Moving Monday!

Usually I post our fun muffin tin lunches on Monday but we did not have a muffin tin lunch last week so I'm taking the day off from that.

Moving Monday could mean so many things.

It could mean that I want to motivate myself to get in more movement - ie exercise - and while this is true it wasn't my true intent in the title.

It could mean that I'm moving houses or cities or states but that's not happening.

It DOES mean that I'm re-arranging some things in our home again. 

When we moved bedrooms around back in the fall we moved the school room to the landing upstairs.  I like the space but it's presented a couple of problems.  Problem one is that school is best done while Sierra is napping for the time being and her bedroom is upstairs right off the landing.  Problem two is that the kids' toys are all upstairs and I send them up to play in the mornings after breakfast and they often have (age appropriate) trouble with the boundaries of staying out of our fantastically fun looking school stuff.  This has been an issue for a while now but I've just been trying to live with it.  I just can't live with it anymore.  But WHERE?? will I put all of our school stuff??  I don't want it back in the dining room.  I like the clean streamlined look I accomplished in the dining room a long while back.  And then it occurred to me that the laundry room would be the perfect place to store things so they are accessible but out of the children's general life path.  Right now the laundry room has been a family closet.  KOJ and I moved our clothes out a month or so ago and into our bedroom.  So really it's just the kids' clothes and a junk dropping spot.  So we're going to move the kids' dressers/clothes upstairs to the landing and create a huge closet for our school stuff.

So this Monday I'm telling you about it and hopefully next Monday I'll have pictures of the finished product.  Don't worry though I plan to have a Muffin tin to post next Monday as well.

Saturday - School in review - Snow, Katy And The Big Snow (FIAR)

Yay!  Saturday morning.  Time to review some things that we did in school.  First let me warn you that this post is going to be pic heavy.  Second this post is going to actually involve two weeks of school because we have been working on the same FIAR book/theme the last two weeks and I neglected to post last Saturday.

Onward.  We've spent the last two weeks reading Katy and the Big Snow for FIAR.

Kayd reading to his brothers.

We've been doing lots of letter S activities.  I love the stuff out there that allows us to use our letter of the week in both math and phonics amongst other things.  Take a look at some of the things we've done.  I'll link at the end where I got the different activities from.

Colton counts snowflakes and circles the right number with a dry erase marker while Sawyer builds a snowman with our pattern blocks.

Kayd does his math on the couch.

Sawyer works on a matching activity with some Thomas memory game pieces.

Sawyer sorts out clothes - winter or summer?

He did a pretty good job though only people down south are wearing flip flops this time of year.

Little miss climbed right up on that stool all by herself.

She was very proud of herself with that marker.  She enjoyed herself until I caught her trying to eat it and made her get down.

Road signs are important to Katy in Katy and the big snow, we made a little booklet of different road signs.

Sawyer "reads" his booklet.

The older two boys finish gluing their road signs in the right spots.

Trying to keep Sierra happy with the pattern blocks.

handwriting practice

And this is what the littles do while I do Kayd's other subjects with him.

We had a blast with lots of great snow activities.  There were other things we did too that I don't have pics of.  But here are a few links to things we did (pictured or not).

The Snowy Day printables from Jolanthe at Homeschool creations.  Appreciate all of the hard work that she does.  The snowflake cards Colton is using in the 2nd pic and the handwriting page and clothing sort Sawyer is using later on are both from this printable pack.  Check out this post she did on her own adventures with The Snowy Day book - I'm inspired.  I feel another row coming on.


Letter of the Week printables from Erica at confessions of a homeschooler (not pictured but we used them all week both weeks).  We bought the curriculum so I can just print at will.  I love it.

The road sign booklet I found at homeschoolshare filed under Katy and the Big Snow.

The pattern block pages I found by searching on pinterest.  I probably have them linked on my school board.

Also not shown but after our group time together Kayd and I go in his room and work on his math, grammar, and spelling.

2012 Organizing project week 1

Ok so we had a great break off of school during the holidays.  Unfortunately somehow during that time the school room became a dumping grounds and not exactly a peaceful place to do school.  Our old set up was the school/playroom was downstairs and our bedrooms were upstairs, the kids in one room and me and KOJ and in the other.  A few months ago now we switched things around and it works great this way (I definitely had my reservations).  The landing upstairs is the school room for the k-4 and preschool boys and the first grader has a desk and his workboxes in his bedroom.  The majority of our toys are in the other bedroom and we gave Princess in there during school so she can't get into trouble or get into our school work.

