Completed homeschool room and a DIY question?

The homeschool room is COMPLETE!!!!!  


Which means no more procrastinating and onto the real homeschooling already...Because when I get stressed, I will do almost anything to avoid the stressor.


I am so excited.  Leo and I have the kitchen table to spread out and do our work at.  The cabinet holds all of our books and other supplies.  On the left is a bookshelf with tons of fun reading.  Behind that is a red beanbag I re-stuffed.  And right under the window is the most amazing thing I have ever owned:

A wooden kids table and 3 chairs!!!


Isn't it beautiful?  I mentioned to Jason that I really wanted one for the homeschool room as a table for Roman and Elena to sit at while I teach Leo...and because they are adorable!  


Yesterday was Jason's birthday.  So what did he do?  Surprised me with a table early in the morning.  When I asked him about chairs, he grabbed the footstool from his den...

I told him that would be fine and functional for now, but that I would eventually buy chairs for the table.  He spent the entire rest of the day making chairs.  First, one perfectly crafted chair.  Then, after a trip to the store, and one more completed chair, he thought three chairs would round out the table perfectly for the three kids.  So in one day, he completed the entire table and 3 chairs!

SERIOUSLY?!?!  How much do I love this man!!!  He is like a machine.  A hard-working, sweat-don't-bother-me-none machine.  He did the entire project in our garage in the heat of the day on August 10th.  In Texas.  On his birthday.  And at the end of the day, he thanked ME for giving him the day off daily duties....???????  Whatever - I already knew I drew the awesome straw when he proposed 7 years ago.  This is just proof.  

Now here is the question.  I told Jason to check the Oops paint and pick out two complementary colors.  I was planning on painting the chairs one color, and the table the other.  And these two are PERFECT!


But then after googling images of kids table/chair sets, I noticed that the ones I love are just plain wood and no colors.  And if I paint these now, I will lose the look forever.  I could stain them with the antique stain gloss we used on the end table Jason made??

DIY Antique Stain
Or I could stain it the color of the bookshelves he made??


What do I do???  Any DIY'ers out there with a clue?  I love this table and now I am too scared to do anything to it that might ruin it forever!

I still can't believe I own a wooden table/chair set for the kids.  I am pretty sure I started scoping these out before I was even married!!


7 Quick Takes (#51)


A sweet friend took Leo and Elena for a playdate yesterday morning.  So Roman and I went to Sam's to stock up on some stuff.  As I tried to pull out of my parking spot, I realized we had a flat.  Again.  For the fourth time in 3 months...

It is 85 degrees by 10 am here.  So I did what anyone in my position would do.  I went inside to grab a soda and wait for Jason to come change the flat.  Even though I know exactly how to do it now.  Necessity breeds desire...to sit in the AC with a soda.

(According to the Internet, "necessity breeds desire" is not a saying???  Is that true?  Has anyone ever heard that or am I the only human throwing out random phrases that mean absolute bupkis to other people???)

We started with a practice round of homeschool this week.


And it's a good thing we started with a dry run first before September.  Because all the kids have done so far is color on my organizational white board, undo the organization in my homeschool cabinet,  and play the Starfall program I downloaded.



This is why I did not plan on doing unschooling.  I know absolutely nothing will get done without explicit instructions of what to do week by week!!

A google search of "Is Starfall all I need for kindergarten" gave me all the confirmation I need:

“By year’s end, all of my kindergarten 
students were reading!”

Sweet.  Kindergarten? 

CHECK!


I finally figured out what to do with Roman while I teach Leo.  It is just like a doghouse...for a kid.  He can read, play soccer,


eat snacks,


even take a nap in this thing.


This parenting stuff is easy.

--- 4 ---

Poor, poor third child.  All the kid wants is a reading chair.  This one belongs to his cousin and I know how much he loves it.


But the best I could do for him is throw a pillow inside a box 


or re-stuff this bean bag chair we got from my friend Kim.


I promise you kid - heaven is full of beautiful reading chairs.

Can you tell I am deliriously tired?  I was a dummy and made a batch of brownies late last night.  For freezing of course.  And eating.  And around 1:30 in the morning, I admitted defeat and thought I might as well just go for a jog to burn some energy.  But finally by 2am, the sweet relief of sleep came.

After three hours of torturing myself about eating a stupid brownie so late in the evening, you would assume that I would not make that mistake ever again.  But there are still brownies on my stovetop.  And I make no promises.

