This Week at Our House # 19 We Skype with Ruth

The highlight of this week happened today when we skyped with Ruth. She is looking beautiful, happy, and healthy, so I am satisfied. I loved talking to her and hearing her voice. All of the kids were so excited and had little things they wanted to say. The earlier parts of the week were average home school with a lot of gardening and yard work thrown in.

1. John continues to work hard on starting his business. He's developing games and starting a website to promote them. He continues to have Johnny and Adam work alondside him learning how to program and develope their own games and now he has Kate working on the art for his website. 
2. I have colorado potato beetles attacking my potatoes, so I have spent hours in the garden squishing and killing beetles. I think I am winning since my plants still look healthy. I heard that they can take out an entire crop in 2 weeks and that they have grown resistant to most pesticides both organic and industrial. I am pleased with the rest of my garden. I have lots of baby plants sprouting. The corn, onions, watermelon, honeydew, and yellow summer squash all began sprouting this week. I will plant another set of corn on Saturday, so we get corn twice. I started to see if I can get some sweet potato slips so we can grow sweet potatoes, but I may have started that too late. Anyway, I am enjoying being outdoors so much, and having the kids there playing or helping.
3. Ruth is looking as beautiful as ever. Maybe even prettier than she used to. She has one investigator that really wants to know truth, and that has made her mission so far.
4. Kate always worries about her ducklings, whether they are too hot, or too cold or eating the right or wrong things. It's cute. I think I know what she will be like as a first time mom. Kate was so excited about talking to Ruth that she forgot it was mother's day. She even walked through the stores wondering why their were roses and things out everywhere. Now she is sitting in bed feeling depressed because she is no longer talking to Ruth.
5. Johnny has been the most helpful person trying to make sure I have a good mother's day. 
6. Josh named his chick "cutie pecky". Adam nicknamed Josh's chick, "hecky pecky" and it has stuck for everyone except Josh. Adam is my main garden helper. He comes out whenever I am out and waters and weeds and digs. He was the one who helped me figure out how to set up a temporary chicken run so we could move the chicks outside without having to run to the store first. And he will probably be the one to help me paint the deck and repair the room in the next few weeks.
7. Rachel read 10 books over two weeks and I let the kids get food treats for each book that they read between my grocery shopping trips. Rachel choose simply orange juice and the best cut of steak that the store sold. She has refined tastes and big ambitions.
8. Anya has been writing lots of poems and little rhymes and is just doing a great job with them everyday. She recited a couple to Ruth.
9. Joseph has been wearing his favorite fleece superman pajamas while we have been having 90 degree weather. I asked him why and he said because when he wears these pajamas he is never cold.
10. When I finally got to cleaning and organizing the garage, I was able to make the play area I had planned on making. The kids have loved it spent lots of time there. Joshua has spent hours there since I used his birthday money to get him some play dough and he has loved it. 
11. John was watching youtube videos of blue whales with Josh and Arwen and Arwen said, "It looks like a giant cucumber!" I thought that was an accurate description. Josh felt insulted for the blue whales.
12. John has always used this plastic dinosaur to tease the girls by having the dinosaur say lovey-sappy things to them. John calls it the "romatisaurus". He got Suzy to shout out, "I am not Lila!" by having the romantisaurus say things like, "I love you, my lovely Lila." But now the the romantisaurus is sleeping, Suzy is back to saying she is "Wiwa."
13. Sam is 18 months now!!! He won't go to nursery anytime soon, though. John and I were gone for three hours this week getting our temple recommends and Sam cried the whole time, even though he was home and had all of his siblings.

Pictures

We had this old fashioned plain doing tricks in the air over our house.

Our play area in the garage and the kids enjoying playdough with their playdough toys that have been in storage for two years.

Our temporary outdoor chicken run. We plan to build a wooden frame to connect it to, so it can be moved around the yard.