in pursuit of wild things

We continue to suffer with illnesses this week. Middle Boy and Sparkles had a stomach bug earlier this week. Just as my sparkly girl got over that illness she succumbed to my chest cold. Oldest ended up with the chest cold too. I thought I was getting better from the chest cold but it came back for round two and now I also have the stomach bug. We are feeling a bit beat-up as a family. Except for one or two events I cancelled my family’s involvement in everything for the rest of the month. Including church. We need to rest and heal. Hopefully between now and Christmas everyone will recover.

Thankfully Littlest remains healthy. He is also (finally!) beginning to recover from his stint in preschool and our recent move. He has been a sullen little boy for a few months. Lately, he has started dancing again. He used to love dancing until he was told to dance a certain way in preschool. When he could not dance the way he chose he simply quit dancing. Even at home. Slowly, over the past few weeks our little dancing boy returned! This mama is so

happy!!! He’ll even bring the Wii controller over and ask me to dance with him too. Littlest’s mathy quirks are…continuing to evolve. He loves to dance to countdowns. Several times a day he will ask for someone to set a timer on the microwave and he will dance and count the numbers down. He is also starting to read on his own. I’m not sure how but he just suddenly recognizes words…

Middle Boy participated in the Brave Writer workshop on Periscope this week. I’ve linked the Katch for you to the workshop. Littlest kept talking to Julie over the computer and he was convinced that she could hear him talking back to her! The older three wrote a freewrite earlier in the week. Then for the workshop they worked on revision techniques. The workshop was so much fun. Middle

Boy was the only one well enough for the revision session but the older two want to try out some of the techniques when they are feeling better. We decided to try one approach per term so we could have fun with revision, learn the techniques well, and experiment with creative writing. We love Brave Writer!

For the most part I cancelled school this past week. Sparkles and Middle Boy both worked on some of their lessons anyway. I found Oldest napping near the Christmas tree this week with The Samurai’s Tale. It must be a great book since he keeps trying to read it while feverish! I plan for us to continue working on math this week and wrap up a few little projects. Nothing too involved. We are done with this school year. I am reading about loop scheduling and plan to experiment with it for our next term in January.

The kids wanted a private family Thanksgiving this week. We did this last year and the kids loved it. I was going to let it slide for this year but the family said, “no way!” My husband smoked a chicken and turkey breast and we made a few sides. Everything turned out lovely and delicious! I forgot to get out the paints for us to update the table-cloth this year with new hand prints. We’ll do that over our Christmas breakfast. I should be able to find the paints between now and then. Maybe.

Odd quote I over heard this week. Middle Boy to Littlest: “It’s not mind control and I don’t like it. It’s annoying.” I did ask Middle Boy for some clarification on his statement but the response wasn’t really comprehensible. I chose not to pursue enlightenment. I’ve noticed the younger two play together more so than they used too. Sparkles used to primarily play the most with Middle Boy. As she goes through puberty and begins to mature at a more rapid rate I’ve noticed they spend less time together during play…just a little. Change is inevitable but sad too.

Linking up with: Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers .

another first day pic

first day of school

middle two working on the history and writing assignments

We like to wear tie-dye’s on our first day of school

a happy moment for Oldest

Daddy and Littlest