2018 Memories

I’m cleaning up my blog and getting the old blog posts moved away, so here are my memories from 2018.

January

So, I’ve known this ball was coming for two years. I bought the pattern for my corset about a year ago. Despite all of this knowledge, most of this outfit was constructed in the last week.

Why?

Because somehow in my mind I had infinite time to get all the things done. Here are all the crazy things I decided to do this week:

1. Modify an existing pattern into a 1920s vest for Jeff. I might have made about three practice versions on him, and was sewing his vest together right up until we left for the ball. I might have also cut the buttons off one of my shirts to get buttons I liked for his vest. I swear I had the right buttons somewhere, but just could not find them.
2. Researched an in-depth lesson about the Mexican War. Which was a lot of fun to talk about, it would have been even better with the information I learned at our field trip yesterday, but it was a lot of fun to talk about.
3. Finally did the Physics experiment I’ve been trying to do for the past few weeks.
4. Designed my dress from scratch based off of the One Hour Dress idea. Sewed a toile out of an old sheet.
5. Had a book and a movie night for Tom Sawyer, because I was tired of the kids continually putting it off.
6. Sewed my dress from the fashion fabric and revising a few things. I might have stayed up a bit later than I really should have a few times last week.
7. I think I even took the kids to park day. Why? I didn’t have time for that. I have this strange feeling there was a lot going on last Friday and I, for the life of me, can’t remember any of it. I just have this vague memory of last week being busy.
8. Oh now I remember, I had appointments of some sort on every single day last week, and most of them kept me out of the house. Thankfully I kept this week free of busyness. It really was insane last week.

February

This was one of those busy weeks we get from time to time. One of the ladies in our homeschool group had over 60 egg cartons to give out, so I happily took them and brainstormed about 2 million projects to do with them, including remaking this old Very Hungry Caterpillar craft.

Princess and Batman had a cake decorating class, and they both loved it. I’ll be honest, I sat there most of the time thinking, “I could have taught you all of this,” but that wasn’t really the point, no matter how much I thought it was.

We had fun getting another of our physics experiments done. The kids had a blast figuring out the amount of work a toy car has to do to smash a banana. Very exciting stuff.

While digging through my patterns I found one of the very first patterns I used to make a Pound Puppy stuffed animal, so of course, I had to try making another one, the only problem is I’m missing one major piece. So I’m trying to figure out how to replace that.

We celebrated Valentine’s Day with the kids, which made them happy as clams. The weekend before Jeff and I enjoyed a partial weekend without the kids, so we celebrated Valentine’s day together then.

We had some fun playing This Game Is Bonkers and Five Crowns, where I totally beat the boys….

Oh, and this picture of the mob of boys at our homeschool co-op is pretty true to what park day looks like every week with all the boys.

That weekend we watched all of the movies to go with their books because the kids raced through their books. It’s amazing how much faster they read when they really like their book.

March

Again with AHG, they had a talent show, and our entire family practiced a whole bunch and performed the Rude Mechanicals play from Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was a huge hit and had the audience laughing like crazy.

Wednesday we went on a field trip to the Waco zoo, where I got the brilliant idea to take loads of pictures of the animals to make a bingo card for field trips, kind of like what I did for the Zilker Botanical Gardens. While there Superman decided to buy a sippy cup because it amused him.

Thursday we watched my niece for the day, so in theory, my kids did schoolwork. What that meant was they took turns entertaining her as the others did school work. It was not the most productive day you can imagine.

Friday, my kids all begged for an extension on their opinion piece paper, something about not being home enough to get their work done. I took pity on them and gave them an extension.

Do you know how they repaid me?

That afternoon Batman fell at park day and gave himself an impressive gash above his eye, so we went back to the ER. Now he has 3 scars in his hairline, one on his left eyelid, and another right about his eyebrow. It’s quite impressive. As a bit of a funny story, there was a dad there who explained to me it’s not as bad as it looks. He was an amateur boxer and had gotten a cut or two like that. I was more worried because it looked like the injury had gone in, not out, and I’ve heard that’s particularly bad for head wounds. Batman and I loaded up and headed off to the nearest Urgent Care, and we were in and out in about 20 minutes. They just put some steri-tape on it, and I don’t even think they glued it shut (it did end up becoming a note in one of his daily paragraphs).

April

April started off with a bang as we had Easter on April 1 with my brother and his kids. My kids had just as much fun hiding eggs for their cousins as they did finding eggs.

