Fixer Upper House Update

Well its been a while since I gave an update on our fixer upper house and since we are really starting to make noticeable progress, I wanted to share some pictures. 
Back in September we finally got the outside painted. It feels so good to see color on that wood. 

We picked a really light gray for the wood and then we repainted the bricks. They are still white, but just brighter and cleaner.

When the painted went on I was worried it was going to be light, but then as it dried, it got darker. I do really like it. 

Then in October, we got the garage door installed. We had to knock out the black french doors and put in a garage. It looks so much better with the garage.

Then just recently, we got around the garage painted. It's finally all finished outside!!! YAY!

Meanwhile, inside Chris has all installed all the counters. We have so many good helpers. Lol. 

 The backsplash is going up  right now and the cabinet doors are going on. 

I also painted the front door. We are going to get a new stopper for the front door so it wont be red anymore, but I'm so glad that red door is gone!!

I also spent a whole day cleaning the bathrooms and getting them looking good again. The inside painting is all done too. I think we are down to just a few things- flooring, cleaning out the garage,  and last minute touch ups! We are so close and we are hoping to have it sold by the end of January!

 

8 Months of Covid-19 Life

I have a happy COVID update! We are allowed back at church. Right now, its every other week, but it's so nice to be back with our ward to worship together. As you can see, we are all happy to be back at church together. We have to wear masks, of course,  and sit six feet apart, but we don't care. It's totally worth it!

A girl in my ward made all the primary kids masks and they are the cutest temple prints. Because Benson isn't technically in Primary yet, he didn't get one. But the girl who made them, Jenn Mueller, is my ministering sister and when she found out Benson didn't have one, she made him one to match. 

So now all of my kids have the darling church masks to wear every other week. 

Another happy update- the actual construction on our temple has started. We drove over to the designated spot and took a picture, so we could have a before picture. I would also like to do progress pictures. 

We got to watch the groundbreaking virtually and it was amazing. We are so very excited. We feel blessed that even though COVID has halted life in so many ways, the progress on the temple hasn't slowed. After all the permits and approvals, they have finally started to build! 
We also got the rendering of our future temple.  We literally could not be more excited. 

Isn't it beautiful? 
We can't wait to take more progress pictures and then finally a finished product picture. 

Besides those two updates, not much has changed. We are still homeschooling. Chris is still working from home. We are still working on the fixer upper house with all our free time. But we are happy healthy and Thanksgiving is coming and we are finally going to see all our Drake family. 

 

Homeschooling Herbs

Well we've been homeschooling for a month now and I can happily say that things are going better than I thought they would go. It took me a very long time to find a rhythm, but we finally found our way.

After converting our guest room into a school room, we jumped right in. 

The kids even made their own desks with their Dads. 

We found a routine that works and its been great. 
We start each day at 8:30 am with our "Come, Follow Me" lesson. It's so nice to start our day in the scriptures.

 Then we spend between 1-1 1/2 hours doing math. I rotate between all three kids and help them as needed. Bailey and Tanner are only one grade apart in school and they are able to read their lessons on their own. They just need a little help after I teach their lesson. Tucker requires a more a hands on approach, but he does great. 

After math, we do our language arts lessons. These typically take 1 hour or so. 
Then it's time for lunch. We take an hour for lunch and recess. 

My friend Jenn dropped these cute lunch trays off for us on our first day of school and the kids love them. 

After lunch we do science or history, depending on the day.

The kids really love science. Instead of buying difference science curriculums, I've decided to do an interest led science approach. This has led to lots of fun experiments. 

One of their favorites was our volcano. We played with this for a long time, creating different kinds of  lava and changing the colors. It was pretty fun. 

We also did a fun human body unit. It was a great hands on lesson and the kids loved it. We learned about bones, muscles and organs. 

Here is Bailey helping teach about how the lungs work. She did a great job teaching us. 

Another of our favorite science lessons was when we learned about buoyancy and density. We did "The Great Cookie Dunk" and used the scientific method to determine which cookies we thought would float in milk. It was fun and tasty. Even little Benson participated in this lesson. The kids filled out their observations and made predictions. It was pretty great. 

On the days we don't do science, we do history. I really like our history curriculum, but I struggle to make it hands on. During our China unit, we took a virtual reality tour of the Great Wall and that was pretty fun. We also visited the Terra Cotta soldiers. The kids loved it!

After Science/ History, we do a life skills lesson. One of the kids' favorite skill they have learned is to thread a needle and sew a button. They really loved this. 

Tanner even sewed a button back onto his suit jacket. 

    

This life skills class is one of the reasons I was excited to homeschool. I love that I get to create the lessons I want my kids to learn. They get to learn skills they couldn't learn in school. It's been so fun. 

After we worked on hand stitching, I also taught them how to use my sewing machine. With very little help, the cut, pinned and then sewed  pajama pants for themselves.  They worked so hard and they looked adorable. I made Benson's pants for him so he could match. They are excited to have Halloween pajamas to wear all month. 

 

After life skills we have quiet time. The kids listen to an audio book while they work on handwriting. Tucker enjoys doing puzzles or coloring. Tanner and and Bailey also do their independent reading during this time. I love our quiet time. I stay in the classroom with them, but I am able to work on small projects while they have quiet time. 

Another highlight of our lessons was when Tanner and Bailey finished a language arts unit on Italy and the following lesson was a recipe on how to make gnocchi. They had fun making lunch for everyone and it was actually really yummy. 

 

This is just another reason I really love our language arts curriculum from "The Good and the Beautiful". It's hands on and interesting. The kids love it!

Aunt Laura came to visit for a week and she taught us about Japan as well. 
And because we are all sushi loves, we had to make some while she was visiting. It was so fun and delicious!

 

We also visit the library each Friday. We don't do history/science or life skills on Fridays. We finish math and language arts and then eat lunch and go to the library. It's fun to see the kids pick out books and we always grab an audiobook to listen to during quiet time. 

We finish school around 2:30 pm each day. While we are doing our lessons, Benson hangs out with Dad and plays or watches a movie. Chris is so great to watch him while he works from home. 
This year has been so strange in so many ways, but we are making so many memories together. 
So that has been our homeschooling experience so far. It's been pretty great and I'm so relieved it's gotten better.