This Week at Our house #14 and #15

I'm two weeks out again. We've finished most of the school year. We have three weeks to go. Hurrah!! We celebrated Rachel's 14th birthday. The apocalypse continues with news and rulings growing faster than weeds. We've been staying home and isolated, which is what the cool kids do now, so that's weird. The kids have missed trips to the store and to the beach, but have enjoyed the raising ducklings, spring weather, Smash Brothers, board games, out door games, art and more.

1. Ruth's book is up on Amazon. I think it took 20 hours to get the formatting to work with Amazon'd printed book standars, but she persevered and it's a beautiful finished product. I'm so excited to advertise it. Now she will finish the pictures for my book.

2. I stopped at the Pumpkin Center to see if they had older hens. They did not. But the had mallards. I brought Kate home a present of 3 baby mallards and she is in mother duck heaven, holding them, and feeding them, and taking them out to play.

3. Johnny's been working on his stuff, initiating lots of outdoor games and exercise and staying up til sunrise discussing scriptures with John.

4. Adam's finishing off his schooling and learning how to run hard. He's strong, but not a runner, so this is a challenge for him. But he's taken it on.

5. Rachel turned 14!! She looks like she is 12, but that is actually good news for her growth because when she turned 12, she looked like she was 8. Rachel woke up at 8am on her birthday to get the most of the day. She is working on illustrations for a cute little imagery little girl story, I wrote about Susan. She's doing all right.

6. Anya is drawing the pictures and coloring them via computer for one of my favorite kid poems. I'm very excited about this one. Anya is one talented artist for a 12 year old. I am excited to see what she can do at 18.

7. Joseph's done with school even though he is not done. He acts like he cannot stand another day of school. But I keep him going. Three more weeks and he is free and can relax and rejuvenate his boyishness. He started making a fort this week, while I made an outdoor pen for the duckling.

8. I am so pleased with how Joshua's doing with school. I look back at what he could do last August and what he can do today and I rejoice in his success.

9. Arwen Eve's a little gem. She is smart and funny and doing so well in everything. Johnny and Adam were saying how she's way too advanced on the computer. She doesn't need help. She figures things out quickly.

10. Suzy's enjoying the gorgeous spring flowers and the ducklings and the sand. She plays all day. She has almost finished all of her kindergarten work. I will get her started on reading little by little over summer break, and she will go full into reading lessons in August when we begin our new school year.

11. Sam's pacifiers have all been broken and we have all learned that Sam actually talks. We have a new voice and new opinions in the family and that's nice.

12. Gideon, at 14 months climbs out of his crib. He walked at 9 months, but I didn't expect this new development. He is an adorable little terror, into everything and interested in everything. He is surprisingly gentle with the ducklings.

This Week at Our House #13 A Birthday, A Garden, House Arrest

We hunkered down at home all week. The dentist appointments were cancelled along with everything else with the rest of the world. The apocalypse continues as our governor issued stay at home orders for all "non-essential" employees.

We finished week 27 of our school year and only have 5 more weeks until vacation. The kids are tiring out as expected this far into the semester.

Ruth had her 22nd birthday. She said being 22 feels like pressure (because I was pregnant with her on my 22nd birthday). Kate made Ruth the most delicious black tie mouse cake. We had a lovely day with this lovely adult daughter.

We had nice weather and spent a lot of time outside. John and Adam helped me with the garden. Right now I have corn, watermelon, and butternut squash seeds planted. They should take a week to 10 days to start moving above the soil.

I have basil, oregano, thyme, cilantro, mint, potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini, pinto beans, and cantaloupe already blooming. When I go grocery shopping again, I will get more plants. I have many more seeds to plant too.

We had an amazing rainbow directly in the front of our house. The sky above the arc was dark and the sky below was light.

Ruth finished her book this week. It's formatted and will be put up for purchase on Amazon as both a print and a kindle book. She's worked hard and it is amazing.

Kate made Ruth's cake and then two more on Friday. They went so fast. Usually cake hangs around here and there, but not this one. It fled like the best cut of steak. Kate spent a lot of time on the computer this week learning how to color her drawings on the computer.

Johnny's doing fine. He's still

working on his stuff. He showed me some the pictures he's working on for a game. We have a lot of competition for computer use right now.

Adam dug up a bunch of sod for me, which I am very grateful for. It's a lot of work busting sod by hand. It really limits what we can do. Adam also found the water main to the house, so now I can fix the many plumbing issues we've been having. Hurry for brave sons crawling under the house.

Rachel dragged through the school days everyday. She did, however, make the best naan bread we've ever had.

Anya is drawing pictures for a book for me. I am going to have her focus on that the rest of the school year. I will have Adam do the coloring with her. I am excited about this one. It's fun a little story.

Joseph has been dragging through school now too.He's trying to do math through memorizing, which
I disdain. I want him to learn how to think things out and math really trains that into a person.

Josh was telling Arwen his video game dream. Arwen declared that to be a stupid dream because it is just a game. Josh objected and said, "But in my dream, it wasn't a game. Everything was real.The video game was real life."

I told the kids no computer games

for a week. So Arwen and Josh made cut outs of their favorite video game characters and play acted the game with their paper characters on the floor. I also told them no games if there room was messy and Arwen finally has a clean room.

Susan and Arwen have been wandering through the yard gathering blossoms of all sorts. They love all these gorgeous springtime flowers.

 

Kate was sitting doing transcribing with her bird on her shoulders. Sam wanted to sit by Kate, and he was holding his cat. Kate was worried about Sam sitting next to her with a cat because Kate had her
birds on her shoulder. When the cat saw the birds, she sat looking at them very intently. Kate moved her hand near the cat's face to block her view, and the cat immediately moved to see the birds. Kate tried moving around so the cat couldn't see the birds, but the can kept moving so that it could see them. Then Sam solved the problem by placing his hand over his cat's face. Sam ended the week with a stomach flu. He hasn't left the house for a month, so I think he must have eaten something. We'll see if it spreads.

Gideon gets everything and climbs on everything. We have to keep the chairs and the benches all turned upside down. This morning he found a chair and used it to climb up on the bar. He's a hand full now. But, we've finally gotten him sleeping in the little kid's bedroom. They're fine with that only because they don't have to go to bed until Gideon's asleep.