Homeschool Notes for Week 25

Last Friday I left off blogging with plans for a day of nesting around the house. We did end up doing some organizing and decluttering projects. We finished off the evening making some no bake cookies. I also spent the day having irregular contractions. I kept telling Rebekah in my belly that she had missed her window, she wasn't allowed to come Friday night because of the weather. It rained half the day or more Friday, then switched to sleet/ice, then snowed several inches all night. Beautiful, but not when your hospital is an hour away.

Saturday morning we woke to all the accumulated snow and ice knowing it would be a quiet day at home. We pulled out a large bin of Duplos and a bin of dress up clothes from the attic and most of the kids were happily entertained by those for hours. Other built with Legos, created art, and everyone had the option of their weekly 30 minutes of video game time.

In the afternoon we went outside for a bit to play in the snow. With the wind chill it had warmed up to 4 degrees F (-15.6 degrees C) Brr!

In the evening I started a homeschool project for me for this semester. I've decided that instead of planning my own reading list I will first focus on reading the next book being assigned to each of my children. In Charlotte Mason homeschooling style I grabbed a notebook and plan to do written narrations as I finish each chapter. I started with Makayla's next history read: War Horse by Michael Morpurgo.

Sunday was cold, snowy, and a lovely day at church. The afternoon and evening were family time. It's the best way to spend a Sunday but doesn't make for very entertaining blogging.

Monday we woke to more snow coming down. Kids worked on some of their routines and learning (ex: chores, reading). I placed an online order at WalMart because they happened to have one open pickup slot left today. I'm stocking up on some non-food things like toilet paper, shaving cream, shampoo, dish soap, and cleaning wipes. There is some food in the order too. Of course, by the time Makayla and I went to pick up the order the roads were terrible with snow and I found out when we got home that we were expected to get another 4 inches. Not long after we got home a truck got stuck across the entire road in front of our house. It took a while but my husband and several others worked to get them unstuck.

Many of the kids spent hours drawing today. Emma has a Disney fashion design set she got a year ago, with outlines of four female heroes and four female villains. She used it a lot and then stored it away in the attic. Today she brought it out of the attic and started drawing. Several of her brothers were intrigued and joined her, or worked on drawing projects of their own. I love when things like this happen! Tobias has also decided coloring is fun, so he spent some time coloring today. He will use colored pencils or crayons if you give him those but he really loves using markers. When he uses markers I simply require he is seatbelted in his booster seat at the table. The 'Ultra clean washable' Crayola markers really do wash off little hands and faces. I love that!

Also on this day I traded history books from the shelf in the dining room with our next topic in a box in the attic. We'll keep watching Liberty's Kids as we finish up our American Revolution study. Next up we've got books about people and topics like Daniel Boone, Tecumseh, the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark, a Japanese boy who was instrumental in the opening of Japan to trade with the US after being shipwrecked and rescued by a whaling vessel, the Alamo, and more.

Of course with the evening snowstorm my body decided it was a great time to have a lot of contractions. I jokingly told Makayla that if I had this baby tonight she was going to have to help Daddy deliver because there was no way we would make it to the hospital an hour away. She was not amused.

Tuesday was a beautiful snow covered day and we kept to home. Daddy had to work, of course. We started slow and steady with reading and learning time. The kids watched another episode of Liberty's Kids. This one was about the midnight ride of Paul Revere. That meant I also pulled out Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem about Paul Revere's Ride to read to them.

Mid-morning all learning activities were put off to sit and watch the live broadcast of the announcement of the new prophet and First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. (The last prophet passed away recently and was buried on Friday.) It was a wonderful opportunity to watch and hear from these men with my children.

In the afternoon I spent several hours chasing down various medical professionals and pharmacies because of a problem getting the new bandaging we need for Mason's pressure sore on his foot. It's basically been a disaster where the local pharmacy isn't even a provider for our insurance and insurance doesn't cover the bandaging we need, but nobody called us to tell us or the doctor this. I called to be sure the supplies were in today and found it all out. So then I had to start tracking down doctors to see if they can get these supplies to us another way, through another provider, an preferably covered by insurance because the bandages he'll be using for several months are $21 each. Yes, each. Sigh. I'm hoping to hear back from the surgeon's office tomorrow.

Wednesday the kids got rolling on their routines and I got busy on the phone trying to deal with a host of medical professionals, insurance, and medical suppliers. It is always an exercise in patience. I got a few answers and left a number of messages. We are still frustratingly waiting for medical supplies to arrive at a pharmacy that were supposed to be in on Tuesday.

In the evening we had to do some snow shoveling to dig out our vehicles. My husband did most of it, but I took a few short turns.

Thursday started with my prenatal checkup. I'm 39 weeks pregnant. You can read about that here. The rest of the day I was pretty uncomfortable but that was more an aftereffect of snow shoveling on Wednesday than anything. Life in general was our normal routine for learning and cleaning. We finally got the bandage supplies for Mason in and started using them. We shall see if this helps or not.

Friday is here and we are preparing the last few things for Joseph's winter campout and 5 mile hike that begins tonight. He was cooking some of his food ahead this morning and packing it in foil packets to reheat over a fire. Kids are working on various projects right now and I need to get a plan together for lunch. So I'm off to do that!