Ahhh, sweet routine returns.

So, my 'theory' that I'd have more time to blog while we were "tracked out" was so far off base, I definitely need to rethink that hypothesis. Also, our track out was supposed to last 3 weeks, and instead lasted 6. Ooops. Life happened.

We were planning on starting back on the 2nd of January, that didn't happen, but I can't remember why. So, I thought "Ok, we'll start back on the 7th." Then, my sister was scheduled to be induced on the 7th with her fourth baby. Ok, maybe we could fit something in on the 8th? Well, her labor lasted an entire 30 hours (poor poor girl)...and Tristen Cole wasn't born until late the afternoon of the 8th. So scratch the 8th too. My MIL was coming in early on the 9th-to be here for the baby's birthday, and well it's just about impossible to get school done with grandma Betty here, because we only see her once (twice if we're really LUCKY) a year, and the girls are just over the moon to see her! And, she really likes to shop so we were out almost every day she was here. She left on the 15th, and well, I really still needed to plan, so I decided we'd start back today.

I don't know when I've been so relieved (maybe right after Tristen came into the world?, no that was when my SISTER was relieved)! I'm so ready to get back into the 'normal' routine of things in our house again. Since Wednesday I've been SUPER busy because being the insane woman that I am I decided to WRITE A CURRICULUM. I found a book at the library called "How to Write a Low Cost/No Cost Curriculum for your home school child" by Borg Hendrickson. And, since I had already been thinking I needed to make sure I was checking off my p's and q's (this is more important the older my kids get) and checking what I thought we should learn against the NC Standard Course of Study I figured...well, I sort of write my own curriculum already. I have a collection of books we use, and I make up our lesson plans as I go along, so really this is just a formal extension of what we were already doing. It will be good to have in the future, I suppose. I'm not all the way done, I need to add activities that go along with the objectives, but I have all the Goals and Objectives for the rest of the year in place (thanks largely to the NC Standard Course of Study website). Now I just need to add in some things that are running around in my head as ways to meet those goals.

Now, also during our track out time we discovered that my sweet baby boy has food allergies. Tree nuts and peanuts. Ugh. We already knew he had an allergy to strawberries and banana's, but those are much easier to avoid than tree nuts and peanuts! You wouldn't believe-once you start checking labels-how many things are processed in facilities where nuts are also present. It's a new challenge to have to find things for him to eat that aren't made with any products that have been processed in those places. UGH. Also, as an added bonus, I'm pretty sure he is either lactose intolerant, or has a dairy sensitivity. More fun! The introduction to whole milk has not gone well, and he has some other symptoms when he eats yogurt (which he LOVES...going to try some soy yogurt this week).

We have lots of extra-curricular this week too! Bowling league, a nature class, dance class, basketball game and practice, girl scouts, and hopefully we'll be exchanging a "Flat Traveler" with Heather's family. We'll also find some time to do this weeks Unplug Your Kids project.

Our school lessons will include units on Dr. Martin Luther King, and other civil rights leaders. I can't wait to share this project with you all, when they've finished it. Here is the project we'll be doing. They Had a Dream Too. We'll be using both the Internet and the library to collect our information, and then build our projects. We're also going to be talking about Water Conservation for our science unit, and learning about water density and buoyancy in our experiment. This is a fitting unit as we really need to conserve as much water as we possibly can, considering we are in the worst drought in recorded history.

I think that's all for now. I hope I'll share more later this week!