Me & My Boy

Jamie's finished pumpkin.


My finished pumpkin.


Look! My pumpkin is crying!


Jamie's not too sure of the goopy feeling.


Me and Katie (we're twins BTW).



Jamie with his Fall wreath.

I haven't forgotten about my blog! I've just been busy the past few days. We had our first annual Boo at the Zoo at our small town park/zoo/Chamber of Commerce. Jamie dressed up as "The Thing" from Fantastic Four and had a really good time. Also, my sister Katie has come up here to visit for a week, so I've been busy hanging out with her and having a great time.:) Jamie did finish his fall wreath, and we carved pumpkins today. He had a wonderful time. I will post pictures later on. This week I have a lot going on. Tomorrow is school all day for both Jamie and I, Tuesday is my first day with my tutoring job and also Jamie's last soccer game, Wednesday is of course Halloween and all that entales, Thursday we head to Big Town with Katie to get Jamie's 5-year-old birthday pictures taken, and to hit after-Halloween sales. Friday I drive the 5-hour roundtrip to drop Katie off at the airport, and Saturday, hopefully, I can just chill!:) That's my week in a nutshell. Check back to see how it turns out.
Oh, and today was our first real day of FALL weather!!! Yay!! It was in the 60s all day and about 55 right now!

I hear that fall has arrived in some part of the country...but not quite here...yet (we're still battling 80 degree weather). Even so, I decided to do a fall craft with Jamie. We went outside and picked out a bunch of fallen leaves in various colors, acorns, red berries, and pinecones. We are going to make a wreath to hang up on his door by gluing it all to a paper plate. Fun times, fun times. I will post a picture when we're through.
I did something impressive today. I activated my online banking account AND created a new Ebay account. It consisted of 30 minutes and 3 phone calls to technical support because nothing ever wants to work correctly for me. But now, it is finished. Woot! So most people would say, what's the big deal with that? But I'm not the most computer literate person, so I'm happy with myself. I'm also happy that I won 26 BOOKS on Ebay for Jamie for $5, with only $5.50 in shipping. He loves books and I love books, and I love them even more when I get them for a good deal.:) Woot again.
That's all for now. Comment me folks!:) It makes my day.

Oh, I almost forgot. Tutor training went REALLY well. We're working with a great program and its all Language Arts based, which is my area of expertise, so to say. I get to give the kiddos a pretest on Tuesday to determine their area of weakness is and then we start tutoring on November 13th.

In a couple hours I get to go training for my new job, which is tutoring children in public elementary schools. The upside is that it pays well, and is something that interests me and that I can feel good about. The downside is that my parents are doing it also. Which means, no free babysitting. I'm petty, I know. But we had an agreement that my dad would watch Jamie for me , since he had to watch my brother anyway, and it was only for 3 hours, 3 days a week. But now he decided that he'd like a few extra bucks and that he wants to tutor also. They decided to let a woman that we know come over and watch the boys, but they agree to pay her $20 a day. that's $30 a week for me. Doesn't sound so bad until you realize that I'm only working 9 hours, so a good part of my paycheck will go to paying a babysitter, its like, what's the point? But my parents don't think about that because both of them are working, so in essence its only half the money to pay out, so its worth it for them. I hate to complain, but oh well. I can't argue with them about it, they're *always* right and there's no use to make everyone mad at me. I bet you're thinking, Hallie, go find another babysitter and don't charge as much.
#1. I live with my parents. So both boys are here. It seems stupid to have 2 different babysitters at one place.
#2. I really don't know anyone that could come do it, except maybe some college girls, but they would have to drive at least 15 miles one way to get here, and its not quite worth their gas money.

It's just frustrating is all. But I am looking foward to getting out of the house for awhile each week. I hope my parents and I get assigned to different schools, otherwise, its not much fun to get out of the house when you take the people you want to get away from - with you, lol.

Things would be so much less stressful if I had my house, I know that. But financially I can't do that right now, but hopefully with this job, I can start saving again.

So this post had nothing to do with homeschooling, sorry. Everyonce in awhile it will have to be about me. On a happy note, church was great yesterday and I got to go out to Chinese with some wonderful friends. :) Yay for that!

We took today off because I really needed to get out of the house. I love being a stay at home mom, but between homeschooling and online college, I about go stir-crazy every once in a while. So we went to the next town over, we'll call it Medium Town (we live in Small Town), to go to Wal-Mart, Dollar Tree, and Mickey D's. Jamie and I had a really nice time. I normally let him pick out a small something when we go to Wal-Mart (which is like once a month) and he picked out Camo Slippers. They're cute and he loved them. We went to Dollar Tree and I found a picture frame I liked and a Camo hat for Jamie that he thought was cool.:) Then we went to McDonalds and tried to eat as healthy as we could. Jamie really likes the fruit and yogurt parfaits, which I think is a healthy alternative to fries. I know I must sound crazy to describe a small, boring trip to Medium Town like its the highlight of our week, but it is, LOL. We used to live in Florida in a city where there were 3 Super Wal-marts, Super Targets, and a Super K-mart within a 15 mile radius, along with movie theaters, and array of parks, mall, shopping plazas, and restaurants. If I want any of that now, I need to drive 45 minutes to Big Town, where I can find all of that. But we like the laidback quietness of a small town, where everybody literally knows your name, even if the shopping isn't all that great. I've actually saved a lot of money by not having anywhere to spend it!:)
Now we're finishing the night with homemade pizza (crust and all), a movie, and some chocolate chip cookies. Yum!

