Busy Week....

 Sunday morning the youth lead their first kid's worship session.  They did great and I think this is going to be a lot of fun for the youth as well as the kids in worship.  They did some upbeat VBS songs that were familiar to almost everyone and also started teaching the kids a memory verse, 1 Timothy 4:12.

 Hannah is always wanting to play Monopoly but I often turn her down because the game just takes too long.  It's usually in the evening that she wants to play and after a day of juggling household chores, schooling, and playing taxi driver I am usually wanting time alone at night.  Here's the thing, even as I've done all of the above for and with my children, that doesn't really count as time spent together.  I know this but it's still hard to decide to give up my "free" time to play a game.  Anyway, I did just that one night this week.  I said I'd play for an hour and it was fun and the kids had fun.  I had an idea though that we instituted last night...we have an ongoing Monopoly game going.  We started yesterday and played for an hour but left the game out.  We will continue for a half hour or so every night until we are done.  I can commit to a half hour a night.  We'll see how that plan goes...

 School is in full swing and I must say that I am happy with everything we are doing.  Saxon Math has turned out to be much better than I thought and I am so happy that my kids are getting such a great math foundation.  Joe is doing Story of the World Volume 1 and we are supplementing with a unit study on Ancient Egypt.  He is loving that and really into it and that makes it fun for both of us.  Grace is trucking right along and doing great.  She is an easy student, almost too easy because she ends up doing everything on her own and doesn't get her share of my attention.  I grade all of her work though and it's almost always done well and correctly.  Yay for that!  Hannah started one of her virtual school classes this week and it's challenging but not too much.  She'll hopefully add in virtual school science next week, we're just waiting for her to get assigned to a class.  She will have a heavy load but it's do-able.

 We had a nice surprise on Tuesday, we went in for an ortho check up and found out that Grace got to get her braces off!  I just so happened to snap her picture in front of the building before her appointment (I was doing every hour on Instagram).  Then, when we found out she was getting her braces off, I took the pic below so we'd have one last braces picture.

 Here's the after pic above--such a pretty smile!  We love this orthodontist, when she first got braces they gave her a nice electric toothbrush and when she got her braces off they sent her home with a bag full of food and candy that she couldn't (or wasn't supposed to...) eat with braces.  We went out to lunch to celebrate and she didn't stop smiling for hours.

These last pictures below are from all of our silliness yesterday.  Hannah heard from a public school friend that Friday was going to be Freshie Friday...a day to harass the freshmen.  Although we've chosen to homeschool, I don't want my kids to miss out on the fun of being in high school (tongue in cheek).  So, we set up our own Freshie Friday here at PP.  We invited a couple of friends over, one who is a sophomore and one who is a fellow freshmen.  Then, we picked on them...yelled "Freshie Go Home" a lot, stuffed them in a trash can, and stole their lunch money at Chick-fil-a.  It was great fun and we laughed a lot.  Kayla even got a dress code violation and had to put on a long skirt and math t-shirt for the remainder of the morning. 

Dolly Awards

 Last Saturday night the kids and I attended the Dolly Awards at the theatre.  This is almost exactly like the Oscars only more personal because all of the awards are given to the local actors in the show.  In addition to the actors getting awards, tech crew awards are given and volunteer awards as well.  There is also entertainment sprinkled throughout.  The YPT kids performed a number from their most recent show, "Little Mermaid, Jr." and they were a big hit.  The girls really enjoyed getting all dressed up, I didn't enjoy that part but it was fun to see everyone all dressed up.

 In the picture above, I am on stage with some other YPT parents as we received the President's Award.  This is given by the President of the Board and he chose us.  We each got a small star plaque thingy that you can see Julie and Mike displaying in a picture further down.  Mine was put away somewhere so I'm displaying a roll of masking tape.  :0)  That horrible picture of me two down is when I had to present one of the awards.  That was scary but I survived and I'm just so thankful that someone captured such a sweet picture of me on that stage.

Getting Back to Normal Life...HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

I have completely forgotten what normal life looks like.  I haven't had what I would consider to be a normal day in about a million forevers.  I keep thinking that there will be a normal day soon and something happens or comes up to prevent it from being normal.  The good thing here is that I'm learning to be flexible, learning to not get totally de-railed on the school train, and I'm not bored!  This week is our first week back to school "for real."  Last week was a soft opening for our school year.  We did some school but Hannah also babysat two days and Grace was at the beach for three.  So, we've made it through three "real" school days here at PP but really only two because I took Monday as a Teacher Work Day.  I still had a whole lot to prep and organize and I managed to get almost everything done.  I made myself an awesome plan book, maybe my best ever.  I make one every year and tailor it to our year.  This one is pretty awesome except for one small glitch....I stacked it neatly, made a cover, and handed it over to the nice man at Office Depot and he bound it so nicely for me.  I got in the car and opened it up to admire its awesomeness and....the whole thing is backwards.  Like, it starts at Week 36 (Hannah's My Father's World plans are on one side) and ends at Week 1.  Yep, so my plan book is backwards.  I'll be working backwards all year.  I hope this isn't a sign of how our year is going to go.  Tuesday we were all set to have a normal school day with just a little blip of an interruption while I took Grace to the ortho.  I left H and J at home doing school so we weren't all being interrupted.  At the ortho we got great news, Grace could get her braces off!  She had to stay an extra hour or so though so I ran home did some more school and then went back to get her.  We were all very excited and we went out to lunch with H and B to celebrate.  We got home later in the afternoon and got back to school and managed to finish a full day of work.  Woohoo!  Then, yesterday, again, it had the potential to be a normal day but it wasn't.  Hannah went to the gym in the morning with a friend but I ended up having to go up there and sign a waiver.  Later in the afternoon, one of Hannah's theatre friends came over after school because she forgot to take a key to her own house and needed somewhere to hang for a while.  Again, everyone got school done by the end of the day but again, not a "normal," day.  Today will be no better...Hannah is at the gym again, I am heading out to breakfast with a couple of moms and then home to do as much school as I can and then I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon.  Maybe tomorrow....no, special plans tomorrow with some other homeschooled friends, I'll post pics of that fun later this weekend.  Maybe next week, yes, next week.  I'm sure we'll have a normal day next week.  I'm living my dream!

Phone Photo Dump...Enjoy!

 In no particular order and with no commentary....  :0)