2015 Memories

Future Ticia is removing random memories from posts, so I’m creating this 2015 memories post.

January 30 post

Forgot to add about our week, like I try to do every Friday

This week we simulated public school at home, right down to walking to school and 20 minutes for lunch (I had some great suggestions on my facebook page for how to best do this). It was exhausting for everyone and today I decided not to do it because we were all very tired from waking up earlier.

But, good news of that week is I got lots of sewing done. I couldn’t do any of the other chores I usually do during our school day (grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning), but my sewing machine is in the school room/craft room. So, I finished up all details on my hoodie of awesomeness. I’m still debating about lining it, and if I will add the visors which look so cool on the inspiration piece. I also made 3 pouches for the kids while we’re at Disney World. They should hold a small water bottle, their wallet, and a few snacks per kid. It’s about the perfect size. And just this once I actually have steps of the whole planning process. Taken on my phone because I lost my camera somewhere. That generic somewhere in my house is my camera.

IN OUR HOMESCHOOL LIFE THIS WEEK (OR TWO)

I’ll be brief because I think I wrenched my shoulder this evening attempting to prevent killing myself while slipping on spilled water, and despite 2 Advil it still hurts a lot.

Clockwise from top left

We got a new dishwasher this past Christmas (the old one had literally fallen apart from rust, it was quite impressive, that’s another story), and the kids have been using the old silverware basket to lower stuff down from upstairs.

I’ve got my hoodie in process, actually at this point, it’s 90% done, I need to add cuffs, line the hood, and one or two other things. Mainly I need to buy zippers, yes plural I have this great plan for more pockets. The picture of my sewing machine illustrates why I don’t make craft tutorials. This is the only picture I got of any steps. Only picture.

That rather disgusting mess is what came out from underneath my frig when I used the yardsticks from the Roman swords to clean out underneath my frig, it was gross. Very gross.

I let the kids have the camera for the Bible lesson, and this picture came out halfway good. A common sight for my boys at night. I don’t know why we bought two beds.

My kids had a sleepover at Mimi’s and their little cousins were there too. Superman reading on my lap, the kids had dentist appointments, and so we did school there.

Cuddling in the morning, I didn’t get out of bed before the kids came down, so that meant cuddling for an hour. You think I’m exaggerating.

We are still slowly working our way through Winter Wonderland Mixed Media Workshop crafts and projects, my kids adapted the Christmas card wreath to a Valentine wreath (only because I said it had to be a wreath), after that it was totally unrelated to our original project. We’re starting the Valentine’s Day Mixed Media Workshop in a week or two, so check them out, it’s a lot of fun (Valentine’s class is on the side bar if you want to see cool pictures of projects)

That is what happens to my boys’ math work. I’d written “M” to let him know he needed to rewrite it because it’s messy, his response was to turn the letter into a soldier.

And final picture, Jeff and I took Princess to see “Into the Woods,” LOVED it, all of us did, it was so much fun! I laugh every time I see/hear this song, seriously when Cinderella’s prince tears his shirt open and Rapunzel’s prince does so because his brother did. Hi-larious (as Princess would say).

And final set

Princess (who got all the cool events these past 2 weeks) had a mother/daughter night for AHG and she made a pillowcase for her dreams, she dreams of swimming with dolphins.

We’re getting ready to go to Disneyworld and I told the kids to propose chores I would pay them to do, and they were to write bids down with proposed chores, amount they’d want to be paid, and why I should hire them. It was quite amusing to see what they thought was a fair price and how they bid.

We made apple sauce, played Batman Lego board game (sadly discontinued, very sadly), learned about the founding of Iceland (didn’t you know, Batman was a Viking?), and Jeff helped the boys put together a rather poorly designed solar power kit that had quite a bit of false advertising involved.

Oh, and that’s a picture of my Bible journal. I’m working through 2 Timothy. First I copy out the entire chapter, with some amount of illustrations, and then I write all my notes for the chapter, it’s been a fun learning experience. I thought of it because over at Angellic Scalliwags she shared their Bible journals, and it reminded me. To keep myself honest I’m trying to post something I read in my Bible the night before on my facebook page every morning. I’m doing good on weekdays, it’s the weekends that’s gotten me these past two weeks.

Okay, I lied, I’m not capable of not being verbose. I always have too much to say, and I can keep my shoulder more or less still as I type, but not really, I’m getting more emphatic as I type, and it’s starting to hurt, so I’m gonna stop now, good night (or morning when I actually publish this).

