This Week at Our House # 16

Sixteen weeks of 2020 done and what a crazy year it has been. We're a world under house arrest. Everyday the news is more disturbing. Not with the death toll from a disease, but with the draconian measures being taking by the government.

In Michigan, the government will not allow the people to buy vegetable plants for the garden or seeds or anything for gardening. I have a friend with ten children who relies heavily on her garden to feed her family. Here in North Carolina, protesters in Raleigh were shut down. They were petitioning the governor to be able to work. One

person was arrested. We've stayed home. Not one of us went anywhere this week. I won't leave for the next grocery trip until next Friday. So it will have been 13 days with no one leaving our house.

Of course there has been death from the covid 19, but nothing that in a saner era would have shut down the economy. This is by no means like the black plague. I'm not against quaratine for those who have been exposed, that's common sense. What has been happening almost seems staged.

I did the taxes and we will be getting a much needed tax return. I will check later in the week to see of we can get the stimulus money. All of my sisters, all who are out of work, got there's. So hopefully we will get ours, as I was planning on my waitressing job for paying the mortgage and utilities.


We decided to end the school year early. Legally, that is fine because we do language, writing, and reading all summer anyway. But everyone was ahead in math and we

had finished our Good and Beautiful lessons and we had gotten world history finished through world war II. It seemed like it was time to take the summer and enjoy more reading. I began reading Winnie the Pooh to the kids, and they are loving it.

Also this week, two of our cats had kittens. One had one living and one still born, and the other had 4. All 5 living kittens are big and healthy. We also had a wild song bird, a warbler, get trapped in our garage. So they kids have all been enjoying spring and all the beauties of nature.

1.With Ruth's book finished and up for sale, she seemed to take the week to relax. She will work on coloring the pictures she illustrated for my book now.

2. Kate,well I'm not actually sure what Kate did this week. I finally looked into starting an at home take out dinner business and found out that North Carolina will not allow it. Kate and I have been talking about doing a pizza and bread business. Oh well. The laws like to keep the poor poor.

3. Johnny keeps doing what Johnny does, working on animation for a computer game and drawing.

He reads a lot.

4. Adam mowed around my gardens. I have 4 different plots. He also dug one more large one. He works hard everyday.

5. Rachel has been reading a lot now that we are on vacation. That makes me happy. That's what I want to happen. She is now also working on the big family transcription project.

6. Anya helped me gather up chicken poop and straw to put on the gardens. Then she dug the rows for me to put in the seeds. After that, she said that her arms hurt and went inside.

7. I've given Joseph two excellent books to read, but he is restless and not settling down enough to read. We've put more restrictions on computer time, so hopefully he'll settle down some. One day this week, he walked around with the Book of Mormon in his hand, doing nothing because I told him that it was time to read. After two hours, I talked to him about how he could have been done in 10 minutes instead of 2 hours and 10 minutes. He sat right down and read then.

8. Josh likes to rub the down

feather's on his duckling's belly. His duckling seems to really like it since it lies right down on his back and relaxes. Josh has been too whiney about computer games, so we are working on that.

9. Arwen's happy to be on vacation. She keeps herself occupied. She is reading chapter books and the scriptures by herself. She enjoys reading and can talk about what she read.

10. Susan's knows all she needs to know for the end of kindergarten. I will give her a lesson once or twice a week to keep her prepared for a much harder 1st grade year.

11. Sam has been getting into things a bit much. We have to keep a closer eye on that. I put the toys out in the living room to keep the little kid's bedroom cleaner, and Sam was very happy about that.

12. Gideon can open the back door. We have someone watching him all the time for the most part. That little boy is very capable. He is 15 months now and acts between 18 and 24.

Happy Birthday, Rachel

Well Miss Rachel is 14! she does 14 year old math, so there is that. And she tests as good as a college freshmen for reading, so there's that too. But she looks 12 and can do the physical things of a 12 year old, so there's that too. She had said that her life plan was to get married at 16, but now that she is 14, she thinks it is better to wait until she is 18! I think I will hold her to that (hahaha).

Rachel still loves to sing and she still makes up her own songs and stories. Rachel still has a big imagination. I think we could compare her to Anne of Green Gables in many ways.

We all adore Rachel! She is a gem.

Portraits 2020

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.