This Week at Our House #16 It's Getting Warm

We had warm weather all week. With warm weather comes summer fever. We are all anxious to be finished with the school year, but we have until the end of May to go. It's hard when all the kids want to do is to be outside and I agree with them. We did do some schooling outside, though, and that is nice.
     

1. John continues to work day and night on building his own game software. He is having Johnny and Adam working along with him during the day. Johnny is even learning some things on his own and then he and John share what they have learned so that they can get more information in faster. He has not heard back from the job he interviewed at last week. Usually after two interviews they get back to you either way, but only time will tell.
2. I spent a lot of time in my garden and mowing our giantic lawn. After about 5 hours of mowing, I still have a huge amount to do. We only have a small corded mower and since you are constantly having to move the cord out of the way, it takes a lot longer. I look forward to the time when we can buy a gas powered mower. I am doing the mowing because I need the exercise and I would much rather stay home and push a lawn mower while doing something for our home than go off and run. Plus Sam follows me around and makes lawn mower noises and that is just adorable. 
3. Ruth got to shake hands with President Nelson, and she is loving her new companion. 
4. Kate's put her mission papers on hold until we get settled in a ward permanently. She is still reading and studying the gospel a lot as well as doing advanced math with John.
5. John has Johnny pretty busy, yet Johnny is my one child that looks at what needs to be done and does it for me. This week, he let me go outside and play basketball while he did the entire dinner cleanup himself.
6. Adam is really enjoying the stuff that John is having him do and learn. He even does it during his free time.
7. Rachel was telling me that she has three times a day that she goes off and reads. I thought she was mostly playing her lego game. Now I know how she gets 7 books read every two weeks.
8. My quiet little Anya loves the ducks and chicks and always wants to touch them and hold them, even though we tell her she can't so much. This frustrates Kate who has an easier time keeping Susan out of their breeder.
9. Joseph is reading about world war two and he hates it. He says he likes his science and other things fine enough, and he comprehends his science concepts better than anyone else, but he can spend two hours reading about world war two and come away having no idea what he read.
10. Joshua has been building bionicles and carrying them around. He keeps taking them to family scripture study and making John mad by making quiet shooting noises the whole time.
11. Arwen's reading is coming along well. But she does not get adding and subtracting. She's been the opposite of Josh who is in beginning 3rd grade math, but has struggled all through learning to read.
12. Susan still insists her name is Lila. I didn't expect it to last this long. 
13. Sam loves John. Every time John gets up, Sam runs up to him, puts his little arms around John's legs and says, "Hi, da." Recently, Sam has decided that a good way to wake up John is to take John's big shoes and throw them at him. We know it is because John puts Sam on his shoulders to take him on a walk and Sam loves that. Sam will also bring me my shoes when he wants me to take him outside.

Pictures

Kate puts the ducks for a swim in the bathroom sink

Johnny mowed a portion of the lawn for me

We discovered that this tree is a pecan tree. It does not have very many pecans, so we will fertilize it and start pruning it and hope to get some good fruit from it in the future.

She has loved playing in the dirt and just gets covered in it.

Arwen built this house for fairies.

I love Arwen's rubber boots in the picture

He's grown up so much, I feel like I can hardly recognize his face.