Tag: Weekly Review

Peek at Our Week: August 12-16

Grace-Filled Writer
Back to school more regularly this week! We focused heavily on mathematics, literature, grammar, and spelling. It’s hard to just jump into everything, especially when we still have summer-time things happening. We will jump back into Heart of Dakota at the start of September. 


The end of the week was so much fun! We spent time at Kinetic Heights with our family. What an AMAZING experience! I highly recommend them if you are in the Charlotte, NC area. 



The ropes course was super fun and challenging! I’m a little afraid of heights, but persevered. I did not attempt the higher course, but Rose and her dad did. She loved it! 



After everyone had gone through the ropes course and moved on to other things Grace decided to give it a go again! She’s my super brave kid and she had fun trying different paths and pushed herself to do some new things! 



Beth is the one climbing up the wall here. She’s grown so very much over the last couple of years. She used to be terrified of a lot of things, one of them being heights and another falling and getting hurt. She flew through the ropes course like it was no big deal and she tried time after time to get up this wall. I don’t have an exact count, but I would guess it took her over 25 tries. This gal has developed grit and determination that is beautiful to behold. She did not give up and pushed herself to the limit! I don’t have a picture of the moment she made it up the wall…but you can see the video here!!! 


Since we were in the area we stayed overnight and had some fun at Carowinds. It was crazy hot, so we saw several of the shows we typically miss. Grace, my husband, and I thoroughly enjoyed Franklin’s Dance Party! My other two opted to watch and giggle at us! 



Franklin is one of my all-time favorite characters in the Peanuts series! I love his sensibility in the midst of everyone else’s overreactions. If you don’t know the history behind Franklin’s first appearance, check out this link. 



Of course Schroeder is right at the top too!
We’ve had a really busy few days. We’re all nursing some sore muscles and are quite tired so Sunday was a welcome reprieve. After church and then lunch we watched an episode Green Acres together. I spent a little time outside enjoying our hummingbird friends as well. I am constantly in awe at the beauty around us and the intricacies of creation the Lord has given us to enjoy. Even in a suburban little neighborhood I still see evidence of His handiwork all around me.

This feeder sits just outside our schoolroom window so the girls can enjoy the view during lessons in the mornings. 


There was our busy week! We have another one coming up with school, our 1st cross country meet, and another clogging trip in the mountains! 

Week in Review: August 5-9

Grace-Filled Writer
We had a great weekend and week! I have to back up to Saturday, August 3, because we had an incredible time at the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival! Only Rose participated in this dancing event as she has moved to the more advanced of the clogging classes. She was nervous but she, and the rest of the kids, all performed beautifully! 


This was such a fun performance! It was a pretty big week for Rose. She also turned 14! We are officially starting high school next week. Sigh…


Grampy and Grammy (My in-laws) were here for a few days. We played lots of games and just had a wonderful time together.

We finished off the week with Summer Blast, our church’s 2-day VBS weekend. It was clearly a FULL week, but definitely a great one! 




Week in Review: July 22-26

Grace-Filled Writer
We’ve had a low key week. I’m still trying to get all the organizing completed. It has felt so good to get the excess out of our house again! I also LOVE having my schoolroom shelves labeled so beautifully! 


Now all of our school-related books are in the schoolroom. They used to be here and in the living room. History is ordered by date and sciences by topic. It’s truly beautiful! 

We got to spend some time with my aunts and uncles on my mom’s side. I made a gluten free birthday cake to celebrate my aunt’s birthday.


This is a basic yellow cake with coconut frosting. YUM! I used The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten Free cookbook to “fix up” the store bought boxed cake. I have 2 aunts with Celiac disease and my daughter and I are gluten intolerant so it’s good to have some options. The coconut frosting was basic butter cream, but instead of milk I used 2 TBS of Torani coconut syrup. I then mixed in a 1/2 cup of shredded coconut in the butter cream and sprinkled 1/2 a cup of shredded coconut on top. YUMMO!

We will get back to “light” school for the next couple of weeks. Then full schedule I hope! 

Weekly Review: July 15-19

Grace-Filled Writer
As soon as I got home from our trip to Florida I decided it was time to declutter! My girls say I do this every time I get home from vacation. I have no idea, but I charged right in! My husband took a nap on Sunday afternoon and a couple of hours later he awoke to this…

I know it looks like a crazy mess…it was! I basically took every book off of every shelf in every room downstairs so I could put my beautiful giant bookshelf in the living room. We got rid of soooooo many things. The girls were a huge help in this process. 




Due to all of the above, I spent most of the week rearranging, reorganizing, and de-cluttering. It felt so good! We are so blessed with people who know we homeschool giving us books. So many that we can’t really use all of them. I was able to donate 5 paper boxes full of beautiful books to our church yard sale to help raise money for camp next year! We also were able to replace a falling apart bookshelf with a new sturdy one and get some more shelves into the girls’ room for their book collections. 