Hanging out at home all day, wating for phone calls. My Nana is having gallbladder surgery today and one of my sisters is there with her, keeping the rest of us out-of-staters informed. It's supposed to be a relatively simple procedure. I hope so.

Jamie helped me bake some bread earlier. I have a sourdough starter that I feed and I make about 3 loaves a week with it. I love homemade bread, I feel healthier eating it and feeding it to Jamie, plus I know that there are no additives or preservatives in it. I use unbleached flour mixed with whole wheat. One day I hope to be able to buy a flour mill so I can grind my own flour, but for now, this is what I do. I wouldn't say that I'm a healthfood nut, but I do like to eat healthy. I like fresh fruits and vegetables, and try to stay away from red meat and pork as much as possible. Plus Jamie and I most always just drink water, 100% juice, and 2% milk.

Jamie is supposed to have a soccer game tonight, but it's raining right now. I hope it will dry up and won't be canceled, because that'll mean that we'll have to make it up in November. Well, I promised Jamie I would play a board game with him, so off I go.:)

Jamie's soccer game went well last night. He plays goalie and takes turns with another player each quarter. He's good at what he does, and I'm glad that the coach recogizes that. Jamie is NOT a runner. Well, I guess I can say, he is not a kicker, because he can run after the ball as fast as you please, but that's all. At home, we practice kicking and taking it away and shooting in the goal, but on the field he is so UNaggressive. So the goal post is where he is happiest. He helps out his team and he gets to stay put and be his normal, passive self. And I wouldn't have him any other way.
We did not win. We have yet to win a game this season, but this is not new news. We did not win during spring soccer at all (we only got one goal the whole season), and I don't expect us to win this season - we keep the same kids each season. Our team age range is 4-6 year olds and in the spring we had 9 4-year-olds, 1 5-year-old, and 1 6-year-old. We were the only team that had such young kids, and it showed. This fall they are better, but nowhere near the other teams with 6 (almost 7) year old players. But our turn will come. Next spring I think we'll have an advantage with experienced players. Only...I'm not so sure if Jamie is going to play or not come spring. I just don't think he's quite into it. T-ball will also start back in the spring, which he did this past year, and I think he likes it better. We'll see. Nothing exciting on the homeschool front today, just a regular sort of day.:)

Today I figured I would do something a litte fun for Jamie with math/numbers. Lately, we've just been practicing counting, doing workbook pages, and practcing number writing. So he LOVES finding change and putting it in his money jar (its on the top corner of the bookshelf in the picture). I'm trying to teach him about saving it so he can buy something he wants, and so far he has not spent any of it. So I came up with a "penny store" idea. I have a goody bag in my room with little prizes and candies for rewards. I took some items and made price tags that said 1c. 3c. 5c. etc. on them. Then I gave him 11 pennies and told him he could "buy" whatever he wanted, as long as he used all his money. He bought a pack of erasers for 10 cents and 1 starburst candy for 1 cent. First though he figured he could buy ALL the candy for 11 cents, but he really wanted the erasers (yeah, so he's wierd like that!) so, he was happy with the 1 starburst. Fun times. He then announced that he loved to do school. Ha! We'll see about that tomorrow.:)
On a different subject, I gave him my old Super NES a month ago with about 20 games. My brother has an Xbox, and those games are just too hard in my opinion for a 4 year old, and plus, my brother doesn't share the controller very often. Jamie realy enjoys playing the Super NES...a little too much. Its all he wants to do lately, so much so that I've gotten to the point where he's only allowed to play it as a reward, otherwise he'd become a little game zombie stuck in front of it all day. But its fun for me to replay the old Mario games that I liked so much as a kid, and Jamie thinks I'm so great because I can beat all the levels of the "hard" games, something I cannot do with the new games on Xbox and such.:)
He has a soccer game tonight at 7. He's currently fighting an asthma cough that sounds liking a barking seal, so we'll see how he's doing. Normally he plays goalie, so he doesn't have to move around so much, which means no exertion, which means less coughing.

