Mudpies and Make-up: Peek At Our Week {Little Miss Bicycle}

It’s snowing again today.

I love it! So do the kids.

Our yard is fairly shaded by a couple of huge trees, so the snow has really stuck around this winter. Just when it starts melting, we get a nice fresh coating of fluffy white powder. By morning we should have several more inches to romp and play in. What a great way to spend a winter weekend day, wrapped in blankets by a fire, watching movies, and playing games.

We’ve had a nice week together, one of those family building, quality time kind of weeks. We are getting ready to transition in a few areas of life and while that typically is a bit stressful, we are taking it in stride. God is bringing our family through a tough season of sifting and growth, and we are finally seeing the fruit that He has promised.

We are in a “sandwich week”, between two work weekends for Saul. We usually have our weekend as a family on whatever days off that Saul has. We try to pack in fun with R & R, as long as I don’t have an extra long honey-do list for him! He was off the hook this week, and we had two wonderful days.

My awesome brother and sister in-law gave us a gift card for Christmas, and we finally got around to using it on Tuesday. It is a real treat for our family to go out to eat. I always laugh at Isaac’s choices when we go out, because he usually orders a strange combination of food, like Pizza and mashed potatoes, or spaghetti and French fries…

We are about a third of the way through Proverbs now, and both of the boys are learning a lot. We also finally finished our Abraham study this week. To surprise the kids, I printed off a trivia game of the life of Abraham. We all laughed when the first question Isaac answered was, “How do you spell Isaac?” They both did pretty well, and retained a lot of what we learned.

I’ve been burning the midnight oil, trying to get our Old Testament study put together. I’ve been making a ton of printables including memory verse cards, easy readers, and worksheets. All of the kids are so excited! I am too!

Nate had a great week. He is cruising right along in triple digit subtraction and understands the concept of borrowing. I actually think he is ready for his next math book now, so I hope to be able to buy it for him this week.

The highlight of the boys’ week was getting their Lego magazine. It’s funny how excited they get over it. I’m so glad that I ordered them each their own subscription.

My poor girl was sick all week.

Actually, both of the girls were sick with a cold.

Lots of snuggles on the sofa, afternoon naps, and the bare minimum of school.

She did read a new book each day this week, to both Saul and I at separate times. We are using BOB Books, Nora Gaydos books, and a few other emergent readers from the library. I even caught her reading to Olivia a few times! Yea Elaina!

She is working along with the boys on handwriting skills. They have all made huge improvements these past two weeks, and I’m so relieved that the extra time and attention is paying off. It has been a bit of a drain on me, adding in the extra school work, but I think it is super important.

Olivia was Little Miss Bicycle this week.

I’m not kidding when I say she spends all of her time peddling her way around the house. She has even learned how to spin her bike out in a 180 tail whip! Pretty stinkin’ adorable if you ask me! She’ll be ready for our summer bike rides in no time!

This week, since she was sick, she carried around her own private stash of tissue and snacks in her back bucket, and a water bottle in the front basket.

It’s kind of a problem during school hours, because she races around the table so fast it is actually quite noisy. Thursday I had to put her bike up so the boys could finish their Bible lesson, and she spent the following 30 minutes bawling her eyes out in her bedroom. She was completely possessive after I returned it, and kept it by her side the rest of the day. What a funny girl.

Being sick didn’t stop her style this week, as she still had close to a million outfit changes.

Okay, maybe not a million, but all the extra laundry sure felt like it.

Though we did a lot of cuddling and pampering this week, painting her nails is a regular event around here. She gets quite upset when the polish comes off, and touch-ups are requested often.

For some reason, she really enjoys flashcards.

They have been really helpful with her speech and vocabulary, so we continue to do them. Even though the other kids would have groaned to be made to do them, she asks to sit with me and will happily go through a large stack of cards, and does her best to recall/repeat each word.

We are still trying our best to eat better around here.

Since we are at the end of a pay period, we had to use up what we had, and that included a lot of baking. I made a couple loaves of bread, biscuits, homemade cinnamon rolls, and a yummy chocolate layer cake that Olivia “helped” me make.