This Week at Our House # 48 A small Miracle

We had a small miracle this week. I had yet another ultrasound, and all the extra cerebral-spinal fluid on the baby's brain is gone. His measurements and all of his other organs look perfect and normal. We know that the Lord heard our prayers and healed our little son and we are very grateful for that.

Unlike past years with homeschool, I have not given my kids their usual holiday and half year vacation. We will still complete two more weeks of school before taking off two weeks for Christmas and New Years. Then we will take off another week or two after the baby is born. I am actually hoping to use less vacation time and finish up the school year earlier. We will see what we need after the baby comes.

1. John continues to work on his game and apply for jobs. At this point, I know that he will not be hired anywhere until after the new year. I also think that once he's completed this large and complicated game, that will assist him in proving that he is very capable and will help him to get a job.
2. Well I am 35 weeks pregnant as of today and the baby was breach as of last Monday. The amniotic fluid has increased, but not to the point of where the specialists are worried. From this point forward, I will have a great many appointments to keep track of the baby's movements. They're doing this because of my age. At my age, it is more common for the placenta to quit functioning well and the baby to die. I will see what their plans are and make decisions from there. 
3. Ruth seems to be doing well. She hears about transfers this week. But p-day is Monday, and she will not hear about transfers until the day after, so I will not know if she is moved just before Christmas until probably the next week. I look forward to hearing from her at Christmas.
4. Kate has been working hard on her illustrations and transcription. She works pretty much full time with that now. But she still helps with the shopping, cooking, and laundry on a regular basis.
5. Johnny also spent the majority of his time working on his programming, transcription, and learning of languages. He is progressing with Japanese very well as he can now recognize and read much. I also hear him translate things we say in English to Japanese. He teaches this to John and some of the other kids too.
6. Adam has been doing very well with his math. A year ago, while, I knew he was learning some hard concepts and progressing steadily, it was a lot harder for him. Now he seems to have a much greater intuition for it. I am thankful for the older text books we were able to buy. I know other parents whose kids struggle a lot with the nonsense common core math while my kids are advancing well and have a much greater understanding. Whenever anyone asks me about math curriculum, I tell them to buy text books from pre-1995. They are a lot harder and cover a lot more, yet they explain things well. In geometry right now, Adam is writing proof after proof after proof. He is required to know the why something works, not just how to solve a problem which in turn makes it a lot easier for him to solve the problems.
7. Rachel has been reading back in time in my blog. She really appreciates all the stories about her and her siblings from times past. Everyday, she reads the family funny family stories. 
8. Since we have no money for Christmas and the little that has been given to us needs to go to utilities (because heat, electricity, and running water and good gifts) I have started getting the kids to make some gifts with items that we already have. Anya has begun to transfer her favorite drawing onto a canvas and is painting it. She is doing a careful job. I think it will come out well.
9. I am allowing Joseph to use a canvas to paint a picture for a Christmas present too. I think it will be hard for him as he is fairly new at drawing. We will see how he does. He seems to have outgrown his inattention and hyperactivity, if we want to call it that, and can now sit and concentrate on things for hours. We are going to get him started on some simple computer programming as part of school. He certainly has the technical mind for it and now that he has the concentration, I think he will like it. 
10. Joshua is funny with school. When he is calm he does very well, but if he messes up at all and struggles with even one thing, it ruins the rest of the day for him. One thing, I am happy about, though is that he is starting to really remember his multiplication facts.
11. Arwen 's reading is starting to really take off. I think she will be in second grade chapter books before the end of the year. Arwen would like to paint with Anya, but I am only letting older kids who can clean their own messes paint. I need to find some things that she can do to make for gifts. 
12. Susan's favorite thing these days is collecting eggs from the shed that the chickens lay. Several times a day, Susan comes to me asking if she can check for eggs and she is always very excited when she finds them. One day this week, she came in with three and that made her very happy. 
13. Little Sam is getting into less, and really for his age, he is quite independent. The other day he asked for some hot cocoa and I said no because he had already had a sweet snack. I told him to get some water. He immediately brought a chair up to the kitchen sink, grabbed a cup from the dishes in the dish drain and got himself some water. 
14. Baby Gideon is currently breach, and we are hoping he will turn around. Because of the extra amniotic fluid he moves up and down and all around a lot more than my other babies did. When we push on my belly we can first feel fluid and then baby parts. To me it feels a little like pushing on an over full water bed with things inside.

Pictures

We made this vegetable house and candy trains for a fun family project

Sam loves tools and home repairs. He was frustrating Johnny trying to get the different items while Johnny repaired things in my bathroom.