Thanksgiving 2022

  

We had Thanksgiving, as usual, and as will be usual, at home alone. We are too big of a family to have Thanksgiving away from home and we have too small of a house to have company join us. But with 15 people, Thanksgiving is never small. We quadrupled the jello salad, that for years only John ate, and it was about the first thing to go. The turkey was moist, but I miss my flavor injector and I think that I will replace it. The orange rolls got a little overdone, so a few days after Thanksgiving, I made another batch. They're best right out of the oven, and we have so much other food on Thanksgiving, that it was nice to have them as soon as they came out of the oven as well as when I was actually hungry, and I believe others agreed to that because the later batch that I made went really fast. On the whole, we do enjoy this feast and entrance into the Christmas season. And I can say with an honest heart that I am thankful for my family. 

Ruth could not get a seat around the table and sat at the bar instead. 

Eliza made a mess of my dinner, as she was seated on my lap, and then when I put her down, she was very sad, so I ended up nursing her on the couch while the Thanksgiving meal continued. 

Joseph, Joshua, and Arwen had an eating contest, since they made it a contest of who could stay eating the longest, rather than who could eat the most, Arwen won out by simply eating slowly.

The house got pretty hot. The oven was working overtime and someone and turned the thermostat off from auto, so it would heat or cool depending on the temperature, to heat. It was 80 degrees inside not too long before dinner. 

We always put the turkey carcass out for the animals, wild and domestic, and this is the site that greeted us the next day. These are vultures and the large tree they are sitting in rises up close to where we put the carcass. 

Samuel Tales

 I got this in an email from John and it seemed worthy enough to be immortalized by this blog. 

I was telling Sam and Susan about Christmas, and that Mary was
pregnant and Joseph was upset. Here was the conversation:

Sam: How does god make people?
Sam: Could you show us a picture?
Susan: Yah (agreeing that she would like to see a picture)

Eliza Stories

 At not quite 16 months, I told Eliza to go and get her diaper and she understood me and got her diaper and brought it straight to me. 

Eliza was upset with me and fussing loudly. I asked her if she wanted to see Ruth. She sat up and calmly said "oo, oo," and then went to Ruth. 

Homeschool Update

 We are more than a third through the school year and I thought that it was time to give an update kid to kid about how school is going. 

Adam is a senior, but he is still completing two of his junior year classes, so he is behind and won't likely graduate in June. In order to graduate he must complete the following courses: essay writing, ap chemistry, computer programming, calculus, ap physics, and American Heritage. Currently he is working to finish ap chemistry and computer programming before he begins ap physics and calculus. I will probably have him quickly do American Heritage over the Christmas vacation, so that is out of his way. Adam is smart. He gets good grades and he now is maintaining the stuff that he is learning, but he is very slow about things, even though he works steadily for hours everyday. When Adam does graduate, and probably before, I am going to have him work on video editing for a youtube channel for me as well as having him writing a website for our products, and probably doing some illustration. I am also considering putting him on an advertising end of things. 

Rachel is a junior in high school. She is currently taking essay writing, American Heritage, Spanish, and she is border line between Algebra 2 and pre-calculus. I think she may have crossed the line into pre-cal, but her book covers all algebra 2 and almost all of pre-cal. I have another pre-cal book too, though, that is smaller and more in depth that I will have her complete before calculus. She still has PE and chemistry to complete before she finishes off her junior year. I have not decided on what she needs to do for her senior year yet. But I plan to keep Rachel on as a student another year. She will not be ready to face the world just after she turns 18 in 2024. 

Anya is a freshman and my star student. Anya does all of her work everyday and she never complains and she gets good grades and generally seems to like learning things. Anya is an excellent writer. She has written some really good poems recently and she writes very interesting sentences and uses words well. I am very happy with Anya. I was pretty sure, we would be working for her to be an illustrator, but she has a lot of talent with writing and she might want to go that way instead. Right now Anya is doing an illustrations course, language arts, algebra 2, and Spanish. She has already completed biology, and she will still complete p.e. and American Heritage. 

