The past few weeks....

Man time flies by in the summer.  I have spent a lot of time on the computer and Internet but next to none on this poor neglected blog.  We all had a blast at our church's VBS and have been hitting the lake as often as the weather permits.  What else have we been doing?

School:
Summer school has been a little erratic depending on what else needs done on a given day.  Jessie's nearly finished her Singapore CWP 6 book.  She has one section of review left.  She has completed all of the remaining lessons in her Properties of Matter book and just needs to take the final unit test and the final exam.  We've been using Headventureland to keep up with her Latin vocab and some cut out conjugation charts I found on the CAP website for grammar.  Violet has been doing the same Latin review and working with the Flashmaster each day to work on her math facts.  We've also been practicing some more cursive writing to make it more automatic.  Benny has been reading to me off and on.  He finished reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone which required a great deal of perseverance on his part, and I've let him start reading the second book as well.  (He has already seen both movies with his older sister).  I also have plenty of Frog and Toad, Magic Tree House, and other easier readers for him to use to work on fluency.  He finished his Miquon book, but has a few pages left in his 1B IP text (which is my fault for not being consistent).

Housework:
Around the house we're slowing deep cleaning and getting everything back into shape.  I've washed all the bedding except the girl's comforters, shampooed the carpets (including under the furniture) for half of the house, cleaned out both pantries and 80% of my kitchen cabinets and drawers, and helped Benny get his room back in order after Henry dumped out all of his Lego sets all mixed together in his room. 

Garden:
Our garden is coming along very nicely.  We've picked and canned beans twice and have eaten lots of fresh yellow squash, zucchini, and cucumber.  We've also pulled a few onions for dinner as well.  The tomatoes are coming on strong and should be ready to start picking soon.  So far the sweet potatoes and potatoes are doing well although I'm tiring of battling potato beetles.  I know I've pulled more than 200 off the plants and killed them.  The battle is still ongoing, but we seem to fairing much better than last year.

Planning:
I have the majority of our subjects planned out for the year.  I'm still working on reading and scheduling for history and Omnibus.  I also can't for the life of me figure out any way to plan Latin Alive 1 without watching the DVDs because I really need Jessie to do this independently in the fall.  I've made an initial attempt at a schedule only to realize that there are not enough hours in the day for me to teach the kids.  Now it's a matter of prayer and priorities (and making the school day reasonable for each kid while still challenging them and spending time with the 3yo).