Lost our groove & an update

We hit the ground running at the start of the year and worked really hard and really solidly. Our days seemed very fluid with only the occasional speed bump. Lately though we have lost our groove. It doesn't take much to throw you completely off track. At the start of the year Possum was napping in the morning. He'd go to bed around 10am and wake around lunchtime or shortly after. This gave me a great solid block of time to really get stuck into the one on one subjects with the kids. Now Possum has moved his nap to the afternoon. He's going to bed around 12.30pm and that means I'm juggling every morning. The big kids are not in the right frame of mind to focus in the afternoon so we really have to focus in the morning. Unfortunately I am finding Possum is a big time sap and I'm struggling to keep everyone on track. Sometimes my day just capitulates into fun and games and no formal school at all. I have to keep reminding myself that homeschooling is a marathon not a sprint and this season of busy toddler, will pass.

In spite of all of that we have been making some forward progress. Bugsy has completed Handwriting Without Tears, My Printing Book and has made the big transition into Writing With Ease 1.

Bugsy has also completed Miquon Red so will be moving into Miquon Blue.

Chicky has been reading more of the I See Sam readers. We've instituted a 'reading time' where everyone except Possum is required to read allowed to everyone else. It's really helping promote the reading culture and Flossy has even declared that she is finally enjoying reading allowed. Bugsy has started putting on voices for different characters now that he isn't struggling with decoding each and every word.

Possum is finally walking, woohoo!  I posted a little while back that he had taken a couple of steps and he kept that up but preferred to crawl until last week when he suddenly took off!  In very exciting news he slept through the night for the first time ever last week, hopefully there are more nights like that to come.

Jasper (our dog) is feeling much better 4 weeks on from his surgery.  We still have to keep him quiet and he is still crated much of the day but the vet has advised that we can begin to give him more yard time over the next 2 weeks so that by the time he is 6 weeks post op he should be back to his normal self.

We rescued a baby rainbow lorikeet last week.  Whilst out for a morning walk we came across a baby with a broken wing.  We threw a jumper over it and took it to our local vet who was going to assess it for suitability for rehabilitation and send it on to a wildlife carer.

I got a new camera a Canon 550D with a lovely 'fast' 50mm prime lens.  Photography was a passion of mine in high school and is something i would love to have devoted more time too.  I've got some photo shoot ideas in mind for my kiddies.  Here are a couple of snaps from day 1.  See the difference between these and those ones of Bugsy above (the one of Possum is with the new camera).  Doesn't it take a much nicer picture than the point & shoot, swoon.  Lucky i know how to use it properly, no auto settings for me :)

Hopefully i will be back to regular blogging shortly.  I've got an award to pass on!