Saturday, July 6, 2013

This Week

This week...

We've been sick, or at least many of us have.  Miriam came down with a cold type illness almost a week ago. I knew from bitter experience that it would spread and of course, it did.  I THINK 6 of the kids have it now, or are over it. 

Lydia got it the worst, which is a bit odd as she used to be our healthiest.  Poor sweet girl. She lost her voice entirely yesterday and has been coughing quite a bit. She is on the mend.


Until yesterday, we hadn't gone swimming in a week.  For a while there, we were swimming EVERY DAY.  Then it got colder (really quite cool for late June!) and we got sick.  Then the pool got really dirty as Kevin and his main helpers were sick and busy so weren't cleaning it as much as usual.  Mid week, Kevin and the girls did toil away for quite a while and got the pool back into good condition.  But it was still raining a lot!  Finally, yesterday we had a clear spot and the younger 6 went down into the pool area.  The middle 4 swam, Sarah stuck her feet in, and Daniel crawled around and thought about falling in.


  Our kids spent some time playing with Wiki-sticks. Not sure about the spelling on that.  Anyway, they are these sticky, colored lengths of plastic that can be coiled and twisted to make sculptures.  The funny thing is we got them several years ago and the kids got tired of them (which happens) and I lost track of them in our sun room's art storage.  Then I found them, and thought about throwing them away, as I'm in a "throwing away" mood right now.  Fortunately, the kids found them before I threw them away, and promptly showed me they still like them a lot.  Naomi, in fact, asked if I could buy some more :-).


I feel like we've been in survival mode the last few weeks, with Kevin's surgery followed by this illness.  But I have been thinking about the upcoming school year.  I plan to begin a light schedule in early August.  As part of my preparation, I put up an American History timeline in our study.  I know it is a terrible picture...each century is represented by one row.  I tend to obsess about doing things "correctly" and I was getting myself all wound up on how to make the perfect timeline. Finally, I just decided to go ahead and make something.  Yes, homemade and not very classy, but it works.  Each 8 by 11 inch paper represents 10 years.  I'll show close ups some other time.


 There is no particularly good reason for this picture except that Daniel is cute :-).


Sarah is very cute too.  She also continues to be an absolutely adorable, sweet, much loved pain in the neck.  She has been sick, and that just makes her toddler squared!  I mean, really, child!  MUST you get bored in your high chair and dip your hands in milk and smear it in your head?  Must you change your mind about what you want to drink several times?  Must you get angry and hit people with things?  Well, she's a work in progress. We all are.  She just lets it hang out more :-).

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