Our Family History

In Our Family This Week... The Big news of the week is AUGUST GOT HIS DRIVERS LICENSE! He took his Driving Skills test on Monday morning and once he passed that, we headed over to the DMV for his written test.  That afternoon, he was able to drive himself and Seth to Football practice!  It has been great not having to make multiple trips to the HS each day! Public School started on Tuesday (we met several other Homeschooling families at the pool that day to "kick off" our new school year) followed by some yogurt ice cream :)  The start of public school, meant the start of Seminary for the boys.  They are both in the same class (the last period of the day and then they just stay for football practice).  John flew out with his mom and dad to Michigan for the opening BSU football game against Michigan State (we ended up loosing 17 to 13).  They were also able to go to an NFL game of the Detroit Lions on Thursday. They stayed with Uncle Ron and Aunt Donna in Detroit (they flew back in Saturday afternoon and were home around 4:30pm). Friday I went over to help Stephanie get the outfits ready for their family photo shoot that night. We ended up making a quick trip to Savers and the Idaho Youth Ranch where she was able to find the last 2 things she needed. We met at the Train Depot that night and did the whole shoot on the back side on the tracks. Saturday was a long day of shooting Aimee Konewko's wedding. Stephanie rode with me down to Twin Falls to be my assistant.  We left at 7:30 and got home around 3:30. Then I was back to photograph their reception from 6:30-9:30pm. After the reception, John and I ran over to Brent and Karla's house to visit for a bit. As far as football goes - Seth had his first game on Wednesday and Ben had a scrimmage on Thursday (during the scrimmage, I was able to some super cute photos of the little ones playing!)

In Our Homeschool This Week... SCHOOL'S BACK IN SESSION! We had our little back to school pool party on Tuesday and then on Wednesday we started to ease back in with establishing a routine. We had our "M&M meeting" (aka: Mom and Me Meetings) each morning with the boys where we went over their assignments for the day and their weekly chores/activities. We started in with the Story About Ping (for Five In A Row) and talked about being Honest and taking responsibility for our actions. We also had a science lesson on Buoyancy and then we did an experiment where we predicted whether or not different household items would float or not. We also watched a Bill Nye the Science Guy video on Buoyancy. The girls also did hours and hours of art this week!  Coloring, cutting, drawing and painting with watercolors filled their afternoons. Aubrie wanted me to teach her how to draw a Butterfly and after mutual when I got home, I saw a picture that she had drawn for me of a butterfly and had sounded out how to spell it!  I was really impressed with her skills that I took a picture of her holding the picture.

Experimenting with Buoyancy of household objects

My Favorite Thing This Week...  My awesome birthday gift from Grandma & Grandpa Carlson (the carpet cleaner) arrived on Wednesday!  I could hardly wait to use it and so once all of the kids were in bed, I got to work getting the downstairs carpets cleaned!  I have to say that I was VERY VERY impressed with the results! All of the kids recognized the difference when they woke up in the morning - Ben even asked if "the carpet cleaner guy" had come over.

I'm Grateful For... the Priesthood and that my husband is a worthy Priesthood holder!  My testimony of the power of the Priesthood has grown this past month (it was our monthly focus in YW) and I felt very strongly that I needed to share my testimony about it today during Fast and Testimony meeting (which I did - although I got very nervous and didn't even say half of the things I wanted to! LOL) Anyway, this week John was able to give 6 Father's Blessings (plus 1 for me!) as we were getting ready to start school. I felt impressed that I needed to get these written down and put in a place where the kids would be able to see and reference their blessings throughout the year. I printed (the below) images and we placed them in the front of their Scripture Journals. It was so wonderful to hear the words of God specifically for each of the children (and for me, too!) I just felt so humbled and blessed to be able to riase and homeschool all 6 of the kids!

 

My Goals for This Week... keep working to establish our new schooling routines, exercise 4-5 times this week and to edit (at least) 300 wedding images (from the wedding I did a few weeks ago!)

Photos I love from the week...

August the driver!

at Ben's Football Scrimmage this week

a photo from Stephanie's Session

As the Bride and Groom left the Reception