June 7th to the End of June

Rebekah's mad face is ridiculously cute.

 Monday kicked off with four dental cleanings and three eye check ups. Definitely a busy morning and afternoon! We also cleaned out refrigerators, Daniel made cinnamon rolls from scratch, and grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner. We also did some review of Church History as a family.

Tuesday the kids were excited for a big update to Minecraft to finally release. They play Minecraft on Kindles that only have access to each other's local games. All I've heard this afternoon are things about axolotls, caves, ore, and so on. Emma baked magic cookie bars for snack, and dinner was meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn, and strawberries. 

I spent some time looking for chapter books set in different countries to go with our world geography studies next school year. I have tons of picture book lists, but it is harder to find chapter books as often the setting isn't obvious from the title or book blurb. I am making slow progress.

Wednesday we met with our builder about the bathroom remodel we want to do. It looks like things will start moving forward in the next few weeks. I'm nervous about it, because it is our only bathroom with a shower (we do not have a tub anywhere), but we'll make it work while things are done. 

Two fun packages arrived today. First up, we made an Usborne books order for some summer reading options. We got:

• On the Moon
• Look & Find Puzzles: Under the Sea
• Look & Find Puzzles: At the Zoo
• Look & Find Puzzles: In the Forest
• Look & Find Puzzles: Dinosaurs
• 100 Paper Spaceships to Fold and Fly

As well as a stack of Read with Usborne readers on varying levels:

• Cinderella 
• Beauty and the Beast
• The Story of Pegasus
• Black Beauty
• Alice in Wonderland
• Stories of Thor
• The Wind in the Willows
• The Secret Garden

And we picked up the entire Impossible Quest series by Kate Forsyth:

• Escape from Wolfhaven Castle
• Wolves of the Witchwood
• The Beast of Blackmoor Bog
• The Drowned Kingdom
• Battle of the Heroes

The second package is something we decided to do just for the summer. We got each of the kids a 3 month subscription to KiwiCo. They got 6 month subscriptions for Christmas two years ago and enjoyed them a lot. This time around Rebekah gets Koala Crate, Tobias, Samuel, and Mason get Kiwi Crate, and Caleb, Oliver, Daniel, Emma, and Joseph are doing Tinker Crate. Today their first kit of the summer arrived. Rebekah has Glowing Nature, the younger three boys have Treasure Hunt, and the older five kids got Air Cannons. 

Tobias built a train with magnet tiles.

Friday Mason and I spent hours at Children's Hospital for his every six month team check ups at Myelo Clinic. Today he had an MRI, x-rays, ultrasound, and saw 8 or 9 specialists, plus had bloodwork done. It was a very full day with not too many surprises, just the way we like it. 

While we were gone, Grandma hung out at home with the rest of the kids and Daddy worked. In the evening it was my older 3 boys' turn for hosting a smores night at our house for friends. 

Saturday I spent the morning in Seminary training for teaching this fall. We celebrated Makayla's birthday in a low key way, with a trip to the swimming pool and Dairy Queen. 

Sunday we went to church and had a quiet day as a family.

Monday was busy. We had one dermatology appointment, two dental cleanings, six eye exams, and the construction crew arrived to begin our bathroom remodel. While we replaced the tub with a shower last spring, we knew there was a lot we still wanted to do in that bathroom. Flooring, pipes, moving the sink, etc. It is started. Today was demolition and seeing just what was under the floor in this old house. 

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are a bit of a blur. It's crazy having other people in your house all day long, even when they're super nice. We have had some days without a shower and with only one toilet in the house for the 12 of us. Makayla's car also went crazy, so there was car juggling, a mechanic trip, and then the car decided to behave perfectly while there (of course!). We had more medical appointments, one Tuesday and one Wednesday, so I had to have family come babysit my kids and house while the construction crew is here. We've also been prepping three teen boys for a caving/camping trip this Friday/Saturday, one teen girl for 3 days of camp next week, and the usual chaos of large family life. Lots of other things have happened, and I've felt more stressed out than I have in a long time. It is not fun at all. 

We did play lots of games. There was
even a chess tournament.

One good note is that I finally got the okay from my orthopedic surgeon to go back to normal life with my broken foot. It has healed pretty well, with a small chunk along one side of the break that has not healed, and may not fill in for a year or more, but most of the bone is solid again. Now I have to retrain my foot muscles, because it has been 4 1/2 months without doing much of anything on my foot. Everything is sore and achy after a couple of hours of doing mom-life without shoes on, so then I put my shoes back on to help support those muscles and do less the rest of the day. I'll work back up to normal.

My three oldest boys had a rainy caving trip. For two, it was their first campout ever. The weather impacted what caving they could do, some had middle of the night tent moving due to flooding, there was yelling at boys by name to go to sleep, and then leaders required 70 push ups per boy after cleaning up the camp site the next day when it wasn't cleaned perfectly. This did not go over well with my boys, and adding it on top of the rest of the two frustrating days has probably ensured that at least one of my boys will never go on a campout again. He came home miserable and upset. I wish it had been a better overall experience for them, but we talked about how you never know what will come up on camping trips and that there are always things we can learn from what we go through.

On the next Monday (June 21st) we finished up dental cleanings with four more appointments. The bathroom remodel ended up taking 8 days, finishing Tuesday, with inconsistent shower availability. It ended up costing four thousand dollars more than the original bid, but we fully expected that because we live in an old house where you never know what you will find when you open up a wall or the floor. It is finished and we love it. 

Mason and a water monitor.

Emma's camp went well, 3 days of activities, home every night in between. So there's that. The weekend was hot and quietly spent at home, with a few kids nursing small summer colds. On Monday (June 28th) Mason and I were at Children's Hospital early for some tests, that finished by 8:05am. His next appointment was scheduled for 2.5 hours later at an office about 20 minutes away. We decided to take advantage of the down time and popped over to the zoo for an hour-ish visit. We saw several animals, including his favorite, the red pandas. 

We finished out June with two more kids getting evaluated for braces. Now we're preparing for the weekend by folding and rubber banding a basket full of white shirts for our family's summer tie dye day. It is July already, which means we have one month until we're back to homeschooling. We usually start lessons back up around the first week of August, making it possible for us to have plenty of break weeks through the school year and finishing up in early to mid-May when spring fever hits.