a snack or science experiment?

We homeschoolers are so frugal...what we don't eat can become part of our curriculum! It even worked out that today when we were supposed to be learning about fungi, we happened to have some right on our kitchen counter. Be thankful that I didn't take a picture of the mold that is also growning on our shower curtain...fungi thrives in warm moist places after all. I'm not quite sure if this post falls under the "look what awesome homeschoolers" we are or the "look how discusting we are" funny how the two are so closely related!

guess what came by our house today...

We've heard the ice cream truck go by a few times recently and today Jake was quick enough to grab his money jar (what's left of his Christmas money) and buy something! Also while we're on the subject of Jake he's got big news...two loose teeth! He's actually a few months older than Jonathan and Madi were when they lost their first teeth, but it is still hard for me to believe because he is my baby!!

A day in the life....

Yesterday was an extremely busy day and an interesting one to give a snapshot of what our days are like. I got up early to play Scrabble with Mike (our latest favorite game) Jake joined us. Then we had to say goodbye to Mike because he was flying to Houston for a meeting (one overnight). Helped Jake get ready for school and he got picked up. Then we had to pick up B & P who we babysit for twice a week and head to Jonathan's orthodontist appointment. Jonathan got his braces tightened and then we headed home. We did a little history reading, had lunch (three different things--I heated up B& P's lunch that they brought from home, made sandwiches for Jonathan and Madi, and make leftovers for myself), then we did a little more school work (Science), then headed to pick up Jake and O at school. (at this point, we had 7 people in the car) I dropped O at her house and took Jonathan, Madi, Jake B & P to homeschool PE. Then I had a breather...cleaned up the house and checked blogs. At 2:30 I picked up the kids at PE and let them play on the playground for a while because I'd told E that I would watch M after PE in case she was a little late getting back from an appointment. E got there quickly, but I was talking so I let the kids play a little long. Then we were late for Jake's Theatre. I had to call B & P's grandmother to tell her I'd be later than I thought dropping off the kids because I had to get my own kids to Mount Dora. Because we were late I had to go from Eustis to Mount Dora to Eustis and back to Mount Dora (to then eventually come back home to Eustis). Once back in Mount Dora, I parked at Theatre and walked down the street to meet T and her kids who were walking back up for their Theatre. Then I got the kids and we hung out at the park for a little while while I ordered pizza for us and the G family to have for supper. We picked up the pizza and Jonathan called Miss C to say we were almost home. She said W was still working on his homework so that gave Jonathan and Madi sometime to do math until they came (C and her 4 kids). We had a fun supper with them and as they were pulling out of the driveway at 7pm, the A family was pulling up. Not far behind came M and three of her kids and T and her three. We had a homeschool group "board meeting" (counting us 4 moms and 12 kids...two of the moms didn't have all their kids). In case you lost track there were 14 different kids in our house at various points yesterday not counting my own...this doesn't count the one I brought home from preschool or the one I watched for a little while after PE). I actually love days like that! As everyone's kids are getting older and we're all attemptin to do more school work, we don't have as many days of hanging out with tons of kids here. We hate it so much when Mike has to travel without us...which thankfully is not very often anymore...so I planned to have everyone come hang out and keep us company. Tonight Mike comes home...Hooray! Today we have a calmer day...babysitting 4 kids, school work, Family Chapel at Jake's school, and Theatre for the big kids. I imagine we'll throw in some other activities along the way. Here's hoping your days are as exciting as ours!

Midnight thoughts...

Ok it's not really midnight, it's actually 11:26 (incidently that's our anniversary 11/26). I just read an article about why moms blog (thanks Cindy:) while I was waiting for the video of Madi to upload, and it inspired me...Many times I have conversations with friends about how we compare ourselves to others ("at least we don't eat out everynight"). And our "little homeschool group" that started in my living room with three families (well really 4) has now grown to over 120 people and a thriving yahoo group. In an email group like that like with blogs or Christmas letters people tend to show their best face (like we only eat homemade organic peanutbutter or my 3 year old reads on a 2nd grade level). I know on my blog lately I've shown some cool homeschool things we've been doing, but I just wanted to take a few minutes to describe a little about the Scaringellas "behind the scenes"...for example my 12 and 9 year olds cannot spell AT ALL...Madi ate some carites (carrots) yesterday. Right now Jonathan and Madi are sleeping in our bed and since I started typing this, Mike has just moved out of our bed and into Madi's (granted this is unusual...they really stopped sleeping in our bed when they were 7 &4...when Jake came along), Jake is downstairs asleep in the chair because no one wanted to carry him upstairs, (and he is sleeping in his clothes which he does at least a few nights a week), Jake almost never brushes his teeth (it's a good thing Grandma Marge doesn't have a computer to read this), If I wasn't so lazy (well I guess you don't have to call it lazy when it is almost midnight), I'd take a picture to show how messy Jake's room is right now. Well there are a lot more things that we need to work on and dirty laundry about us that I could air, but in a nutshell those are some of the things about us that you'll probably not ever read in our Christmas letter. Soo lest it appear like we've got it all together in our blog...remember things aren't always what they seem.

