Under My Belt

Huge sigh of relief, We have the first week of school under our belt! I was really struggling with the decision of whether or not to finish what we did not complete last year (due to the move) or start fresh and begin our new curiculum.

I am happy to say we started with our new material. I did not want to be bogged down trying to finish.

We are doing My Father's World Creation To The Greeks.

I like to celebrate the beginning of the year with something special that we can look forward to. Last year, Syndi and I took the children to Starbucks and Haggen for donuts. Ruby puked everywhere and it was rather spendy. We opted to invite Ben and Syndi over and have a fabulous morning of donuts, hot cocoa, bacon, eggs, and of course, coffee for the adults.

It was extra special for Erik and Taylor since I allowed them to eat the donuts even though they are gluten-free. Sacrifices must be made for the sake of memories. I daresay they were all happy campers.

They were even more excited that they were able to play after and work on their forts in the woods.

Our studies this year include God and the History of Art. Lesson 1 was a Lesson in Frustration. Ruby and Erik were in tears and Taylor was pretty close to it. Liberty, Ian and Aaron loved the challenge of drawing a butterfly using only their teeth.

I participated as well, but I must confess that putting the pencil in my mouth made me gag, and my butterfly was not nearly as good as the children's.

We will also be Celebrating Biblical Feasts so much of our first week included preparation for Celebrating the Sabbath. The meal was amazing! We made Challa Bread and Golden Yoich Soup and enjoyed it with wine and grape juice.

The meal has a very sacred feel to it complete with silver candlesticks, white candles, fine linen, and our good dishes.

My favorite part of the meal was the youngest son, Ian, washing everyone's hands and Sean placing his hands on the children and praying a blessing for them.

He also prayed Proverbs 31 for me.

The book we used, Celebrating Biblical Feasts by Martha Zimmerman provided us with the meaning of all the elements, recipes, prayers and crafts. I highly recommend it. We will be celebrating the Sabbath again along with some other feasts.

All of the children worked on a covering for the Challa Bread but Taylor is the only one to complete hers! She stitched the entire thing in a few short days! This, from my daughter who says she isn't crafty (don't tell her that is a craft!)

We also enjoyed 2 wonderful days at our beach. Once by ourselves and the next with lots of friends! Click over to Rene's blog to see some photos!

We had company for dinner one night and went to our friends The Hollister's for an amazing party based on the book, The Great Horn Spoon by Sid Fleishman. We panned for gold, had a treasure hunt, threw pick axes, hit pinatas that looked like bags of gold, had the most amazing food!! I love potlucks! enjoyed rootbeer floats, made new friends and saw longtime friends. It was my perfect kind of day.

I would say we had a pretty productive first week of school. Let's keep up the momentum.