1. Ira's 8th Birthday is tomorrow. We celebrated on Saturday with a party with family. Ira wanted a Nacho Bar for his meal and a "New Super Mario Brothers" Cake. I found some awesome real food recipes to help the nacho bar not be such a gut bomb: carnitas, nacho cheese, pico de gallo. The food was a hit and Ira was thrilled with his cake. It's probably one of the best cakes I've ever decorated. It took about 4 hours to decorate it, but the look on his face when he saw it was TOTALLY worth it!
2. We got new carpet! The carpet that we replaced was original to the house from when it was built in 1984. I don't really want to know what all was living and dead in that carpet, but we are THRILLED to have it gone! It was low on the priority list of "things to redo" when we bought the house though because the old stuff was okay enough. Finally, we are checking off the final boxes of totally flipping this house. Since we bought 5 years ago we have: Replaced: all the flooring, every light fixture, and every faucet; Added ceiling fans to the bedrooms, Remodeled the kitchen, adding an eating bar and a dishwasher; Updated the main bathroom; Replaced the toilet in the half bath; Primed and painted every wall; Finished the basement; Added a perennial flower bed and vegetable garden, and are nearly finished with adding a 3rd bedroom. It's been a lot of work and taken a lot of time, but we wanted to do it on a cash basis, so we are thrilled to be nearly finished!
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4. We switched Ira to Saxon 54 after using ALEKS since the beginning of the school year. ALEKS worked well for us in that we needed to accelerate through some things for Ira to find his learning level (he'd already finished 2nd grade Math in 1st grade at our Catholic School last year). He finished with 3rd grade math in ALEKS in January, and after doing some Olympic-math in February, I assigned him to 4th grade math in ALEKS. Then we started noticed he wasn't retaining some really important topics (like long division and fractions and all that good stuff) To me, it's a twofold problem with ALEKS: first of all, there is no instructional dimension. The child is set straightaway to working on problems, and have to click "Explain" if they don't understand it. Well, that takes maturity first off, but I also felt like the explanations lacked depth. So I supplemented with my own knowledge, which is fine in the younger math grades, but not so once we start getting further. Secondly, the topical nature of ALEKS wasn't working for us. Doing a topic and then being done with it without really any opportunity for review (other than when you log in the next day) just doesn't work for the math basics like multiplication and long division and rounding and fractions and decimals. Or at least it didn't for us. Having learned from Saxon for a number of years myself, and having taught it when I taught 4th grade, I was very familiar with their spiraling concept and felt like it was exactly what we needed. We've been very pleased so far and will just continue with it next year.
5. Ruby had a total meltdown at Ira's birthday party because she offered him a plate when he started going through the nacho bar and he (rudely) told her he didn't need it because he already had one. I took her to our room where we chilled out for probably half an hour. We had a good talk about femininity and emotions. She is such a beautiful girl with a big open heart and I am sure this will not be the last time we have that talk. I am so blessed to have the opportunity to parent both a boy and a girl. So different, both of them, and so wonderful!
6. Ruby and I got to hang out together while Andy and Ira worked at our parish's quilt bingo today. Of course, the first thing she asked to do was paint. It's her fravorite thing to do, so I obliged. She painted a Christmas tree. I painted my favorite bush, a forsythia. It looked really bad until it dried, then I was shocked by how well it turned out. While it was drying we read books and listened to music. Then we played the longest game of Chutes and Ladders like ever. That game can really get on my nerves...
7. I cannot get Jennifer Trapuzanno out of my mind/heart. I don't even know her personally, but on Tuesday morning she posted in our NFP group on Facebook asking for prayers for her husband who had been mugged. He ended up dying, leaving her behind, eight months pregnant with their first child, a daughter. I cannot imagine the loss and heart-wrenching grief she is feeling right now. Please keep her and her daughter in your thoughts and prayers in the days and weeks and months ahead. If you feel moved to donate to their family, you can do so here.
Well that wasn't necessarily quick, but I got a lot of stuff dumped out of my head there. Head on over to Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes!
