Weekly Report: How fast can you go?

Last week seemed incredibly long and yet, when I stop to collect my thoughts and write this post, it seems like it flew by. It was busy and eventful and of course now I'm pretty tired and don't really feel like writing so this will be a condensed report.

Let's see...I didn't write a report last weekend because Jeremy was gone to NY city. It's no fun being a single mom. I really respect the women who do it and are successful at it. The good news is, Jeremy's project did well at the show!! We're really excited about that.

We finished "Little Britches," which was an excellent book and is now one of our favorites.


Here are some pictures of all the painting that was done. I just painted two walls in the living room. I wish I had "before" pictures. You are just going to have to take my word for what an improvement it is.


We went to the library.


We did school work too this week. Math, reading, writing, green hour, and piano.


We were very excited to have Grandma and Grandpa (Jeremy's parents) AND Mummu and Pappa (my parents) visit us this weekend! (I'm waiting for grandma to send me some pictures they took on Sunday of everyone. I can't believe we didn't get one.) We celebrated birthdays (Sam's, Anna's--next week, my brother's, and Grandpa's) and my other brother's graduation, AND Mother's Day. We got another big cake from Costco.


I'm a den leader and this week we had our pinewood derby. It was very fun! Jeremy and Sam made cars and raced them. Sam's is on the far left (and was very fast) and Jeremy's is right next to it. All the boys did a great job on their cars!



We had a very nice Mother's day. It was so wonderful to have both my mom and Jeremy's mom here. I love and respect them so much.

Unfortunately, we had a touch of the stomach flu. Sam was pretty sick on Sunday. My dad was wonderful and stayed with him while we went to church. He even cleaned my chairs! Sam felt much better today, but...Claire is now sick. And so it goes...

Motherhood is just not glamorous AT ALL. This was my thought as I cleaned up the vomit all over my bedroom today. But who wants glamor? I mean, really. At the end of the day, my children's happiness is infinitely more satisfying than any prestige the world could give me. I'm sure of it and I would not have it any other way. And now if you'll excuse me, I need to go chant this a few more times in a meditative state.

Scripture Study: Through Nephi 4
It's been nice to start back at the beginning. This time, I'm letting Sam and Elise do most of the reading.

I think it is incredibly significant that when Lehi decided to take his family into the wilderness, Nephi prayed to know that what his father was doing was right.

When Lehi asks Nephi and his brothers to go back to Jerusalem, Nephi has faith that the Lord will provide a way for them to get the plates. Did the Lord hand them over the first time they ask Laban? No. And not the second time either. Did Nephi's faith waiver? No. Then his faith was put to the ultimate test. The Lord asked him to kill Laban. Why? I wonder why the Lord doesn't just give him a heart attack. Why does Nephi have to kill him? Is it a test of his faith? His Abrahamic sacrifice? I think so. Nephi trusts the Lord and is obedient because, "it is better that one man should perish than a whole nation dwindle in unbelief." But the key is, Nephi was obedient, and his faith never wavered.

Weekly Report: And the winner is....

Every one! (No, I have not been watching the Academy Awards but I've been thinking about them) We had a pretty good week this week. Busy, again. But good. The highlight of the week was attending the Blue and Gold banquet and having everything go smoothly. (Thanks to all the help from everyone) Sam even made a cake, pretty much all by himself. We were excited that Sam got his Wolf badge.

Some other highlights include:

Hair cuts! I took Sam to get his haircut and while we were waiting, Elise announced that she would also like to have her hair cut. I asked her if she was sure and she said she was, so she went to the barber's chair too. I've always thought she look cute with a bob. She loves it. Of course when we got home Claire said, "Mom, I want my hair to be like Elise's." Claire's hair is already short-ish. So, I just trimmed the back a little. She and Elise were so funny! They pranced around saying, "We are twins because we have the same hair!" The shared the same chair at dinner and Elise let Claire sleep in her bed, all because they have the same hair. (It's not really the same--but who am I to ruin a good thing)

Primary Activity! Sam, Elise and Claire all had fun at the Primary Activity on Saturday. Claire was so excited to be able to finally go. Jeremy and I went for a walk with Anna while they were gone and reminisced about the time we just had one child. It was nice.

Rain! My kids and I played out in the rain for about an hour on Friday. It was glorious.

Jogging! I finally went jogging again this week. Just a few times, mind you, but it is a start. I'm really looking forward to making this a daily habit. It just feels so good to sweat! I sleep better, eat better and generally feel so much better if I can exercise.

Movie! We all went to the dollar theater last night to see "Enchanted". We all thought it was a pretty good movie. We especially liked the scene "How does she know" in the park. Anna was great! She sort-of slept through most of the movie. Even Sam admitted to liking it, although, he was embarrassed by a few things. It was the first time we have ever gone all together to the movies and I say, it was a success.


Rome! We have really enjoyed reading and learning about the rise of Rome this week. Just so fascinating. Sam is reading everything we have on Rome. Elise thinks it would be cool to be raised by wolves, but not cool to be a gladiator.

