This Week at Our House #19 Summer Vacation Begins

Another busy week has passed us by. Monday and Tuesday, we finished our final two days of the school year. Unlike public school, where things get easier at the end and there is a lot of down time and fun activities, we just plow right through until the end. For the summer, I will make them read their scriptures everyday and do one math problem, for the most part, but this week, we only managed that on Wednesday.

Thursday, we took the five and half hour drive to the temple. It's a rough trip. Driving 11 hours in one day for two hours at the temple is not easy. But this time, I was glad to be there to have the time to quietly ponder and pray. Additionally, the ride home, while tedious was quite fun. Kate, and Ruth and John and I had some good conversations and some very fun conversations.

Friday, we cleaned the whole house and put the new floor into the dining room. We have the living room floor left, 2 more bedrooms to paint, two more doors to paint, and some of the outside of the house to paint, and a storm door to replace and hang. Plus this week I began working on our roof.

After being cheated by the original roofer and getting estimates from a few others, we decided to take the task on ourselves. It's intimidating, but our roof is one story, so it is not terribly dangerous. In the end, we decided if the druggies around here can tear off a roof and put a new one on, then we, without drugs, could do it just as well, if not better, and keep the cost of  the labor. We have a little more than half the roof, plus fixing some of the things the first roofer messed up. We know what needs to be done. We have most of the parts, and can get the rest with a quick trip to the supply store. I think it will be challenging, but we are beginning to get into a groove with it.

I have been doing the tear off and the clean up and the tar applications. Johnny has been nailing down the tar paper and John and Adam have been nailing on the new shingles. Adam puts down all the starter shingles because he has the best balance. I have been kind of the boss about it too. Not because I am bossy as much as because I knew what was messed up and what needed to be done from the companies that came and gave us estimates. And because I am doing the tear off, that pretty much decides the order of the other parts.

Basically this week, we ended school and got to work on house projects. That will be the case, I think for a good month more. We are still hoping and praying and fasting for John to get a job and to be able to move out of here. We have been having one person in the home fast each day for several months now.

The kids played outside all week. It is so beautiful here and our yard is private and peaceful with a variety of nature. We have flowers and bushes and tons of trees. We have fruits and vegetables and herbs growing. Last year, we found out that we had a bunch of wild blackberries, so we made more room for them and now we have an acre of wild blackberries, along with a fertile hill full of very large luscious berries that will ripen soon. When I want some herbs, I step out of the front door and clip them. I weeded my kitchen garden yesterday, brought in a large bunch of cilantro and immediately made a delicious salsa that will go well with our falafel dinner tonight. I love our yard. I wish we could have made this our permanent home.

Here are our fun stories and conversations from this past week:

Adam: "Josh, stop licking our electronics,"
Johnny: "what was he licking?"
Adam: "The bottom of the keyboard where the battery goes in."
Johnny: "Josh, don't lick the keyboard."
Josh in a very pleasant voice: "Okay."

Gideon happily talked to the picture of the raccoon on Ruth's sweater.

Sam handed me a banana. I peeled it for him and handed it back. He said, "thank you, mom." Then he took a bite and said, "mmmm, that's great, Mom!"

Susan asks to watch "minjas" meaning, "Lego Ninjago" a lot everyday. One day this week, when I was wearied of her pleas for tv time, I said, "Nope, the minjas are dead." Later that evening, I gave in when Arwen asked to watch Ninjago, and turned it on. Susan came in to watch the show and I did not think anything of it, and went out to work on something or take care of the baby. Ruth and Kate came into me laughing and said that they had the funniest conversation with Susan. Apparently, Susan went into their room sad and begged them to watch Barbie songs on their computer. They asked Susan why and why she was sad. Susan said it

was because the "minjas are dead." I told them, that actually, I told Susan that the minjas were dead. So I went in to where the little kids were watching tv and asked Susan if the minjas were actually dead. She pointed to the screen and sadly said, "these ones are not." I felt bad and explained to her that none of them were dead and I was just teasing her.

As I said in another post, Rachel is being a little silly by refusing to say anything absolute. It would be too embarrassing if I wrote down the funny conversation I had with her this week with her, "Well, I think, maybe, it is this way" conversation. Needless to say, by the end of the conversation, she declared absolutely what was the case, lest she have to face having me take a closer look resulting in more than necessary embarrassment.

