Beach in October

 

Catch Up and Pictures

                      

 

I have been a terrible blogger. Life moves so quickly for me now. I remember when I had 2 and 3 little children and I would give them baths everyday because it was something to do to fill in the time. Now time runs away from me. Johnny turned 20 in September and John hit 50 two weeks later, I turned 46 a week after that and today Adam is 17. Sam will be 5 in two more weeks and Eliza is hitting 3 months.

Yesterday while sitting in the car with my 6 youngest kids, Josh asked me what I would wish for if I could get three wishes. I thought for a moment and said, "For the house to be paid for, for Ruth, Kate, and Johnny to find someone to marry, and for me to get grandchildren." Josh thought all of that strange and proceeded to tell me about 3 video games that he wants. 

Arwen and Susan each need a new pair of shoes, but shoes are quite pricey now. I tried to get them each a pair of black ballet flats at Walmart, but walmart is sold out. They are the only affordable shoes around right now that are not ugly sneakers that the girls won't wear. I'll have to try again. Amazon's shoes are around $25 to $50 and I don't like to spend that on kid's shoes because their feet grow to quickly.

 

There have been a lot of talk about an attack on the power grid and not enough stuff for Christmas sales, as well as food shortages and other such things. It's been a strange thing and the men in charge in the world are as shady as ever. I feel like I am coming to understand the beast and all who worship him from chapter 13 in the Book of Revelations. Times have definitely changed.

Here are some funny kid stories:
On a walk to the river, we saw two groups of people fishing at the bridge. Susan got home and excitedly said, "Guess what we saw at the bridge?" There were some animal guesses like a dead deer and turtles, but Susan said in an impressed voice, "There were PEOPLE!"

A loud military plane flew over and Susan got really quiet. She then turned to Ruth and said, "I am always quiet when planes fly over." Ruth asked, "Are you afraid of planes?" Susan nodded, looked up at Ruth and asked, "Do planes drop out snakes?"

Today at a homeschool park day, a little boy walked with Sam up to Anya. The little boy motioned toward Sam and said to Anya, "This is my new friend." Sam then said to Anya, "Hi, I am Sam."
Susan after having spent a night in a tent said to me excitedly, "We stayed up all night!" I said, "Really, what did you do all night?" and Susan said, "We rolled from side to side." 

 

John and I had all of the kids that are not young adults with us at a used book store to have Adam choose a birthday present. I took the 6 youngest and John had all the teens. Gideon was hilarious in the store. He found everything Batman. I think that he recognizes the word "Batman" because he would find Batman books among hundreds of books and only from the spine. He even dove under a large table that had comic books and retrieved a large Batman book. I love that he loves Batman so much. It's really quite fun to have a kid so excited and in love with one thing. Eventually, I gave in and spent some of the spare change at the bottom of my purse on two Batman comic books. 

Rachel has been reading-- even when she is not required to. Even now, on a day when she has no school, she's lying down with a book. 

So how are the kids doing?

Adam is being made to do a lot of reading this school year. He is doing much better with math and understanding chemistry a lot more now that we are using a lot of youtube videos and video instruction. 

Rachel still hates school, but she does well and is quite smart. We've joined a Christian homeschool group and she and Anya come and like to play with the little kids at the park.

Anya is as sweet as ever. She's doing well with her schooling and is often the first to finish because she just does the work. I love how homeschool keeps my young teen girls as innocent as Laura Ingalls Wilder in the Little House Series.

Joseph still hates school but is very smart. He'll do it happily when he is interested, but we have had a hard time finding his interests.

We all know Josh's interest. He loves computer games. He'll do anything for computer game time and he

talks about computer games as his main form of conversation. Fortunately, he is also a very good artist and is very good and detailed in his drawings. Maybe he will design some video games when he grows up.

Arwen sometimes does really well in school and sometimes she sits and does nothing. Mostly, Arwen learns well and quickly and is easy to be entreated. 

Susan is starting to read on her own. I have taken it slow with her because she did not talk until she was three and did not even really understand what we were saying until she was 2.5, so I knew she would be a year or two behind when it came to reading. But she seems to be doing fine now. She is definitely not dyslexic and she memorizes her books. She has about 25 memorized, so I think in time, she will not only be caught up, but she will surpass other kids her age. It's one of the things that I love about homeschool. I can take the time that they need. Sometimes I feel pushed to get them further along, but life has shown me it is better to let them work at their own pace as long as they are serious about learning and working. 

Sam knows all of his alphabet and it was really easy to teach him that. He was biting all of his shirts so I gave him his pacifier back. Then he was biting through all of his pacifiers and I found out that there are biting chew necklaces for kids and adults and adults review them for themselves on amazon, which I found odd, but I got Sam one of those. It's kind of hard. Anyway, his shirts are not being bitten up now.

Gideon is supposed to be potty training. He knows what to do but does not want to do it and I have not been very consistent. I think I am going to need a school vacation to get this done. 

Eliza seems to be in a race to grow up. She holds herself up into sitting and standing positions really well. She coos and babbles and catches your eyes and has a chat all of the time. She holds up her chest when lying on her bellying and seems to want to go. She sticks her tongue out when we stick ours out. She plays with her feet, and she watches us eat  and wants a bite. She is doing everything early. She also has large beautiful dark blue eyes. We're praying for this little girl to keep her blue eyes. 

Since we are doing school year round now, I have been doing some fun things. The first week of October,

we spent three days outside all day. We cooked and washed our dishes outside. We tried to make fire with flint. We did a lot of whittling. We bird watched. We learned knot tying, and played outdoor games. It was a really nice 3 days of school. Keeping the fire going and cooking over it was a lot of fun. Popcorn over the fire was pretty funny as it flew off everywhere. Adam made a wooden dagger and a sword from some fat sticks. Joseph smashed a brick and used the dust for an hourglass that he made. 

The first two weeks of December, we are going to have lego school. The kids are all supposed to build houses and businesses and things to sell and then they will play buying and selling. Kate and Johnny are going to hold court and teach them about courts and juries and such. They will have election and play corrupt politicians in the name of keeping it real. I will probably make them buy business licences and make it really hard for some people to sell and make money while letting someone else gain a monopoly. And then maybe we will end with a big war fought out in the name of freedom, but begun and lead by tyrants for money. Hopefully it will be an educational two weeks.