So I apparently didn't think to take before pics but here are the after pics:

Preschool desk - Colton works on the left and Sawyer on the right.  The middle chair is mine.

activity bins - a couple phonics, a couple math, and a couple skills.  I change these weekly based on the theme of our school work that week.

our calendar, seasonal books, and my teacher closet

There you can see Kayd's desk and his workboxes.

I obviously didn't snap any pics of the other bedroom which is Sierra's play space during school time.  It feels great to have a clean and organized space.

Lesson Planning

I'm still trying to work out the kinks in the lesson planning.  Frankly the whole thing just overwhelms me.

Thankfully I chose (very much on purpose mind you) curriculum for Kayd that is basically: open the book, do the next lesson.  The lessons are scripted for me and I can see at a glance what we need to do that day.  For his math I just hand him the next two worksheets.  I mean really how much more simple does that get?  It just doesn't.

But I struggle in planning out the other areas of learning - the history, geography, art, science etc.  I bought FIAR for this portion but I have struggled with it because I feel that it doesn't have much hands on stuff and well in this house we have a hands on teacher and hands on children so yeah.  But trying to add in the hands on stuff has been overwhelming to me and I was on the verge of giving up.

So last night I spent a copious amount of time searching the wonderful internet for other blogs of families who use FIAR to see if I could find some inspiration.  And find some inspiration I did.

Here's what I'm going to try.  I'm going to choose the book I want to row and read it through.  Then jot down two to four things I want to focus on learning about with the kids.  I will check out the manual for their ideas and suggestions and find activities to make it feel more hands on.

I know a huge part of getting the hands on stuff in there is planning ahead so we have the supplies we need.  One blog I visited the mama puts the whole weeks supplies in a nice basket - supplemental books, art supplies, worksheets.  All in one nice location.  I NEED to do this.  This will help immensely.

So this week we're going to finish of Grandfather's Journey (a really neat book IMO) by learning some about the location and culture of Japan, making a couple of recipes from a Japanese recipe book we took out of the library, and make a family tree together since the book is about a couple of generations of a family.  I think it will be fun too to map out where each family member was born so the kids can see that while we haven't moved to a new country some of us have moved around from where we were first born - including all three of the boys!

I'm working on a Thanksgiving unit right now to do Mon-Wed next week.  In December we're going to be working on a giving project as a family so I'm only going to do one row that month.  We're going to focus more on Christmas for December. 

I would LOVE to hear how other mom's pull it all together - how you keep your stuff organized, how you do your lesson planning.  Feel free to link me to any posts you might have on your own blogs regarding the topic.  Truly I can always use more inspiration.

A day in the life in the NOT back to school hop

It's the final week of the NOT back to school blog hop and this week's topic is a day in the life.  So ya'll want to know what a day in the life is like (otherwise you wouldn't be here reading this right now right?).  So here it is, the ugly truth.

I am NOT a morning person.  I resemble this:

until about 10am.  Some days even longer (today was one of the longer days).  And caffeine really has no effect on me so I can't even down a pot of yummy coffee for any kind of benefit.  So KOJ is up and out the door at 6:30 on Mon and Fri and 7am on the other three days.  When he leaves he comes and kisses me goodbye and lets me know who's awake and what they're doing.  Princess has been thinking that 6:30-7 is a great time to wake up so I'm not getting much sleeping in time lately.  Usually Sierra and I head downstairs by 7:30.  The last few days I've been doing the shower thing right away followed by breakfast before I even SIT down because if I sit down first I'm a goner till at least 10.  If I do this I'm pretty awake by 9am.

So here's what an "ideal" day looks like (some days this is real and others it just doesn't happen - I have four small children who are completely unpredictable at times).

9am - head upstairs, monkeys monkey around in their room, mama rides her bike for 10 min, does some stretches. (this did NOT happen today)

9:30am - princess down for nap, monkeys and mama downstairs  (this did happen today lol)

9:45am - group time at school - we do our calendar, weather chart, and days of school sticks in plastic cups.  Then we move to the big table in the dining room and we do one or two activities as a group (including Squirrel who mostly has his own curriculum).  I also read a small portion of Squirrel's NIrV translation bible out loud, we talk about what it said, and I pray for our day.  Group time looks kinda like this:

10:30ish sometimes later - I have Squirrel start his math and sometimes his journal page and I take the other two in the playroom and we talk about our letter of the week do their school stuff.

Today it was about 11:30 before Squirrel was ready to move on in school subjects BUT I don't think he started math at 10:30 either, it was definitely later today.

Then I focus on Squirrel and shoo the other two outside or put on a Leapfrog video or both because schooling Squirrel alone can take some time.

Today at 11:30 Squirrel and I started his spelling and Princess woke up from her nap,
at 12 we broke for lunch.
Spider went down for a nap at 12:30 and I did his before FIAR book with him when I tucked him in
At 12:45 we finished spelling which took about 3 minutes and then I had him clean up his spelling supplies.
At 1:20 I finally tossed the cut up veggies and meatballs in the crock pot for dinner and ate a mostly cold lunch of pizza bagels.  Then I zoned out for a bit.
At about 2:30 I did reading with Howler and
at about 2:50 I did grammar with Squirrel.
At about 3:20 I started hunting for my car keys because we had to go to my mom's this afternoon for a while.  At about 3:51 I finally found my keys and went out and headed off.

Normally in the afternoon I do FIAR with the older two while Sawyer is still napping and after I've put Sierra up for her 2nd nap which she usually takes around 2:30/3pm.  But because I knew we were leaving I did not put her down for her 2nd nap and we did not do FIAR today.  I've decided to do FIAR books for two weeks, reading it at least 3 days one week and 2 the other and any other days are gravy.

I don't feel that our current schedule is very efficient but it's only the 2nd week in and I have three boys at three different grade and skill levels and it's a terribly interesting juggling act.  I figure I'll keep juggling until I finally catch all the balls.  Ideally I'd like to have an hour of free time in the afternoon and I think once I have princess on a one nap a day schedule and she and Spider are napping at the same time that will be attainable but right now it just isn't.  I'm also going to try to plan more crock pot meals and things I can prepare ahead and just pop in the oven so that I'm not trying to rush around prepping dinner after such a long day.

And can I just say that writing and the reading about my own day just gave me a mind numbing headache.  Complete chaos.  Complete, but it's my life, what are ya gonna do?

Check out all the other day in the life blog posts by clicking this:

School room on the Not back to school blog hop

Yay!  Another week of blog hopping in celebration of NOT going back to school.  This week we are sharing our classrooms.  The environments in which we learn.  I've been perusing a lot of the blogs that have already linked up this week over the past few days, gleaning ideas and just generally feeling somewhat green with a little bit of envy.  But a few posts I read yesterday really spoke to me about contentment.  About being content to learn wherever we are.  I needed to hear that.  We have an amazing home.  One that I still feel so blessed to be living in a year after we moved in.  It has it's quirks and we have no garage or outside storage at all but we have a roof over our heads and we have plenty of room to play and learn.  I am content.  I am content with learning in the playroom this year.

This is our playroom.  That is the main wall, with the world map and my teacher shelf - it's best that some things are kept out of reach.  The door on the left there is the closet, the shelves and bins of toys are in there.  That drawer unit houses our various games and activities by subject (not my LOTW stuff, other random things).  And there's a poster of the alphabet.  And above my teacher shelf is our alphabet train.

This is the opposite side of the room.  That little table is where Spider and Princess can sit and work/play.  The larger table against the wall is for Squirrel and Howler to do their work.  The shelf above Howler's head has some of our manipulatives (we have lots of these) and the bookshelf houses more manipulatives and our alphabet magnets, Spider's activity bins, the magna doodles, the play kitchen food and dishes, and the bottom shelf is for Princess with her baby/toddler toys.

And this is looking from the window to the door of the playroom.  Behind the door is the basket of stuffed animals and dolls.  The posters above are the alphabet and numbers.  Howler is sitting in our other reading corner.  With the basket of books and a random pillow.  Don't ask.  mostly cause I don't know.  Above him is the calendar, to the right of the calendar is our weather chart but you can't see it because it's taped on the jutted out wall.  I might add a few more components in this area - namely a hundreds chart, and a days of the week spot where we can discuss that today is Friday and tomorrow is Saturday and yesterday was Thursday.  This is our main classroom.

