A Thanksgiving Break

     The boys and I took a 4-day break from school for Thanksgiving, and we really enjoyed our lazy days! I had to fight the temptation to have them work ahead or practice flashcards, but they needed a mental break from school. However...this morning was a ROUGH re-entry. Three more weeks until we finish the first semester! 

    We had to have our Ash tree removed this fall. Most of the Ash trees in our area are diseased and dying. I hated to lose a big tree, but it was time. We were plugging away with school last week when the tree crew returned to take out the huge stump. ZOOM- all 4 boys were glued to the front window. Admittedly, that machine is pretty cool.

    Every now and then, one of the boys has a sudden inspiration for a game or activity, and the four of them race off to accomplish said game. Yesterday, I had 4 SWAT team members stomping through the house. Last week, they were in teams of two creating their own countries. I found this list of rules on one of the country's maps. I didn't really see the last one coming.

      Our Christmas decorations are up! John insists on proudly displaying a singing blue Christmas dinosaur on the mantle. That dinosaur drives me crazy and scares the dog, so it is not getting on this blog. I prefer to go with the Pinterest overload. 

    Lastly, we scored a free ping pong table this weekend! We live right behind our church, and the dumpster is right across from our back gate. On our way back from a walk this weekend, we saw that someone had dumped a ping pong tabletop in the dumpster, and we weren't too proud to haul that out and set it on our sawhorses! A quick trip to Academy, and we had the net and paddles! The boys are a great age for ping pong, and it'll be a fun activity this winter. John has mad woodworking skills, so I showed him a picture of a paddle and ball holder and he whipped up one for us in a day!

    Thanks for reading! Have a happy and blessed Advent!

Is That a God Bird?

     "Is that a God bird?" asked my 6-year-old this morning as we worked through his Phonics pages. Here's what he saw:

To his credit, the Seton dove and gull do look a lot alike! 

    My biggest two boys followed a Betty Crocker recipe for apple pie the other day. Everyone always loves to help peel apples with this fun toy, and I'm glad my kids are getting more experience in the kitchen. It's fun working together on projects like this!

    This has been a great fall, honestly, and it's just really cool to see where each of my kids shine. The oldest is a 6th grader and he loves to read and sketch. The 4th grader is happiest cooking in the kitchen or sitting with the dog and reading. He's also a perfectionist. The 3rd grader has to be moving all day long. He's currently racing a wheelie car as fast as he can in the loop in our unfinished basement. He comes up the stairs dripping sweat. He is not a perfectionist and schoolwork is not his favorite part of the day. Our 1st grader loves to draw and create with trash he finds in the recycle bin. He recently lost his two front teeth and just today he learned how to ride a bike with no training wheels!

I'm constantly finding random creations like this.

It took him a long time, but the 4th grader did a beautiful job!

Not a bad way for either of them to spend a morning.

    Our Monday was rough this week, so I decided to shake things up and move out of the school room for a few days. We've been doing the bulk of our school work from couches and chairs in our living room, and it's been relaxed and great. I'm so glad because I really do want our boys to have good memories of our homeschooling this year. I sit between the 3rd and 1st grader, and this position has helped the 3rd grader's mood exponentially. I love it. What a gift this year has been. 

    I should also note that my oldest is better at math than me. It's a humbling situation to be in, but I'm not too proud to admit it. We sit and do his Saxon math together every day; I work on my paper and he works in his notebook. When we get different answers, we double check to see who was correct, and more often than not, H is right and I'm pretend-yelling at him for laughing at me. I figure I'm just increasing his confidence in mathematics. You're welcome, buddy.

    May God bless each of you and may you be as happy as our dog with this huge stick.

Flexibility LOLOLOL

     It's been a relatively uneventful couple of weeks, but I figured I should update here anyway. I swear the boys are on some kind of secret schedule for their moods. Are they in their bedrooms at night plotting whose turn it is to test Mom's patience the next day during school hours? If so, it is an incredibly unpredictable and varied schedule! Mom never knows who is going to show up ready to work and who is going to cause Mom to sprout a few new gray hairs. Exciting!

    I asked John what I should blog about today. He said, "Flexibility," and I laughed because if there's anything I am, flexible is not one of them. I can probably place some of the blame on my being an oldest child, but honestly, having 4 babies in 5 years is probably what caused my rigidity. Nap times, meal times, John's work travel schedule for so many years in a row... I relied on routine and normalcy to maintain a bit of sanity. 

    2020 shot routine and normalcy to heck, didn't it? The entire world is upside down right now, so I don't need to blather on about how our little family's life has changed. But since we're homeschooling and John is still working from home, we have been able to take advantage of the copious amounts of time together to do some fun things in the area that we would have never had time for otherwise.

Cave Spring Park

Located in Raytown, Missouri, just 20 minutes from our house, is a plot of land that was once owned by a family and operated as a stop for travelers on the Santa Fe Trail. Now it is protected as Cave Spring Park and has 4.5 miles of hiking trails as well as a cave to explore. The boys and I hiked there one afternoon last week and loved the trails and history. I figure we could check off History and PE that day.

For anyone in the KC area, here's their website for more information. I helpfully forgot to take any other pictures.

https://cavespring.org

Konza Prairie Biological Station    

    My dad has hiked here for years, and we finally got an opportunity to hike with him yesterday! John had the day off, so we road-tripped an hour and 45 minutes west of Kansas City to the Konza Prairie Biological Station. It is located in the beautiful Flint Hills of Kansas, near Manhattan. We hiked up and down the hills and enjoyed some beautiful vistas.

       We had such a great time, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to get out of the big city and breathe some fresh air! Also, the 3-mile loop completely wore out our boys. 

    So, I may not be terribly flexible in our day to day operations, but I do love that homeschooling is affording us these kinds of opportunities for adventures. We are especially thankful for every single day of nice weather, as it is one less day that we will spend indoors this winter.