Our fun from the last few weeks (April 10)

We’ve had a lot of fun these last two weeks or so, Tara came down to visit which meant we played a lot of board games: Smash Up Game, Castles of Mad King Ludwig Board Game, Star Trek Expeditions, and Torches and Pitchforks (which is out of print now). Reviews: Smash Up, Castles of Mad King Ludwig

As you can see from up above we went by the Botanical Gardens, which always makes for some hilarious pictures.

Including this rather fun set of pictures from my kids as they played in the pioneer village. I particularly love the bottom one with Superman sneaking up on zombie Batman.

Easter was lots of fun busyness, not business, that’s different. We started off the morning with our Sunday School class, and I need to upload pictures to the Passover in Easter post of the actual lesson. Afterwards we had Easter dinner with my brother’s family, he was home with a broken foot on bed rest. It was a lot of fun to see the kids playing with their cousins. Then we headed up to Dallas to see Jeff’s parents and aunt and uncle. It was a good visit, but rather tiring.

Most of this week has felt rather unorganized, and like we haven’t accomplished much, but I’ll leave you with this picture of an activity that went horribly horribly wrong (you’ll hear the entire story on Sunday), and why we mopped our kitchen floor 3 times.

Why are summers so busy? (June 20)

JUNE 20, 2015 TICIA 7 COMMENTS (EDIT)

Actually, I know the answer to this question, but it seems like every summer I have grand plans, and every summer they get put to the side as we buckle in for a roller-coaster of a busy season.

So far our summer has been filled with messy fun. This started off with the kids happily playing with some leftover oobleck from a project. Then it deteriorated into a big huge mess. A HUGE MESS, that I think they had almost as much fun cleaning up as they did making it.

Epic sand castle building. My kids and a friend spent two hours building a sand ~~castle~~ village. It had fortifications, tunnels, moats, it was epic.

We have started the great preparations for Rock the Rock, that’s our church’s version of VBS. It starts on Tuesday if you’re in the area and looking for a fun VBS. I was in charge of pre-K again, this picture is part of our epic craft preparations, and it was EPIC! Of course that consumed most of June so far. While the boys were at camp Princess and I spent hours putting together the final bits and pieces.

We had an epic space discovery week, we created rockets, landing systems, rover retrieval systems, explored oobleck oceans, and so many more fun activities. Of course this is what led to the mess I mentioned up above……

I did an epic dining room rearrangement, and now my boys are very excited to have limited access to all of their Uncle Sam’s figures from MageKnight. Yes all of those drawers are filled with small gaming figures, and some not so small. EPIC!

We dropped the boys off at camp and picked them up a week later absolutely filthy. They were somewhat orangeish because the dirt has a slight red tint. They were also about two shades darker because of how much sun they got. I’m also exceptionally proud of them because they memorized ALL TEN BIBLE VERSES THAT WEEK. And their team came in first for the Iron Cabin competition, which encompasses attitude, sportsmanship, and so many other things, it was awesome!

In my week of being an only child parent I was exceptionally busy. We went to two of her favorite movies, watched a couple more at home, did some crafts together, had a tea party, had a friend over, AND finished all of the Rock the Rock stuff (that alone was over 15 hours of work this week). It’s been a very busy week.

And next week will probably be just as busy because next week we have Rock the Rock, and it’s going to be awesome. Tiring, but awesome. So, if you’re wondering where I disappeared to, I’m probalby collapsed from exhaustion. I’ve got a few posts I’m trying to get out, but right now I’m thinking I’ll be lucky to survive to Friday.

WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO THESE PAST COUPLE OF WEEKS (September 11)

We visited Aunt Tara up in Iowa, which is why I was a bit non-communicado for the last week. This also meant we played lots and lots of board games.

Smash UP
Justice League Axis of Villains Game*
Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients*
Wiz-War*
King of Tokyo
Kings of Israel
Cardline Globetrotter

I’m sure there were more, but those are the ones I specifically remember. The ones with asterisks Tara owns and the boys now WANT to own them. They have great plans to buy Shadows of Brimstone and all of its expansions.

We also took Princess out for tea and getting our nails done (I shared that on instagram). And I played a fun RPG with Tara and her cousins. We defeated a dragon, it was close, but we won.

Then I got back into town and played board games with Heather from Cultivated Lives. While the kids had a blast terrorizing the house.

Transamerica (which she is very disappointed to find out is out of print)
Dominion* (which I lost hugely)
and some other game which I’m not remembering offhand

This was followed by more RPGs on Monday where we did not fight a dragon but were playing Indiana Jones and trying to solve the great archeology mystery.

And school this week was funschooling about explorers, and a few more games.

Tonight we’re watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix* because the kids have finished reading it, so expect a Harry Potter movie night post soon.