Sunday, October 20, 2013

Weekly Wrap-Up - Oct 20

This has been our "quietest" week in quite awhile. I like quiet . . . of course actual quiet NEVER happens,  but it was kind of nice to have a week when we weren't running 5,000 extra directions :)

We HAVE been busy though. The "review year" for the Schoolhouse Review Crew is wrapping up (if you're a blogger, and interested in applying for 2014, there's information about that here), and we're finishing off the year with a bang! So LOTS of review products in progress, plus, after a full year of awesome products, we're trying to keep up with some of the products we've already reviewed (for instance, this month is the last month of our membership to Time4Learning, and Ashlyn LOVES it, so she tries to make time for it every day while we still have it), so we've been busy :)

One thing Ashlyn and Lexie are reviewing is a doll clothes sewing course, and I'd assumed that my (really "basic", 10 yr old, sewing machine would be sufficient for the review, and then if they were really into sewing, we'd consider getting a better machine for them (and me) for Hanukkah. BUT when I pulled it out to set up, I discovered the power cord wasn't with it. And since I haven't used it since we moved, that means the power cord could be in any one of about 100 boxes that haven't been unpacked. So we decided to go with an EARLY Hanukkah present and go ahead and order a new sewing machine (affiliate link). The girls are impatiently waiting for it to arrive!

Meanwhile, we've been immersed in science!  As much as I'm not a "textbook" person, this textbook is A-MAZE-ING!!!! It's made for a messy, but fun week!

After missing a couple music lessons during our trip, the girls were thrilled to get back to their music, and Miss Pat confirmed that their time away didn't slow them down much.

That afternoon we headed to the church. Our new Sabbath School curriculum requires small changes to the scenery most weeks, so we stopped by to make those changes.

Friday afternoon I needed to get groceries, and stop by the library. Rodney was home, so I gave all 3 girls the choice to come with me or stay home. Little Bit said she wanted to come with me (not surprising), and the big girls opted to stay home. As we were getting in the car, Little Bit was struggling with not wanting to be away from her sisters OR me. Finally, Rodney pointed out that she'd have me all to herself "like a date". Since she's old enough now to know that her sisters go on "dates" (when they do their chores enough to "earn" a date, which hasn't been much lately, sigh . . . ), and she's mentioned wanting to have her own dates (one of many things on my to-do list is coming up with a chore chart for her that will let her earn her own dates), so she lit up at that idea and happily came with me. As we were driving to town, she pondered on it some more and told me that this wasn't like Sissies' dates, because they usually get to go eat somewhere, and we were just going to the store. I didn't say anything, except to commiserate but then after we left the library, instead of going straight to the grocery store, I stopped at Chik-fil-a, and we went in and had ice cream for our "date" she was SOOOO thrilled with it, it was $2.50 very well spent!!! :)

With the cooling weather, this week was our first "winter" Shabbat on Friday night.  In the summer, Friday nights are for lighting a fire in the fire pit and having roasted hot dogs and corn on the cob and marshmallows. Now that it's cold(ish), we're back to setting the table with our special Shabbat bowls, and lighting candles and having soup. As much as we LOVE the summer tradition, it was nice to get back to this tradition too. When I asked each of the children what their favorite part of the past week was, Little Bit answered "having Shabbat!!"  :)

Sabbath for Sabbath School, I'd asked Ashlyn to play the part of "Peter" and tell the story of his vision about the unclean animals. She went above and beyond and actually memorized the story instead of just reading it like I would have. She did great! Lexie told our mission story. And the little ones are seeming to really like our new curriculum, so it seems to be a good fit all around.



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