The First Week of School - And a Fun Saturday!

 This week we started school! And we all had fun with it. 

Monday morning, the girls started on their lists and Parker said to me, "Mom, I'm going to miss you while I'm at school." 

I looked at her and said, "Parker, I'm your teacher. I'll be with you during school."

Parker very excitedly gave me a big hug, squealing. As she walked away, she said to herself, "I love my teacher ... and my teacher is ... my mom??"

Then, as we were nearing the end of our school activities, Parker asked me, "So, when are we going to start doing school?" I had to laugh. 

Despite this, Parker and Ashtyn are both disappointed they don't get to "go" to school. After our first day, when Ben came out from work, we asked her how she liked school. She said, "This isn't school! This is our home!" 

They do love the homeschool things we do, though, for the most part. We start off by all doing our "lists", which consist of eat breakfast, doing the breakfast dishes (the girls clean off the table and under the table for homeschool), getting dressed, and doing our hair. 

When the girls are finished with their list, they get to get out their white boards and draw on them while I finish up anything (usually I'm finishing Parker and Rylee's hair at this point). When I'm ready, I come to where they are drawing and sit down with them. 

We start with a prayer and then we sing through the hymn we've chosen for the week. I pick a couple lines to talk through, explaining what they mean, and then we sing it again. The goal isn't necessarily to help the girls memorize each song, but to simply familiarize them with some of them (especially right now, when they don't hear them each week at sacrament meeting). 

When we're done with our hymn, we put away the whiteboards and sit down on the couch to read. I start with Dr. Seuss' ABC's, reading the 4 letters that we are focusing on that day. Then I move to our picture books. We have at least one "for fun" book, and then at least one "learning" picture book (a math book, a history/biography book, etc.). Then we read something out of the Friend magazine before I read a chapter from our current chapter book (right now we're reading The Wizard of Oz). 

Before we move away from the couch, Ashtyn reads to me from one of her books. Right now, she is transitioning from Level 1 to Level 2. 

When we're done reading, we move to the table, which is the kids' favorite part (except maybe Rylee). Ashtyn gets her "Art Notebook" and my computer and I help her set up an art lesson off of YouTube. She loves this. While she does that, I do letters with Parker and Rylee. 

Since we do homeschool four days a week, we do four letters a week, or one a day. I just started at the beginning (we did A, B, C, and D this week), since Parker knows some of her letters already and we're simply familiarizing Rylee with the letters (not necessarily trying to get her to memorize them all). I had made some flashcards and printed off two pages (a coloring page of the letter and a page they could trace the letters). Parker's favorite part is learning how to draw each letter, she spends most of her time drawing the letter on any blank space she can find. Rylee's just happy she gets to draw with markers and pens. 

Once they are done with the letters, I let them draw a picture in their journals. Then, if Parker wants me to, I write down a line or two about what she drew. Ashtyn usually writes her own. Again, Rylee is just happy to be drawing with pens. 

After I put away all the homeschool stuff, we do an activity. On Monday, we colored Mandalas together for an "art" project. We ran out of time to go outside and make one in nature, but Ashtyn still wants to do that. On Tuesday, we did a "magic milk" science experiment, which all three girls absolutely loved, but which also made a big mess. One Wednesday, we did some dances together from YouTube, for gross motor. On Thursday, we were going to make cinnamon rolls for some neighbors, but our AC was broken, so I didn't want to turn on the AC and I was having a harder day, so we watched a documentary about sharks together. 

After our activity, we do yoga together. I try to do it with the girls, unless I'm having a harder time that day. They really like it when I do it with them. There's a channel on YouTube that does yoga for kids, with a story to go along with it, and I really like the channel (and so do the kids!).

After yoga, we all pick some books and sit down on the couch together for silent reading time. Sometimes Ashtyn complains about it, but even just being consistent with it this week, she complained less by the end of the week. I think Parker really likes silent reading time, when she can sit and look at books while snuggled up to me. 

We usually read until lunch time, five to twenty minutes, depending on how long our other activities take. And lunch time marks the end of our homeschool day. 

