Thanksgiving Camping

We planned to go camping during the Thanksgiving week off of school, but as the rain chances increased, we decided to pull out. Camping in the rain is not fun. Others in my family decided to chance it, so we joined them for Thanksgiving day. We played outdoor games at the campsite, ate lunch, went canoeing, then went on a hike.

Picture of all the campers who braved the weather despite the high chance of rain that was supposed to happen during the night. They were dry! They ate breakfast, packed up, and left before the rain came.

Bryson's Baptism

Bryson's 8th birthday was November 2nd, and his baptism was scheduled for November 14th. 

I put Matt in charge of taking some baptism pictures in the front yard.

Thus a "baptism" picture on his new jeep.

The picture we used for his invitations

Bryson's baptism program

A few family pictures

We were grateful to all our friends and family that came! 

My favorite part of the baptism was singing together. The Spirit was so strong as we sang "Gethsemane." It has just been so long that we have been able to sing in a church building! Drew and Ariane did a great job on their talks. Matt's family was not able to join last-minute due to an exposure to Covid-19. 

Bryson is our child who is often in "La La Land" during Come Follow Me discussions/scripture reading. We are constantly bringing him back to attention. Even though we thought we had covered all the information to prep him for his baptism, we realized not everything sunk in when Bryson couldn't answer what faith is during his bishop's interview. 😆

Bryson's 8th Birthday

First thing in the morning (bed head and all)

This Weapons and Warriors game was his main present. He also got a growing frog and a tub of bubble gum.

MeMaw and Papa gave him some quarters for his piggy bank

 He also got a badminton set from Grandma and Grandpa. I forgot to take a picture, but the boys have had a lot of fun with that in the backyard!

Homeschool

Teaching homeschool this year was another decision I didn't see coming. It was an idea I have entertained in the back of my mind as a possibility if my boys were ever being seriously bullied at school or if there was something about their education that wasn't working for some reason. Carter (5th grade) was actually the one that pushed to homeschool this year due to Covid-19. Both Bryson and Caleb wanted to attend school. After much thought and prayer, we decided to send Caleb to public school and to withdraw the others for homeschool. As an 8th grader, Caleb is taking 3 high school credit classes that I didn't want to mess with. He is also really excited about playing tennis in the spring since that didn't happen last year due to Covid-19. I also knew wearing a mask at school all day wouldn't faze him as much as my other boys. (germaphobe) 

The decision for Carter and Bryson (2nd grade) was heavily influenced by the fact that I decided to move forward and teach my last year of preschool. In-person school didn't start until September 8th, and there were still a lot of unknowns this summer about whether school would actually start on that day. I didn't know what the virtual option would look like exactly, and I knew I would be unavailable to help Carter and Bryson with virtual school on Tuesdays and Thursdays while I was teaching preschool. Another main factor was I knew in-person school would look a lot different this year with masks, sitting every other person at lunch, paranoias about germs, etc. I quickly touched base with other moms considering homeschooling. Once I realized I had a good support group in my ward, plus my sister who has been homeschooling for the last 6 years, I felt mostly confident moving forward. (And also overwhelmed!)

Our Monday/Wednesday schedule starts with a spiritual thought (typically a story from the Friend), history read-aloud, and a novel read-aloud. So far we have read The Book Scavenger, Charlotte's Web, and halfway through with The Boy Who Saved Baseball. After a 15-minute break, I start in with Language Arts and Math with Carter while Austin and Bryson play, usually outside with the chickens. I spend about 30 minutes teaching and working with Carter, then he finishes up his assignments independently. I work with Bryson one-on-one for about the next 45-60 minutes on Language Arts and Math. He usually gets a short break in there as needed. They both have some independent reading to do, piano practicing, and then we also do Science and/or History in the afternoon. Bryson has some Science/Social Studies workbooks, Carter has a US History textbook of sorts, or we watch a video on a certain topic.

While I teach preschool on Tuesday/Thursday, Bryson and Carter are responsible for working on handwriting practice, typing, and Math/Language Arts assignments that they can do independently. (I prep them on those assignments either the night before or before preschool starts.) After preschool, we do our read-alouds (spiritual, history, and novel). Then I work one-on-one going over their Math/Language Arts assignments.

We meet twice a week with our homeschool group. Wednesday morning we get together for an hour PE and Fridays we meet for 2 hours to do Science for an hour and Art, Music, or Theater for an hour. When we get home from our homeschool group, we do a poetry tea time and free writing or working on a writing project.

Science STEM activity with our homeschool group

Science lesson at the creek. We are doing a Marine Biology unit and this lesson I taught had a science experiment that needed lots of sand, so we met here instead.

 The kids worked hard on the play The Jungle Book. Carter did a great job memorizing his lines, projecting his voice, speaking slowly/clearly, and using inflection. He played Akela, the leader of the wolf pack, and also another part as a human named Buldeo.

I should have worked harder with Bryson to memorize all his lines. He knew the first 3/4 well, but struggled on the last 1/4. He played Mowgli, and did a great job! Austin played a wolf--no speaking parts.

Mowgli and Bagheera. Baloo sleeping.

Mowgli talking to two humans and decides he would rather live in the jungle.

