crazy week...

This week started out VERY rough! Monday afternoon I got a call from my mom (who is in Utah) that my dad had been rushed to the hospital. When she called they thought he had had a heart attack and that the paramedics had to do CPR on him. It was one of those moments that you stop and drop to your knees and pray your heart out. It was really scary. Thankfully he didn't have a heart attack but he actually had acute kidney failure brought on by antibiotics he was taking. He spent a day not being able to breath on his own and being sedated to keep him from tearing out the breathing tube. He also suffered a fractured skull and some slight temporary brain damage from the fall when he went unconscious. My mom said that he fell straight back like a log. We are very thankful he was in the place he was at when it happened, that he wasn't driving, or walking up stairs or in the middle of nowhere. I hated that I wasn't there to help, but I knew I couldn't do anything if I was and my mom had my two brothers there to be with her. He is doing great and has completely recovered. The doctors said it is a miracle he is not dead or a vegetable. He has two do two week of therapy before he can head back home to Oregon.

 

Before Monday Mac had a few very difficult days. And because of it Monday landed him a FULL day of cleaning the house. He was able to get a few things done that I rarely get to. And by the end of the day I had a very clean house and a boy who had a bit better attitude.

 

While Mac was cleaning under the couch cushions I found in the crevice of the couch our other van key fob. It has been missing since the begining of the year and we were going to spend a few hundred dollars to buy a new one. I was so excited!

 

This  cute little drawing has been on our chalkboard for awhile but I decided to erase it so I took a picture. Mac drew it for the missionaries when they came for dinner. It says prayer and it is a guy praying, eyes closed (the lines across the eyes are eyelashes), and the part under the face is hands that are together like you do when you pray. 

 

Between Mac and my dad I ate chocolate for 3 days straight until I had a headache for two days straight. After I had eaten all the chocolate left in the halloween candy hubs kindly brought these home for me. 

Oak saw them on my nightstand and asked what they were for. I told her that daddy knew that I had a rough day and he knows that I like chocolate so to be nice he brought those home for me.  She said, "So now I can tell my husband what to buy me when I have a rough day." This girl is hilarious!

 

My kids greeted me as pirates one morning. Love them!

 

After quiet time the kids wanted to play "store" with me. Mac set this up, so cute!

 

Terrible picture but it captures what our bed looks like for scripture reading every night. 

 

Mac and Oak have pen pals that live in Virginia. When we went to the local museum last week we got some post cards to send them. This is Macs. I try to take a picture of all of his work so that I can keep it with all his school work. 

 

We were working on skip counting by 2s and I was trying to get Mac to work past 20. So I had him write down the numbers.

 

He did great. The numbers on in order but the lines are out of order just because he ran out of space. 

 

This was kindof a spur of the moment activity that just came to me.  Oak really wants to be doing math but she just doesn't get it yet. She gets reading and letters and letter sounds much better. So I realized we need to work on numbers with manipulatives better. I had her seperate these little linking toys in to colors then count how many of each color and match it with the number on the skip bo card. It was a hit. And she did great.

 

After she finished. 

 

This girl is amazing at cutting out things. She stays right on the line and I am always impressed. 

 

I randomly found this graphing dot to dot. I thought Mac would poop out on doing it half way through. But he was persistent and finished it. He loves basically anything math related.

 

I took this picture because I was just sitting on the couch reading and he grabs his toys and gets as close to me as possible and just started playing right next to me. I thought it was cute.

 

Monday Mac got two stripes (red & blue) added to his belt and then on Wednesday he got one more (white). Oak also got one stripe on her belt. (I think blue). I don't remember what they are for but the kids know.  They are loving TKD and doing so well. In the photo Mac is on the left sparring.

 

Handsome boy. He was just sitting on my bed and looked so cute!

 

And of course we have to take a goofy one if we are going to take one with a nice smile. 

 

I had read some ideas on how to make doing chores more fun. Every morning while I am making breakfast the kids are to empty the dishwasher and put away all the clean dishes.  Somedays they have a bad attitude about it so this morning I told them I could get breakfast made before they finished the dishwasher. I happened to be making french toast that morning so I knew they would win. They thought it was so fun and they scurried and got it all done.

 

They spent a whole afternoon making puppets for a puppet show that they wanted to do for me. 

 

My boys snuggling me.

 

She just looked way too grown up for me. She looks like a pre teen in this picture, ack!

 

They are great friends, most of the time. I am so grateful they have each other. 

 

I got these work magnets at the dollar tree and Mac likes to make up his own sentences. 

 

Friday night was movie night and we watched Mr. Peabody and Sherman which we loved. 

 

He has been begging me for weeks to let him teach me how to play. I really have NO desire to learn to play but this boy has a gift of teaching and so I want to nurture that as much as possible. 

 

Our happy sabbath photo. 

 

I clearly remember asking him at least three times before we left for church to go put on his dress socks. Then we got to church and notice this. Silly boy! 

