Staying warm and getting stuff done!

The southeast winter storms have kept all six of us cozy inside for the past two days.  It's been great!  We had some great school days and have organized a lot of the homeschool stuff.   Our homeschool books have been overflowing our old shelf,  and I've been wanting to get another Augustus shelf   (like the ones we have in the front music room) to use only for our homeschool stuff.  Marc picked one up on Monday night and had a lot of help bringing it in the house.  :)

Show us your strong muscles boys!!

I searched around the house and found most of the books that I wanted in this spot.  Our workbooks, math, grammar, daily-use books are on the shelf in the kitchen.  These are books that supplement what we do daily.  I had most of the history books in the music room, but I have discovered that with books it's "out of sight, out of mind."  They read the books in the family room over and over and over.  It was time to bring all the supplementals for the subjects- history, science, art, music, religion, math, and languages- and put it all in one spot.

So now, when it's the feast day of Saint So-and-So, I won't be going, "I know we have a book about that saint....somewhere."  And now if the children are reading a saint book- they know where to put it- in the "Saints" cubby.  :)

Bible/Theology section-

Unlike the music room, I did go ahead and use the handy library labeling system so there is no confusion as to where the books go-

Medieval History- check-

The lower cubbies are "Early American History" and "Modern American History".   At the top I put the poetry and literature anthologies I want to get through.  There is also a Math/Music/Art cubby.  As for all the "picture books"- those are all upstairs in the library on the landing.   Those type of books lend themselves to bedtime and "rest time" reading.  I didn't take pics, but I did organize that this week as well.  We have all the classics, Great Illustrated Classics, Hardy Boys, Magic Tree House, Encyclopedia Brown series, Childhood of Famous American series, Boxcar Children, Imagination Station, etc, as well as all the books organized by seasons.  I have them labeled- Christmas, Winter/Valentines, Spring/St. Patrick's/Easter, Summer, Thanksgiving.  And all the story books are up there as well.  I keep a book basket in the den where I rotate the seasonal books to make sure they get read.

Ancient history- check!

I already sort of wish I had one more shelf! Some of the cubby sections are at max capacity already!  The science overflowed into "general history" next door.   :)  

Each child has a bookshelf in their room and I worked on those today.  I am boxing up most of the board books and moving story books into Charlie's room now.  He has such patience for "real" stories now- he will sit calmly through an entire Dr. Seuss book.  And Tucker has all the "early readers"  and literature I want to read to him by his bed.  I have found that I have to kind of keep up with rotating the books around or we end up reading the same ones over and over.  Anyway, that's a boring post to say- I'm happy to be organized!!!! 

Tonight we had a pot roast, veggies, pear salad, rolls and dump cake while the fire crackled.  Daddy's teaching Marky how to make a great fire-

Then as we sat eating, the most beautiful, big snowflakes started to fall.  They all ran outside and had a snowball fight.  

The side yard-

Our snowman before Julia ate his nose- :)

Tonight, after we put the children to bed Marc made this snowman to surprise them with in the morning because he will probably be at work before they wake up.  :)  They will be so excited!!!

Hope you are warm wherever you are!