My Children Want to be "Brown"

Well, Gabriel doesn't, but Xavier and Dominic have both expressed the desire to be "brown". Each of my children has their own story about "brown" people and I'll tell you each of them.

When Gabriel was 5, we went to the library. In the elevator, there was a little Somalian girl who kept rubbing Xavier's head. I'm guessing she, being a recent immigrant, hadn't been that close to a white baby before. Anyway, Gabriel yelled at her, "Don't touch my baby, you'll turn him brown!" Of course, Gabriel wasn't aware of the concept of genetics, yet...

Xavier really wishes Gabriel hadn't stopped that little girl from turning him brown. In preschool, he desperately wished he had been born into a brown family, a dark brown family. His beloved teacher was dark brown and he wanted to be just like her. He still complains that his family is peach.

Dominic also wishes he were born to a different family. However, he is doing something about it. He is slowly attempting to color his skin brown.

Unfortunately for my children, there is no such thing as reverse vitiligo. Perhaps a full body tattoo might work?

Because I Wanted to Share

And because it is my children's favorite video, and because it's stuck in my head and I wanted it stuck in yours to....


And, finally, because this one was animated by a young girl on one of my "lists".

The End is in Sight

The end of "summer" school is just around the corner. For the record, next "year" will be a year-round affair. But, this year was planned to end in May, with a bit of math all summer to stay in the groove. Unfortunately, our history and science got left at home when we went to Florida. So, we've been doing history and science this summer. The boys don't actually mind this. They love both history and science.

Next year's schedule is going to be done in six-week increments. I'm doing this because I scheduled 6 American History unit studies for the year, so it just made sense. I think it is better to work around the calendar because they lose less, thereby needing less backtracking. More on "next year's" schedule later.

The boys and I had planned to go to Maine for Gary's cousin's wedding in October. Unfortunately, that trip has been canceled. So, the boys are heading up early. They're going in August, instead. Unfortunately, the week they'll be gone is smack dab in the middle of the last two weeks of instruction I had planned. So, I'm stepping it up. With the pace we're setting, we should be done with everything in the next two weeks. That way, when they get back from Maine, they'll have August off to spend with their dad before he deploys. That'll be nice.

Look! He's a Reader!

We've struggled to get Xavier to read. Other than by force, he has not read at all. Soon after we returned from Florida, Gabriel refused to "play" Harry Potter with him unless he read the book. So, Xavier, who has NEVER read anything willingly before now, started reading Harry Potter. The first chapter took him 3 hours. The next chapters took less and less time. At first, he was forcing himself to read so that he could play with Gabriel. By the end of the book, he was pulling his hair, he was so enthralled by the suspense of the book. He had one chapter left to go when it was bedtime. He woke up the next morning and immediately started reading again. In all, it took him about 4 days to read it.

Now, I'm finding him reading all over the place. If he's not playing with his brothers, he's reading a book. I can't resist taking pictures of him. This is huge!!! The fact that he went from being a "sign reader" (he really like reading all the signs we passed, but hated reading books) to reading every book that comes within sight is a wonderful thing to me.

Homeschool Olympics

Recently, we were studying Ancient Greece and read about the start of the Olympics. We decided it would be fun to do our own Olympics. This is the result:

Wednesday Hero

Sgt. Kenneth J. Schall
22 years old from Peoria, Arizona
2nd Battalion, 70th Armor Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division
May 22, 2005


"It was very tough not to be touched by him in some way," said Terri Schall, Sgt. Kenneth Schall's mother.

Kenneth Schall was enrolled at Glendale Community College and was studying to become a history teacher when the country was attacked on September 11, 2001. The event spurred him to join the Army. He served a four and a half month tour in Iraq in 2004 and returned in February of 2005.

Terri Schall last spoke to her son on Mother's Day in 2005. "He sounded great — tired — but he said he was doing OK", she said. Sgt. Kenneth Schall died when the Humvee he was riding in was involved in an accident in Yusafiyah, Iraq.

Along with his mother, Sgt. Schall is survived by his father and two younger siblings.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

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Dominic's Birthday

Dominic turned 5 on the 22nd. Here are the pictures from his birthday. The cake was a last minute decision on his part and took some improvising on my part (I didn't have enough frosting) so it didn't turn out as one of my best. But, it was a great cake anyway. See how we use the candles as guns? Also, Gabriel and Xavier decided that they were going to start buying gifts for people with their own money. Xavier bought him a water gun and Gabriel bought him a nerf gun. He was extremely happy.