In the center of the Venn diagram where the circles of love of art, Olympic figure skating, and violin music meet, you will find Peach Pie painting flowers while listening to a new music love (Rondo and Capriccioso Op. 28 by Camille Saint-Saen’s) discovered because Yuzuru Hanyu skated to it.
This was a fun dress to make. I used the tunic pattern from Sew Serendipity, lengthened the sleeves, and added a full skirt. 6 yards of hand block printed cotton voile
Peach Pie turned 15 years old this month. The year of her birth is tied to several landmarks of my life.
The year I was pregnant with Peach Pie, I joined Mary Kay. We started building the house we are now living in. I ended my eight year career in the Missouri National Guard. (If I had not been pregnant, I would have been deployed with others my National guard unit to Afghanistan.
Soon after she was born, we had the worst ice storm of my adult life. Our house was out of power for 10 days. I learned a lot about emergency preparedness from that time.
Peach Pie’s
Favorite color is deep Navy Blue
Favorite food: surf -n-turf burritos
Wants to be a baker and a mom when she grows up.
Has been taking violin lessons for 2 years. She practices diligently without me hounding her and paid for her own lessons by baking and selling bread for several months last year when I couldn’t pay for them. I’m so proud of her dedication and consistent work. Her goal music is “The Erle King” by Schubert
Loves all things Studio Ghibli. Howl’s Moving Castle is her favorite of Haywood Miyazaki’s films.
Peach Pie bakes all the bread for our family, keeps the bathrooms clean, helps keep the Scooter Pies busy, and asks me several times each day if she can do anything to help me, in addition to 6-7 hours of homeschool lessons, which she works through largely independently while I am teaching math and reading to the four youngest.
First week back to home school after break went very well. I’ve begun teaching the Scooter Pies to read because they were barging into Apple Pie’s reading lessons and giving the answers before she could. They are reading pretty well, and for the first time ever, every child in the house can read a verse during family scripture reading. The Scooter Pies’ enthusiasm is good for Banana Cream and Apple Pie, my reluctant children.
For Art, we have been learning brush technique and using watercolors from tubes, but Tuesday’s lesson was free painting. Peach Pie experimented with our new watercolors, but the younger girls begged for a “fun art lesson like we used to do last year,” so we looked through the videos on Deep Space Sparkle Art’s YouTube channel, and they were inspired by a Cozy Cat . They drew and painted their own versions of cozy cats, and I didn’t even have to walk them through any steps. They know what to do with sharpies and watercolor now. I am in love with these cutie cats.
For geography, we read about island archipelagos. We found several on our globe, and then made our own archipelagos with air dry clay.
Skeeter
We built them on some cardboard from the recycling bin.
Key Lime Pie’s ArchipelagoBanana Cream Pie “These are the Hampster Wheel islands”!Apple Pie’s Island
For Composition, we watched a Writers On Writing webinar from Read-Aloud-Revial done by Jonathan Auxier (author of Sweep:The Story of A Girl and Her Monster, one of Key Lime Pie and my favorite books.) Jonathan Auxier showed many sketches and writing from his own journals and explained how his books have grown from those sketches and ideas. He talked about the hero’s journey motif, common in many books, and taught how to keep a journal that will grow into inspiration for writing. The girls began their own “Hero’s Journals,” and I was thrilled by the ideas laid before them.
I made the mistake of setting up the writing lesson by saying we were going to do something really fun. Banana Cream Pie was so upset by how un-fun she perceived her hero journal assignment to be, that she curled up in a ball and cried and refused to do anything I asked for over an hour. I’m considering prefacing lessons by saying they will be hard and boring. Maybe I’ll be more successful?
Current bedtime Read-a-loud: The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dagliesh
Random funny boy quote:
Skeeter’s Tree Pose
“Mom! Look at me while I do a tree pose. It took me awhile to master it.”
Banana Cream Pie
Random funny girl quote:
Banana Cream Pie: “Can I have one of these cupcakes?”
Me: “Do you mean the cornmeal mufins?”
Banana Cream Pie: “Oh, Never mind.”
Pretty Thing:
Blueberry Pie painted these flowers on rice paper for me for Mother’s Day this year. They’ve just been propped against the wall in my room. One day, I was at the thrift store and saw this frame and just knew it was right for something. I brought it home, ruthlessly removed the Degas print from it, and put the flowers in it. Maybe I should have ironed the rice paper, but I’m scared to ruin it. I’ve hung it in the hallway upstairs, and it is just right. I see it and feel happy multiple times a day.
The Endless Merry-Go-Round of Meals
Usually on a Saturday, I grocery shop and meal plan and a little bit of preparing to make the week’s meals go smoothly. Since I teach piano until 6pm, dinner is pretty late if I don’t begin it before or have the girls make it. Last weekend, I did none of that, and this week’s dinners were late and no fun to figure out when I was already tired from a long day. I was determined not to have that problem this week.
So I planned and shopped, and then enlisted the girls to help me. I couldn’t have accomplished all this without them.
Peach Pie
We spent over 3 hours, but we put together nearly all the dinners for this week as well as peeling and chopping many vegetables for meals and snacking.
So yummy
Peach Pie made 4 loaves of wheat bread. We also made breakfasts: frozen burritos, yogurt, and granola. That way, I get time to study my scriptures in the morning instead of having to make breakfast for everyone.
I also made 8 dozen pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. My lovely neighbor shared her recipe with me. I love it because it is lower in sugar than normal, and the cookies taste better the longer they sit in the cookie jar.
What is left of the 8 dozen cookies? Maybe 3 dozen…
Dinner Menu for this week: Sunday: Pinto Bean Soup and Cornbread muffins
Monday: Green Chicken Enchilada Casserole and Creamed Corn
Tuesday: Summer Sausage & Cabbage & Onions over Rice
This amazing girl is 14. Not only is she beautiful, but she is also talented. She is learning to play piano and violin. She wanted violin lessons for years. Finally, Christmas 2018, I found out about a teacher in our town, and I was able to get her a violin. Peach Pie practices diligently each day, getting up at 6 am to practice without any reminding or nagging from me. This fall when our family budget took a big hit, we had to cancel everything extra. Rather than cancel her lessons, I came up with an idea to have her make bread and sell it to earn the money. (We sold homemade bread before as a home school project, so I knew she could do it.)
For 3 months, she made and sold 4 loaves of bread every week to pay for her violin lessons. Now I am able to cover her lessons again, but she still makes 4-8 loaves of bread for the family, just to help me out.
She also cleans the bathrooms in our house every day and helps out with dishes often. While I am teaching piano lessons, she keeps the Scooter Pies happy, and she constantly asks if there is anything else she can do to help. I gave her the day off of doing chores for her birthday, but she did some anyway. I love her and she makes it easy. #seriouslysheisthebest
Peach Pie loves all things Studio Ghibli. For her birthday, she got a Totoro sweater and earrings. Aunt Amanda took her (and sisters) to see a movie and Blueberry Pie brought home sushi for her. She chose butamon and a pumpkin roll for her birthday dinner. Delicious.
Marvelous Pigs in Satin 