Back to School

Sunday was busy. We began some new management techniques to help with our squirrely primary kids. It was a peaceful Sunday for once but that could just be because half the primary kids were gone ;) After church Ben got ordained as a priest. I failed to take a picture after, poor middle child. I can't believe I have 2 boys who can bless the sacrament and do baptisms. Time is a thief. 

Monday we had to go full gear into homeschooling because the way the girls school did winter break this year was dumb. The girls really only got off the week of Christmas because they were given 3 weeks of at at home learning work but they only were given 4 weeks off of school. We decided we weren't going to homeschool while the boys were off the week after Christmas. That meant cramming in an extra week worth of work this week. It was a very rough week of school. Lots of crying and tantrums. It makes me wonder why I do this, am I just creating trauma for my kids to go to therapy for when they are older? Ruby also had a tough time adjusting to us not giving her attention. She kept telling us to stop doing homework. 

Monday evening, the younger 4 went to Chuck E Cheese to celebrate surviving their first day back at school. Ben struggles with people constantly wanting to copy his papers at school because he a good, smart kid.  And it is usually not the kind of people he wants to be around. We all needed some fun after a long day. While there we had an offer for 500 tickets so we redeemed it and ended up being able to get Ruby a Chuck e cheese doll. I know we have way too many dolls but it is a good memorabilia of all our visits to Chuck e cheese. 

Tuesday after we got school work done we ran a couple errands. First I went to the post office to see if they were maybe holding my parent's Christmas gift to the kids. My mom thought that she might not have put enough postage on it. We were really hoping that it wasn't just lost. The guy was nice enough and humored me but no luck. Then we went to Costco to stock up on all the things. I didn't realize that Tyler had left bags of salt in my truck so we had a super fun time fitting everything in my squeak after. Our last stop was at dollar tree, I wanted to get Ruby some "school work" too so she could work with us. I found a shape coloring book and a numbers one. 

Also Tuesday Lucy got her glasses and now the majority of our family wears corrective lenses. Lucy thinks she looks nerdy but I think she looks great. 

Tuesday night Lucy, Penny, Ben and I went to see Zootopia 2. I thought about taking Ruby but wasn't sure if it would be a good first movie for her, the first one had some pretty scary animals in it. It probably would've been fine but it was nice to not have to worry about her and it was also nice to have some time with my middle 3. It wasn't an amazing movie but it was still an entertaining watch.

Wednesday Lucy met her friend at the library to do school work. Penny brought work to do as well so I basically just hung out with Ruby. There was one point a toddler class ended and the place got really peopley and loud but most of the people didn't stay too long so overall it was a good outing. Maybe we should start homeschooling at the library?

Friday morning we had our last day of the co op. The older girls do not love it and Lucy ended up staying in the toddler class with me and Ruby. I enjoy the time I get to spend with Julie and I'm glad Ruby gets some socialization but it just won't work for all of us. The power ended up going out about half way through so we spent the latter half with moody dark lighting, lol and all the older classes had to come up from the basement and into the kitchen so they'd have what sunlight there was coming trough the windows.  For the last half hour we had another class join us in our room because they weren't doing good in the big space of the kitchen. A mom came in with the kids and we got chatting,  it turned out we both had similar aged children. Of course I met her on my last day there so it's unlikely I'll see her again. I am slightly relieved to be done with the co op though. 

Friday night the girls had a sleepover with Mimi and Steven had work, so Tyler, Ruby, Ben and I went to Wendy's for dinner. After that we had Ben's archery tournament. I brought Ruby (Tyler was coaching) and we ended up at the top of the bleachers because she is wiggly and noisy. Ruby kept making me go down between shootings so she could say hello to Tyler. She loves him best. 

Meanwhile the girls seemed to have a good time at their sleepover. They stayed up until 1am crafting,  watching movies and watching movies. 

Saturday I made Tyler take Ruby and me to the eastern market. I'm reading this book about unlocking your creative potential and it says I'm supposed to take the artist in me out on a date once a week so this was my artist date. It was fun to see the products different vendors were selling and what made vendors stand out. There was a really good sales person for a pickle stand and Tyler ended up buying 2 jars of bread and butter pickles. We also got some doughnuts for Ruby and me. I gave Ruby one and then she wanted another so anyone that made eye contact with her, she would tell them that she wanted a doughnut. She's so chatty these days. Afterwards we went and looked at the at murals outside. It was cold so we saw a couple and then drove around to look at more. I'm impressed that people can make art so perfectly on such a grand scale. I feel like I don't have the patience for that.  While we were driving a pigeon flew into our windshield so that was exciting. 

After we got back,  it started snowing big fluffy snowflakes. All the snow from the ground had just melted so of course it was time for more.  But I didn't mind too much because it was my favorite kind of snow. Lucy was nice and took Ruby out to play in it. Ruby could have played it in all afternoon. She loves snow and did not want to come back inside.