April School Holidays: Week One ~ Celebrations and Sickness

Our first week of April school holidays was a fully planned our busy week. We started the week with a birthday, and had two library events, and a coffee date lined up. It was going to be a busy week. It was. But there were also some changes. Munchkin came down with a head cold Tuesday afternoon that Monkey and I promptly caught as well. We still had a busy week, but as it went along it slowly ground down to a stop. Therefore, there aren't as many photos as I had hoped, but enjoy watching our crazy week unfold...

First off - Monkey finished this beautiful drawing of "Daniel in the Lion's Den" for our pastor's wife. It took him two weeks to complete it and I think it was well worth the wait. He did a beautiful job on it. So good in fact, our Pastor's wife has warned that she will ask him to do another drawing later in the year.

I try to spend Sunday afternoon reading and relaxing. This was the stack of books I chose to work on and I got at least one chapter of each read before it was time to cook dinner and continue with the evening activities.

The "Munchkin" is 12 years old!

I'm not quite sure how this happened.

He is funny, intelligent, caring, and loves life.

Cooking, baking, and growing things all fascinate him and I'm excited to see where the future takes him.

The week started with Munchkin's birthday on Monday. So it was blueberry pancakes and bacon for breakfast - which is a tradition for all the men in the family!!

The birthday boy was eager to eat the food he helped prepare.

Breakfast on the veranda.

After breakfast it was time to bake the cake. Somehow through the day, I forgot to take any other photos of the cake baking. Or the decorating for that matter.

An afternoon game of Forbidden Desert - again a request of the birthday boy.

No photos of the special birthday dinner but he requested garlic and herb sausages, fried sweet potatoes, corn, and Kraft macaroni and cheese.

His finished and decorated birthday cake. He did the baking and the decorating.

Candles and singing!

Tuesday was his first library event - and it was all about acid and base reactions.

First they did the simple baking soda and vinegar experiment...

Then they filled a balloon with baking soda...

Attached it to a bottle with vinegar in it...

And captured their own balloon full of carbon dioxide!!

Finally they got to make their own flavoured sherbet (whizz fizz) to take home.

It was a fun day out but it was the beginning of the downhill slide for all of us.

Wednesday was a rest day for me as I desperately tried NOT to get sick. I sat in the sun on the veranda drinking lots of fluids and reading lots of books!

YES - I am reading ALL of these books at once. 

However, for those of you who might be freaking out, thanks to my head cold and forced rest time this week, I've finished three of the books on this stack already!

Despite being sick, Munchkin and I headed back to the library on Thursday for a frogs event he was signed up for. It was well worth going to especially since we got to look at these gorgeous tadpoles.

Finally, when Munchkin remembered that we hadn't checked on the garlic we planted at the beginning of the month, we discovered that it is sprouting already. This has him VERY confused because it wasn't supposed to start growing this soon so we'll see what happens in the weeks to come. Perhaps garlic is able to grow year round in Australia.

Three big walk (all to the shopping centre) this week and with my head cold it was two walks too many.

This is a random addition of a photo taken back at the beginning of March. In the process of our move I "misplaced" the battery charger to my big Canon DSLR camera and so once the battery died I couldn't use it anymore. Thankfully, hubby stumbled across the charger when he was unpacking some boxes in the office and now I have use of my big camera again. I'm really happy as I have been wanting to take lots of photos on some of my walks. So you can all look forward to much more interesting photos in the future.

Lucky last (again taken on my DSLR though it is a current photo) Munchkin was thrilled to find the beginnings of actual tomatoes on the tomato plant. We had some wind and rain that battered it a bit, and we need to fix the climber rings a bit to support it more, so we were worried that we might not get any fruit. But it seems we will at least get two tomatoes and there ARE more flowers on the plant.

Now let's hope that week two of the holidays is healthier for everyone!!

Term One: Week Eleven ~ Bonus School Holidays

When Easter is early (in March instead of April), it falls outside the April school holidays, and we end up with an eleven week term. As per usual with any of our school terms, but especially a longer one, I tell the boys that as SOON as they are finished with their assigned work they are on school holidays. They get 60 minutes of computer per day during holidays as opposed to 30 minutes in the term, so the natural reward is there and it is always interesting to see how early they "earn" their extra days off.

This term they were both finished and enjoying holidays by Tuesday so that was good for them and excellent for me because it meant more "free" time for me to pursue my own other interests (or tackle big jobs I can't do while also teaching).

Due to the early finish, there are no photos of structured school time, but I hope you will enjoy the visual representation of our final week of Term One.

Monkey is hard at work on the "Daniel in the Lion's Den" drawing he is completing for our pastor's wife. Stay tuned for a photo of the finished product next week as he MUST have it done by Sunday.

I finished off three books with Monkey this week. I will now take a break from reading aloud to them. This is a new tradition I started a few years ago that I really enjoy. As much as I LOVE reading aloud to my boys, I need a break. We still read three chapters of the Bible and their character development book (currently reading The Book of Virtues) but otherwise I focus on my own personal and independent reading during the school holidays.

This year I may break that rule a little bit as I'm attempting to read "The Iliad" aloud to Monster. We had trouble finding good times to read it during the term (schedule conflicts) so thought perhaps the holidays will give us more opportunity. It will be an interesting experiment.

Friday I took a trip to our old library. I returned something in the vicinity of 50 books that we finished, and picked up the 35 books you see stacked here.

Here they are all bagged up and in the pram for the train and bus ride home. I even had room in the pram for two (3 litre) bottles of milk and a loaf of bread! Thirty five books is a small borrow for us but it is because they are "holiday" books mostly - although I borrowed our stack of picture books for our annual ANZAC Day read aloud session as well since I won't get back to the library before then. 

My next planned trip is the 26th and likely I will borrow the maximum of 60 books (10 reserves on each card) in preparation for our learning in Term 2. Along with my independent reading over the school holidays I will be browsing the library website and the curriculum content pages for both boys and deciding what wonderful books to bring home from the library.

I went a little overboard with personal, independent selections for myself. These are the books that I borrowed JUST for me. It is a really good thing we are officially on school holidays. Thankfully none of they books are on reserve so I should have the full nine weeks (one loan session of 3 weeks and two renewal sessions of 3 weeks each) to read them. I started all seven of them Friday night despite the fact that I'm already reading seven other books independently as well. I think it is some sort of an addiction - but at least it is a good one!! 

Munchkin is ALWAYS happy to have new books to read. He spent most of Friday afternoon curled up on the lounge eating and reading several of his new selections.

Last youth group meeting for the term and Munchkin got to attend as well. It was an evening of firsts for him. His first taste of karaoke (which he LOVED) and his first trip on the bus and train with just his older brothers and no parents.

Creatures creatures everywhere.

Saturday morning Munchkin had some fun catching and holding this little tiny skink in his hand.

In the afternoon, on our trip to the shopping centre for groceries, we saw this beautiful spider. I've circled it in white to help you find it. If you click on the photo to open it up larger you might have a better view of it. We have no idea what kind it is, but it is beautiful.

I'm pleased with my walks this week. The book "Move" will probably inspire me to walk even more which is exactly why I borrowed the book. I will keep you posted as I learn more about the importance of moving our bodies and particularly the health benefits of walking.