To Town

Today we made a quick trip to town. My oldest daughter went to a class at the Christian School and some friends brought her home so I didn't have to stay. The other kids and I hit the library and Post Office before heading home. The two youngest napped while we were gone so that was a nice and quiet trip. Once we got home, we did a bit of cleaning. To look at the place now, a person could never tell we did that though. I guess my husband told the kids they could put up the tree once he gets home from work tomorrow as long as their rooms and the living/dining rooms are clean.

Smiles

The baby learned to pull herself up on objects and has been enjoying emptying her clothes bins, the crayon bins, the art bins, and bookshelves. Here's the picture I said I'd post of her turning nine months and I added another of her emptying her clothes bin. Have a great night; it's another cold one up here.

AWANA

Tonight my husband bribed the children to go to AWANA. He said they could get out the Christmas lights after they got home if they went. Everyone did well saying verses, but they were excited to get home--especially the 12-year old. The five-year old has five verses left to finish her book and then she'll get a workbook to work on.

Our baby turned nine months old yesterday. I totally missed that so forgot to take a picture. I did get one this morning of her with a big smile. I'll have to post it tomorrow after I get the pictures loaded to the computer.

Another cold day

The cold doesn't stop the children from going outside, especially when they've been waiting so long to play on the pond. We have a small pond in our backyard that freezes over. They would like to use it as a skating rink, but it's not big or smooth. We do have an arena about three miles from us so I'd like to try to utilize that more this year. We had plans to go one more time last year, but the birth of our baby prevented that from happening. Today's been quite calm, especially with the phone not ringing.

The kids made forts in the bedrooms today and also have the Legos out for playing.

On the way to healing

A friend brought me to the chiropractor today, and he popped a couple bones back into place in my ankle. I am now able to walk on my foot, though slowly.

We got a couple inches of light, fluffy snow this evening so some of the kids were outside. They made snow angels and paths around the yard with the shovel. Overall I think they had fun even though it was quite cold outside. Right now it's 0 degrees F with a wind chill of 23 below. Brr...our furnace has been running a lot even though it's only set at 66.

I hope you have a great week. Thanks for stopping by.

Hurting Foot

Tonight my foot has given me the worst pain I've had for a while. It's been hurting for a couple days but nothing like this. Last night I hauled everything from my boys' room into boxes and rearranged the furniture to the way I like it (they had changed it) plus vacuumed the room. They've been playing in there all day today. I think they enjoy it clean but have just too much stuff to manage. I'll have to have Flylady come to the rescue. Today I've been working on laundry and sitting keeping my foot still.

Pictures of the 2nd and 3rd projects

This morning we didn't do very much school work. Instead we finished our turkey projects and played several rounds of cards. Some of the children did manage to finish or do some of the schoolwork planned for the day though. I went shopping this afternoon and bought a couple things for tomorrow plus some flour so we could make some bread and rolls and such. It won't last long, but I do have a trip to the mill planned for the first few days in December. We made a pepperoni pizza for supper served along with peaches, potato salad, salsa and chips, pop, and lettuce salad. I rarely let my kids have pop so that was a fun treat for them. We have no AWANA tonight so the kids are racing around the house with cars, skateboards, and trucks. It gets noisy but whatever works... I sent my son out this afternoon to break apart the pumpkins we carved for the deer. We live in the state forest so I had him throw them across the street into the woods for them. I hope they get eaten. If not, they'll be good compost, I would imagine. A friend bought some potatoes for me so I'll have to pick them up Sunday when I see her. Last year we went potato field gleaning with some friends but didn't have the opportunity to do that this year. Buying them from the store on sale was cheaper then getting them from a farmer up here. They're selling them 60# for $15.00, and I got them from the store for just under $6.00 for 60#. Have a happy Thanksgiving tomorrow! I may or may not post depending on what is happening.

Second and Third Thanksgiving Crafts

We had a fun day of painting today. We were working on two different turkey projects at the same time so I'd only have one mess to clean. However, the paint didn't dry in time so we'll have to leave the projects for tomorrow and post then. Thanks for stopping by. Have a happy Thanksgiving on Thursday. Hopefully I'll be back.

The baby and her cookie

She enjoyed her cookie and ate almost all of it. She was quite thirsty afterwards. I suppose she'll by hyper all evening.

