This Week at Our House #20 First Full Week of Summer Vacation

We had our first full week of summer vacation, and the weather turned hot. North Carolina's weather is funny. All winter it seems that it cannot make up it's mind whether it is hot or cold,  and then finally it settles into very hot and that is what it stays for close to 6 months.

I managed to get the kids' reading and one math problem in 3 of the 5 days. Most of the kids read on their own and I don't need to remind them or read with them. It's Josh and Arwen that I need to remind and have them read to me. Arwen is quite a good reader now, but does not sit down and read unless she is told to. Josh is getting there. He brings me boxes and books and things to see if he has read them correctly, and I think that is a big step forward.

Friday we made it back to the beach. The waves were huge with a strong undertow and the wind was blowing really hard. There was a red flag out warning beach goers. We could not really swim much, but the kids had a lot of fun being crashed down by the huge waves on the shore. As we were leaving, Rachel exclaimed, "That was the best beach day, ever!"

I felt like we got a lot done on the roof until we got to a stopping point. We found some damaged wood and need to get that repaired, so we are waiting for me to take my weekly trip out to the stores. I will do that tomorrow. We have a temple trip planned this next week which will cut into roofing time so I think we will have the roof done in two weeks. Once the tear off is complete and any repairs are done, nailing on shingles goes quite quickly. Fortunately, the weather has been unusually dry.

Ruth, Kate, and Johnny do not take any time off. They have their projects they are working on and they do so 7 days a week. They are all working on transcribing church historical documents, and they feel perfectly fine doing that on Sundays. They have also gotten Adam and Rachel involved. There is so much stuff and we have learned so much over the last year and a half from reading, researching, and studying church history. In a way, my kids have become self-taught historians. They do exactly what historians who have PhD's do. Honestly, it surprises me that anyone has thought that a PhD would be necessary for historical study, research, and writing.

Kate has almost finished her first children's book. We will self publish that through amazon. Adam and I carried her ducks into her when she had her drawings out and she about had a heart attack. She has worked very hard on this project.

All of the older kids work a lot on art and illustration. Along with John, they have a drawing contest each week. They have two parts to this: they each submit one drawing from someone else's art and one original drawing.

I began potty training Sam this week. The first day, he did the best. The following days have been hit and miss. The positive thing is that he seems to be getting used to being without a diaper. When we got home from church, he immediately stripped down and sat on his potty chair. Later in the day, John put a diaper on him and he took it off almost right away and used his potty chair. I can never tell how easy or hard potty training will be. So far, it is not too terrible.

Gideon is 4 months old now and as

healthy as can be. He is a very large baby weighing over 16 pounds. He holds himself up well when lying on his tummy and has even begun to scoot around a little. I put him on the floor and ten minutes later, he had turned a corner and moved about 3 feet. I find that pretty impressive for a baby the day before hitting 4 months. He still coos and talks and is smiley. He worried us a lot during the pregnancy, but is smarter and stronger than most of our babies at the same age. The Lord has really blessed him.

Arwen lost her second top tooth, and now has that cute gap on top. She lost the tooth on Saturday. All day long she came to me saying, "Mom, my tooth is much more wiggly." It has been loose for months, so I did not pay too much attention, until she came outside to me and showed me the gap. We don't do the tooth fairy, but I always get them a pack of gum for the lost tooth. Arwen is pretty excited about that. She knows exactly what kind of gum she likes.

Ruth has been helping with the little girls a lot. She reads scriptures to Susan everyday. And she reads books to Susan and Arwen. They adore her.

Susan loves to swing. We put a couple of swings in a large tree in our yard. But I only let Suzy go and play there if she has an older kid with her. This week we are going to try to get a swing put up on our back deck for her so that it is in the fenced in area. It won't be as shady, but she will be able to use it as much as she wants.

Anya is at that very sweet, very helpful, and very innocent age. She is also just Anya and everyone likes her and everyone gets along with her. She rarely fights with anyone and everyone likes her to be there playing their games or coloring or whatever is happening. Anya helps me a lot with kitchen cleaning and taking care of the baby.  I rarely have funny stories to tell about Anya. It is not because she is not around or not fun, it's just because she is such a sweet tempered, easy going girl.

Joseph came into my room while he was supposed to be cleaning the kitchen with Johnny. He said, "Johnny told me that he isn't nice and he isn't kind." Joseph and I both agreed that Johnny's statement was plain silliness. We all know that Johnny is the nicest and kindest in the family.

Sam ran into the house panting. He grabbed my arm, looked seriously into my eyes, and said, "Mom, it's scary and bites!" I sent Adam outside with Sam to check it out. Adam came back in the house laughing. It was a slug.

Joseph asked me if I had written about our chicken named Menace being broody and nesting in the garage. I said that I had not. Joseph told me that I should start keeping a weekly list of all of the things the chickens do. I said I thought that would not be interesting, but Joseph assured me that it would.

John told Sam he could have no more m&ms and Sam replied, "Oh man."

John told Josh to stop wrestling Joseph and to go and tell everyone to come for prayer. Josh replied, "Ahhhh, that's hard." Not thinking he had asked Josh to do anything terribly difficult, John made a surprised exclamation.

Kate asked how many fudgicles she could have. I said I didn't care, and that she could have 5 if she wanted. She ran into the house to get them and ran out with Adam chasing after her trying to get some too. It was pretty funny.

More Pictures

This is the second bucket of blackberries that we got this week.We need to go out and get another. There are still plenty of berries to collect.

I asked Arwen to show me her gap.

I then told her to smile.