The Homeschool Mother's Journal/Weekly Wrap-Up

In Our Homeschool This Week:
We are still schooling. I'm trying to keep them busy and progressing but focusing on my own preparation for the fall.

I started reading aloud the Bible during breakfast. I've never personally read through the Bible front to back, so I'm going to do it with the kids. We're also working through the character training "Put-On" Chart. They like this, and it spurs plenty of good discussion.

Extracurricular This Month:
The kids have been enjoying time out and about, attending day camps for different activities, such as gymnastics, etc.

In Our Life This Week:

Dash lost his first top tooth. He looks so cute. Another top tooth is barely hanging and will probably fall out by tomorrow. He talks with a lisp now, too, which I adore. He says it is hard to read. You should have heard him read the sentence: The fish lifts the gift with its fins.

The boys are both getting a visit from the tooth fairy tonight. Tornado had a dentist appointment this afternoon. The hygienist pointed out to me one of his very loose back teeth. I stuck my hand in there to wiggle it, and it basically came right out. He did so great getting his teeth cleaned, which has been the case during his past few visits. When I think about how much he used to (sometimes) kick and scream at the dentist... (and the hair salon and the doctor and school and church and...) I am thankful for how far we have come.

In Baby's Life This Week:
We aren't really starting him on a regular food schedule yet, but as he will be 6 months in a few days, we let him have several teaspoons of banana with breastmilk.

"What is this thing around my neck and why am I sitting in my new, hard Ikea highchair instead of in Mommy's lap?"

"Okay...interesting."

"That is some good stuff! I'll take some more!"

Our favorite thing he started doing this month is blowing raspberries in the air. They're so loud, and he seems to really enjoy it.

Holiday Celebrations This Week:

July 4th breakfast

We were super excited to have Daddy at home on a Wednesday. We headed to the Historic Arkansas Museum for their frontier Independence Day celebration. This included games such as this ring toss and stilts, etc. They marched in a parade around the grounds and enjoyed watermelon slices. The Declaration of Independence was read, and the kids got a kick out of the "redcoats" voicing their objection and other people chiming in with cheers and other reactions.

They also made crafts and made requests to the Balloon Man. (Tornado: a penguin, Dash: a sword, and Sissy: a flower wand - none of those choices are surprising.)

In Other News This Week:
Heat. Torrid. Hot. Sweltering. Scorching. Humid. Sweat.

My Favorite Thing This Week:
My brother (sans family) came to visit for a couple of days. My kids were over the moon, playing with him on our new sport court.

We enjoyed a great Mexican meal, as you would expect at my parents' house. 

He loves Uncle Matt!

And my sister, he, and I (plus baby, of course) went out for Thai food (and to Target) one night. It was great to spend time conversing without  our kids  interruption.

Places We're Going and People We're Seeing:
Two weeks ago we had a fun Friday night with our friends, Jeri and Jason plus their two sweet kids. We ate supper at Juanita's in downtown Little Rock then walked over to let the kids play for awhile in the Splash Fountain. (We stayed until the water shut off at 8:00 p.m.)

Then we drove over to the Big Dam Bridge. I know it has the word BIG in the title, but I had never been, so I didn't realize how BIG this whole thing was. It was late and hot, so we only made it halfway across before turning around, but I'd like to go back sometime.

The kids and I drove to Branson last week to visit family. We stayed with my brother and sister-in-law. As soon as the kids entered the door, it was nonstop play with their cousins. The next day we headed to my hometown to visit my Grandfather and his wife in the nursing home. (I even got to see one of my BFF's for a few minutes!) He wanted to hold Baby Brother a lot...and I was overjoyed to oblige.

The NOT good thing about our little road trip: the many, many extra stops I had to make for my crying Sweetie.  It's kind of amazing how it was easier for me to take him to NYC (which I WILL blog about one of these days) than Branson only because of that 2 1/2 (increased now to 3 1/2) hour car ride. He + his carseat do not = true love.

I'm Reading:
I loved 7 so much, I was eager to read another Jen Hatmaker book. I've only read a couple of chapters from Interrupted, but I love it so far. I also got Kisses From Katie: A Story of Relentless Love & Redemption, which was recommended by Amazon for me. Enjoying it, so far, as well! It is the story of a girl who moves to Uganda by herself when she graduates highschool. She meant to stay a year - but ends up staying (about 5 years and counting now) and is in the process of adopting over a dozen girls. So far, this has been a great book for me to read aloud to the kids, too. They are very interested and intrigued.

We're also still reading through the Little House series.

What My Kids Are Saying:
My daughter looked at the regular rubber band I used in a pinch to close her braid like, "WHAT is this?" and laughed. I said when I was little I had to use regular rubber bands in my hair all of the time because we didn't have fancy hair bands. She said, "Were you alive when Laura and Mary (Ingalls) were?" It must have felt like a real hardship to her that I used rubber bands in my hair.

From my niece, C, upon thinking about her sister getting the wrong size of ice skates for Christmas: "That's kind of silly cuz God could have told Santa."

One random quote I wanted to remember for myself: Tornado to the hygienist, regarding the inside of his mouth (in his sweet, slow, deep voice and finger pointed upward), "Be gentle with that!"

We were going to be studying "justice" in our Civics book. I was going to use that on our vocabulary word of the day sheet. Before we read the lesson, I asked them to write down what the word "justice" makes them think. The boys' answer: Superheroes (The Justice League). Sissy's answer: Justin Bieber.

Sissy was examining her sunflower plant, which she had planted at their science/art class. The soil was dry, but she declared, "It's frozen!"

Another winner from Sis: "Whenever I think of something, I think, 'That's a good idea, Head. That's a good idea, Self.' "

Weekly Wrap-Up

The Homeschool Mother's Journal

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