This Week at Our House #8 Just Another Week Gone By

Gideon is 5 weeks old! Where has the time gone? Boy, was I tired this week. For most of the week, Gideon screamed between midnight and 2am. That might have not been too bad if I did not have to get up with Sam between 7:30 and 8:30.

Thursday, I finally got to town and bought Gideon a pacifier with a clip and now he is much easier to get settled down at night. He still wants to be up late, but he is not screaming like he did.

It took me that long to get to the

store because we were waiting for the ducklings to come. Without cell phones and with only one vehicle, I did not want to leave in case the post office called for us to pick up the ducklings. Mailing day old baby birds is pretty hard on them. We finally got the call Thursday morning at 8am. One came dead, and one died before the end of 48 hours. The hatchery gives you your money back if they die within 48 hours, so the kids whose ducklings did not make it at least got their money back. Arwen is the one who lost her duckling. She is now sharing with Anya. The other dead duckling was mine. We needed to order a certain number to get free shipping. Ordering more is cheaper than paying the shipping.

 

The main tragedy of the week, in my mind, is our roofer quit on us because I asked him to put tarps over the parts of the roof that were exposed because it rained in our laundry room. He said we staged it to get money from him. I suppose I should not be surprised because he had been trying to get more money than we owed him from  very consistently. I am not sure what we are going to do now. We might just get up there and finish it ourselves. There is still more than half a roof to finish and we had already paid the roofer for half the job. He actually tried to get us to pay him for 2/3rds when he had not quite half finished. I think it is good to be done with him. He was obviously on drugs. I expect his money grubbing had to do with that. I just hate having half a roof finished. Ugh. I was looking forward to having that over with. 

The main happy point of the week was skyping with Ruth. She is doing well and excited to come home. We mostly talked about food, England, and North Carolina.

We painted another bedroom yesterday and Kate now has a room set up for her and Ruth. Kate is very excited for Ruth to come home,;she is happy that Ruth will get here in time for all of the pear blossoms and the ducklings being little. Ruth comes home a week from this Tuesday. She flies in at 11pm. 

We had a normal school week. The kids are back into the swing of it. The only person who had trouble was Arwen. I think it was Wednesday that she began her math at 10:30am and had not finished it by 7:30pm. At that point, I just told her to quit. She said she was doing the problems quickly too!!! 

Josh did well for the most part. He is memorizing his addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts. Funny enough, he struggles with addition, but is coming close to being done with multiplication and subtraction. Once he gets those down, I will move him into a 3rd grade math text book. 

 

Joseph continued to write his story until the weekend when he said that he was just stuck and did not  know where to go with that. I understand that. I started with a novel. I got to 30,000 words and got stuck too. Joseph loves me to read his story, though. He gets Adam to email his progression to me and then every time I pick up a lap top, he bounds in the room and says, "Oh, good, now you can read my story!"

Johnny, Rachel, and Anya worked pretty hard on chores and helping out with the baby this week. It surprises me how busy our family is simply from young child care and housework. And with all that, our yard is a mess. Before Ruth gets home, I need to give the kids time to get out there and clean it up. It is getting time to weed again too, and I did not get my garden started. Hopefully, I can do that this week. Though, since I am not pregnant now, I will probably get up on the roof a few times and get some more shingles nailed in place. 

John and Adam have taken some of the wood from our trees that did not survive the hurricane and started planing it to make small boards. Adam really liked that and spent some time on wood working, and John worked more on a wooden spoon he started a year ago. 

Sam is still sad, but doing a little better. He gets really excited when I am not holding Gideon and comes and asks me to play with him. I am always do. I also try and get him to bring me books to read to him while I am just sitting and holding Gideon. 

We had a lot of rain this week, and that is hard of Suzy who likes to be outdoors as much as she can. But she managed well once the duckling came and gave her something exciting to do indoors.

Because I was so tired, I watched tv a lot more at night. I found a cooking show, and Rachel and Anya stayed up late while I managed a grumpy Gideon to watch it with me. I really enjoyed their company. We are on the next season now.

