Konos "off" week?

Joshua , cutie pie extraordinaire!!


KB is all smiles.




Cassia had on the cutest Valentine's outfit!




Clay and Ben had bags of candy!?!?!

Ben and Robert and Clay making their cards.

There were over 100 children at the Valentine's party today at Harrisburg.

All my children had a great time.

John is making cards. The children made cards for their parents and for residents of a nursing home.

Cassia, Anna and friends.

Lots of goodies! Allison's cupcakes were especially scrumptious!

Julie and Claire making cards.

Kara Beth, Julie, Ashley, Olivia, Anna and Leah

This was our off week for KONOS. A time, I thought, to really concentrate on the three "Rs".

Well, the week has been so busy, we barely did school at all. Monday started out at the dentist with Anna and Claire. Claire has major loose tooth issues. (She will not brush or even sleep on the side with a loose tooth?!?!) Well, she absolutely had a fit in the dentist chair and he had to hold the gas over her nose and mouth until she nearly went to LA LA land before she would let him touch her loose teeth. In a matter of seconds they were gone. She never knew when they left and had to actually see them in the little container before she would believe they were really gone. Monday night was Keepers and Contenders, our monthly Mother/Daughter and Father/Son night where the girls do activities with their Moms and the boys do activities with their Dads. This month Anna's group learned how to make homemade pie crusts. It turned out to be a delicious evening! Claire's group did storytelling and it was a fun session as well. The guys did chess. Last month they built birdhouses. Our family really enjoys this time of fellowship. We have over one hundred in our group.

I am trying the Popsicle stick idea from Roan's blog this week and most of Monday morning was spent in cleaning zone 1 of our house. Tuesday morning we finished zone 1. I realized I had never taught Claire and Ben how to clean the bathroom properly or how to wash clothes or mop.

So, pretty much all day Tuesday was hands on Home Ec for the whole family.

We did get around to math and grammar.

Wednesday, we spent the morning on zone 3 and a little school. Granny came and we had a great lunch provided by her. Then we loaded up and went to the new Healthworks! museum here in Tupelo. It is an interactive place where the kids learned about the human body by playing games and other activities. We could not find the camera so I do not have a single pic. If any of you decide to go, take your camera. There are quite a few cute photo ops.

Then the girls and I got our hair done, and then to Kroger and Walgreens. Thanks to Penny, I was able to get quite a few free things at Walgreens. My bill was $60 and it went down to $13 counting the Easy Saver rebates!!!! Then to Kroger where coupons saved me about $75 there!

Thursday was a wild day of activity. We left our house about 9:30 and went to the Amish settlement in Pontotoc County. We had been studying the Amish in school and we wanted a first hand look at how they live. We drove up in 4 big vans and were a little worried that we would overwhelm them with all the kids. I got out at each place and asked if it was OK to come look at what they had to sell. Almost every house has signs out front telling what homemade goods they have for sell. We talked to several of them. One older gentleman in particular was very talkative and we learned quite a bit from him. I bought a beautiful handmade basket and several jams and jellies and candles.

On the way home, Scott called and wanted to go mattress shopping! So we shopped until 5:30, rushed in to make a salad, corn, cookies and rolls for our coop family night. We had a great time of fellowship with everyone.

Today we had a Valentine's party at Harrisburg. Clay and Olivia came home with us and Claire went home with Julie. The girls are cooking right now and Clay, Ben and John are outside playing with fire!!?!?!

Clay, Ben and John playing in the brush pile.

Anna and Olivia making pie crust from scratch!

The pie turned out good!

We were talking tonight and Olivia and Anna have a long history of cooking together. One episode that sticks out is their from scratch chocolate cake. Let's just say it was not too tasty!

But, after years of practice they have turned out to be fine cooks.