Our Family History

In Our Family This Week... John had Monday off for Columbus Day and so we had big plans to get the garage all cleaned out. The older boys still had their Computer and Math CoOp class in Nampa so they got out of most of the hard work!  Aubrie stepped up and was the BIGGEST help to dad in the garage - and so he took her (and ended up taking Lexi as well) with him to the recycle place and got her a little ice cream treat. Our Washer and Dryer have been on the fritz for quite some time now... earlier this summer, we picked up a used Washer and Dryer set from our neighbor at their garage sale.  Monday was the day to FINALLY make the switch. After moving out our W/D and getting the laundry room all mopped and cleaned we brought in the new set (Yay!) However our excitement was short lived. While the "new" dryer was working awesome, the "new" Washer had even more problems than the one we were using :(  So we had to unhook it and put the old one back in... Hopefully it will keep on washing for a bit longer! :) August and Seth's football games were moved up to Wednesday night of this week.  They both won :)  John was able to go watch August play against Centennial (where he and I both graduated from).  I had planned on taking the girls and going to watch Seth, but he said that he'd prefer us not to come... so we stayed home and I worked on photos. I've been kind of in a funk this past week and I couldn't really put my finger on it... So on Friday when I woke up, John announced that since "he was the Principle of the Vogt School District, he was declaring me the Teacher of Year and giving me the day off!"  We decided to just have a fun game day and go out to the farm to visit grandma and grandpa and let the kids explore nature!  I also had Stephanie pick me up and we ran to the DI real quick - I've been looking for jeans for the little girls, and while I didn't find any jeans... I DID find some organizational bins that I'd been keeping an eye out for. Saturday, the older boys had another Youth Cultural Practice and Ben had his football game. I took more photos for the church and got those sent up to the person in charge of our Stake's blog. That afternoon, I also did 6 mini sessions!! It was over 3 hours of NON-STOP, high energy work for me! I'm really hoping that this will bring in a good chunk of change to help us out financially. Unfortunately, I had to spend some money on renting a lens - this past summer while at the Oregon Coast, I tripped off a little ledge and fell (with my camera in my hands) and my "go to" lens got damaged in the fall :(  I only get about 25% of the photos I take with it to be in focus (which obviously is NOT going to cut it when trying to give clients the best!) so I've been renting a 24-70 lens which is pretty FUN to play with! :)  Eventually, I'll just need to send off my 35mm lens to get fixed. Sunday, John had drill and was gone for the day.  I taught the YW lesson on Patience.  I'd been preparing it (and myself) for it all week, but I didn't feel like it went very well :(  Hopefully some of the girls got something out of it!  Oh, and finally - some BIG news... Ben let me give him a hair cut!  So it was "Bye Bye Mullet Time!"...

Also, on Friday, I decided to pull out the Halloween Decorations.... They are located in the closet behind a lot of our homeschool games (aka: not easily accessible). So once I pulled everything out to get the decorations, it ballooned into a HUGE organization project starting with that closet and then cleaning/organizing the armoire where a lot of supplies are housed.  This led to the upstairs closet where more stuff is stored (where I actually found quite a few useful things I could be using right now!  So that was happy!) and finally ended with a re-haul of the pantry and Homeschool shelves in there!  It was a lot of work (read over 7+ hours!!) BUT.... it has been awesome to be even more organized and to have a fresh inventory of what I have to work with.  Anyway, below is what the shelves in our dining room now look like with the Halloween Decor :)

In Our Homeschool This Week... On Tuesday, I had signed up the 3 little ones to go do a Nature Walk/Story Time and Craft at the Foothills Learning Center.  Nathan ended up not wanting to go (he absolutely DOES NOT like doing anything artsy or crafty... he was so upset when I told him we'd be making a Fox Mask that he started to cry) so it ended up just being with the girls.  We went with Stephanie and her little girl and it was a really neat opportunity!  They had a nature trail that had different stopping points where they'd read more sections of a book (the one we were reading was called "Red Fox") and then when the hike/story were done we went back inside and all made a Fox Mask.  The girls LOVED it!

Lexi, Aubrie and Shaylynn getting ready to "pounce" like a Fox!

 With Nathan, we moved on to the letter "t" this week and have been doing physical activities while trying to solidify the "T" sound.  We'll probably continue on for another week since he still is having trouble remembering. He and I have also been talking lots about opposites and reading lots of books! He is just so fun to spend time with and he gets so pleased with himself when he gets a concept down!  Now regarding math - he is doing superb!!! He really can grasp those number concepts :)  He was also very much into puzzles this week.. he did so many and without my help!  It was fantastic!

August and Seth have also been doing well.  We came up with 3 "goals" for them to work on from their notes on General Conference. I've also been praying to make sure that they are getting what they need.  I felt impressed that the 3 of us should start doing Chemistry together - so we'll be incorporating that. It was cute - on Wednesday (the day of their football game) August came down for school wearing his jersey.  he said "you're supposed to wear your jersey on Game Day to school.. so here I am!"

August working on his writing assignment while sporting his Football Jersey

And Ben has done rather well this week too!  He's been reading TONS more this week and we've also been reading together each night before bed.  We've been studying about the Medes and the Persians in History. And we've also really been diligent in learning to type!  He has the entire Home Row down and can type words (without looking and using just the home row keys) at 27 WPM and 100% accuracy!  I'm really pleased with him performance in typing.

We also spent one morning this week making some play-doh!

I'm Grateful For... I'm grateful for my health (and my family's health!).  I don't normally feel "down" or "in a funk" and so this week when I had a few days of not feeling like myself, it made me really grateful for my normal happy, optimistic feelings!  I was also grateful for Johnny for just listening to me and helping me feel better - and especially him seeing a need to just have fun with the kids on Friday and taking a day to just play with them and visit with family!  Like he said - that's one of the perks of homeschooling! :)

My Favorite Thing This Week... Even though it was a lot of work, I'm really excited how all of our homeschooling items/inventory is all organized and in place!  Yippee!!  I also REALLLLLY  loved getting some amazing deals (like I mentioned above) at the different thrift stores I hit (although, I wasn't able to find jeans for the girls at ANY OF THEM!)

My Goals for This Week... I know I need to make some goals (and I want to make some non-photography related ones! LOL) but right now, my mind is being overloaded and I can't seem to think of any goals at the moment...

Photos I love from the week... I actually have already posted the photos that I took from the week above :)