[Side note: Bryson was super embarrassed about having no shirt. Even though I told him it's completely fine for boys to have a bare chest, he was still very self-conscious and kept adjusting the necklace the ENTIRE play to make sure it covered his nipples. 😳]

Shark presentations: Each student had to research a species of shark and present 3-4 facts to the class, as well as a visual aid of some kind. Carter researched the Goblin Shark and make a shark repellent as his visual aid. (He decorated a can of shaving cream and then allowed everyone to have a sample.)

Bryson did the dogfish shark and made a shark cake as his visual aid.

Everyone read Charlotte's Web independently and then we had a book party where the kids dressed up as a character, discussed some questions from the book, and the moms planned a STEM activity that related to the book in some way.

This year is all about one day at a time and keeping my head above water. I am teaching 8 hours of preschool per week, I also have 8 piano students + my 2 boys that I'm teaching, my calling is busy as Primary Chorister, and then this new addition of homeschool to my plate. With the oldest 3 boys in sports, we usually have at least one sports' practice every night except Friday. Saturday is full of juggling baseball/soccer games, chores, grocery shopping, etc. It's been a lot to keep on top of! I'm mostly holding on by the seat of my pants and trying not to get discouraged at all the areas I am falling short. 

Chickens

This isn't something any of us predicted would happen, but we have some new pets! A church friend was anxious to get rid of some chickens, and we had a day to make what felt like a split second decision. We decided to try it out and see how it goes! I blame it on Covid Fever and being cooped up! The friends gave us all their supplies, including a chicken coop that was mostly finished.

The boys are in love! We started out with 6 chickens and a rooster. We named the rooster BBQ because he would need to be killed before the hens started laying eggs. The rooster only lasted a week because of his consistent crowing around 5:00/5:30 every morning that woke me up! I was incredibly nervous that he was waking up the neighbors as well. Instead of killing him, we found someone in the stake boundaries that has chickens and wanted him. I was glad to have him gone and glad that we didn't have to kill him.

We each named a chicken that became "our" chicken. Matt named his Buttermilk, I named mine Dixie, Caleb named his Speckled Flogs, Carter named his Nugget, Bryson named his Fluffles, and Bryson named his Chicken Pot. She has since been renamed Batman. 

The boys spend so much time outside with the chickens! They are very entertaining. We let the chickens roam free and feed them all our veggie/fruit scraps. They also take care of any bugs in the yard. We've also seen some catch lizards and one caught a small snake. They sleep in their coop on a perch and go in all by themselves at night. We purchased a roosting nest to attach to the coop. As soon as 4 of them were laying eggs, we left the chickens cooped up for a day to train them to lay eggs in the roosting nest. However, my chicken stubbornly refuses to use the roosting nest still. The white chickens lay brown eggs and the brown chickens lay cream eggs. The boys have been fascinated by the whole process. Matt's chicken was the first to start laying eggs and my chicken was the last. Austin's hen recently took a week break from laying eggs, which we were all very concerned about and did some research to learn reasons why. Thankfully she started up again.

Austin with Fluffles (the easiest one to catch)

Occasionally they will fly high as seen by this one on top of the play set. (She is kind of camouflaged but on the same beam as Carter.) Nugget flew over a neighbor's fence, and their boxer quickly pinned it down. We were inside doing school when it happened; we heard some squawking and went out to investigate.  Nugget looked dead with the dogs mouth holding her down, but she survived somehow with only a little blood under her wing. We haven't had any other issues with any attempting to fly over fences again until the other day, which is the determining factor that it is time to clip their wings.

Our first dozen eggs! It took awhile to get a dozen at one time between me using them and also for a long time we were only getting 2 per day. The first egg that Batman chicken laid was a double yolk, and it was really long and skinny. I felt bad that that was her first experience with laying eggs! One other fun surprise was Dixie laying a super tiny egg that had no yolk!

 

(Haircuts happened a few days after this picture...)

This boy loves the chickens!

My chicken, Dixie. She's apparently the most difficult to catch.

I'm not sure how long this chicken experience will last--3 months in and going strong--but it's sure been a fun adventure!

Austin's 5th Birthday

This boy was SO excited for his birthday. It couldn't come fast enough! We opened presents first thing when he woke up.

He got a slip and slide, a growing dinosaur, mad matter, flarp putty, and Hi-chews.

Grandma and Grandpa gave him a Smoothie King gift card and a rock collection.

 

On our way to Smoothie King, we saw this beautiful double rainbow.

Austin also had a Dinosaur Birthday Party a few days later.

These are his preschool friends and his cousin.

We did a dinosaur craft, played Bingo, ate pizza, went on a dinosaur egg hunt, and did a dino egg relay.

Then Austin opened up presents and everyone ate rainbow cupcakes.

Austin got super confused this year thinking he turned 5 on his birthday and then turned 6 a few days later when we had his birthday party. He keeps wanting to be the same age or older than his cousin, and doesn't seem to comprehend that she will always be older than him!

Random

This lady has been a close friend ever since Matt and I married and moved into our first house. She and her husband were one of the first couples we met and a quick friendship grew. Moving into separate wards put a strain on our close friendship, but we tried to keep in touch regularly. Kim and I have our love of books and music in common. She has had many ups and downs with adoption, divorce, and marrying again to name a few. We worked harder this last year to get together once a month for lunch. It's so nice to have a friend that is a kindred spirit, and I was so sad when she and her new husband moved to Utah. This is our last lunch together. :(

We went with some friends to the zoo in July. It was annoying to wear masks the whole time, but we still had a great time. And we were able to stay cool by the on and off-again rain.

Dinosaur exhibit