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Stories from Ruth #72

 

***This May be the final update from Ruth***

Whoa! It's all gone by so fast! I have only two weeks left means for you one more email, because I will probably be to emotional about leaving after that. If anyone is considering a mission: do it. Don't think, don't worry, just repent, live righteous, pack your back and go. I love England and I love this work. I know the gospel is true and I am eternally grateful for this opportunity I have had to serve.

This week we had two lessons with Dorothy and she came to church. She is so cute and sweet! Her husband died almost 20 years ago and because he never acdepted Christ in this life she was worried for his soul. We taught her about the plan of salvation and how Christ preached to the spirits in prison and she loved it. The next time we saw her we brought the martins and shared about the restoration and she liked Joseph Smith's first vision.

We also taught Jon who is a friend of Conner's. Jon met the missionaries a while ago but felt impressed lately that he needed to come back. We taught him the restoration. He was touched by the first vision as well.

I know that Joseph Smith's first vision is true. He did in all reality see God the father and his son Jesus Christ. I know he was called as a prophet to restore the gospel.

This week while studying the Book of Mormon 2 Nephi 33 really struck me and I wanted to share some verses I liked.
2 Nephi 33:4 "And I know that the Lord God will consecrate my prayers for the gain of my people. And the words which I have written in weakness will be made strong unto them; for it persuadeth them to do good; it maketh known unto them of their fathers; and it speaketh of Jesus, and persuadeth them to believe in him, and to endure to the end, which is life eternal.
5 "And it speaketh harshly against sin, according to the plainness of the truth; wherefore, no man will be angry at the words which I have written save he shall be of the spirit of the devil.
6 "I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell."


See you soon!

This Week at Our House # 7 Stressful and Valentine's

Heart shaped pizza made by Rachel

Heart shaped chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries, bananas, and pink whipped cream

Without a good reason, this week was stressful. School was long and slow and hard. Sam wanted more attention and Gideon had a hard time falling asleep at night. I had long days teaching the kids and doing the chores and long nights trying to get a screaming baby to sleep. After several of the days this week, Kate exclaimed, "That was a hard day. I don't know why it was so stressful." That is exactly how I felt. The week was long and hard and stressful and I am not sure why.

I actually got everything on my todo list for the week done. I never write lists, but I always have a list

in my mind about what needs to happen. Unlike most mothers and women, I keep my list simple. For the week my list included calling a plumber for some needed repairs, cutting the boys hair, and getting one bedroom painted. We did it all. Of course, I don't list my usual chores. Since we have them everyday and every week, I never forget them.

School, while things went slowly on a couple of the days, went well. Josh did not cry and complain and he completed his work early. Instead of me waiting for Josh to finish his work, Josh waited for me to finish up with the other kids to get to him.

Joseph is back to writing a story. He even did chores to earn time for the computer and instead of using that time to play games, he wrote on his story.
Arwen's reading is excellent now. She's really gotten it. I have her read the Book of Mormon to me each day and she rarely needs help with any of the words.  She is also on her first chapter book, Little House in the Big Woods.When she wants to read it, rather than me forcing her to read it, she likes it a lot and asks many questions about what is happening and what the little log cabin is like and if wolves and bears would really eat people. That makes Arwen among our early readers at just 6 and a half.

Adam got up early to get his work done every day and he remembered his computer programming

that he is supposed to be doing independently.

Rachel did better with her math this week. I am having her keep track of the percentage she gets right on her home work each day. I think that is helping her to try harder to get her problems right.

Anya had no troubles with school and getting her work done, but she does everything with Joseph and Joseph was slow to wake up, slow to finish his work, goofed off during work, and held Anya back from getting things done early all week. I think that was frustrating for Anya, but she is so easy going, she never said anything about it.

