Our week: Just a few random happenings

It was a busy week, and we spent a lot of time in the car driving down to Salem everyday, so I didn't get a lot of shots, and we didn't really do much but try to keep up with life and survive the week of play rehearsals.  But here's what I have!...

Our week started with the first day out on the boat (this season) for Mother's Day.  It was a beautiful day, and the lake was pretty peaceful.  We had great plans to bring a picnic dinner, but ended up having roast in the crock pot at home waiting for us when we were done.

The water was COLD!  But, that didn't stop these guys from jumping in and swimming!  We also took our new knee board out, and April was brave enough to give it a first try!  She never made it up on her knees, but she sure tried.  I didn't get any pictures of that unfortunately.

 Our Media/screen time has been too much lately, so we started back with Media tickets this week.  This time I am doing it differently hoping that it will stick better.  I am posting them up on the chalkboard (for now) so that we can see how much each child has used.  I really like seeing them out all like this all week.  It's a good reminder for us all.  Our first week back at them went great, and I'm glad that the time spent watching movies and hanging out on the computer was definitely a lot less this week.

One morning I was making breakfast, and Aaron drew this picture on the dry erase table.  I think he was having a happy morning.  So cute!

We also started this week reading 20 minutes a day to prepare them for their summer reading challenges, and to just read more.  I set the timer for 20 minutes, and they have to be reading either by themselves or being read to.  This is a rare moment here with all 3 listening to Aaron read to them.  Aaron says he really likes reading to his brothers now.  I sure love these moments.

We had lunch out on the front porch many times this week.  It was pretty nice some days, and we have such a nice little patio table and chairs.  Alex wants to be outside any chance he gets, so this works nice that I can eat outside and watch him.

One of our favorite lunches:  chili over rice

We made rainbow rice with some old brown rice.  I had the boys shake each color up in ziploc baggies, they had fun.

We finally got to one of our history projects that I've had planned.  In our Story of the World activity book there is a page of Greek pictures to make into stickers.  Well, I had the idea to make Shrinky Dinks out of them instead.  We traced each picture on to a page and they colored them in.  I was going to have them make an Ancient Greece charm bracelet out of their page. 

See how these are curled.  He went ahead and made a necklace out of them before we realized we just needed to cook them longer.

Well, we got them all colored and cut out, put in the oven, and noticed they were curling a ton.  I panicked and took them out.  Little did I know that they are supposed to do that before they shrink!  So, for the first 2 that happened, and I thought our project was a flop no matter what I tried.  Well, I accidently left the other ones in longer, and viola they shrunk all the way and weren't curled.  So, lesson learned...leave them in long enough to shrink all the way.  I was able to put the curled ones back into the oven to "save" them.  They all turned out great.

This is a close up of some of the Greek objects, a helmet, the parthenon, a ship, grapes, a Greek amphora, a sword, and a dolphin.  This picture was taken when they weren't done all the way and still curled.  I later realized they needed to be cooked longer and put them back into the oven, then they shrunk nicely.

We started practicing this song for morning scripture time.  I noticed in primary last Sunday that they were practicing this song, but my boys were having such a hard time that day.  They weren't singing, and I had the thought that we should practice it at home, so I printed 2 copies up one for each of them.  A light bulb went on.  Aaron immediately started getting it when I put the words in front of him.  He was excited to sing it, and so was Aric.  Even Alex was trying as we were singing it together.  Then I stuck it in my church bag this Sunday so he would have it in primary to help him.  

On Wednesday Dad took the 2 older boys up to Silver Falls for some hiking, and to visit Grandma and Grandpa who were camping up there.  They had a pretty good time, and I had some time with just Alex.  It was also nice to not have them in the car for our 2 trips to Salem that day taking April to her Shakespeare rehearsal.

 April had Shakespeare rehearsal everyday this week, and on Friday and Saturday she performed in all 3 shows.  I can't believe I have not a single picture of any of that.  I didn't take my camera with me when I watched the play, and I didn't have it at the cast party.  She did amazing though, all the kids in her Scholar class were amazing.  The play was awesome, and the kids did a remarkable job.  Maybe if I ever get permission to use someone else's pictures I might post some.

That's a wrap for this week.  Hope you had a good week too!

Desiree