First Thanksgiving Craft

Today we decided to break out the cookie cutters (our hands) and make turkey cookies. We frosted the different fingers different colors for fancy feathers. I'll post again in a few minutes with the pictures of the baby eating her cookie. Tomorrow we have some crafts planned, and I still have to get in the real Thanksgiving message for my five- and three-year olds whom I doubt have heard the story. We're thankful to God for each blessing we have, even the seemingly small ones.

Veteran's Memorial

This afternoon our family joined our Christian School for a field trip. We went to the Veteran's Memorial in our town and discussed the different types of branches of war. Then we went to the school and had a special speaker who has served three times in the Iraq war. I've added pictures of a few of the things he showed us.

Christmas Fun

Today our hardware store offered a workshop for children. They were able to make a train car to hook on to the train engine they made last year. They had a Santa Claus there (who was far too thin in my opinion ~grin~) who was giving out bags of goodies. Two of my children actually sat on his lap and talked a little bit which was a big surprise for me; none of my children has ever done that before. Also offered were different refreshments made with different house ware gadgets they sell in the store plus coffee, cookies, and apple cider. Drawings were held for different prizes, and the one that offered the biggest attraction for my children was the 5# Hershey's chocolate candy bar. Wouldn't that be yummy if one of us won! My husband bought some garland for his Christmas tree so they did get some $ out of us.

AWANA

Some of my children have been attending an AWANA program and enjoy the challenge of memorizing verses. I think it's important for them to be memorizing verses because it's so much easier to memorize when you're younger. They also enjoy getting the opportunity to be together with other children their ages and play games.

Music

I was trying to set up a day, place, and time for some of our fellow home schoolers to do a small music recital and art presentation. At first the librarian had said we could use the conference room, but that got changed because of a book fair that's coming up. Then I changed it to another place, but that didn't work because it was a bad time. It ends up that most of the families that were coming have to opt out because of all the changes that happened. We still have two families coming and possibly a third at yet a different time so I'm excited about that. My daughter has a recital with her violin teacher on December 2 so that will be fun to go to. She has improved a lot since the recital in April. I'm teaching my 5-year old daughter a little bit on the piano and the 9-year old some piano and some guitar. I'd like the 12-year old to get more guitar lessons, but he didn't care for the teacher he had last year. Music lessons are never wasted, in my opinion, and almost everyone I meet wishes s/he had continued or had parents that could afford lessons.

There's no turning the clock back

My baby is crawling now. She started with just a couple crawls on Saturday, did more on Sunday, and today when I was in the kitchen I looked into the living room and found her peeking around the kitchen corner at me. I enjoy watching the children learn new things but it's oh-so-hard to see them growing up and trying new things. Anyway, we need to keep the floor picked up a little better. So far in the past fifteen minutes she's been into the pencils, scraps of stuff on the floor, and dice that were left out.

Reading

One of the fun things about having both older and younger children is that the older children will read to the little ones. The little ones don't mind if every word is perfect or not; they enjoy the attention. Tonight my 9-year old read my 3-year old to sleep.

Cleaning

Today I decided we needed to clean the living room because I was unable to walk through without tripping over something. Most of it was a mess of the Legos, but my two younger girls like to cut paper and color and glue so there were scraps all around. In fact, I think the crayons are still out, but at least I can walk through. Usually I look at the mess and tell the kids I need "__" minutes. Then we pick up quickly, but if we don't finish, it's good enough for me. Progress was made.

Scrapbooking

I enjoy putting our family pictures into albums. I have an album for each of the kids and one for the family. I usually do this late at night when everyone is in bed because I enjoy the quiet time alone. Some of my pages are fancy, but most of them are quite simple and take me ten minutes or less to do. I work on the floor and don't have many of the expensive tools a lot of people have. I do, however, prefer the Creative Memories albums. They're so durable, and at our house things have to be durable to survive. Here are pictures of the pages I made the other night in three albums.

Domino Cookies

We made some domino cookies the other night. They were quite simple. I just used a sugar cookie recipe, my daughter cut a rectangle template out of a piece of paper, we cut the shape, made a line down the middle, and put chocolate chips on (upside down.) Some of my children are younger and didn't understand the specific location for the chips, but they had fun anyway. The cookies tasted good also. The baby in the high chair even had a sample; she had chocolate all over her face and clothes and high chair.

Introduction

I have six children and would like to share some of the things we do in our house. Some of them are humorous and others are things we do daily with not so much humor. If I can figure out how to get this blog going, I hope to share on a week-day basis.