week. We have some new 'tools' on our tool belt and I'm hoping this next year will be a great year of homeschooling!

We'd LOVE postcards from Canada and Europe!!! Maybe this states and capitals project will just be the start of something much larger. :) Email me if you'd like our address!

Heather said...

Thank you for the grammar link... we'll be doing Rod and Staff 6 this year and there is a lot of diagramming. I am thrilled for you that your children are excited about latin. After attending our classical Christian school and studying Latin since 3rd grade neither of my boys wanted to continue so we'll be starting French. I'm okay with it... but at first I felt like I was doing something "wrong" by not having them continue on with it. It is my first year homeschooling, so I am sure I'll get used to that feeling:)

And, I love sytycd too! Loved Melanie but kind of wanted Marco to win it all:)

Heidi said...

Heather~ Give it another year or two...they might not be so thrilled about Latin. ;-P (My boys, I mean.) I would have LOVED to learn French as a kid! I really liked all 4 dancers in the finale. Wasn't Marco a darling?!

carole said...

We've got NY covered!

And as a person who never liked sentence diagramming, never saw the point, and never felt that it was a skill she needed for survival as a human .... thanks for the link to the sentence diagramming program. Further proof that I never need to learn how to do it. ;) (read with light sarcastic tone ...)

Reynolds Rug Rats said...

I stumbled upon your blog as I was searching for tea towel cafe curtains. Your blog is wonderful and your family is precious! I also have 3 boys, then a girl who is now 2. By the way, I can send you a post card from KY. I live in Bowling Green-we have the Corvette plant which manufactures all the corvettes ever made. And we are also near Mammoth Cave- the longest cave in the world. Thanks for your great curtain idea!

Mom2Four said...

We would love to send you a card from Arkansas.

It would be a small thank you for all of the great links, and encouragement I have gained from your amazing blog!!!

Hang in there. They really are growing up quickly.

Misha said...

I'll have to look into tomato staking. : ) Also - I can have my mom send you a postcard from South Africa? Just message me your address on FB if you want me to...