what a wonderful week

 It is easy to get to the end of a week and feel like "we made it".  I am trying to be intentional to look back at the weeks that are making up our lives and see all the ways that God continues to be faithful in our family, to see the things that went well, to relive it in a way, savoring and appreciating what we have in this season!

hand me down silver glitter jellies!    Cora LOVES them both because of how they look and that they make little "clicking" sounds on hard surfaces as she walks.  :)  I remember liking that too.  

Sweet friends loaned a princess book to us that Cora is just devouring!

Talking about congruent figures for math -  Lovely quilts that we have been given provided great examples!

For history this year, in addition to many picture books from the library simply "because" and traveling, we are also using Beautiful Feet Books.  We are really enjoying it so far!

We are currently learning about Leif Erikson and we made a Viking dinner!  I simply googled "what did Vikings eat?" and discovered a ton of fascinating information.  They ate meat almost daily - reindeer, fish, bear, pork, beef, mutton and wild chicken.  They ate cabbage, pickled items, cheese, made cornbread . . . Boiled meat stews tended to be the centerpiece of their meals.  So I made a chicken and cabbage stew flavored with three of the spices that they used - coriander, mustard and cumin.  It was really, really good!  

Thankful for my instantpot!

Cora helped me make cornbread and "hardtack" since they were also sailors.  We all really liked the hardtack recipe actually!  

We didn't have a lot of pickled food in the house so we had dill pickles :) and two kinds of cheeses.  

I served the hard tack in a cloth bag - a panier!  From the Latin for bread, pane, this word that we know as a carrier on our bike took on new meaning as a bread carrier!  

First experience with copywork!  I am excited to be beginning this.  I am using my acrylic cookbook holder to make copying out of the book easier.  This week it was one verse from Jeremiah.  

Our Viking dinner

(I'm sure they had polka dot glasses, don't you think?!) 

laying out backpacks and clothes the day before - Cora is very particular about what she wears now!  My days of picking out her clothes are over.  We have made an agreement that everyday I give her two choices and she picks between those. 

Cora at preschool enjoying sand + shaving cream and Mama and Daddy on a lunch date to Fuzzy's!  

on Saturday we biked to a bike carnival and we all enjoyed different games and things!  Cora was ready to compete wearing her favorite dress right now!  

David got a few records, this one for longest distance. 

Cora neatly ringed the cone with the bicycle tire. 

We are thankful for our community and so many things about our life!  

Kelly

ten on ten - August 2017

So funny that I didn't blog all "summer" (it's still summer but my last blogpost was about finishing our math book - hence homeschool year for 2016-2017 and today we began our 2017-2018 homeschooling year!)  

I wasn't planning to start school today.  I have been planning most of the summer and have quite a few things ready but yesterday due to a sewer back up at our house - bleh - we had to be out of the house for a while so I spontaneously took the kids school supply shopping.  

They each chose a spiral notebook, something fun to write with and some kind of adhesive (both ended up choosing glitter glue!) :) 

They were so excited about their new supplies that David asked if we could start homeschool right away so we did!  

This morning there was a scavenger hunt with clues to find their spirals.  I had written a note to each of them and David wrote me back today!  Yay!  I think this is going to be a neat avenue of communication for us in addition to a way of handling assignments, practicing writing as well as a place to cut and paste in things we are learning, etc.  

We have had a TON of rain lately!!!  It is mostly nice but I could also feel my mood lighten when the sun came out for a while this evening and was shining through the window as I was working on dinner.  

I woke up at 5:50 this morning and texted my neighbor who I have been walking with weekly to say that maybe we'd better reschedule since I heard rain and thunder from my cozy bed but after deciding that we would reschedule, both of us ended up texting back and saying "let's do it!"  The thunder had stopped and so had the rain mostly.  

When I got home we ate breakfast and did our Bible story about the 12 spies over breakfast and did a small feast of books, cleared the table, free time, scavenger hunt to find spirals, reading what I wrote and then writing me back with ideas of field trips he wants to take this year.  

Next we did math and it went great today!  One page together, Cora wanted right in there too so we did math together on the abacus.  

Then I sat outside on the swing and prayed and read my Bible while they played an improvised game of soccer inside. 

We ate lunch.  Cora made a fruit salad for us to enjoy! We read more/watched some YouTube and then Mama was done!  We have just finished a big road trip, plus three sets of company and the aforementioned sewer back up + starting school so I finished a novel I started yesterday and took a nap while they had quiet alone time. 

drying out the carpet after our incredible carpet cleaner enzyme treated it for us!  

We did laundry after that and they watched Wild Kratts and then we did some math aloud on the white board all together during dinner and Adrian did one page with him as we were finishing up.  I'm really thankful for how this first day went and am looking forward to the different things that we are going to be adding in this year!  

I was so wiped out and not planning to start today but I realized that this is such a sweet reminder from our God that I don’t do this in my strength!  *I* feel like I have absolutely nothing to give right now but I feel quite confident that all of this is in His Hands!!  I feel excited that He is leading the charge on this journey and that He took our day and will take our entire year and make it what HE wants. 

Happy beginning of school to all of the rest of you reading who are teachers, students and administrators!  

Kelly