Homeschool Notes Week 28

Saturday started with Rebekah waking up at 6:00am. She slept 7 hours. Best.Newborn.Ever. Several kids were already awake for the day. Saturday morning at our house is for breakfast, doing chores early, and then playing their 30 minutes of video game time for the week after getting the xbox and wii from the basement and plugging them in to our tv. Daddy and I did some chores too - cleaning out the coat closet, cleaning out one cabinet, both refrigerators/freezers, and handling bills/paperwork. I picked up a prescription at Walmart and some items for upcoming chemistry experiments for Makayla. When I returned it was time for lunch (rolls, roasted chickens, etc), then picking Joseph up from his campout. The rest of the day was family time. Just the way we like it!

Sunday we kept close to home. We baked cookies and that evening were finally able to get together with some extended family to celebrate Oliver's birthday.

Monday was school as usual. Daddy is home on Mondays and that really helps make for a smooth re-entry into the week because I have backup when the baby needs something, the toddler is getting into things, and the preschooler is too - all while seven other children need math lessons and help with latin and chemistry and grammar and so on.

We had some trouble with our furnace today too, which comes in to play again on Friday...

For Family Home Evening this week we used part of this FHE idea on A Year of FHE about strengthening our family. We did the demonstration with one child breaking a single pencil, then trying to break a bundle of pencils (one pencil to represent each family member, so 12 for us). We read a quote from The Family: A Proclamation to the world:

"Successful...families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities."

Then we used the free printable from that lesson and chose 5 of the principles to talk about together and brainstorm ways we can strengthen our own family. The 5 the kids chose were: Love, Respect, Compassion, Prayer, and Work. We finished with sugar cookies Emma had baked earlier in the day.

Tuesday the kids had the day off from school. Mason and I were out the door before 7am and heading to the hospital for a couple appointments. He had a DEXA x-ray to check on his bone density (he has osteopenia, the childhood version of osteoporosis), an appointment with the nephrologist who treats his osteopenia, and then an IV infusion of his medication to help with his bone density. We got good news! After several years of IV infusions ever 3 and then every 6 months Mason's bone density is finally a positive number. Still not normal, but improving. That means we will now space out his infusions to once a year for a while.

Wednesday's favorite lesson: the kids learned more about the postal system and Benjamin Franklin who was appointed Postmaster General by the Continental Congress in 1775. My favorite was listening to Oliver read aloud. He has come so far this school year, from sounding out every single word to reading much more fluently and having the skills to tackle unfamiliar words.

Thursday we woke to a thin layer of snow coating the world again. There were many groans. We are ready for spring so of course it snowed more all day. It really didn't build up, just looked pretty and melted off. I looked around mid-morning from my perch on the couch. Rebekah was in my arms drinking a bottle. Makayla and Caleb were to my left doing math and reading aloud to mommy respectively. To my right was Emma, Joseph, Oliver, and Daniel doing math, math, reading, and grammar. Mason, Samuel, and Tobias were playing with dinosaurs in front of us on the floor - something about being a vet and taking care of sick dinosaurs. Ten children in one room learning, playing, and growing. Children wandered in and out all morning as they pulled different subjects from the shelf to do. I moved to the table when Rebekah fell asleep and worked with Mason on math, reading, and handwriting.

Friday my teaching morning started with reading lessons with Oliver, Caleb, and then Mason. Next was helping with math and grammar for various children as needed. I remembered it is time to print more grammar pages for the next several weeks (Joseph, Emma, and Daniel are all using Fix It Grammar) and set my printer to work doing that. I love that our new printer does duplex printing. No more having to print one side of all the pages and then the other on my own.

Our furnace was having trouble again today. For some reason it just didn't come one and the house got down to 63 degrees even though the thermostat is set to 67. We tried a couple things and it worked fine eventually. Since this was the second day this week with the same problem we put a call in to our furnace repair company that installed everything 10 years ago. They came out Friday afternoon to check things out, cleaned and did general maintenance, and we think it is fixed. We had a condenser line that was mostly clogged and so that would account for the intermittent shutoff and why it would work again later after the condensation drained slowly past the clog. There is one possible part we may need to replace, we'll see if this takes care of things first though.

Saturday I did grocery shopping first thing - without a list. Not the best idea but I simply hadn't made time to meal plan and make a list. A bit after 11am we loaded up the family and went to visit our dear friends. It was so sweet to get together again after 5+months. They had baby # 6 very prematurely 5 months ago and were in the NICU and then pretty much in isolation at home during flu season. We've missed our get togethers!

Sunday is here already. I really had planned to publish this post earlier but just never did. And I don't have time to add pictures (not sure I took any either!). I have about two minutes until I need to get little boys to bed, so here's todays highlight:

Rebekah was blessed at church!

It was a good day.

One thing I have noticed this week is I'm tired, even though I'm getting good sleep. I'm starting to feel like I need a nap again in the afternoons or early evenings. That could be my hypothyroidism (medication changes are probably needed, bloodwork happens in 3 more weeks). It could be that between birth and postpartum bleeding I'm severely anemic again (bloodwork for that happens in 1 week). For now I'm just trying to protect my energy for the things that matter most, nap when I need it, and keep moving forward.

Here's to another week recorded!