Typical Tuesdays

Tuesdays around our house are insanely busy, and yesterday was no exception. 

Seeing a cute face like this
get gobbled by a shark really sucks.

I am fortunate enough to have someone come in every two weeks and clean the house (hooray for Haddix House Cleaning!) so on those Tuesdays we leave the house that morning and are gone until dinner.  We started off by going to see the movie 'Oceans' at Century 12.  It was part of their summer movie club.  Since we had purchased tickets in advance, the tickets were a whopping $1.00 for both of us.  Score!  We were almost late because, even though we've been going to see these Tuesday morning movies every Tuesday since the start of summer, I forgot what time it started.  We walked in right as the opening credits started.  [Note:  I think there is one more movie next Tuesday, and tickets at the box office are only $1.00.  It's always fun and we really enjoy going.]

Anyway, the movie was really good except for the part where the shark ate the oh-so-cute sea lions and then again when the sea gulls carried off the newly-hatched baby turtles.  I know that's part of the whole circle of life thing, but really, they didn't have to show that.  It upset a lot of the kids there.  In fact, Darcy came out of the movie contemplating becoming a vegetarian.  I told her she could if she wanted to.  After all, when I saw the movie ' Babe' I didn't eat meat for a year.  The allure of things like steak and bacon are too strong, though.  Plus, Darcy only tolerates vegetables. 

We ran into several other home school families there and we kidnapped one of Darcy's friends to go run errands with us for the afternoon (kidnapped with permission).  Darcy has this weird love of the soft pretzels at Sam's Club, so that's where we went for lunch.  While we were there, I swear we saw my brother's doppelganger.  I sneaked a photo of him and sent it to the hubs; he agreed.  It was like this guy was my brother's twin, but with hair.  Freaky!

I know it needs a little work,
but I love the way the door
turned out!

From there we went to the lake to check on some feral kittens that Darcy found a couple of weeks ago; thankfully, they were nowhere to be found.  We went to one of my favorite stores, Target, and grabbed a birthday present for a friend, then we went on the search for contact paper in either white board or chalk board form.  I recently moved all of Darcy's home school materials to a hall closet, and I decided that I wanted to make the door into a bulletin board of sorts.  I finally found some white board contact paper at Mardel, and I also found a poster-size piece of notebook paper that is laminated.  I grabbed a cute bulletin board border to complete my purchase. 

We dashed to Redbud Park so the girls could play for a bit before landing at the Abilene Public Library for a demonstration by a local kennel club on dog obedience.  They had three dogs there and they demonstrated the dogs following commands.  These dogs were super smart.  All I could think of was my dogs and how there's no way any of them could successfully complete an obedience class.  Missy forgets how the stairs work; Sophie is a stubborn cuss; Maynard is too busy being a horndog; and Dixie, well, Dixie could probably pass the class.  She's the only one, though.  Our dogs are dumber than rocks.  They are sweet, but D-U-M-B, dumb!

We exchanged kiddos at the library, sending Kid 1 home with her mom and bringing home two different ones.  I was glad that Kid 1 went with us on our errands because she gave Darcy some great company.  Most of the time, friends are a lot more fun than boring mom.  I took the new troop of girls to Sonic (hooray for happy hour!) and we surprised David with a soda.  When we got home, after walking into a sparkling clean house, the three girls hatched a plan.  They worked on making a movie for nearly two hours.  They have costumes and everything.  Right now all they have are a lot of bloopers, but they are working on it again this afternoon.  Having kiddos in the neighborhood is a great motivator for Darcy to get her school work done. 

Swallowtail from our
habitat

Yes, we are already working on school for the 2013-2014 year.  I went in and modified our schedule so that we are doing what I've heard referred to as "Sabbath Schooling."  You do six weeks on, and one week off.  In order to do that and get everything done by June, we need to start a few things now.  Another reason we are starting now is that her science book is a zoology study of flying creatures.  This includes bugs, which are plentiful right now.  She has a butterfly habitat (in fact, one swallowtail hatched yesterday morning before we left for the movies) so we are starting with Chapter 1 and then skipping straight to Chapter 14, which is the one on butterflies.  We'll then go back to Chapter 9 and do the one on bugs; no sense doing those chapters in the middle of winter when there's nothing around.  That will be the perfect time to study birds since they are more than plentiful here (egads, it's like a Hitchcock movie around here because we live so close to the mall - grackles everywhere).   So, Chapter 1, 14, 9-13, 2-8.  I'm sure that is exactly what the author had in mind. 

Today is hang out at home and take it easy, although now I'm working on lesson plans for reading for the year.  It's always something.