Day 68

Ok, we got out the dry beans today to figure out that "55 sheep and cows in a field" problem from yesterday. We got it, but I still don't know how to do it without guessing. I looked at the lesson example from the previous page in the book, but I have no idea what they were talking about. Maybe I'm losing my touch. By the way, there are 20 cows and 35 sheep. I didn't have Sam do any other math today, and I only had Sarah do a few "solving for x" problems.

Rachel and I worked on factoring polynomials today. She's done it more than once before, but she always has to re-learn it. We were doing the difference of two squares. Then when she got the factors, she had to factor one of those because it was another difference of two squares. She got it, but I hope she remembers it tomorrow.

Sarah worked on her science all day long. She could hardly think of anything else. She did a whole study guide and studied for the test. Then she took the test and got a 95. She was pretty happy, but she said, "I did all that studying and spent all that time, and the test only took 10 minutes!" Yep.

Sam will be 14 on Friday! I made his birthday dinner tonight because Jeff will be working Friday night. We had beef tips with roasted cauliflower and sweet potatoes. So good. Then the kids made cupcakes and cream cheese icing. But I was having a gall bladder attack, so I didn't dare eat the cream cheese. Well, not much of it. I'm having a surprise birthday party for Sam on Friday evening. Don't tell him! We're just having a few of the other 13 year old boys from church over. A couple of them are in the Sunday School class I teach, and it was their idea--very sweet. They're good kids.

Of course we read aloud like every day. Anne of Green Gables. I'm glad we decided to read it again. It's like visiting an old friend. It's so comforting to read a favorite book again, don't you think? I love that we know what will happen, but we can't wait to see anyway. I think we'll have to re-read some of our other old favorites too.

Sam and Sarah took a bike ride around the neighborhood with Jeff walking part of the way. They love doing that. Sarah's bike is way too small though. Her legs are so long! I think she's kneeing herself in the chin. We have a bigger one that's new, but cheap. It loosens up whenever anyone uses it. I guess we'll have to put some loc-tite one it to hold it together once and for all.

Rachel worked on her application for college again today, and she started checking over my editing of her book. I think she likes what I've done so far. I'm going to have to start checking into self-publishing. That may take a while. Then when I'm finished writing my homeschool book, I'll have it all down and it'll be easy. And then the two other books I'm writing. I wonder how many years it'll be before anyone sees any of those!

See you tomorrow!