Sunday the kids seemed unphased by having such a late night. They all woke up energized after only 4 hours of sleep and then they spent the whole day outside building snowmen and rolling giant balls of snow and just having all kinds of snow fun. I personally feel like there has already been way too much snow before winter has even started.
Monday we got back to life, starting our day off with Seminary again. Tyler was teaching the first few days of this week and his lessons were a bit slow moving and the kids were a bit inattentive. I even struggled a bit. In addition to the slowness, I have noticed cell phones out more. We have one kid in particular who is always playing games on his phone. On Tuesday when we met with the Seminary Coordinator, we asked for advice with cell phones and he just suggested positive reinforcement. We tried it on Wednesday. I set a timer for an unkown amount of time and I told them when it went off anyone who wasn't on their phone would get 5 tickets (we will be having an auction using the tickets before we go on break). Well this kid got off his phone, proceeded to count what tickets he had and then went back on his phone. Obviously he decided he didn't need more tickets. Whatever. Honestly these tickets only seem to work on the kids that are already good. The others just don't care. It's a struggle.
Tuesday was a really awful day for Michigan. At Oxford High School, about an hour from us, there was a school shooting. 4 students died, 7 were injured. Since our school program partners with Oxford Public Schools (basically Oxford provides our funding), I recieved the emails that day stating that there was an active emergency and then it came back clarifying an active shooter. I can't even with how scary that would've been if my kids attended that school. It has made me really anxious about sending Steven to high school next year. I really wish this hybrid program continued into high school.
Wednesday there was still school and life went on as normal. Lucy had volleyball practice and then her church activity where she made some ornaments. Steven did a cooking activity. These were both at seperate locations which made life difficult for us since we only have 1 car. I really wish they would just hold everything at the church again.
Thursday morning, as I was trying to get myself out of bed for seminary, I noticed a bunch of missed text messages. Apparently due to some threats of violence school was cancelled and people wanted to know if we would be having seminary. I quickly sent out a barrage of texts cancelling seminary, with my half awake brain, but apparently 2 students still showed up. Thankfully they saw the dark house and left but I feel pretty badly that they made the effort for nothing. Hopefully I will do better at alerting everyone next time. Pretty much every school in Michigan was cancelled Thursday, except for my kids' school. Maybe I shouldn't but I just feel so much more comfortable sending my kids to this hybrid homeschool. You just know that most of these kids have great parental support and with the smaller class sizes, it's easier for teachers to know the students. Maybe I shouldn't feel so secure with their school but I do.
Friday school was cancelled again for our seminary kids so we ended up cancelling seminary again but this time there was a much bigger heads up so we were able to alert everyone Thursday afternoon. Friday afternoon I took the kids to a homeschool craft day that we had signed up for. It wasn't a super long activity but I think the kids enjoyed their crafts. Lucy made beaded pens and a wooden nativity. Penny made a tissue paper Christmas tree and a wooden nativity. Steven and Ben both made a string art ornament and a glass bowl snowman. I only took one picture there so I tried to take a few more when we got home of the crafts they made.
Friday evening, in an effort to get over my issues with baby related things, I went to a baby shower for someone in my ward. I didn't view us as super good friends but somehow I made the invite list. It went ok. I worked on focusing on the 4 healthy pregnancies that I have had and I worked on enjoying the really good food they had there.
Saturday our neighbors took us to their church's Christmas Show- The Glory of Christmas. When we got there an elf stopped by and took down our kids' names and what they wanted for Christmas. Later Penny's name was mentioned in the show as one of the kids on Santa's list. She felt pretty special. The first half of the show was just holiday songs and the second half was the Christ part. The whole thing was wicked extravagent. There were dancers, amazing singers, people wired down from the ceiling, fire juggling, ice skating, live animals, flashing lights, confetti and snow coming down from the ceiling...so much show to it. It sort of kills the specialness of the Christmas story but it was most definitely entertaining and memorable. It was really kind of our neighbors to not only invite us but pay for our tickets. She always talks about how she feels like she owes us for all that we do but I feel like we owe them for all that they do. We are really blessed to have such great neighbors.
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