This Week at Our House #20

1. John printed two copies of his book, and I have been reading it. It's called Redemption and Zion. I am editing it a bit for him, but mostly really enjoying it. I am lucky to have a good and very insightful husband. When editing is done, he will fix it and order a copy for each of our kids. I think this is a wonderful way to teach our children. 
2. I am hurriedly trying to get the rest of our math and history finished up for the school year. We have one more week to go, and we are ready for a nice 2 month break.
3. Ruth did a lot of babysitting and has earned some money for her mission. She is very happy about having an opportunity to earn a little money. We are all excited that Ruth will be taking out her endowments on Tuesday. She got the rest of her Temple recommend today. She reads scriptures two hours everyday and listens to conference talks. Neal A. Maxwell has become one of her favorite speakers. She is also reading the first 50 pages of John's book to help prepare her.
4. Kate spent the week taking care of her baby bird. She wouldn't have been able to do it without homeschool. You have to feed baby birds every hour. The bird has very thoroughly adopted our family. It flies over and sits on us all of the time. It saw the kids playing legos at the open platform upstairs and kept flying up there to be with them. This wild bird is probably the friendliest pet we have ever owned. It wants to be a part of the family. 
5. Johnny keeps doing lots and lots of chores for me because he loves me and is just good.
6. Adam finished off all of his workbooks and only has one more section of math to do. He is ready for algebra. I bought a pretty tough pre-algebra book, so he has already covered everything in the first three chapters of our algebra book. Our algebra book is pretty tough too. It's what made it possible for Kate to skip algebra 2 and go straight to pre-cal at 14.
7. Rachel went babysitting with Ruth and Kate. Kate pays her a little. Rachel loves it. 
8. Anya went babysitting with Ruth too because she is good friends with the little boy Ruth was babysitting. 
9. Joseph likes to tackle Adam. Adam has been much better at not hurting Joseph recently. 
10. Joshua's reading is coming along. I am really pleased with where he is at for the end of the school year. 
11. Arwen was singing Anastasia songs with gusto all week. I love it when my kids sing.
12. We are now seeing results with Suzy for potty training. She seems to know when she needs to poop now and has been taking herself. Everyone else takes her potty frequently because they get her treats along with her if they take her. I don't think she wet her pants at all this week because whenever one of the older kids wanted a treat, they asked me for permission to take Suzy to the bathroom.
13. Sam is so close to crawling. He makes it all over the living room now. It won't be long now.

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This Week at Our House # 19

1. The week was good. Both hdmi ports on our tv started to die, so John bought me a new one for mothers day. He upgraded from a 32" to a 40". Rachel said that it made her feel rich. We had a good laugh since those were the smaller tv's at the end of the row of tv's in Walmart.
2. We now only have 2 weeks left of school and it sounds like seminary will not go to much past that either. I am ready for vacation and so are the kids. But I have been going strong with school trying to get a few things finished up.
3. Ruth babysat for 4 children for part of the week, while their mother is in London.
4. Anya found a baby bird that had fallen onto a low lying bush. She rescued it. I am not sure it needed rescuing, but it was done. It had a layer of fluffy feathers, but could not fly. Kate adopted the baby and has been feeding it every hour or two. The baby bird has in return adopted Kate. When it sees Kate it puts its head up and opens its beak just like newborn birds in books. The bird seems quite healthy and Kate is doing a good job. It now has strong wing feathers and less fluff. 
5. Johnny has been doing big chores to get an hour of computer time most days. It's hard to say no when there is always so much that needs to be done in this size family.
6. Adam had a good week. We have been working pretty hard on helping him to make good decisions and saying things truthfully.
7. Rachel went babysitting with Ruth one day. Ruth ended up having to hold the baby all day or she would cry, so Rachel was very helpful until the end of the day when she made up the game where all the kids played toddler and were 1 and 2 year olds so they fake cried and made messes. Ruth and I had a good laugh about it, after Ruth recovered from her hard day.
8. Anya went with Ruth too the one day because Anya and their oldest son are good friends. They are in the same homeschool and primary classes. And then of course, Anya was the baby bird rescuer. 
9. Joseph is sad that we will not let him hold the baby bird. 
10. Joshua played soccer with John and the other boys and we were surprised that he out ran Joseph. Joshua fell twice as a baby and fractured his skull. He did not have any symptoms at the time, but he has always been very uncoordinated and we have expected that is why.
11. Arwen has become more assertive and more imaginative. She dumps out a lot of toys and plays more elaborate games.She gets Susan and Joshua to play with her, and then fights them when they don't do it the way she wants them too.
12. It was week number two of potty training Suzy. One day she told me she needed to poop and spent a half hour in the bathroom doing so, and the next day she just pooped her pants. Sometimes she just takes herself pee and sometimes she just pees her pants, so the results are very mixed. She knows the process, but she doesn't seem to always know when something is going to happen. I will keep it up. I think she is ready enough and I am tired of paying for diapers for 2 kids. 
13. Sam is 6 months!! He is up on all fours and swaying back and forth. He loves to bounce up and down when we set him on the couch. He still sleeps with me and won't go to bed without me. Last night I laid down with him and got him to sleep  and then was able to sneak out without him waking right up, so that is progress. Sam and Kate are the only two that would not sleep alone at this age. 

