Where has the last week gone?

I feel like it's been ages since I have even touched the blog.  We had a busy weekend followed up by a busy week and the next thing I know it's been over a week since I posted anything on the blog.  And in some ways we can even say this looks a bit like procrastination.

First, I have a bit of Jesse Tree Ornament Swap news.  For swap #2 I have no contact information for Wendy J. (ornament #5) and Erin (ornament #18).  If either one of you see this please email me so I can send you the email I sent everyone else on 10/12 that contains all of the swap details.  While I have contact info for everyone else, I still haven't heard from many of you.  Please send me and email so I know you got the email I have sent.  I'm not someone who adheres to the "no news is good news" line of thinking.  Instead I'm waking up in the middle of the night here and there wondering if some who signed up for the swap had second thoughts and haven't communicated it to me.

Last week Katie turned two.  She's two already!  I have the hardest time believing that she's two, but then she throws a little fit or something and I believe it.  She certainly acts like a two year old.  We had a party for her on the 13th and then cake on her birthday a few days later.  Katie loves cake!

Bryan was sick last week with a double ear infection and now I'm not feeling to well either.  The past few days my throat has been sore and I feel like one of my ears is filling with fluid.  Katie had a bit of a cough and cold last week with left her feeling a bit grouchy.

Katie, Ellie and I had a bit of a pumpkin picking hay ride fail last Monday.  Clearly choosing a day when everyone was off from school to do a hay ride was not the brightest idea.  We ended up buying pumpkins from the market area and ditching our plans for the hay ride.

I'm really surprised that Madeline is only a week or two away from wrapping up all of her classes for the first quarter.  Some days haven't been the easiest, but we're getting there.  There are some changes I'd like to make for the remainder of the year so I'm going to have to take a little time to sit down and see what I can do.  We're using Seton for our homeschool because 1. I was able to get her enrolled and have books delivered quickly when we made an 11th hour decision to pull her out of the public school system days before the school year was set to begin.  2. It's an accredited program which makes my husband feel a lot more comfortable with our decision to homeschool.  3. I know people who use the program who have all had good things to say about it.  Now there are plenty of aspects about Seton that I like, but there are some things that I'm not necessarily thrilled about.  I don't particularly like their science and history books so I need to find ways to tweak, supplement  and substitute while still preparing her to take their tests.  And then, there's the dilemma of my child not being very fond of memorization which is a huge part of the religion course.  Right now we're having Ellie work with her on the memorization.  Ellie is a pro when it comes to memorization so I'm hoping her method of quizzing her older sister will work.  So far it's getting her somewhat better results.  I think it has an additional benefit of Ellie learning the material, too.

I got an email from Ellie's teacher yesterday asking me to organize the class party for Halloween.  I can't believe how quickly the end of the month is coming up on us.  I'm a little surprised at how few parents volunteered to help out with supplying treats for the class parties.  Of course, with all of the restrictions the school now has on sweets, there isn't much on the list of approved food items.  The school even changed it's policy on how many parent volunteers are allowed to help with the parties.  Just two parents per class.  Years ago we were allowed to have five or six.  This new way of doing things very closely resembles the way things are done at our local parish school.  I really disliked the way they sucked the fun out of classroom parties and it looks like the public schools are now doing the same.  Another reason to prefer homeschooling to a traditional school.  I'm just fine with having some goodies and fun to celebrate a holiday or feast day.

When I get a little more time I'll update the blog with some pictures of the birthday girl and some of the other happenings of last week.  I just don't have the energy at the moment to sort through photos, edit and water mark them and everything else that is associated with me adding them to this post.