Busy

I haven't blogged much lately for a couple of reasons......1. There hasn't been really anything exciting going on here in the Johnson Home, just keeping up with the daily routine of homeschooling 4 out of my 5 children and doing lots of housework. 2. I am so busy actually doing these not-exciting but time-consuming activities that I have not had any time to blog! I do have a few random things.....

Julie got contacts on Monday. She has done really well with them. I have not had to help her one single time. She just puts them in and takes them out like a pro. She is so happy be able to run without wearing glasses!

Jimmy, Olivia, Julie, and I are running a Half-Marathon (13.1 miles) this Saturday in Oxford. I have trained for it, but I am still apprehensive. I have run 99% of my training miles on the treadmill in my heated workout room. The weather is supposed to be a windy 27 degrees Saturday morning! We are going to freeze! I think the high for Saturday is 40 something, but it will be so cold when we start! I am looking forward to running with my friend, Dorothy, but I am nervous about running for 2 hours in the cold!

We have taken a rabbit trail in our Mississippi History studies. The Civil War. After we read about all of the battles fought here in our state, we were interested in the war in general. So now we are reading another book about the Civil War. It is called Civil War for Kids. It is one of those activity/text type books that I bought from the gift shop at Shiloh National Park a couple of years ago. I am reading aloud the text (which is giving us a great overview of the war), and the children are choosing some of the activities to complete on their own. They like to do that. Olivia made hardtack (what the soldiers ate) one day this week, and they all ate it! I am also still reading aloud from two other Mississippi books daily. They are marking on a blank Mississippi map all of the places that we read about and they are recording interesting Mississippi facts in their notebooks.

Leah is reading well. She is at that stage where she likes to read aloud her little beginner readers repeatedly. The first time she reads a new book, she is a little slow.....Julie overheard her reading a new book to me, and she stated that could not believe that I had to sit and listen to that (it sounded painful to her!). Then she realized that this was the 4th time that I have sat with children who were beginner readers! I consider it a great privilege to teach my precious children how to read!

Our family has enjoyed watching both the Olympics and American Idol recently. Like everyone else, we love the athlete's stories! We are so proud of our athletes!

Last night on American Idol I liked Casey James, Tim Urban, and Alex Lambert....oh also the 16 year old boy that sang second I think...Aaron maybe? I always enjoy hearing the boys sing better than the girls....I really can't remember any of the girls' names yet. I also like Andrew Garcia.

Jimmy is off for a couple of days so we have a short break from school. We plan to work around the house, run errands in town and also find something fun to do. My parents are coming tomorrow to spend the night and keep the three younger children while the rest of us freeze at the race!