On Tuesday night, Susan said her mouth hurt and seemed genuinely distressed. She had been asking to watch tv for hours and we weren't sure if her pain was more of a ploy to get the tv on. Well, finally, John decided to allow to her watch something with him in my bed along with all the other kids. He wasn't doing that for more than a few minutes before Susan began to puke. It was a huge mess. In 21 years of parenting, I have managed to avoid a kid puking in my bed until now. Oh, I was not happy. But Johnny, Kate, Adam, and John all helped to clean up the mess, while Anya and Rachel helped to get kids in bed, and care for Gideon. I was grateful for the help.

Sam does not like me holding Gideon. I try to get up early with Sam and read scriptures with him

before Gideon wakes up. Sometimes Gideon stays asleep and sometimes he does not.That gives Sam some of his old cuddling time with me. In church today, Kate held Gideon, so I could have Sam on my lap. We are trying to help him feel better, but his distress is real. Sam has always been my cuddliest baby and it has been hard for him to make room for another.

Gideon has been unhappy, particularly late at night. I think we could call it colic, but I would like to know what is causing him distress. Sometimes it seems like he simply has a hard time falling to sleep, but other nights it seems like there is something else going on. I hope we can get it figured out and get our happy baby back.

Johnny, Kate, Adam, John, and I all painted the bedroom. We primed and painted and did it all in one day. With so many helpers it went fast. Johnny is actually quite good at it now and good at getting a nice even coat. Kate does a lot of the brush work.

I got Ruth's plane ticket info and her release letter from the mission home this week. I had heard from Ruth that her mission president had her write a letter to the area authority seventy about extending a month, and he told her he would inform the 70 that he was low on trainers. But we are guessing that her extension did not go through and are planning on having her home in just over two weeks from now.

That's about all for the week. We have a lot going on with home repairs and taking care of a newborn and homeschooling. I want to start my garden this week and the kids ducklings should be shipped. I think the next week will continue to be busy and a little stressful. Oh, and it was Valentine's Day and celebrated with heart-shaped food that Rachel, Joseph, and Kate made.

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Kate's homemade fish and chips

sink bath

painting a room

finished painting

keeping kids calm while painting a room

Stories from Ruth #71

This week was interesting. We met this chinese girl named Grace who came here and is srudying music and then later that same day we met her again and her friend Benny. We ended up teaching them about God and the Book of Mormon on the bus. They felt the spirit but did not agree to meet because they are doing their masters. Grace said she will come with us to church this week. She said she feels good when people talk about Cheist and described it as magic.

We met this asian guy from Birmingham who said that most people around here probably would not listen to our message. We testified of the Book of Mormon it's divine authenticity and it's truth. In the end he felr the truth of our message and accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon which he said that he would read and pray over.

We met another guy who said he grew up a Jehovah's Witness but had left and was looking for the true church, sadly he did not have much time to talk and did not set up a return appointment, but we gave him something to read.

Mostly we would meet people that bashed us and we just shared scriptured and testified after time and time again being told were going to hell because of the Book of Mormon or being told things we believe that we actually don't. It is quite funny how little people truly know or even seek to know. When we ask them to pray they say they have said their prayers for the day and don't need to when really we are to "counsel with the Lord in all [our] doings."

I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God. It was given to Joseph Smith by an angel and was showed unto witnesses not by men but of God. I know it is God's word and I cannot deny it. The way to know is simple. It requires that one merely studies it, ponders it, and prays over it in faith Christ, with real intent, and with a sincere heart.

This Week at Our House #6: Back to School

This was a busy and kind of a hard week as we got back to homeschooling and trying to make it work with a newborn. All of the kids did fairly well except for Joshua. Joshua had a hard week. He cried every time we began school and every time I gave him another subject to work on. He did terribly with reading and math and everything we had him do. I am pretty sure that it had more to do with desire than ability. Hopefully, Josh will have a better week of school this coming week.

