A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

 The biggest event of the week was this: That's Nature Angel's foot in a boot.  Fractured a bone in her foot when she missed the bottom stair step on her way to dinner on Tuesday night. Then our babies were sick with mild colds that caused for lots and lots of snot and cuddles. A sweet church friend stopped by with a flower and a DVD case of Jane Austen movies to loan to Nature Angel while she had to rest.  We all curled up on the couches together and watched a few of them--Nature Angel with her foot propped up and many of us with babies of various ages sleeping/sneezing/fussing in our laps. We have a new 17 month-old--Li'l K--who comes to our house to play for half days, 4 days a week.  He is extraordinarily bright and extraordinarily sweet-natured.  He is pure joy to have around.   And we had a spring snow storm! This was at 7 am.  The snow continued to fall in enormous wet flakes until 9 am.  Then it melted magically away.   Though we did have a true frost the next night

 This week was mostly about Pixie.   I think you have to be a mom whose kids have left home and then come back for a visit to understand what the week was like.   I know I could imagine but not understand the fun and feelings before it happened to me.    The kids reveled in just being near her.   We had a marshmallow roast that resulted in much hilarity.   One evening after the boys had their baths, they found Pixie on the front porch and took goofy selfies together.   Five of the oldest girls went out to the movies together . . . and took bathroom selfies. 😂 We had a proper family portrait session with a professional photographer (photos to come in a couple of weeks). And we did a lot of sitting around having long conversations.   It was good. She's back at school, and after several mishaps, she's ready for the semester to begin on Monday morning. Through it all, we had therapy and school. Beowulf's head CT came out normal. Coupled with his normal blood test results, he i

 We had a wonderful Easter Sunday complete with baskets, egg hunts, General Conference , and kite flying.   (The youngest 6 got kites in their baskets.)     Brother really caught on to how to get the kite up and stay up.  He was able even to lie down on his back in the grass and just twitch the string a little bit to keep his kite soaring.  We had a few mishaps--broken strings and tangled tails--but nothing that was too extreme. We're definitely having spring; some days the temperatures soar to a sunny 80 degrees, and other days drop into the 30s with rain.  We get out when we can and cozy up indoors when we need to.   The kids love the creek when it is rushing madly with rainwater runoff.  At least 4 days this week have included sopping wet, muddy, happy children coming indoors for warm baths before dinner. We did a lot of school, including finishing The House of Sixty Fathers .    It has a happy ending. Thank goodness! We've started a book that Brother got for Christmas calle

The kids have spent upwards of 30 hours down at our creek this week.  They've built dams, dug holes, made mud pies, collected rocks, waded, floated Lego boats and people, floated a "kayak" (aka a broken toy car), and have come home for meals covered in mud. When they're not at the creek, they're in the apple tree or on one of our fallen trees that we haven't cleared because they're the best jungle gyms ever. Cries of, "Meet me in the apple tree!" "I'll be at the creek!" "Follow me to the down tree!" ring from our yard from mid-morning to sunset. No matter how I try, we never have dinner before 7:00 pm, and even then the kids complain about having to come indoors. But they are tired and hungry, and they eat well, curl up in their jammies for evening reading, and listen with baited breath during the next emotional chapter of The House of Sixty Fathers . Prior to their mid-morning release, we have Morning Meeting and Individu