Peek at our Week {May 17}

Happy Mother’s Day!

I’ve been a mommy for 9 years now.  What a lucky mom I am too!



I was spoiled with a lovely stack of home-made cards and gifts, and had the day off from dishes, cooking, and any kind of work.  It.was.AWESOME!  My family really honored me .





Isaac even bought me a bag of truffles with his own money.  Melt my heart….







Then the kids put on a talent show for me.  You could describe it as musical bliss.  Or noise, depending on your tastes.  Either way, I loved it!



Our yard is greening up nicely. 

And to the kids’ delight, full of dandelions.

We know better though.  It looks like we may be calling TruGreen because the little yellow flowers are spreading faster than we can spray them.








The girls are loving playing with them!  I had to ask them to stop bringing me so many bouquets because I ran out of vases.

 


WARNING:  The image below contains some questionable material.

No, seriously, Try not to laugh at this picture.

I dare you.

Double-dog-dare you.

Go on now….




This is Ninja Isaac.

Try not to be alarmed.  Or worried.  This is perfectly normal around here. 

What???

It’s not normal?

Oh.  Then maybe you should go ahead and laugh.  Saul and I could barely hold in the chuckles.  Which turned into full blown hysterics.  Yea.  We are those parents. 

Shame shame….





Aside from designing warrior attire, Isaac has been busy sketching and cartooning.  I am loving watching this budding artist of mine!  I’m trying to convince him to keep all of his drawings in his sketch book, rather than all over the house.




Nate had a very rough week. 

Honestly, I kind of expected it due to all of the changes.  He really doesn’t handle change very well, and I am trying to learn how to best prepare him for seasons of change, because he is bound to have a whole lifetime full of them.  They are a natural part of life.



Hopefully after a week or two of the new schedule, he will be back to normal. I keep having to reassure him through the day of what’s coming next, and what times of the day are set aside for free time.  He wakes up frustrated, because he feels like he doesn’t know what to expect.  Several days this week, after school work was completed, I set out a big stack of activities and toys for the kids to play with and that seemed to help him a little.  At least in keeping out of trouble.







Elaina preferred to do school alone this week.  I sat close by in case she wanted or needed help, but mostly she wanted space to herself.












She chose a lot of hands-on math activities, did some independent reading, and a few writing pages.  This summer is going to be all about flexibility with Elaina, and giving her choices whenever possible to keep her interested and (hopefully) make reading more appealing to her.

I hope it works.

She is very bright and when she is motivated, does very well.  I think with her it’s all about balancing choices so that she feels she has some control.  I can’t imagine where she gets her need to control from….





Olivia stayed very busy this week too, and was very interested in working with me on lots of different activities.  When she wasn’t sitting with me doing “school”, she was playing alone, or outside with Elaina looking for rollie pollies. 













The older kids are learning about Bears in science, so I got out the Brown Bear, Brown Bear stuff for her and she LOVED it!  I am so impressed with her learning growth right now.  Her ability to concentrate on an activity, follow directions, and her growing interest and natural curiosity has me thinking she will be ready to start preschool this fall. 

Wow!  My little girl is growing up!







Overall, we had much better eats this week.


I’ve been shopping for a full two weeks of menus at a time and I like that I’m not at the store so often.  Lately, it’s been kind of a drag to get to the store.

I tried the vinegar soak for the berries I bought this week to see if they would last longer.  I’m not sure why I bothered though, because we eat through them so fast they hardly have time to go bad.  Isaac was convinced the strawberries tasted like vinegar after I told him what I’d done.  The kid is crazy though, because you can’t taste it at all .








I made Butter Burgers, Garden Linguini, and Burrito Bowls.





And I was in the mood for Cinnamon Rolls so I made a huge pan for us and one for our wonderful neighbors.









I’ve got girls night on Friday and a busy weekend of closet sorting planned.  Time for our twice annual de-stuff of our stuff. 

What are your plans for the weekend?