Arwen did well and I would say that she has surpassed Josh in reading now. Kate did Josh and Arwen's reading on Wednesday and mentioned how great Arwen did and how she thought Arwen is now reading better than Josh. Arwen is also getting the flashcards faster than Josh now too. The only day Arwen had trouble was Thursday. She sat in the same place with the same math worksheet for 5 hours not getting it done. Finally, I had her sit by me and pointed to each problem and made her do them and it only took about 3 minutes to get it done.

Rachel had a little trouble in math. She acts like she has no ability, but when I look at what she is doing I know it has more to do with being lazy. She won't do all the steps to solve a problem or she doesn't pay attention to whether she needs to add, subtract, multiply, or divide to find a solution. She is also getting all the harder problems right. I am trying to convince her that she is not stupid in math. She doesn't like the title of lazy any better, though.

Joseph had trouble sleeping a few nights and the days after that, he definitely had some emotional moments in school. But on the whole, Joseph did well.

Anya and Adam just got back into the swing of things without any trouble.

Anya always does her work without complaint and then she comes and helps me with the laundry. Rachel will just go and do a load of dishes when she sees the need. And, Adam became my right hand man most days always doing little chores or helping with the youngest kids and keeping Sam in check.

Johnny and Kate mostly stayed away from the family during school hours to work on their own projects. But Kate still helped a lot with the cooking and laundry.

We've finally hired out re-roofing our house and that got started this week. For safety sake, we don't allow the kids to play outside without a teen sibling or parent. This was particularly hard on Susan and Sam. We had 70 degree weather all week and all they wanted to do was to play outside.

While outside hanging laundry, I heard a helicopter quite loud and said, "Sam do you see the helicopter?" He was feeling rather cross and yelled, "NO!" Well then the helicopter got closer and I said, "Sam do you hear the helicopter now?" Again Sam yelled, "NO!" The helicopter was loud enough that he really needed to yell to be heard. At that point the helicopter was right over our property. I was about to ask Sam if he heard it then, but when I looked up, I noticed him running. He was obviously afraid of the helicopter. He ran fast and got all the way under the far side of the deck where the chickens hide. When the helicopter was gone, Sam came back out, no longer grumpy. I think the helicopter scared the grump out of him. The next day, Anya was outside with Sam when another helicopter circled our house. Sam looked at at it and followed it with his finger saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa."

Gideon is growing fast. His newborn onsies are getting tighter and he weighs 10 lbs. He is not sleeping well most nights, so I have been struggling with little sleep. I have to keep reminding myself that this time is short and to just enjoy it.

Kate is very excited for Ruth's eventual homecoming. Ruth will be home sometime at the beginning of March, though, I have not heard anything from the mission office yet about her flight home. Kate tried to get a lot of math learning in this week, but said that every time she tried to concentrate, she would think, "Ruth is coming home." We are going to start painting the bedrooms in preparation for Ruth's homecoming next Saturday. Hopefully, I will be able to handle that well with a new baby.

Saturday night, John went out with the boys to play soccer. When they came in, John and Joseph both

had injuries. John's ankle was hurting, and Joseph might have a couple of broken toes. Joseph injured himself by kicking Adam in the shin. Joseph has been saying that Adam's legs have super strength.

Mostly, the week was okay. We are doing fine. We are still waiting for John to get a job, but the Lord has helped us financially right now and things have been a little easier that way. For that and for our dear new little son and brother, we are all very grateful.

Stories from Ruth # 70

This week was interesting. We had a really good lesson with Barry and the relief society president. She was very bold with him and told him that he needs to act.

Other than that we had a lot of travel between appointments so it was all bus finding. At one point I started talking to this guy from China and tried asking my companions usual question:
Me: "If you could ask god any question what would you ask?"
His response: "Where is my girlfriend?"

I have never laughed so hard on the bus.

This week it snowed a little bit which was Sister Shin's first snow.
Oh I woke up one morning and felt prompted to find a polish copy of the Book of Mormon. I could not find it but I did find a restoration pamphlet. The first lady I talked to was this nice uni student who I met three months previous. She asked me about my missionary work and I shared with her about the Book of Mormon and gave her the pamphlet in polish. She agreed to read and took my number so hopefully I will see her again before I go home.
Well I know that this church is true. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God.

