School Changes

Well, we tried putting Natalie in a room with Hannah and Brynne. For some reason, it hasn't worked. Natalie has never slept as well with them as she has when on her own. So this morning, after yet another week of little sleep and much-too-early awakenings, we have moved Natalie downstairs permanently. I imagine someday she and Kenna will share a room. But for now, Natalie holds the coveted spot of having her very own room.

Which meant making some other minor changes. Because Natalie can't have all the school supplies in her room - or we won't be able to do school while she sleeps.

I know you're just dying to see what we did, right?

Nothing major! The only furniture I had to move was the crib and rocking chair. Then we just shuffled closet stuff around a bit. Hannah, Logan, and Kenna did all the carrying while I did the sorting and organizing. We spent about 90 minutes on it and then vacuumed!

Click to enlarge

So all we really did was move all the daily school stuff into the office. This is the stuff we use 90% of the time. Not pictured, on the high shelves in the closet, are our games, beading supplies, art supplies, and pattern blocks. Of course, lots of our other schoolbooks are upstairs.

We are also setting up a study area for Hannah (and Brynne when she's done at public school) in the girls' room. They have a table, chairs, drawing supplies, and Hannah's laptop. That way they have a quiet place to go for their serious work.

Sigh.

Don't you love feeling organized?

Natalie took a 3.5 hour nap today in her new room. She has never napped that long. It was heaven...for both of us!

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I won't be around this weekend to do my regular weekly post, so I'm going to jot a few things down from this week today.

The girls have Odyssey of the Mind competition in Santa Rosa this weekend. More about that next week! They've spent many days this week working on their projects. I got to see a dry-run on Monday for both teams and they did pretty good!

Natalie is still taking very hesitant steps. She's obviously very proud of her new abilities, but in no hurry to progress. Slow and steady!

Kenna, unbeknown to me, found my chewing gum stash. No major mishaps yet. I re-hid it. We'll see how long it takes her to find my new hiding place. It's higher, so a bigger challenge. :-)

I asked Hannah and Brynne to think about what instruments they'd like to learn next fall. I thought they might need a few months to ponder since I've heard various ideas tossed around in the past. Without a second of hesitation I heard "violin. saxophone." Ok! I guess I can spend my summer figuring out where to rent and from whom to take lessons. I'm also going to be giving Brynne piano lessons this summer to teach her to read music. We branching out from the piano. Hannah and I have worked out a couple agreements. One is that if she switches instruments, she will continue to practice hymns/church music daily as part of her music studies. I want her to at least be competent to play in church. Since then, she has spent a lot of time working on primary songs and a couple hymns. She's definitely better than I was when I started playing hymns at age 14! The second arrangement we've made is to see if she can do an hour piano "practice" at the nursing home each week as a service. I know the volunteer director so I've just got to call her and make the arrangements.

Logan set a goal to read one Magic Tree House book each day this week. I asked him how it was going. He said that he has read 3 1/4 so far. Way to go, bud!

I made a fudge sauce yesterday to top birthday brownies (grandma's birthday and she was at our house!) I'm addicted. I am so glad there is a lot of leftovers! I think I'll need to make more brownies soon.