This Week at Our House #11

The last two ducklings died on Monday. The kids were  devastated. Our house was draped in sadness. I felt bad for my children. They spent their own money on these ducklings, and they rarely get money to spend. But by Thursday, we found our duck from last year sitting on a nest of eggs. She has since moved and hid them. We don't know where she is at this point, but if all is well with her and her eggs, we will have ducklings again by the end of the month.

Tuesday, John and I and Ruth went to an endowment at the temple and Kate came along to babysit Sam and Gideon. The drive was 5 hours each way for an hour and a half

at the temple. Johnny and Adam babysat the kids at home. We left home at about 11am and got home after midnight. It was a long day. I miss having a temple within a couple hours drive.

 

Wednesday we continued with school and all the things we normally do in a week. School went well this week. In fact, I really can't think of anything that went wrong or anyone that had a particularly rough time. I have been making Josh read a lot more because I need him to get more independent for the upcoming school year. I've instructed everyone older than Anya to have Josh read them one verse of scripture a day, but no one has done it yet.

Arwen is definitely becoming more

independent. I am sure I will be able to sit her down with independent work at the start of the school year and she will be able to do it. I need Josh and Arwen to take off on their own because Susan will be starting kindergarten and will need a lot of one on one attention. Since I began homeschooling, I quit pre-schooling because of time. I will give the preschool kids some letters to trace, but I have postponed flash cards and serious work until kindergarten. Susan has been a little slower to pick up talking and drawing, so I think she will need a lot of attention like Josh and Kate and Rachel did.

Ruth has joined Johnny, Adam, and Kate in transcribing the Joseph Smith papers and all other journals from the early Latter-day Saints that we can get copies of. There are thousands of pages. Ruth is also following Kate and reading the seven volume History of the Church. These documents and histories have converted our family much more firmly to the gospel. I have decided to make all of my kids read History of the Church for homeschool in high school. Adam will start next year. I am hoping by then, he will have learned to like reading.

Rachel will be turning 13 in two and a half weeks. When we mentioned it to John, he looked at

Rachel and said, "Only technically. She's still 8." Rachel responded that indeed she will be 13 because no matter how small she is, she has been on earth for 13 years and size cannot change that. Rachel is still very tiny. I am sure she will be very thin and petite when she matures just like Kate.

Anya is just a little taller than Rachel and she quite likes that. Everyone thinks Anya will develop first.

Joseph wrote a really cute poem Tuesday and has asked me to read it to everyone every couple of nights. I will have to put it on here. It's a cute kids poem about our cats and the neighbor's cat.

Sam was unhappy much of the week. He is such a two year old. He is either tearing things apart while singing happily at the top of his lungs, or he is lying on the floor crying or screaming.

Gideon is 2 months tomorrow. He is smiling and rolling over. He likes to be held all day and all night, which gets rough at times, but we are managing and enjoying him.

One beautiful sunset