Back to School

When Greta was born, I knew we had about a year with all of our children still living under our roof.  I want to make the most of this year, or at the very least, I want to remember what it was like.  I had hopes of blogging every day of this year in he hopes of remembering what life was like with everyone here day in and day out.
I realize that goal was a little too lofty.  Oh well, one does what one can do.
This picture of the oldest and youngest was taken Monday evening at our family book group gathering at our park.  We discussed The Boys in the Boat, which book I highly recommend.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This picture of the younger generation of book club makes me so happy-- ranging in age from 16 to 6, they are all playing a game together and laughing and having a grand time.  Good times.   I don't know if it's healthier for the younger kids to get to "play" with the big kids, or the big kids to play with the little kids.  They both benefit so much.  Either way, I think it's wonderful.

It came together quickly, but here is most of our FIRST Lego League team for 2016-2017.  It's a team of neighborhood kids who are all homeschooled.  Clark and two other friends are mentoring and we had a meeting with team members and parents last week.  They voted on a team name-- "Infinity Squared"!
We're all pretty excited about it and looking forward to what we'll learn together this year.

Look.
LOOK!
LOOK at what I have accomplished!  These are the individualized planners I make for each child for the coming school year.  Each contains their check off pages for the year and reading lists and and history courses and spelling test pages and they are A WHOLE LOT OF WORK to plan our and put together, but they are so worth it.  They are what keep kids working independently and knowing just what they need to do, and they allow me to keep track of where everyone is at.  It came down to the wire to get them done before we started school this past Monday.  As of the Thursday night as I am writing this, it was been a very good, very smooth start to the school year.

Their music practice is included in the items to check off each day.

Even cute little Georgie has his planner with things to do each day.

We decided to have George do another year of homeschool Kindergarten this year.  He has a late birthday and we felt he would benefit from a little slower start to academics.  Hopefully it won't traumatize him that his own mother made him repeat Kindergarten.

Bethany, Greta and I went on a little adventure last week up to the University of Utah on TRAX  so I could show her how to get to her violin lessons each week.  Her teacher has come to our house for the last several years, but now is teaching up at the U.  That's a little too much time (and gas money) for me to take her, so we will make use of nice public transit. 

In addition to her Lyceum Orchestra, Bethany is enrolled at the high school just for the orchestra class.  We'll see how it goes, but she's excited.

Once again, this is his smile!

He requested this picture be taken and he is purposefully smiling.  Little cutie!

He's had a good week this week and it really enjoying Baby Signing Time videos a friend lent us.  The older kids are enjoying finding ways to communicate with Peter and Peter is enjoying learning ways to make his will known without screaming.

We're all enjoy that.

This picture is a couple of weeks old already, but seriously???

What perfection!

This one is more recent.  As we've started school and activities back up, I don't have quite the time to just sit and soak her in.  I'm glad she was a summer baby so I've had six weeks before we had to function again.  

Team Middle Kids on an afternoon outing with Dad to take Bethany to Orchestra.  

They have a favorite park on Pleasant Grove they like to play at while Bethany is at rehearsal.

I have really enjoyed getting back into the routine of school and activities.  It's like the whole house breathes a sigh of relief.