Large Family Homeschool Life – Week 4 of 2024

Nice weather, books for our homeschool lessons, and a new blog project kept me busy this week!

Read all of the Large Family Homeschool Life posts!

MONDAY

I waited until 9am to take Winston, our mini-poodle, out for his morning walk to avoid any ice on the roads. I took him back home and then walked a bit more. I’m trying to get 30 minutes of walking out of doors a day. Does so much good for stress levels.

For Morning Time, we read in Hurlbut’s. We are going through the book of Acts, which has been really neat because we just finished Acts on Sunday mornings at our church. The kids have been recognizing the stories, and that’s been lots of fun.

Then, we listened to Follow the Drinking Gourd in our Folk Song a Week class from Music in Our Homeschool. I read Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt to the kids. It was a neat book and the kids really enjoyed it! We even researched a bit more about these freedom quilts. Neat piece of history.

Then, we read a couple of chapters in By the Shores of Silver Lake, and in Nature Anatomy, we looked at water birds.

I helped the little girls with their independent schoolwork and then took a call from a friend whose elderly neighbor needed my boys to come over and shovel her driveway. So, I drove them over and then headed out with a friend to a neighboring city to pick up Ty’s truck. My friend and I had a good talk about everything from diets to Scripture. She and I could literally talk for hours! Nice to have a friend like that.

I missed lunch because of my little jaunt, so I ended up having a meal of baked potato with fajita chicken and Dan-O’s Cheesoning around 4pm. Yummy!

The kids made nachos for dinner while I worked on a YouTube class I’m taking. Then the 13 year old used my laptop to edit my latest video that goes with my latest post and podcast – Balancing Homeschooling and Homemaking. When he got it finished, I looked over it, and uploaded it to YouTube.

I also worked on my lesson for our next Titus 2 group. We are using the book, The Power of a Woman’s Words to go through how powerful our words are and how we should be using them

After the kids went to bed, the 19 year old and I watched an episode of Endeavor and I read in The Wife.

TUESDAY

I’ve been really discouraged by my weight lately. The holidays and the stress of all we’ve had going on here really packed the weight on me. I am still going to Weight Watchers, but I think I need something more. I ended up going to the weekly workshop and felt rejuvenated, so I decided to really focus on my protein intake this week.

When I came home, we started Morning Time. We talked through the timeline of slavery. I even learned something! Then, we read in Hurlbut’s and By the Shores of Silver Lake. We ended Morning Time with Fiona’s Lace – a lovely book about an Irish immigrant family.

For lunch, I made myself bacon, eggs, and hash browns. The kids fried up some mashed potatoes I made several days ago. After I ate my lunch, I talked to my mom for a bit on the phone, and then the 19 year old and I headed out to shop at Aldi and Walmart.

When we got home, I prepped for Titus 2 and started a new online project for the blog. More on that later…

At Titus 2, we worked on the first chapter of The Power of a Woman’s Words, sang, fellowshipped, and ate. We always have potluck (or pot providence as an old family friend used to call it!). I brought fajita chicken and peppers and onions. There was soup, and kimchi, fruit, and a myriad of other goodies!

When I got back home, I tried to upload my latest podcast, but the site was down, so I’ll try again tomorrow. Instead of working, my 19 year old and I watched Endeavor – a prequel to the Inspector Morse series.

WEDNESDAY

Such a nice morning! It’s in the mid-30’s! All the snow is slush, so it’s a mess out there! I took a mile walk with the dog, and then started Morning Time with the kids.

I started with out with our usual Hurlbut’s and By the Shores of Silver Lake, then we did a study of birds and I assigned all the kids to read A Nest is Noisy. (The books in this series are always so wonderful!)

After school, the 19 year old, 15 year old, and I worked at changing out an outlet. It was a learning experience for both of them, and something worth knowing. We have a friend who is an electrician, and he checked over our work via Facetime when we were finished, giving us the thumbs up.

After a lunch of blackened chicken and baked potato, I released the first podcast of the year and then wrote up an email to announce the podcast and corresponding post and video. I took a BIG break with the podcast over the holidays and am finally back to recording again.

Then, I loaded everyone up and we headed to the library! The little girls did this month’s Scavenger Hunt where they look for pictures hidden all around the children’s wing and when they find them all, they get a sticker. There is usually a craft they can do as well, but the librarian said they were all out of that month’s craft.

On our way home, we stopped by the bank so our 19 year old could open a checking account. She has a savings account, but is realizing more and more how much she needs a a debit card. The tellers were sweet to all the kids, giving them treats and drinks while they waited since it took us much longer that we had anticipated.

When we got home, the kids tidied up so we could run our brand new Roborock S8 Ultra vacuum. You have no idea how satisfying it is to watch it obliterate dust bunnies and mop up little doggy footprints!

Then, I recorded a video of last week’s Large Family Homeschool Life. It was a long video, and I’m not real sure how well it will go over with my YouTube audience, but we’ll see! People really seem to like these posts, so I thought it was worth a shot on there.

Our son turned 18 today and wanted to play a video game with the younger boys over the phone, so he called them and they spent the evening playing with him.

I colored with my 9 year old while we watched Lynette Yoder on YouTube. She is a Mennonite woman who was raised Amish. She lives in Florida, and I enjoy a lot of her videos. The one we watched was about all the kitchen work she had that day. Why is it so fun to watch someone else cook??

