Postcards From Holland

Today Romania had off from school. This always seems to put a crimp in my schedule with Holland and Egypt. I still need to do school with Holland and usually get distracted with something else when Romania has a day off. Today I decided we really needed to play catch-up, so I had both boys work on math, all three of them did a painting project with new 'real' watercolors and we also read "Hudson Taylor" a book Holland is doing in his co-op class.

Now they are outside raking the leaves. I sent the boys out first because our back lawn is covered in leaves and it's killing the grass. Egypt sees the fun and wants to join them. I told her she could be out there if she helps them pick up the leaves. Holland was raking, Romania and Egypt are picking up the leaves and dumping them on the other side of our fence. This of course turns out to be a dream, because it is not happening the way I envisioned it. Surprisingly, Holland is the only one actually working. I'm working in the kitchen and about every 2 minutes, I'm barking orders out the window. Romania is continually caught lounging around, then he was jumping on the trampoline, claiming he was getting the leaves off there. It would be so much easier if I just marched out there and did it myself. Sometimes it's just so frustrating trying to train them to do what's right. I brought Romania in the house and we discussed that he knew the difference between right and wrong. He knew he was doing wrong, apologized and then went right back outside and didn't work. I told Holland he could come in the house and had Romania finish the job of raking. He came in 4 times crying and calling me "the meanest mom ever!" He finally did finish. I told him it was going to be cold and dark soon and hoped he didn't have to work in that.

Here are a few of them painting the trees from our neighborhood.