First day back.

I spent most of Christmas break dreading the end of it. This is largely because Dave is home for all of it; had he needed to go back to work between Christmas and New Year's, I'm not sure I would have been able to handle the little monsters without imposing some kind of routine on them. But by a couple of days ago, Dave and I were both starting to grudgingly admit that getting back onto a schedule might do us all good. Still, I wasn't looking forward to this morning.

I spent some time yesterday drawing up a new (loose) schedule, since we're adding in a few things (Greek Code Cracker, Ari's Galore Park Spanish, and, as soon as it's available, Peace Hill Press' new Bible curriculum). I had us starting at 8:30 on the schedule. Dave left at 7:45 this morning, and I told him to wake me up as he was leaving. But then the kids were still sleeping, so I wound up staying in bed until 8:30 instead. Oops. We wound up getting started at 9:15, and we just finished up at 3:30 (with an hour and a half break for lunch/playing). I feel like we were relatively efficient, so I think it just sort of...takes that long to get everything done. So I don't know what we're going to do when soccer starts up again. I mean, we did start later than I planned, but we also aren't doing the Bible stuff yet. Of course, we don't do much except outside classes on Wednesdays, and we finish early on Fridays so we can go to the park, so that's a lot of it. Bleh. I don't know.

We didn't do much of Greek Code Cracker yet, but everyone seemed to enjoy it. And I guess I shouldn't even say anything about Galore Park yet, but I do like the look of it. Oh--and we didn't even do nearly as much history as I was planning because I have a lingering cold, and I can't read out loud for very long before I start hacking uncontrollably, even with the help of an endless string of cough drops. But Ari started reading his Definitive Visual Guide today, and he'll start Growing Up Heroic tomorrow or Wednesday. I'm not sure how to schedule it yet...I want him to work on it Wednesdays while his brothers are in Spanish, but it will probably require more time than that. And we don't have any time!

So there it is--first day! The kids play outside much more willingly when they're doing school, for some reason...all the sitting around, I guess. They just came inside, and now they're playing Epic Mickey on the Wii. Dave will be home soon, and I told them we can go to Chick-fil-A for a first day back celebration dinner later.