Precious Moments {25th February – 3rd March}

Welcome to what I hope will be a weekly Precious Moments post, now that February is behind me 🙂  I thought I would start the post with a picture of where my husband goes to work every day (above).  This was a photo one of his work mates took.  Isn’t it glorious?

Anyway, back to our precious moments.  This week has been busy, fulfilling and productive.  Excitement is in the air as Gary’s parents’ annual visit is nearing.  In addition various members of the family are preparing for a couple of concerts at church, which Granny and Granddad are here for.  Apologies for the selfie below.  I wanted to include it because it actually contained all of us, but we took it with my phone which doesn’t always take the best photos 🙁

The week began with a couple of tired twins returning from a sleep over at their old baby-sitter’s home.  We feel very blessed that Emma still wants to have an input into our teens’ lives.  She and Thomas occasionally go out for a coffee and any time the girls need an ear other than mine, Emma is the first person they turn to.  They returned home happy but tired.  Saturday is a fairly relaxed day of doing little but seeing friends, shopping and, of course, having Granny over to watch Monarch of the Glen whilst munching on a vegetable lasagna, garlic bread and any treats Granny happens to bring with her.  I love routines and rhythms of life and having my mum round each Saturday is one of my favourite times of the week <3

Sunday we went for a long walk in the nearby woodland.  Again, it was lovely to walk with my older daughters as they shared news and plans for the future, whilst the little ones played around us and the men walked on ahead, two ginger heads deeply in discussion.

Sunday’s are now a true day of rest, with all of us downing our work and using the afternoon to watch a family video together.  I make pulled gammon in the slow cooker and serve it with a cheddar mash and mixed vegetables.  Easy, simple and absolutely no work on my behalf at all.  Chuck in it, take it out and eat 🙂  Speaking of food, I also attempted a new to us recipe for Doritos flavoured pop corn.  Chock a block full of healthy spices with no unhealthy additives, this was definitely one to try again, and we all liked:

This week we watched a dvd about Charles Darwin called Creation.  I am taking the children through a very in depth look into evolution this Lent.  I have no preconceived ideas as to the outcome, but I do feel it is an important enough topic to spend time cogitating our beliefs.  I am thoroughly enjoying hearing my older ones’ views, as always.  And I am hopeful this will not be an area of confusion for them, after we complete this study.

Monday brought school as usual, along with a health dollop of teenage hormones.  We spent a good part of the day talking about certain issues which had cropped up during their youth church the night before.  Y’know, I genuinely think that this is the main advantage of being a home schooling family.  We have the freedom to take the time to talk.  And talk.  And talk.  I wonder why I get to the end of the day so exhausted sometimes, and this is it.  The teens are trying to make sense of the world around them, and given they spend time with other teens who are trying to do the same thing…well, life gets confusing.  So we talk and try to thrash it out together.  It is an honour, really, to have such an enormous input into their lives, and yet I often feel inadequate for the job.  How can I help them make sense of the world when so much of it confuses me?!  Well. I guess we muddle through together, and if nothing else, the muddling sure does bring us closer together.

Monday evening, Gary took the older girls to dance class whilst he worked alongside Thomas and his friend Noah on their music.  We have prayed for years for Thomas to meet someone of a similar age with similar interests (and male!).  Noah’s friendship is a huge blessing to him (and it turns out Noah’s family had been praying the same for him, so we are very happy parents 🙂  )

Lillie, who had been experiencing her first ever creative block, which had lasted a good few weeks, is back in fine form.  I had been a bit worried about her, as without her creativity she felt only half the person she was.  I was watching my fairly laid back, placid and quietly confident daughter lose all sense of who she was and who she wanted to be.  Gary and I have been on the case though (something I will share next week because right now it is a surprise for Lillie), and I think the fact that she knows we have been plotting and she has something to look forward to, along with a very, very good conference with her last Friday (full of ideas of helping her to retrieve her creativity once more) has meant that she is beginning return to normal:

She informs me it is so messy because she is far too creative to worry about the whole organising and tidying thing……..

Tuesday is an unusual day in that Thomas is at college for his engineering course and the twins are out all morning helping to take assembly at our local church school.  In the afternoon Lillie has a friend around to do some mixed media arts (they are laughing at another joke over the mess of their work area!):

They are doing the Valentine’s course over at Alisha Gratehouse and are enjoying making lots of love-themed stuff 🙂

The day finishes up with Thomas arriving home and a big ol’ rush to get everyone fed and watered before all five (six including Grace) leave for children’s choir and youth choir.  From there Thomas goes on to his youth group.  It is a long day for him so we all let him sleep in a little on the Wednesday if he needs to.

In fact he didn’t, and happily took the little ones to the park to play football whilst I popped to the local shops to buy some fruit for morning snack.  They had SUCH a good time:

The rest of Wednesday felt very unproductive, even though we all got done what we had planned.  The teens needed time to talk and cry, and talk and cry.  Sometimes all I can do is listen, hug them and send a quick prayer up to God asking would He PLEASE send me down some wisdom to deal with it all 🙂

The older four went to their drama group that evening whilst Gary, B6 and I spent some time playing games and colouring in.  I took myself off to bed early and slept so incredibly well Wednesday night that I woke up bright and breezy the next day, ready to face whatever the hormones had to throw at me…..

….nothing as it turned out.  In fact Thursday was absolutely my favourite day of the week this week.  It was drama free, peaceful, productive and just what our family needed.  A8 spent some time reading to her sister from a Peter Rabbit magazine as we finished off our Beatrix Potter Unit:

She was also very proud to have completely finished the Elementary Course from Science Shepherd.  This was definitely a review product she adored 🙂

Speaking of finishing, Charlotte completed War and Peace on Thursday and was so proud of herself:

I told her Gary and I would start saving up for the BBC production of War and Peace on dvd.  What an achievement!  She is going to be making a start on The Hunchback of Notre Dame, not nearly as thick but I suspect will be just as challenging to read.

I can not believe I now have five independent readers!  They have an hour of quiet time in the afternoon and now even B6 can join in, reading by herself for at least some of the time.  I caught the girls lying out on B’s bed and thought they looked so cute together I just had to take a picture:

I definitely need to get back into the swing of taking photos.  I have taken very few good ones this week.  But I have, at least,  written a Precious Moments post, which I know will make my daughters very happy in deed <3