 

Every day this week the kids will eat little cutie after little cutie. I am totally okay with that! Mac was eating his fifth and he finished off that other one in the photo. He said, "I am trying to make a world record of how many a six year old can eat."

 

Right before bed Oak did the bottom of her hair and had to put in a ton of bows. Funny girl!

 

making dinner, hot chocolate, red balloons and science experiments...

Mac brought this into me Monday morning. It is a waterfall and river. I thought that it was quite clever and adorable. We love Legos.

So the kids will take turns making a dinner every week. They are required to do everything that needs to be done to prepare for a meal. From writing a grocery list (like Mac is doing in the picture), to shopping for the food, to making it. We are doing this mostly to help Mac with his issues with dinner. He makes dinner so miserable because it is usually healthy and he does not like healthy. He whines and complains and it is awful. Hoping this will help him to be a bit more grateful. 

Oak read her first book. I am not sure I am ready to teach her to read, but she sure is ready.

Bryce had been growing out his beard for a few weeks. The longest he has ever gone. Almost everyday he said he was going to shave it, but never did. Then he came home for lunch on Monday and shaved it. He calls it his social experiment. 

This girl was hilarious with the dress ups this week. She kept on calling it dress up day and we were all to dress up. 

I know I have already said this, but this girl is constantly crafting. She saw a hat in a library book and she was determined to make it. 

Mac decided the dinner he was going to make was Taco Bake. 

He did a great job and just needed my help a little bit. 

So proud!

The kids have been spending a lot of their days doing their own thing. I feel this is important for learning. I feel it is good for them to be bored and to find ways to explore their imaginations. A lot of the time it makes me cringe the messes and I have to put that aside a lot even when it is frustrating. This night the kids had taped a straw to an airplane and attached it to a rope. I had to help them with figuring out how to make one side higher than the other. They played together so great for a long time. 

A favorite snack lately. Vanilla greek yogurt, pretzels and little cuties. Then they always end up doing this with their snacks. 

Our homeschool center has been a complete mess since the kids have full access to all of it and they aren't that great at putting things back "where they find it and how they found it". I repeat that phrase numerous times a day. Hopefully it will sink in one day. I finally got it cleaned up and reorganized. 

I was trying to get a picture of Mac wearing shorts when it was 30 degrees outside. I was seriously wondering if this made me a good mom for letting him suffer and learn the consequence or a bad mom for not making him change. Also, at this moment we were walking into the YMCA. I went to Zumba twice this week. I plan on doing it everyweek. I really liked it!

I adore that this girl loves to eat healthy. She asks on a daily basis what she can have that is healthy. We are always talking about why it is important to eat healthy so that we don't get sick when we are older and so that our bodies can feel good when we do fun things. This day she insisted on having a salad with oranges like daddy eats. And isn't she beautiful?!

Another one of her creative hats. Love her!

The kids think it is hilarious when I ask ridiculous questions while playing head bandz.

It has been very cold this week so we have had hot chocolate of Ovaltine a few times. 

That face!

There was a big beautiful rainbow one day and so we hurried out to go and chase it. But by the time we got out it was gone. 

But they still had fun digging in the dirt. 

Oak's birth great grandma sent DQ gift cards for the kids for halloween. So while daddy was out of town we decided to use them for dinner after TKD.

We made parachutes and talked about how they work. 

Mac's best friend turned 7 on Friday so we made him a bag-o-science experiments. It was fun to put together because we did some of the experiments as we were putting together the kits. Also I am a bit anti toys right now and I just couldn't bring myself to let the kids buy a toy for someone. haha!

Playing with the left over balloons after using some for science experiments. 

I also picked up these cool magnets from the dollar tree. The kids had so much fun going around the house finding things they did or didn't stick to. I had them make a list. 

Mac's list.

One afternoon we had hot chocolate and played Uno. It was a fun afternoon snack and activity. 

 I decided to make a learning game out of the balloons. I would throw the balloons to them and they would have to find a word and read it. They loved it!

Mac trying to balance the balloon on his nose. 

I had seen on FB about a new exhibit at the local county museum of local rocks and the admission was free just for the day. The kids thought that would be fun. So when daddy got home from his trip Saturday afternoon we went. The whole museum was actually quite impressive for a small town museum. We really enjoyed it!. 

They had a lot of historical displays. The kids loved that they got put in jail.

Hilrious!

We found this caboose outside the museum. 

I had already made granola and some bread, but Mac wanted banana bread. Once the frozen bananas were thawed I had the kids help me make it. 

We also got around to this experiment that I had been wanting to do all week. 

It was a hit! It was just oil, water, food coloring and alka seltzer to make it bubble. 

And Happy Sabbath. 

Other things:

The weather was really cold this week. And it is supposed to just get colder. 

Hubs went out of town for one night and then ended up being gone for two nights because of the weather. We were grateful that there was one pass back to K Falls that wasn't bad to drive over. 

Mac's behavior was terrible most of the week and he has lost pretty much all privileges. He is doing much better now, but this kid struggles to not be so self centered.