the black hills: day eight.

on our last day in south dakota, we laid low at the house for the most part in an attempt to recharge for the long trip home, and to give me a chance to do laundry, pack, etc.

laur spent time enjoying the view.  you guys, that is todd's parents' back yard.  the fence is there to keep the horse contained.  yeah, for real.  i know.

then laur hitched a ride with her brother on the gator.

she was thrilled when it was finneas' turn to ride in the front and hers to ride in the back.

also?  finneas started crying about something, too.  because in a large family, someone is always crying about something.  it's the law.

he eventually calmed down and the brothers v.v. rode around together for a bit.  cruising the loop.  you know.

lolo eventually made her way to the front yard, where she was enamored with the 'beebee! right dare!  beebee! daddy, beebee!'

later, after laurelai and i went inside, the bigger kids took full advantage of their papa tony's willingness to drive them around on pretty much every vehicle he owns.  they tried out the four-wheeler, the bobcat, the spider and the motorcycle.  they were not disappointed.

the kids got a new bug catcher from grandma jacqi, which penelope loved.  she is my nature-y kid, the one that always manages to find the tiniest, most unusual insects, or the most intricate leaves.  the bug catcher was right up her alley; she even decorated the inside and left a note for the bugs, which read: 'i love you bugs.  get in.'  which then kind of made the whole activity feel a bit sinister - it was like she was a predator and the bug catcher was her metaphorical windowless van with an ice cream cone painted on the side.

also?  penelope took a photo of todd.  he was pretty okay with it.

once the kids ate lunch, and after the little two went down for naps, todd changed into a shirt with its original sleeves intact.  then he and i ducked out for a bit to try a local burger place that serves some of the nation's best burgers, according to whatever experts decide that kind of thing.  and i must say, we were not disappointed.   (plus, they had really, really tasty gluten-free buns!) oh my word, y'all, if the photo of my in-laws' back yard didn't make you want to visit the black hills like rightthisverysecond, this burger place ought to light a fire under your butt.  GO THERE.  EAT AT THIS PLACE.  NAME YOUR FIRSTBORN AFTER ME.  you're that welcome.

when we got home, todd spent some time playing in the hot tub with the kids.

finneas, especially, just loved it.

laurelai, especially, did not.

and after that long, fun day, the kids curled up next to the fireplace in front of the TV.  and that, in my opinion, is a pretty appropriate ending to a pretty epic day.

'what's up' weekly.

this was a super weird week.  first of all, the biggest two were down at my parents' house for the whole week, which made some things easier (namely, dishes and laundry) and other things much harder, which i wasn't expecting.  i realized i rely on the bigs a lot to help entertain, care for and occupy the little two, as well as depend on their genuine help around the house. (oh, the glory of having children over the age of five! it's a whole new ball game.)  finneas kept asking when they would be back - we all really missed them.

when asked what face they will make when the big kids come home tomorrow, the little kids responded thusly:

my face will probably be similar in my own excitement to see them, however, i will say that getting to focus double-attention on these adorable faces this week wasn't the worst thing in the world.

i also spent the week still battling, and ultimately grieving the loss of, our water heater.  we were without truly hot water (anything above room temperature) for eight days.  i boiled big pots of water to dump into the washing machine for hot water loads, and for the kids' baths and sinks of dishes.  for my own showers, i utilized a regimen of avoidance, military speed when necessary, and crying a lot.  when we finally got the new one installed yesterday, i took an unreasonably long, unreasonably hot (read: molten lava) bath and i don't regret a second of it.

on tuesday, the littles and i drove to cedar rapids to visit a friend.  i've been feeling really overwhelmed lately at the thought of going from having four kids to having five.  it just feels...different, somehow.  it's a different kind of family.  not to mention, we've 'sized out' of most local families we know - in our church of ~700, there is one family with five kids.  no families with more than five.  we're basically renegades.  and that gets lonely and scary pretty darn quick.  so a jaunt to karlee's to visit her and her five-going-on-six kids was super fun and refreshing.  although laurelai peed on her carpet, so i'm not sure karlee would say the same about our time there.

wednesday, we had a friend come to our house with her two boys, the elder of whom is nearly exactly finneas' age.  it was so fun to see how well they played, and it gave finneas a chance to make a friend without having to compete for attention with the bigger kids.  he had a blast.

