Weekly Wrap- Up: The Week We Removed the Old Tree Stumps

We had some pretty nice weather this week!  The boys and I spent lots of time outside soaking in the sunshine.  We had those tree stumps to remove after last week's trees were taken down.  We also spent two days cleaning through the house; prompted by my boys!  We cleaned out the toy room (now our game room), the boys' rooms and our entire crafting/ science/ math closet.  I think we got rid of a good 12 bags of "stuff" and I just love how freeing that feels!  Oh, and we also celebrated a birthday!

Alec and I began our day on Friday baking up a cake for Ian's party.  He wanted a chocolate cake and Alec and I wanted to try a new recipe.  The boys all worked on just a small bit of schoolwork and then the younger two boys and I sat down for a sewing project.  Using needle and thread we put together some stuffed animals from a kit we had bought on Amazon.  It was a lot of fun and their animals were so cute.  We went on a nice long hike in the afternoon and found a bird's nest and some frog eggs near the a stream.  Alec moved the eggs nearer to the water since the streams are drying up again after all the rain we had last week.

On Saturday Alec and I made the peanut butter filling for Ian's chocolate cake while Ian was at work with his grandfather.  Ian was adding new gravel to the roads in the campground using the loader so he was a pretty happy boy.  The younger two boys spent almost the whole day outside playing in the woods.  Ian's new turtle filter came in and we spent most of the evening helping him set up his new tank.  It is huge and pretty amazing with a couple of waterfalls but we were told it was big enough that he'll never need another tank.  Despite being warned that the turtle would not eat for several days as he got used to his new home he gobbled up food within an hour of switching over and seems to like his new home very much.

It was a good thing he built his new stand so big; the tank fills up the whole thing!

A close up of the new filter and waterfalls.  

I had the house to myself Sunday morning.  Ian went to work with his grandfather and the younger two boys went to run some errands with their dad.  I cleaned and organized the house, made up the coffee frosting for the cake, frosted the cake, and even found time to assemble a new wreath for the house.  (I'll be sharing posts on how we made Ian's cake and how I made the wreath real soon!).  Alec and Evan played outside using their bows and arrows for some archery practice.  Ian arrived home shortly after lunch and took over in the excavator.  My husband had removed the large tree stump on Saturday and Ian wanted to try and help remove the smaller stump.  We had all the grandparents over for dinner as a little birthday party for Ian and the older boys spent a good portion of the night playing ping pong.

We had plans to go hiking with my sisters, their kids, my mom, and my mom's friend on Monday.  The boys worked on some math, reading, and writing and then we packed lunches and headed out.  We hiked for two hours and the weather was so warm! Ian had worked for a bit in the afternoon still trying to remove the smaller stump.  We really did not want to have to take down the two smaller trees nearby even though the roots were pretty tangled together. After dinner he worked with his dad and they managed to remove it without taking down any more trees.

While Alec was at karate on Tuesday the other boys and I went on a walk along the river.  We arrived home around lunch and Ian headed outside to use the excavator to fill in the hole left behind from the removed stumps.  He also needed to go and get the loader to finish.  He did a great job!  We all headed out to a family dinner at Texas Roadhouse.   We had a wonderful meal together and could not believe how packed it was for a Tuesday night!  I figured it had to be the nice weather.

Looking up at the top of the hill with the hole just starting to be filled in

1/2 filled in... 

Just about done.

We woke to cold, gray, rainy weather on Wednesday and while we did work on reading, math, and writing I mostly just sat back and let our day unfold.  I had quite a bit of laundry and blogging I wanted to work on and the the younger two kept heading outside to play in the rain. By mid afternoon Evan was bugging me to play screens and in exasperation I asked why we have so many toys in the house if no one wants to play with them.  Next thing I knew all three boys were going through the entire playroom and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of.  They moved onto their rooms and we must have gotten rid of 4 or 5 bags of toys, games, puzzles, etc.

We had nicer weather on Thursday and after spending a bit of time on our schoolwork the boys helped me tackle cleaning out our pantry.  The three bottom shelves of our huge walk in pantry were devoted to homeschooling supplies for arts and crafts, science, and math.  We pulled everything out, got rid of another 6 or so bags of stuff and it was amazing how much room we had once we put everything back in!  We set aside a lot of things to give away to family and friends but once again we just loved how much we got done and how wonderful it looked when it was done.  Evan worked on building a block tower with some of the blocks they decided to keep and Ian spent a good portion of his day working on his model toy Batman car.  I remembered that Evan had earned an ice cream sundae party for mastering all his multiplication facts and since it was so nice and sunny we decided to head to a local outdoor stand and order what we wanted.  Evan got Maine Black Bear ice cream with hot fudge and M&M's.  He was all smiles (even though he was a bit chilly!).

After the first photo he added onto the top

Cleaning out all their old school papers 

Enjoying a sweet reward 

How was your week?

Linking Up With: