The Week the Weather Got Hot!

 By the middle of the week, we were hiding in the house because the air was so hot and heavy that it felt like trying to breathe bathwater outside.

The blessing in the week was that I'd worked hard to clear out empty bedrooms and tidy up the living room in the basement, so we had a bunch of furniture-free space in which toddlers could run around and yell and scream and let off steam that they would usually let off outside.

And, boy, did we need that space this week!

While temperatures were still comfortable summer temps, we had a glorious time.

Our first project was priming the picnic table that we'd sanded down the week before.

Every kid got a turn or two, and in spite of my best intentions, it's still waiting for actual paint, but we'll get there.

I don't know if the paint could have dried in the steamy hot weather anyway!

My favorite project of the week, though, was Nature Angel's doing.

I'd arranged with my teens to make this week a phone-free week for them.  Because they didn't have phones, they had time to get a little bit bored.  And when Nature Angel gets a little bit bored, she starts creating.  

And she always includes other kids.

The fort isn't quite done yet.  

It got too hot to be fun to build anymore.

Temperatures are supposed to settle down a bit, so I hope to see more progress in coming weeks.

I love, love, love the serendipity of this construction project when we've been kind of, sort of working on our construction unit study.

Since we finished reading about Lou and her tiny house the previous week, this week we picked up the biography of Julia Morgan again.  We're currently at the time in her life as she approaches young womanhood and is in a state of conflict with her mother and grandmother about what a woman really is and should be.

My 21st-century children are not happy with Julia's 19th-century mother.

We also read a picture book history of the invention of the Ferris wheel.

Then the kids did an Art for Kids Hub lesson on drawing a Ferris wheel.

Lola added fireworks!

We did a few lessons in Life of Fred: Cats.

We're doing a free trial of Teaching Textbooks 4.0.

(I'm slowly leaning toward paying for a full year.  Their large family discount is really good!  In the past, I've spent more on a year of math books than it would cost me to do a year of math for everyone with Teaching Textbooks.)

In the long hours of being indoors, the kids have discovered and become enamored of Sudoku.

I could have taken a hundred other pictures of kids doing Sudoku, but these two will suffice as memory placeholders for the puzzles and puzzle-doers that have filled all available surfaces of our house this week.

They've worked and worked and worked at their problem-solving and logic skills.

The kids also got out Trekking the World several times.  It's a geography game that the kids think is terribly fun.  (They don't consider it school at all, but I do!)

Before it got too hot, we had a water play day, and one day I made a bunch of cloud dough that entertained the kids for hours.

Sugar Bear is giving Brother "me' cine" because he is sick!

Painting the house with water

I'd made the cloud dough for the littles, but my kids wanted to play, too, so I divided it up and got out another table to make room for everyone.

We made it to the spray park one morning.

Warming up and relaxing after a long game in the water

Snack time!

I swear they're lizards!  I cannot do this in the heat!

Her face is funny in the picture, but I included it anyway
because I like how Nature Angel can stop and create in every place.

I ordered another bookcase from Ikea that arrived midweek.  

It turned out that the place I intended to put it was 1/2" too narrow, so that meant pulling out the books we already had shelved, uninstalling and reinstalling the bookshelves we had, and then installing the new bookshelf (that needed modifications because it was going to sit in front of a return air vent and an outlet) before finally reshelving all of the books.

It took me about 6 hours to do it all.

The fun part was having the kids get excited about turning this front room into a library.  They're all about getting more shelves and hauling the piano out and filling the room with books!

I'm with them all the way up to hauling the piano out.  

It will be a music room/library . . . not just a library. :)

Little Princess made and decorated 4 dozen cupcakes--2 dozen for us and 2 dozen for her CAP meeting.

The other kids played water games at a combined church activity.  They came home wet and happy.

My youngest 6 have been trying to work together to perform The Wellerman (3 of them learned it in American Rhythm a year or so ago) for our cousin's camp talent show next week.  Baymax is the wild card.  If they can get him to cooperate, it will be pretty fun.

Nature Angel was so sweet to find the music, cut it to what they were used to, and help them practice a couple of times.

On Friday morning, after a long and busy play session, the littles needed some recentering.  I looked for my bucket of dried beans, but I couldn't find it!  Fortunately, we have many #10 cans of stored wheat that we won't be using as family food (too many gluten issues).  We use them as chicken feed, but I'm also happy to use them for sensory play.

They reveled in the sensory play! 

And they all calmed down, too.

My kids were off reading newly checked-out library books in other rooms of the house.

Pixie has kept us updated about her developing relationship with her puppy, Nova.  They are head over heels in love with each other, and Nova is sharp as a tack!  Pixie is constantly training her, and they have accomplished so much together.  I have no doubt that Nova will be not only a glorious love in Pixie's life, but she will also charm and delight everyone with whom she comes in contact.

Super Star and Mr. E have a wedding date!

August 19th!

Belle is learning Papiamentu and is loving the people of Curaçao more every day.

Next week is cousin's camp!!!!

We're looking forward to lots of food, lots of swimming, lots of silly games, lots of conversation . . . lots of good family time.