A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

It wasn't the week I planned, but we're still going forward with school on Monday. Why? Because there isn't a better/easier/more calm time for school to start, so we might as well work our way into the routine. I trimmed 5 inches off Nature Angel's hair--this picture is before the trim. In the background, you can see the stack of homemade pretzels that Little Princess made for us all. I worked on choreography for American Rhythm for a lot of the day. This picture is one I took to show Baymax what I wanted the camera to look like when he filmed my feet so that I could see how the dance I was working on looked like. It was one of those weird cool days in August, and our kids spent the afternoon at the neighbors' house.  Gotta love Catholic and Mormon families hanging out together!   Apparently we had enough kids with just our two families for two actual teams for each of the various games they played. :) 3 hours of active play with friends made both mamas so happy! Th...

  . . . we are just enjoying the summer days. Nature Angel must have liked this pile of cut watermelon. We started Lad, A Dog as our final comfort re-read of the summer.  We only made it through 3 chapters this week because there's been too much going on in the evenings for the regular evening reading that I best love, but we're doing our best. We went swimming at my sister's house. And then we went swimming again with friends, but no one took any pictures that day. Some of the kids even went swimming a third time for their youth night activity, but Ladybug got to decorate cookies, and Little Princess went to CAP instead. Beowulf was delighted by a tiny egg laid by one of our chickens. I saw the shell--it really was a tiny egg! Lazy days . . . long legs! We went to the library. And Sugar Bear turned 5!!   But the kids played 13th birthday. 🤷 We had a drop in heat so that the days became sweet and lovely.  We couldn't help spending time outside. There was a lot...

 In my still-new role as a counselor in the Primary Presidency of our local church ward, I inherited the assignment of doing decorations for our Primary Pinewood Derby. When I thought about it, I cried. For 5 weeks. Then the light came on, and suddenly I was happily engaging with Pinterest and my kids and ward members and my husband and Etsy I had a $40 budget and plenty of inspiration. Yes, we did normal things at home:  sending Little Princess off to FSY, Morning Meeting, evening scriptures, daily and bedtime read alouds, gardening apprenticeships, library day, youth church activities, grocery shopping, dance meetings, meal making, canning (strawberry top syrup, Mexican corn soup starter, and strawberry/rhubarb pie filling), and cleaning. But the whole week was really about getting ready for the derby. Lola's Yellow Dragon car Baymax's SWAT car With my family in tow, we hauled  the kids' cars, 16 old tires (I washed and dried them all on Friday), a whole bunch of homem...