Home School Day #23ish

The kids have their work down to a science.  They started about 11:30 this morning.  It's 12:20 and they are done with their assignments for the day.  The school work being sent home is not very challenging (obviously!), and it takes them almost no time to complete it.  

Our school district is pretty rough to start with. It's extremely overcrowded due to the oil industry, and I think about 70% or more of the students live below poverty.  I saw one of my friends when I was on a walk.  She is a teacher, and she said only about 20% of the students are even turning in work.  Now the few students who actually attempt to do the work will be even further ahead when we start next year.  Makes me sad.

Brinley finished her last final for BYU yesterday.  She was so relieved.  This morning she joined the boys on the couch and was looking into scholarship opportunities.  She is a focused girl.

Random Picts

A few pictures from the past couple of weeks.

Bryn is extremely dedicated to school.  She puts in hours and hours of work.  I am positive I never worked that hard in college, and I was a good student.  She is an excellent student.  Occasionally she will take an afternoon off, and then she is really cute to spend time with her siblings.  Bryn gives her all with whatever she decides to focus on.  

One unexpected blessing from having church at home has been the feeling of family.  After church ends, everyone just lingers in the den.  There is a sweet feeling of love and peace. We usually end up talking, laughing and playing a game together.  Definitely an added blessing of home church.

Aubrey died the tips of her hair red with Kool-Aid.  With no school or church, it made it easy for me to say, "Go for it" when she asked.  (It was a surprise to her daddy though...he was at work!)

The boys have been working on making a corn hole game.

Aub made a cute gift and put together an Easter basket for her bestie Breena.  One funny thing is Aubrey was disappointed the balloons she blew up did not float.  The boys gave her a bad time about not realizing how helium works.  I am not sure how she missed that either.  Silly girl.

Parker and I play a daily Yahtzee game and have a quarantine tally.   That game of mostly luck is getting a little boring.  We have all been playing different games together as well: Monopoly Deal, Cities and Knights, Spades, Crowns, Rummikub, Othello and more.

The water is FREEZING but we've still enjoyed hanging out at Gram and Gramp's pool.  Grandpa was working in the backyard, so we got to visit with him for a few minutes from a distance.  It was 90° on the day this picture was taken.  This whole 5 weeks we've been on lock down, we have had beautiful weather.  Usually it is very windy in West Texas, but it hasn't been bad at all.  It's definitely heating up though.

 Aub reading her cousin Perry a story. 

SUNDAY NIGHT.  We were tired of social distancing on such an extreme level.  We had 10 people total so we were still being good citizens and staying within the guidelines.  We had a great  time visiting with the Vores for a little over an hour.  Brinley especially was so grateful.  She has been so sad living in Odessa but not being able to be with family.  She was beaming for hours.

(Seeing my boys in this picture makes me super frustrated...they try to ruin every picture they are in by not cooperating.  It's been years now, and I'm so over it.  However, they are not, so what's a mom to do?  Get over it, I guess.)

Park bought a unicycle a couple of weeks ago.  It is pretty tough to get the hang of, but he is getting there.  He needs to start by a wall and then he can go about 10-15 feet.  I am sure if he sticks with it the next few weeks, he will be a pro.

April Fools

We didn't really plan any April Fools jokes this year.  Parker did see one going around on the internet where the Governor Abbot said everyone would need to repeat the year.  He and I decided to try to "get" Tanner and Aubrey with that joke later in the day.  

A little before dinner, we were all hanging out in the den, and Parker and I started casually talking about how everyone was going to have to repeat the same grade next year.  

Aubrey and Tanner went silent.  Then Tanner was annoyed and asked, "Why are we still doing homeschool then?"  Parker and I were cracking up but trying to stay calm and keep the conversation going.  Aubrey was pretty much speechless.  Then we broke the news that it was just a joke, and we all had a good laugh.  I was shocked with how calmly they both took it though.   

