We started school this week. The kids have been waking up early anyway the past week or so, so that made it easier to get in a routine. After breakfast and a quick chore per kid, Lissy and Micah are supposed to sit on the rug with a few toys and play fairly quietly while I help Camie with her workbooks for 30-45 minutes. Then I release the wild animals from their rug-cage and let them come color for a while with us at the table. It's gone well. I have a few toys per kid set aside on a shelf that are only school time toys. Eventually I hope to include some cutting paper, playing with stickers, etc. But until Camie and I get in a pretty set routine that'll have to wait.



Today, out under the lean-to by the shed.

Thursdays are designated as Craft Day on my feeble school-schedule. That way we all get something to look forward to during the week. (Maybe the kids, more than me.) :) Camie gets a break from seatwork and the other two get to do some "school". I get to practice mulit-tasking and staying pleasant in the midst of it. Today we made bird snacks: Toasted bread spread with peanut butter, dipped in birdseed, and tied to a limb. The kids were excited to be making something, but Micah was hurt that the peanut butter and bread was for the birds and not him. He kept saying in an injured tone: "I daught (thought) we were gonna hab a nack.(have a snack)." A cat fight between Flopsy and Patience stole their attention as we got started, but all in all, our 15 minutes of school went well. :)

Micah's bird-treat.

Ready to hang it up.

I have very little space left on our camera memory card, so I didn't get to try for a better shot. Lissy calls this her muscle shirt, because it's like Daddy's. She has two and wears them a lot.

This was the other day after a much-asked-for "craft". I drew a house on paper and then cut shapes to match it, sort of like a puzzle. They've played something like this on a Blue's Clues computer game (that's where I got the idea) and loved it. But this was even better (to them) because they got to use scissors and glue. I felt proud of myself. We completed a project with three kids who all need help at the same time and I didn't turn into Frustrated Mean Mommy.

Lissy's completed house. They sort of learned Josh. 24:15 to go with it.

I couldn't find Lissy the other day. I located her in the downstairs bathroom with the tall chair pulled up to the sink. She was standing in the basin washing her feet.

I heard them giggling upstairs in the loft just no which made me suspicious. I asked what they were doing. "Just tying each other up." "Oh, okay,"I answered. Then I realized how that sounded. :) Actually, they were winding a jumprope around each other, and I could see them, so I wasn't too concerned.

About that time Hannah drove up to drop her boys off while she and Steve (and baby Amberly) go out. Hannah and I are trying a babysitting trade-off for date nights rather than the mom's two-hours out we had been doing. So in a few weeks, Matt and I will go out (and Cassie) and Hannah and Steve will watch our kids for a few hours. Matt is supposed to start night classes soon and will be very busy, and Steve works in Gulfport which makes it hard to find time for him and Hannah to go out, so we're hoping this will work out well. Babysitting costs make date nights too infrequent for my taste.

About two weeks ago we went down to a church-member's part of the creek that runs behind our house. It was about knee-deep on the kids, had a rope swing, zip line, and even a slip and slide down the sandbank ending in the creek. The kids loved it. Lissy turned out to be quite a monkey on the rope swing, although she never really got the nerve to let go and drop in. Micah learned to close his mouth when he fell down so he wouldn't breathe creekwater and they all flew down the slip and slide a few times. I wish I'd taken a camera. Their faces would have terror all over them as they bumped and whizzed down the slide. Then as they hit the water a huge grin would cover their faces. Such a contrast in expressions in a few seconds.

This week my sister Lauren and I took her son and my oldest three down to the same creek, but upstream behind mom's house. It was even shallower, but just as beautiful. The water looks golden like honey and is just fast enough to move you if you lay on your back and float. Micah and Lissy found small patch of sand where one built and another threw. Mom watched Lauren's baby Caroline and Cassie at her house so we could keep our eyes on four kids 2,2,3, and 5. Thanks mom. It was lots of fun. And LOTS of thanks to my brother Matt for being the kids' hero once again. He spent about two hours the other day clearing brush out of the creek so it was accessible.

That's all for now. So much more I've thought of writing throughout the week, but with 6 kids playing close-by in the playroom (Cassie's asleep--or was until Micah rode the tricycle into the side of the bouncy seat) my brain power if fading.