Arwen just loves babies. She is always cuddling and cooing at Gideon and now she is always holding the baby kittens and cooing at them and telling them how cute they are.

Joseph made brownies for us at night and the little kids did not get any, so he made more the next morning.

Our most pecked hen has taken up residence in the house, particularly in Gideon's bed, but also on the couch. She walks inside when the kids open the door and comes and builds a nest to lay her eggs or just hang out with the family. She sat by Anya, probably her favorite human, and tried to get her hair to use for a nest. Anya gave her some rags and a bath towel. She built a nest and laid her egg there on the couch. The next two days, she got into Gideon's bed, napped there, and used the blankets to form a nest and laid eggs there.

Susan got into Gideon's bed with the hen to take a nap.

Our pecked hen finding peace indoors with lots of children

(Gideon mostly sleeps with me still, so it's not  that big of a deal.) The surprising thing is she has been mostly going outside to poop. Mostly, is the operative word, though. She has pooped 3 times in the house. Once in my shoes, once on the couch, and once on the floor.

Mom: Tell me what to write about Joseph and Anya.
Johnny: I don't know. I don't know what Joseph and Anya did. I don't even know what I did.

More Pictures

Rachel being goofy in mismatched clothes

proof that I actually do weed the flower beds

Wild blackberries

This Week at Our House # 18 A Workful Week

The week was hot, dry, and sunny. The kids spent most of their free time outside. My gardens are all growing and growing well. We got a lot done on the house projects, one of our cats had kittens, and we finished our last full week of the 2018-2019 school year.

We got a lot of work done in general this week, which always makes me happy. I like it better when I am productive. The boys got the majority of the lawn mowed, which is a huge, never-ending task in North Carolina on our 3 acre yard with only a push mower. I did tons of laundry, since the kids play in the dirt all the time. Kate made 8

homemade pies. Rachel made 5 cheesecakes. I made cinnamon rolls two days in a row, and Ruth kept up on the dishes for us. I got the front flower beds weeded, which is kind of a useless task as they will all be back in two days time. I started a new blog for my kids for the next school year that is a combination of a year long syllabus and the art, language arts, and spanish curriculum I am writing for them. Then finally, I got all the boys and many of the girls hair cut. Anya and Rachel took care of Gideon a lot while I did the things that I did. All in all it was a good week.


Here Some the Fun Conversations and Things from the Week:

Mom: Sam are you poopy?
Sam: No, not yet, Mom.

We painted the living room--sage green, my choice, and two coats. I think it looks good. John thinks it does not match anything else in the house, including the brick red door that I painted in the living room as well. Joseph said he didn't like it, but he thought he could get used to it since it used to be striped wall paper. Josh said it was horrible. Josh, Kate, Joseph, and Anya joked that I chose the color I did to match all the snot the kids would smear on the walls. Then they decided it looked like we smashed avocados all over the walls. Then it dried darker. Anya, who like me, has a favorite color of green, said she likes it. Ruth said that I could

hardly do anything worse than the wallpaper that was there, so she likes it just fine. I think Joseph is the wisest. Once we are used to it, we will start thinking a different color is weird and the green is quite natural and normal.

Adam, Joseph, and Joshua were sword-fighting with large sticks outside:
Mom: Adam settle down. You're being too rough.
Joseph: No, Adam is being too fun.

While I was talking to John, Arwen came up and said, "Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom," then she grabbed my face, pulled it toward her and said, "mom are you listening to me." I said, "no, but you are interrupting me. You need to wait until I am done talking."

Sam said, "My want cocoa". Adam is the only other kid who switched I and my.

Kate teased Gideon by tickling his feet and making him look at her no matter where he turned. For the rest of the day he would not look at her or smile at her, even though he was happy to look at, smile at, and coo at everyone else. He finally forgave her when she said "Gomen'nasai" which is I'm sorry, in Japanese, and gave him a little bow and then he smiled at her.

Sam came inside excitedly telling me something and pulling on my clothes. I could not tell what he was saying, so I turned to Susan for an explanation and she said, "It looks like there are baby cats outside." Later Susan looked at the runt and said, "It looks like a rat."

Josh: Which would you rather: taste like puke or taste like chocolate?
Joseph: I would rather taste like puke because if I tasted like chocolate people would want to eat me.
Josh sounding disappointed: No you don't want to taste like pukey disgustingness.

