Even Once is More than Nothing

 

Belle (3rd from the left) was so happy to spend time with all of the sister missionaries at a recent meeting on Aruba.

We're doing our best.

It isn't a lot.

But it's something.

We're still reading The Phantom Tollbooth.

We're still doing math most days.

Ladybug is almost done with her Grade 3 review, and I think she'll be starting Grade 4 math before Thanksgiving.

We're still doing Morning Meeting.

We're still working through grammar and The Mystery of History vol. 3 with the teens.

We're still doing "bin school" most days (language arts workbooks).

We're really working hard on American Rhythm--so much dancing and sewing and organizing!

We're really working hard on communicating and creating peace in the face of conflict.

Brother was just mad one morning when it was time for him to take his meds.  I'd waited and watched for a good time to catch him, but it was still a time that annoyed him beyond all reason.  His feeling of being annoyed led to several small incidents of yelling and near violence.  When I took a deep breath to talk it through with him, he took my words to their illogical conclusions and left the house for over 2 hours to calm down.  

When he came in, I prayed for guidance.  

I listed all of the good things I'd seen him do that morning, focusing on how he'd tried to respect me.

Then I listed all of the good things I'd done that morning, focusing on how I'd tried to respect him.

I think seeing the lists on the whiteboard really got him thinking.

Together, we outlined a new plan for taking morning meds that makes us both happy.  

We've followed it the rest of the week, and it's working.  

Stuff still happens to annoy him.

We still have to tread kind of carefully.

But just removing that first tension-causer of the day has made a good difference.

Yesterday Nature Angel and I estimated how much time she's put in the last couple of weeks designing and sewing her Halloween costume.  

We came up with 60+ hours!

That's an easy .5 credit in Fashion Design (fashion illustration, pattern design, textile selection, sewing).

The work she's done is not easy!  But it sure added up quickly!

I can't wait to photograph her in her final product.

Kids read a lot most days.

Sometimes I kick them out of the house for a few hours.  Most of the time they find something active to do, but sometimes they just move their indoor occupations outdoors. :)

On Tuesday, Sir Walter Scott took 5 of the kids to the temple.

In the evening, the boys had a variety of activities.  Because Sir Walter Scott is one of the leaders of Beowulf's activity group, there's a picture of him and some of his friends with some of the balloon cars they made.

This coming week is our church Fall Festival--dinner, costume parade, trick-or-treating.

The older girls are going to be in charge of face painting, so they had a practice session using the little girls (and each other) as models.

Because I've been so focused on American Rhythm and dealing with Brother's emergencies, I have not one costume ready for my kids.  I'm not sure how I'm going to pull off the miracle of 6 costumes in the next 2 days.

We listened to Beethoven's entire 5th Symphony.  

Actually, we watched a recording of a German symphony orchestra performing it in a beautiful German cathedral.  I'm telling you, listening to my kids watch orchestra conductors is more fun than almost anything else I can do.

They mimicked the conductor, commented on how he danced, compared his movements to the music, hummed along with the music, asked 1,000 questions about the instruments played, and generally had an exceedingly good time.

I spent a lot of time looking up answers to their questions, but I still had time to enjoy the music myself.

I swear we need to spend more time doing this!

But once is more than nothing.

We also listened to 4 or 5 more chapters of My America Storybook vol 3.

The kids and I are trying to do a tree study.  I'm using the Boy Scouts of America Forestry handbook as our base guide.  We set up our notebooks and started our first entries about Eastern Redbud trees.

Early Saturday morning Sir Walter Scott and most of the kids headed off to the church for our turn to help clean the building.  I dropped Little Princess off at the airport where CAP meets so she could volunteer as a flight marshal for Young Eagles.

Later, Mister Man took his first flight with Young Eagles!

Little Princess was able to marshal his plane!

Sir Walter Scott almost didn't take any pictures, but Little Princess nudged him to at least get this one.

That's Mister Man in the passenger seat in the cockpit.  He came home grinning from ear to ear.

He's proud of his first flight certificate and his Logbook.

I kicked the kids outside where Ladybug and Lola spent the afternoon painting.

The boys built stuff with scrap wood.

(No pictures of either)

Then we had dinner and s'mores around the firepit.

In the coming 2 weeks, I have 20 skirts and 5 bumblebee t-shirts to make.

And Halloween costumes to help the kids assemble by Tuesday.  

It's going to be an interesting week ahead!