Wait, you usually save the last couple weeks before school starts for lesson planning? Yeah, me too.
Apparently I'm experiencing a lethal combination of second-trimester nesting and pre-school organizational craziness.
So I'm pre-reading and note-taking at night and spending the day pushing furniture from room to room, organizing nine people's worth of clothing, and attempting to carve out some functional downstairs learning spaces. Oh, and type up lesson plans! Right.
Needless to say, it's been a busy week. I do anticipate getting back here with some meatier stuff soon, but I won't make any promises until next month. (When I'm also planning to clean out the garage.)
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Quick note about Keeping Company on Instagram: I just realized last week that for your photos to show up when I search the #KeepingCompanyCM tag, you need to either have your profile set to public or I need to be following you. So if you have been sharing but your account is set to private, people (including me!) can't see the shared photos unless they are followers.
The easiest way to fix this is to make your account public. I know lots of people prefer not to do that, of course, so another option would be to make sure I'm a follower. Then at least I'll see it, even if others in the community won't--and I really would like to! If you've been tagging photos and you're not sure if I'm following your account, leave a note here in the comments with your username and I'll be sure to request an add. :)
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One of my priorities this summer has been to teach my oldest three some basic cooking skills. My main goal is to get them proficient at breakfasts and lunches by the time the new baby arrives this fall. We've done a few of our standard breakfasts for my kids to rotate through over the course of a week (oatmeal with fruit, oatmeal bars, sandwiches, yogurt with fruit, wraps), and I'm now adding in some of our non-breakfast family favorites: cornbread, crustless quiche, fruit crisp.
My next step is to move on to some easy lunch and dinner ideas, so I asked for pasta salad recipes over on Facebook and got lots of good suggestions. I'm thinking I can boil the pasta and then they can take over from there with the measuring, mixing, and serving. Pasta salad is forgiving, portable, and perfect for the hot weather.
I'd like to try out one per week over the rest of the summer until we have a repertoire of winning combinations. (And if I get my act together, I will try to post that week's salad either on Instagram or the Joyous Lessons Facebook page--haven't decided which yet.)
If you have any recipe suggestions, I'd love to hear them!
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It's a BOY! I'm excited for a baby brother for Drew, and my Type-A personality loves having an even split (four girls and four boys). And, to get into even greater detail, my eight will continue to split evenly into groups: right now we have the "big girls" (8 and 6), the "baby girls" (3 and 2), and the "big boys" (9 and 5). Now Drew will join baby brother to be the "baby boys." Very convenient!
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Dawn at Mud to Meteors had one of her wonderful Nova Scotia beachcombing posts up recently and we had a little chat about crabs, which I wrote about last week. Thanks to her, I updated my post to reflect that one of the crabs we found was just an exoskeleton from a molt and to share a video of a spider crab molting that she alerted me to. Click back over for the link to that last one--it is truly amazing!
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In the last couple months, 2yo Clara has started using "you" more often, rather than just talking in the third person. But she says it "oo": "Oo give me my milk peez?" "I wanna sit with OO!"
What are the favorite things your kids have mis-said? We have had so many over the years and it so sad every time they give it up.
I just remembered that Xavier used to call tater tots "teeter-totters"--and even better, he couldn't pronounce his r's. He hasn't said it that way in ages... Sniff.
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Back on Friday with more {Nature Study at the Beach}! See you then.
What are the favorite things your kids have mis-said? We have had so many over the years and it so sad every time they give it up.
I just remembered that Xavier used to call tater tots "teeter-totters"--and even better, he couldn't pronounce his r's. He hasn't said it that way in ages... Sniff.
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Back on Friday with more {Nature Study at the Beach}! See you then.
Congrats on another boy!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteUntil the last year or so, my Ella, my 4th, had a SERIOUS Boston or out east accent. It was SO cute! She is my most famous for funny things said...ham burgalers being one...just so sweet! So what are your terms? And why do you do them this way? Maybe you have mentioned it before. So exciting about your 4 boys and 4 girls. We have 3 and 3 so far. :)
ReplyDeleteHahaha. Gianna used to say certain words with a Texan twang as a toddler. I have no idea where she picked it up, but it was the cutest.
DeleteFor the past couple years, our terms have been roughly July-September, October-January, January-March. I started that because I had a baby due at the end of September that year and wanted to get a term in before taking what I thought would be an extended baby break. But then we didn't need much time off (maybe a couple weeks), so we finished in the early spring, and I loved being done "early." I also loved feeling like I had plenty of margin all year in case we *did* need to take some time off. So we did the same thing the following year and have run on the same calendar since. :) This time I have a baby due November 1st, so I imagine we'll get in a term and a half, and then we'll see how it goes!
Makes total sense! Thanks for sharing! :)
DeleteCongratulations on adding another boy to the Cruz crew Celeste!
ReplyDeleteI love those mispronounced words. Weve recently had a comeback of one actually after a conversation I had with my youngest in which I told him that for brother he used to say "buhbo". It's cute to hear him call out for his buhbo once again.
Thanks, Dawn! My kids have always called their oldest brother "Buddy"--not sure when it started, but they still use the nickname. It's sweet. :)
DeleteI do believe your This and That posts are my favorites! My two year old says, "uppy down" when he wants to be picked up. He calls his toy pick up truck a "hiccup truck." In his cute little two year old voice of course. How fast they grow up. I'm so glad y'all are going to have the blessing of another little guy.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Virginia Lee! It's funny because my kids do the opposite: they call hiccups "pickups." :)
DeleteCongrats on another boy! :) I just love the cute things our kids say. My oldest calls avocados "otto-pacados." :)
ReplyDeleteHehe--so sweet. :)
DeleteI love all the symmetry in your family, that's a lot of fun to see those patterns and groupings. Justin, our three (almost 4!) year old is great at those little malapropisms and mispronunciations... but I'm terrible at remembering them. I do try to note a few now and again and share them on my little family pictures blog because I know I'll love to look back at them as the kids get older.
ReplyDeleteYou are definitely making the most of that second trimester burst of energy, aren't you! It sounds wonderful, I'm sure you'll be so glad you put in all that sorting and reorganizing when fall comes. Not to mention sooner, of course! :-)
I am terrible at remembering them too! I try to keep notes abotu each child in a file, but I only get around to updating it every few months. I guess it's better than nothing! :/
DeleteYes, it is so nice to start lessons with a clean slate. We are already enjoying the extra office space and the bedroom transition went *much* easier than expected (we put the boys in their own room along with Drew, and I wasn't sure how he would do with roommates ;)).