Weekly Wrap-Up

It's really wrong to start every Weekly Wrap-Up post with, "Yay!  It's Friday!!" isn't it?  I was just thinking today, though, that one good thing that homeschooling does for us stay-at-home moms is it keeps every day from being the same (okay, that's my daydream of what life as a stay-at-home NOT homeschooling mom could be like, anyway) and still gives us a busyness everyday that helps us to appreciate the slower pace of the weekends.

First off, I said I was going to use my Weekly Wrap-Up to keep me accountable on our 30 Days of Gratitude, so....we did pretty good.  There were a couple of days when we weren't home for dinner and that messed up our routine.  We tried to get caught up, but were weren't consistent with adding to our tree every day, though.  Of course, according to the Reader's Digest article, people who updated their journals (or trees, in this case) once or twice a week were more consistent and saw a more positive result than those who updated every day.  We'll see.

One of our most heartfelt, exciting additions to our gratitude tree wasn't related to our family at all:

Well it's not related to our family other than the fact that we've been praying for Stellan for months and, after reading this post, we were ecstatic to read about his "outta the park, grand-slam home run"!  I love when God lets us see His miracles.

We're learning about Columbus in history, which has been a fun change of pace from what we were doing.  We've really enjoyed using this wonderful map that a friend gave me a few years ago:

It's a map of all kinds of different explorers and their routes.  I've been saving it for when we studied the explorers again.  I got it laminated to protect it from constant use.  It's right up Josh's alley; he loves maps!

We've also started Christian Kids Explore Chemistry.  I've got some fun ideas lined up for as we get further into our Chemistry study, but they're for later.  The most fun we had this week was an impromptu science lesson in the kitchen.  Doesn't it always seem to work out that way?  We were reading The Magic School Bus Gets Baked in a Cake and it talked about baking soda and vinegar.  Josh and Brianna remembered mixing the two when we made our own volcanoes years ago, but Megan didn't.  So, hey, why not?


We pulled out our chemistry set, courtesy of Chick-Fil-A's awesome kids' meals and got to work.  First, we added some baking soda to our graduated cylinder.  Then, we measured some vinegar in our beaker and added some food coloring for fun.

 

 

The kids loved it!  As we went back to reading the book, we discovered another experiment -- adding a balloon to catch the gas produced.  I just so happened to have some balloons, so we did that one, too.  (I got smart and added some newspaper under the graduated cylinder the second time.)

 

 
Remember how last week we had that beautiful day for going to the nature center, but none of us was in the mood to go?  We should have gone.  It poured down rain all day -- literally -- on Tuesday this week, so, even though it cleared off by Wednesday, the nature center was sure to be a giant mud pit.  We didn't get to go again this week.

We used the extra time to run some errands, which proved to be an exercise in frustration.  Yes, I knew it was Veterans' Day.  However, the fact that there were several veterans in Chick-Fil-A enjoying a  free lunch and the bank was closed didn't tip me off that the post office would be, too.  And, it never once entered my mind that the little place we went to pick up some last minute souvenirs to finish off a package destined for France (for the family who sent us goodies for Around the World Day) would be closed, too.  *sigh*  So, we ran the errands, but we didn't get much done.

I had to run to the store Thursday to pick up a couple of things I forgot, and I couldn't resist these for Brianna and I:

They made me laugh.  I am so incredibly excited about the premiere of New Moon next week!!!

My big moment of personal excitement this week was finding out that my blog was nominated in four different categories for the Homeschool Blog Awards.  It's a complete honor to be nominated again this year.  If you haven't voted yet, I'd love, love, love to have your vote.  I'm nominated for Best Eclectic Blog (for which I'd love your vote since I might actually still have a shot in that category...amazing with the huge number of wonderful blogs represented), Best Unschooling Blog, Best Cyber-Buddy, and Best Current Events, Opinions or Politics Blog.

Now, I'm going to rush off of here and go enjoy a date with my husband -- except I think it's actually going to be a date with my husband and older daughter since her plans for the night kind of fell through.  Not the same as just the two of us, but still quieter and more relaxing than all five of us.  If you find any typos in the Wrap-Up, it's because I'm in a hurry to get started on my date.  I'll clean everything up tomorrow.  Enjoy your weekend!

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