Building a Box

Josie went grocery shopping with me on Monday, under strict orders not to whine or beg for toys. Somehow the little stinker convinced me water spray bottles were not toys but for her to clean the windows. She indeed cleaned most of the windows...and sprayed water here and there all over the house (and her siblings). The windows are now streaky and the floor covered with wet spots. The blessing: her index finger is very strong. Yes, that was worth it. Especially because it came in a two pack of bottles, Evelyn joined in the fun. Lots of sprays around here this week. I did say no to filling the bottles with milk or lemonade...just water. The boys and I started and finished a 500 piece Pokemon puzzle in about 8 hours! The boys did the frame and started filling in characters, the large figures were quite complicated. 

Phillip found Justin's out-dated VR headset, it only connects to a phone he no longer uses. The VR set instead became an experiment in depth perception and eye magnification. Josie's googly eyes made us all erupt in bouts of laughter. She looked like Wall-E from a Disney movie. Josie also decided it was a fantastic idea to smear slime on her forehead and bangs. It was torture on all those baby hairs getting the slime out. I guess manufactures worked on their formulas in the past years because I finally tried a bath and the slime came right out. Should've started with a bath. 

Amelia ordered a pack of 8 fuzzy socks to fashion into Among Us characters. Our crafty table is littered with sock remnants, fuzz, threads, and needles. She made characters for all the kids, plus hats, and some characters for friends. She happily kept busy this week! When everyone's characters were finished the kids made an iMovie game scene. We all laughed over the short iMovies the kids made over the past month. The best was a fart movie Phillip, Everett, and Ambree made, gosh our sides hurt afterward. Justin told me the Deacon's mascot this year is a goldfish...cause the boys only have a 10 second attention span. 

I finished some craft projects this week including an embroidery project, some sewing, helping with the stuffies, and painting a bunny canvas. The Activity Days project this week was a canvas painting of said bunny. I painted the project on Tuesday just to get an idea of time and level of difficulty. I ended up prepping the canvases with penciled in outlines of the bunny and omitted the flower crown. Let me tell you paint was flying Thursday afternoon in my house with 12 girls painting all at the same time. I earned a cookie for that project. 

Justin and the boys got together Saturday morning to make my HUGE garden box. It could hide a body with ease, lol. Justin had the boys hopping! He had them make a plan with measurements, use multiplication AND division AND factions, learned to use a miter saw, and used an impact drill. We took a break for lunch. Amelia was being a bit saucy so I gave her the choice of taking the little girls to the park or manual labor. She chose the park. While Mia and the girls were gone the rest of us cleared the old boxes and stripped the wood chips down to landscape fabric. Dusty and Sara helped us move the massive box in place. Justin and the boys made sure the box was level before we started filling it. I ended up stacking one of the old boxes and then using the remaining box for a kid's garden box. We stuffed the bottom of the box with branches, leaves and large rocks leftover from pruning last year. The boys used more math (and got a lesson in xcel) on calculating volume so they could determine how much topsoil and gardening soil to buy. They also did a comparison in the cost of using topsoil versus concrete blocks to reduce the amount of soil. Justin really kicked homeschool math out of the park for me this week! Good job boys. I need to make a plan for the circle of dirt in the backyard, either widen the circle for a permanent trampoline space or plant fruit trees or strawberries. 

We are busy dreaming of wants right now. Justin got a decent bonus this year, plus tax returns, and stimulus money. We did buy a vacuum last night, the hose broke on my newest vacuum 6 months ago, nothing duct tape can't fix for a while. The washer needs replacing, the dryer is also 13 years old! A dishwasher that actually washes is a long-time wish to add. Taking the entire family on a vacation is like pulling off your arm, most places require us to rent two hotel rooms so that automatically doubles the price. Still, it is fun to dream and possibly mark off a bucket list item. It was nice to pay off the credit card and Justin's car. Hooray. 

Things are going better this week. We spoke this week a lot about resets and clean slates. The power for forgiveness is amazing. It's amazing what happens when real conversations are had with real emotions. Garrett gave us a link that generates random thoughtful questions, sort of like 50 questions. Sounds like a good time to rediscover common ground. We both realized our parts in very selfish behaviors and are working to do better. I tell you, it's hard to be human sometimes.