Slow down

Ah.  I can take a deep breath now.  Our summer fun and craziness has come to an end.  We went to Lagoon, went camping, attended a wonderful homeschool activity at Fort Buenaventura, saw some family, celebrated holidays, watched LOTS of extra kids, tutored the neighbor boy, and all this while doing "summer school."  Now we can all take a deep breath and take care of things at home.  I have a long list of things that need to be done over the next few weeks before we resume schooling.  My children are taking the next couple weeks off from school in order to rejuvinate themselves (plus then they will be EXCITED to start school back up to end their boredom!). 
Some of the things I will be doing over the next couple weeks are:
Having the kids do a "fashion show" of all their fall/winter clothes to determine what we need to buy
clothes shopping
School supply shopping
Purging the kitchen and getting it ready for school to start again
Preparing the workboxes for this year's curriculum
And getting ready for my oldest to turn 9 at the beginning of September

I am so excited to start our new curriculums and get going with "full" school as opposed to "summer" school.  I am also excited because I seem to have hit on something that actually is motivating Audrey to read!!!  Hallelujah!!!  I found a link on pinterest to an "I can read 100 books" challenge.  I talked to Audrey and had her decide on a reward she would REALLY want to earn in exchange for reading 100 books.  Her choice?  Fake nails.  So, I have arranged with a friend of mine to go shopping with us to find Audrey some really cute fake nails and then my friend will put them on her with nail glue and make them nice and pretty.  She is so excited she has already read 7 books.....granted they were all picture books, but they were all 2nd and 3rd grade level which is HUGE for us. 

As soon as I get Audrey's workboxes set up for this fall, I will do a "what's in the box" post for her boxes which will double as a glance at our curriculum for this coming school year. 
Until then....enjoy the rest of your summer!!!