Week 3 of Homeschooling

Well, last week I slacked off, in a way. I declard it to be home ec week, complete with baking (Miriam's learning how to knead bread), cooking (we brought dinner to friends with a new baby), sewing, and lots of cleaning, because...

...on Tuesday our basement went (through various stages) from this:

(is carpet supposed to give off a reflection? I didn't think so...)

...to THIS!!! tan tan ta-RAAAAA!!!

(well, at least it was tidy for 48 hours, before the girls left their mark!) The girls were FASCINATED watching the men install the carpet. Miriam spent all day on the stairs watching & chatting with them.

The walls were supposed to be more creamy than yellow -- darned hardware store flourescent lighting! Oh well. We like it anyway. (although it DOES make the 5th yellow room in our house...) The bathroom door is propped against the wall b/c it won't slide across our super-fluffy carpet! We're going to have to shave about 1/8" or more off the bottom.
I love my little corner -- it's my combination sewing/writing desk. I've already used it for both purposes.

We also got a new back door, which we painted one weekend. While it was threatening to rain. And then it stopped threatening and started to rain in earnest. But thanks to my ever-resourceful hubby:

We were going to get that door finished, by gum!
It still needs another coat, and we have to apply the tile in front of the back door (it's still icy concrete), but for all intents and purposes, our downstairs is livable again! Wa-hoo! It became official when Mr. Pickles set up the TV and all accompanying accessories. :)

So aside from cleaning up & moving in downstairs, I also made this last week:


Medieval princess and a Suomalainen! (Katie wanted to dress up too.) Miriam wore it for 3 days straight. I made an apron too, but hadn't finished it yet when I took this picture.

So, even though we didn't crack a book, it was still an educational weekend!