I need HELP with my schedule! Or do I?

This morning we went to the schoolroom at the community clubhouse with my friends and their children to do a craft. I was in charge last minute so I had them make toilet paper roll robots and color butterflies. After lunch I had projects for school planned, but fell asleep during reading time.

As you know this is my first year of home schooling my children and I am still trying to figure things out.  I need help with our schedule.  Most mornings after we have eaten and are dressed we get to work, math, journal writing, calendar, and whatever other projects and activities we do in our schoolroom.  Even though I don't take my kids to the grocery store and on errands during the day, there are many days that we have other activities.  This week has been a perfect example, Monday: the parade, Tuesday: MOPS, today: craft with friends.  These days I try to do school in the afternoon.  Then there are the days where for some reason or another things aren't going well for me or one or ALL of the kids and we don't get as much done as we had planned.  I have a friend who grew up with friends that were home schooled and she says that she always wanted to home school her children (alas, she is a single mother and has to work.)  She said that she would do school only three days a week.  I know I am rambling and rambling, but my point is, I don't have a schedule!  I don't know when our breaks will be, what we will be (or wont be) doing in the summer.  Sometimes I worry that I am not having them do enough.  Sometimes I worry that I am making them do too much.

I usually don't voice this (or any) home schooling concerns with anyone.  For one, I don't want my husband to think I am a slacker and panic that our kids will always have a first grade IQ.  Second, I don't want my certain "friends", who think I am weird for home schooling anyway,  to have that I-told-you-so attitude.

If anyone has any ideas, tips, schedules that work for them, or just words of encouragement, PLEASE let me know.  I need your help!

Lost in Translation? Or Just a Bad Recipe?

This morning we went to "MOPS school" as Isabel calls it. The kids learned about Adam and Eve and did fingerprint art. A doctor came in and taught us moms about CPR, choking, colds, etc. After lunch and playing outside, I read to Luke and Isabel about Brazil from The Coming to America Cookbook by Joan D'amico and Karen Eich Drummond. I love this book. I checked it out from the library a few months back and knew I needed to buy it. It will have a couple of pages devoted to briefing the landscape, history, culture and food of a certain country and then about two to four recipes afterward from that country to try. Sadly the Brazilian Corn Cake that we tried afterward just didn't work out. I really think there must be a typo in the recipe. I know what you are thinking, sure, blame it on the recipe, but really, the batter seemed way too thin and didn't cook but turned into bubbling burnt goo. Either there was too much milk or not enough white flour in it. Luke and Isabel had the thought that maybe in Brazil, a cake is different than what we (in the U.S.) think a cake is. Very insightful on their parts, but I don't think that Brazilians idea of a cake is goo.

Luke and Isabel then wrote a letter to their great grandmother. Luke then wrote to his friend Matthew and to Mallory. Mallory is a friend of Luke's from when we lived in Utah four years ago. In his letter he asks her if she wants to be pen pals. We shall see. Oh, here is Luke's letter to Matthew. (Note: Aden is Luke's other friend, but don't ask me what "on my shoulder" is supposed to mean.)

Las Vegas Martin Luther King Jr. Parade

We went with our friends the Marchants, to the Martin Luther King Day parade. Luke held up the sign for most of it and people walking in the parade would often make a comment, smile and wave.