The Skirts Are Sewn

Our basement right now

I have been only half-present with my family for the past couple of weeks.  

As Baymax said, "All Mom does is sew, give us food, and sleep!"

And he was absolutely right.

But the skirts are finished.

I still have accessories to make, but Nature Angel can help with those, and they are such a small project compared to 14 tiered skirts.

Did I have offers to help?

Yes.

But I was designing each skirt as I went.  I was using sheets, cut up men's XXL shirts, and bed skirts--all from the thrift store--to make skirts individually without a pattern.

It would have taken me as long to put kits/instructions together as it did for me to sew them.  I even talked it over with our director to make sure I wasn't being stupid, and she agreed that it made sense for me to just get the job done.

And they're so cute!!!!

Hopefully I'll post pictures next week after our dress rehearsal.

Nature Angel sewed 3 new skirts for our opener.
I didn't have to sew them, so Hooray!!!

In the mean-time, we did have Halloween!

Soldier

Literary mouse

Scarecrow

Pirate queen . . . with friends

Walmart worker
I ordered the vest, printed out the store logo on a sheet of paper, cut it out, and used it as a stencil.  Then I just painted over the stencil.
It came out so well!!!!
He chose this costume in July and never wavered from his decision. :)

Jedi

Dragon queen
Nature Angel helped her with her wings and the wire crown.
Little Princess did her beads (see above for the mom who sewed all week!).
I made her cape.

And these are the kids who went to a Halloween dance the weekend before the holiday.
Little Princess was an aviator that night.

For school during the past two weeks:

We had Morning Meeting each day.

We went to AR, church activities, CAP, gardening apprenticeships, and the library.

We read The Girl of the Limberlost.

We read some anatomy.

We worked on US Presidents and poetry.

We took notes about North and South Korea.

We read limited amounts from The Kite Fighters and A Single Shard.

We went on walks.

She found a bird's nest.

Kids did math, handwriting, and grammar each day.

High Schoolers went to seminary and did their individual subject work.

Little Princess went to work.

Our neighbor gave us a puzzle/riddle/mystery game.
The kids have been glued to it!

We did have one day that became very emotional.  We spent a long, long time talking as a family about issues that have been festering in the hearts/minds of a few of my kids.

There were moments when one kid would complain, "Why are we talking like this?  We could be done with school by now?  This is boring!"

But I told the complainer (all of them) that this was a kind of school--at least as important as reading or science.  

We went from misunderstanding, to arguing, to refusing to participate, to accidentally revealing deep hurts, to understanding, to resolution and compassion.

I reviewed this process with the kids and pointed out how we used to need to be afraid of anger because anger usually came with violence.  Now that the violence is under control, we can face the anger and work through it to come to peace.

The next day, Ladybug came to me and said, "Mom, I'm really glad you said those things to us yesterday about working through our anger.  I feel like I can say some things that are on my mind that I didn't think I could say before."

She still hasn't said them, but at least when she's ready, she'll feel safer about it.

And all of the kids have been a little bit more at peace than they seemed to be before.

She's studying mushrooms.