Where'd the Week Go? - Weekly Wrap-Up

I started this week with not grand but quiet expectations and plans. Errand running (including monthly grocery trip) on Monday, a visit from Noni on Tuesday, a trip to the library some time this week, and get our work for our texts and online courses done as well. Well, best intentions and all of that...

Sun catchers from last week...

Monday my dear husband and I woke up content in our new bed in our bedroom with the news playing quietly on our television. It was then that it dawned on us that it was Veteran's Day. Now, we both knew that it was coming but for some reason I had thought that it was Tuesday not Monday. Some of our errands were to places that wouldn't be open on Veteran's Day. OK, no problem. Change of plans. We didn't do any book work because I'd already told the kiddos that they wouldn't have any on Monday or Tuesday. We did, however, work on our online things and Elder Cracker Jack managed to catch himself up in every subject online where he'd been a lesson or two behind. All three also managed to write out their Christmas lists for Noni and Grandma.

A replica of the original Jamestown built by ECJ -
part of his online lessons through
Easy Peasy.

We spent a big chunk of the day deep cleaning the house. Taking everything off of the entertainment center, dusting it, moving it out from the wall and cleaning behind and under it. Murphy Oil Soap for the cupboards, sweeping, vacuuming, cleaning up the bottom of the inside of the oven, and the list goes on and on. I was just getting ready to fling open some windows and air the place out (knowing it would soon be way too cold to do this) and what happened? It began to snow. Snow on the 11th of November! Not a ton of it but enough for a bit to stick over night, and for some to remain in the shadow on the side of the house until Thursday afternoon!

Tuesday was the day Noni was coming to visit. She comes out at least once a month to visit with us or to go somewhere with the kiddos. This time she brought out Tubby's Submarine sandwiches, gum balls for the kiddos, and stayed for a few hours to hang out and talk. It's nice when she visits with us. This is also the day that the Cracker Jack's made their first confession! It was really moving, Father sat down with the children and read to a passage to them and then had a small discussion with them about the meaning of the lost sheep in the passage and feelings, afterwards they each did their confessions. 

Wednesday morning dawned and I was actually up early. I just couldn't stay in bed. I got ready for the day and took the dogs outside (normally my husband does this first thing in the morning before I even open my eyes). The children ate breakfast and we were out the door. We drove the 30 miles or so away that we needed to and got every one of our errands done, getting home at around 2pm. Swim was at 7pm and you'd think that I'd have had the kiddos do some school work in between. Nope, not this time. They were creating things and reading or playing together quietly and I was not about to break the moment. This was the last swim class for the fall lessons so we won't be going back until spring and that means our Wednesday nights are open again! Yay! Just in time to cocoon from the snow lol.

Thursday came and went without many lessons seeming to be done either. Yet, the children created wonderful things using imagination and paper, they played together nicely, and we got a TON of books at the library. I had thought briefly about having the children do lessons after we got back from the library... then they split up quietly with a free movie from the library each and went to watch them. The hour+ of silence was well worth it. Happy children was worth not disrupting what they chose to do by asking them to do lessons later in the afternoon when they aren't at their best anyways. They did learn how to almost burn peas by not paying attention to water levels when making pea soup... We finished the day off with a long evening drive to sooth tired children into relaxing, they were getting cranky because they hadn't slept enough Wednesday night.

The girl's new school area!

And so, we come to Friday, and just what have we gotten done? Short answer is that we enjoyed our week and good books. We enjoyed each others company and visits from family. We learned that we must pay attention when grocery shopping and sometimes errands take longer than we thought. And we learned that we CAN stick to something we sign up for even if we think it's too hard or scary when we're starting out. 

Library time!

But, I hear many of you asking, what about the school work? Well, I was planning on the children doing lessons this weekend even as early as last Sunday and so they will do their lessons from their text books and their online work today and throughout the rest of the weekend. I learned this year that if the children have had a relaxing week we can fit five days of lessons into three. I don't do this every week though because they'd soon burn out because I'd be tempted to do seven days worth of lessons in five days and so on and so forth. They'll also be working on life skills/home ec. all day today. We're all cooking breakfast together and they'll be learning how to make banana pudding (a family favorite since I was a kid). YCJ wants to begin working through the projects in her crochet book and I thought as an art project we might squeeze in some painting of little porcelain figures. The Cracker Jack's are still working on their science project together and Peanut and I are going to read about winter. We may even be able to fit in an item or two from our fall bucket list (well, other than the making of the banana pudding). We have a little over a month to finish what's on our list before the official start of winter. 

All in all it was a pretty good week and for the various reasons you can see above I am fully aware that we are eclectic homeschoolers. We use books, the internet, worksheets, real life, and more to teach and to learn. Some weeks are more eclectic than others, but then some weeks in life are more hectic than others and some are just plain tilted.

There's only a few days left for you to go to the blog awards and vote for yours truly (and others)! Remember you can vote once a day from each item you have that connects to the internet and once in each category. Voting ends Nov. 18th!

And, as always, you can find us on Facebook here.

And we joined up again with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers for our weekly wrap-up... and also Friendship Friday