School

I sit here on the bed at the end of a long but pleasant week.  We hit the ground running Monday morning, and I didn't catch my breath until this afternoon.  Football and basketball are going to make the first half of the year quite interesting.

This is my day,
6:45 wake up ( I know that is not too early, but it is too me)
7:00 wake Luke and Dania
7-7:30 coffee time with Nate (half the time)
7:30-wake up Austin and Evan
7:45 -Drive the 2 to school
8-8:30 coffee time with Nate on some of the days, or Bible time with the 2 big kids if he can participate.
8:30-12pm various school, I let them do what they want, but some things we have to plan, because they do them together.
12-1pm lunch break, this is where things have really worked for me this week.  During the lunch break I cook dinner.  I do all prep work and cooking and stick it in the fridge to pop in the oven later.  I cooked 4 big dinners on M-Thurs, and tonight we had all the leftovers.
1-3:30 school. I am spending the majority of the time doing school with them.  I am reading all of their assigned Readers and Read-Alouds, I am also reading the books for the Bible course.  I have my own account on Rosetta Stone so that I am learning Spanish along with them.  I grade Math, and go over History to make sure it is sticking.  I am not reading History, Poems, or checking their vocab.
3pm-Tuesdays and Thursdays I take Austin to basketball
3:30- small children arrive home on the bus.
3:30-4:30- talk to small ones and look over the stuff they bring home, clean kitchen, make sure they do homework, listen to Dania read.
4:30-final dinner prep
5:00-pick up Austin
5:30- eat dinner
6:15-leave to take Evan to practice (most of the week I stayed and watched, Thurs Nate rode him on the motorcycle and then came home, since the bike uses way less gas.
8:15 get home from football practice, eat snacks, clean up kitchen (kids that are home clean up dinner while I am gone), get small kids organized for next day, night grooming.
9:00 everyone upstairs, Luke and Dania lights out.
9:30 lights out for Evan and Austin
We go to sleep somewhere after this, but I can't remember it.

Thursdays are the really, really long days.  I leave the house at 8:25 and stay in the neighboring town till 1:30 while they take their writing class (Austin) and Science classes (both). Evan gets a ride home at 11:30 so he can do school at home. I have no one to carpool with Austin, so when Austin is done with writing he has an hour to kill before his science class, he does school in the car while I go to the pet store to get crickets for Rango, the new reptile of the family.

If I have to run errands in the day I have managed it an hour before lunch, so that if I run over the time I estimate I will be gone I am only missing some of lunch.

The things I really want to stick with are; making dinner at lunch, learning Spanish, reading all the novels, and keep their math graded, and discuss history.  The novels tie in with History that they are learning so it cements it better.

Well, we are off to a good start, but it is week one after all.