We watched Sign of the Beaver on Amazon Prime. I’d been so excited to find this movie because I remembered loving the book as a kid and being fascinated by it. This movie I spent most of it yelling at the Mom (who wasn’t in the book), frustrated with the Dad (who was barely in the book), and generally annoyed by the changes they made. Usually when changes are made to a book, I may not like them, but it makes for a strong story. These changes had me yelling at the movie, and so amazingly frustrated with the screenwriters.

In my never-ending quest to get some good bluebonnet pictures we stopped by the bluebonnets after going to glow in the dark mini golf, the kids put up with me, and I just have to edit pictures before putting up my annual bluebonnet pictures. You also get a couple of shots of the strangeness of my kids, who either ham it up for the camera or hide from it. There is no in between.

May

Jeff and I got a new mattress, which meant we moved the old mattress up to our movie room, and they re-enacted the famous “Hi” episode from the boys’ toddlerhood when they first got big boy beds.

I read my friend Anne Marie’s book, Prayer Warriors (see my review) and it got me thinking of all sorts of great activities to do with it.

Oh, and I broke one of my teapots, the thing just cracked clear through, it was very sad. This one was great for making pots of loose leaf tea, which I’ve been known to do….

Games played: we went through our stash of games and separated them into: definitely keep, definitely give away, and play at least once more to see if we want to keep it. So Batman got out Transamerica just to play with, and just as we were trying to cut down on games the boys went out and bought Boss Monster, a game inspired by early Nintendo games.

We had one last field trip for the month, a local “ranch” had a riding and games field trip, which let us check them out for how their lessons might work and what she does with them. Unfortunately for us that was the day a huge heat wave came through and the temperature was in the 90s with the sun beating down on us, which made for a less than a great time to try it out.

Our co-op had an end of the year celebration at a local splash pad, and we have now transitioned into pools and splash pads for our weekly get-togethers, because it’s HOT.

We remade one of our cooking around the world dishes, Finnish oven pancakes, and the kids loved it just as much this time as the last time.

Jeff started up a family gaming campaign set in the modern world, but we’re all on an island as kids, and the kids have been loving this and eagerly do any homework assignments  Jeff gives us to get extra experience in the game or brownie points. It’s made them insanely happy to try this all out. It’s made me happy to see them researching Greek mythology to learn more.

The kids started researching their pre-history units and I at least partially achieved one of my goals when Princess said to me, “Mommy what _______ religion believes about how the world started sounds pretty weird to me,” and then she paused, “But I guess if you weren’t a Christian what I believe might sound weird to them.” So at least that goal was achieved partially.

Oh, and I ended May with a horrible allergice reaction to something, which I finally got medicine for this Monday because when you break out over the weekend I’ve learned the ER doesn’t give you the right dosage.

Games played: Torres, which we decided to keep, Shadows of Brimstone, one of the Hellfire Succubi missions (and not one we’d play with the kids) and we barely escaped with our lives.

June

Jeff and I celebrated our anniversary down in Fredricksburg where I had a blast sharing odd bits and pieces of history that I found amusing.

I bought a new camera and promptly experimented with it and used it to create a “this is how you put dishes away” cheat sheet because I was tired of wondering what happened to dishes. You’d think after years of putting them away they’d know where they went, but no, they don’t.

I also took actual good pictures off all manner of projects I’ve been working on before this. Now to get the files all cleaned up and uploaded to the store…

June Week 3

We dropped the boys off at camp for the week and headed home with just one kid. So Princess and I spent the week doing all the things her brothers hate and working on AHG badges.

We started with swimming with friends from co-op, then we completed the puppetry badge with her friend and made marionette puppets. That was Monday.

Tuesday we watched movies, had the same friend over to spend the night (we were leaving early in the morning to go hiking for the day), and had a different family over for dinner. So, yes we ended up with a lot of people over for Tuesday.

Wednesday we had our half day hike, and then collapsed and watched more movies. In case you hadn’t noticed, we were watching all of the movies her brothers would hate. It was a lot of fun.

Thursday we had a special lunch, and then my Mom and Aunt came over and we watched Momma Mia to prepare for the sequel coming out (I was also reminded of why I hadn’t shown it to my kids earlier, thankfully a few of the things I’d forgotten about went way over her head). Thursday night we watched an amusing Peter Pan prequel from the BBC and the first part of Pride and Prejudice. I’d promised her if she read all of Pride and Prejudice we’d watch the BBC mini-series (I hooked her by accident while watching Lizzie Bennet Diaries on YouTube, someday I’m going to buy the DVDs).