yesterday, i had an OB appointment.  everything seems to be going well, other than the fact that i'm clearly developing the dreaded affliction, Pregnant Arm.

also on this week's agenda?  snuggles.  lots of snuggles.  best. week. ever.

video vednesday: we're all sensitive people.

this sweatshirted giraffe is so smooth.

the black hills: day seven.

yeah, yeah, yeah.  i'm still posting vacation pictures over a month out from the actual vacation.  we had a blast, our kids are cute, i don't see the problem here.

on our seventh day in the black hills, we visited mt. rushmore and  jewel cave (kind of).

first stop: mt. rushmore.  we've been there every time we've gone to visit todd's parents, so it was a bit 'old news' for us, and we didn't go through the museum-y part with the video and stuff.  but atticus had been talking since last summer about going back to the mt. rushmore gift shop so he could get some polished rocks he'd seen on our last visit, but had been foolish enough to pass up in favor of a toy semi.  plus, you know i love to take any opportunity i can to ogle abraham lincoln.  also, as i tried to make this trip a bit 'educational' to assuage my conscience regarding last year's homeschooling debacle, and mt. rushmore is one of the few south dakota claims-to-fame for which interesting children's books are available, we needed to go.  there was no down-side.  so we went.

everyone looks like they're aware they're in a win-win situation.

after mt. rushmore (or, as i like to call it, The Rush, because of both its name and the fact that it's such a thrill ride), we ate at the widely-acclaimed Purple Pie Place for lunch.  i ordered a caesar salad with chicken, because i was pretending that i wasn't about to take a brick of their famous fudge home with me and eat it in a single serving.  i think the waitress was duly fooled.  

is anyone else out there DYING to grafitti an "ED" on the end of 'old fashion,' or am i the only member of the 'uptight wordage-police vandalism brigade?'

laur and finn drove us home and promptly conked out for nap.  driving in crazy tourist traffic exhausted them.

during the little kids' naptime, todd and i thought it would be fun to take the big kids on a tour of nearby Jewel Cave, a huge cave system with all kinds of mineral deposits on the walls and ceilings that glitter and shine and theoretically make me want to hug a cave.  however, when we got there, all the cave tours were booked for the rest of the day, so we hiked a trail around the area.  it was no cave-of-glitter, but it was pretty in a glitterless-trees-and-some-other-unshiny-nature-stuff kind of way.  i guess.

and that was our black hills thursday!

yet another instance in which i compare myself to kim kardashian.

a little over a week ago, we headed to my mom's for the day to see my aunt, uncle, and cousins, who were visiting from california.  the 2.5-hour car ride was the first time laurelai had left the house in nearly two weeks because she's been potty training.  partway through the drive, she started crying and acting really uncomfortable, so we pulled off a dead exit and pulled out the potty seat. 

a state trooper saw us and thought we were in need of help, so he stopped to check on us and suddenly a simple potty break had a police escort.

once we got to my mom's, the kids ate lunch and then hopped right in the pool.  atticus was especially enthusiastic in his hopping.

my sister's boyfriend is a photographer, and he brought this beast to the cookout.  a police escort and paparazzi in the same day?  i felt like an especially curvy kim kardashian, although i'm currently shaped less like an hourglass and more like a chicken-in-a-biscuit cracker.

here's how the van voorst-chorpening-kofoed-page-scott clan likes to party.  (it's hearty, for those who are unclear.  we like to party hearty.)

penelope ended the afternoon by helping my mom make whipped cream for the strawberry pie.

and, since it was just a day-trip, we headed home after that. it was such a fun day!

the weekly 'what's up.'

 this week's biggest news was starting back into the routine of the school year.  the kids did so great.  the big kids settled right in without issue.  the little kids are still adjusting to their 45-minute blanket/pack and play time in the morning, but it went better this week than it has the past couple of weeks.  school took much less time in the mornings than i had planned, so they all still have a lot of free time to roam/get in fights, which seem to be their favorite pastimes, so we all win.  kind of.

 please ignore the 9 a.m. photos on the east side of the house.  i swear my kids really do have eyeballs in there behind their squinty looks.  my bad.

laurelai is still the biggest potty time champ of all time.  she's doing really, really well.

the girls helped me get ready for our popcorn party/family movie night.

and finneas continued his warrior training.  how big is he getting?!

