Large Family Homeschool Life – Week 46 of 2023

This week, we did Thanksgiving school, rearranged the living, and planned Thanksgiving dinner!

Read all of the Large Family Homeschool Life posts!

MONDAY

We spent the weekend with friends while Ty was away hunting with a bunch of guys we have met over the years, as well as our son who just passed Hunter Safety. We all had a lovely, relaxing weekend!

I was ready to get back to normal life, but as the day progressed, I realized I had sick kids and the day wasn’t going to turn out all that normal.

For Morning Time, we did some lessons from various Thanksgiving School resources I have collected over the years. Then, we finished off with The Playful Pioneers. We are reading from On the Banks of Plum Creek currently, and the kids are really enjoying the storytelling.

In the afternoon, I had a hair appointment. I also had my eyebrows tinted because I don’t have much in the way of eyebrows and hate penciling them in!

After my appointment, Ty and I headed out for a quick grocery shop. I spent $230 at Aldi – which was way better than last week! You can see last week’s grocery shop below…

We also picked up a shower pan for the bathroom we are putting in the basement. This remodel project is taking forever, but will be well worth it when finally finished.

Because the kids were dropping like flies with a sore throat and chills, I decided to change my supper plans and feed them soup instead of the bagel sandwiches I had planned.

We also had to postpone our new Special Night plans because of sickness. Everyone was looking forward to the new plan, but no one was really up to it.

My 25 year old son texted me to let me know he had my podcast edited and uploaded, so I went in and added the show notes, and got it scheduled to publish tomorrow. It’s about losing the baby weight as per a listener’s request.

Honestly, I’m not quite where I’d like to be weight wise, but for the holidays I just want to hold steady. I’ll focus more on losing weight in January. I’ve gained about 7 pounds that are being stubborn about coming off, but as long as I don’t gain anymore, I’ll be happy for now.

That night, I gave the girls a bath, and then got them settled in for bed. My 8 year old always gets quite puny whenever she has a virus, so I really have to push the food and fluids with her to keep her strength up. Praying people are better tomorrow.

TUESDAY

Praise the Lord! Several of the kids are feeling better. Still needed to get my 8 year old going with the food and fluids this morning, but she was much better once she ate and drank. Hallelujah!

I made oatmeal for breakfast because it is smooth and warm and would hopefully soothe sore throats. The kids usually add chocolate chips and turbinado sugar to their oatmeal. Some even add a bit of peanut butter.

For Morning Time, we did a lesson from The Character of Thanksgiving. I really like these well-rounded, engaging lessons! I always learn something new!

We also did some of the lessons from A Gentle Thanksgiving.

Then, we finished off with The Playful Pioneers. As we were reading, my 13 year old started working on the tree trunk and limbs for our Blessing Tree this year. He did such a good job and it was so intricate!

While I did school, my 19 year old baked an Apple Butter Pie for our Bible Study tonight. I don’t particularly like apple butter, but I made a bunch last year and needed a way to use it up. This pie turned out quite yummy!

During the afternoon hours, my 14 year old worked on editing my next YouTube video. It’s going to be a tour of my newly organized Stockpile Pantry. If you get a chance, subscribe to my channel HERE!

Ty and I had an early dinner with friends, and then I headed to Bible Study. He came home and got our new Special Night started!

Here’s what we are doing and why…

As the kids have gotten older, Special Night has been harder and harder to keep the same. We’ve tried several different iterations, but finally decided on turning it all on its head and making it a Family Night with a Special Night Kid who chooses the snack, drink, and activities that the entire family will participate in! This week was the 14 year old’s turn, and he chose root beer floats, a board game called Brain Games and a round of Minecraft with the family. Everyone enjoyed the night!

To round out the evening, I rearranged the living room furniture in anticipation of the Christmas tree going up in a little over a week. I really like how it turned out!

WEDNESDAY

Made breakfast and coffee for Ty and I, and the kids either ate leftover oatmeal or made eggs. We ate on the deck because the weather is unseasonably warm.

Today, we squeezed in a lot of activities for Morning Time! We started by talking about Thanksgiving dinner and then read Over the River and Through the Woods. We sang Love Divine, All Loves Excelling and read from This Country of Ours about the pilgrims.

