Schools Out!!

Ahh...the first Monday of summer vacation....Even if I didn't watch one of cutest baby girls in the world, I wouldn't be able to sleep in. I think this comes with age...I remember early in our marriage, sleeping in together on Saturdays till noon. (It was short lived...Caleb came pretty quick.) We would sleep in because we were still up in the wee-hours of the morning. Now I have to struggle to make it through the 10:00 news.

I had no problems turning 30....creeping up on 35 is what I'm struggling with.

I miss those early days in our ministry, when people thought that I was in the youth group...you know, the one I was responsible for???

But, this is not about me and my struggle with age....This is about NO MORE SCHOOL!!!!

This has been a wonderful school year. I know that this is in part because we were able to get Cameron's ADHD diagnosed and treated. He loves to learn now. And he loves to tell you about what he's learned. I could not believe how he just flew through his work.

Caleb did wonderful as well. He knows more than I did in middle school. (He probably knows more than I did going into high school.) It still blows me away that he will be 13 at the end of year. I have a 5th grader and 7th grader now!!

We will soon be going out for our "Summer Business Lunch". That is when we will sit down at a nice restaurant (nicer than McDonald's) and go over next year. We use a curriculum, but the great thing about homeschool, is that you can learn about whatever you are interested in. So for an hour or so we will sit down and talk about specific things that the boys will want to learn about. We'll sit there with our pad and paper and "brainstorm".

Lesson #.... whatever - I've learned that the more you involve your children in the lesson planning, the more excited they are about learning.

For example - There was nothing in they boys curriculum about "How Chocolate is Made". Which is fine, but we came up with our own lesson plans about where chocolate comes from, how it starts out as a bean and ends up a chip. We read and made recipes with different forms of chocolate. At the end of the month we took a field trip to "Chocolate World" in Hershey, PA.
(How bad can that be...)

I'm excited about what ideas my boys will come up with at our meeting...as happy as I am right now that summer is here, I really get excited about the new school year. Good-bye to one more year.

2009-2010....here we come!


Chocolate Waffles
(I have an old recipe that I used to use, but the Bisquick takes out a few steps!)

1 1/2 cups Bisquick mix
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened baking cocoa
3/4 cup water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 eggs

Mix dry ingredients together in a medium bowl and then add wet ingredients and don't for get to heat your waffle iron! Follow directions from your waffle maker. Mine suggests using 1/2 cup of batter, which is perfect! These are good by themselves or....

~with a scoop of ice cream
~raspberry sauce
~chocolate syrup
~peanut butter and bananas
~marshmallow cream
~or our favorite (the way I fixed them on Mother's Day) strawberries and chocolate whipped cream

Enjoy!