A Week, Briefly (11/8/21)

 Nature Angel's perspective is always a thing of beauty and a reason to be grateful.

 

 In spite of a stomach bug, a toddler birthday, and the usual psych issues that are always and forever dominating our days, we're actually falling into a working homeschool routine.

All of the younger kids are now working daily on some sort of language arts, spelling, handwriting, and math.  We are doing our best to protect the older girls' few hours of uninterrupted school time, and they are making progress in their various studies.

We are very much enjoying Benjamin West and his Cat Grimalkin.  Just moments ago, Baymax came up to me and asked, "What would a Quaker think of our house?!?  Wouldn't he be surprised by how many pictures we have?"

Then he came back a moment later and asked, "But what would Benjamin West think?  Wouldn't he like all of the pictures?"

We're right at the point where Benjamin is waiting for the First Day committee is going to announce their verdict regarding Benjamin's future.  The kids are ready for it to be lunchtime on Monday so that they can listen to the decision!

We are making very slow progress in Shepherd, Potter, Spy, and the Star Namer.  Our evenings are too often interrupted with crises to make consistent progress, but we are doing our best, and the kids have been alive with making connections to familiar Bible stories.

 

Little Princess continues in her role as Sunday treat baker.  She made a delicious batch of lemon crinkles this week!!!

We have not done any family science or geography readings lately.  I haven't had the energy to make any plans or put books on hold . . . 

 

but that's not completely true because I did put a bunch of Christmas books on hold. :)  Then, in spite of the fact that I put pauses on the holds to make sure they didn't come through until December, most of them showed up this week.  

 

So geography and science have actually given way to me taking time to judge various Christmas books on their merit to decide which ones may make the cut for purchasing. 

 We finished this entire book this week!  We've been reading it for a full year, and it was perfect to accompany our Come, Follow Me curriculum during Morning Meeting.

 

I haven't replaced it with anything new because as soon as Thanksgiving is past, we will begin our annual reading of The Jesus Storybook Bible.   However, we have been working on memorizing the kids' primary program parts.  This coming Sunday is the big day, and as a graduating member of the primary Ladybug has a far longer part than usual, so she's having to work extra hard on her part.  Our Morning Meetings are quite full enough to bring us joy.

 

Dance was cancelled because we (and some other families) had to miss due to illness.  Next week is our only show and final meeting for the semester. 

The boys had activities at the church this week, and they got to give virtual reality a try.  The very loose gospel tie in to the activity is that things are not always what they appear to be, and we need to be aware and careful not to be deceived.  The boys had a blast, and I think that the most fun was watching Daddy flail about in ways that seemed ridiculous given the fact that he was deep in VR while the rest of the kids were in real life.

 

Belle is now at work on her Persuasive Speech.  She came to me for help on finding a topic that is not politically or socially controversial because (like me) she is not a fan of hot topics.  She eventually settled on Dogs are Better than Cats because it could be silly and fun.

 

Her teacher, however, turned the topic down and suggested she speak about Homeschooling vs Public School.

 

So much for avoiding hot topics!!! 

Even though our days continue to have emergencies (and I had a total breakdown yesterday), we are finding a rhythm that is mostly working and mostly giving us the stability we need to grow and feel safe.

I very much doubt we will do special Christmas school activities this year, as I have zero desire to stop our momentum.

In conclusion, I leave a few pics of sweet moments in our week.

Just seconds before I took this picture, Ladybug had been emptying the dishwasher with Little Mister Frog on her hip.  By the time I got the camera out, she'd put him down and was encouraging him to help.  He was thrilled.

The leaves were at their most beautiful this week.  The kids have collected them and played with them in a variety of ways.  My favorite is to crunch them while walking through.  The kids seem particularly fond of piling them up and jumping in them.

Every day is an opportunity to practice life skills.

Nature Angel takes what moments she can to practice her art.  On this night, as I read aloud to the troops, Lola found her way over and watched intently.

We were blessed to receive the link to the Friday night performance of Extravadance at BYU-Idaho.  Pixie could not reconcile her work/school schedule to allow her to audition for the Collegiate Dancers team that performs the majority of the numbers in this show, but she was blessed to be part of Ballet 390 which performs in Extravadance regardless of Collegiate Dancer status.  Pixie is the first girl on the left who is facing right.  It was a beautiful modern ballet number.