A good day today – lots of formal learning, lots of responsibilities, lots of relationship time.
We started by cleaning out the freezer. We have our chest freezer outside on the veranda so it has become a family tradition to have “snow” fights when we defrost the freezer. It is the closest my kids come to getting cold! They had a ball and the job got done with lots of laugher!
Everyone hit the books after that. I made carrot/orange juice while Daniel did his phonics workbooks, and then we did math together. Nomi did Math, Typing and later in the day I sat with her to start her Computer studies (which is a simple course going through the basics of what is my computer and how to use it!) I am sure she already knew most of what we covered today but it was good to spend some one on one learning time with her. Nomi and Daniel had a short lesson on the Beatitudes which they created a notebook page for. We tried to get them to give us some sort of feedback over dinner – neither of them could tell us very much other than “be-happy!”. But I am sure the value of the lesson will be in me being able to remind them of God’s Word in the coming days as their attitudes show.
After lunch and chores we all headed into town. Pete had various town chores / pickups to attend to so the kids and I went to the pool while he did that. It was a good arrangement if you ask me! While we were at the motel last week the kids swimming improved a lot (swimming every day) so we wanted to capitalize on that. After their lessons / laps I took 20minutes to do some deep water running by myself. (Yep, more thinking time!) I must admit I do ache a bit now!
Late afternoon Josh did some internet research on "miniatures/modelling", while the others cleaned the toys from Mainly Music. Mainly Music is a combined church ministry in town of which Jess is on the leadership team. She is very excited about that starting up again tomorrow. Nomi would love to be involved but I feel she needs to cover her basics a bit more thoroughly before she has such a time commitment to contend with. So when we have opportunity to do something to help like cleaning, or making props, Nomi jumps at it. I like the way our family can support such a ministry in town and yet not be involved totally .
As I mentioned earlier in the week we have tweaked our Chore Roster. This week Joshua has been my helper in the morning which usually means Laundry at least a couple of days a week. Today was one of those days. Josh has done really well in picking up this job. I must admit this was a big reason for including him in the rotation as he really didn’t have much of a clue about the laundry other than putting clean clothes away. So there is fruit happening already which is encouraging.
What a lovely "tradition!" It is evident that your children are having a ball. It's funny how something so silly can be such a huge thing to them, isn't it? At my house on New Year's Eve I let my children go crazy with markers and color themselves to their hearts' content. It washes off (pretty) well in the shower, and boy, they just love it. It feels silly when they talk about it to people outside the family because others just don't get it. But my kids wouldn't miss it for anything. Thanks for sharing your bit of summer fun.
Kim