We also did a lesson on Patience from The Character of Thanksgiving, and finished off by reading from On the Banks of Plum Creek. It was the chapter on Pa building the new house and the cookstove as a surprise for Ma. We happen to have a salesman sample cookstove that the kids were able to look at as I read about Ma’s. So fun!

While I read, the kids worked on tracing their hands and adding things they are thankful for to put on the Blessing Tree.

After a sandwich and a piece of apple butter pie for lunch, I had 2 of the boys help me clean out the inside refrigerator freezer. I haven’t been able to tell what is what in there for several weeks and this morning I decided I could stand it no longer! Boy, it feels good to have that accomplished!

I also cut up some deer meat for our 13 year old to smoke tonight. I am NOT a butcher – I was soooo bad at it! BUT, it’s done, and hopefully, it tastes good with the marinade I put on it. The deer is my husband’s Coues Deer he got in Mexico last year. He thought he cut it all into appropriate sizes, but this must have been the last bag because it was one big hunk of meat!

Then, onto another project that has been nagging at me. But…this project quickly got OUT OF CONTROL! We have a lot of felt stories and people and such from Felt Fantasies. The ones we bought this summer had not been cut out yet, but as I started cutting away, my 8 year old asked if we could take some to church to share with the kids in Children’s Church. That’s when I realized ALL of the Bible Story sets we owned were MIXED UP!

Why we didn’t keep them separated from the beginning I will never understand, but I decided before I cut one more piece out, we better start separating them out by story. And that was a BIG job! We got Noah’s Ark, Creation, Jonah & the Whale, and The Nativity completed and in their own zippy bags, but the rest we put back in the container for another day.

Then, I checked on my newest video to see if I needed to respond to any comments. My YouTube channel is slowly growing, and I am trying to stay consistent with it. The content that does best are pantry tours and grocery hauls and homeschool schedules.

My 13 year old put the venison steaks on the smoker and everyone loved how they turned out! He’s really enjoying all the grilling he’s been able to do lately!

THURSDAY

Had a quick family meeting this morning because our Thanksgiving plans have changed. We were going to my sister’s house, but my brother-in-law is having some heart issues and they want him to take it easy and not be up on his feet, running up and down the stairs smoking the turkey and managing company. There were going to be 22 guests there, so I understand the need to NOT do something that big!

So, we are going to do our traditional Thanksgiving meal:

• Turkey in the roaster (this frees up my oven)
• Green bean casserole in the crock pot (also frees up my oven)
• Corn casserole
• Granny’s dressing
• Sweet potato casserole
• Cranberry Salad
• Pecan Pie x2
• Pumpkin Crumble Cake

Then, we did Thanksgiving School. I can feel Advent coming on as we finish up our last full week before Thanksgiving. The kids are just itching to sing and play Christmas songs – something we don’t allow until after the Thanksgiving meal on Thursday!

We started with reading in Hurlbut’s Story of the Bible, and then I finished reading the chapter on the pilgrims from This Country of Ours. Next, we did a lesson from The Character of Thanksgiving, and then did a Pilgrim and Native American craft.

Then, I read in On the Banks of Plum Creek and sent the kids off to their independent school work while I worked a bit more on my Liturgical Calendar information. I’m super close to finishing (for now!) and being able to share it with all of you. Here’s a sneak peak of the calendar without the Scripture, activities, and other ideas…

I had an Asian Bowl for lunch because I haven’t had one of those in a really long time. Then, I took the boys to the dentist for their checkups. This particular office gets all the boys in at one time and all the girls in at another appointment. It’s nice to be able to do it that way.

For dinner the kids had biscuits and gravy. Ty and I were able to go out with friends from church and ended up closing the restaurant down and talking for another hour in the parking lot! It’s such a blessing when you click with another couple like that!

FRIDAY

I made an executive decision to not do Home Blessing this morning for various reasons. First of all, Ty and I are heading out on a trip this afternoon and I wanted to spend time with the kids without cleaning. Secondly, Thanksgiving is next week, so we’ll do an earlier-in-the-week-cleaning. And finally, a couple of the kids aren’t feeling 100%, so I want to give them time to feel better without needing to clean or have someone else do their chores. So, we did a quick tidy up and left it at that.

I packed and got things ready and then we headed out for a weekend trip with our oldest son and his wife – so neat to be able to do things like this!