Just Stuff...

Good morning blog friends!
Yesterday was a half day of school for the Agees who attend CVCS and they are off today also. They all brought friends home last night so we had a pretty big crowd! All the girls (and I) rode horses. The guys played basketball, and worked on the fence. After that, we all sat around the family table and ate a hot meal of chili and rice with homemade biscuits. It was fun. After the big cleanup, the girls played on their myspaces and facebooks and the guys played some video games. Oh, and Abbey finished an essay titled "Hands" that she had to e-mail to her English teacher. I proofed it for her. It was really good. She is quite the writer! A few of the kids went home last night but a few stayed overnight. Sam just came in and discovered that he is NOT off school today (he is homeschooled). He just automatically thought he would be off since the big kids are. So, right now, the younger kids are in the kitchen making their breakfasts. Of course, the teenagers are sleeping! A favorite activity (non-activity) of that age, it seems. Chris is grading papers and getting ready for 9 weeks report cards. Soon, I will go to parent/teacher conference-which is kinda weird for me, having homeschooled the kids all their lives. I have found that to be one of the things I don't deal with well, not having the input I have always had. There is still plenty of homework to help them with. Believe me, they pile it on. But, the boys have a very good teacher. Her name is Anne Sullivan and she has been teaching for 30+ years. The boys just love her. A few weeks ago they (all by themselves) made her a homemade apple pie. She is that kind of rare teacher that everyone would wish for their children. Abbey kind of had a meltdown night before last. She was finishing a physics assignment here at home and she felt her teacher (Daddy) wasn't helping her enough. She cried and wailed about how she didn't know what she was doing (all along she and Chris have been telling me that she was doing well in Physics so I didn't know where to put this). I asked Chris why all of the sudden she was in a panic like this. He said "My guess, PMS." So, I told her to take a break, go check her myspace or facebook, get something to drink and come back. She did and when she came back, I never heard another whimper out of her. She had literally worked herself into a frenzy over it! Sometimes you just gotta change directions to get where you wanna go. Frustration is not a road that usually leads to success.
Well, I'm working on the 3rd annual Harmony Hill Christmas. I've ordered a few bell songs and I'm choreographing my and Abbey's tap #. It's a lot of hard work but it's worth it to see people enjoying themselves around the Holidays. It's funny how Christmas music never gets old. Well, I better go homeschool and make sure nobody makes any huge messes. I made it to the bottom of the laundry barrel last night...yeah!!! I even washed all the bathroom rugs that have been waiting in the basket for so long. I can only wash those when all the clothes are done and that doesn't happen very often! Well, I'm sure that once everybody took off all their clothes last night and put on their PJs they added about 3 more loads. Because, in truth, around here, laundry never gets done for long!