A Peek at Our Day

The school year is officially over for the Krafts and we've entered into "summer mode".  This translates into doing minimal school work and maximum pursuit of individual interests.  Why the school work?  Basically, to keep a bit of routine and to make sure we don't back pedal too much and lose all of the gains that we've made this year.  

I attended the Minnesota Catholic Home Educators Conference last weekend with my hubby (thanks Grandma Pam for watching the kids to make that possible!!!) and have been thinking about a lot of things.  Am I doing the best for the kids?  Am I doing the best for myself?  How can I improve upon this past year?  I'm still doing a lot of thinking and praying about those questions, but in the mean time, I am excited to scale back and let the kids work on "their stuff" - projects and pursuits that they choose.

Here is a sampling of a few of those things as I walked around the house snapping pictures.

Joseph has been playing the piano for 2 years and is really into big and grand music.  He is fun to listen to and really enjoys perfecting a piece of music.

Haley is my multi-tasker.  She's always got a couple things going at once.  Here she's in her bed listening to a book on tape and sketching some dress designs.

Madeline has recently gotten the "crochet bug" and must have a dozen or so crochet pattern books checked out from the library.  She just finished her second purse which turned out adorable!  Here she is beginning a hat to give to Lillian for her birthday.

Lillian is up in the school room coloring...far away from the littles who want to "help" her color.  She was enjoying some quiet time with her markers while listening to some Handel ("Mom, this is kinda like churchy music, huh?)

Eleanor loves to play dress-up.  Here she is in one of her favorites...goooo Eleanor!

And if Eleanor is playing dress-up, what does little sister want to do? 

I should have known better than to leave the dress-up sisters alone for long.  The last thing I heard was, "Come on Essy, let's go find an adventure."  Who knew that soap and water meant adventure?!

And a surprise (early) birthday gift arrived in the mail....

she tried so hard to preserve the beautiful wrapping paper....

Just what she wanted!  Thank you Grandma Pam and Grandpa Lee!

So that's a sampling of our day.  We also went to the pool, but I forgot the camera.  The kids all had a great time and listened the first time I asked them to get out of the water to go...ya-hoo!  I am really hoping that I'm able to chill out a bit and try to just have a relaxed and fun summer.  I'm always trying to get something accomplished and make everything "educational"....anyone else relate to that?

God Bless!

Heather :-)