This Week at Our House #22

1. John and I had our 18th wedding anniversary today. We did sealings in the Salt Lake Temple and then went out to dinner to celebrate. 18 years has gone fast. I think we still feel young except when we look in the mirror.
2. School ended on Wednesday. Thursday was a bit rough because the kids were hungry all day and so I spent much of the day in the kitchen trying to solve that. I am astonished at how much food the kids eat now. I knew that for a long time we had been graced with a small food budget because my oldest two kids are girls. That has changed. To some of my mom friends with many kids on our Facebook group, I wrote "When we were first married, if I made a cake it would sit around for two weeks and then go bad. After we had about 3 kids, it would take a week to eat. Once we had 6 kids, we would eat a whole cake in 2 to 3 days. About 2 years ago, we would eat a whole cake in about a day. Now I have to make 2 cakes and they are both gone in 15 minutes. I have no idea how I am going to manage the summer."
3. Ruth got a 4.0. She has struggled with getting B's in either math or chemistry or both all year and at the end she finally conquered and got straight A's. She's worked so hard all year. Ruth's job began and she is enjoying it. Ruth got her YW personal progress medallion today.
4. Kate helped me in the kitchen all week long. I had a lot of evening activities, so she ended up making dinner about half the week. Kate got a 4.0 too making her accumulative high school gpa 4.0. Kate got her YW personal progress medallion today.
5. I made Johnny go on a 6 mile hike. He did not love it, but I plan to make him do it every week this summer. There are a lot of great hiking spots out here, and I intend to take advantage of them. Johnny got a 4.0 too. I think his accumulative gpa for the 9th grade is 3.996
6. Adam got straight A's for his last term in the 4th grade. He had 80 rocket math sheets that he had to complete to get his last grade up from a B to an A. He did not want to be the only kid in the family with a B.
7. Rachel got all A's too. She worked hard for that. On the last day of school, Rachel had a party at her best friend's house. Rachel had a great 3rd grade year. She started out behind and ended up ahead. She made friends easily, and she LOVED her teacher. 
8. Anya got all A's too. (I like that our school just gives the kids normal grades. It's easier to figure out what the grade means.) She's finished the first grade and is a great reader. She tried to make friends and make an effort to play with the other kids the last few weeks of school. I am so proud of her for being willing to talk about something that was bothering her and then make the effort to fix the problem. I really do have some awesome kids.
9. Joseph got all A's too. I know that we are a nerdy family and focus most of our time on academic pursuits, but I did not expect that I would have so many kids do so well in school. Joseph had a good kindergarten year. He has learned to calm down, sit and listen, and focus and learn better than I could have taught him. 
10. Joshua was kept out of primary today and he had to go to class with me or John. I think he did not like it, but I will be sure to do that for at least a month before I try to send him back. I think he needs to understand that Sunbeams really is a better alternative to Relief Society. But, Josh only wet his pants one day this week. That is truly a big deal!
11. Arwen did much, much better with potty training. She is mostly taking herself to the bathroom now. I reminded her some and she is still having a few accidents. taking her clothes away seemed to be the push she needed. I gave them back when she started going to the bathroom when she needed to. Hopefully, it will just be another week or two. 
12. Suzy can say, "Uh oh, hi, and yeah." She's such a cute little doll and at such a cute fun age.

This Week's Pictures

Kindergarten grad

last day of school cheer (they were tired)

9th grade grad