The "little" guy starts the Birthday parties...

Jeremy is the first of my three lovely children to start with Birthdays, which we will be celebrating once a months from now and end the last one in January. I have often wished that the kid's Birthdays would have been in the summer and we could have lovely garden parties, decorated gazebos and lovely warm breeze accompanied by lots of children's laughter. Do you remember Meat Loaf's song " Two out of three ain't bad" ?  Well, in this case it is more like one out of four ain't bad :)  We have parties and we have decorations and we have lots of children's laughter. Because we live in a rather small apartment, we have to 'outsource' the parties. This year my 'little' guy wanted to go to a Go-Cart place, which proved to be waaayyy too expensive. So he thought about Paintball - really???? In my mind I could see injured and crying kids and very upset moms. That didn't sound like a lot of laughter. Luckily he finally settled on a trampoline park. We had a part of the trampoline park just for us for 30 min. That was really great and the kids enjoyed themselves very much and bounced all over the place. They threw the balls and played some sort of trampoline-dodgeball. They were jumping and falling and bouncing and running and laughing. After the thirty minutes we had to leave that private court and join the public, which was much more crowed, as there were about three or four more Birthday parties at the same time. The kids jumped and played for another sixty minutes after which they were very hot and exhausted. I think they were kind of happy that they got to sit down and have pizza, something to drink and cupcakes. Jeremy had a great time and enjoyed the company of his siblings and friends. After we got home and he had a shower he fell exhausted and happy into his bed. We had a fun day celebrating his 11-th Birthday. Though to me the past 11 years seemed more like 11 months  :)

Siblings :)

trampoline-dodgeball

yeah, well, the camera didn't do well with kids in mid-air

Everyone is enjoying pizza and something to drink

Happy Birthday, mein kleiner Frosch :D 

Sickness in the house

For the last few days the kids have been sick with some sort of bug. They have headaches and feel dizzy and have stomach aches. It seems to get better - very slowly......
Needless to say that we had to take a break from school for now. I took the the chance to look some more into our schedules. I have heard so many good things about the "The Well Planned Day" that I decided to order it. It has many good schedules and encouraging articles and it said in the description that it can be used for up to four students. Well, at least that is what I understood....

Isn't this pretty? Just the thought of having all kinds of schedules in one book makes this homeschool mom's heart beat faster :)
They have a class schedule, daily schedule, grades and attendence schedules, semester goals and even a shopping list and Dinner menu schedule for the week along with these encouraging articles. I really, really like this set up!

Isn't this awesome? I really like it! So I was all enthusiastic to start using it. I thought that this would be great, since I have only three children there would be enough space to add all our subjects. So I started adding the information and our work and quickly realized that no matter how I try to squish it together, it is not going to work for us. Now that was very disappointing on at least two levels. One, I really, really like everything else about it and - two, I hate to spend the money and not use it. So I was wondering how to make this work for us. I think I spend a whole day looking at schedules all over the web and I didn't find anything I liked. I was getting pretty frustrated thinking that I couldn't use this otherwise marvelous book that combines everything a homeschool mom needs. Since I researched all kinds of schedules, I found what I don't like. However. what I wanted started to crystalize more and I finally set out to make my own schedule. When I was done, I was quite happy with a very simple yet very workable schedule that finally works for us. It was still upsetting that I thought I would have to print it all out and then put it in a folder which I then have to use somehow together with the Planner. Then I had a great thought. Why not combine the two! The question was just how to do that. I went through several possibilities in my mind and concluded that I would just print the needed sheets out and tape them with double sided tape in the Planner.
Here are some pictures of what I did. The letters in the boxes are the beginning letters of each child. This gives me enough space to briefly write what is to be done today. I have the lesson plan for each child and each subject in my teacher's binder. I wrote in greater detail in the lesson planner, so this is a great way for me to have all the assignments for all three kids together. I am surprised to see that the most simple template works the best. Maybe I am just strange, but I never had enough space for each subject we are doing. Now I am writing my own and I got every subject for every child together. This is a great way - for me - to continue to use this awesome Planner :)  If you are interested in a template, let me know and I will send it to you.

Now I better go and attend to my lovelies :)

North Shore

When I wrote last, I was still planning for Co-op. We are done with all the planning and had our first meeting already. I think it went very well and I am looking forward to a great year. As a reward for all the work I had to do, Nina for working 40 and sometimes more hours per week this summer and the other two being on the back burner we took a few days to reconnect, refresh and just enjoy each other and the very beautiful nature around us. We had our first camping trip at the North Shore. We had a good time. We talked a lot, played cards, at Pizza, slept, read and just sat and looked at Lake Superior. A few years ago we read 'Paddle to the Sea' from Holling C Holling. Paddle started his journey at Thunder Bay Canada and traveled along the coast of Lake Superior, well not only the coast but mostly. We were in Germany when we read about it, now we are here sitting at the shores of Lake Superior. Who know what else God has in store for us and everyone else? Where will we be in 5 or 10 or 20 years??? Well, I decided to just enjoy the time I have with the kids right now because I don't know how much time I am granted on this earth. So instead of me talking, how about if I just share some of our pictures?