Pictures form the last few days...

Here are some pictures from the last few days...Madi's solo from caberet for kids, Jonathan running the lights for Caberet for kids, "Juan", "Maria", and "Jacob (pronounced HaaCOB)" (their Spanish names) working on their Mexican flags as part of our new Spanish Curriculum, and Jonathan and Madi with their starfish (seastars?) that they made out of salt dough--which they also made. Jake trying to watch himself wiggle his nose. I'm going to work on getting some videos of the Caberet on here, but I'm having some problems with my computer (AGAIN!)...ps I can't seem to delete or reply to emails right now...not sure if it is my problem or yahoos...

Orlando Magic

Mike got 4 free Orlando Magic tickets for last night's game so Mike, Jonathan, Jake and I went. Madi had rehersal for the upcoming Theatre fundraiser and then spent the night at a friend's house. It was a really fun night and an exciting game...the Magic won at the buzzer 102-100!

worms and haircuts

We went on a field trip today to a worm farm. We learned about vermiculture (the study of worms) and came home with our own worm farms as well as beans planted in sand and beans planted in worm castings, so we can see which grow better. Then we went to the Barber shop and the boys got haircuts.

Bake Sale

We did a fundraising bake sale for the Warren Acting Company today. Below you will find video of some impromptu singing and dancing that Madi and her friends did. After that Madi and I hosted our book club meeting at our house and had a great discussion about an amazing book that we highly recommend NUMBER THE STARS by Lois Lowry. I meant to take a picture of the book club and forgot. Mike, Jonathan, and Jake worked at the rental house all day and even brought a load of concrete and broken fence pieces to the dump...no pictures of that either.

Mollusks

Today for science we learned about mollusks. We got out some old seashells and try to figure out what kind of mollusk might have lived in there. Madi is holding a bivalve shell (two parts like a clam) and Jonathan is holding a gastropod (one spiral shell like a snail). Then we had a mollusk lunch of clam chowder, fried clams, and french fries. One can of clam chowder found in the pantry, frozen fried clams and french fries $6 at Publix, being able to homeschool your kids...priceless.

If you have a blog...

OK if you're reading this and you have a blog (you know who you are) I'm tagging you to put 6 quirky things on your blog!!

6 quirky things about me

OK apparently I've been tagged by Hillside Hollow and have to write 6 quirky things about me...

1. I almost had three front teeth...I fell when I was about 6 and had to have xrays at the dentist, they found that I had an extra front tooth. I had to spend the night in a hospital in a faw away town all by myself, the nurses at the local hospital were on strike.

2.I don't check pockets when I do laundry and I don't really sort it either, also I never iron!

3.I love to decorate for holidays (we decorated for Valentine's Day today)

4. I like to be in bed at 10:00 to watch King of Queens.

5. I get a smell like bandaids in my nose when I take Tylenol.

6. I think I've read "Are You There God it's Me Margaret" by Judy Blume at least once every year since I was ten.

A Relaxing Day

Don't ya just love a 12 year old boy who loads the dishwasher!!

We had a very nice relaxing day at home today. We put away all the " snowmen" decorations that we always try to leave up for the month of January, but get tired of them by the middle of the month (something about living in Florida). We got out the Valentine decorations though which is always fun. While organizing the bookshelf, Madi found a face painting book, she painted Jake's face and then together they painted hers. Now my family is calling me to play a family game of Haunted Mansion Clue...gotta go!

Madi's week

Madi has had a difficult few days. On Wednesday night they were making gingerbread houses at AWANA. Apparently she had fun, but by the time I got there her house had caved in. On the way home we were dropping off two of her friends and on our way she realized she didn't have her AWANA book and bag. After I asked, she also realized she didn't pay the teacher the money she owed for the now smooshed gingerbread house. We were able to finally get back into the church to find the lost items (and pay), but it was a stressful night (mostly because her mother wasn't nearly as patient as she should be!). Then today running into the park, Madi bumped into a friend and fell HARD on the pavement. She scraped her arm in three places and skinned her knee even with jeans on. She wasn't in a very cheerful mood after that. Tonight when we picked her up at Theatre (they had auditions to day for Schoolhouse Rock) she was crying because her MP3 player's screen was cracked. She doesn't know how it happened. Thankfully the music still plays, but it was disappointing anyway. Say a little prayer for Madi, it is hard to be nine!