 You know how you get into the middle of a project like this and suddenly think…WHAT was I thinking?!?!? I absolutely had that thought several times over the next several days! Now that I have an after photo, though, I remember it is all worth it! 

 This beautiful shelf was built by my husband’s grandfather. We love how well it fits in our living room! 

Several of the books on this shelf were my mom and dad’s Whitman’s Classic books. They are such treasures to me and I’m so happy to have them on our shelves now! I also love having a spot to show the Boyd’s Bears I have. The one in the middle was our wedding cake topper! 

There is still more to do, but it feels good to have at least this much done! Next week I’ll be getting the schoolroom shelves in order and labeled. Yay!

The best part of the week was finishing it off at the waterpark!
 

Weekly Review: July 8-12

Grace-Filled Writer
We enjoyed a week in Florida with my husband’s family. We had a lot of fun, but there was also a lot of work to be done! Rose and my husband did quite a bit of yard work and helped out with some power washing as well. 

There was certainly a lot of fun and games as well! 
 And good food…
 And swims in the pool…
 And puzzle making! 

Weekly Review: July 1-5

Grace-Filled Writer
Well, besides STILL recuperating from being sick…my husband had to cancel youth group because he couldn’t talk and still felt so badly…we also celebrated Beth’s birthday and got ready to head to FL for a week with my in-laws! 


We all love watching Crikey! and Beth asked for a “zoo cake” for her birthday. I surprised her with an Australia Zoo cake! Playmobile has some awesome zoo sets. We already had several of these animals, but we got her pandas (which aren’t actually at the Australia zoo, but they are her favorite animal!) and the koala mommy and baby in the tree! 



 We left the next day for Florida to stay with my husband’s parents. It was a good trip down. We took our puppy, Penny, with us. She was spoiled rotten by three little girls in the back seat the whole time! She also wanted to peek up and see what the driver was doing! 


Check in next week to see all we did while we were there! 

Weekly Review: June 24-28

Grace-Filled Writer
Well, not a lot of pictures this week. We ALL came down with a wicked summer cold right after camp! Grace came down with it the day we came home and it slowly spread around. No fun! 


Grace saw a new pediatric ophthalmologist…whose name is Dr. Grace!!!! She was sooooo excited! 



Once I realized we were all probably going to get sick, but I hadn’t gotten sick yet…I made this wonderful to-do list using my Blackboard from Boogie Board. I absolutely love this thing! If you’ve never seen a Boogie Board, you should absolutely check this out! 

And the rest of our week was spent being sick and recuperating from being sick. It was just a head cold but it was a DOOZY of a head cold! 

Week in Review: June 17-21

Grace-Filled Writer
SUMMER CAMP!!!!
 This week I had the opportunity to go with our crew from church to summer camp and lead worship for the elementary. It was a wonderful week and I was so excited to be a part of the worship! Beth and Rose were in the middle school group, but Grace was with me quite a bit. Here are some fun photos for the week! 

 Grace is on the center of left tube!

 Me and Grace grabbing a quick selfie together! 

 The beauty of sunrise on the lake! 

 We got back home yesterday. Having a firepit in the backyard was a great way to end the week. Thanks to SoloStove we can enjoy it without the smoke! 

Weekly Review: June 10-14

Grace-Filled Writer
I remembered to get a few pictures from school this week! 


We have some awesome science experiment books, so the girls decided they wanted to try and make solar ovens. They didn’t toast so well, but we hypothesize that  they will make yummy s’mores! Unfortunately it rained a lot and we didn’t get to try it out. Next week we will be at camp so it will have to wait until later in the summer! 




We tried out a wonderful new math manipulative called Hands on Equations. I highly recommend it! We are using the app version which teaches very clearly and is quite affordable. These two are taking Pre-Algebra (Beth) and Algebra 1 (Rose). I had them work through the lessons rather quickly because there are times when they have not understood how equations worked exactly. This seemed to clear up some of the confusion. Grace is working through 4th grade math already and I’m having her do this as well, just at a slower pace. 


Nothing like a little summertime recess at the pool! 


And this, my friends, is what I have been up to during my spare time! I have the privilege to lead worship for the elementary kids at church camp next week. I’m excited and nervous. I love to lead worship, but I’m just a little nervous because I’ll be the only one singing and playing the piano. But I’m praying and practicing and I know the Lord will bless! 

Week in Review: June 3-7

Grace-Filled Writer

Summer finally feels officially here! Even if the pool is a little too cold for me to enjoy, the girls have been in several times with my husband.

I know this will make me sound crazy, but we rarely get to the library during the regular school year. I know…I know… a homeschooler who doesn’t frequent the library?!?! This is abnormal! We do check out books, but the convenience of putting books on hold which are simply ready for us as soon as we walk in makes it super easy. We also have a huge in-home library and rarely even need to venture out to get anything there. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the library, but our time is so full. That means on rare empty days, you might just find us there. 
For National Donut Day we made gluten free donuts in our NuWave convection oven using a gluten free blueberry muffin mix! 
Homemade glaze and sprinkles…yum!