Now is the month of Maying

When the children were all young and we first started homeschooling, it was wonderful, because our schedule was whatever we chose. Or perhaps I should say "whatever I chose." It was a big responsibility to make so many decisions about how we spent our time, but also so glorious to go to school and take breaks whenever we wanted! We enjoyed year-round-ish school and saved field trips and vacations for beautiful spring or fall days when everyone else was cooped up inside. We rode the momentum of the family's interest, with no regard for what anyone else was doing, and rested and re-calibrated when we were tired or burnt out or just needed a little rejuvenation. I loved it.

Unfortunately, as everyone has gotten older and the family path has branched a bit into separate directions, we seem to now have…the worst of both worlds. We're fairly tied to a traditional schedule because of students in traditional classes and extracurricular activities that follow the same calendar. And I still feel like I have all the responsibility to decide how we spend our time, but none of the freedom anymore! Ha!

It's not really that bad, though. I'm still so glad to be able to arrange our schedule to the extent I do! I don't want to complain about the way we get to spend our school time, because even if it's not the idyllic days of yore, it's pretty darn good. 

However, all that was mostly just a roundabout way of getting to what everyone already knows; namely, that MAY IS SO BUSY! So many concerts, rehearsals, recitals, performances, track meets, programs! I don't know how anyone with ALL their kids in school manages it! Here are a few pictures of what we've been up to.

We went to the Children's Museum for Junie's birthday. She is maybe a little older than the target audience there, but, sweet girl that she is, just spent her time helping and enjoying how much fun the little boys were having. And she and Daisy and Goldie still enjoy playing in the cute tiny house and mini grocery store!

Ziggy was in heaven playing in the construction zone. I remember Sebastian loved that place as well, but he never wanted to bother dressing up in the hard hats and vests, and only did so to humor me. Mostly he wanted to examine the workings of the pulleys, rather than anything as silly as pretend play! Zig the Hat-Lover, on the other hand, was thrilled about the costumes, and took all his responsibilities as Worker very seriously. I loved watching him haul foam blocks up and down, back and forth from the platform as if his very livelihood depended on it. He also loved the helicopter—his slightly angry expression in one of the pictures above is not anger, but utter absorption in his role as "Man." No one on this earth likes being a "man" as much as Ziggy!

Gus was just the right age for playing in the play kitchen. He walked back and forth between the refrigerator and the kitchen table a hundred times, bringing out every piece of play food, cooking it on the stove, and soberly holding each one in turn out for me to "eat." He, too, was often so absorbed that he didn't look like he was having "fun"—but it was better than fun—it was his own world and he was the king of it!

Speaking of being king of the world. Sweet little Clementine has been becoming…slightly less little. And slightly less sweet! Well, no, actually, that would be impossible. She is SO sweet, but I'm sorry to say she is also a bit monkey-ish, crawling into cupboards and squeezing into tight places and getting herself stuck in all sorts of trouble! You would certainly not think it to look at her. But if she's not climbing into a box herself, she is being pushed around in one by some sibling or another! 

No wonder she wears herself quite out sometimes, dear little darling.

I'm also very sorry to say that she does NOT like to wear hats or headbands of any sort, and rejects them most emphatically when we make the attempt. None of my other girls would tolerate them either, which is why all of them went through their first years looking most pitifully bald and wispy. Serves them right, I suppose. (On a side note, I would like to point out the lower left corner of this picture, where Gussie is attempting to put Clementine's foot in a cup.)

Daisy and Junie got to do something fun called a Soapbox Derby. Have you heard of that? It's like a Pinewood Derby but with big cars you can sit in! (Actually much more fun than the pinewood derby concept, I must say.) Our neighborhood held one, and making a car would have been way outside our expertise, but a friend of ours was sponsoring a car with his business and asked if one of our girls would want to drive! Of course they did want to, so we went down to his office and the three girls each sat in the car like Cinderella trying on her glass slipper. Daisy was the lucky one who fit inside best, so she got the nod, but when we went to the weigh-in the day before the race, someone else was looking for a car driver and invited Junie to do it! It was really fun for both girls to have a chance to drive (well, I say "drive" but all you really have to do is steer and brake) in the Derby. They even got pitted against each other in the bracket once! (Junie won that race, but Daisy won a few of her other match-ups.)

The race was held on a very chilly day, but we had fun watching and cheering! (At least…most of us did.)

Junie turned 11 in April, and got a beautiful new dress (orange, her favorite, and LONG, as per her request) and a beautiful new umbrella. She also got an ice cream gift card as a thank-you from the owners of the car she drove in the Soapbox Derby. It had enough money for her to get her own banana split at Baskin Robbins…PLUS enough to take both her sisters and herself there for ice cream on another day. So fun!

Our last school unit of the year was Ancient Civilizations, and we had so much fun learning about the Babylonians and Assyrians and Sumerians and Egyptians and so on. It was cool to finally understand a little more about all those Bible people…the Hittites and Amorites and Canaanites…and to know why "the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold". We learned about the Jewish people and some of their traditions too. Very fun all around.

When we learned about Ancient Greece we had our own little Olympics with events decided by the kids (handstands, rolling balls down the hill, tossing pigs in the air…the usual). It was fun to be outside after some very unpredictable weather!

