* Valentine's Day! We did our "3rd Annual We Love to Be a Family" Party with 6 different activities. Some of the activities were: Making a Family Valentine, Playing "Pin the Heart on the Heart", Minute to Win it Games, and of course having a big ol' group hug! That night, the older boys both had to work, Ben went over to Teagan's house and so mom, dad and the 3 youngest went to workout at the YMCA and then picked up pizza for dinner!
* Both August and Seth have gone out on Splits with the Missionaries
* Mom had a Presidency Meeting for Relief Society
* Mom went out on visits with the RS to some of the new sisters that have recently moved in
* We had the Missionaries (and the Bishop and Holly) over for a Lasagna dinner
* Nathan had his first Pinewood Derby - ended up taking 3rd in his Den of 10 boys
* Seth received his Patriarchal Blessing from John Andelin, the Stake Patriarch who lives in Williston, ND. It was an absolutely beautiful blessing and such a spiritual experience!
* Mom had oral surgery and had one of her wisdom teeth removed
* The Suburban hasn't been drivable for the past month and so Dad took it into his work (where he could work on it in out of the cold!) and replaced the thermostat (yay for daddy!!). However, more troubles were uncovered and we now have to replace the radiator...
* Dad cut TWO MINUTES off of his 500 meter swim!
* August and Seth had some friends over for a LAN party (mom is sad that she forgot to take any pictures of this!)
* Seth opened his first checking account at USBANK (again, mom is sad that she didn't take any photos of this even!)
* For the FIRST time since moving here to ND, we stayed within our food budget for the month ($300/week) - in fact, we came in $2 under!!! To do this, the family has started having all 3 meals together as a family and then regular snacks (and all food has been regulated by mom!). It has been a LOT more work, but saved us $100/week :) Plus, I think we all enjoy eating together and learning around the table.
* Blue and Gold Banquet for Cub Scouts. Nathan received 4 Belt Loops (Basketball, Archery, Fitness and Pet Care)
In Our Homeschool The Past Three Weeks...
* Older boys are keeping busy with their college courses. August is also finishing up Biology and Algebra 2.
* Ben is still in his novel writing phase and spends hours a day writing on his book. He is currently working on INFECTED 2
* Nathan and the girls can't get enough of new math concepts and we've been learning about place values (up to the thousands), Telling time, skip counting, < or > and double digit addition
* Nathan has also added some additional sounds to his repertoire of Lively Letters. We have also been using other "mediums" (like letter blocks) for letter recognition in the "real world". He has also been working hard at blending 2 and 3 sounds together. He is really coming along SO NICELY!!
* The girls are just soaring and taking off with their reading. They are still working towards their 100 books and they also try to read anything they see (song titles, things on the internet, food boxes - you name it!)
* Since we eat all 3 meals together, I've also taken advantage of that time together to have CHARACTER BUILDING discussions or introduce a country to learn about (This week we learned about Brazil).
* For our Enrichments, we have been learning about the Holy Ghost (his roles and also how to recognize promptings)
* Daily Read Alouds from mom (We're currently reading a book titled "Heartwarming Tales from the Animal Kingdom" that is a collection of short stories (that are true) about fascinating animals). The kids just love it! It's put out by National Geographic and is wonderful!
* We've also been making our way through the Magic School Bus Science Experiment Cards
* With mom down with her wisdom tooth out, we watched several episodes of Wild Kratts and learned about all sorts of animals! Dolphins, Wolves, Fish, Frogs, Road Runners, Owls, Eagles, Hawks and even the Rainforest!
* Lots of building with Lincoln Logs
* Lots of arts and crafts for the girls
Kids Say...
Lexi to Mom when told she needed to go clean her room:
"I'm not the one who made the pig sty in our room yesterday. I only did about 3 inches of it!"
Spiritually Speaking...
Since Seth recently received his Patriarchal Blessing, we wanted to have him share some of his thoughts and feelings about it for this weeks Spiritually Speaking.
So this past week I had the opportunity to receive my Patriarchal Blessing, as you all probably already know from reading the previous short paragraph. So I got it, and while receiving it, the spirit could really be felt strongly, and that it really spoke out to me. A few things stuck out, and I realized that the Patriarch couldn't have known about, and that it could have only been given by divine inspiration from our Heavenly Father. I feel so blessed, and happy that I had the opportunity to receive this great guidance and counsel from heaven. I will continue to cherish and value the words written in it, and be grateful that we have a loving Heavenly Father who cares enough about each one of us, to be able to give us the guidance that we need.
No comments:
Post a Comment