This Week at Our House # 45

Adam had his 15th birthday on Monday.

We schooled, finishing off week 14 of our school. We now have two more weeks before our six week semester break. Everyone, including myself, is tired of school and ready for a break. But we made it through and have only two more to push through. After that we will be half way through our year and will have accomplished 16 weeks of school without one day off! I do this to give up longer vacation times.

Kate has finished illustrations for a children's Christmas book I wrote. Adam and Rachel are a few days off from finishing the illustrations for another book I wrote. Ruth is working hard on the other Christmas book I wrote. I will have the book Kate illustrated up this week. I will now start designing a front cover and choosing about a hundred poems for an adult poetry book. I will put everything up on Amazon.com.

My parents and sister came and visited for about an hour on Monday. My sister was taking the GRE the next day, so they all came and stopped by to say hello. The little kids really liked seeing them at our house.

Anya cut open a chicken pot pie thinking it was apple pie and then said, "there's soup in my pie. I wanted apples."

Joseph has a pair of Christmas pajama bottoms that he got from his

cousin. They are hideous. He loves them and calls them his Christmas sweater pants and his best pants ever. He loves them because they are ugly.

One by one the kids have gotten sick this week. Today has been the worst day for it. And as luck would have it, Gideon or Sam broke the tv the day before they got sick. Sam was the first down with a fever followed by Gideon. Then Arwen, Anya, Josh, and John got sick. Joseph and Susan joined them. Ruth and Rachel

have felt a little sick. They have fevers and sinus headaches and sore throats and stomach aches. It's not too bad, but it has made for a lot of extra work and been harder without a tv to simply sit them in front of and help them to feel more relaxed and content.

Gideon is walking around a lot more, though he is still half walking, half crawling. I think it won't be long before he is just walking.

Sam's birthday is coming on Tuesday. I looked at trucks with him, as he has said that he wants a truck. We watched toy truck commercials. He loved those and wants me to play them over and over again.