I am content with containing our art messes to the dining room table.

I am content with reading our stories on the loveseat in the living room.

I am going to be especially content once I have the laundry room clean and get our nature center set up (no more rocks from mars sitting on the computer desk!)

We learn just about everywhere in our home.  We learn just about everywhere outside our home.  It's what I love so much about homeschooling.  Homeschooling is not creating a sterile classroom environment in your house.  Homeschooling is creating a natural, loving environment where the natural curiosity of a child can be quenched.  Where google sees it's share of random questions on a regular basis and not only are the children learning in the playroom, the living room, the dining room, the laundry room, and everywhere we go but *I* am learning so much too!  I think that for the first time since I was really young I have a genuine excitement about school because of what I can learn!  And our tables and chairs are really just tools we can use to help move that along nicely.


PS: my office is upstairs on our landing.  It's where I keep what we're not currently using for school.  It's a total disaster right now so I did not get pictures of it.  I also did not snap pics of the boys' weekly file boxes.  but they look like the one below and will hold their weeks worth of activities and work.  I have not yet decided where I'm keeping our FIAR stuff organized.

If you've stopped by from the blog hop I'm so happy to have you!  If not please head over to the blog hop here and check out all of the other terrific school room posts this week!

So excited about school!

Why am I so excited about school?  Let me tell you.

I'm looking forward to getting into a routine with the children.  I've been working hard to get things in order and organized to hopefully help my organizational, procrastination inclined self be able to keep up through the year without stress!  I've been working on getting our chore charts ready and look forward to implementing them when we start school in two weeks.  I'm planning for them to be a part of our "school" day.

I'm looking forward to the fun themes and all the fun books and activities each new theme will open up for us.  We're going to have a GREAT year!

I'm looking forward to starting back up with our muffin tin Mondays.  I'll be starting our muffin tin Mondays back up with the start of school!  So excited to see what ideas I can find to put in our tins this year.

School with the kids is just exciting to me.  I love watching them learn.  I love watching them figure things out.  I love trying to answer their questions and I'm super appreciative that this day and age when we have internet I can answer just about any question with a few keystrokes on the computer. 

Some of my favorite homeschool resources (and ones that look awesome but I haven't tried yet):

Phonics:
Confessions of a homeschooler's Letter of the week
Moffattgirls Ready2Read - free printable phonics program for early readers
Starfall
reading eggs - this one costs a fee but we tried it out on a one month free trial and we really enjoyed it.  This is something I would consider doing for Howler depending on how well he picks up reading.

Math:
IXL math - this was one we tried a one month paid subscription on to give it a try.  It was ok.  I did not invest in a longer term subscription for a few reasons.  1 - it wasn't something I remembered to let the boys do on a daily basis.  2 - I wanted a set math curriculum that I knew was teaching things in some sort of methodical order and not hodge podge based on whatever the kids clicked on.  But the website allows you to do 20 practice questions each day for free so something to consider for fun or extra pracitice.

I'm low on math stuff as it's not something that I've come across often online. 

My kids also enjoy playing the games on pbskids.org and Disney junior.  Beware though I've often found one of them watching videos when they're supposed to be playing the educational games.  Just so you know. lol

Are you excited about school starting?

It's "NOT" back to school time

We are starting school in two weeks!  AHH!  I only have two more weeks.  Two more weeks to finish organizing and to do my planning and to do whatever it is I think I need to get done before we start school.

I shared my curriculum choices a few months ago when I was actually buying curriculum but lets have a refresher here.  I feel like I'm missing something (I generally do - feel this way) but lets see:

Squirrel will be doing 1st grade with the following "mommy" boxed curriculum:

All about Spelling
Math Mammoth
First language lessons
Handwriting practice with weekly awana verses
Reading practice - reading to Spider while I work with Howler

Howler will be doing k-4 with:
LOTW for phonics
Ordinary parents guide to teaching reading
Handwriting without tears
math games and general play with math manipulatives

Howler being that he's kinda tagged along with Squirrel for a while now has a VERY firm knowledge of the letters and their sounds already.  So we will see how he takes to learning to read.  I've never formally taught anyone to read before.  Squirrel picked it up on his own using leapfrog videos and starfall.com.  So I can only hope that Howler and I do well together on this journey.  There certainly isn't going to be an extreme amount of pressure from me.  I just feel like this is the next step for him and I don't want to hold him back if he CAN go forward.

