Beginning of School/ First day off

 We started school on August 29, which seems really late to me because we usually start the last week or last partial week of July. So I have been trying to do some extra lessons and such to "catch up" so that we're not doing school until the end of May. I like to finish near the beginning of May, usually just because I start getting ancy to get other things done, and the beach craving sets in about March/April when the weather starts getting warmer. So this past Friday, Sept. 30, we finished our first six weeks!! WOOHOO!! I'm not cramming in lessons, it came out to one extra lesson a week, which was doable, especially since the first few weeks are a lot of review. As a reward we took yesterday off. It was so nice to have a day off. We don't take holidays, except for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so all our days off are based on what I need to get done, or when I decide to go visit someone, or someone's sick, etc. I found last year, that the kids really enjoy looking forward to having a day off, and since we don't take holidays, they were missing out, because I would plan my schedule and tentatively plan a day off here or there, but not tell them, in case I changed my mind or I was able to fit school in along with the other things. I didn't realize this until towards the end of the year, so they only had like one or two days to look forward to, so I decided this year to try to make them a little more planned. They had a Great day, even though I didn't plan anything special or anything, it was just a day off. L had asked for the trains and track to be brought out a couple weeks before so they could play with it, but I wanted to get their room cleaned and reorganized, so I could get the tub down and leave it down, so we did that Monday morning and they played in their room very happily with the trains and track most of the day. Which made it very nice for me because I was hoping to get some sewing done and I was able to, and even got more done than I had planned!! I needed to make Emily a slip to go under some of her dresses, because it is very difficult to find little girls slips, and when you do it's hard to know what size to buy because they make things so short, so that's been on my sewing list for quite a while, so I was able to get that done. Then Luke only had one pair of summer pajamas and I had put them in the laundry and they were stuck in the laundry for three days (usually I try to wash them and dry them in the same day, so he can wear them again, but I got behind) so I had already decided I was going to make him some more pajama pants. I had two remnants of material that I had picked up somewhere along the way and I thought one of them would be long enough-it was a full yard, but due to the stripes, it wouldn't work for pants, but it would work for shorts. So after looking at them both, it ended up that I would have enough to make Luke shorts and matching shorts for Josiah and Timothy. They turned out cute and I was able to finish all three of them!! Leigh  even gave himself a little less to do. He called his recruiters and did a few of his job emails/application/stuff and then he worked on the church's website. HE's been doing their website since they started, but he's had ideas and such that he's wanted to add, take down, change, etc and just hasn't had the time. He hasn't had the time, or some of the info, to do it, so he took a few hours yesterday and worked on it. He seemed pleased with how it was going. I told Mom he had changed it, but I didn't realize he hadn't put it live yet. So if you read this Mom, it won't look different yet. :)  Anyways, we had a nice, fun, relaxing, yet productive day!!