and how big am i getting?!  well, not that big yet, as far as pregnancies go - i still have an entire trimester to go, after all - but i am feeling big.  and tired.  and pretty incapable of most simple physical activities that don't involve laying on the couch.  what a nice way to bookend the pregnancy - i'm right back where i started on this journey. 

aaaaaand... our water heater stopped working.  don't they say bad things happen in groups of threes (or, in our case, one millions) or something?  that really has seemed to be true for us lately.  i mean, in the last two months, it's been everything from our toilet, to our kitchen faucet, to our mower, to our living room window, to our leaking water main, to our van doors, to our laptop, and now to our water heater.  today i did a mental inventory of all the high-cost items in our house that haven't broken down yet that probably will here pretty soon:  our air conditioner, our kitchen appliances, etc.  i'm not jinxing anything, i'm just being a realist.

in all seriousness, though, this latest issue broke me for a bit.  i'm just getting a bit beaten down by the constant repairs and constant expenses.  luckily, the water heater issue appears to have been fixed (although the plumber said there's a possibility that, if yesterday's efforts didn't entirely fix the problem, it should become apparent in the next week or so and he might have to come back, so i'm still on high alert).  just, ugh, you guys.  it's hard being a grown up sometimes.

but anyway.  enough bellyaching.  god truly has been really awesome to provide everything we've needed to handle each problem/issue/cost that's come our way lately, sometimes in miraculous and mindblowing ways, so i have no reason to complain.  not on rex manning day!  i mean, friday.

and on that note, here is this classic ridiculousness.  happy friday!

Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon - Friday by RofV

our homeschool curriculum.

time for some more school talk!  let's talk curriculum, shall we?

i use a charlotte mason approach, which probably means nothing to you if you don't have much experience with homeschool jargon.  it's obviously more nuanced than this, but the main jist of it is that there is a lot of emphasis on nature study/time outdoors, as well as learning from classic, 'living' books rather than textbooks.  it's kind of like... a hands-on classical education, if 'classical education' isn't too jargony as well.

so anyway, we basically just buy a bunch of great books and learn from those.  i like this for a variety of reasons:  the language exposure, even at a young age, is stellar (i'm reading aloud the original pilgrim's progress to the kids this year, for instance), the books themselves are time-tested, and as a teacher, i get genuinely interested in the material, even at the kindergarten/first-grade level.  plus, when everything is said and done, i have a bookshelf full of actual books and not just rando first grade social studies textbooks or whatever that no one will read ever again.

how do i choose the books?  i cheat and let ambleside online do it for me.  it's a free resource that puts together, by year, a pretty full-spectrum curriculum, as well as a schedule for everything.  i just go through the list of books for each year, which covers subjects like history, science, poetry, geography, etc., and order everything from amazon.  easy peasy.

i do have to buy a couple of specific curriculum items outside of the ambleside stuff - namely, math, reading instruction, and handwriting.  (i tried to do handwriting with free stuff i found on pinterest last year, and it was a dismal failure.  i'm pretty sure my kids' native handwriting language is 'indecipherable petroglyph.'  so i spent money on an actual workbook for each of them this year.)  this is what we're using:

'math-u-see' is our math curriculum of choice.  the name is not exactly the most creative thing i've ever encountered, although it is accurate.  it uses a lot of manipulatives to teach the concepts.  so far, it's worked well for us, and the kids really enjoy math time since they get to 'play' with blocks.

'a reason for handwriting' is our handwriting curriculum.  yes, that's a cartoon jesus on the cover, and yes, that was a little difficult for me to process without making a ton of sarcastic comments about the state of christian culture, but i reined it in as best i could because like that each week they're practicing copywork using scripture verses.

'teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons' is also pretty accurately titled.  i've taught both kids to read with this approach, and there are 100 lessons in there.  it delivers on its claims.  the kids are each on a 90-something lesson, so after we're done with this book, we'll move on to using pathway readers.  this is the reading curriculum used in amish parochial schools, so there are lots of stories in there about horse auctions.  you know i love that.

and here's how i keep it all organized for my purposes:

here's how i keep it all organized for the kids' purposes:

each kid has a folder for each school day of the week, so i will fill all the folders at the beginning of the week with their math and handwriting worksheets.  then they can just pull out the day's folder and hopefully become a bit more independent in completing their work than they were last year.

and there's a basic rundown of what we use and how we use it!

video vednesday: good for illiterates!

alright, alright, alright. 

