There's also our third floor which I realize I have yet to fully disclose to you - and I WILL - but here's a peek into one room: the play room. It currently has ghastly red linoleum and truly truly vintage wallpaper which will not be staying, but somehow manages to be the most cozy space. With all its flaws and cries for attention, this third floor of ours is one of my favorite places. 

The kids clearly turned it into a surgery one night.

Whatever ails Sarah the Cat is being "dealt with" by an experienced team of surgeons.

For days when it's cold, but sunny or the kids just desperately need to let off some steam, there are so many amazing Chicago parks available to us. Touhy Park is just a block away from us, but there are some more activity laden places that are only a few minutes drive away. This one is Indian Boundary Park. It pretty much deserves its own post, so I'll try to do that one day. 

For now, you can see that just the  big leaning tree is irresistable! 

We found ourselves under this intersection of streets and train overpasses, and we all sort of felt like we were in our own abandoned fortress! No, we didn't run around and play, as it really ISN'T abandoned, but it did give us all a big sense of glee to sort of just BE there and hear the trains fly overhead on the El track. You can also see one of the painted murals that is unique to Rogers Park. Every one of our viaducts are painted with unique murals. 

Some days we have neighbor kids over to play. Here, Dorien and August play with Alex, a new friend who lives about a block away. We have found that Legos are pretty much universal and generally guarantee HOURS of happy play.

 

Did you ever see the movie Dangerous Games? 

Starring Michelle Pfeifer? (Whatever happened to her, by the way?) There's a song in it that says, This is my life.... and that's the soundtrack to this post. 

These little pictures capture vignettes of what compose my life.

Dorien aka Dark Vader chilling in bed with Wyeth popping by to say hello.

One of the best things about having children is walking down the hall to scenes like this. Unexpectedly, they hit you with joy and laughter.

 

School is officially back in session on Goshen.

While most schools started back this week or last week, we actually started a bit earlier - August 3, 2015.  We scheduled a September beach vacation, and I wanted to be a week ahead and not feel rushed later on. It also gives us more flexibility around the holidays.

This year, we have a Pre-K'er, a 3rd grader and a 4th grader.

And Wyeth, our Mischief-Maker.

Dorien is doing a Pre-K curriculum!

He's been dying to do some real school, and he now has his chance! This is his first year of an official curriculum. I wavered between starting him out on the Sonlight Kindergarten Core A, but decided he wasn't quite ready for that. Instead, I am using the Pre-K curriculum for him, which includes lots of great reading books, a fun science program involving the Berenstain Bears, a pre-handwriting program and some really neat development books which help me assess his learning strengths/weakness (a 4 volume series called Developing the Early Learner). I'm also using the Explode the Code series to introduce him to writing/the alphabet. August used them during his kindergarten year and loved them. So far, Dorien does too. The first book is called "Get Ready for the Code" and has a picture of a cat and a goldfish on it. Dorien calls it his "Cat and the Code" book. 

My goal for him is to learn to read this year.  He will also be learning lots of songs and memorizing Scripture.  I'm going to also use Saxon math's kindergarten program with him, as it seems perfect for Pre-K. We used it for kindergarten with Brooklyn and August, and I found myself wishing I'd done a more challenging math that year. I think this will be perfect as an introduction to math for Dorien.

Brooklyn started the 4th grade! All the cliches about time are true. I have no idea how it goes by so quickly.  We are still using Sonlight's curriculum for the kids, so Brooklyn and August will both be doing Core E - American History (year 2 of 2). Last year, we did Introduction to American History, which included all the America's, from as far back as we have information on Incas, Mayans, Aztecs, etc. to the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution. This year, we start at 1850 and move forward.  

 He also is taking tennis this year and will be starting a juniors league in a few weeks. 

The fact that August is in 3rd grade at home gets kind of confusing. This past week in church, it was Promotion Sunday, when all the kids move up to the next grade in their classes.  After Kyle and I served in the nursery first service, between services we wandered around upstairs in the older kids' area to make sure we knew where Brooklyn and August's new classrooms were.  We found Brooklyn and she was settling in with all her friends and a teacher from last year that moved up with her. We could not find August anywhere, though.  We have always kept him "age-wise" in his church classes, so his church class grade has always been a level below what he is actually doing in school.  Apparently, when asked what grade he was in, he said 3rd, so they were baffled at why he was assigned to a 2nd grade room and moved him to a 3rd grade room.  After searching the whole 2nd grade wing and not finding him, we finally spotted him in a 3rd grade class. We had the hallway coordinator move him back with his 2nd grade buddies and with his teachers who had also moved up with the group from last year. He seemed happier! 

As a side note, I wondered if he or Brooklyn felt strange being home-schooled, among their church buddies. Apparently not, because they both said that lots of other kids in their classes are home schooled too. It's nice that home schooling is just as "normal" as going to any other type of school.