Update

Isn't it amazing how time gets away from you?  I realized it has been too long since I blogged at all.  Between snow days, cleaning, falling, healing, baking, and planning, things just sort of took over my time.  On the plus side my house hasn't been this continuously clean in a very long time.  We have been eating yummy healthful foods, and I have been completing and preparing lesson plans without being a slave to them.  I feel better than I have in a long time, at least about my accomplishments.  The fall on the ice certainly didn't make me feel better.  My neck still hurts a lot, especially by the end of the day.  I don't bounce like I used to.  But while resting on the couch, I have spent a lot of time over the past week looking at state requirements and district guidelines for preschool and kindergarten curriculum.  I am starting to integrate those topics into lesson plans over the next two months.  We have only one color left to do and that frees up a whole subject time to add in more social studies and science topics.  We are studying I, 9, pentagon, pink, iguanas, and maps this week.  I has been very interesting this week though.  Mason was home Monday and Tuesday, and the lessons on maps have been shortened from the original plans.  They are all three having some difficulty concentrating today, I am sure because they haven't seen each other in near a week.  It looks like tomorrow will be a snow day as well, so CJ Eliza and I will be making some finger paints and using some envelopes to paint on.  The envelopes were in a box in the basement and the residual moisture in the air was enough to seal them shut, so they will make perfect little canvasses for toddler fingers.  Upcoming our theme topics will be transportation, winter, weather, and health, not necessarily in that order.  I have found that CJ and Eliza respond so well to school even on the days Mason isn't here.  They are so disappointed if we don't do school.  It keeps their minds active, and keeps the routine, which makes for a better day for all of us.  They don't like having an entire day without some sort of structure.  They like knowing what is coming.  It is so wonderful to me to be able to see every day how they grow and learn, and to learn about them as we take this journey together.  Watching them learn and grow into amazing little people is probably the greatest gift I can imagine.  I love being the one who knows how they are learning and progressing, the one who can adapt lessons to work with their personalities and strengths, to teach them manners and moral responsibility.  Seriously the best job ever!  I really have never been so happy in my life as I am now, especially when the kitchen floor is clean!