Family Life as July Ends and August Begins

It's been a couple weeks since my last update. When I left off we were waiting for the insurance adjuster and the roofers to come check out our new leak. In preparation for that I nudged my husband and kids to come up to the attic with me and declutter. We have a semi-finished attic that we can use for storage but isn't finished enough for living space. It had become a bit of a tornado zone with paths to navigate between boxes, bins, and stuff. A couple of hours work and we cleared out a lot of the mess, labeled some boxes and bins that had escaped labeling, and organized it into areas with homeschool materials, toys and games, stored clothing, coats, and linens, medical equipment, Christmas décor/wrapping paper, etc. It makes me happy every time I go up there to get something. In the end the roof issue was not covered by insurance, so we paid the roofer to fix things. Drat our old slate roof.

On Friday last week homeschool friends came over for book club. Our book was Swallows and Amazons and it was not a hit for any of the families. That happens occasionally. Everyone had a lot of fun just being together. Our next book is Island of the Blue Dolphins.

On Saturday I got to take Makayla and Emma to a special showing of Newsies on Broadway in theaters. We drove about an hour away, visited a Barnes and Noble, then went to the theater. It was so fun. Newsies is one of our favorites! Meanwhile Daddy and the 7 boys enjoyed a game day at home, and Rebekah just did what 5 month olds do, smile, play, and sleep.

Sunday Joseph gave a talk in church. In our church the first Sunday meeting is called Sacrament Meeting. Everyone (children, youth, and adults) attend this together. Speakers each week are from the congregation, as invited previously by the Bishopric. Joseph was asked a few weeks ago to speak and prepared around the theme of becoming more like the Savior. He also taught his youth class a few weeks ago. And a few weeks prior to that Emma, Makayla, and I each spoke on different days in Sacrament meeting, Emma helped teach her youth class, and Oliver spoke in Primary (children ages 3-11). It's just a normal part of church and I love it. I think the time studying and preparing to share a message with others is always a great way to strengthen our own testimonies.

Sunday afternoon I started preparing dinner. It took several hours because I was trying a new recipe that I have taken 18 years to get brave enough to attempt. The recipe is lumpia, a fillipino dish a relative brought with her when she married into my extended family. Think egg rolls without egg. There is a lot of dicing and cooking filling and wrapping rolls before deep frying them a few at a time in oil. It was delicious and hopefully I will get quicker with practice and kid helpers.

Partway through frying everything.

Ended up with 60 lumpia.

We watched a movie on Vudu with the kids that had and interesting sci-fi spin but made some of us cry at the ending. It is in the Children and Family section of movies that are free with ads, and is called Passage to Zarahemla. Basically it asks the question - what if a time bubble began growing in one area after an earthquake and people could go in or come out of it from the history of that area. We decided to try it because it combines current times with people in ancient America described in the Book of Mormon. I would definitely preview it before watching with kids under age 12 as it is a bit scary in parts.

Monday this week we are 2 weeks out from our first day back to school. I pulled all sorts of science materials from various boxes and bins as I gathered experiment supplies for chemistry for Makayla and Physical Science for Joseph and Emma. I made a trip to the store for a few items. I prepared activity pages for the last half of All About Reading level 3. There was fresh salsa making and cooking and cleaning and more cooking and more cleaning. Family Home Evening was about prophets.

It was a rainy Tuesday. Kids did some math or reading practice this morning to keep skills sharp before play time. Most of the kids got out Legos, a few played with wooden trains, one wrote 3 1/2 pages of a theory related to an upcoming movie, and two had a Pokémon card battle. Over morning snack we started listening to Island of the Blue Dolphins. In the early afternoon piano lessons happened. Shortly after that was finished Caleb came to me with painter's tape in hand asking for a place to play with matchbox cars. I handed him one roll of painters tape and I used a second and we made this maze of parking and roads on the floor.

Wednesday I created some planner pages for me, weekly school checklists for various kids, and just about anything I could get done on the computer. Makayla got a new job, which she starts next week. The older kids had the traditional color war the youth group does before back to school and came home wet and colorful.

Thursday was physical therapy day for Mason. He's got just a few more visits before we take a break for surgery. It was really a quiet day around the house. We refilled our read aloud bin, which was the highlight for the kids. It is a simple ice cream bucket we've used for a couple years now. Inside we put all sorts of candy. When we read aloud as a family the kids who choose to sit down and listen get a piece of candy at the end of a chapter or two.

Thursday was also National Ice Cream Sandwich Day, so I'm sure you can guess what we ate after dinner. Yum!

Friday I spent a half hour downloading and organizing art files while listening to the Book of Mormon. We have a Deep Space Sparkle membership and it was time to download some new art lesson bundles. I've got them all sorted out and need to decide how often we'll have art class. I'm leaning toward having Fine Art Fridays a few times a month where the kids do math and then the rest of the morning is for art projects and music.

It is already Friday afternoon. We've listened to Island of the Blue Dolphins and talked about it. The kids are intrigued by Karana's plight being alone on the island. They have all sorts of suggestions for what they would do. Knowing the story is based on a true story adds to the interest. We will learn about the real life events after we finish the book.

That's all for this week. Rebekah is awake and ready for some play time! Happy August everyone!