Sleeping Beauty-- Helen fell asleep on the floor in a pile of pink.
This photo is from family night. Sophie is Nehemiah, busily building the wall around Jerusalem. Abe is the bad guy, Sanballat, trying to get her to stop. We read President Uchtdorf's talk from conference "We Are Doing a Great Work and Cannot Come Down."
For the past 5 years, Brandan has walked Sophie to school and then has ridden his bike on to work. Sophie starts middle school next year and the middle school starts an hour later than elementary school. This week was Brandan's last week to walk Sophie to school, at least for a while. Maybe they can walk together when she's in high school.
Flashback to 2004 and Sophie's first day of first grade. She's kept her enthusiasm for learning, love of her teachers and fun with her friends throughout elementary school.
We went to meet Abe and Sophie coming home on the last day of school. A bittersweet day. We have lots of fun planned for the summer, but they both really love school and will miss their teachers and seeing friends every day.
Brandan didn't waste time putting the kids to work. He's putting baseboards in the bedrooms that he laid wood floors in this Spring and let the kids paint them first.
5 comments:
Sophie going to middle school? No way. That is shocking to me. I am not her parent and I am sad to see her grow up. She is such a fun girl.
Way to put those kids to work. We don't wank summer boredom to kick in too early.
What a darling picture of a pink, crumpled Helen.
Your family is so great.
Oh--reminds me so much of what is happening here at my house. Love the family night photo too. Best to Sophie!
Love Abe's face while playing Sanballat and that all the kids are painting the base boards. Aaron's already got some projects in mind for Sasha when she gets old enough. :)
Becky--I have a couple of ideas for your "three day weekend." My friend homeschools in California and she introduced me to this great book and workbook called "The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child" by Susan Wise Bauer. The story book part tells the history of the world in a simple, compelling way. The workbook is a companion to each chapter and is FILLED with tons of fun activities to complement the ideas in the story book. Every summer I mean to do it, but get so distracted. I do take the book on family trips and we read chapters together and answer the questions. The girls LOVE it and they have loved any of the activities we have made time for. It would be a great companion to a four day school week. I really intend to get through that book (and others--there are lots more in the series) before they grow up. Another idea--this summer we are having family "university" where the girls choose a "major" to study. I tell them it should be something they are interested in learning more about, but don't have enough time during school to really study it. Lauren is studying Amelia Earhart. Elise is studying business (she wants to sell snow cones) and Sarah is studying plants. By the end of the summer they have to present their learnings in some way--like a power point, a video, an ABC book etc. Your extra day at home could be a fun way for your kids to pursue interests there is never time for in school. We did this last summer too and Lauren studied the American flag, Elise did J.K. Rowlings, and Sarah did magic tricks. Does that help? It sounds like a good problem to have. I look forward to hearing what you do with your extra day!
I think it's so cool that they've walked together everyday. What a nice Daddy. And I meant to run upstairs and check out those cool wood floors when I was there the other day. DARN IT! I could have seen the hand painted baseboards, too. Thanks for dinner, by the way. In case I don't get around to a thank you note. I think I'm DROWING in my new calling and someone should give ME swim lessons.
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