This Week at Our House #29

We were expecting CPS to return everyday, but they didn't, so we have another week of waiting for their arrival and making sure the house is always picked up. Johnny and Arwen had their dentist appointments and they were both cavity free-- hurray! Though, they want Johnny to go and get his wisdom teeth checked with the oral surgeon, ugh. Joseph had his 9th birthday, and birthdays are always fun. Other than that, it was a quiet week at home with school and chores and games.

1. John still has heard nothing from jobs and he has not gotten another game finished yet. It may be a month or two before he has another game or two out. He made the first games simple to learn the process and now he is working on things that are bigger, more unique ideas, and more graphic intensive. 
2. My garden is producing well. We got our first crop of corn, and I think we will be getting more corn weekly for a while now. We also had our first watermelon. We are getting plenty of tomatoes, green bell peppers, and jalepinos. We have tons and tons of butternut squash. We have been baking it, but John would like me to boil it and mash it. We are getting all this squash from seeds I saved from one butternut squash last January. I think that's pretty impressive, and we quite like the hard squashes. We have tons more growing too. The yellow summer squash is slowing down. I don't think they will be producing much longer. We ate our first watermelon and look forward to more. We will have a couple of honey dew, but the watermelon has taken over most of the honey dew patch. It looks like we have just 3 or 4 growing. I planted cantaloupe, and even though I planted it three rows from the butternut squash, the bees pollinated them together, so we have regular butternut squash and a darker orange and little sweeter butternut squash where I planted the cantaloupe. I actually like the "squashaloupe" as the kids call it, better than ordinary butternut squash. It has a nicer flavor.
3. Ruth continues to be a faithful and good missionary who is very conscientious about learning the gospel and working hard. I am very proud of her.
4. I want to let everyone know that Kate is completely innocent and morally clean. She has a strong testimony and knows the scriptures well, and many by heart. Her mission papers are not being stalled because of anything she has done or not done. She is very worthy and I am very proud of the woman she has become. The Lord has blessed her in many ways.
5. Johnny got his games coded for touch screen and has loaded them onto a phone and has begun debugging. He is learning a lot and working very hard. He is also teaching himself Japanese. He woke up one morning to learn their two easier alphabets.
6. Adam has been doing well with school and learning things that he needs to. I think the math that he is doing is pretty advanced now. Johnny was saying that Adam needed to spend more time on computer programming, but we reminded Johnny that Adam is only in the 8th grade and still needs to become good at grammar and math like he is. 
7. Rachel has been working really hard on learning Japanese. She is working on the Kanji, which is the hardest of the 3 alphabets. She makes herself very pretty flashcards and is careful to learn to strokes in the right order. 
8. Anya had to go to church with no shoes because she lost her only pair. This has been an issue for Anya her entire life. 
9. Joseph asked for homemade pumpkin pie and a homemade chocolate cake in the shape of a train. Kate spent hours on his food requests and then all he wanted to do was play computer games all day long. I said that next year I was going to give him a can of soda, a candy bar, and time on the computer and call it good. 
10. Joshua continues to progress with school. At 7 and a half I have been making him do more chores. He really hates it. Rachel was like that too, and I think Susan will be the same.
11. Arwen doesn't like school, but can be convinced to do it and to do it well for treats. She seems to like workbook pages the best. She had one about a hide and seek game and she seemed excited to be reading that little story and answering the questions.
12. Kate called Susan, "Susan", and Susan said, "I am not Susan. I am Susan Scarlett. That is what Dad calls me."
13. Sam is getting into everything. He hid the broom on us and it was several hours before we found it. He also broke an important cord of Johnny's. He dumps out games, puzzles, shelves of books, boxes of cereal, and bottles of soap. He is always getting the computers and carrying them off. Boy, he is a handfull, but we sure love it and everyone helps with him, so it is easier than when some of the other kids went through this stage.

Pictures

Sam tries to make his own smoothie, with a loaf of bread

We find Sam's missing pacifier in a can of pringles, he was not supposed to eat.