Summer Vacation!

It is official. We are on Summer Break!!!!!

I had planned to go through the entire summer. My husbands schedule is that where he is gone all day and evening. So, I had figured why bother taking a break... We will just do school since he is gone so much anyway..
BUT, my husband hurt his arm. Bad in fact. It required surgery on his bicep  tendon. They had to cut him twice ... once above his elbow and below. The surgery was a week ago Monday and yesterday they finally took the drainage tubes out of his arm. He has been in a lot of pain and, Dr. said we may be looking at 8-12 weeks of his being off work when all is said and done.
So, that being said, there was NO way I was about to keep our noses in books for this rare opportunity that daddy is home for the summer!
He isn't able to do much physically but, there is plenty we can/will do with his being home and we are going to soak all that in... if he goes back earlier, we will get back into the books earlier but, for now... Summer break.
It is exciting really. All of the public school kids are out and a lot of my homeschooling friends have already wrapped it up. I wasn't sad about schooling through the summer but I am awful excited about not :)

I am also in the "rough drafting" of my planning for next year .. I LOVE this time of year.. researching, gathering, list making.. it is very exciting for me... even more exciting will be when I am buying new crayons , pencils and notebooks and books are coming in the mail.  I know I may sound like some sort of dork to some of you but... admit it... some of you know the EXACT excitement I speak of :)

Next year I will have a 6th grader, a 4th grader, a 2nd grader and a preschooler. I haven't been doing this school thing for very long but, WOW... a 6th grader?
Abigail will continue how we have been.... She has little workbooks and coloring books that she "works" in. She refuses to play on the computer or play with toys while her siblings are doing school. If I suggest Starfall for instance, she declines and asks for "her school work".. I will get her a couple "work books" from the store and keep her busy while the others are.
A little less book work this year then last and more Unit Studies as I did last year. My kids responded VERY well to this approach and while at times, I became annoyed with the work involved... I really did enjoy it too. Especially with the way that they got into it.
Also there will be WAY more independent reading.... I will be coming up with a "Book-it" of sorts for my kids. I don't do Book-it personally but I like the concept behind it so... I will be coming up with something like it :)
Anyway... these are just a few of my ideas for next year. I have a million more swirling around.
I have to get my school room back in order since we had a flood a couple months ago, it has been a slow moving process to get it back into working order. I am looking forward to getting back into the school room. In theory I am in love with the idea of "kitchen table school", but, we don't have that option here in my home.. we don't even have the "eat together as a family" option either  as my kitchen is not really what you call an "eat in kitchen" ... So, a school room in the basement is really the only option for my sanity :)

So, that's about it.
Recently the kids and I went with my aunt and her grandson to Frankenmuth. We stayed over night in a hotel and had a great time to celebrate his birthday.... I don't have many pics as I was busy enjoying the moment and I have got out of practice of taking pictures with an actual camera sadly.... but here is what I have....

                                                                      Anna being silly

Abby playing a video game with a gun bigger then HER lol

And of coarse, every princess has a crown~

Kalebs dentist would be SO proud hahahaha

Jumping on the beds... Shhhh don't tell

Getting ready for bed!

We got up out of bed and took a ride to Bronners which, is a year round Christmas store because at night, they are all lit up as tho it is December... the kids had SO much fun with this.

And I just LOVE this picture. I think of that little song "There were 10 in the bed and the little one said "Roll over, Roll Over" (not sure that is the name but... you know what I mean)  except in our case there are only 4 :)

So.. I look forward to scrapbooking our summer and I hope that while my hubby is hurt we can still find some fun stuff to do.. that doesn't require much out of him :(