Weekly Recap x2: With Easter, Conference, and the snakes

Even though it seems like it's going slow, we've made progress on the fence. Our amazing neighbor has helped so much, which we really appreciate since my husband only has two days a week that he can work on it. The neighbor and the husband figured out where and how to place new posts. We have cement along the entire length of our fence, the previous owners did it quite nicely, and may have been concerned about dogs digging under the fence? It makes it hard to replace stuff though.

We got the posts in, and since this recap is covering two weeks, there are also a lot of panels up now too. We are sealing each board before putting it up so it's nice to have kids who want to help "paint."



My husband took a Saturday off because M and I went to a Curvy Girls scoliosis  meeting. That was fun! When we came back, my son and some neighbor kids started catching snakes. Some of my girls even joined in. We have SO MANY in our yard each year, and they've recently started coming out of their dens.

At one point, J grabbed a huge handful and had 5 or 6 snakes in his hand. Disgusting. Did I mention I cannot wait for the fence to be back up?

Well, they caught 21 garter snakes by the time we were done working. Yikes. Please note.. all snakes were treated with care, and even though I hate them I supervised and taught them to be gentle. Not a single child was bitten, no snakes were grumpy (did you know garter snakes strike?), and everyone washed their hands after handling. The snakes were all released that day (despite me wanting to stick a rock in the container and sink it in the creek...)

Less gross stuff:

Sunday we watched The Messiah, since we couldn't stay up late Friday to watch it live. You can watch the recording too, through April 9th! It's one of our favorite events that happens every two years.

I discovered that I am third cousins with another member of the Homeschool Review Crew. It was pretty exciting!

M celebrated a birthday and shared her new Curlformers with me. They are neat, they work really well!

M had a youth activity where the girls made bows for babies at the hospital. J had a youth activity where the boys toured the sewer plant. He came home with some ....fascinating... facts to share. I finally gave J a hair cut when we had a warm day.

We celebrated The Holy Week with this book and enjoyed a Passover dinner. I know it's not exact, but it's what I could pull off this year. The Easter Bunny visited on Saturday, as usual.

Gardening gloves from the Easter bunny!

The highlight of the week was Easter Sunday, with resurrection rolls and General Conference! And oh what a conference it was! We sustained the new prophet and were in awe at the updates to the way the church is run. I am so grateful to have the gift of the Holy Ghost to confirm all the truth.

School Highlights: Two weeks here!

History - lessons on Lincoln & the civil war, and General Lee, General Jackson, and General Grant.
Literature - Hans Brinker lessons: plot and Raff's accident, and creating travel brochures of Holland from details in the novel.

Science lessons on nutrition and nutrients. We had fun finding the iron in Total cereal, but now the kids won't eat it. No big deal, I bought it special.. for that lesson.
Geography - lessons on government services, and banks.
Art - a lesson on J. J. Audubon. I thought I had pictures of the birds the kids drew and painted, but I can't find them. Will update if I do!
Music - a lesson on the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square, with a little info on Mac Wilburg.

I've been researching and deciding on what we will use for school next year. There are some BIG changes coming for us!

New Reviews:

Home School in the Woods - Á La Carte Projects
Super Beads
Learn About Cultures and Civilizarions with Carole P. Roman Books