Friday we finished up Pride and Prejudice and then went to pick up the boys. They again got all 11 verses memorized, and got awards for archery and riflery. Pretty good job on their part.

Movies watched (we may not have always paid complete attention): Prince and Me, High School Musical 3 (on Netflix), Prince and Me 4 (it’s as bad as it sounds, as is HSM3), Pan (a Peter Pan prequel, which despite watching on Prime I can’t find), Mamma Mia, and more that I’ll add as I  remember them.

June Week 4

The kids were frantically working on completing their pre-history unit, and I was doing a lot of “This is what I meant,” and “No, that’s is not acceptable work” in the mornings.”

The afternoons I dropped the kids off at the various teen host homes and then in the evenings went to watch the kids at their various places they served. Superman and Princess taught kids clubs and Batman was part of the service team. It was pretty hilarious listening to Batman explain each day what he did, basically, he did a lot of yard work for people. He was perfectly happy to do it.

I took the kids out for treats a couple of times during the week to help them keep their energy up, and to help me survive the rest of the week. As an example of how tired they were at the end of it, my kids actually slept in past 8:00 on their own!

July

It started off with my surprise birthday party followed up by a murder mystery party the next day. It was pretty epic. Jeff wrote a steampunk murder mystery party which was quite fun to be part of.

Part of the surprise was Tara and Josh came down, and my friend Amanda. Tara was down for the week, and Amanda was here for the weekend. This, of course, means my week was super busy.

This year I had a homemade birthday. I bought small sketchbooks for all of the kids and said, “Fill as much as you can with pictures, stories, whatever you want,” and the kids went at it with all sorts of fun creations in their books. None of them completed their books, but I didn’t really want them to. I wanted them to start it and have room to add to it over time.

The two most amusing parts of it. Princess planned and decorated my birthday cake, and Superman made a birthday card for me out of LEGOs spelling out happy birthday. Those, of course, had to get their own share, because you really couldn’t see them in the collage.

My big present from Jeff is a trip to Universal Studios Florida in September, which I’m amazingly excited about! I’ve bought the Unofficial Universal book and am planning away. If you have any advice I’d love to hear it.

We went to Typhoon Texas (see the super brave Ticia who despite being scared of heights did the ropes course), stayed up way too late, played some D and D (right after I finish reading, I’m going to write up the summar of that over at Tir Na Macalla), Shadows of Brimstone (we nearly all died), and generally had a blast. The week ended having lunch over at Sam’s parents’ house (her late husband).

I think that’s our month.

August

We took a brief break to go to Typhoon Texas with a friend for the day. Princess was quite happy to have her cast off and be able to do the climbing walls.

We have some friends who moved to Alaska last fall, and sadly their oldest son finally lost his battle and died at 8 years old. He was an amazing young man, and no one ever left his presence without a smile. The family asked for people to come dressed as superheroes, so we all dressed up in our very best superhero outfits and took pictures to show our support. I may have hugged my boys extra tight when I heard the news.

You know, every month I say, “This month I’m going to write out what happens at the end of each week, and I’m going to make sure I’ve got pictures uploaded for each week. You know what? That doesn’t happen.

We completed our first science experiment for our geology lessons. I was disappointed to find out, it’s not so much geology as earth science, but the kids are still enjoying it, and it’s making for a good review of what we covered before. We then went and completed the second experiment which was accurately charting a park and guiding someone to a hidden treasure.

Princess and I worked on one of her hands on projects for the month, this one was dyeing fabric. We tried out different plant dyes to try and replicate the Phoenician purple dye. The closest we came was either blueberries or purple cabbage. I need to look at our results again to be sure.

Princess and Batman started the second hands-on project testing different desiccants to mummify a chicken leg. I didn’t want to mummify a whole chicken a THIRD time. The kids were disappointed.

We celebrate our annual not back to school by going to Mount Playmore with the cousins, and generally goofing off. Then that weekend we went to my friend Sam’s house for the annual memorial birthday swim party. I do miss him.

The last week of August was filled with the kids’ sudden frantic realization all of their due dates were on Friday, and they were worried about getting it all done.

They did get a reprieve for two of the science chapters as one of the required elements for the experiment didn’t get in until Thursday (my own fault for ordering it too late).

