Part of our homeschooling...

Today, Todd found this little girl (the boys think she's a girl) in the bathroom. They had a lot of fun playing with her, putting her on me, dropping her, catching her. Poor thing was probably so tired!

Little baby girl, Lizzy...

I think part of the appeal was getting out of writing their spelling words and practicing cursive writing. ;-) They played with Lizzy for  hours. I told them they could keep her until lunch unless they could figure out what she eats. They caught a bunch of ants and put them in MY FREEZER!!! They figured they'd go into hibernation and be fresh meat for Lizzy when thawed. Franklin looked up how to care for an anole after he finished his school work and let her go. :( He figured she was a little much to take care of. We didn't have much of what we needed to care for her. Starting with a 85 to 95 degree environment... She was fun while she was here though. They let her go out front. Maybe we'll see her again?

Investment house status

We started painting this weekend! Still have a bit to do but we're making progress. We're painting it almost the exactly same color and it's sort of hard to tell where we've stopped or started. The main difference is that it's CLEAN!

This wall is half painted, can you tell which half?

Did I mention that it looks like they liked to play darts in the upstairs rooms? Without a dart board! We filled in most of those holes. :)

Franklin LOVED helping out. Patch stayed home w/ Jan who we couldn't have done without. She was awesome the way she fed us every time we came home. Thank you Jan!!

Todd and Pat worked awful hard too. Thank you guys for doing all this work! It looks sooooo much better already!

Before..............                                                           After...

It's a little later in the day but the  first picture is honestly YUCKY! The second pic looks so clean. :)

Let's hope my muscles will help me get out of bed in the morning!

Week One!

We have our first week of homeschooling behind us this year! :)

The boys didn't seem to object too much but they're counting down the hours until they can get on the computer at 3. Patch got a B on his first spelling test and Franklin got all of his right! WooHOO! I'm impressed with both of them. Patch was a little sad about the B - maybe that just means he'll try harder next week? I still forgot to get back to school pics of the boys. I will do that soon though!

This weekend is painting at the rental house. I hope we can get this ready to go soon!

Happy Friday everyone!

Camping

We really need to go camping more often. Even though we ran into some rain, it's really great to be out enjoying Mother Nature.

We were fortunate enough to join our friends Pat & Jan at their camp so we didn't have to supply or set much up. We brought food & chairs - and bug spray!! (I just got done itching from flea bites, I didn't want to add any mosquito bites!) Of course, the first (and about only) thing the boys wanted to do was go swimming. I think they got their fill of it for a little while. It was great that neither of them needs floaties to swim anymore! (Thank you cousin, Danny!)

It was  a little overcast which means I didn't get sunburned this time. YAY!

Food always seems to taste better when it's cooked (and eaten) outdoors! So, I hope you all get to enjoy some time outside soon. Tomorrow we hit the books!

School starts Monday!

This year our studies will include:

The Late Renaissance through the Early Modern time period
Chemistry
and the appropriate Reading, wRiting and aRithmatic for 3rd & 6th grades :)

Franklin really wants to learn how to draw. He has ambitions of doing Anime. And Patch is looking forward to learning how to cook - eggs are the first thing on his agenda :) We've already signed up to do some field trips and classes. I hope they enjoy school this year, I plan on it!

I guess I'll have to capture a first day of school picture on Monday. I hope they wear their good pj's. LOL

For all the *not* morning people out there.

I love boxers!!

Dad Life

I saw this video originally from one of the members of one of my debate boards. Now I'm seeing it on FB but it's worth sharing here too :)