Friday, we do the same morning routine, with our lists, a prayer and hymn, and reading time, but then instead of moving to the table, we do chores in the morning. I help the girls do their chores, and then while I'm doing mine, I turn on what we call "homeschool" videos, or just something more educational. This week, they watched a Bill Nye the Science Guy on colors. 

Saturday mornings, we just relax and don't really do anything. The kids watch movies and I read. Yesterday afternoon, we went to the park with a friend of ours named Holley. It was really fun to catch up with her and the kids had a blast at the park. With all the Covid stuff this year, we just haven't gone to the park as much. 

There was a rope net that stretched between two slides that Parker and Ashtyn absolutely loved to climb. They spent most of their time there, or climbing up and down a slide with another boy they met at the park. 

Rylee loved climbing all over the playground and going down slides. She would do the slide over and over again. 

All three also loved the swings. They stayed there as long as the adults could stand (it was hot and the swings were right in the sun!). 

It was a fun way to end the first week of school and still enjoy the warm weather outside!

I love having the time from 9-12 dedicated to the kids. I feel really connected to them afterwards and I can tell they feel the same. They have a lot of fun and are really enjoying learning the things we are focusing on. I'm still trying to figure out how to balance everything else I want to do with my new focus on homeschool, but I feel good about where my priorities are.

The End of Summer

 It has been a really fun summer! We are starting up homeschool tomorrow, so I thought I'd share a few experiences we've had the last few weeks. It's been busy and fun! 

The Lake

One of the things we have done often this summer is go to the lake. There are two reservoirs about ten minutes from our house, so we get a pass and go as often as we can! It's always a lot of fun for everyone. 

One visit, we took Ben's brother Donovan and his wife Jessica with us. We went in the afternoon, thinking it would be less busy, but it was actually crazy busy! We found a little spot (not our normal one) for ourselves and swam quite a bit, while Jessica played in the sand with Rylee. We did end up leaving sooner than we might have, because it was so crowded, but it was still really fun to go with them!

Fishing

Another time, Danny's (Ben's dad) family had a get together at the lake. They brought some boats and had a big dinner. The girls and I spent most of the time on Danny's fishing boat. The girls have been wanting to do that with them all summer, so they were really happy. 

Rylee spent most of her time driving the boat and drinking out of a water bottle that had been in the sun that she'd found. She did end up "fishing" with a pole, and she was bound and determined to "do it myself". Danny would hold onto the line, so that she didn't drop the pole in the water, and she would swing the pole around. 

Parker loved being on the boat. The very first time we went to the lake this year, she wanted to go on a boat that was on the beach. I told her it wasn't ours and that she would need to ask Grandpa to take us on his boat. She started walking around the beach, calling for Grandpa. She has been anxiously waiting ever since. She held a pole for a minute a couple times, but she was pretty bored with the fact that the fish weren't biting. Her favorite part was looking at all of Grandpa's different lures. Once she was used to being on the boat, she loved standing at the top of the boat, calling herself Captain Parker. She also called Danny "Captain Grandpa" the whole time we were on the boat. 

Ashtyn loved the fishing part. It was a little disappointed that we didn't get any bites, but she was very patient holding the different poles, waiting for them to bite. She also wanted to cast by herself and before Danny could stop her, she tried. She ended up catching me! It got me on the shoulder, but it wasn't too bad. Once we got it off, Danny helped her cast again, and now we tease that they didn't catch anything but Mom. 

Ben started off on the fishing boat with us, but switched over to his aunt's boat to do some surfing behind the boat. Once everyone was back, we had dinner. It was yummy and the kids had a lot of fun running around with all the kids, sort of eating their food. 

The Wizard of Oz 

Another fun thing this summer was that Hannah was Dorothy in a local play. Ben and I took Ashtyn on a Friday night and she really liked it. We got her popcorn and Dots, and afterwards got her ice cream from the treat place next door. Hannah did such a good job, as did the rest of the cast. It was a cute play and Ashtyn had fun on her special date. 

The next day, Danny and Lindi took Parker for a special date. She loved it as well, and told us all about the treats she got and how fun it was for her. 

