Ten on Tuesday

1. It's raining still. (Okay, now that I just typed that, I think it may have stopped, lol. But it's still cold and overcast.) I'm not complaining, though. Nope. Definitely will take this weather over snow or hail or flooding, as I know other areas of the country are dealing with. Also, we haven't had to turn our sprinklers on yet...and normally we do that around the end of March-ish. So, not having to pay for the extra water is sweet. :)

2. Back for Mother's Day, I sent this to my mom. She calls all her grandkids her "sprouts" and is up to 13 now...

That's sprout #10 admiring the end product with my mom. :) Aren't they all a good looking bunch of kids? You can't tell in this picture, but I numbered the photos (by age) and color coordinated the numbers (by family). ;)

3. We saw Captain America: Civil War a bit more than a week ago. Of course. (We're kind of superhero junkies here, lol.) I definitely enjoyed it more than the latest Batman/Superman movie that we saw back around Easter. Marvel is just plain funnier. 

4. Yes, we already have our tickets for X-Men: Apocalypse at the end of May. ;)

5. Um, and also already have our tickets (for Asher, Micah and I) for the Denver Comic Con in June.

6. Awhile back, one of Nathan's friends introduced us to a fun eatery here in Fort Collins that we had no idea existed. It's called Waltzing Kangaroo and is worth a try...quick and easy Australian food. We enjoyed the meat pies and definitely recommend trying their coffee infused chocolate ganache tart. Yum!

7. Speaking of yum, Micah's been on an Ace of Cakes marathon lately. Watching that is just making me crave cake! That's mean. ;)

8. As some of you know, I recently did another round of purging. I get like that sometimes. :) I started with our school room and managed to get through my office as well. Before and after pictures wouldn't be impressive at all, as I didn't end up getting rid of tons of stuff so much as throwing out garbage and reorganizing things to fit in the space better, lol. Still. It felt good. (I *may* go back and try a more exhaustive purge later this summer, as I know there's stuff here I could part with. At the moment, though, that felt like a rabbit hole that wouldn't pay off just now.)

9. Relatedly, though, Nathan, Micah and I did a great job purging stuff in the kitchen! We were able to weed out boxes of stuff (that a friend helpfully collected for a school fundraiser for her kids...win/win!). The process also helped remind Nathan and Micah of what we have and what we eventually want to replace. We've started a list, lol. 

10. And, I purged even more stuff from my closet, too. I've been doing really well this past year at not adding to the closet, so getting rid of more was pretty impressive to me (as I've done thorough purging regularly). Allow me to just say that it feels stinkin' awesome to let go of clothes that you *know* were snug a year or two ago...because now they're definitely too big! Seriously happy. (And motivating to keep it that way, lol.)

Okay, off to continue with my day... :)

For the record

Just wanted to mention here (for my own record and also for grandparents and great-grandmas who are interested) that Noah's now done with his sophomore year (as of Friday). He's got 29 college credits to his name now and will pretty much only have college courses from here out. In fact, next semester, all of his classes will be on the Front Range Community College campus. 

As far as the semester that just wrapped up, it went pretty well...definitely better than last term with regard to leaving things till the very last minute. (Remember this?) ;) The boy earned three As and a B. (Grades aren't official yet, but that's pretty certain.) The B was in college Calculus and was only about a percentage point away from being an A. (Plus, dude, the boy is technically high school freshman aged and got a B in college Calculus! The A's were in college Logic, college US History before Reconstruction and high school Spanish II.)

More importantly, though, Noah honed his studying skills in that class...particularly for the final exam (which he got an A on!). Truly, Nathan and I were pretty darn happy with that specific thing--the studying and seeing it pay off. :) To date, Noah hasn't really had to study for anything; he just retains the information. So. We felt that was a very valuable lesson and well worth the semester. That skill will serve him well going forward and is more important than a single grade on his record.

(In case you're wondering, the reason he ended up with the B wasn't actually not knowing the calculus. It was partly perhaps over-confidence for the first couple tests (which made the studying for the last tests so happy to us)...and partly just small mistakes stemming largely from having taken the fall semester off from math such that he forgot certain details. In retrospect, maybe I should have been more insistent that Noah actually do the pre-calculus curriculum that I bought for him to study on his own in the fall. ;p Oh well.)

So. Sophomore year is done! Noah's definitely learned more about being a student during this past year...had some ups and downs in terms of time management/study skills but appears to be on the right track now. Whew. Here's hoping the junior year continues that growth and presents him with even a bit more challenge.

In the meantime, he's officially on summer vacation now and pretty darn happy about it. :) 

Homeschooling miscellany

We're into our last session of homeschooling for our year here. It's going to be fairly light...because I'm realistic and I've learned over the years that it's hard to get boys to focus at the end of the year...when summer is calling. ;) (And, because, with Noah being out for the summer starting tomorrow, it's difficult to convince the younger two that they should still be doing schoolwork, lol.) 

