Weekly Roundup: Just Do It

A couple of months ago, when we finished reading Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, we girls were window shopping during one of the torrential rains for which we left the house unprepared, and in the course of our detour--came across this little figure. She was just $10 and struck us all as looking like the little doll who had become near and dear to our hearts as our summer read aloud. So, we splurged, brought her home and set her on the mantle where she has been all this time--in her slip, Fifi decided. So Fifi--being Fifi, full of compassion and 19th century propriety as she is--last Saturday began sewing Hitty a little dress complete with trim and an apron for the fall season. Darling, isn't she?

This week, I think I decided that sometimes the best way to homeschool home educate young ones is to put down the lesson plans, stop surfing the blogs for ideas, quit overthinking everything, leave off planning and hunting and gathering, and...just do something.

This year, after 6 years of study, we have finally made our way back to the beginning: the Ancients. To decorate our folder cover collages, I took the girls to Half-Price Books, picked up a few inexpensive selections with illustrations and let them loose with the scissors. Here, they're hunting through the pile of pictures.

And here they are not cutting off their fingertips or otherwise impaling themselves with said scissors. Yay!

The history curriculum I chose this year is too craft-intensive for my style and ability. I like the ideas, but have chosen to remember that Charlotte Mason exhorts us to employ our children in handicrafts that are real. That matter. That will produce a result. I think that in the long run, my girls can remember Stonehenge without actually building a megalith model.

Perhaps a better use of my time will be to get them piecing quilt squares while I read aloud to them. Like I used to--back in the day when their history reading inspired spontaneous, themed play and left me time to keep up the laundry.

Speaking of laundry--meet my best washcloth and small towels folder and socks sorter. Chores come before meals, or they tend not to make it to the fore at all!

And grooming on the fly. I'm still snipping 20 little fingernails and just get them when I can. Husband snapped this picture; that angle is going to cost him a nose job one day.

On with the morning routine...

I've got a post pinging around in my head for next week maybe, about why we've embraced music as such a priority in our homeschool. Here is 12 year old Fifi modeling for us the proper posture to get the most out of piano practice. She's working on Suzuki Book 2--I don't know which song, but suffice it to say she's left me in the dust--again.

Here's Dumpling for her turn at the ivories. She looks ready to show me something good for my investment! Go on little girl, what have you got?

Huh? What's she doing? What's she going to do with that pencil?

Of course. She's going to be her own metronome. How ridiculous thorough.

Moving on to math. We like to protect a calm and quiet learning environment, free of distractions.

But we haven't been able to get Cuddlebug or Georgie on board with that philosophy.

Monday evening is Bible study for Husband, Fifi and Dumpling. They've been pretty good about keeping up with the homework. It really only takes them 15-20 minutes each evening, but that dedicated time is turning out to be a very nice "Daddy-Daughter Date" for our darling in the middle.


Meanwhile, The Littlest Dictator Cuddlebug thought she had scored big with me when I let her have her homemade popsicle for an after-dinner treat. It's orange juice. But, not just orange juice--it's frozen orange juice on a stick. And she made it herself. Yum, yum, good.

After her treat, she set up The Richest Christian by Ornament Publications. This is the same company that publishes the Pictures from Proverbs teaching helps that we've used and enjoyed for years. The game is really fun for any child who can read (or can partner up with someone who can read) to learn the principles of stewardship and laying up treasure in Heaven. We also get in some counting and Scripture memorization.

We finished the week with Fifi's monthly book club, which right now consists only of Fifi and another girl with whom we've been acquainted for years and years. The girls thought they would like to have more girls join them, but we're finding that we don't know many people with 2 hours/month to spare. Which we find kind of strange and sad, but whatever.

It may be that the Lord has special plans for this friendship. These girls are both first-borns and are bound and determined to administrate something. And if there is nothing to administrate, they'll make something up. I'm so glad they found each other!

But young ladies can't just sit around in Adminstrative Neverland forever. A girl's got to eat...

And play. Oh! And did I mention that the friend has a younger brother? What a good sport he was! He played with Cuddlebug and Dumpling for all that time. Notice Dumpling giving him all her attention and admiration as he displays his tree-climbing prowess.


After they left, we tried to stay outside to enjoy slightly cooler temperatures here in South Texas. We figured the girls were already slathered with bug spray--may as well get a full day's use out of it before shower time. We are counting the days until Thanksgiving when the mosquitoes fly...fly...well, somewhere else not here, for the winter.

Here, Dumpling has decided that she is driving a car that can float. "Get in, Cuddlebug!"

"No thanks! I'll swim!" (Notice the puffed cheeks, because one must hold one's breath when swimming, you know.)


Here, we're watering rocks. Which might explain the afore mentioned need for a car that floats?

And then Daddy comes home and all is right with the world as he joins his girls--albeit briefly because he is not slathered in bug spray--out in the backyard to kick the ball around for the yapping, howling, yowling beagle.

Do you notice something just. not. right. in this picture?

After the shower and smelling sweet. This is how 5 year old Cuddlebug got her name...

Quote of the Week:

Goes to Fifi for a quick and poignant remark.

I must confess. This week, I blew a gasket...uh...flipped my lid got really frustrated at the state of the clutter in my home and ordered the girls to clean it up while I locked myself in the laundry room mending old dresses that have waited for too long.

As it turns out, it was very productive. And the state of the common rooms afterward made me *happy sigh.*

Anyway, the next day, when I went to tie Cuddlebug's "new" red gingham with strawberries dress, I called to Fifi in another room, asking her if she had ever gotten to wear this dress--because in the moment I couldn't remember whose it was: hers or Dumpling's.

She hollered back, "Are you serious?"

Which didn't sound like Fifi at all. But she quickly added, "I wore it as much as poss-ible!"

Precious in my sight.