Stream Fishing 

For Ashtyn's date (they gave them golden tickets for Christmas, good for a date during the year), Danny and Lindi took Ashtyn stream fishing. She was so excited, she made crowns for everyone out of paper and collected grass hoppers and worms (which lived in our fridge for over a week) to take with her. 

They took her up and had a little picnic. Then Ashtyn spent hours fishing with Danny. The fish were a little jumpier, so Danny would hook them for her and Ashtyn would pull them in. She came home with 3 fish she wanted to clean and cook, telling us that she had caught 14 fish in her whole life, and 13 that night (she caught one fish by herself last year). 

We didn't end up cooking the fish. The next day, Ashtyn wanted to keep looking at them and holding them. When her friend Elsie came over, Ashtyn showed her the fish (and boy, she was impressed). Then, unbeknownst to me, they went on a bike ride with the fish on the back seat. It was probably 96 degrees out. When I saw, I told Ashtyn to put the fish away. I came out a few minutes later to find the fish not in the fridge, but in a bucket of hose water outside. By the time they got back in the fridge, we decided it would probably be best to not risk it. 

Bike Riding

The other thing we've done a bunch of this last part of summer was bike riding. We recently got me a bike with a bike trailer, and Ashtyn has started riding her bigger bike, so she's a little faster. We put Parker and Rylee in the trailer and then Ashtyn and I ride all over the place. We want to get Ben a bike so we can do family bike rides in the evenings. 

Summer has been a lot of fun! We've seen a lot of family (despite Covid, though we miss the people we haven't seen!) and made a lot of really memories together. Sometimes I miss having a baby (and still want to have another soon!), but it's fun to have older kids and do fun things like this with them!

Rylee is 2!

 Second birthday: August 11, 2020

Favorite food: She loves yogurt and apple sauce for breakfast, macaroni and cheese or chili for lunch, and

spaghetti for dinner. Most other food I try to give her, she just doesn't eat. She does like most vegetables and

fruits, and loves apples and bananas for snacks. She also loves all treats!

Favorite toys: Balls, anything Minnie Mouse, books, babies, anything with small pieces

Favorite things to say: 

"Pweeeese! Can you?" 

"I'm gonna jump on you!"

"Don't do that again!" *pointing her finger at me*

"What's the big idea?" (pronouncing both e and a)

"I'm a kitty, meow meow" and "I'm a puppy woof woof"

She also loves to randomly sing songs like Farmer in the Dell and Wheels on the Bus

"No, I don't WANT to!" 

"O-okay." (said resignedly)

"Stop it!" When Ben and I are talking to each other

Favorite things to do: Swing, jump on the couch (and the tramp), bring me books to read her, take bike rides,

go anywhere, get a snack, walk to the farm, play outside with Ashtyn, tease people

Favorite People: Rylee loves all people, but her favorites are babies and grandparents. She talks all the time

(and prays for) her grandparents all the time.

Learned this year: Rylee's biggest thing is talking. She talks so much now, in mostly complete sentences, and is

forever saying words I had no clue she knew how to say. She's also learned her colors, shapes, how to count to

20, and is learning her letters.

Favorite books: The Carrot Seed, Cat the Cat, Good Night Moon, Llama Llama, any book with a song,

The Pigeon books (Mo Willems)

Favorite shows: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Cat in the Hat, nursery rhymes

Favorite Movies: Into the Spiderverse, Star Wars Episode 1, Lady and the Tramp 2, Tangled

We love our Rylee and I love watching her learn and grow!

Books I Read - July 2020

Here are the books I read in July:

Favorite books of the month: 

What the Wind Knows by Amy Harmon 

Hum if You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais 

19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult 

Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard 

4 Stars 

This is a YA thriller, following a group of five friends. Their ring leader Alison knows all their dirty secrets, but when they are young, she disappears. A few years later, they start getting notes about their secrets, signed A. 

This book was fairly enjoyable for a fluff read, but I was disappointed after reading The Perfectionists by the same author. This book was more fluffy, had more sexual content, and the characters were all pretty messed up and not very good people. And while it was an okay read, I won't be continuing the series. Instead, I just looked up spoilers online. 

19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult 

4 Stars 

This book follows a school shooting, looking at the events leading up to it and the key players in the aftermath.