Here's a picture of her (before falling) with the Turkish Delight we made yesterday. Incidently, did you know "Turks" have been making Turkish Delight for over 500 years?

Arthropods

Here are some crustaceans and arachnids for you to enjoy...

strawberry picking by day and a picnic under the lights by night

Don't ya just love living in Florida?! Where else can you pick stawberries and have a picnic under the still present Christmas lights in the same day? We also did schoolwork, had friends over and the kids had their first day of the new season of Theatre. They will be performing Schoolhouse Rock in March (although Jonathan is leaning towards doing the lights instead of being in it). It was a long busy day...time for bed!

Meme's birthday

Today is my mother's 59th birthday!

We miss you Mugga

Our beloved Mugga passed away one year ago today.

The shepherd and his angel friends

Christmas

Jonathan as the Dad!

Madi as an elf

Jake as a donkey

A whole new year

Well, here we are three months later and I almost feel like I'm going to throw up as I type this. Obviously everyone who knows us knows that the "procedure" on October 2nd didn't go so well. It involed 13 days in the hospital and an agonizingly long recovery at home even after that. Part of why I've not blogged since then is because I didn't want to have to get into explaining it all again. Another part is that we've been having a lot of trouble with our computer (that I think is finally resolved). ANOTHER part is that even when they don't involve recovery and homeschooling Oct-Dec are generally the busiest months of the year anyway, and when your husband, soulmate, and love of your life almost dies, everything gets put into perspective and I've spent a lot more time appreciating my family and less time (or no time) writing about them. I've actually even become one of those people who doesn't check email everyday. I've been fairly unmotivated to do the house work that needs to be done today, and spent sometime on the computer catching up on friend's blogs that I hadn't read since at least Nov, and I got inspired to blog again.

Besides recovering from pancreatitis, here's what is new with my family....Mike is back to work full time and doing very well. He lost a lot of weight while he was sick and has been able to keep it off thus far and plans to stay that way. He's got a closet full of new clothes. The rental house that was hit by the tornado just before Mike got sick is empty again. The tenants couldn't afford it (unfortunately we can't either!). Mike and the big kids plan to finish the painting that we started there a few days before Christmas tomorrow (I get out of it because I'm taking Jake to a birthday party). Pray that we find a renter soon!

Jonathan's biggest news is that he's been saving a lot of money (helping to work at the rental houses, birthday and Christmas money, and even cashing in some saving's bonds from when he was a baby) and has bought himself a laptop computer!! (So now even if I do have computer problems I'll have another option!). It even has a webcam and he's already started making movies of his brother and sister (the performers that they are don't mind at all!). Now that Mike has gotten smaller and Jonathan is continuing to get bigger, I have to look at the tag to figure out whose jeans are whose. The kids' theatre will be having a big fund raiser at the end of the month and Jonathan has been asked to "do the lights" for it...he loves that!

Madi was invited to be in a special adults and kids production of Annie, but it ended up being cancelled. She and the other kids that were picked did get to perform some of the songs from it before there Christmas performance and at some of the performance troupe performances that they did in December (I actually lost count of how many performances they did in Dec!). Madi got to sing a solo (I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus) at some of the performances and was asked to do a solo (Stranger in White from Once on this Island) for the fundraiser. Meme and Grampa Carlie gave Madi the new Julie American Girl (from the 70's) for Christmas, and she is loving her! She's reading the first Julie book (I've already read the first 3!).

Jake had his first Theatre Recital in early December and did GREAT!! He's a natural. He was then a Shepherd in his preschool's Christmas Pageant, and a Donkey at St Patrick's Christmas Eve Pageant. (Jonathan and Madi were both narrators in the Church pageant and all three also performed in the AWANA Christmas program)...can you see now why I haven't spent much time at the computer?

Memere decided a week before Christmas that she would fly down here on Christmas Day. This meant she also got to come with us and my parents to our timeshare in NC for New Years...she even bought us all lunch in Tennessee! Mem has wanted for a long time to ride a horse and I was almost able to make that happen today, but it didn't work out. We are however all going to eat at Outback tonight! She flies home tomorrow. In NC Mem told us some interesting stories about her growing up. I hope to blog about them soon as a way to remember them.

I'm starting to feel more and more like normal each day, but still do a lot of worrying about Mike. It was a very trying October to say the least. The kids and I did finally get back to homeschooling sometime in Nov and even schooled through most of Dec. Of course we all know that they learned a lot even when we weren't schooling (important stuff about life that most people don't consider school).

I just might attempt to get some pictures on here today and who knows I might even blog again before another 3 months goes by....