Spider monkey my "little" guy who will be three in November will tag along with a lot of the activities that Howler will do but I'm also going to have a few bins for him with his own "activities" so that he can be busy and occupied and learning at his own level.

As for Princess we just hope and pray that she either plays quietly while we work or that she cooperates with naps.

For our group curriculum in the afternoons we'll be using Five in A Row.  This will encompass our geography, social studies, history, art, some math, science, and language arts also.  I'm very excited about this!  I can't wait to see where this will spark the boys' interests to go this year!

I'm linking up here at the Not back to school blog hop so check it out!

Socialize, socialize, socialize

Mmhmm... it's a key phrase, it's the most asked question when people find out you're homeschooling, and it's something my pediatrician has brought up at the last several appointments since hearing we're homeschooling (because clearly my very friendly, talkative children are lacking in socialization! @@)

So this is aimed at our dear pediatrician.

Dear Sir,
I've heard that you are concerned that my four children, since they are being homeschooled, might not have proper opportunities to socialize with children... other than their siblings (yes he really said that they needed to socialize with kids their own age other than their siblings), but I want to assure you that my children have plenty of opportunity to socialize.  Let me list these opportunities for you to put your mind at ease.

1 - they attend church every Sunday (as long as they aren't sick) and are in classes with similar aged peers.
2 - through the school year they attend our Awana program at church on Wed nights where again they are in class with similar aged peers.

3 - in the summer we attend our church's week-long VBS program where once more they are in class with similar aged peers.
4 - As they age into it and show desire they are registered for t-ball with similar aged peers.

mine is number 11

 5 - We make an honest attempt to spend time at the library weekly throughout the whole year - sometimes for story time and sometimes just to be there.  There is often socializing with peers of similar ages and would you believe it they socialize with the adult librarians too!  It's amazing!
6 - every time we walk into the grocery store all together they have opportunity to socialize as people comment on how good they are being or how cute they are.  Some adults even start conversations with my children and then (gasp) my children once again go socializing outside their age bracket.
7 - my children are blessed to be four of almost 12 cousins all 7 and under and so they are similar aged peers.  Regular playdates and family gatherings definitely qualify as socializing.

this is an older pic and it's missing a couple of cousins who weren't born yet.

from Easter this year.  Missing Tristan who lives in FL and the belly bean my sister hasn't had yet. lol

8 - it CANNOT be ignored here people - while we are home, together, during the day, my children socialize with one another.  I cannot for the life of me imagine WHY being siblings makes this socializing any less valid.  They learn sharing and problem solving together, they learn to play cooperatively.  They share ideas back and forth and they teach one another.  My oldest is happy to read aloud to his younger brothers.  My younger boys are happy to show their baby sister how things work.

It's also necessary to mention that most of a teacher's time at school is spent telling the children to STOP talking (ie socializing) and listen to learn.  So really the whole homeschoolers lack socialization thing is a HUGE unfounded myth.  Yes there are some families that are super sheltering, we are not one of those families.  I LOVE for my children to get together with their friends and their cousins.... so that *I* can socialize!

In conclusion, I hope that this plethora of socialization opportunities, my children have, puts your mind at rest and we are able to move on from this serious misconception of yours.  Because really if you're going to be concerned with my home schooling shouldn't you care more about whether my children are learning the fundamentals of reading and math that they will need to succeed in the future in higher education and career paths than whether or not they have enough time to chit chat with other children the same age as them???

Sincerely,
the somewhat annoyed mom of the super socialized monkey boys and princess girl

PS. The princess if given a mirror will even socialize with herself! Now THAT is socialization at it's best!

The wherefore and what not of schooling the kids

When I was pregnant with Squirrel monkey I recall announcing that I planned to home school him and any future monkeys that came along.  At the time my initial motivation was the realization that I, not being a morning person, was NOT going to do well with getting little kids up and off to school at the crack of dawn.  As time passed and I did more research, more things appealed to me about home schooling.  Now my passion for home schooling is rivaled only by my passion for car seat safety.  KOJ and I have a million reasons for home schooling the children.  Though I definitely feel more strongly about it than KOJ, he is definitely on board with it.