Credit

Now that I know for sure the kids will never leave the house (...ever...) because we are homeschooling, I decided to reorganize the playroom for the billionth time.  This time though, I used the photo trick.  Now the kids can clean up without my supervision!  Usually they clean up without me anyway, but nothing ever gets put in the right place.


I took photos of all the items that belong in the bin and glued the photos to the front.



And look at how well it worked!!!


Like I said.  This parenting stuff is easy!!!


Here is to hoping our inaugural homeschool year is a success! 

Isn't this how the rest of you homeschooling moms get through it???


For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

7 Quick Takes (#50)




Missed us???


I'm so sad I can't keep up with blogging.  I am stuck in a rut with zero sense of humor.  Part of it is three children and no discipline.  And the other part is moving across the country to a new city.  90% of the time I feel like I am in 9th grade all over again, trying to fit in and  trying to replace friendships that took decades to develop.  Summarizing who you are and what you are all about with three kids interrupting and pooping their pants is proving to be a little tougher than I thought...

On the flip-side, I'm not homesick.  I still LOVE our new city.  But I am Disneyland excited to go home in a few weeks and visit friends and family!!!!  I can't wait to spend the entire week with family.  I have exactly one week to convince them that Tyler, Texas is the bees knees and they should all follow me here...

Also - who has time to blog when they are focused on keeping an orderly and tidy home?!

...fail...



A couple months ago, I received a letter from my neighbor in Maryland.  I stuck to the fridge and swore I would get back to her when my head was above water again.  I FINALLY got around to it a few weeks ago, but I was lame and emailed her instead of writing a letter.

I was so excited to receive another letter from her this week.  Isn't it beautiful??  I love hand-written notes.  I just wish there were a more convenient way of sending messages that didn't require finding stamps and walking out to the mailbox in my mom-uniform...
Credit


We ordered Leo's Kindergarten homeschool curriculum!!!  I have been so nervous about trying to teach Leo.  Uhhh...let's just say he is easily distracted and...uh...hard of hearing???

But, over the last few days we have been testing the waters with him and doing some work with him to see how ready he is.  We started with some workbooks and numbers.

"Leo, what number is that?"
"Uhhhhh...E!!"


It's gonna be a great year.

Just kidding - it really is!  Jason unloaded a bunch of books gifted to me by my sister a week ago.  They were all homeschooling books along a similar curriculum we chose, so we scored!  I found 5 Magic Tree House books and thought we would see how his attention span has changed in the last year.

We have already read 3 of them out loud to him and he LOVES them!!!  He sits still and listens quietly the entire time.  This is definitely a major milestone that I never predicted would ever come for him.  (If only the other two would be quiet so I could get through a sentence...)

As incentive, and reward, we went to the library and let Leo pick as many Treehouse books as he wanted.


We already started science class too.  


We found a cicada shell outside and brought him in to be our pet.


Our scary, disgusting pet.




This kid talks!!!  And talks...and talks...and ta....  I know - where did he get it from?!  ;)


He is learning about 10 words a day now and speaks the cutest jibberish ever.  I am still nursing him throughout the day and probably will until he is at least 2 years old.  But now that he can talk, he is demanding to be fed loudly.  In public places.  Like church.  And every time he does, all I can think of is the British "I want bitty" comedy sketch.  (35 year old man still nursing on demand.  My future...)


Completely normal, right?


A couple posts back I showed you my homemade fermented foods.  Out of the three, the only thing that wasn't thrown away were the sourdough crackers (which were amazing!).  


As I found out, fermenting veggies isn't just a matter of throw it in a jar and eat.  But, I am starting to master sourdough!!


These pancakes are DELICIOUS!!!!!  They will be a recurring breakfast item in our house for sure.

And this loaf of sourdough is worth its weight in gold!  It takes about 5 minutes to prep and 5 minutes hands on to bake.  But there is an 18-24 hour rise period so you can't have instant gratification.  


I bake it in my huge dutch oven and then just use what we don't eat to make breadcrumbs.



And now I have to share my favorite thing in the world.  I woke up the other day with Leo showing me a picture he just drew.  It was me.  Coloring with crayons.  I am so proud of it that I covered it in contact paper so it would last forever.  But when he originally drew it, the "paper" square in the middle was blank.  When he realized that he forgot to color on the paper, he got really worried.  But then I told him he can draw on the blank square in the center whenever he wants (that blue happy face can wipe off!).  It is ridiculous how happy that simple picture makes me.


Go visit Jen for more Quick Takes!!


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