2018-2019 Week 3: Random and Routine

Sunday evening I reminded the kids that I would be gone part of our school day with Mason for his pre-op appointment, so they needed to do school right after breakfast or in the afternoon if they needed me. Most of the kids chose to schedule their Monday as a lighter day of work and we were able to get through their lessons that needed taught by 10am (other things, like independent reading or handwriting could be done while I was gone). Mason and I got back from his appointment 3 hours later.

For Family Home Evening we did a bowling and junk food dinner trip. Bowling happened before dinner time and when we finished we picked up a bunch of French fries at Wendys along with their 50 cent frostys. Yes, dinner was fries and ice cream.

Tuesday and Wednesday were a continuing of the routines. Each morning kids pulled out their self-designed schedules and got to work. I sat at the table or in the living room available to help as needed with lessons. There were also piano lessons on Tuesday and we have one new student - mommy. I took piano lessons for about 6 months in my late teens and then life happened and I never got back to it. I decided I can surely fit 30 minutes of piano practice into my day around mom and wife life. It may be early, late, or broken into 10 minute segments, but it will happen. My goal is to be able to play from our church hymn book. I have a long way to go!

Dinner Wednesday evening was beef stew in the crock pot. As soon as dinner was finished I gathered up books and made a mommy-only library trip. I posted about it HERE. Makayla and Emma helped host a family history and indexing event at the church while Joseph went fishing with the Scouts.

Thursday felt like one eternal round of reading for me, homeschool, chores, piano, reading to kids, cooking, and more reading. In the evening Daddy and I spent 40 minutes with the three youngest boys going through clothing bins from the attic to find what fits and what we need to buy for fall and winter. It was a good regular day.

Friday I was exhausted before the day began. Rebekah is following the pattern most of my kids have followed - when she is going through a large physical developmental leap she stops sleeping well. She woke up three separate times last night (11:30pm, 1:30am, and 5:30am) and Tobias added a random wake up in there at 4:30am so I was up a lot. Thankfully the kids were motivated to get school done because the cousins and aunt (my sister) were coming over in the afternoon. Thank goodness!

We had a fun visit with the cousins and then it was dinner, veggie pick up, library book pick up, and crashing hard for mommy. I managed to get a summer head cold.

Saturday morning I finished going through clothing in the attic to check what we still need for each child for this fall/winter. Later that morning Makayla and Emma were my helpers on the fall clothing shopping trip for the family. Thank goodness for the girls, because I still wasn't feeling great and they did a lot of the shopping. We hit several stores including Once Upon a Child, Plato's Closet, and Target. We found almost all the clothing needs for 10 children, stayed under budget (spent $395), and will finish filling in the last few items later this month. Then we will look at who needs new shoes...

 It is Sunday morning as I get ready to hit publish and I'm still feeling really sick, so I'm sending daddy off to church with the older 8 kids and I will keep the 2 year old and 6 month old home with me.