A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

 After turning her life over to to full-time service for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for 18 months, Belle is home again. We spent the day of her return making posters. This is the working draft of the candy poster we made.  The final poster included Hershey's Kisses at the end, and we circled or blocked out words on the treats as needed to help the message be easier to read. And then she finally arrived! (Our joy sure brought joy to lots of other people in the airport.) She brought home presents for everyone! He has collected spoons from new places for years.  They're getting harder to find, though, and he's waaaaay delighted to have one from Aruba. I love the excitement on Nature Angel's face! She said, "Now I have 2 pieces of original art from up-and-coming artists!  I bought the first one at the Art Walk I went to a few weeks ago, and now this one!" This is a reversible doll in beautiful Carribbean dress. The dolly has beads in her hair,...

Having the costumes stored at my house means that I end up being the costume manager AND a dance teacher. It makes me really appreciate our past costume managers! First, I had to move all of the bins out of the storage room because that room had to be turned back into a bedroom for Belle (who arrives home in 3 days).   Then Nature Angel, Little Princess, and I tried to put the bins in groups that made sense by content.  We were able to use the spreadsheet I created last summer to help us with that. Nature Angel, our director, and I had a meeting to decide which dances would include which costumes. We ran into all kinds of problems like sizing and quantity . . . and even found mold in one set of costumes. :(   So, now I've done several sets of hand-washing, one set of machine-washing on gentle, and So. Much. Line-drying. And I'm trying to sew 6 tiered circle skirts for my baby class because the costumes I thought would work, are actually all sized for larger kid...

 Our church congregation decided to have our annual Chili Cook-off and Trunk-or-Treat early in the month.  This changed my plans for preparing Halloween costumes!!  In short order, I pulled together 6 costumes, and my older teens managed their own. Nature Angel as Eurydice from Hades Town Ladybug as Hazel Levesque from Heroes of Olympus Mister Man as Leo Valdez from Heroes of Olympus Baymax as Samheed Burkesh from The Unwanteds Lola as Florence, the giant ebony statue hero, from The Unwanteds And Beowulf, Little Princess, and Brother as Minions! I have always limited Halloween to one celebration, but this year with the church party being so early, I am unable to prevent other celebrations closer to or on the actual date.   So. Much. Candy. I'm not a fan. But Brother, Mister Man, and Beowulf have been invited to a Halloween party and trick-or-treat with a group of boys from their church group. And the 3 teen girls have been invited to another Halloween party ...