I also bathed my mini-poodle and gave him a haircut. I invested in clippers and scissors shortly after we got him because I didn’t want to pay a grooming fee if I didn’t have to. I figured I cut the boys’ hair all the time, surely I can manage a dog. I watched a ton of YouTube videos, and I’m still learning, but he looks pretty good if I do say so myself!

Here’s a pic of Winston and my little grandbaby at Christmastime. This was a while after his haircut, so he’d lost a lot of the poofiness, but you get the idea…

Isn’t my Baby G the cutest???

The little girls made palettes to sleep on in their room because they were playing Little House on the Prairie. I love when they take books we are reading and turn them into play.

I finished out the night soaking in the tub and reading Kristin Lavransdatter.

THURSDAY

It was POURING RAIN this morning and the creek behind our house is raging! All the snow is slush and a huge mess! But, I walked a mile with Winston. The rain pretty much ruined his poofy haircut. Oh well.

After breakfast, we gathered in the living room for Morning Time. We started with an Emily Dickinson poem, then read in Hurlbut’s, and then 2 chapters in Silver Lake. I also read Cranberry Christmas to the kids.

Now, lest you think I’ve lost my mind…
I ordered a BUNCH of Christmas books from the library back in November. While I was able to get most of them, about 6 of them were on multiple holds for other people and I was going to have to wait my turn. Well, shortly after Christmastide, I tried to cancel all of the Christmas books in my account, but the cancel button wasn’t working, so long about mid-January, here came all the holds and I decided to pick them up from the library and read them to the kids anyway!

After Morning Time, I worked on planning for Week 1 of Hundred Acre Wood. I’m combining it with a few of the things from Primer with Pooh to create a Morning Time focused on Winnie the Pooh. It should carry us through the summer and then we’ll start Year 1 of Tapestry of Grace and work through the 4 year cycle again. Taking a break from Tapestry of Grace has been part of our Jubilee Homeschool Year, and we have thoroughly enjoyed it! I LOVE TOG, but I also LOVE trying new curricula. Doing a Jubilee Year gives me that opportunity.

While I was working through lesson plans, I decided to order felt that my 19 year old and I will use for the felt discovery play in the curriculum. It’s nice to have a helper! I ordered 2 of the multi-color felt and one of the skin tone colors.

My mom called, so I didn’t eat lunch until 2pm because we had a lot to talk about. I piled up butter lettuce with hamburger and ranch, and cheesoning for my lunch (again).

The boys zoom called with friends and I read in Heartwood Hotel with the little girls. Then, they watched Martha Speaks. There is something that really grates on my nerves about that show.

It was the 11 year old’s laundry day, so he got his towels through the wash and then I started my laundry. So far, our new laundry schedule has been working really well!

That evening, I made Pad Thai with shrimp I had purchased a few weeks ago. It was wild caught, and I have to be honest, I don’t like my shrimp tasting that fishy! My daughter said I don’t like my shrimp tasting like shrimp. Yeah, sounds about right.

For a couple of hours that evening, all the girls and I headed to a friend’s house to crochet and play with puppies. They are a mix between our French Brittany Spaniel and their English Springer Spaniel. We call them EuroSpaniels!

This was also Special Night. It was Mercy’s turn and we had Skittles and Pepsi, played Exploding Kittens and Minecraft, and then went to bed! (I seriously need to update that Special Night post with what we are doing now!)

FRIDAY

After breakfast, we did our Reset for Home Blessing. There was a lot of stuff to put back where it belonged this time. We all did our chores and then I made some garlic toast with the leftover bits of bread I had in the freezer.

I like to take the rest of Friday as my day to piddle and rest. Sometimes I do blog work – which doesn’t really feel like work to me. Sometimes I watch shows or YouTube. Sometimes I read, crochet – whatever suits my fancy. Well, today I decided to go through emails and landed on one that was from Google about getting the products from my Raising Arrows® store into Google shopping searches. I ended up getting in WAY over my head! No idea if I should continue to wade any deeper with it.

As I was grabbing the link for the store above, I suddenly realized whatever I had done on Friday had DELETED my entire store front! ACK! I quickly deactivated the plugin and deleted it and it all came back. Phew!

After a quick lunch, I took the 19 year old to her dental appointment for a filling. I also deposited our college student’s tip money from her barista job this past winter break.

Once back home, I made myself a cup of Cinnamon Roll coffee. I’m working on drinking my coffee black. I’m starting to get used to it, but my 7 year old, who likes to drink anything I have left over is not very happy there’s no creamer in it!

Later that afternoon, I helped another homeschool mom figure out some things with her schedule and then worked on a new project! The Liturgical Guide is going to have a sister product ONLINE with tons of updates and lots of other fun features! Watch for a release date shortly before Lent!

I watched an episode of Blue Bloods while the the kids played their video game time. I began watching Blue Bloods when I was pregnant with Mercy. I spent much of that pregnancy bed ridden. I only watched through the season they were on the year I had her (Season 8), but I loved the show so much, I decided to go back through them. I am just now on that 2016 season (which happens to be my favorite season). It’s so well written and acted! But no spoilers please – I haven’t watched past Season 8!

I made lasagna for dinner. We’ll have a salad and the garlic toast I made this morning. The 9 year old had made peanut clusters for dessert. What a nice way to end our week!