As we're wrapping things up, I have many jumbled thoughts that need organizing over the summer. Since I have a minute, here are some of them:

- Geography. I really like geography, actually. It's apparent, though, that the boys don't necessarily share my enthusiasm...or at least not enough to work more on, for instance, remembering the fifty states, lol. I've covered all fifty states at least a couple different years, a number of different ways (with stories, trivia, maps, etc). I randomly pull out maps and ask them to label all fifty, using their postal abbreviations. It's getting better. Really. But the midwest is still a bit of a black hole. ;) 

This is all three of them earlier this week. Micah got the most right (45), though Noah will tell you that he was rushed since he was trying to get out the door to Spanish class, lol. 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do next year yet. I'm pretty excited, though, about the world geography curriculum I found not long ago...more on that later.

- Tinker Crates. I've been stockpiling my monthly Tinker Crates...planning to pull them out during the summer to keep boys busy. Noah was bored this week, though, and grabbed this shake table kit:

Gotta love easy. ;)

- Purging. Yeah. It's purging time again. ;) Beyond the rest of the house (like the kitchen and closets), I'm working right now on really purging my school stuff. What I've found is:

• I either need more space or less stuff, lol.
• I *have* gotten better at my homeschooling purchases...less stuff on my shelves that didn't or won't get used. Yay, me! (But, this means that I don't have as much to get rid of...)
• Given my history with language arts indecision, I have a plethora of language arts materials that I continue to hold onto, thinking that I *might* use them eventually. Hoping to really do better in that department...working right now on actually gathering all my stuff together in one place and then deciding what to use and what to purge. Wish me luck!
• I'm going to have to purge my office to make room for the overflow from the school area, I think. Ugh. Between that and the kitchen, you may not see me for a bit. (seriously. oy.)

Okay. That's enough stalling. I really should start excavating my office...bleh.

My Mother's Day

Just so you know...I had a pretty lovely Mother's Day, myself. :) It started with sleeping in a bit then being asked to stay in my room while Micah and Nathan made me breakfast:

They made lemon blueberry scones topped with brown sugar (from scratch) with a side of pan seared ham and some sort of Icelandic yogurt, along with pineapple juice and hot tea. I also received beautiful cards from each of my guys and that beautiful bamboo arrangement.

Later in the morning, we headed outside to take some pictures (more on that in a minute) and play some impromptu wiffle ball. We then walked to Matador for lunch and made it home just before the cooler weather started rolling in. I took some time to find all the pictures for that last blog post, then we went to my friend's house to help celebrate two of her kids' confirmations. We chatted and boys played and we had cupcakes, and it was good. :) 

For dinner, Nathan made me king crab legs (a first! since he only puts up with seafood for my sake and particularly doesn't like crab, lol) with asparagus...

...and then we had a very lazy evening with some Netflix and some reading and not much else...which was lovely. Happy. :)

Now. Back to those pictures...

So pleased that I started this new tradition last year! 

Asher would like me to point out that I was wearing heeled sandals, lol. He's still shorter, but it's getting really close. ;) (And, yes, I was standing up a step in that picture with Noah.) 

And that, friends, was my Mother's Day. So blessed!

Happy Mother's Day

A big shout out to all the moms in my life! Wishing you all a spectacular Mother's Day!

I don't have pictures of everyone (and I can't figure out how to reorder these pictures anyhow, so there's no particular order, so please don't take it personally, lol)...but here are some specific shout outs:

To my mom...obviously ;) 

To my baby sister...who's doing a fabulous job learning to be a mom to her two little boys:

To my not-baby sister...who's holding the baby sister's baby here but has three growing kiddos of her own that she's raising with care:

To my lovely sisters in law, Marcy and Bridget...for raising my nieces and nephews awesomely.

To my mom's mom...who's still going strong at almost 95 years old:

To my mom's step-mom...who helped shape who my mom is. (She passed away about 15 years ago, so I don't have a picture handy on my phone.)

To the moms in my village...who raise my boys' pals and amaze me regularly with their compassion and determination:

To the rest of the moms in my village that I don't have pictures with just now...who help model parenthood to my boys and to me and who have helped me along this journey just by being there.

To all the moms in my not-local village...who offer support and encouragement along the way.

To my wonderful mother in law...who raised her son to be my perfect partner: 

To Nathan's grandmas...who raised strong families that led to this couple above, among many other things. :) (Sorry, I know I have pictures but can't get them to load here for some reason. Here's a link. And here's another.)

To my godmother...who has always made me feel so special and capable.

To all the mothers who came before...

To all the mothers yet to come...

Thank you all!!!

Happy Mother's Day!