the Fairy's birthday...

was a great day! We baked cupcakes, then headed out to a homeschool association business meeting (I am the field trip coordinator currently) at the chair's home. Since we brought our kids with us, there were several children for mine to play with, plus we got to play with miniature donkeys after the meeting. the Fairy adores mini donkeys - she's been asking me for one for a couple of years now - so for her, this was a dream come true, and a delightful way to spend her birthday afternoon! Once home again, we made homemade individual pizzas and a chocolate cake with fresh strawberry frosting, then settled down to watch Hoodwinked. Good relaxed and fun day. Oh, and I gave her lessons on her new sewing machine - I'll have to get a picture of her with the bag she made! She took the sewing machine in its spiffy caryying case with her to her nonna's the next morning, and now both the Fairy and the Elf are designing and sewing their own work aprons. Yesterday, we had a couple of relatives over for yet more cake and presents, including this beautiful book, which was always one of my personal favorites as a child.

the Fairy says that now that she is SIX, it is high time that I teach her to read (yes, she actually said high time), so opinions on the following please... Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading versus Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons versus Phonics Pathways versus another approach?

Other than that, all is about average here. the Elf is reading Tintin comics now, and made an awesome steak marinade yesterday. the Fairy helped make the cake(s) this week. We need to finish our Chicken-que posters for 4H (oops!). I hung "new" curtains in our family room last night, since the ones that came with the house were quite unattractive, kind of orangeish. Now I have sage green to go with the couch! I have basically decided to go with Oak Meadow's science next year as well as language arts, so the only things I will supplement/substitute are math and history. I am trying to reduce my planning load, since I always have many other things I could be doing!