A Story by Susie
Jul 5th, 2019 by ECM
Penguins Win the Championship!
Jun 28th, 2019 by ECM
I was going back over pictures and realized that I never posted pictures from after Tommy’s championship-winning game! The Penguins worked so hard and had a lot of fun this season–we’ll definitely be back for fall roller hockey!
Berry Picking in Somis
Jun 27th, 2019 by ECM
I realized with a start the other day that we hadn’t done our annual blueberry picking trip to Underwood Farms! So I emailed Olivia on Monday to see if her girls were in, and when we were hanging out in Santa Barbara with our CVH buddies, I convinced them to join us, too! We picked four pints of blueberries, one of blackberries, and four of strawberries. Then we came home, and Elizabeth and I made strawberry-rhubarb pie and blueberry-apple crisp for dessert. Yum.
Butterflies in Santa Barbara
Jun 26th, 2019 by ECM
This week has been all about the totally last minute field trips with friends. Yesterday, we were supposed to go to a homeschool beach day, but it was 60, overcast, and drizzly–not ideal beach weather. So at 10 am, Jessica, Lynn, and I all decided to drive up to Santa Barbara, instead! The Butterflies Alive! exhibit at the Natural History Museum was open, and we had so much fun with butterflies landing on all of us! Susie’s floral jacket was the most attractive to the butterflies, by far. Lizzie borrowed my phone and took tons of pictures of all the different varieties there. And we had fun in the other exhibits, too, even the twelve year olds, who managed to build earthquake-proof towers.
Chapter Books We Read This Year (2018-2019)
Jun 24th, 2019 by ECM
Last school year, we managed 37 read-alouds together. This year, with only 25 books, was not the epic read-aloud year that I had hoped for, mostly because of Annie! It’s hard to read together with her around, so we had to wait and only do it when she was napping. She and I were gone 2-3 times a week for appointments, cutting even more into our family reading time. Daddy did a lot more reading picture books to her and the big kids, which is great, but harder to keep track of. Derek and I are also doing one-on-one read-alouds with some of the kids, but those don’t count for family reading purposes. We still did a lot of audiobooks in the car (marked with an *), and the girls listened to all of the original 19 Boxcar Children books and the complete works of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Louisa May Alcott, repeatedly, at bedtime. We’re getting to the stage where the big three are all such fast readers that a lot of our school novels were just easier to hand off to each of them to read on their own than to read aloud or listen to together. But hopefully as Annie gets more tolerant of listening to chapter books without “helping” me turn the pages, we’ll get to read aloud together more again this coming school year.
A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl’s Journal 1830-1832
The Adventures of Reddy Fox*
The Great Turkey Walk
Rabbit Hill*
The Wind in the Willows *
Frederick Douglass: Young Defender of Human Rights
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
Justin Morgan Had a Horse*
Little House in the Big Woods
The Yearling*
The Swiss Family Robinson*
My Side of the Mountain*
Sarah, Plain and Tall*
Skylark*
Caleb’s Story*
Rascal*
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland*
The Good Master
Esperanza Rising*
The Singing Tree
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry*
Treasure Island*
Sweet Home Alaska
Minn of the Mississippi
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm*
Need to finish: By Secret Railway, The Burgess Animal Book, and Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers
Yummy Kale Chips
Jun 13th, 2019 by ECM
It took having a child who does not share my DNA to find someone in this house who thinks kale chips are yummy. But boy, does Annie think kale chips are yummy! Forget about yummy taco meat and yummy club crackers and yummy mac and cheese–all this girl wants to eat orally are yummy kale chips.
CVH’s End of Year Toga Party!
Jun 4th, 2019 by ECM
Conejo Valley Homeschoolers has been a blessing to us this year–Tuesday park days (though we haven’t made many since getting Annie) where the kids play and I’ve picked up hundreds of dollars of free used curriculum and talk to other homeschool moms, Wednesday morning classes (most recently, industrial design for Tommy, Zoology for Elizabeth and Susanna, and hand sewing for Elizabeth and Janie), and Thursday field trips (most recently, a dogs exhibit at the CA Science Center). We’ve made lots of new friends, and I feel like the kids are still getting the full, rich homeschool experience, even though I’ve been failing in the fun activities and field trips department myself of late. (Having a toddler with a g-tube who naps just complicates everything!) Today was the big end-of-the-school-year bash, hosted in the Salvation Army camp just up the canyon from us. If you see a hundred people of all ages dressed in togas, it must be a homeschool group, right?
Every activity earned Caesar bucks. Centurions roamed to tax participants, who had to go to the theater to work off their debts if they didn’t have enough money. When the girls realized that their favorite Shakespeare Kids teachers from past CVH classes were the ones running the shows, they voluntarily put themselves in debt for the next two hours. Janie did some bead mosaics and watched two or three productions (one of which starred Elizabeth as Minerva and Susie as Venus!) before getting bold enough to join into the chorus for the last show before dinner. Tommy ran around, playing Olympic games, avoiding the centurions, and generally getting into mischief with his buddies. Dinner in the dining hall was spaghetti and Caesar salad, of course, before we had a dance party, Caesar Says, Roman trivia, and a huge tug-of-war where Elizabeth and Janie’s side, “The Winners,” defeated Tommy and Janie’s side, “Caesar Salad.” We never made it over to the photo booth for a picture before togas starting coming off, though, so we’ll have to re-enact it next year when we go back to studying the ancients again.
We came home tired but happy! Who says homeschoolers aren’t socialized?!
Go Penguins!
Jun 2nd, 2019 by ECM
I mentioned that Tommy’s hockey team made it to the championship game! I don’t take pictures of hockey games because I’m chasing four girls around the park at the same time, but his coach sent us all a couple pictures from the play off that they won yesterday. They’re facing a tough team this coming Saturday for the championship, but we’re so proud of how far Tommy (in the blue helmet) has come this season! Regardless of how they place at the end of the season, Tommy has caught the roller hockey bug and wants to play again in the fall.
Walking with the New Walker
Jun 1st, 2019 by ECM
This week, Annie’s wonderful physical therapist, DNA, lent us her reverse walker for us to try out. Annie LOVES it! She doesn’t have to hunch over like she does when she’s pushing a walker/stroller/shopping cart, and it’s sturdy enough that she feels really safe. We took it to Tommy’s hockey game, where Annie spent half the time walking all over the park! She wore herself out so much that she spent the latter half of Tommy’s playoff game (which the Penguins won!) begging, “Go carseat. Go home. Naptime. All done Tommy hockey game?” We managed to keep her awake until home, when she collapsed in her crib and has been sleeping hard ever since!
Annie’s First Dodgers Game
May 29th, 2019 by ECM
We coordinated with the Andersons to watch the Dodgers on dollar dodger dogs night. Because why wrangle just five kids when you could have nine in a row, with hot dog buying parents in the middle of the chaos?
Annie didn’t care about the action on the field, but she clapped along at the good plays, bopped to the music, and shouted, “Wet’s go, Dodgers!” with lots of excitement. I also forgot to bring along formula, so she actually ate several pieces of Billy’s leftover bun–the most solid food she has consumed in ages.