A Taste of Summer

We had beautiful summer weather this week so I pushed to get children up early so we could have a little time outside.  

Monday, tutoring and piano lessons (home around 6:00)
Tuesday, home all day!!!  It was hot enough that I needed to hand water the garden.
Wednesday, tutoring (but I finished the watering first, since it was a two day job) and then the last Awanas, which was award night.
Thursday, take your child to work day.  Phil had the children up bright and early and they spent the day with him.  I had an appointment in the morning and then spent the afternoon outside weeding and mulching and then read until Phil and the children came home (around 8:00).
Friday (today), the girl's have craft class and the temperature dropped 30 degrees and it is raining.  I am hoping that it will let up after I drop the girls off so I can finish the mulching.

The goat's are settling in.  They have become more friendly, running up to us for petting and treats.  Unfortunately, they were tiny enough to get through field fencing so Monday morning, we had to clean out the "catio" (big cat kennel) and put them in there until Phil could redo their pen with no climb fencing.




The second day we let them in, one of the goats had poop on its hoof and it got everywhere and it stunk so that was the end of goats in the house LOL.

During tutoring, I wait in the car in the parking lot and often finish up school.  Brighton was pleased as could be when he wrote this sentence all by himself.  This is rather significant.  We have been plugging away all year working on the alphabet.  The first part of the year we just sang the alphabet song daily and worked on sounds (Level 1 Barton).  We started level 2 Barton (letters and sound) a couple of months ago and have been plugging away at writing, symbol sound association, and putting together simple words.  It is really tough for him.  Sometimes, when he sees a letter he has to sing the alphabet while looking at the letter poster we have on the wall until he comes to the right one.  He knows it if he hears it but he can't recall it.  Half the letters he has to pause and think hard to remember its sound and/or name.  I can get a solid 30 minutes of work time out of him now and he is excited to be reading and writing.  He likes to make his own words (nonsense and real).

"dad is fat" written all on his own, no help from me!

He made this "nonsense word" and read it to me...I tried not to laugh.

Warm summer days in the car, listening to a Mozart CD, and a busy schedule make for a tired little girl.  Evi will be playing Mozart for the piano recital and has been looking up information.

Evi has worked hard all year learning her verses for Awanas and she completed the extra credit portion as well.  I am impressed with her dedication.  There is a lot to learn and fill out and she did this all on her own!

Brighton didn't do Awanas this year.  I think it is just too hard for him to be in the chaos and have the expectations of learning verses so he didn't want to go.  I can't speak to any particular situation but sometimes there is not a lot of grace given for a little boy that can't keep still in body and voice.  He is old enough now that getting in trouble for it is starting to bother him.

Hot days are inspiration for getting the pool cleaned up.

When we went to the tulip fields, Tracie bought me a little bunch of closed tulips.  I so enjoyed watching them open.  I could have fresh flowers on the table every week!  I had been wanting to take the time to sketch them but we are always so busy.  One morning before the children got up, I just grabbed my pencil, pen, journal, and watercolor set and spent 15 minutes sketching.  I wish I would do this every day.  If I had my ideal...I would sketch for an hour, garden for at least and hour, and read for an hour every day.  Alas...that is not going to happen!   

Fort making on the deck.

It is a bit hard to see in this picture but there is a sprayer in the front filed, a semi truck parked on the road (I think it brought equipment and spray), and a tractor in the brown field.  Last Fall, they poisoned the hillside field and the grass turned sickly and died.  Nothing green has shown its face since.  Yesterday, I was glad to see that they had begun to work that field.  I am hoping that they will soon plant it and there will be color again instead of dead brown.


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