our dozen beautiful feet

We've been busy around here.  Tomorrow morning, we leave our home in India for five months of first-world heaven, home time.  Rest. Relaxation. Family. Friends. Food. It takes a lot of time, work, and mental gymnastics to pack up six people and leave your home for five months.  In the states, it would be as simple as making sure everything is somewhat clean and locking the door.  But here, it's a little bit more.  Tomorrow morning, we have to turn off the water in every bathroom and the kitchen.  We will close the toilets and put something heavy on them so no rats can climb up in to the house.  We will store our candles in such a way that they won't melt while we're gone.  We're taping the doors shut from the inside to prevent as much dust from coming in as possible.  Covering important furniture with cloths to keep dust off.  Deep floor cleaning will be done, and the last few weeks I've done lots of sorting, throwing away, re-evaluat...

The worst things always happen when Dad is away from home.  This week while Paul was out traveling, Levi and Luke were running around the house before bed time.  Right before bed time.  I was sitting and watched Levi run by me and trip and slam his head into the footboard of my bed.  When he came up, he had blood gushing from his forehead.  It was awful, running into his eyes, everywhere.  I couldn't tell how deep the cut was, but I felt like I needed to take him to get seen by a doctor, because it might need stitches, and I didn't want to mess around with a scar on his face, ya know? So a good, sweet friend sent her husband over to stay with my kids so I could take my Levi to the doctor in the late evening.  Thankfully, doc didn't think stitches would help the recovery or scar.  Here's how we arrived back home. Never a dull moment! Movie Night the following night!

Meryn is doing really well adjusting to life with the Preedy's.  Kiryn is having a great time dressing her up.... Adorable, aren't they? : )   But this week, Meryn has found her lungs.  At meals times, it was just constant screaming.  Like a pterodactyl.  Ear piercing screams.  She is clearly bent out of shape about something.  Eventually, we figured out it was because she wanted to feed herself.  No more mommy feeding her.   Look how proud of herself she is! I made a mess!  (But at least I'm not screaming!) See my teeth! : ) 

We usually try to have our air conditioners serviced before the hot season and somewhere toward the middle or end of the hot season.  It's unbelievable how much dirt and grime builds up on those AC's. Today, we had our inside split AC serviced.  Two guys first came and cleaned the filters, wiped down the outside, and rinsed out the external unit.  Lots of black water running off. Nice.  : )  It all looked clean and new, and they left. An hour later, the AC started dripping... more like, raining water inside the house.  It was a pretty rapid drip in several spots.  So we called them back.  They came a couple of hours later. They opened up the inside unit, and about 1/2 bucket of water and grime poured out of it.  (All over my kitchen table and chairs, which they were standing on.  Unbelievable!  Big lumps of dirt that were soaked with water. Oh, it was gross.  After making the mistake of putting their dirty feet on my kit...

We had a fun time this week getting into a study of knights and castles.  Our books were great and the kids enjoyed reading about how to lay siege to a castle, the feudal system in the middle ages, and learning all about knights armor and jousting.  We also started reading Robin Hood this week and will continue it next week.   One thing our kids have been enjoying this year is getting fun craft ideas from Mr. Maker on Saturday mornings.  I am NOT a crafty person, and can never think of fun crafts to do, plus I hate messes. : )  But I've enjoyed helping them make Mr. Maker crafts.  Thank you, Mr. Maker, for this fun Saturday Bowlasaurus (though I admit that I changed it so we didn't have to paint a bowl, because we don't have paper products here. Sorry, Mr. Maker).  I think the most fun thing we've done so far this year was make pretzels! Our activity book said that pretzels were a common treat for children in the middle ages. Plus they're...