Joseph is in 8th grade. I had originally bumped him up a grade because he has always done all of the same work as Anya, sometimes even pulling ahead, but over time, I have learned that it isn't the right thing to rush my kids into adulthood. So for 8th grade, Joseph has completed physics; he is working on algebra 2, language arts, and American Heritage. He will still have to complete PE and Spanish. I will have to put his geometry and algebra 2 courses on his high school transcripts, but I will have him take the high level sciences and histories over again. 

Joshua is in the 6th grade. He is reading much better, but he still struggles with words, especially when he gets frustrated. Joshua generally finishes all that he has to do every day. He is mostly an easy student, except for reading. He is currently taking a geography class, language arts, art, and pre-algebra. When he finishes his geography course, he will take an earth science class, and he will also complete a typing class and pe before the end of the school year. I am not sure he will be ready to move to algebra one for his 7th grade year. He is going very slowly through his book, sometimes taking a week or more for one lesson to really get settled in and solidified. But that is the nice thing about homeschool, you can work at your own pace and actually learn the material.

Arwen is in the 5th grade. She has a typical elementary school schedule. Sometimes Arwen works very slowly and sometimes she gets her work done quickly. Arwen does not like her geography class. I am not sure why, but she seems to really struggle reading a question and looking on a map to find the answer.

Susan is in second grade, technically, she is supposed to be in third grade, but her reading is at a second grade level, so that is where she is doing everything, including math. She is just starting to learn her times tables. But at a second grade level, Susan is doing very well. She is generally very easy to teach and willing to do all of her school work, which she completes in about an hour and a half. I hope, at some point, to bump her back up to the technical grade that she is supposed to be in, but right now, I will take it one school year at a time. 

Sam is in kindergarten and he is learning to read and doing very well. He is sounding out 3 letter words very well and can do his easy readers without any trouble. He can count well and add and subtract and he really enjoys the little science and history books that we read together. Sam is on the same curriculum that Susan did last year and the year before. I think that Sam will be reading fairly well on his own in another year. I think that he will only be about one grade level behind Susan. 

Gideon loves his school time with me. He needed speech therapy. He mouth and tongue muscles were quite week. It's great that now we can understand him very well. With Gideon, he repeats things that I say while looking at pictures, and we sing a lot of nursery songs together. Recently, Gideon has been writing his letters. I have not even shown them to him, he has picked them up from looking at books. Of course, that makes me really happy. Gideon has a good attention span. He can spend an hour coloring one picture or doing one of his own drawings. 

Eliza loves Gideon's school time, so when she sees me sitting with Gideon, she runs over and sits on my lap and joins in. Eliza is 15 months and has about 6 words. 

Random Pictures and Life

 

Friends at the Park

 We' ve made some pretty good friends. Unfortunately, they're military and may be moving soon. Arwen and Susan, particularly have found some good friends. 

Questions and Answers

What's your favorite thing to do?

Gideon: I don't know. Um Play?
Sam: Play computer.
Susan: Do stuff with Dad a lot. Do you believe me?
Arwen: What's my favorite thing to do? I don't know. I have lots of things.
Josh: um something. You even said it was computer. (He is too embarrassed to say). Fine. I will answer computer because mom wants me to say that.
Joseph: Uh, that's a hard one. That's a hard one.
Anya: Uh, uh, I have multiple things I like to do, like drawing and writing and doing mystical world sort of things.
Rachel: Ummmm, read Promised Neverland?
Adam: (silence) Hey, uh, uh
Johnny: um, I don't know. Probably reading, but I don't really have a straight answer to that sort of a question. I'll give you a curvy answer. 
Kate: Either talk or read books.
Ruth: It depends on my mood.

What's your favorite color?

Gideon: Green and Blue.
Sam: Green and Red, and sometimes all of them, and also I like blue, but not pink and purple.
Susan: Blue, red, and white, and black. See I like American colors.
Arwen: um dark red, green, and blue, and black, and white.
Josh: orange. 
Joseph: orange, duh.
Anya: green.
Rachel: pink.
Adam: uh blue. 
Johnny: I don't know.
Kate: blue!!!
Ruth: That also depends on my mood.

