Consecrated Housewife: 7 Quick Takes

1. Spring has arrived in the Midwest, as announced by The Weather Channel this week...

Could be worse

This was the forecast for Thursday. We were fortunate that the tornado warnings went just north and south of where we live, this time. While laying in bed that evening listening to the weather radio I debated whether or not to get up and clean out the basement closet, aka the "tornado shelter". Remember that posts I did last year where I bragged about the nice and organized closet. Well, it so doesn't look that way now. We would have to move stuff out just to fit everyone in it. Then I decided the tornado threat wasn't enough to warrant me getting out of bed (or I was just.too.tired to deal with it). We ended up not using it that day, so one point scored for procrastination!

BTW, after the winter we've had I think I'll take tornado sirens over blizzards and ice storms.

2. Firstborn's biology class got to dissect frogs this week! He's been looking forward to it all year...

Sorry for blurry picture!

3. I was happy this was the last scheduled dissection for the year. On those lab days we need to get there 1/2 hour early. This means the little ones need to get up earlier too, which doesn't always work out as well. While Firstborn was in class I took Princess and Toddler Boy to their classroom early to play...

Building block towers

And knocking them down!!

Parachute time

Princess has ballet at the same time as Firstborn's biology class. Since we were there early the kids got to play with the blocks. I think her favorite part of ballet is the end, when her teacher brings out the parachute.

4. Spring is also when they baby chickens, ducks and turkeys arrive at the local Rural King.

They had a zillion of them! The kids were happy to see them. They are super cute (and quite smelly). They would love to talk me into buying some one day. If we didn't live in town I might consider it.

While we were there Soccer Boy used up one of his gift certificates he got from Aunt Julie for Christmas and bought this...

Don't worry, it only shoots pellets

He's been having fun target shooting in the backyard. Doug and I have been constantly reminding him that it could possibly put someone's eye out so be careful. So far, so good. Rural King was running a 50% off sale, so he was thrilled to get it. Game Boy wants us to go back and get him one too. Jury is still out on whether he is mature enough to have one. When I'm on the fence about something like this I usually defer to Doug's judgement. Besides being a male himself, he also grew up in a family of boys. I figure he's in a better position to decide about the safety risks of such things.

5. On the homeschooling front, we're still plugging along. All those snow days enabled us to get a bit ahead so it sort of feels like we're in the downward slide into the end of the year. Firstborn starts high school next year and I think I have most of the curriculum stuff planned out. They have some sales going on and so I'm hoping to get it purchased soon. I've been working on getting schedules set up for next year. It's so nice going into the busy summer months with things somewhat mapped out. I've been praying about switching to an "all year" school year plan. In practice, we already do something like that now. We typically have some math to finish up and we continue reading all summer. I would continue to do history and science on a 9 month schedule because those subjects are partially done with our homeschool group. But I would put the rest of our homeschool on a year round schedule with weeks off spaced throughout the year. I haven't gotten it all nailed down yet and we're still looking at our options. I'll have to plan a follow up post when I get it all figured out.

6. Speaking of schooling, look who was caught working on his brother's math homework this week...