Our Family History

In Our Family This Week... August and Seth were awarded quite a few merit badges at the Court of Honor on Wednesday.  On Thursday, we all headed down to BSU to tailgate with John before the BSU vs BYU game that night. Both boys had football games on Thursday night as well. John's birthday was on Friday and we celebrated with cinnamon rolls and ice cream for Breakfast! Saturday, was spent cleaning, runing errands, John being a "special guest" at a cooking show featuring tailgating food, Ben's football game and then that night John and I had another meeting for the Boise Temple Open House. We stopped at Maverick on the way home and got a frozen yogurt :)  Sunday John and the boys all went Home Teaching and I had 2 meetings. That about sums up our week!

In Our Homeschool This Week... The little ones were reading Madeline as part of their Five In a Row.  We talked about France for history, Rhyming words for Language Arts, and keeping healthy and Appendicitis for Science. We also did a little bit on Dinosaurs and played with dinos, read books about dinos and watched a couple of Dinosaur shows/documentaries on Netflix. Of course we also worked on letters, art and reading.  The older boys did their daily assignments and have their first Chemistry test coming up next week!

making masks and decorating them!

I'm Grateful For... Having the guidance of the Holy Ghost to help me in maintaining balance in my life.  I've really been struggling lately with keeping balance between homeschooling, photography, and keeping the house running!  I really felt like I needed to come up with a schedule and adhere to it!  So, after thought and prayer I came up with this daily schedule for myself:
6am - Wake up and Pray
6-6:45: Scripture Time
6:45-7:00 - final prep of breakfast and start waking up everyone
7:00-8:00  Family Breakfast/Family Scriptures/Family Prayer
8:00-9:00 - Workout at the gym
9:00-9:30 - Get ready for the day
9:30-2:30 - School
2:30-5:00 - Work on Photography, Lesson Plans and other business needs
5:00-7:30 - Make/Eat dinner and housework
7:30-8:00 - Get girls ready for bed and Tuck them in with reading a book
8:00-8:30 - Get Ben and Nathan ready for bed and tuck them in with reading a book
8:30-9:00 - Get things ready for the next day (including throwing breakfast in the crockpot, etc)
9:00-10:00 - Johnny Time: Just having some "down time" to reconnect with John
10:00pm - In Bed!
I was able to adhere to this schedule all week and my days have gone MUCH better and much smoother and I've been able to get everything done that I need/want to!

My Favorite Thing This Week... Getting so many photography sessions finished up and sent out!  That is such a relief! I also went over to Stephanie's house on Friday afternoon and helped get all of our clothing ready to be dropped off for the Moppet Togs Sale. I really enjoyed just visiting and chatting while we entered in clothing and tagged it all!  Now... hopefully it all sells and we can bring in some money!! :)

My goals For Next Week... Finish up Fenn Family Photo's and get a large start on Aimee's Wedding photos. I also want to continue with my (above) schedule! and spend some more one-on-one time with Ben.  I think he is needing some more of my (undivided) attention.

Photos I Love From the Week...

Lexi and Aubrie ready to go Tailgating!!

Aubrie enjoying a soda at the Tailgate

Lexi, Aubrie, Amber & Brooklyn - 2 sets of Twins at the tailgate!