Happy St. Patrick's Day and Worst Cake EVER!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!!

I know some may never have guessed it, 

but I am indeed Irish, with the name Kelly and a son Liam......LOL! 

Hope you're wearing your green today. You don't want to get pinched!!

My two leprechauns are having so much fun celebrating!

      

Of course, I made sure we are all wearing our green. 

We started the day by reading a book about St. Patrick's Day. 

Here are some of our favorites:

         

                                                

We especially *love* that the leprechaun's name is Liam!

After reading some stories, Julian and Liam began counting something

 {I forget what now, but that's not important}.

 Liam has been counting 1-13 and then skipping to 18 and then counting to 20.

{ we've been working on that}

 Julian decided he was going to count to 100. 

I was so proud that he only needed help remembering some of the names for numbers like 50, 60, 70. 

I had printed out a hundreds chart for him the other day so we reviewed all the numbers he was having trouble remembering. 

Then I had him color the numbers in the tens. 

Now, in a classroom, when you do an activity, 

you hope that your students notice that there is a pattern in doing this

 {all the tens numbers are in a straight line down}. 

I'm proud to say that Julian immediately noticed and said,

 *That's how you count by 10s,*

and then began rattling them off like he'd known them forever.

 He remembers it now and has been walking around all day counting by 10s to 100. 

HOORAY!

So, I had seen this cake on Pioneer Lady's website and thought,

 *OMG, how cute! Wouldn't this be the cutest St. Patty's Day cake??*

So, I had bought white cake mix at Aldi's.

I love Aldi's. They're cheap, it's not crowded, and did I mention,

 they're CHEAP??!!

I have loved MOST things we buy there. 

Do you see where this is going??

Well, it wasn't the taste of the cake that was wrong.

What was wrong was that they cake was WAY TO0 MOIST!!

Normally, one shouldn't be complaining about moist cake.

*HOWEVER*

 when you're trying to stack six layers of cake and it's falling apart in your hands, you have a problem! 

OOPS!!

Just look at this disaster! 

Can we all agree that this is just 

*12 kinds of ugly???!!!!*

So, as I'm mourning over my disaster, two cute little leprechauns walk in the kitchen and say,

*That's the best cake EVER!*

{I love those two!}

'Cause I'm Cool Like That!

**I was awarded the coolest mom and best wife in the world award.**

{Go 'head, be jealous!}

Here's Why:

Can you guess where we are?

I arranged a field trip for our home school group to get a behind the scenes tour of 

Joe Louis Arena!

We were all {ok, mostly husband} were so excited to go!

We walked through the players entrance,

touched the ice, sat on the zamboni, saw the visitors locker room,

sat on the visitors bench, saw the Red Wings locker room, 

and had full access to the Comerica Executive Suite!

{and I'm sure that's the last time we'll ever see it, too!}

Field Trips have to be one of the best parts about homeschooling!

Announcement: My Child is 4 and Does Not go to Preschool!

So when I took a year off this year and decided I was going to keep the boys home with me, I never realized what interesting questions my children and I would be subjected to. People (strangers, mostly nosy mothers) will approach Julian at the playground or wherever, and ask him how old he is. When they find out that he's 4, the next question is, does he go to preschool. Then when he replies no, I get a funny look from said nosy mother. Then I feel like I have to go into this big explanation that he was in preschool last year and I'm a teacher and he's at home with me this year since I took a year off work. Really I didn't think that there was going to be this "stigma" that my child's not in PRESCHOOL!

So, I was venting about this to my husband and a friend this evening as we were leaving to go meet my family for dinner at a restaurant. Well, sure enough, end of dinner, the waitress comes over to the table and begins talking with Julian. Here's how the conversation goes:

Waitress: How old are you?
J: 4
W: Do you go to preschool?
J: No
W: Do you want to go to preschool?
J: No. I just go to church school.

Now, in my mind I'm going,  "WTF, here we go again." But this time I decide not to say anything because I really don't have to defend my choices to my waitress! Oh and when she asked if he wanted to go to preschool, I just wanted to say, "Oh, 'cause you're going to pay for it and send him there?"

So here comes the justice! Waitress comes over again and Julian's drawing in his notebook. She's talking to him and he's drawing and he makes some sort of picture for her. Mark says, "Why don't you write her name on it." She had just told us her name was Rhonda, so without hesitation or a moment of thought, Julian wrote, R-U-N-D-A. To which, of course, she was stunned. Then he proceeded to write his first and last name.
By this time, she said, "Wow! You're mommy sure works with you! You really don't need preschool!" Then he proceeded to write- mom, dad, Liam, Marln (Marilyn), and Pop (Pop-Pop).

I can only hope he continues doing this every time someone begins this dreaded conversation!

WARNING- Proud Mommy Moment!!!

This is one of the writing assignments that Julian did yesterday. The directions asked him to look at the picture and come up with a story about what was happening. It also provided a word bank of short e words to help. On his own he wrote the sentence "There's a spiders web in Peg's way." Peg is the name of the hen flying the jet. It's from one of his reading books. Anyway, then he wanted to go on and write "A bat is on mom's shoulder." The only thing I helped him with on this sentence was the "sh" for shoulder. 

I'm so proud of him! He's learning so quickly and doing so well! It's been such a gift to be able to stay home with him and teach him.

These Are the Days of Our Lives.....

......and I hope my children will remember them, because I always will.

Today, we ventured out to The Henry Ford Estates. I hadn't planned on it, but it was turning out to be great weather and I was sick of going to the park. Julian had been learning about the signs of fall, so I figured why not. We ended up spending 2 hours walking all over the grounds (and didn't cover that much ground either). We stopped to look at the waterfall (our favorite). We found leaves, needles, bark, moss, fungus, sticks, flowers, logs, roots, geese, ducks, squirrels, eggs that were laid on a leaf, a pond, a river, a swamp, acorns, and (I'm sure you get the idea now).

Liam and Julian in front of the waterfall.

It was great fun exploring the grounds through the eyes of my children. It was great to see them feel free and adventuresome. Their curiosity piqued at each new sighting or change in direction of the path.

Taking a little snack break beside the pond.

I plan on taking them back many times over the year so that we can see how things change through the seasons. I really think that the more they see it and explore it, the more they will come to understand about nature. It's great to see the world outside of a book!

Kelly

P.S. Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics. Forgot the camera!

It's Back to School Time!

Mark is back to work and I'm not! I can't remember the last time I felt this happy. The only way I can describe it is bliss! I LOVE being home with the boys. Last week we watched a few of our friends' kids. The boys had someone new to play with every day. We also joined a Homeschool Group. We meet once a week at a school for gym time (run by a gym teacher) and outside play time. Then the kids meet inside for snack, crafts, and play time. They plan field trips and other activities too. We all had a great time meeting new friends! We also had fun going to the library yesterday and found out that they are having a Play dough contest! Ohhhh....the possibilities! Today we went to the Home Depot for the kid's workshop. Julian completed his third project today, a race car, and Liam made a football holder.

Julian and I started easing into his "school" routine this week. Last week we only did seat work (math and reading) for about 10 mins. a day. Then he would spend about 5-10 mins. doing some independent work (coloring and such). This week I'm going to try and double it by having him do work in the morning and afternoon.

I also picked up a (very) part-time gig! I'm TJing (Trivia Jockey) a Live Trivia show at Key West in Taylor on Sundays at 6pm! Last week was my first week, and although hardly anyone showed up, I managed to get 3 teams and we all had a good time. I love doing the trivia shows because I get out of the house for a little bit, get to have a lot of fun, and make money all at the same time! Lucky me!

To be continued.....