He enjoyed the little playground

the light saber was a must on the trip ;-)

God's beautiful creation

and I thought only the Ocean has big waves....

having the kindle with us was really nice, so much easier than bringing three or four books (though I still prefer books )

I can't tell you how often I held my breath because the kids were so very close to the edge.....

another moment when my heart was pounding because I was scared that they might fall

They named it "Jamie Island" though that name didn't catch on with everyone ;-)

obviously staged but kinda funny....

beautiful evening sky

sisters .....

he was very persistent, though his line kept getting caught on rocks and he lost his favorite lure

this looks so endless and made me feel so small... is that why water has a calming effect on my soul?

breath-taking beauty

 it might have been a little well once upon a time.....

of course all climbing was done in flip flops

so peaceful...

If you look closely you can see a part of a rainbow :)

the other part of the rainbow

the clouds seemed to be almost low enough to touch .....

not such a great quality but beautiful nonetheless. Maybe a motive for Thomas Kinkade? :)

It's the small things ....

It has been a very busy week. I spend many, many hours planning, organizing and writing emails for our co-op. Mostly I like it and it is such a great reward to hear moms say that they really enjoy it and it honestly helps them in their homeschool journey. That makes all work worth it. Though I don't know if my kids would agree with that, since there were a few days when they had to have peanut butter sandwiches because I was in the middle of something and couldn't stop without completely loosing my train of thought. Well, we are almost done and ready to start. I just need to finish writing the contracts for the teachers, send emails to the parents, ..... well and few other things   :)    BUT, we did take a day and just went to IKEA. I really like going to that store, always have. When my son was little - we lived in Berlin at the time - my sister, her son, my son and myself used to meet at IKEA, shortly after they opened that day. We would bring our little guys to the play area and go upstairs to the cafeteria and have coffee and talk for a very long time. Since it was early in the day we could leave the little tykes often for about 1.5 or 2 hours in Smaland. That was a nice, inexpensive break for us :)    Now my little guy isn't so little any more and even though he'd like to go, they won't take him at the play area anymore. Though we all still like to go to IKEA. We went last week and had a fun time. I found a "Wäscheständer"! I am so happy about that! Coming from Germany, it is quite normal to hang up your washed laundry on a clothes drying rack since dryers are not as common as they are here in the States. We are living in an apartment where we have to pay for the wash machine and dryer, which makes doing laundry expensive. In order to cut some cost I tried to hang up my laundry to dry on the regular clothes drying racks. However, they are pretty small and a little wobbly and just don't last very well. So I often put the laundry in the dryer because I couldn't hang it up anywhere. Then we went to IKEA. There I found IT!  A beautiful, fairly sturdy Wäscheständer!  Yes, in Germany many are much more durable, however, this one is pretty good. I can now hang up to three loads of laundry and let it dry in the sunshine on the balcony. It smells sooo good. I suddenly like doing laundry again. Sometimes it is the little things in life that make a difference :)

Summer where have you gone.....

It seems that everyone I talk to finds themselves almost at the end of the summer and is wondering how we got here so fast. Though we didn't travel this year, it was a busy summer. Well, actually each one of the kids went to camp, so I guess that counts somewhat for traveling :) The summer started off with Nina becoming a lifeguard. The training was tough and the job is tough. She has worked very hard this summer, often 40 hour weeks. For someone just starting out to work, this is quite an adjustment. She also had to be extra careful, because her skin color is rather fair, though you wouldn't think so now anymore. Much to her delight she has acquired a deep tan, though not without having a second degree sunburn first. Of course this was the hottest summer in Minnesota ever - at least that is what they said on TV. It was pretty strange at first to have to drive my daughter to work. How did she grow up so fast? I remember very vivid when we brought her home from the hospital, her fist steps. When she took her imaginary dog for a walk with Oma and Opa, her fist day at school and now her first day at work......what a bittersweet season. What a learning curve for me.....so many tears, some filled with sorrow and heartbreak and other with joy. Okay, I can do this - oh, Lord help me. I am very proud of my all my kids, though Nina is the oldest and hence the guinea pig ;-)  I know a little better what to expect when the other two get to this age. Not that it will be any easier...... but I am very proud of my sweet oldest daughter. This is a little scary for her as well, these first steps into the adult world....I love you Nina :)

Coming home from her first day at work this summer......

with a McFlurry as a reward after saving three lives the very first day at the pool.......