Oh what do you do on a rainy day?

The local weather was suppose to be horrendous.....so before conference started I wanted to get the basement in tip-top, ship shape Bristol fashion (to quote a talk from conference) before the rain storm with lots of wind might come. (just in case the electricity goes out and thus the sump pump doesn't work and we have another lovely (not) flood in the basement and lose lots of stuff....like Christmas ornaments (again)!

Our water storage was many, many years old (and gross with bits of mold in some of the bottles) so we cleaned it out.....and what do my lovelies do with these water containers?  Have a water fight of course!!  Mind you it's in the low 50's but that didn't stop them.  This was much to fun to worry about nippy cold temperatures.....did I tell you it was raining too!  :)

They had lots of wet, wet fun.  To quote Connor  "That was weirdly fun!!"  How I love these guys!

The Addams Family

Hi, it's Cailin. I was in the play The Addam's Family, and I was an ancestor. It was kind of fun. I got to dance in some numbers, which was good.

Happy, Happy 15th Birthday Cailin Dear

 Hi, it's Cailin. For my fifteenth birthday, Mom and I went to Barnes and Noble, where I got a book called, 'The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us'. It sounded interesting, and it was. We also got hot chocolate and cheesecake from the Starbucks inside of there, which was very good.

Our Newest Cub Scout.....Liam!

"It's fun!"  The best part of turning eight is being able to be baptized, and attending cub scouts!!! Yeah.

He's been working hard to obtain may new belt loops and having fun with Carson Vance and his scout leader, Brother Vance.  He created a boat using recyclable materials.

A New Roof!!

Good bye holes in the roof where I can see the sky from the inside.
 Hello darkness where it's suppose to be!!

First Day of School

Ryan-- Last Semester at New River Community College
         Taking--  Biology, Chemistry, Networking Systems, and World Civilizations

Connor--First Semester at New River Community College
     Taking--Intro into Computer Science, Pre-Cal with Trigonometry, College Success skills class                          College Composition

Connor- Well, college is college I guess. It's kind of a transition because most of the work is quantity based, rather than quality based like it used to be. Luckily all of my assignments are easy to keep track of because they're all online, so you just look on the website and it's all there. I'm enjoying the material of the classes. I have two professors who are pretty good and one who's just mediocre. She explains everything, but the presentation is dry and boring. I guess that'll be most of my math classes in the future.

After a summer full of preparing to attend Pulaski County High School this year she's ready for her first day!  As a homeschooled student entering the high school as a Sophomore Cailin had to prove that she mastered the knowledge of the Freshman classes that PCHS offered.  She didn't know all of it, so she spent the summer reading, learning and taking many tests for all the subjects.  She aced them all (but one)--especially the history and English 9 work--that she's a full fledged 10th grader with 7 high school credits.   Algebra didn't go so well, so now she's retaking that class, but she's not terribly unhappy with that as she really likes her teacher and really wants to learn the subject.

Cailin-- Okay, so, hi. Just so you know, the reason I didn't pass the Algebra 1 test is because I never finished Algebra 1. I was doing Saxon Math and it was really bad and didn't make any sense, so I switched to Aleks and with that I was kind of lazy and never finished it. I only got about half way through the course totally. So when I took the test, I didn't know all the stuff because I hadn't learned all the stuff, so I failed the test, but only by one question, which was much better than I expected.

Anyway, high school is okay. It's weird, and very different. The people are weird and very different. But the classes are good and I like all my teachers, even though I don't like all the students in the classes. Some are loud and will not be quiet. But. Still. There are a lot of good people at the high school, and I'm glad I'm there. 

She forgot to add that she auditioned for Advance Choir and got it!  yea!!

 a 

 Delaney is excited to enter 6th grade!   She will be working hard to write lots of papers this year, Grammar (First Language Lessons, Writing with Ease, Daily Grams,Spelling Plus) and math (Math Mammoth) studies will continue.  Now that she's very proficient at reading---and has become quite the book worm she and I developed a reading list that she will go through along with her own personal books of choice.

We'll all continue having fun attending history/book group with other LDS homeschool families. (Brame's, Mattson's, Walker's and new to join us the Averett's)  Well be using Story of the World and study the Medieval and Renaissance time periods.  For book group we'll be reading:  The Bronze Bow, The Little White Horse, Over Sea Under Stone, The Little Prince, Adam of the Road, Princess Academy, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, and Along Came a Dog.


This year we will continue to use Latter-day Learning for Science (Astronomy and Geology), Music Appreciation, Art Appreciation, Literature, Geography (Europe) and History (combined with group time)

 Liam's excited to really dig his teeth into learning to read better this year and math.  We'll also start studies of grammar and continue with penmanship and copy work.

I will also have the kids continue to work on memory work items.  I have them memorize Classical conversations memory work (which is history timeline, sentence, geography, science items) I'm also adding Articles of Faith for Liam ---he's now 8 and has begun his Faith in God, and poems.

I really like the Classical model of education and I've found a program written just for kiddos with special needs by Memoria Press call Simply Classical.  I will be following Level B curriculum for Brianne this year.  It too, has a focus on memory work (poems and songs) along with other preschool like studies.

This should be a great year!

Doggie Kisses

My dear friend Amber Walker cared for my children at her home while I worked on painting our family room....when Brianne walked into her home, Amber's dogs, Cricket and Ginger came to welcome everyone.  Cricket was quite jumpy and scared Brianne.  Ginger, on the other hand is much more calm and just waited for Bri to get used to her.  A few seconds went by when Ginger gave Brianne a doggie kiss.  A sweet little lick on the cheek.  That really startled Brianne and she showed great displeasure at this recent event.  That is, until everyone started cooing, "Ohhh, Bri, Ginger just gave you a doggie kiss--Oh, that's so sweet."   Amber tells me that Bri just tilted her head, as if she were thinking deeply about this, then stuck her tongue out and proceeded to give Ginger a kiss back--doggie fashion of course!