I want to share this scripture from the Doctrine and Covenants.
D&C 6:33 "Fear not to do good, my sons, for whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap; therefore, if ye sow good ye shall also reap good for your reward."
34 "Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail."
We are not supposed to fear doing good and sharing the word of God. It is his work so let us put our trust in him for if we are studying his word, and keeping his commandments, and seeking to know more of God we are surely building upon his rock.

This Week at Our House #5: Post Partum Week 2

 

This week was easier than last week. We continued our break from school for the full week. Sam had a rough start to the week, but then we found ways to help him and he has been much easier and happier the last few days. Friday morning, he even hugged Gideon and said, "I love you." We did not expect that. 

Gideon is gaining weight and doing well. At just two weeks old, he is almost a pound over his birth weight. Gideon has an intense stare. He watches all of us very closely and seems to penetrate us with his eyes. I like to say that he is an old soul in a new born body. 

I kept the rest of the kids away from the

computer and computer games and they all had a much better week. Joseph, Joshua, Arwen, and Susan were all a lot better behaved. They were good enough, I don't really have anything funny to report about them. Arwen

colored a lot. She still loves her crayons and coloring books. It's her favorite hobby. Susan tried to get people to play chess with her, which was funny. Josh called foul saying Susan was cheating. Of course, she has no idea how to play the game or is even old enough to figure it out. She just likes the pieces. Joseph read a lot and spent a lot of time on puzzles. We're on our 5th 1000 piece puzzle since New Year's.  Josh managed to play things other than computer games too, though I think most of that was either games or pretending to blow things up. Josh and Joseph can often be heard making bomb-like noises. They are never very loud about it, but it always seems to be happening. 

 

Rachel and Anya read my blog a lot, so they still used the computer. Sometimes, I thought that was cheating. Rachel however, did a good bit of cooking this week. She made homemade pizza twice and 4 cheesecakes. John said her cheesecake was the best he has ever eaten. I really liked her chocolate cheesecake. Anya is probably my number one to go to hold Gideon. She is very capable with him and he often seems quite happy in her arms. Rachel likes to hold him and sing to him. I took some pictures of his stare while Rachel sang to him. 

Many of the kids spent a lot more time outdoors. The weather was dry and not too cold and quite sunny. We have had some lovely sunsets. Joseph, Joshua, Arwen, Susan, Sam, and Adam stayed out until dark most nights this week. 

Adam has written the beginning of a little piece of piano music. I really like what he has and want him to finish it. I

think it would go well with a sad part of a movie. I made a recording of it and sent it to Ruth. Adam plays the piano all of the time. He is not traditional about it and mostly plays by ear. I do think that he has finally learned his notes, though because sometimes he gets music out and plays that.

I eased things a bit by getting back to doing dishes. We still have way too many dishes. I wish we had a working dish washer. Our current one broke last May. Broken dishwashers seem to be my curse. There was once I said that my time was worth a lot and I didn't need to waste it washing dishes by hand, so if we had to use debt to get a dish washer we would just do that. That was back in late 2010. Not too long after I made that statement we had a dishwasher break down for the first time and have had several break down since then, and always when we cannot afford to get it fixed. It's very frustrating. I am yelling mercy internally and I hope I have learned my lesson. I know now that I am never so important that I have to take out debt for anything!!!

Johnny and Kate continue to do a lot of transcription. Kate is continuing to work on her animation and children's book and Johnny spends time learning to program computer games. Kate also spends a lot of time with John learning math. Neither Kate nor Johnny take vacation time. They like to be on top of all their projects. 

Monday we start school again, and the roofer will come to start fixing our roof. Life will get busy once more, so I am glad that we took these two weeks off to rest, heal, and get to know Gideon.

 

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