come snoop around our school!

today i thought i'd give you a little tour of our school area.  i know i did this last year, but i've been seeing a lot of pinterest crap floating around about 'dream homeschool rooms' and the like, and frankly, i'm getting fed up.  the amount of space it appears homeschool requires, to accommodate all the stuff it appears homeschool requires, is a bit misleading.  it does not have to be as involved - or as expensive - as pinterest feels the need to make it seem.  so, as an antidote to the craziness out there, here is the extent of our simple homeschool space.

we school at the dining room table, next to these shelves:

on the top shelf, the only thing that is not there for purely aesthetic purposes is the jar of clothespins, which i use for adding jobs to the kids clothespin chore charts.  (the schefflera plant is barely there for aesthetic purposes, as it is hanging on for dear life and pretty consumptive-looking.  it has spent the summer outside in an effort to give it the prairie cure, and will head back out there again as soon as i finish blogging.)

the second shelf houses pencils, my morning devotional stuff (bible, commentary, notebook), and the books and notebooks we're using for these next six weeks.  i have a bookshelf upstairs where i keep last year's books, as well as books i ordered for later in the year - we only keep on hand down here what we're using now.

that third shelf there is full of a bunch of randos - art supply box with my planner and homeschool binder on top, a basket full of labels and stickers and a stapler, a basket full of our math manipulatives, and the kids' in-progress embroidery projects.

the bottom shelf is home to a basket with extra supplies*, our handicrafts supply bucket, my ever-loving sharpies, the kids' bibles.

*extra index cards, post its, memory work box, flash cards, grown up watercolors, a photo album of this year's works of art for art study, a pencil sharpener.

then, on the other side of the table, i have this cabinet.  the top, again, is purely decorative. (although that basket inside is filled with half-burned candles and an inordinate number of grill lighters, so that's kind of functional, right?)

the left drawer holds all my grown-up school supplies:  fun-colored gel pens and felt-tipped pens, post its and note pads, index cards, sticker charts, my cleaning card box, blank note cards, and the roll of tape that i hide from the kids.  (they have free reign of about 20 rolls elsewhere, but they thoroughly indulge their tape habit, so i never know if there's actually any tape on any of the rolls.  i needed one to call my own.)

the other drawer holds crayons, and five seasons of friends, and that's all.  i like to call it the party drawer.

underneath, i have a milk crate for filing worksheets (i had our math and handwriting workbooks unbound at staples this year, so i could just pull out the few sheets i needed every day), extra supplies like notebooks and construction paper, and flash cards.  then i have a box of paint because i like to pretend we'll use them someday.  (that 'noodles' can on top is home to my glue gun, for no reason that i can justify.)  then on the bottom shelf is The World's Worst Printer, Which I Hate; the kids' give/save/spend jars; and our various papers.

and that is it.  a book shelf and half a cabinet.  and that's all we need!  easy, not-ugly, not huge, manageably  expensive.  this little minion agrees that that, friends, is a winning combination.

now, off to actually use this stuff.

school's about to get schooled.

yeah, yeah.  it's the first week of august and we're starting school today.  we're total bummers, and that's just an objective fact.  but i really do have a few compelling reasons for starting so early:

1.  i'm trying a six-weeks-on/one-week-off schedule this year to see if i can't have a bit more stick-to-it-iveness when it comes to being disciplined about school.  six weeks is an easier chunk to bite off than twelve, which is how long our terms were last year.  at that rate, starting now will allow us to finish in late may, if we include a few longer breaks around christmas and after the baby comes.

2.  speaking of which, we're expecting to have a newborn show up in our midst in early november, which will leave us reeling, followed closely by thanksgiving, followed closely by christmas, and - blammo - before you know it, it will be january and i'll be all WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!  i'm trying to give myself a bit of a cushion for that.

3.  it's summertime, which means that everyone is getting a little burnt out on the lack of structure, and i'm just trying to avoid an incident where one of the kids eats another of the kids (which is likely, the way they've been fighting constantly), and i just go, 'well, at least that's one less to bathe.'  because we're getting really close to that point.  so let's just kill it before it dies and start school already.

so, all that being said, we're starting today, whether you approve of it or not.  so i thought i'd take this week on the blog to give you a glimpse into our homeschool space, our curriculum, and anything else school-related that comes to mind.  sound good?  okay!  see you in class tomorrow!