August 15, 2013

What a summer. . .



We have been so busy. Horrible storms, something called a shelf cloud came though and knocked down tons of trees. Just two weeks ago they were all cleaned up. The storm was two months ago. It's been the rainiest and coldest August I have ever known for Kansas to have. We are usually in severe drought and my garden ends up dieing. At the end of July they were saying we were in the worst drought we had had in years...the river in front of my mom's home was almost completely dry-just a big sand bar. And they didn't know what we were going to do for water. Now we are having flooding, to the point this weeks TMS was canceled. So....it's CRAZY!

Vince's parents came to visit, and we went to all kinds of neat things. The Cosmosphere, Exploration Place, Cowtown on a field trip with Lela's school. Which was soooo funny. RJ just loves loves loves horses, and he kept climbing the fence to look at the horses in the back pasture, and then jumping off the fence to look at me.  All the while he wasn't noticing there was a cow in the front pasture that was totally intrigued by RJ. So he hopped off the fence, then was about to climb the fence again, when he turned to get back on the fence the cow had stuck his head completely through the fence, and when RJ turned to climb the fence again he was met eye level with the cow! He jumped up in the air and started running! Then once he figured out it was just a cow (a few seconds) he was ready to climb the fence again. Me and the school principal were laughing so hard! We now also have season passes to Exploration Place, we have went a few times. Once even with the congregation which was great fun for all the kids to get together.

We also found out during my inlaws visit that, a new sister in our hall, had Vince's uncle as her CO in her last congregation. So that was kind of neat.

Last week was our towns city wide garage sale. I ended up spending more then I had anticipated. But, got some awesome deals, and only spent a total of 45 dollars.

I was able to get the kids about 100 books, including a lot of classics and expensive books, like the trendy Bob books for teaching reading. 

When the owner of the local used book store found out I was homeschooling, he offered to bring me boxes of books for free, AND gave me a awesome deal on a telescope.

RJ has very few toys, so I was able to get him a lot of little hot wheels cars which he loves, and stacking blocks.

I also got RJ a lion costume that hopefully we can use when we put on a drama on Noah.

Bought my dad and Vince's grandpa some fun ties.

Brand new children's cds-including Little Einstein, still in the plastic, never opened.

I had been wanting and needing a CD player for the classroom, and ended up with a 5 disk cd changer, that is also a radio, and cassette player.

Got some nice glass parfait glasses, drinking glasses, high chair for the table, and a booster chair for the car, a few clothes for RJ, cookie sheet, ruler things-like vices-brand new in package, some vintage-never used-lint brushes, and shoe shine brush, vintage figurines, a cute little vintage reproduction bucket, hand crocheted doilies, pryex meatloaf pans, and bowls, and much more.

And all you can eat Indian Tacos-at the local community center.

We started school this year. And so far, so good. Lela is still ahead of what we are on, but hopefully she will get some new stuff soon. She has a new teacher this year that I think we will like a lot. I also started Belle and RJ with PreK and they are loving it! Especially the songs. Even RJ just loves it. Lela's back to school swim party will be on Sunday and they are all looking forward to that. I'm also really happy with our new school schedule this year. Last year we mainly only had a song, and Bible story in our daily schedule, but this year we have added scripture copy work, and daily Bible reading, and they are all doing really well with it! And understanding it greatly! I think it will take us a total of two years to read the entire Bible, instead of the traditional one year. But, for littles, I think that is still awesome. And am very excited about how things are going so far.

Strawberries and blueberries were so cheap this week I made a huge batch of jam...I'm thinking it may be my last batch of jam, unless I go to my friends home and pick some peaches and make one last batch of peach jam. But, not positive yet, on that.

So all in all, it's been a busy and fun summer, and looking forward to this school year. It's already been pretty fun.