Summer So Far

This year I decided not to worry about the kids being home all summer.  I usually worry a little bit: What will we do?  Will I get sick of having them always here? What will we do? How will I get the things done that I need to do? What will we do?

By the end of the summer every year I'm so sad to have them go back to school.  I remembered that this year.  I always toy with the idea of homeschooling at the end of the summer until I remember how much Will NEEDS to be with friends all day, how much Ivy adores school and how much success Faith has at school.

Faith and I had this conversation yesterday:

FAITH: What are we doing tomorrow?

ME: Well, I have a meeting to go to and we'll probably need to go to the grocery store.

FAITH: What are we going to do to make it fun?

ME: I don't know - I haven't planned that far in advance yet.

FAITH: We really need to plan something so it's a fun day.

ME: Faith, not every day is going to be the best day of your life.  There are going to be lots of days this summer that we aren't going to go spend money or have the best adventure ever.

FAITH: You just changed tactics there - did you notice that?

ME: Learning that every day isn't going to be absolutely amazing is an important lesson to learn in this life.


We cut her hair at the beginning of summer.  A lot!  It was down to her waist.

So today we did what I vowed I would do every Monday and Thursday this summer - and included the kids on it.  We did laundry.  All day except for the nearly two hours I was gone to my meeting.  About a month ago Will got really sad about having to "do all the chores" and I didn't do anything.  When I mentioned the fact that I had done all the laundry that morning, he told me that laundry wasn't a chore.  Really?  That's when I told him that since it's not a chore then he won't have a problem helping me do it all summer long.  I think it was last week (the first week of summer) when he changed his mind about the chore-status of laundry.  He's still helping with the laundry, but he gets to count it as a chore.  (Aren't I nice?)



Will is playing basketball in a rec league this summer and loving it - almost as much as Ivy!

My schedule is not what it has been in the past for the summer.  I don't have a curriculum planned.  (We were going to do aviation the week of Father's Day, of course, but my kids complained that we do that every year the week of Father's Day...I wonder why!) So I gave up on the plans.  Will and Ivy are doing little grade-appropriate worksheets every day and then when we're done with them we make origami stuff out of them.  That has been fun.  We have made cranes, dragons, horses, bats and a monkey on a mountain. 



When Will started playing basketball this summer, Ivy used her allowance to buy her very own basketball.

We swim every day.  I have made them watch some movies for their "education": Star Wars IV, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Star Trek (the new one that came out a few years ago), and this week I'm going to have Faith watch Gone With the Wind with me - I just have to figure out what Ivy and Will are going to do for those hours!  We are reading aloud Charlotte's Web and I am teaching Ivy to knit on a loom.  I guess that things will happen with or without a plan in place.  Will needs to finish reading Fablehaven and I want to read to him Where The Red Fern Grows this summer.

Frenchman Mountain (also called Sunrise Mountain) in the background.

I find that with the kids home I want to be with them as much as possible so some things are much harder for me to do.  Instead of ironing today I played four square with Will, Faith and Easton.  Instead of paying bills I end up swimming at watching movies with the kids.  My scripture study time is embarrassingly short.  I have quit wearing make-up almost altogether.  And I'm trying not to think about August when I'll have to give them back to their schools.