This Week at Our House # 34

I think this month has gone faster than other months this year and that is saying something. This has been such a difficult year, but time has flown. It seems to me like it should still be April. We went full into school this week and got a lot done. I see all the back-to-school pictures posted by my friends on Facebook, and I think that I should put up a not-back-to-school picture, but I am so busy teaching my kids that I never think to bring out the camera and photograph them doing school. The local schools start back up this week, so I think we will make sure we get to the beach a lot more between now and cold weather. The beach is nicer when school is in because it is not so crowded.

1. No new job news this week. John continues to work on game development. He spent the last two weeks learning the mac systems and setting that up, and I think he had more time for actual game development this week. 
2. I got right back into family life and my role as mother and school teacher without a hitch. I did all but two loads of dishes this week, which is saying a lot, since we wash dishes three times a day. I wanted to make up for being gone for a whole week and give my kids a break. 
3. I love the personal emails I get from Ruth. I rarely post on here what she says to just me or Kate or John, but I can tell from her scriptural and spiritual insights that she has learned a lot and learned to hear the Holy Ghost this past year, while on her mission.
4. Kate had her birthday!!! She actually made her own cake while I did kitchen projects like washing the cupboards and cleaning out the inside of the fridge. Kate and Johnny have started to develop a rpg game for a phone together. They have written a story, and developed all the characters. Now Kate is working on all the art and animation and Johnny has already done a lot of the software development. He already has something to test on a phone. Kate has several hundred pictures to draw including backgrounds and such. Her drawings are very professional. I look forward to seeing the end result of this, although I understand it will probably take several more months to complete. Kate also finished reading the 7 volume History of the Church and is now onto The Life of Heber C. Kimball. She has taught our entire family a lot of faithful, true Church history this year and we have been greatly blessed by this.
5. Johnny had an appointment with the oral surgeon and now is scheduled to have his wisdom teeth removed tomorrow. He is pretty nervous and we will just take the whole day off from school and take care of Johnny following surgery.
6. Adam is doing really well with his math and has become more willing to do his math, reading, and computer programming as homework after we have completed school. 8th grade just takes a lot more time than other elementary school courses. 
7. Rachel is learning about variables in a much more intense way in math and was saying she could not do it because it was letters and she only likes math with numbers. But when she does the homework, she gets all of her problems right.
8. Anya hid in her room making beautiful lego creations during most of her free time this week.
9. Joseph has gone from drawing stick figures to drawing elaborate pictures that he either colors or shades very nicely with pencils. He has also gone from never writing stories to writing a four chapter story that is still going. 
10. We went to the beach on Friday. The water was interesting. Very close to the shore the waves were big and choppy, but once you got out past the break, the ocean was as calm as a lake. When I took a turn to swim, I took Josh out. He really loved being out, riding the gentle waves. 
11. Arwen is really good at not going to bed. We put her to bed, and she comes and sits by me or finds something to be awake for about every 10 minutes until her older sisters join her in their room. I probably send her to bed, 10 times a night. 
12. Susan broke the tv, a few days before my trip to Maine. She was scooting a block across the screen. Johnny, told her not to, and then took the block away. She willfully, not angrily, grabbed the block and smacked it to the side of the tv. That cracked the glass and blacked out about 1/6th of the tv screen. I think she is learning a big lesson about obedience and willfulness as watching tv was previously her favorite past time. She would ask to watch tv several times a day. She has not asked once since she broke the tv and we have not let her even watch on the broken screen. Instead now she asks if she can play with her toys or build with blocks. I am sorry to lose our tv. We are still using it for our sound system and school, though. But it would not be good for a movie. Sometimes life lessons can be tough and expensive but are well worth the long term results. Susan is much better behaved now and much more willing to obey and do as she is asked.
13. We have been dabbling a lot in languages with our main focus being on Japanese and Spanish. John turns on youtube videos to learn the alphabet in other languages. Sam has really taken to the Korean alphabet song and sings it to himself everyday. When we turn on the video, he gets really excited. I think he knows the Korean alphabet better than the English.

Pictures

Susan's blocks instead of tv watching

I think this is our prettiest chicken. She is a bantam, so she is about half the size of the other chickens. But she holds her own. Rachel named her Menace.

I just love Suzy's blond curls. I feel like Ramona, because I love to boing them. Fortunately, this Susan does not mind.

Joseph's Toucan with bat wings

Suzy and the tv she broke.

Sam was saying cheese

Adam made this huge sandwich. We did not think he could eat it all. He did except for a few small bites that he shared with Sam.