Why do birds fly?

Gideon: Um they fly like this (he flapped his arms).
Sam: mmm, I don't know. Why, why do they fly mom? I don't know.
Susan: Because they have wings and the wind and they don't have so much bones in the wings, so it makes it easier to fly.
Arwen: um, I think how their feathers help them fly. They have wings, but that doesn't necessarily mean they can fly. Chickens have wings and feathers, but that does not mean they can fly.
Josh: because they have wings and have hollow bones and feathers.
Joseph: because their bones are hollow and they beat their wings a lot and they can do it. 
Anya: Because their wings are hollow. I mean their bones. Why did I say wings? Why is that even your question. These are so stupid. 
Rachel: Because they have wings.
Adam: because it's a convenient way of travel.
Johnny: um, do you really want me to answer that. Because they have wings, because their bones are light and hollow. 
Kate: That's how God made them.
Ruth: Um, I used to know this.

How many ducks do we have?

Gideon: Um, um, um, no, no, no
Sam: 5
Susan: um like 26. I remember counting and it was something like 20.
Arwen: 23??
Josh: um some unknown number like 15.
Joseph: shooom. Okay, let's see. (counting on his fingers) like 25 probably.
Anya: Ahhh, I don't count. 
Rachel: uh a lot. 
Adam: I don't know.
Johnny: 15 to 20. It depends. They die and get born. It fluctuates. 
Kate: I don't know. I can name all of my favorite ones that are alive. 
Ruth: Too many boys. 

How many cats do we have?

Gideon: zero cats. Yes we have zero cats.
Sam: mmmmmm.. one, two, three... SIX!! We have six cats. Do we have 6 cats?
Susan: 8 and do you know how I know. I counted them today.
Arwen: I think 7, maybe 6. Hey, I said 8 in the end.
Josh: um, 7.
Joseph: 7.
Anya: um, okay, well I don't really care about our cats. Here's the thing, the same things as the ducks. I only like a few of them and those are the ones I care about. I like our ducks better.
Rachel: 8
Adam: 7-ish
Johnny: 7? I guess, I could count it out. I guess we have 8.
Kate: We only have one that I half like. 
Ruth: We have I think 3 orange, 2 grey, and 2 calicos. 

What is your favorite food?

Gideon: Um, um Chicken pie.
Sam: Sushi
Susan: I don't know. Like tons of good food and meat.
Arwen: Steak and ice cream and crepes.
Josh: cake.
Joseph: chicken pot pie or chicken parmesan.
Anya: my favorite food? I don't know. I like a variety of things. Probably ice cream.
Rachel: wings, oh well, yeah, cocoa is my favorite food. That is true.
Adam: I don't know particularly. 
Johnny: Probably spaghetti. I like Italian food.
Kate: Steak and ice cream. Well salmon's nice too.
Ruth: That depends on my mood. It's true, sometimes I'm craving chocolate, sometimes, I'm craving watermelon.

What town do you live in?

Gideon:Um the Shoe
Sam: I don't know.
Susan: North Carolina.
Arwen: Maysville.
Josh: North Carolina, Jacksonville, not Jacksonville, somethingville. It was somethingville.
Joseph: uh, Maysville?
Anya: Uh? North Carolina, Maysville, Emmett Lane.
Rachel: Maysville.
Adam: Maysville
Johnny: Maysville, technically, but we mostly kind of live in North Carolina backwoods country. It's not like we are part of the town. It's like what? A twenty minute drive.
Kate: Maysvill, North Carolina.
Ruth: Maysville

Who is the President of the United States?

Gideon: um Batman (said in a Batman voice)
Sam: I don't know.
Susan: I don't know.
Arwen: um, blub, blub, blub, why do you even ask that? I have no idea.
Josh: Um, uh guy who is the president.
Joseph: Joe Biden. (Of course, I knew that.)
Anya: Joe Biden and he sure is an idiot. 
Rachel: Biden.
Adam: Joe Biden
Johnny: Currently? Stalin.
Kate: Uh, um, a delusional cripple. 
Ruth: Biden.