A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

We started the week with birthday celebrations at the park. There was a lot of candy . . . but the cousins had a grand time together.  My sister and I brainstormed a way to get together more often (75 miles is farther in reality than it is in theory); we're going to have a monthly Cousins' Book Club next school year.  Between us we have 14 children ages 0-15.  We'll take turns hosting, and the children will take turns choosing the book and planning the activities/food.  I'm already excited. We continued our nature studies by reading/narrating from the BSA nature merit badge handbook.  We also pulled out a current state department of conservation magazine and worked on memorizing the features and habits of the Western Kingbird.  We're hoping to spot one when we go camping next weekend. We're having days of sun interspersed with days of rain, and the little girls are spending untold hours in our little creek catching crawdads and getting muddy....

Over the weekend we had a storm.  It took out our rope-swing tree. This tree stood a good 30 feet tall before it fell.  Can you see the deer that came to feed?  They were brave!  They just looked at us and ate leisurely until I3 waved his arms and really yelled at them.  This is the week we said goodbye to our outside-the-home-homeschool activities.  This week's calendar was full to overflowing; next week's calendar is almost empty. The older kids are panicking, "What are we going to do?" I am answering, "We will breathe slowly and deeply." There are still church activities to attend, and the end-of-season soccer banquet is this coming week, and the homeschool camp out is only 2 weeks away.  It's not as though we're crawling into a hole and never coming out again. E15 finished up her first year of early morning seminary.  She only missed 2 days; one was for a vomiting-up-her-guts illness and the other was the morning after she broke...

 I3 has had a hard time since Baby L showed up.  He's a sweet boy, and we all expect boyish, preschoolerish, occasionally naughty behavior as a normal part of life. But there's something in his behavior that smacks of more than just growing boy-ness.  (Though what do I know?  I've been raising girls!) I've been working hard to feed him the love, time, attention, and gentle discipline he needs to grow well and know he's loved beyond measure.  But there's still something in that boy crying for attention. On Saturday afternoon, he was climbing around the kitchen while I was cooking.  We'd spent the afternoon shucking corn together, and now I was preparing some of that delicious sweet corn for dinner.  He was excited.  He got too close to the boiling pot of water.  "That's too hot, Buddy, you'll get burned.  Scoot your stool over so you can watch safely." He didn't obey. "Hey Bud, you're too close.  It's not sa...

Today the older girls are headed off to a soccer tournament.  This will close our soccer season for the year.  I am both sorry and relieved . . . mostly relieved.  I'm only sorry for the fact that the girls will miss the camaraderie of the team and the thrill of the game.  Dad will take them, so the littles and I will have some quality (quantity!) time together. We're going to start our weekend by having some beloved friends over.  We're all terribly excited, but I need to get the toilets scrubbed (I don't think our friends would complain, but the toilets really need it) and I can't find the toilet cleaner!  We'll also head north for a Bountiful Baskets pick-up this weekend, and depending on how much rain falls and when, we'll try for a hike/walk at our favorite park. It was a good week academically. Monday: *All 4 big girls got some math done. *I3 and I did a phonics lesson together.  We're just using index cards with letters drawn on them wi...