This Week at Our House # 7

1. Sometime ago we read SteelHeart by Brandon Sanderson. The third book, Calamity, came out Wednesday. We had it pre-ordered from Amazon, so we really enjoyed reading that with the 4 oldest kids late into the night finishing it off after Church today. The job hunt is still going. John applies to about 3 jobs a day. I wish with all my heart that he would just a permanent job and our lives were like they were before he lost that one job nearly 3 years ago. 
2. I am reading a lot. I take Ruth, Kate, and Johnny to seminary each morning and then sit there and read Charles Dickens. I'm reading Bleak House right now. I love Dickens, but he takes more concentration than I can really get at home with all of my kids. So I quite enjoy that 45 minutes of reading time. I just finished reading a Calamity to the older kids and John. For my own reading time at home, I read lighter things. Right now I am reading a Sandra Byrd novel, Mists of Midnight. I am almost finished with that and will probably take on another Agatha Christie before I read the Lord of the Rings for a 4th time. To the younger homeschool kids, I just finished Old Yeller and I am now reading them the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I have enjoyed all this time in books. We had a busy week with Church stuff for the Young Womens. They had a Wednesday activity that started early, a set up for an dinner/fundraiser Friday night, and then the dinner/fundraiser on Saturday. I helped out some Friday and Saturday and then spent some time out with Ruth, Kate, and Rachel. That was fun. I am starting to get trained and setting up to be a Doterra essential oils representative and hopefully will be able to make some money doing that. I think I might also start doing some natural birth classes just to earn a little money.
3. Ruth had a lot of Church stuff and homework and all. She is stressed about a test tomorrow, so I would say that her life is pretty normal. Some guys she eats lunch with have asked her over to play Dungeons and Dragons, but I think she feels to shy to go. Anyway, we would not send her without Kate.
4. Kate is pressing forward with homeschool. She is reading a lot more. She misses her school friends back in Utah. But Kate has always been a bit of homebody. When she was little she would beg me to leave her home when I took the kids to the zoo or to play dates or the park. 
5. I had to threaten to send Johnny back to public school if he did not sit down and write his paper on MacBeth. I think he needs more time on Shakespeare. Johnny spent 3 to 4 hours with me sorting legos by color. I think that might be a good way to torture secrets out of people.
6. Adam wrestles Joseph all of the time. He is worried about getting fat, so he exercises a lot. He does a lot of push up, sit ups, and spends a lot of time jumping and flipping on the tramp and running around. Now that he homeschools, I can say that he is really good at math. He definitely has a knack for it and almost never misses a problem and understands it pretty easily. He also spends a goodly amount of time building with legos. He makes some pretty neat things.
7. Rachel spent plenty of time with me and Ruth and Kate doing the young women's things. She was a pretty good help and enjoyed the time out.
8. I nagged Anya all week to get her school work done. She did not want to do it and I was so glad when Friday came around and I did not have to nag her anymore. Friday afternoon, she built with legos and made some pretty impressive space ships just from her imagination. We read Harriet the Spy back in January and now Anya has her spying notebooks and spies on people in our family. 
9. Joseph was just like Anya. I had to nag and nag him. I am thinking they need a break, so maybe I will give them next Friday off or take a field trip if the weather is good. In North Carolina you have to take attendance and I think we would really like the ordinary summer break, so I want to just get the school year over and done with. I have not really given them any days off.
10. Joshua won't go to bed. It is so hard to get him to go to sleep before midnight. We have been making him run a lot hoping that would help. But it does not seem to.
11. Arwen is a busy little girl. She always has something to do and just keeps herself occupied all day. She is very quiet too. 
12. Suzy is getting in to everything. I got mad at her for the first time in her life when she climbed up onto the table this morning and dumped an entire bag of sticky cereal over her head just after I got her in her church clothes. She was stunned that I would be unhappy with her at all. Poor little girl. We still think she is the most darling thing on the planet.

This Week's Pictures