We also made Sugar Glass when we learned about the Phoenicians. It's just basically melted sugar, like making caramels except you don't let it cook so long. The girls had the idea of trying to blow it like real glass, and to our great surprise it kind of worked! It was too thin to really harden in the shape of the bubbles and balls we blew (it crumpled and collapsed as it cooled instead), but it still was very fun to do, and we were able to sort of mold it into handle and vase shapes while it was warm.

Our May birthday is Marigold, turning nine this year! She chose volcano cakes for her birthday dessert, and it was sad to eat them without Abe (not that that stopped us)—those were always his choice for birthdays too. She also got a birthday dress (covered with marigolds), and this rather alarming costume:

A floppy guy! You remember about Goldie and Floppy Guys—don't you? (Oh! She is so tiny in those pictures!)

Goldie's other present was to go to a Cake Decorating class, which we did together the next week. It was really fun—Goldie did all the work, but I had fun just watching and seeing it all come together. Goldie is in LOVE with decorating and making beautiful food, and this was an ideal way to do cake decorating, not having to make the cake or do any of the setup or cleanup! She just showed up and spent the whole time doing the fun part—decorating. 

Unfortunately, even though all the components seemed like they should be good, it did not taste very good. Not even the kids would finish it off when we brought it home. But—such is the price you pay for beauty, I suppose. It was a most beautiful cake!

Daisy has had a busy 7th-grade year doing all kinds of good things. She is a very in-demand babysitter for several mothers around here when they need to go to doctor's appointments or other things mid-day and all the other babysitters are in school! But, to be honest, she is in demand in the evenings too because she really is the BEST babysitter anyone could ask for. She's running cross-country and track, doing ballet, and playing the piano too. But she still manages to find time to crochet Darth Vadar dolls for her little brother. Everyone should have a Daisy in their family!

That picture on the right is of when we found one of our bike helmets on top of a street sign. Ziggy had left it outside as he always does, and someone (teenagers, no doubt) had thrown it up on top of the sign like a head on a pike! But never fear; Sam managed to get it down with a broom.

And Ziggy. Ohhh, Ziggy. He is just one of a kind. The top row shows some of his cute drawings lately: a UPS truck full of boxes (and a scanner to scan them with—he watches the real UPS man do this), a family of dogs, and "a guy in a house that is SO DARK, no one can see anything!"

We really never know what is going on in Ziggy's head or if he lives in our reality at all. He is always going on and on about the people he's talked to, what they say, what they gave him—and I always say, "Really? Did that really happen?" and he says earnestly "Yes!" even when the people in question are "Bunny" and "Jonas" (two of his many, many imaginary friends). However, he is outside in the yard or the park across the street just often enough, and is just talkative and friendly enough, that SOME of these interactions may be real. Perhaps I will never know. All I know is, when anyone says the name "Ziggy" at church, all of our neighbors pipe up and start telling stories…"Once he came up to me wearing a bucket on his head and asked me if I was an astronaut too." "Once I found him outside my house mowing my lawn with a stroller." "Once I waved to him on the porch and he yelled 'I'M THE AMAZON MAN!' back at me." 

Here are some pictures of a cute family of ducklings that we saw walking by. There are ducklings everywhere at the lake, in all stages of growth, and it's just the best. I was particularly fond of this little mother because she was caring for her TEN babies! Certain children could take a lesson from how obediently they walked in a line behind her.

          

Sebastian got a new bike! I won't go into it all here, but we'd all been praying for miracles since his old bike got stolen, and miracles there were! He is very happy, and we are all happy to see him happy. :)

Here are some moments with dear little Gus; Gus the Good as I have taken to calling him (partly in hopes it will…you know…inspire him). He really is such a delightful guy. He loves to talk and talk and talk. Here he is, from left to right and top to bottom: listening intently at Seb's jazz concert, watching in delight as Daisy pours REAL COCOA out of his toy blender, falling asleep while reading, eating cake, going to church, and looking guiltily up from some game that involved throwing many many things into my bathtub.

Sam drew this picture of Gus holding a bunny. You have to admit it looks a lot like him.

And here he is happily floating away at swimming lessons.

Whew, this post is getting long! I told you it was a busy month. Here is the aforementioned jazz concert (that's Seb there on the drums in the back—you can only see his hat)

Some of the beauties of Spring

Three little people

Malachi at various Debate Tournaments and Speech Contests (he took 4th place in the Freedom Festival Speech Contest and gave an amazing speech. Can you believe he can memorize a 10-minute oratory? It's incredible. After we went to hear him, Sebastian said to me, "It's kind of weird to look at your little brother and realize he's really good at something." Yes. True about one's children too. :))

Lunar Eclipse from the Hill

Mother's Day drawings (I love Goldie's "Gest of Honor" label at my place at dinner), and half of my children.

Walking to church

Seb was injured for most of Track season, but came back strong at the end. Hopefully he'll be able to stay healthy this summer!

My middle brother found out he has Stage 4 Lymphoma, so my other brothers went to Minnesota to visit him and give him a blessing. I wished so much I could have been there too, but I loved this picture they sent of the three of them. 

And lastly, a few pictures of the glories of nature this month…like this hailstorm that covered everything in the cutest tiny hail-balls!

 These beautiful tulips at Thanksgiving Point!

And this dramatic storm system that moved in across the valley while we were at the temple and was beautiful all the way till sunset!