Emily's Essay

Emily had to write an essay for school. It was supposed to be a descriptive paragraph about her experience with language. She chose to write about when she uses language to tell Allison bed time stories. I enjoyed it so much I thought I would share it.

When Allison Goes to Bed

by Emily Paulson

When Allison, my little sister, goes to bed, sometimes she will ask if I can read a story to her. But when I tell her a story it is not out of a book. I always imagine things in my head and form it into a story.

Allison is a very good listener. When I tell her when something bad happens in the story she always gets a worried face! That is how I tell that she is listening. Sometimes my other sisters even like listening to my stories.

But when my story is over it is time for Allison to go to bed. I tuck her in and give her a kiss and hug. Sometimes she wants me to tell her another story, but I tell her that we have a lot of nights left for story telling time.

Emily's Poem

When you go outside there's a touch of breeze,
But it is not winter so you will not freeze.
The birds sing a lovely song,
It makes you want to sing along.
The bees are out, forget the sting,
That means it must be spring.

Emily Paulson 6-1-09

Can't forget the other two...

Of course, seeing her sisters have their pictures taken with their projects, Allison wanted her turn so here she is with here bear. Lydia is just busy playing with all her little toys. This is what she spends most of her day doing. It reminds me of those if you give a pig a pancake books, if you take a kids picture, the other sister will want a picture, too. And if you take the other sisters picture, you had better take another sisters picture...

More Creations

Sophia painted a mini pumpkin.

Grace's name picture made with oil pastels.

Emily's Name picture made with oil pastels.

Brooke had a project today to help someone in need and then write an essay on it. So when Grandma Linda called and asked if the girls would come and help get apples peeled and ready to freeze, it was the perfect opportunity for her to help out! So the three oldest went up to Linda's for the afternoon and worked on apple crisp filling. Then Brooke baked up an apple crisp to bring over to our neighbor who had provided the apples and isn't feeling very well.

Emily And Grace's Creations

Emily's Unicorn

Grace's Bear

Emily's Nutcracker

Grace's/Emily's

Grace's/Emily's

Finally posting those paintings I said the girls had been so busy working on. The big painting phase must be over now though because they haven't been painting like this lately. I sure have enjoyed the beautiful pictures. I was just informed as they are watching me type that they "haven't got the time". Hopefully that will change sometime here!

Sophia And Allison's Creations

This is one of Sophia's first real people pictures. I just love the bright colors.

These are the fall trees that Sophia and Allison made at storytime at the library.

Last Friday Sophia and Allison made scarecrows at storytime.

This is Sophia's newest drawing of me today. I now have eyelashes!

Here I am with lipstick and a pretty dress.

What we've been doing...

Brooke: Overwhelmed...that about sums it up. I was a bit relieved to hear from another homeschool mom that her daughter is feeling very overwhelmed with her freshman year, too. It seems like Brooke is constantly doing her school work. She is also spending a lot of time at the high school for drama. Her classes are much harder this year and besides the four basic classes, she is taking home ec. and phy ed. Phy Ed is an online class that consists of weekly lessons, quizzes, and logging three hours of exercise a week. Home Ec requires a lot of projects beyond the daily work, quizzes, and tests. So her housecleaning job is on hold for now and so is any babysitting. Oh and violin practice is almost nonexistent. Her drama meet is the first week of November and I hope that after that is over things will get easier.

Emily: School is going good for Emily right now. We had a tough time for a bit there with failing quizzes and tests. Josh has helped her with some of her studying and note taking and it has helped. She still retakes a lot of quizzes, but I think she is finally getting what she is supposed to study. She is really enjoying her history right now. She is learning about the thirteen colonies.

Grace: School is pretty much a piece of cake for Grace this year. I think I probably could have started her in the middle of third grade. But it is so nice to see her like doing her school. She is getting great grades and she feels so good about it. I was just thinking the other day how nice it is to see her happy about school. What a relief. Another homeschool mom made a good point the other day that she has never heard anyone regret holding a student back, but many that regret not holding them back.

Sophia: We are almost done with our capital letters workbook! I am so excited about that. Then it is on to the lowercase letters workbook. Not bad considering I'm lucky to work with her twice a week on her letters. But I have been really dedicated to reading for twenty minutes a day to Sophia and Allison, five days a week that is. They just love it. Sophia's favorite book right now is called "My New Toy" and it is so funny! It is great to hear her in her room at rest time"reading" it out loud. We have made it to all but one storytime I think. That is our Friday outing. I guess sophia has been busy lately drawing people. They are so cute. I'll have to see if I can get a picture and put it up here.

Allison: Not doing much with Allison, other than the reading aloud to her and Sophia. Allison loves storytime at the library. She actually loves anything that consists of leaving the house! Potty training is still a work in progress here, but it does seem to be getting better. She is back in whining and screaming mode again. Oh and crying and screaming at bed time. I really need to get on top of that again. It sure makes bedtime miserable!

Lydia: I swear this baby gets cuter every day. I am just so in love with her. Even when she is crying it is so cute. Oh, she just has been melting my heart these last couple days. Being so cute and funny. She is rolling all over the living room and getting so close to crawling. It won't be long. She is finally eating food now, both baby food and table food. She loves graham crackers and bread.

Fire Safety Week

Our neighbor is the fire chief and he is nice enough to remember us during fire prevention week every year. He stops in with hats and coloring pages for the kids and answers any questions they have about fire safety. I think I do most of the question asking though. I was quite surprised at how much Em and Grace had forgotten since the last year. Sophia really took an interest and kept asking if there was a fire here how would we get out and here and here. She also liked learning the stop, drop, and roll drill. The embarasssing thing for me was that last year I believe I promised to fix our fire alarm situation. I about died when we checked them and I realized that NOT ONE alarm in the house was working. That is so scary! Well, I will be ready for him to come back next year. We are now set with working fire alarms, a carbon monoxide detector, and a fire extinquisher. Let's just pray we never need to use them!