Watercolors, Driving Permit, and a Relaxed Week

Our schedule is wacky this week. The local schools are on spring break so Makayla does not have early morning seminary - but her daily track practice is from 9am-11am during prime schooling hours. We are still having school a few days this week because Daddy is on vacation (and break from his college classes) in just 2 weeks, so we want to take our time off with him. We are also winding down to the end of the school year and so some lessons will begin dropping off naturally. It's the hardest time of the year to be consistent for some of my kids - and the easiest for those motivated by closing in on the end of lesson books.

Watercolor Starship Enterprise by Emma

Monday ended up full of friends. The morning was spent at home cleaning and reading books (except for Makayla, who had track practice, then came home to do her online veterinary class for an hour and a half). Then we did lunch and medical routines before heading to our friends' home to visit. We talked, ate dinner, had Family Home Evening together, played outside (including in the forest with the goats), and ended the evening with ice cream. I had some sleepy little guys by the end but we had a wonderful time!

Tuesday began with school work and track practice. After lunch Makayla and I went to her Seminary teacher's house for a dress fitting - her formal dress needs hemmed and that is far above my skill set. After the fitting Makayla took her driver's permit test and is now officially able to learn to drive. She and I went to a large, empty parking lot for her first lesson. She's learning to drive in our giant 12 passenger van!

Watercolor bird by Mommy

Tuesday afternoon the kids from Caleb to Makayla got to watch Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. We popped popcorn and enjoyed it. Only Makayla, Emma, and Oliver had seen it in theaters with Jason and I, so it was new for several of the kids. The youngest three boys, Mason, Samuel, and Tobias, simply weren't interested and played instead.

In the evening we got a box of books from the friendly UPS truck. I'll be sharing more about those books in a future post but just so you know - I will be having a giveaway soon related to them! Watch for that post in the next week.

Watercolor peacock by Makayla

My girls and I also spent some time painting with watercolors on this evening. I scattered those pictures throughout this post.

Wednesday started with chores, school, and track practice. Routines are really what keep this house running. I rarely mention the normal routine of laundry, but just so you know, two loads were done from washing to putting away. Sometimes we don't get it put away right away. I'm trying to change that so we for sure get laundry put away before bedtime each day.

It was a pretty laid back day. Kids did a lot of reading, asking questions, and playing. Makayla worked on homework for her vet class. Some were busy with art projects. I got some reading done in a new book - Lisa Murphy on Play: The foundation of children's learning. That evening my two Cub Scouts and I enjoyed a night of games. We did discus (large foam frizbees), javelin throw (pool noodles), and 2 man downhill skiing (on wood/rope skis), as well as a couple minute to win it type games.

Thursday the kids mostly took the day off, other than some math work for Makayla. They played multiple card games in various rooms of the house. We have been listening to The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell during lunch each day this week - our next book club title. Tobias was especially cranky today - he's got a runny nose and it looks like he's working on getting several teeth. He's been my slowest teether yet - at almost 17 months old he only has the front 4 teeth on top and bottom. I held him most of the morning and he napped early and long.

In the afternoon Makayla and I went out for driving practice again. Our next stop was WalMart. We needed to pick up a prescription and some food and candy for this weekend's General Conference sessions. Remember, you can watch General Conference live online both Saturday and Sunday. There are a variety of viewing options including a live stream on the home page of LDS.org. We always plug the laptop into our tv with an HDMI cable so we can watch on a bigger screen. General Conference is one of the most uplifting weekends of the year at my house! Listening to prophets and apostles teach and testify of Jesus Christ encourages me in my day to day life.

Friday is just getting started. I made baked oatmeal for breakfast. Yum! I would really like to tackle some spring cleaning projects today after school work is finished but it will all depend on how Tobias is feeling. I've used up my blogging time for the week so I'm going to go ahead and push publish on this post and get moving on my morning.

Quick note: I also shared about an unexpected blessing on the blog this week - check it out here.

* Links in this post are often Amazon affiliate links. When you shop through my links Amazon pays me a small fee - that goes into my homeschool budget. Thank you! *

Linking to the Weekly Wrap Up.