I found this to be very enjoyable and thought provoking. It follows a lot of characters and goes back and forth between present and past very often, which made it hard to keep track of everything at first. Once I got used to it, though, I couldn’t put it down and it really made me think. One of its strengths is the way it looks at a lot of different sides of the situation; the one perspective we don’t get to understand, which disappointed me, was the “bully” of the school. 

Snapshot by Brandon Sanderson 

5 Stars 

This was a reread for me. My husband and I listened to it together on a car trip, it’s about a 3 hour audiobook, as it’s a novella. 

It is a sci-fi detective story. Society can create a “snapshot”, or exact replica of a day, but when you send people into the snapshot, it changes things in the snapshot. They send in a couple of detectives when a crime is committed, who do their best not to mess up the snapshot while also getting information or proof. 

The first time I read this, I didn’t really like it as much. The second time through, I enjoyed it more. It’s a really interesting story and I hope he writes more, making it a series. 

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 

5 Stars 

This was another reread for me. I reread the trilogy in preparation for the newly released prequel. I hadn’t read this since high school, so I had no idea if I would still like it or not, but I loved it still! 

Suzanne Collins does a fabulous job with tension, characters, world building, and foreshadowing. I have a more in depth review, from the perspective of a writer, that I will link down below. 

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins  

4 Stars

I didn’t love Catching Fire in high school, it felt too much like a repeat of the first to me at the time. This time around, I was able to appreciate and notice the focus on politics and the rebellion more, and enjoyed it more this time around. I bumped up my rating by one star. 

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins 

3 Stars 

This book was actually similar, in that I bumped it up a star since reading it in high school. As a teenager, I hated this book. I felt depressed while reading it, hated what she did to my favorite characters, and left feeling dissatisfied with the ending despite Katniss ending up with who I wanted her to. 

I still don’t love the book, but I can appreciate the direction Collins went with it even if it’s not for me. I’d love to hear, if you enjoyed the third book, what you liked about it! 

Someday Maybe by Colleen Hoover 

2 Stars 

This was my main audiobook read of the month. I generally like contemporary romance and I’ve heard good things about Colleen Hoover. I honestly didn’t like this book at all, though I feel a pull to keep reading. 

We follow two protagonists, a girl named Sydney who finds out her roommate and her boyfriend have been cheating on her for two years, and a boy named Ridge, who rescues Sydney when she has no place else to go. Then of course, they try not to fall in love (because he has an awesome girlfriend) while spending massive amounts of time alone together (including in his bedroom). 

This book just annoyed me. You can find a more in depth review on Goodreads if you’re interested, but basically, it annoyed me because they kept “trying” not to be attracted to each other or act on that attraction, but then kept putting themselves in situations where it was hard, or even impossible. And they end up cheating together emotionally--no they never sleep together, but he shares stuff with Sydney that he has never told anyone even his girlfriend--and they do kiss, and don’t tell the girlfriend. This took up 90% of the story line, and the longer it went on, the more it frustrated me. I’ll stop now, before this turns into a rant. 

The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle 

4 Stars 

This was the next short story collection in the Sherlock Holmes series and I really enjoyed it. I tend to really like the short story collections; they are interesting and don’t have a lot of explanation at the end, like some of the novels. I usually just read one a day when I’m reading a collection like this. 

Hum if You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais 

5 Stars

This was a story set in Africa, during the Soweto Uprising. It follows an African lady looking for her daughter and a white child who loses her parents. 

I am so glad I read this. It was so touching, helped me think about and understand people different from me, and taught an amazing lesson about love and friendship. I would highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys historical fiction. 

Bonds that Make us Free by C Terry Warner 

4 Stars 

This is a self help type book, though it’s pretty different from most that I’ve read. The main idea is that the way we see other people influences the way we feel about them, and hence the way that we treat them. That then affects the way they act. The way we see and feel about them is something that we are in more control of than we tend to think. 

