This Week at Our House #14 A Birthday and General Conference

We've toned things down in our life. We used to make birthday celebrations big and we used to make General Conference a big celebration. Neither of those are big anymore. Birthdays are smaller and more centered around spending personal time with the person rather than on presents and parties. Birthdays changed out of necessity and poverty, and General Conference changes just happened. We used to buy a lot of snacks for General Conference and make and buy things to encourage the kids to sit and listen. Now we only buy a few snacks, and the kids pretty much sit and listen without the coaxing. I think that is because about 4 years ago we started doing hour long family scripture study most days, and that has conditioned even our little kids to sit still and be quiet. We aren't one hundred percent perfect, but to get the kids to just be there and give whatever attention they can does not take the preparation that it used to.

Along with the birthday and General Conference, I would say that the week was a calm one. School went fairly well. We are now at the end of our school year with only one month to go before summer break and a new school year. Things are winding down. My main focus is finishing off math for the older kids and getting in lots of reading for the younger kids. We still have state testing to get done too.

Some highlights from the week were:

 

Joseph's declaration: "Since there are infinite numbers I can name one. I'm going to call it 'Joseph Awesome-illion'".

John finding Susan awake playing in her closet at 3am. When he told her she should get back to bed and go back to sleep, she replied, "Ok, but I need to finish this one thing first."

Johnny making fun of home repairs saying, "'Just install a dishwahser, it will only take an hour'" she says-- 6 hours later...still working on it."

Gideon cooing grumpily at Joseph and Joshua when they got too loud during General Conference.

Rachel sitting on my bed asking John (Dad) about repentance and how it works until 2am on the night of her birthday.

Adding Ruth back in to Kate and my skip-bo games. 

Anya helping me sort through and clean up all the legos Sam dumped out, without being asked. 

Arwen reading scriptures as fast as she can get the words out. 

Sam lying down beside Gideon and holding his hand.

Joshua separating out his kinex pieces by color. 

And Adam's piano playing bringing some of his own pieces and other classical music pieces into our home.

More Pictures

Lost her first top tooth