They frantically worked to complete quizzes for history, science, and 2 papers. In the end they pulled off their history papers, but their writing assignment was not up to snuff. We had a miscommunication on what was expected for the article, so we spent Friday talking through what’s expected and we’re going to walk through it step by step this coming week.

September

Harry Potter World! We spent the week at Universal Studios Orlando and finished it off with a visit to Clearwater Aquarium and visiting Winter the Dolphin.

But to details….

We rode almost every single ride there once. After riding one Simpsons ride my kids flat out refused to ride any of the others. We even rode the little kid rides over in the Dr. Seuss area while Jeff and Superman went back to the hotel for something.

Of course, we rode the Harry Potter rides at least once every day, and I had a blast just soaking in the ambiance. It was pretty amazing. I blew through my budget but got most of our Christmas presents for the year there, so that was a nice moment.

Our hotel was amazing, for the first time ever we stayed on site, and there were lots of fun perks with that. I spent a lot of time wandering around both our hotel and the parks just taking pictures of things that amused me. I turned dozens of those pictures into writing prompts for the kids.

Saturday we saw Winter, and because of the way the aquarium is set up, it is just about impossible to get many good pictures, however, Princess was through the roof ecstatic to finally get to see Winter. She said that was one item crossed off her bucket list (which Jeff found absolutely hilarious).

We drove back to Texas with our usual spate of people getting sick after too many late days and not enough sleep. It didn’t even matter we took it much easier than we did when we traveled to Disney.

October

We ended October with a field trip to a local pumpkin patch which was lots of fun and a stop by the library to view a friend’s coin collection on display. Princess has started looking ahead to what it takes to get the Stars and Stripes award from AHG. It’s a lot of work.

The last Saturday of the month, Princess and I joined hundreds of other volunteers throughout our town to clean local parks, help the elderly/disabled with their homes, clean schools, and whatever else people asked for help with. It was a fun day, and we all thoroughly enjoyed it.

Oh, and I managed to catch our toaster oven on fire. That was special.

And of course, we ended with Halloween. Batman was Genn Greymane from World of Warcraft. Princess was a tea fairy. Superman was a soldier.

November

We made another model of the earth, much like we did a few years ago, and the kids thought it was quite hilarious. Then a few days later we made a model of the moon, which looks remarkably similar to our model of the earth.

Then we studied the solar system and the placement of the different planets using our astronomy model I got back when we first studied astronomy.

Princess got her ears pierced, which was super exciting because we had to have a birth certificate and a photo ID, which I got from Homeschool Buyer’s co-op.

Superman made Princess a horn for her ginormous horse and for her dolphin (so Winter could be a narwhal), which Princess loves!

Then we had Thanksgiving with my family, with the kids continuing to be in love with their baby cousin. It’s so cute to see them all argue over who gets to hold her.

I found a pair of dirty socks on the kitchen counter, which was kinda annoying. Thankfully the guilty child spoke up and it was solved.

We tried a new game, Mythtopia, which plays a bit like both Small World and Risk, but it takes all of the finickyness of Small World and the destroy the other player of Risk so I really didn’t care for it. We’ll probably rehome this one.

I included the picture because I picked up the sardines at the end of November, but we actually cooked this meal in December, so you’ll get to hear about that crazy meal next month (I’ll give you a hint, it did not go well).

December

Princess organized her American Heritage Girl troop Christmas party and they collected together 2 grocery carts of groceries during their Christmas caroling.

Batman used the wood-burning kit to make Jeff a cool cane based off a weapon in our game. It’s a cane that controls the weather. It’s quite cool.

Princess and I joined my Mom and we went to see the Nutcracker. The entire family joined together to watch a Christmas Carol radiocast by a local theater group. It was pretty awesome.

Christmas!

The kids got lots of matching outfits with their cousins. I made a dress for Princess and her two girl cousins (which is quite a challenge when they range in size from 12 to infant, so they’re not perfect matches). The boys all got somewhat matching Creeper jammies. It’s a challenge to find matches for the boys since my giant children are in full-grown men size clothes, and their 6-year-old cousin, is totally not.

Some highlights of Christmas presents: Batman got a scroll map of the World of Warcraft game, which he adores. Superman got several games, including Soul of the Empire, which he adores. Princess got a fun “So many books, so little time” shirt, and I got the super cool LEGO storybook set.