We now know that we have two drakes and one female duck.

Stories from Ruth # 50

She has been out for 1 year now!!!

 

This week I was very salty. Well actually I ate brownies that were very salty. They accidently used salt instead of sugar. It was a lot of fun though. Sister Wilcksn and I have both been pretty sick, but we are still alive and working.

We had a lesson with Gilbert which is always good! He keeps all the commandments and likes the Book of Mormon! He told us that he beleives it is true. He said he did not really feel any different though, because he already read, and prayed, and kept the commandments before we had met him. Sister Wilcken, Daniel ( a member), and I all felt prompted to teach him about sacrifice, and we need to ask God what we need to do and change to receive an answer from him. Sister Wilcken talked about Abraham and Isaac, how he was willing to sacrifice everything to God. I talked about the rich young man and how just like Gilbert and I, had kept the commandments from his youth up, but he lacked selling all he had to go and follow Christ. We all must ask God and Jesus Christ what it is we must leave to know God and receive answers from him. If we are not truly willing to sacrifice everything for God do we really love him? We are to leave the world and follow Christ. Daniel shared his life story and it went really well. We all learned a lot that lesson.

We had zone conference on Thursday. There were three zones there. It was really good! All the

trainings were telling us to follow Christ and how we need to share the Boom of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is God's tool to gather scattered Israel. This is his way of fulfilling that promise. I see it everyday in this work.

On Friday we helped clean up Lianne's garden. There was a spiders nest and they were massive! Ah! It was so scary! Especially when I found a spider in my hair... Sister Wilcken accidently cut Lianne's precious and prized verbeena! Luckily forgiveness is real.
The scripture for this week is:

Moroni 7:26 "And after that he came men also were saved by faith in his name; and by faith, they become the sons of God. And as surely as Christ liveth he spake these words unto our fathers, saying: Whatsoever thing ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is good, in faith believing that ye shall receive, behold, it shall be done unto you."

Happy Birthday, Kate

This beautiful, perfect girl has turned 19!!! The world needs her. She is here to do lots of good and she will!!

This Week at Our House #33

I was gone all week. I drove with my mother and sister to Connecticut last Sunday, and then to Maine on Monday. The air was nice and cool. I can see why the birds both fly north for the summer and south for the winter. Sam came along and he was pretty good for the most part, though seemed to take advantage of the fact that there was nothing I could really do about him throwing a tantrum. We came home Saturday evening. Now Sam will have to get used to being sent to his bed if he is just going to scream.

I grew up in Maine. My mom was born in Maine and her family is from Maine and before that from Coastal Canada. We visited my mom's cousins and the house we grew up in. My mom was pretty sad because the house looks terrible, but her cousins were pretty fun. We slept in a nice hotel and ate seafood in restaurants.  We went to the beach and some of our old favorite stores. My sister was most excited for LL Bean. We went to the beach for a brief visit. My mom hurt her knee a few months ago, so we could not walk around very much. We did a lot of driving and a fair amount of visiting. I got to spend time talking to my mom and sister, which never happens. That was probably the biggest highlight for me. I am glad that they invited me along. I also enjoyed a week's break from dishes, laundry, and cooking.

At home the family did well. Kate kept school running, meals made, and laundry washed. I came home to a clean house, homemade whoopie pies, and lots of drawings and stories that the kids created while I was gone. They were pretty funny about Sam being gone for the week. I had lots of stories about how things didn't disappear, such as their pencils and headphones and such. When they put something down, it was there when they came back for it. No one got up on the table and counter to dump the food off after a meal, so they did not have to worry about cleaning up right away. Certainly not having Sam around made things easier at home. But within 24 hours of Sam's return things were being moved out of their places again, and they were back to having to keep the bathroom doors shut and clearing up the food immediately.

All in all, it was a good week, though I think we are all glad to be back together again.

Pictures

Life at home

Arwen made this bridge with wooden blocks

Kate fried up some food that was going to go bad. She thought it would be good to add to other food since it contained 4 jalepinos. But some people thought it would be fine to just eat. Ouch!!

Back home again

The Coast of Maine near York, Maine

Sam spent a lot of time in this spot

My parents took us here every year when I was a kid

LL Bean, Freeport. Maine

The grave of my mother's parents

My mom's favorite store in Maine

Monika's favorite seafood restaurant. It's really good.

George Washington Bridge exiting the Bronx

A cloudy NYC cityscape

My mom and her cousins. They all have bad knees, or hips, and they all had canes.

The Potomic Bridge that divides Maine and New Hampshire