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Mother's Day 2017

I had the priviledge of spending mothers day with all 11 of my children. Next year I will only have 9. Ruth will be on her mission and Kate will be attending her second semester of BYUI. I am grateful that I get one mother's day with all of them, and I am grateful they are doing good things with their lives.

6 Months Old

This little guy is half a year already.

This Week at Our House # 18

1. John has been finishing up a short book he is writing on building Zion. I will be interested to read it when he has finished. I have this little vision that our kids come excitedly every night to sit around their father to hear what he has to teach about the scriptures. That is in no way true. Sometimes they come happily. Some of the littlest ones come kicking and screaming, but mostly the kids have a lot to say, or can't sit still or wrestle etc.
2. We had the missionaries over twice. John and I went to the Temple together (Kate and Sam came along). We did a lot of chores and cleaning. I homeschooled the kids. I have added in a couple of different things. We had a presentation given by a girl in Eastern Idaho about music. That was very interesting and left us with a lot to talk about. I had the kids watch the roots tech presentation from President and Sister Nelson. That gave us things to talk about too. And now I am adding in a Church book as part of required schooling for Rachel and older.
3. The bank covered what was stolen out of Ruth's bank account. She went with the sister missionaries to visit her friend Nathan from her senior year and ended up talking with her mother instead. Ruth got the first half of her Temple recommend, and I set up her appointment for her endowment. It's a pretty exciting time for Ruth right now.
4. Kate is finding that while the school year is coming to end, there is still so much she wants to learn. I think Kate will become a lifetime learner.
5. I got a text from the Young Men's President after the midweek youth activity. He said that Johnny was able to answer all the questions the young mens president had made from Preach My Gospel. The young mens president was very impressed. I was surprised because we don't even have that book. Johnny knows those answers from his scripture study.
6. Adam has some warts on his hands that have been very stubborn. I have been treating them with vitamin c and making hin take an oral vitamin c pill too. I am hoping that will do it. They are turning black.
7. Rachel loves to play games and do things with John and I. She will go to John with a snack and her scriptures and ask him to read with her. She will get me to play the story game or the picture game.
8. Anya and Joseph got all of their completed school workbooks, started a fire with them and made smores while they burned.
9. Did I ever say that Joseph has a lot of energy? He is constantly on the move.
10. Joshua has finished off all of his kindergarten curriculum, so now he just has to read and do his first grade math.
11. Arwen loves to kiss Sam, but Sam doesn't like it very much.
12. I started potty training Suzy. I think it will take a month or more. I cleaned a lot of poop out of her underwear as she has only made it twice. She mostly makes it to the toilet the other way, but that has a lot to do with us taking her and telling her to go.
13. Sam loves to play with cards. We gave him some of the old card games that needed replacing.

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This Week at Our House # 17

1. John just had a normal week of work. 
2. I got back into the homeschool swing of things. We now only have 4 weeks until summer vacation!!But seminary will go on longer. 
3. Somehow someone got Ruth's bank card information and was able to use it before the bank realized something was wrong and denied the expenditures. She lost a little over $130. But then she was offered a 4 to 5 day babysitting job at $70 a day.
4. I began taking Kate to parking lots to drive. John took her to a nearby neighborhood. She is doing ok.
5. Johnny has decided to learn Russian and is working on the Russian alphabet. He got his ACT scores. He scored 2 points higher than his dad did at the same age. He will take it one more time because he would like to bump it up another point or two. But his score is good. 
6. Adam is starting to learn hymns on the piano through his own initiative.
7. Rachel has been cruising through the Fablehaven series and enjoying it. And that makes me happy.
8. Anya puts Arwen to bed every night and helps her to brush her teeth and say her prayers. It's such a nice helpful thing to do. 
9. Joseph has joined Ruth and Adam as some of our stronger more athletic children. He can now do a front hand spring. 
10. Joshua is recognizing words all over now! Arwen was saying something in the car and said "It is spelled s o." Josh said, "So? No it is not. S o is so!"
11. Ruth has been teaching and reading to Arwen each school day for me. Arwen isn't very pleased with the teaching part, but she loves the reading time. 
12. Suzy got pretty noisy in Church, so the two kids sitting in front of her turned and looked at her. That disconcerted her a little. Again she got pretty noisy, but when the boys turned to look again, she said something like, "You don't look at me! Turn around!"
13. Sam is bum-scooting. I've never had a baby do that before. But, when we sit him on his bottom, he bounces up and down to propel himself forward. On his belly, he has only been able to move backwards. All of it is very cute.