I'm still alive and kicking. It's just been a bit busy here and hard to find time to actually update the blog. Because I am a month behind, the pictures for this post will be out of order.
Just before Christmas I decided to be more intentional with my days. I'm really liking this goal. I got myself a regular five subject notebook, and I have everyday planned out. I really like to be organized, but I stepped it up a notch. It's working really well for me. It helps me to make more time for my family. Also, we, as a family, decided that we needed to make it a priority to be more intentional with the time we spend with each other. We've had a month of doing that. We aren't perfect at it, but we are consistently striving to meet that goal. It has been a really good change for us.
We've made specific nights for family game nights, family outings, and family craft nights. It's helping us to spend more quality time together and make some wonderful lasting memories. It is definitely still a work in progress.
Family Craft Night:
We made pillows and flax bags
We've also been changing some of our eating habits and really focusing on having a meal plan for four weeks. So far this has been absolutely wonderful. I've been having fun making new recipes and getting more veggies into our meals. The kids seem to be enjoying this as well. They can see what is for dinner, and they are liking most of the new meals that I've tried.
Some of the new recipes we've tried are homemade chili, a Mexican Skillet made with cauliflower rice, tilapia, ginger pork chops, and this is our dinner tonight:
Creamy Tuscan Garlic Chicken:
I also tried this for breakfast........it's a non oatmeal hot cereal. The kids won't try it, and that's okay. However, I did get Chris to at least take a bite.
One thing that Elsa really wanted, when we discussed spending more time as a family, was to have meaningful time spent with Myles. They have Mondays scheduled for an hour where they play a game together. Their first week doing this they spent their time doing this:
They had a blast and worked so well together. There was a lot of laughter coming from the kitchen.
Myles has been busy getting his garden box ready. He cannot wait for spring. He is always wanting to go shopping with me so that he can peruse the garden section of various stores.
His room is becoming quite a green house:
He is constantly adding to his plant collection on a weekly basis. Someone from Christopher's work brought in this plant to give to Myles. It's a money tree. To be funny he added money to it and sent the picture to Rhaevyn.
Myles also tried making his own terrarium. Unfortunately, it started to grow mold. It had to go.
Two weeks ago, while at one of our favorite markets, we parked near this car. I believe it is a Chevy, but I may be wrong. Anyway, Myles had to take a picture of it.
Pictures from the life of Molly:
She's such a good sport to let Elsa dress her up.
However, she is not a good sport when it comes to putting paw protectors on. I thought I had found a wonderful solution to having to clean her paws every time she comes inside. It lasted for all of two days, and then she decided she was having no more of it.
Elsa had a bit of an accident. She and Myles had been out playing with the race car track when Elsa's car got stuck. She decided it would be a good idea to use a Homedepot bucket as a stool. That idea did not end well for Elsa. The bucket ended up falling over, and she fell. She got her leg caught in a wire while the rest of her made it to the garage floor. Her leg was pretty bruised. We had to cart her around in the stroller when we went out, and she had to miss her Scottish dance class. She said she definitely learned not to do that ever again.
Elsa painted this picture for the older girls. It has a little creature from the movie My Neighbor Totoro on it.
One of our game nights was spent playing with the race car track. We were all laughing so hard.
Meg decided all her bears needed to come do school work with her.
Since we didn't get to make Christmas cookies at Christmastime, we made them the second week of January. These chocolate crinkles didn't last long.
Aeva has started her own blog. If you want to know what she's up to you can find the link on my blog. The link is over on the left side all the way down.
She had a project to do last Semester for her Religion Class (about the restoration) and decided to write poetry for it. She was given the honor of being in the top four projects recognized because one of the poems was about Relief Society. Her teacher commented that no one ever writes about Relief Society in his class. He was impressed that she did. Her religion class this semester is on the Book of Mormon, and she's doing some type of needlework for her project.
She and Rhaevyn had planned to go to a murder mystery masquerade. They decorated their masks, but when they showed up they were told the tickets were sold out. So, they went home and watched a Korean film together.
In March they will be attending Sleeping Beauty Ballet put on by BYU, and this month Rhaevyn is going to another folk dance program on her own.
They both survived Fall Semester and had some learning experiences. They are both loving Winter Semester. Aeva loves her Japanese class. Her professor is amazing. Rhaevyn has the same professor for Korean, and wanted it that way. She likes that her professor really pushes the students. Aeva is also really enjoying her geology class and art class. Rhaevyn loves her folk dance class and her Asian Humanities class. She is finding some really kind and friendly classmates in her classes this semester. I would say a highlight for Aeva the past two weeks has been passing Brad Wilcox on her way to class twice and having him say hello to her. She texted me the first time telling me it made her day!
Elsa is switching to a new violin teacher. The one she has been taking from can be a bit abrupt, and this leaves Elsa thinking she is horrible at violin. I did witness this a bit for one of her classes that I sat in on. She has asked about stopping violin lessons and switching to piano. I think the last straw was when, at the end of class time two weeks ago, her teacher Don asked if she went to public school or if she was home schooled. He then asked what her favorite subject was. She said that math was her favorite subject. He then proceeded to quiz her on addition, subtraction, and multiplication. We have talked to the kids about this; the fact that adults seem to take it upon themselves to quiz children once they find out they are home-schooled. My best friend was telling me that she uses this question when this happens to her children "That is interesting, why do you ask that; why are you asking that?" Apparently, Elsa grew tired of the quizzing and politely asked her teacher why he was asking her these math problems. He grew quiet and had no reply. She thanked him for the lesson and said she would see him the following week. When she came out I could tell she was on the verge of tears, and she kept saying she wanted to leave right then. We had to wait because Myles wasn't done with his lesson yet. When we finally got out to the car she was practically in tears and relayed what had happened. We talked about how
it was uncomfortable for her. I told her that she did a great job of putting a stop to
inappropriate questioning. It was fantastic that she set a boundary and
maybe it will benefit other home school children.
She is starting violin lessons with the violin teacher Rhaevyn took from. It is amazing that when we told her she would be going to a new teacher her countenance changed. She became so light and smiley and picked up her violin and started practicing new songs. New lessons start this week.
Her dance class is going well, and she loves trying to teach Meg some dance steps. They are so cute to watch together when Elsa is giving her a lesson. Meg got to go with me to Elsa's dance class last week. When we got inside she walked up to Elsa's teacher, introduced herself as "Megatron", and asked if she could do pas de basques. She then promptly did pas de basques for the teacher. I think she'd love to take lessons, but I'm not sure how that would go being in the same class as Elsa.
I am sure more has happened in the month of January, but nothing comes to mind right now. Hopefully I can keep up for February.