I didn’t necessarily love the book, it felt long winded and I didn’t agree with the way he talked about certain ideas, BUT I still feel this book is a must read. The ideas in the book are life changing and it’s honestly been a very humbling experience to realize how often I am in the wrong and to realize that I have more to repent of than I recognized before. I think 

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins 

3.5 Stars

This is the prequel for the Hunger Games, recently released. I honestly went into this thinking that I wouldn’t like it very much, but it surprised me. I enjoyed learning some of the history that we know from the original trilogy and I actually loved learning about Snow’s character. He was interesting to read about, because he’s never really good, but he doesn’t really start off as bad either. My favorite part was seeing how the Hunger Games that we knew began and became what they were. 

I did feel it slowed down a bit about ⅔ of the way through, but it picked up again. Besides being a little long, it was a fun read and I would recommend it to anyone who liked the original trilogy. I would also recommend reading the trilogy again before picking this up if it’s been awhile, I am really glad I did that. 

TMNT Change is Constant by Kevin Eastman 

5 Stars 

I have never been into comic books and I actually don’t think I read a single one before I found BookTube. Last year, I did a Marvel movie marathon and it got me interested in reading some of the comics, so I got some recommendations from my brother (who knows me really well AND reads a lot of comics). I’ve been trying different ones and so far, this has been my favorite! 

I really liked the artwork. I liked how it looked and it was easy to follow what was going on (that’s really important to me). I loved the plot line, it was familiar to me but I was still interested in it. I also felt like it flowed really well. One thing about comics is that sometimes it feels like they have to tell a lot, but I didn’t feel that way with this comic. 

What the Wind Knows by Amy Harmon 

5 Stars

I finished off the month really strong with an historical romance. This was set in Ireland in the 1920’s. It has time travel and romance and a lot of history that I didn’t know very much about before. I love Ireland though (I did Irish step dancing all growing up) and this reawakened my desire to visit there someday.

It took me a little bit to get into the story, but I’m so glad I persevered! I cried and laughed and was totally sucked into the story. I cared so much about the characters and loved the ending. It was a bit predictable, but that didn’t detract at all from my enjoyment. If you enjoy historical romance, this is one I can’t recommend enough. 

And here are my bookish stats from last month: 

We’ll start with my reading stats. I read 13 books in July for a total of 4,576 pages. I DNF’d 0 books.

I had 4 rereads and 9 new reads. I didn’t finish our read aloud this month, we’re about halfway through The Wizard of Oz. 

I read 5 five star reads, 4 four star reads, 2 three star reads, and 2 two star reads. I had 0 one star reads. 

With genres, I read 2 mystery, 2 contemporary, 6 scifi, 2 historical fiction, 1 classic, and 1 nonfiction (a self help book). 

I read 0 middle grade (I’m not sure how that happened), 6 ya, and 7 adult books. 

Of the books I read, 1 was from the library, 3 were eBooks, 2 were audiobooks, and 7 I owned a physical copy of. 

Of the books I read, 9 were by female authors and 4 were by male authors. 

I read 1 new release. 

From my July TBR, I read 11/13 books I had planned. 

From my 2020 TBR list, I read 3 books. 

That brings me to a total of 19/36 books so far this year. 

I read 0 books that are part of a series. 

I bought 5 books and unhauled 2 books. I didn’t buy any ebooks and I bought one audiobook. 

At the start of the month, I owned 17 books I hadn’t read yet, starting in August, I now have 16. 

At the start of the month, my Kindle had 15 ebooks I hadn’t read yet on it. Starting in August, it now has 12. 

At the start of the month, I had 4 audiobooks I haven’t listened to and starting in August, I still have 4 audiobooks (though one of those is different).

I didn’t keep track of how many words I wrote because I wasn’t drafting. 

I worked on edits for draft 4 and made good progress. I had 7 larger revisions to do and finished 5 of them. 

On my YouTube channel, I posted 12 videos. I gained 10 subscribers in July. I had 538 views and 33 hours of watch time. All of these are down from last month. I didn’t do as well posting videos and was feeling a bit discouraged with things earlier in the month. I have some ideas for things to do differently and am excited for my channel again now though, after working through that discouragement and brainstorming with my husband. 

There are my stats! It was actually a really good reading month for me, though YouTube and writing didn’t do as well. Ups and downs are normal when it comes to progress and goals and I’m excited for August.

What was your bookish month like in July? What books did you read in July?