Weekly Wrap-up ~ Not quite Spring Break, but it is Spring!

This week was Spring Break for our public schools which means Dawson was out of school. However, Eli and Brynne and I still charged ahead as we plan to take our Spring break in a couple of weeks. We were a little sluggish because we are ready for OUR break!!!

The Past Week in our Regular Life

We have had an extended family situation come up this week that has rocked us. There is a lot of sadness and worry and even some anger. It is not a good situation but decisions have to be made and we all have to move forward. We would certainly appreciate any prayers you could give. I do not feel comfortable sharing the specifics, as they are not mine to share, but Jesus knows our needs and I would appreciate your prayers asking Him to intercede to the Throne on our behalf.

The Schooling Basics

Bible - We have been starting our mornings listening to an online radio show called Brinkman Adventures. It is a review product and my review will be coming up in a couple of weeks.

Grammar - We learned about subject and object pronouns.

Spelling - We took the week off from spelling, other than Wild Tales.

Handwriting - We completed four lessons in Handwriting without Tears - Cursive Success.

Math - In Math U See Gamma we moved onto Lesson 26 continuing with multiple digit multiplication. In Mastering 5th Grade Math - Fractions, we found prime factors using a factoring tree. And in our CTC Math program, the kids have learned how to divide with remainders.

Writing - We finished our limericks and then worked on our community helper stories.

Science - In Science4Us we completed the Weather module.

The Schooling Fun Stuff

We are reading a book right now that is telling us all about Ireland, St. Patrick, the legends of the shamrock, leprechauns, and pots 'o gold. I will be posting about all of that on the last Monday of this month as part of Poppins Book Nook. The theme this month is "Where in the World". On St. Patrick's Day we did try to catch a leprechaun, but weren't clever enough. He figured out our scheme. Although we didn't catch him, he left us some footprints to prove that he was here.

Did you know that a Black Swallowtail can pupate anywhere from 2 to 14 weeks? Yeah, me neither. I was going to clean out our butterfly keeper because my parsley is starting to come up and the caterpillars will start munching on it soon. And there it was …. a new butterfly! I was shocked! So I did research and found that they can be in a cocoon for three or four months. It doesn't appear to be able to fly, which is a bummer. But it's only purpose is to mate, so hopefully that will still happen.

The Kitchen

BBQ pork ribs and baked potatoes, homemade healthy thin-crust pizza, fried chicken strips and mashed potatoes with corn.

The Days Ahead

Brynne is having her second sleepover tonight. The first time she had this girl spend the night Brynne vomited in bed with her. We are hoping for more success this time around!

Dawson's best friends from Oklahoma are coming with Rick this weekend. The triplets will be together again!

We are basketball tournament FREE this weekend, so other than bowling on Saturday morning and church on Sunday, we have nothing planned. Rick and I are going to start working on cleaning out the extra room in the basement for Brynne. She wants her own hangout space.

We put Kyndal on a train this morning to go on a fun school trip with her friends from Cosmo. She has been so excited for this trip, and I am so excited for her! She will have such a great time, I know.

The Books We are Reading

Mom: And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini, Winterdance by Gary Paulsen.

Brynne: A Big Year for Lily by Mary Ann Kinsinger and Suzanne Woods Fisher.

Eli: Big Nate: Flips Out by Lincoln Peirce.

Read Aloud:  Papa and the Leprechaun King by Arthur Cola.

The People and the Places

My grandma's 91st birthday was on Monday. I celebrated with her at the nursing home by bringing her a homemade dinner.

We have been frequenting the park and went with my mom, sister, and niece to the school playground on Thursday afternoon.

The Savings Jar(s)

$1.45 went into the change jar.

The Bible in a Year

I have read through Deuteronomy 27 as of today.

The Favorite Things

Brynne made her first basket at her game on Tuesday night. It was so amazing!!! She dribbled right into the lane and swished a perfect shot! Then later on she got an offensive rebound and put it up for two points. You have to understand that Brynne is typically the shortest one on the court so for her to get a rebound and put up a successful shot is outstanding! Our whole family was there (except her daddy .. and he was seriously bummed), so it was really special for her.

I am so proud of how responsible my older two kids are becoming. Kyndal has taken ownership of eating healthier and losing some pounds she has put on this year. She has done so great with exercising and diligence with her eating. And then Dawson has been given back his '78 Cadillac from his Papa. (He gave it up when it started to have mechanical problems and bought a Ford Explorer. Papa knew how important the car was to him so gave it back to him as a gift.) This is going to require him to come up with more insurance money, constant repairs for it, etc. He is taking it head on and so excited and ready for it! It makes me happy to see my kids growing up into responsible young adults.

I love it that our house is the one where all of Dawson's friends hang out. There is always a combination of teenaged boys running in and out the back door and up and down the stairs to Dawson's room. It's loud and chaotic and I sometimes hear conversations I could live without. But, it makes me feel great that his friends feel comfortable enough in our house to come and go as they please. They don't even knock anymore. Dawson has even given some of them their own place to hang their keys. They're good boys.

They aren't playing poker .. they are playing Risk!

Brynne told me this week that she wants to be like a "big girl" and have a show that she and I watch together, just the two of us. I have shows I watch only with Dawson and some that I watch only with Kyndal. It was so important to her that I do it with her, too. So we picked out Once Upon a Time to start watching on Netflix. She was so excited. We watched the first two episodes last night.

Linking up