Time for an Update
Wow! My baby will be 4 weeks old tomorrow! She’s doing great. Sometimes she sleeps a longer stretch of about 4-6 hours at night (sometimes not). We finally made it back to church yesterday, so things are getting a little bit back to normal.
My mother-in-law was here for 2 1/2 weeks. It was so wonderful to have her here for so long, especially since my husband had a couple of business trips. We got a lot of household projects done, including cleaning out the refrigerators, the pantry and the laundry room; putting closet organizers in the boys’ closet, the girls’ closet, and the basement closets; and painting the girls’ room. It’s finally pink! We also have new furniture for them, which had previously been my husband’s sister’s furniture and then her daughter’s. I’m glad that it’s stayed in the family!
My mom will be here next week and will get to stay for 2 weeks. I’m hoping we’ll get to do a few field trips (like the zoo and children’s museum) while she’s here. One thing we’ll do is celebrate my 5 yo daughter’s birthday at a Tea Party Restaurant (www.infiniti-tea.net)!
We didn’t completely give up homeschooling during the past month. Here is what we did: 2 field trips–picking apples and a farm festival where the kids got to make a rope, grind corn, watch a sheep-herding demonstration, and see a threshing machine threshing wheat. That was neat since I grind my own wheat to make bread and it gave the kids a chance to see how the wheat berries are separated from the wheat plant.
We’ve been reading "Spy for the Night Riders" by Jackson, which is a historical fiction novel about Martin Luther. Next week we’ll start a more intensive study about Martin Luther and the Reformation in preparation for our Reformation Party on October 31. I wrote a unit study which is posted at homeschool helper online (get it here.)
My husband is reading "Ten Peas in a Pod", a wonderful story about a family of 8 kids who traveled around the country in the earlier part of the 20th century, holding evangelistic meetings. I highly recommend it. For Bible Time we’ve been talking about Phil. 2:`4-15–no complaining or arguing. Our memory verse right now is Titus 2:11-12: "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age." In other words, we can be self-controlled, no excuses! I’ve come up with 5 rules that we need to get ingrained in ourselves: 1. Obey (right away and with a good attitude), 2. Speak nicely, 3. Work diligently, 4. No complaining, 5. No sinning when angry. Several of these are for me (I’ll let you guess which ones 🙂 ).
For history we’ve been studying the Mayans using Mystery of History, Story of the World, Jonathan Park "Ancient City of the Jaguar", library books, and Moody Science Video "Empty Cities". For science we’re studying rainforests. We’ve read lots of library books and will start a lapbook tomorrow. After we’re done with the Martin Luther novel, I’ll start reading "The Jungle Book."
The four older kids are also back in swim lessons and two oldest in violin lessons. For math, they’ve been playing lots of games. I also finished reading "Little House in the Big Woods" to the girls. They’re done with the lapbook booklets (which we got free from lapbook lessons); we just need to put it together now. Maybe tomorrow!
Could it be possible that It's been nearly a month since I've seen you? It sounds like you're doing great! I hope you're resting enough. It's great that you've had help and accomplished so much!
I like your Scripture and rules. I could use a few of those myself. 🙂
I'd love to get together this month. Check your calendar and let me know. Maybe an evening or weekend so the guys can visit, too.
Take care,
Jennifer
What a small world — my dearest girlfriend from college is married to Arnold Pent's grandson, Zebulon, so she's mentioned the book to me often. 🙂