A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

We have a toddler in the house again . . . and it is SO FUN! Nature Angel looked at me with The Munchkin (that's what I'm going to call him here) and said, "Oh, Mom!  I knew we missed having a baby around, but I didn't know how much!" He is busy and sweet and funny and interested and all of the things that toddlers are.  We may be providing a service to his parents by providing childcare, but they are filling our hearts by sharing their darling boy with us. On Thursday he arrived in time to join us for our daily walk.  Seriously, his joy in every little thing added to our joy in every little thing!   Hike #32 of 52 Hikes:  Morning walks 65.66 miles + 2.1 = 67.76 miles   One day as The Munchkin did everything he could to keep us giggling when we were trying to get some school done, I looked at Little Princess and Nature Angel and said, "Can you even believe we used to do school with 2 kids this age!?!?!?" Truth, is we can't really remember it. Thank

 On Saturday of last week, Sir Walter Scott had his last vacation day of the week Pixie left for college (we weren't certain how she was going to go back or if she was going to go back, so he took the week off to cover all eventualities).   He took 5 of the kids on an 8 mile bike ride! Lola is our only little one who can't ride a 2-wheeler, so she stayed home with me and a couple of bigger kids, and helped make dinner--even getting to flip the pancakes herself.   She was so very proud! In my mind is the picture Sir Walter Scott painted of little Baymax plugging along on his little red bike for 8 whole miles. The kids came home, ate ravenously, and slept hard that night. The new week was full of activity. We had park dates on Monday and Tuesday, which meant adjusting our schedule to make room for friends.   We returned to our regular morning walks on Wednesday and Thursday.  The cool part of bending over to pick up trash is that our faces get right close to the ground. When we

Every day this week has something special that interrupted our usual schedule . . . except Friday, because that's a Wild Day anyway, and we can define it as we choose. We kept up with everyone's individual core subjects--reading, math, writing. We had to adapt a bit for the shared lessons, and poor Belle didn't get a single Ancient Literature reading session with me all week long! Good things: As of 10 minutes ago, Pixie is now back in her college apartment and ready to start classes on Monday. Belle was in a Zoom seminary class, Super Star was asleep (?), and Rose Red was out and about, so we never got a photo with all of the kids together.   We said goodbye to her on Wednesday, and she got to spend a couple of days with some beloved extended family before they drove her the last hop, skip, and jump to Rexburg. Super Star completed her first week of phlebotomy training, and she's loving it so far.   Most of the littles are really, really enjoying Spanish .  We read poe