Family Schooling Summary

More reading, work on clocks, addition and subtraction puzzles, history lessons on medieval knights, AND parties with friends!

Our old friends from Joy School came up for the day on Saturday and we had a fun time playing with them and picnicking.

We also had international night at the church.  The kiddos and I all dressed up in costumes from various parts of the world.  We had a display on Russia and Honduras.  I also made a big pot of Borscht and a Farr Breton. 

There were a lot of African foods and countries represented. The kiddos liked the beignets and fried plantains the best (of course).  I had some nice foo foo and ndole.  It is great to live in a place where they get to meet with so much cultural diversity.

I was proud of them for going up on stage a couple times.  Once to show their costumes off; and then again later to participate in the African Tribal dance lesson.

Sew Special: More Practice with the Serger and a sweater

Big brother M is in this phase of changing his clothes any time he gets a little speck of water or food on them.  That includes his underwear. So... he has been running out of unders quicker than I can/am willing to wash them.  Aunt H gave me some leftover knit fabrics and several knit patterns awhile ago and I showed the fabric choices to M.  These are the two that he chose -- trucks and puppies, that is so like him.  I made 10 pairs in little bits of time here and there over 3 days.  The Serger is very good at assembly line style sewing.  After the first test pair, I cut out 9 more pairs and zoomed on through. 

The nice, albeit time consuming, part of this underwear is that it is fully lined. I chose the lining fabric. It is a thinner knit with colorful pug dogs. I decided the lining was probably a good idea as it is a bit more absorbent and that way these will be useful when I start potty training little brother S.

This little cardigan was supposed to be a "Baby Sophisticate" for a little boy.  I held the yarn double for extra thickness. That was great on the stockinette stitch part, but made the garter stitch collar way to big. It was my first time making this pattern and a relatively quick knit.  I think it is now more of a cowl neck girl sweater and put in the baby clothes box for the new baby sister. 

Family Schooling Summary

Our buddy from Utah was a very generous visitor and also left us this Bananagrams game that she found at the local thrift store.  It has been a fun new way to practice making words. One day big sister A's goal was to use all the letters. We got pretty close, but even I could not make anything of the last "OUO"  that was left. We continue to practice handwriting and have been advancing through the clock workbook that I mentioned last week. Big sister A finished her swim lessons and was promoted to the next level! She loves diving for things under the water. We have done 4 of 6 Music Together lessons now. I hear the kiddos singing a lot more to themselves and unconsciously practicing the musical rhythms that they are learning in the class. It is not to surprising really since the songs get stuck in my head too!

The kiddos were also invited to a cool "Wild Kratts" themed birthday party this weekend. The mom made these creative t-shirts that they can stick their various animal powers transformer tags on.  They had a great time their friends.

 Baby S mostly liked the balls at the birthday party. He is not shy. He just got right down and played with the big kids.

First Photos of Baby #4

Here we are at 18 weeks.  The doctor said that everything looks good and that we are having a GIRL! Big Sister A is super excited. She has been praying for about 6 months now that she would have a sister. 

Sew Special: Lots of Completed Projects this week

My mom is going on a mission and kindly agreed to lend me her serger for the 18 months that she will be away. Thanks Mom!  And so I have been slowly figuring out how to use it. My first project was to serge the edges of this picnic table cloth and napkins that our buddies from Utah gave big sister A while they were visiting us a couple weeks ago.

Next, I helped Aunt Sunshine finish her skirt project. It came out pretty cute. Yay for newly skilled sister Sunshine!

My Buddy from Utah also left me with the beginnings of two new Amy Butler Birdie Sling purses.  I have made so many of these now, I think these 2 bring the total to 7.  This pattern is great and we have certainly gotten our monies worth with all the uses of it.  It was perfect timing because my old one was looking really raggedy and worn out after 2 years of hard use. Here are the 2 new models:

These bags have 2 great big pockets. I added a 3rd pocket, made from one of the old dress shirts that I was recycling for the linings of the bag.

Garden Progress: Ready for Eggs

The garden boxes are coming together nicely.  Daddy and big sister A spent some time digging post holes and burying them deep in the ground. Here is a demonstration from big sis on how deep the holes are:

And here are the newly transplanted black raspberry bushes.  I should have also taken a picture of my arms, which despite wearing long sleeves, are all scratched up from battling these bushes.

In other news, it's August! time for these birdies to start laying eggs. We put the wooden eggs in and opened the nest box doors to show the girls that we are ready when they are. 

Family Schooling Summary

 Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Aunt Sunshine this week.  She flew back to Utah to get ready for the start of another year of teaching 4th grade.  Big sister A started another round of swimming lessons this week. It is an intensive class and includes eight 35 minute lessons over 2 weeks. She loves the class and has learned a ton.

 

 Baby S is keeping us entertained as usual. Boxes from the farm make great ice skates.

We finished the last sets of work books that we were doing and big sister A has got her sight words down.  So we moved on to a couple new workbooks this week.  

Brother M always wants to practice doing his school work too.  He has been working on this letter workbook. It is great because he does the practice and then their is a sticker for each letter that he finishes practicing.