“Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.” ~Inigo Montoya

‘Round here, we LOVE The Princess Bride. Well, at least those of us who are old enough to watch it. Which, essentially, is just my hubby and I. But we still love it :D I do believe he had seen it long before I ever did and the first time I watched it was with him quoting all the lines and driving my family nuts as they tried to listen.

But I digress. My point in opening with such a splendiferous line from a timeless classic is to introduce some structure to my blog and present you with a (hopefully) weekly installment of the Sunday Sum Up – essentially, what we’ve done in the past week. A little bit of this and that, mostly as something for me to look back on when we’re having a terrible week getting nothing done (which happens OFTEN!).

So, without further ado, my first edition of the SUNDAY SUM UP!

Monday – a typical school day. For us, Mondays are ALWAYS the best day of the week. I joke sometimes that things are downhill from there, but really, we are just blessed to often have a great Monday. Big Boy is working through First Language Lessons Level 1  – 15 lessons left, light at the end of the tunnel! – with an EnglishSmart Grade 1 workbook from Costco to fill it out. Math right now is MathSmart until we get into our Wednesday delivery :D JJ (4) is doing a couple of Kindergarten workbooks from Costco – he’s our non-schooler. Anything that LOOKS like school, he balks at, so we’re keeping it really simple this year. Both are doing Apologia Flying Creatures of the 5th Day for science, and Donna Ward’s Canada, My Country for “civic studies” – or whatever you want to call it :D

Tuesday – Big Boy had his first skating lesson (he missed the first real one the previous week because of the flu). I went to the wrong arena, but fortunately, the correct one was less than 10 minutes away, so he made it in time. He’s in a group of kids with a broad range of skills – he did really well, by the end was able to stand on his own and take a few strides without falling. We did find out though that his skates are too big :p

Tuesday night we had our church small group, then I spent far too many hours making cupcakes for the next day. I did, however, FINALLY find a REALLY good Red Velvet Cupcake recipe I like! I’ll be sharing it with my tips and tricks on here later.

Wednesday – we had a little 2nd birthday party for Keekers, much delayed because of the sickness we’d had. Some friends from church came over with their babies and we had a non-school day to enjoy some fellowship and good food together.

We also received our new Math Curriculum RightStart Mathematics! We started out using Christ Centered Curriculum with Big Boy, and he has really thrived on the drill format. But our 2nd, JJ, not at all. So we tried Math U See, and while I LOVE the program, and so does Big Boy, again, #2 is not doing great with it. Full circle we’ve come back to RightStart (I had originally considered it, but decided against it because of the cost – however, a full package is an AMAZING deal in the end), and I am so excited for us to start it next week!

Thursday – Big Boy has been taking swimming lessons with our homeschool group. He passed the first level, but did not pass the next, and is now in a Swimmer 1 / 2 split class. He’s terrified of the deep end. I’ve been taking him to the pool at least once a week, aside from his lesson. I can’t really blame the poor guy – both Hubs and I really do not like public pools, so the only swimming we do is at the lake camping and cottage. BUT, in the past few weeks, I have seen that boy transform from someone who does not like getting his face wet, to a fish! He’s swimming under the water, diving down (in the shallow end) to grab things from the bottom, kicking and swimming with his face in the water! I was stunned! Of course, it’s all in the shallow end, but I think he just needs to gain more confidence for the deeper water. We are so proud of our boy for taking courage and overcoming some of his fear.

Friday – our homeschool co-op day. I teach a class with another mom in the morning to our JK/SK kids. We’re covering manners right now, and we did table manners that day (yay for The Berenstein Bears Forget Their Manners and an old classic, Richard Scarry Please and Thank You Book – I grew up with that one!). We are there from 9:30 am to 2:00 pm – the kids have 3 one hour classes and a 1 hour lunch break. Moms teach the classes (with the exception of 1 or 2 classes, depending on the subject matter, where we bring in some other people) and when we’re not teaching, we have an opportunity to “pick each other’s brains” (as my mom loves to say :D) and spend time discussing anything and everything and giving encouragement. I love our group, I’m brand new to it and still adjusting somewhat to relationships and all, but I really do enjoy spending time with the families and women that are there.

After our co-op we hit up Michaels for some much-needed craft supplies. I should say “much-needed” tongue in cheek because I am not a big “crafts” person – as far as the kids doing crafts go. Not a fan. Because 9 times out of 10, it ends up in the garbage. But on the other hand, I love to try different, fun things which are going to add to our homeschool or general household decor. Plus, Big Boy has a birthday coming up, so I had to snag some things and ideas for loot bags and activities.

Ever since I saw the Magnetic Menu Plan Board from Ucreate Foods, I have been dying to do it, and have been stock piling the supplies.

All except the magnetic paint and the sheet metal. We hit up Home Depot last weekend and decided the project was going to be too time-consuming and that I was going to have to put it off.

So I have been looking for a MAGNETIC white board calendar and have NOT been able to find one, until now. I saw this.

Excuse the fuzzy photo – I was in a hurry and didn’t fiddle with the settings enough to get it focused. But you get the picture. Snort snort.

You can’t really beat the price! I scooped it up in a hurry and now all I have left to do is make my little meal magnets, and we’re all set! Let’s hope this helps to get me on the Menu Plan Monday boat regularly.

Saturday – chore and relax day. I made some of these sugar scrubs for my sister-in-law’s birthday, and we headed to my cousin’s 40th birthday party for the evening.

Sunday – church @ Harvest Bible Chapel York Regionand afternoon naps! I also use Sundays to try and catch up on any sewing I may have piling up.

I’ve quickly discovered that I CANNOT sew while the kids are around as some small catastrophe or argument always occurs. Thus it has been relegated to late nights or Sunday afternoons when everyone has quiet / nap time. I managed to finish 4 aprons (I got the pattern/tutorial off Etsy) I’ve been working on for gifts (1 for myself), but I only got a picture of 3 of them. And I still have about 7 or 8 to sew! I’ve got it down to about an hour and a half per, so it’s not too bad.

This one is mine! I fell in love with the fabric the moment I saw it on the tutorial, so I asked the seller whose it was. Sorry about the wrinkles, I haven’t sprayed them with scotch guard yet, so I didn’t iron yet :D

This fabric I bought at Hobby Lobby when I was in Buffalo in November – I would love to have a Hobby Lobby up here! Please?!?!
One of my favourite colour combos.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this Sunday Sum Up! Future ones will be much shorter hopefully :D Have a great week ahead!