However, two weeks later, the Easter day joke we played on Tanner was hilarious....to everyone but Tanner anyway.  Tanner loves Cheddar and Parmesian Cheez-It Duoz, but he hates Bacon and Cheddar Duoz.  We have accidently purchased them a couple of times, and he rants on and on about how disgusting they are.

For their Easter baskets, we bought everyone their own package of Duoz.  (When we just purchase one package from the store, Tanner eats them all before anyone else has the chance to try a few.)  We switched Tanner's package out with the Bacon and Cheddar one we had in the pantry.  

His reaction was priceless.  When he realized everyone else had the good kind, and he was stuck with the nasty ones. he was in shock.  Then he started trying to steal everyone's Cheeze-Its.

We were all cracking up.  He was ready to battle, and he was totally stunned that we would be so mean as to give him the gross ones.

After a couple of minutes, we let him know he had the good Duos and that only his packaging was wrong.  He sat down on the recliner, tried to hold back a smile, and he busted open his crackers.

 

Happy Easter!

Blessings

We had Family Home Evening last night, and we read a sweet story entitled Living the Somoan Way  It focused on teen brothers who live in Somoa.  Their life has been so different from ours.  It was interesting to hear how they live off the land and see how they take care of one another.  (For example, the older brother works in town and his earnings help provide for their family and also for his younger brother's education.)  Learning about these brothers really brought a sweet, reflective spirit into our home.

We then talked about some of the blessings that have come into our lives since the quarantine.  It was interesting to hear what the fam mentioned.  I am going to make a few notes down below so I can better remember the significance of a few blessings that were mentioned.

-More time for scripture study.  Aub mentioned this one, and it made my heart happy.  She has a goal to read The Book of Mormon this year.  She started strong but with school, homework, Young Women's and athletics her scripture reading started to slip.  I love that she realized that and is using this time to study the scriptures more.

-Learning to cook.  Bryn said this one.  The kids have helped make dinner for years.  We have a chore chart, and they rotate nights.  Often, however, I do a portion of it while they are at school so they have never felt fully confident in making the entire recipe themselves.  (I didn't realize this until the summer before Bryn was going to college, and she was concerned about not know how to cook.  What????)  Now they have the time to be involved in making the meal from beginning to end.   

Parker has been learning to grill his deer meat and has actually been the one initiating that.  He looks up the recipes on the internet, makes the marinades, when applicable, and cooks it.  Pretty impressive.  He has made back-strap, sausage, and fried venison so far.  

-Be with Tanner.  This was thrown out by someone because Tanner had a negative remark about pretty much every blessing mentioned.  He gave a half grin.  Such is life with a 15 year old boy, I think.

-Butter gets more attention.  Buttercup, Butter for short, is our dog.  She's getting lots of loves from Aubrey and lots more walks than usual.

-More snacks.  This one is no joke.  We are all eating lots and lots of snacks, and I have chosen not to make it a battle at this time.   With no extended family time, no friends, no school, no sports, no church, no shopping....if an extra 10 cookies will bring you joy, so be it.  (I think my kids will recover just fine from this.  I, however, am going to have to rein myself in because I will not be happy if I gain 10 pounds during this quarantine.)

I do try to slow the random eating down some before dinner....so everyone will eat the dinner.

-Family dinners.  I mentioned this one and Park, Tan and Aubrey were incredulous.  "We ALWAYS have family dinners.  What are you talking about?"  (They didn't make that point with joy either...more with annoyance.)  Their protests made my day!  I am glad in their minds we have almost always have family dinners.  I know this is something Bri and I feel is important, and I am probably too hard on myself for all the times it hasn't happened.  It is super tricky with evening games, practices and other commitments.  It is not very tricky at all right now.  We really get to have family dinner every single night together!  It's the best.

We have so many blessings.  I was reading in Moroni chapter 9 yesterday and it brought peace and hope to my heart.  Christ is merciful and long-suffering.  Christ lifts us up.  I am glad we were able to reflect together on some of the blessings in our lives right now.