today...

Family has been in town for the whole weekend, and the kids are newly emerged from being the centre of attention for three days, and feeling rather bored with mom. Poor little kids.

So we did schoolwork :-)

math: counting by 10, learning about dimes. Word problems like: If dan worked 6 days and made $10 a day, how much money did he earn? She doesn't even realize she's learning multiplication :-) I love this math program (math-u-see)

Religion: learning more about listening to our conscience and examening our actions at the end of the day. We read a story of a little girl who snuck a piece of bubblegum from the cupboard and chewed it in her bed at night. She woke up with spidery webs of pink bubblegum all over her hair and face. The kids thought that was funny.

Spelling: Review of lessons 1-14. E is a natural speller and has a very good memory for the words she is learning. I am amazed at the leaps and bounds she is making in both spelling and reading this past month.

Grammar: finished memorizing a poem "Bird Talk" by Aileen Fisher. Copied the poem into her poem book and illustrated it. This was the first longish poem she's learned (it has 4 stanzas as oppposed to 1 or 2).

On the Gluten front, we are still waiting on an appointment at the children's hospital GI clinic. This could take days or months.. I have no idea. In the meantime we are not supposed to go on a Gluten Free (GF) diet because it could mess up the test results. This is a little unsettling, because we would like for her to start growing and getting healthy!! The more research that I have done into Celiac, the more I do think that she has it, and has had it for some time.

I did try some gluten free bread today... hmmm. not the best stuff in the world. Looks like I'm going to have to start experimenting with baking my own once we get started down this path. We have basically decided to take the whole family on a GF diet to minimize contamination with the 'safe' foods, and to help elizabeth not feel 'strange' or 'deprived'. This, however, puts a lot on mommy's shoulders, to come up with a whole new menu plan of edible snacks and meals for everyone.

No problem! I'm all on it baby! I've been sitting around the afternoons with my feet up wondering what new projects I should tackle with all this free time I have :-)

Hope you are all having a lovely day. I am actually quite happy today. A bit tired from all the family functions over the weekend, but happy.

The pictures: 1) a cardinal, 2) some birds feeding their babies, 3) the princess and the pea.