The top 5 reasons I am home schooling:
1 - I can tailor my children's education to fit THEIR needs.  Squirrel is a visual learner, he has to see pictures and read text.  And Howler is a kinistetic learner, he HAS to move and manipulate with his hands etc.  That's as far as I've gotten because the other two are still quite young.  But in a public school setting the teacher would be unable to specifically teach and tailor the curriculum to meet each of their learning styles as they could NOT possibly do that for each of their 30+ students.

2 - As my children grow we will be able to identify and encourage their gifts and strengths while also working on their weaknesses.  In a public school setting they are all expected to be average in all subjects.  I personally want my children to delve into the talents that God has given them, to hone them for future use.  I believe strongly that if my child has a particular talent in one area that God has blessed them with that for a purpose and it is our responsibility as their parents to really help them develop that and seek out the reason behind it.  Don't worry we won't let the other things fall by the wayside but I'm not going to force a child who isn't great at science to spend most of their time on science and ignore the thing they are great at.

3 - Socialization!  The number one most annoying question I get is "What about their socialization?"  Um what about it?  We're not hermits.  We don't live in a bubble.  Even if we did they have three siblings VERY close in age with whom to socialize.  But really have these people who ask this question never met my children?  Even my "shy" child will speak up and ask questions or share interesting (albeit generally off topic) facts.  My children have no problem having conversation with adults.  They have no problem playing and having conversation with other children, of all ages.  Don't worry folks, I promise to let them out at least once a week for church.

4 - It's fun.  It is fun to me to watch my children grow and learn.  To get to be the one there when they have a light bulb moment of realization about one thing or another.  It's even more fun to watch my older children teach and explain things to my younger children.  It makes for a super proud mommy moment to hear Squirrel quizzing Howler on what letter makes a certain sound or gently saying the name of the color of whatever toy Spider just called blue.

5 - Character development.  Because the kids are home with me and I choose our curriculum I am able to better correct behavior as it happens and tailor our curriculum to our particular world view.  I am able to teach them about having good character according to the bible on a full time basis.

What I actually meant to post about was the curriculum I've purchased for the fall.  I LOVE researching and choosing curriculum.  But when it goes time to actually hit the little BUY button and send money out of our bank account I feel sick to my stomach.  What if I made a mistake? What if it doesn't work as well for Squirrel or Howler as I thought it would?  And KOJ is no help.  He's all "It's good, you researched, it's fine, just buy it."  No batting of eyelashes.  So I went with simple because really schooling with four children 6 and under should be kept simple.

Squirrel with be in 1st grade this fall his curriculum looks like this:
Math - Math Mammoth grade 1
All about Spelling - grade 1
First language lessons
handwriting practice with his weekly awana verses.
Reading - he just does this on his own.  So I'll just make sure he continues to read regularly.

The thing about Squirrel's curriculum is that it's very much lesson by lesson so even if we take a break for vacation or sickness we just pick up at the next lesson in each subject when we get back.  Similar story with Howler's more laid back pre-k4 stuff.

Howler will be doing pre-k 4 using:
Ordinary parents guide to teaching reading
Letter of the week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler
Math manipulatives such as patterning blocks, cuisinaire rods, etc.  We do plenty of counting and such already.
Handwriting without tears for his handwriting practice

Spider will just play with the math manipulatives and LOTW games, I will not be doing any formal teaching with him at all as he won't even be three until after the start of the school year.  I plan to do pre-k 4 with him the fall of 2012.  And Princess will just have to play independently in the playroom while we work. 

For our content learning such as history, geography, science, art, etc we'll be working together with Five in a Row curriculum.  Basically you read one of the books (gotten from the library) each day for five days and each day do one or more of the activities in the guide to go along with the book.  So in The Story of Ping we might learn about china.  Madeline would include discussion on France. So on and so forth.  I love this in particular because its something that we can do as a group and tailor the activities to their particular readiness and because it will provide a wide array of subjects to explore.  It's also very flexible.  I can pick the books in any order I want to and choose any of the activities in the unit that I want.

Flexible is key with this many kids at the ages my kids are at.  It's also a huge key in my teaching style.  So while our main school subjects are set and they will do a lesson in each subject on each school day the flexibility that FIAR provides will allow us to take detours if the kids want to.  It's a happy mix I think.  I'll let you know about this time next year how it all worked out for us.