Whoops.
I forgot to mention that I really LOVE Starfall.com. Jamie's Pre-K teacher told me about it and I use it once or twice a week to supplement Jamie's lessons. They have little songs and games for every letter and sound, and even a calendar that you can use everyday, plus seasonal projects. One of Jamie's favorites right now is the Pumpkin one where he can choose his own pumpkin and decorate (not to mention that he learned to read the word "pumpkin"). I was going to mention that in my earlier post and forgot.:)

It's always hard for Jamie to get in the groove on Mondays to do school. Even when he went to preschool Mon.-Fri. last year he would cry every Monday morning. So today wasn't much different. He didn't cry though, just whined, but we started and it was all okay. We started on long "e" this week, we did long "a" last week. It seems sort of long and drawn out to spend an entire week on one sound but I think its actually good for Jamie. It's difficult because he just got all the other short sounds down pat where he can read blends and short one vowel words very easily. Now its like he has to rethink everything because I'm telling him that "a" doesn't sound likie that anymore, it sounds different, but it only sounds different if there is another vowel in the word. Talk about confusing! I've heard that the English language is the most difficult to learn, and I believe it!
We did a puzzle and played a game after our lessons which he really liked. I'm not sure if its because of his age, or because he has no siblings that he plays games with, but he can sure be a sore loser sometimes! I used to let him win everytime we played a game, but now I'm trying to teach him that its okay if he loses and to be a good sport. Its coming along, I guess. If he loses, he just wants to play again until he wins.;) He really does like to play board games and I'm thinking of getting him a few for Christmas, even though he does have a lot now. I've heard good things about Monopoly Jr. and also Boggle Jr. We'll see. It would be nice to have a few educational things thrown in with the Power Rangers, Go Diego Go, and Disney Cars toys that he wants.






So even though this is a homeschool blog, I'm probably going to start writing more about our life in general, because I really don't want to have 2 seperate blogs, one about school, and one about everything else. So if you're just reading this for homeschool info, just skip everything else!;)

So first I got lazy, and then I got bored, and then I went to Florida again for a few weeks. But now I'm back! And I'm going to be trying to update for the next few days if possible. And while I was gone, my background, font, and everything went all weird, so I will have to try to fix it soon. I've been busy homeschooling my son but also doing school myself. I have enrolled full time (14 credit hours) into a Medical Transcription program that's all online. I was really looking for a career that I could do that was interesting, use my medical knowledge, and grammar skills, but still be at home for Jamie. I think this is the job. I should finish up the program in June and get my certificate so that I can start applying for jobs this summer. I'm trying to survive off student loan money and maybe a part time job.

Homeschooling started off with a bang. Not a fun bang, the kind of bang that scares you and makes you wonder how it happened and how do you make it stop?!?! Yeah....not so much fun at first. It was my fault, I planned too much out I think. And Jamie was overwhelmed, and also not used to the mama/teacher role. He won't sit still, he wants to play, or sit in my lap, or lay on the floor...anything but concentrate on what we're doing. So I backed off some and I think I have a routine established. BTW-He did cry for the first 8 days of school. Everyday. Because I was MEAN and made him sit at his desk and practice his handwriting. Mmmhmmm.


So this is how our morning starts out. We wake up at 8ish (don't be hatin', that's our homeschooling priviledge of sleeping in), then we eat breakfast, get dressed, and start the day out with phonics. I've learned that its better to get that done and over with. I don't use all the MANY MANY MANY exercises and lessons that his A Beka Teacher manual says to do, because its based for a classroom with multiple kids, with multiple learning abilities. I have found what works for Jamie, and that's a quick review of what we did yesterday, a short lesson on today's letter, or blend, or whatever we're doing, and then here's the best part - I LET HIM WRITE ON THE WHITEBOARD. Who would have thought that this would make the whole day start off great? He loves to write on it, so I have him mark out the "silent e", or put the "smily face" on top of the short vowel sound, or when its time to do math, I let him draw "5 triangles", etc. After phonics we do a quick handwriting worksheet that I let him do alone while I feed the animals, or make my bed. I used to sit next to him and correct him when he made a mistake in writing, but that stressed him out and got me frustrated, so its better when we do it this way. Now he's excited to show me what he did and takes constructive criticsm well, i.e. "Jamie, that 'a' looks little wobbly, can you go fix it?" and he's happy to fix it. After that we do "Numbers", because really, its not quite math yet. I am surprised how quickly he picks up the concept and can now count to 100, count by 10, and by 2s to 20. When we started in August, he could only count to 20 and even that was a bit crazy:"...11, 12,13,16,19,20!".
So, we're getting there.:) We have a group of homeschooling parents that homeschool in our county and in the surrounding counties that get together every month. We plan field trips and activities to get the kids together. Friday we had a field trip to a radio station, where the DJ was going to show the kids how it ran and all, but Jamie was running a fever and was quite pitiful, so we didn't get to go. In December we're all going to Disney on Ice to see High School Musical. We went last year and saw Disney Princesses Dream Come True, and Jamie love it, as did my 11 year old brother. Its just exciting and fun and they put on a great show. Right at the beginning of August the kids got to go to the beach together, which was fun for them too.
I guess that's all for now. I promise to keep my blogging skills up (hand over my heart). Because I can take the 10 minutes to do it. :)

Labels: Update