Scripture Study: Mormon 1-5
"But, behold, the judgements of God will overtake the wicked; and it is by the wicked that the wicked are punished;" (Mormon 4:5)

This scripture really stood out to me this week. It must have been so hard for Mormon to write about these things. Painfully heart-breaking. How he must have longed for the time of peace that was recorded just 200 years before. Yet, the remarkable thing is, he stayed. He stayed true and faithful. What an example. I felt impressed to stress this to my children as we read this chapters.

Samuel:

* Saxon 5/4 lesson 61-63 Investigation 6
* Language Arts: Unit 3 lesson 4-5
* Spelling:
* Memorization:."the Arrow and the Song"
* Reading: Stories from Shakespeare, Greek Myths, Roman History, Across the Alley, River Town, Mountain Town, Prarie Town, Pokemon books
* Journal writing:good
* Science: more Bird Watching
* Piano: "Grumpy Old Troll"
* Art: Paper airplane folding
* Composer: Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel
* SOTW: Chapter 27: The Rise of Rome (We still really liked our Usborne book of Ancient History)
* Geography: Italy
* Cub Scouts: Blue and Gold banquet a success!

Elise:

* Saxon 2 lessons 61-64.
* Language Arts: Complete sentences, punctuation
* Spelling: side, tree, birds, eat, fly, away, hangs, how, count, use, poured, tie, string, write, sight
* Reading: Usborne book of Bedtime Stories, Pig's ABC, Across the Alley, Around the World in Eighty Days
* Journal writing: good
* memorization: "The Arrow and the Song"
* Science: bird watching
* SOTW: see above
* Piano: "Fireflies" Elise has moved to the next level book!
* Composer: Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel
* Art:
* 50 States Book: Florida

Claire: Letter T activities. So happy to be a Sunbeam. Some funny Claire-isms:
At Cosco; Me "Where's Claire?" Claire, "Hey look! Here's your sweetie!"

After coming into the kitchen to find Claire mopping up the floor; "Mom, sometimes Sunbeams spill drinks too. It's okay though, because Jesus still loves me. Do you still love me?"

"Mom just pretend that you said I can have candy."

Anna: Got her bangs cut. I wasn't going to do it. But....I just had too. She was taking out her ponies all the time and then her hair would just go right in her eyes. So, that's the way it goes with our girls when they are 1 and 2. Other wise, she is doing well. She is saying 2 and 3 word sentences now. She can pretty much say any word. She can even count to 3! (Okay, don't be too impressed. It's only because I count all the time to get the kids to do things.)

Boo at the Zoo and Laughs at the Patch

This was a very busy day! First we went to the zoo. Let me tell you, it WAS A ZOO! I can not believe how crowded it was. I guess the added incentive of candy made all the difference in the world. We had our own special incentive to go because we were meeting some friends. I'm sad to say that we were late and so missed our appointment with Loretta and her kids. But as we were walking in the crowd of people I spotted her and was so excited that I yelled out her name. Then she yelled and I felt like we were school girls again. Even though it was just a quick catch-up it was SO good to see her and her very sweet girls. I snagged this photo from her site.

I have many, many fond memories of Loretta. We met in Junior High, that most turbulent of times and have stayed in touch all these years. I can not tell you how much it means to me. No matter how long a stretch it is in between meetings I always feel like we can pick up right where we left off. Holy cow! It's seems like yesterday that we were swimming, scheming, singing, dreaming, and TP-ing. We once dressed up for Halloween as a two-headed ghost. Good times... :D

We also had the opportunity to meet new friends today at the zoo. I got to meet one of the friends I made through blogging, Cellista, and her three adorable boys. She is just as wonderful as I thought she would be. It was so fun to talk and I hope we can meet again soon!


After the zoo we hurried home to get ready to go to the pumpkin patch with the cub scouts. Our den only has three boys (including Sam). One of the boys was sick today, so it was just 2 scouts, 2 leaders, and 6 tag-a-longs. Very fun!

We tried to clean and straighten things up a bit today too. I gotta tell you, I'm beat!

Heber Creeper

The station was bustling. The sky was gray and the air was crisp, cold and fresh. My traveling party consisted of four cub scouts, two tag-along sisters and one other mother. We blew on to the train just as the station master called, "All aboard!" It was easy to slip back in time for a little while and enjoy the majesty of riding through a golden country side ablaze with the colors of autumn behind a mighty iron horse.

Cub Scout Day Camp

Boys are different than girls. Novel? no. But sometimes this is more apparent than others.
I am filling in for the den leader in our ward and was able to go with Sam and his friend, Vlad to Camp Jeremiah Johnson on Friday. My VERY GOOD friend, Sunny came too (as we were required to have 2 leaders). It's just amazing to see how much Samuel has grown. It's thrilling to see him make good choices and to hear his thoughts on certain issues. It was also good to see so many other boys his age and to realize that, well it's normal for 8 year old boys to laugh at funny sounds and make funny sounds. They goof around and think snakes and frogs are cool. They like to wrestle and be loud in the wild. It was just so fun to see all these boys having a good time and I think they even learn some things too!
Sam is surrounded by his mother and three sisters....sometimes we forget that boys will be boys. :)