Catching Up

It seems that my extra time is very limited since school started... for some reason!!  I had some great advice given to me that when the kids are resting or having their "quiet time" that I choose to do something for me, not working!  I have found out how hard that is to do since a lot of times I want to clean or get caught up on house work or lawn work that I think has been getting neglected not to mention the added work that our addition has brought. Taking a quiet time for myself and resting my brain and body has been essential, though, in getting through these first weeks of homeschooling!!  

How has it been going?  Definitely crazy at first but I finally feel we are getting into a routine now and just me getting to know the books and how things works has increased my confidence very much!!  At first, I was spending every evening after school was done getting ready for the next day.  This week I was able to go through everything for E and C for the whole week and gather materials and label them for each day which has been such a great time saver!!  
Last Friday was Cade's birthday and it was one year I could have easily forgotten (that's how scatter-brained I have felt)!!  Friday is my mowing / lawn day still so I had the kids set up to do their work with minimal help from Katreese and my help for attendance every so often so I could actually get some work done outside!!  Around 3:30 in the afternoon Treva came home from school with her friend, Jada, who stayed the weekend.  I had just showered since I had been weed eating and mowing all morning (no help from my kiddos) and I had to finish up with E and C with schooling and still needed to bake a cake for Cade.  Treva and Jada volunteered to make the cake (thankfully) and so they had the dry ingredients together and butter in it and I was helping E finish up when our power went out!!  Thanks to the Happy Camp fire still burning, it had reached the power substation in Scott Bar and we were without power until almost noon on Saturday!!!  

Friday Bella and Bear were also playing in the lawn together, rolling around being kids and Bella hurt his arm some how.  She said her hand fell on his arm. He cried like it hurt pretty badly and I was thinking, "Oh, great, here we go again!"  On Saturday he was using it without much problem but on Sunday I noticed that his right arm was swollen compared to his left so on Monday I made an appointment to have it x-rayed!!  Much to our relief, the x-ray did not show anything broke on Tuesday but it was still swollen and actually still is today.....  We are trying to keep his rough-housing to a minimum and watching it so if it is still swollen we will take him back in.  There is a chance that there is a small crack that is not showing up on the x-rays!!

So, add in some extra challenges with power outages and extra people in and out still finishing up our addition with the challenges of life and there you have it!!!!

Bella busy at work

our new school area (we have added some more updates to it since this pict)

one clear day and perfect pict of the Happy Camp Complex fire (taken over a week ago)

Cade finally got his birthday cake Saturday evening!  I think he thought is was worth the wait!

Bella doing her science experiment on the floor.  Katreese in the back doing work / play