The Week in Review (with lots of pictures)

The days fill up so quickly, I just don’t seem to find the time to sit down and get my thoughts typed out for this on-line journal. So here’s a speedy trip through this past week.

I think I am finally beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel in this battle I’ve been waging against depression these last many months, and so we are making some progress in catching up with our school work. God is so good, His mercies are new every morning, and great is His faithfulness!

Hitting the Books: G and E are really zipping along in their math books and are making good progress with their phonics/reading lessons. N picks up every thing he can get his hands on to read, amazing! R and I have been doing puzzles. Not yet 3 years old and she can put together every preschool puzzle in the house. Reminds me of C at that age.

Speaking of C, she is on track to finish up her formal schooling before her 18th birthday. Oh my, can this possibly be? Graduating all ready?! L has shown lots of initiative lately to dig in and get to his studies. He really enjoys getting out to help Grandpa S and his uncles with farm work and I think that is his motivation – get the book work out of the way so he can get to the important things in life.

Fun and Games:

These cold winter days the children seem to find plenty to keep themselves busy, like digging into the dress-up clothes and finding themselves in the land of who-knows-where.

Here you see our Water Princess preparing to greet her subjects. Why does she have water bottles attached to her crown? You’ll have to ask her big brother that question – I still haven’t received a satisfactory answer to that question.

Or lining up the dominoes in a pattern you’ve never tried before. They make the coolest sounds as they ‘click-click-click’ knock each other down.

B gifted us an e-certificate from Amazon . com for Christmas, and we finally decided on 2 new games to order. Blokus and Mastermind. We’ve had lots of fun playing together (thanks, B!) – the little ones have surprised me at how well they have taken to these strategy games.

L saw a television clip on how to build your own water rocket. He picked up a few supplies at the hardware store and enlisted the help of G. He took pictures of every step and is typing up step-by-step instructions on how to build one (school and fun, all rolled up in one – woohoo!). It didn’t take them long at all. L and C tested it out (even though it was only about 20 degrees outside, brrrrrr) Success! He’s thinking about overseeing a Water Rocket Blast Off at our upcoming MOMYS gathering in May.

And finally, our main focus over the past week – Master Bedroom Makeover:

M has done an absolutely fabulous job building our home. The hard part is that you can’t do it all at once when you are doing it all on your own. So, I have used our room as a catch-all, hideaway-the-junk sort of room. Doesn’t make for a very romantic hideaway, eh? It has been very exciting to weed out all the junk (ok, there’s still lots of weeding going on) and do a little decorating. I got the painting done (with some help from my kiddos), M and L put up all the trim work. It’s coming together beautifully!

This upcoming week I’ll get the closet shelving units put back together and bring in the furniture. I’m really pleased. The colors are deep and rich and welcoming (they really are a bit darker than the photos show).