I was video taping Rachel singing this silly exercise song that she made up.  She said, "First, you touch your toes, one, two, three, four". Then Johnny rushed in and said, "Then you trip your opponent. The then swiped his leg under her feet and grabbed her up and gently dropped her to the floor. Then Johnny looked at me with the camera and Kate and Ruth laughing and he said, "Wait are you recording!?" and walked embarrassingly out of the room. I think we will always love that video.

We have been watching Master Chef since the birth of Gideon. As a result, the kids play a cooking contest out in the sand. Anya gets to be Gordon Ramsay. She calls herself Ramsey Gordon. She throws the kids creations on the ground and says things like, "this is dog food! Bleep, bleep, bleep!". And when she thinks they really didn't do well, she says things like, "great effort!".

More Pictures

Before Sam's First haircut

Sam's First haircut

John missed the last haircut, because he did not feel like it, and ended up looking either like a mad scientist, or a middle aged skate boarder that didn't want to grow up.

Here is the after picture of which he thought I cut it too short.

This Week at Our House #17 Ugly Wall Paper Removed

We finished taking down all of the ugly wallpaper in the living room and got the walls primed. We just spent a couple of hours a day most days soaking the walls and scraping wall paper. The kids were pretty good about doing it, and we were able to get the walls primed Saturday, but painting won't happen until Tuesday. Years ago, when we lived in Wichita, the house had a lot of wall paper. We took down all of it, except one room and it was a lot of work. I swore I would never buy a house with wallpaper again, but this house was so cheap, I gave in. It's actually a lot easier now with so many older kids. I always have two or three people working to peel the wallpaper, one making dinner, one cleaning the mess, and one holding the baby.

This week completed one more week of school. We only have 7 more school days to go until we will have completed our 180 days of school for the year. That means we will be done on May 7th. The kids are looking forward to the freedom and I am looking forward to the extra time, so that I can finish all of the rest of the house repairs.

I have been reading through some of the older years of this blog. I'm awed at how much we have changed since October 2007 when I started this family history. First of all, I only had 5 kids, though I keenly felt that my plate was full, my family large, and that once I had that 5th child I had left behind the approval of the world. Second, we were much more mainstream than we are now. Part of that is because we have changed things, like homeschooling. The other part is the world has changed where we have not. Third, I think we were happier then, and that I think I can also attribute that to how thoroughly the world has changed. We have many more worries and sorrows from things that never entered into our minds would occur. I am not talking about job loss and poverty, I am talking about certain changes in the church and the world at large.

Some fun things from this week:

A spontaneous beach trip on Wednesday at the end of the school day.

A Conversation overheard:
Johnny to Josh: "Going to bed is normal! Licking salty feathers is not!" About a minute later Josh came in asking us why this feather he licked tasted salty.

Sam, who did not want to take a bath, stomped into the bathroom while I was bathing Gideon and yelled, "I told you NO!"

Susan making lunch for all of the younger kids everyday this week.

Story club in which I was pleased with my very sarcastic poem and rhyming scheme. Susan told her story, which was "A cow jumped onto a balloon." Anya's poem that rhymed quite well, and most of the family actually participating.

The older kids all drawing together at night and making a fun game out of it. One person would describe their character and then everyone would draw their interpretation. During that, I asked Joseph if his character had armor-pants and he said no, he has chain mail pants. Everyone laughed and we got some funny drawings from it. 

A family game of capture the flag. 

Rachel pretending she is a Japanese girl and using fake Japanese words to talk to people.

Ruth and Kate singing with me around the piano.

Adam's really good piano playing.

Johnny moving the piano all by himself (so we could peal the wall paper).

Arwen reading very well and

interested in what she reads enough to ask a great many questions about what things are.

Ruth reading scriptures to Susan every night.

Sam bringing me hand fulls of sand at the beach and saying, "Look mom, it's cake!"

Gideon looking unhappy when Anya and John interrupted his cooing conversation with me to tell him how cute he is.

Me saying, "Sam, you are cute," and Sam responding, "No! Oh cute? Yes, cute!"

and 

Adam teasing Rachel for saying, "I think," before everything she says. Adamsays that Rachel no longer has any opinions on anything. Rachel was playing a video game and when Anya came in and asked her what she was doing. Rachel said, "I think I am playing a video game." Clearly, Rachel was playing a video game.

More Pictures

ugly wall paper gone!