Has it really been so long?

Obviously the answer to that is 'yes'.  Sadly, I've been meaning to get on here for a while, but just seem to run out of time.

So much has been going on; but before I continue with the everyday things (that seem oh so important ~ because they are!) I must say something about my mom.

My mom's birthday was March 21.  She would have been 63 if she was still with us.  I still miss her dearly, but have learned to block some of the bad days.  Her birthday is one of them.  So, I changed my background to bees in honor of my mom.  She loved bees - not the real kind, but she amassed a collection of bee stuff, some of which graces my desk and holds my pens.  I don't think she chose to collect bee items, I think it happened because she was known as "Mrs. B" to my friends, and "Gramma B" to the kids at the school she worked at (shout out to St. Therese in Lansing!).  Over the years they bought her bee themed gifts and as we all know, small groups of things become large groups of things over time.  So, there's the reason for the bee background.  I wish I could put into words something appropriate and wonderful to say about my mom.  But I can't right now.  Not that she wasn't wonderful and I have lots of awesome stories about her, but I'm not ready to share.  If I share then they are not 'our' stories any more.  I know it's selfish, but I'm not ready to share her with the world quite yet.

OK, now on to the normal things going on.  We have finished 140 days of 2nd grade.  That leaves us 40 to go, which should be six weeks.  Um, yeah, somehow I don't think we will finish in the next six weeks.  Right now we are getting to the point where we are having trouble getting through five days a week.  It must be the end of year blah's or something.  

We have been working on a lapbook project this week.  It's from Hands of a Child, and it's all about volcanoes.  We tried one early in the year, but CG just wasn't too interested.  He seems better now, so I'm planning on throwing some more in next year, just to see where it leads us.  Anyhoo - it's not in the project pack, but next week we are going to make a volcano and erupt it.  It's something I never got to do in school, and CG is thrilled with the idea.

I have purchased all our third grade curriculum and sadly, there is no Sonlight in there.  I so wanted him to be a Sonlight kid.  I love books, I want him to love books, but he doesn't.  Sadly, he likes workbooks.  BORING!  So, for next year we are going to work out of workbooks, throw in some unit studies with lapbooking and notebooking, and read books off the 3rd grade reading list I found online.  It's going to make my life way more difficult, because I will actually have to figure out the plan for the year.  I loved the way Sonlight laid everything out for you - even if their exact schedule didn't work, it could be easily modified.  If he is still totally into workbooks come 4th grade I'll probably look into AOP or something.

Oh yeah, so I've bought writing and spelling from Evan-Moor, MCP Math (Book C), and the Complete Book of American History, Science, and Maps/Geography from American Education Publishing.  We are going to do the unit studies and stuff around the AEP books.  I'm not changing anything since this is what he asked for, he'll have to stick it out for the entire year.  Ta-Da!  There's the plan for third grade. I think I'm going to order his CAT test next week and test him the last week of April.  I was going to wait until June, but I would rather get it done before our May vacation.  I know he will do a brain dump on me when we take time off!

There it is, in all it's glory ~ the long awaited update!  We are finally getting some much needed rain.  I hate to complain because we need it so bad, but after two or three days it's just so blah....

Oh and the Grease Monkey and I celebrated our 13th anniversary on March 23rd!!