Slow days

Well...because of the snow, Michael being off work yesterday, and the general sense of trying to think through and write out a more organized school schedule, we have been "slow" this week with school.
Meaning... I haven't made the boys do grueling schoolwork every day, but a little here and there.
Tuesday,for example, we had our normal morning devotions and prayer time, memory verses, character studies, etc. Then I read part of Dickens' Oliver Twist, and then they did Math papers. So I guess legally (or whatever you want to call it), they had a half day.

Yesterday they worked on Language & Phonics, but they didn't even start their papers until after 3 p.m. Michael was home for most of the day except for the couple of hours he went in to Crane with his boss to work on a piece of equipment (the base was closed). So I let them wait to do those papers.

That is how it has been this week... hit and miss. But that is ok because I have been working on trying to get school organized a little better. I have been re-working our schedule to fit Ryan's preschool time into the day instead of just including him with Jonathan (as before). It seemed to work well for everyone before, but then the other day he informed me that he wanted to do school too, so of course I figured, "why not?". I didn't want to push him into doing pre-school until he was ready, and now he is ready and asking for it.

Another thing I have been working on, and Michael helped me, was to get their playroom cleaned up and put back in order. It really didn't help to send the boys in there every day and say "pick up the toys"; it overwhelmed them. It looked like a bomb had gone off in there... no kidding! Toys were practically hanging from the ceiling (well, not really but it felt that way to me!). So after a week of getting nowhere after sending them in there to do it, I decided Monday to finish the job while Michael, Justin, and Jonathan went to their Monday basketball night at church. Amidst my organizing, they walked back in the door and said that ball had been cancelled. I informed them that since I had already planned to get that room cleaned, that I was going to finish it.

So instead of leaving me there with it and traipsing off to do whatever else, he decided to help me like a good husband. It made it so much more fun. "Oops!" He would say as he chunked broken Happy Meal toys into the garbage.

The boys were supposed to stay in the living room to play, but Justin kept sneaking in there to spy on us. He is notorious for wanting to keep broken toys. "I can do something with that..." he always says. Seriously, he would keep everything and make it into a "new invention" as he puts it. We actually found one of his inventions in the deep recesses of one of their closets. It was several empty plastic bottles of various sizes taped together to look like the space shuttle. Yes, he is very entertaining, and I usually let him do that.

Anyway... I didn't mean to ramble on like this, but that is where we have been this week. Hopefully things are going back into full swing today.