Happy Friday friends!!
How is it going? We are doing great! We are chugging along at about 90mph. Last night I was looking at an old "cookbook" I have. It was put together by the homeschool group I belonged to in Florida. I was reading about some tips on bulk cooking and the type of meat to use and different recipes that you could use the meat in and all of a sudden a light bulb went off and, I know this sounds silly, but I was suddenly reminded of the days when I was on top off things and , "Oh yeah!", meal planning and bulk cooking, and just a plan in general!! (that was probably the longest sentence in history) Life has been flying past me and I feel like I am constantly playing catch up. Life is running me instead of me running it. It is a very helpless feeling and one that I need to change. I have really been struggling with this and praying about it. I have been in a kind of funk for a while and I believe this is why. I have had no time for any of the "fun" stuff, like knitting or sewing or BLOGGING or anything creative. I haven't been encouraging this in my children either and it is leaving me feeling a little zapped. I apologize if I sound whiney. I mean the big picture...I have no reason to complain, I really don't. At all. I just feel that some changes need to be made, the housekeeping and home management, the meal planning, the creative pursuits...they need to happen. Purposefully. Ok, my rant is over. Any advice?
I ordered some goodies to help me in my creative funk. I just ordered some yarn and a pattern. It is a tunic for Catherine. While I was looking at the yarn Catherine begged me to teach her to knit again and well, I just couldn't resist. She is doing really well and is making something for someone for Christmas. I can not say what that something is or who that someone is because they read my blog. So that will remain a secret.
(fyi-this picture is totally staged! Just keepingit real)
I also ordered the Winterwoods ABC's Cross Stitch Sampler from Alicia Paulson. I heart it!! It came packaged so beautifully and she included a handwritten thank you note and I just gushed, and showed all of my girls. Have you ever read her blog? It is eye candy. And their new baby girl is just beautiful!!! So thrilled for them! Her name is Amelia! I love that name ;0) Anywho, I can't wait to start this little project. I'm not quite sure where to start, but excited just the same. I have never cross stitched before. I am excited to learn something new though! I wonder how long it is going to take me? With my track record... check back next year and I will probably only be half done.
Let's see what else... Our Amelia turned six!! SIX!! She is precious. So full of life that little one. Her three older sisters are so shy and reserved and she is just, well, NOT. She just cracks me up! She had a nice day. For her birthday dinner she wanted sushi. We went to a little local place that is just awesome. It was a nice treat for everyone.
Well, that is all I am going to be able to post for now. My natives are getting restless and my dryer just buzzed for the fifth time today, so I am out of here!
God Bless!
(doesn't he look tough! hee hee)
I just finished a week of carpooling Joe and five of his football buddies.
What a hoot!
Six teenage boys!! (six stinky teenage boys on the way home from practice, thank you God for my big van. But I digress.)
Anyway, as I was driving them to practice I chuckled inside and wondered how in the world I had gotten here. How was my son old enough to be going to high school and playing football. It was surreal. It was just yesterday that we finished his first year homeschooling. Just yesterday that he was out back hunting for frogs and playing with his Tonka trucks. How did we get here? I know we still have four years of highschool to go through, I still have time with him here at home before he heads off to college and find his own way in the world. I don't mean to be dramatic. But I know how quickly these years go by. These next four years will go by just as quickly. So if I have any young mommies who visit this space let me tell you to enjoy every moment. I know the days are sometimes long and exhausting, it is hard and draining at times(I know, I'm still living it) but it will go by fast. Someday you will look back and wonder where the time went? You will look at your child in awe and amazement at the person they are; at the person they are becoming, and you will also wonder how exactly you got here. So,enjoy every. single. solitary. moment, the good, the bad, the ugly. Feel blessed that you are able to be there for all of it. Feel blessed for God's plan.
Oh, and most especially don't blink!
I am still in holiday mode. I am still mulling over resolutions. I am still not ready to start this new year, although it seems the new year has started without me! There are so many things I want to change and do better at. Just praying about how to get there. Maybe I'll figure it out by the end of this year!
On another note, the dear Lord has been so kind to me. We have had some beautiful weather. It is reaching a high of 60 today and the sun is out. It is not wintry at all. I LOVE IT! I almost feel like I am in Florida. We did have some snow earlier this week which was fun. Sort of.
I took the kids to the park to enjoy the beautiful weather. We went on a little walk in the woods also. Trying to soak in as much as we can.
My little man is 3 months old today. I would not be lying when I say I kiss his cheeks all day. Oh I love him so much!!!
Well hello everyone! I feel like I haven't been to this little space in a long time. We have been enjoying our baby-moon and I have been recovering from the c-section. I feel great and we are starting to get back into the swing of things. My Dad is here helping me out as taxi driver, and Terry's mom was here and did mountains and mountains of laundry. I am so grateful for their help.
Henry is just as sweet as can be. actually that is what I call him. Sweet Henry. Isn't his hair great? He was Baptized this Saturday. I have some pictures and will try and post them this week. My Dad and Terry's Mom stood in proxy for Henry's Godparents. It was nice to have family here.
I can't believe October is gone. It was a big giant blur and went by so fast. It was Mary Jane's birthday, Henry's birthday and hospital stay, Terry and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary, we finished up the football season, and without taking a breath started basketball. Oh, and there was Halloween.
Here are a few more random pictures until I get back here to post more. Sorry this is so short and sweet but I have a baby to cuddle!
I had a fairly productive weekend, which started on Friday. It rained on Friday so no going to the pool. (Thank you Jesus!!!) Like I said before, we go the the pool every single day. It keeps the children busy and they have a blast, but, it really has been taking up a lot of time. I have a long list of projects I want to get done and only so much energy. So the rain was a nice break. We were home all day!! So, I was able to:
:: go through the boys drawers and purge and sort. I was able to get rid of a lot of clothing. They are good on the amount of clothes they have now. It is so nice to be able to actually close the drawers!!
:: I was also able to go through Catherine's clothes. After purging her clothes, she is a little light in the wardrobe department but I want to see if we can live with it. Less is more right? And my big goal in this whole purging/unpacking project is to get rid of stuff and simplify.
:: The basement- on Saturday with Terry home I was able to unpack 6 boxes in the basement and go through 4 or 5 bins of various size. I ended up with 4 bags/boxes of garbage and 1 box of donate. These items were mostly broken toys, games with missing pieces, old worn dolls, some stuffed animals, old schoolwork, toys and things that we just don't need anymore. It felt so great to get the stuff out of there and open it up.
:: I am starting to set up some play stations for the little ones in the basement. A dress up area, kitchen area, etc. I am still brainstorming. The nice thing is, it is with items we already have, just haven't been able to get to! All the while I am repeating "simplify", "less is more".
:: The next part of the basement purge project are the books. I have some boxes of books that I need to unpack and try and sell. I would like to reduce what we have by 40%. That is going to be painful but I know the books and resources that we truly love. The rest is just sitting there taking up space.
:: I was able to start another knitting project. I am knitting the Chloe sweater for Amelia in the palest pink.
:: Terry cooked dinner the entire weekend. He actually cooks dinner every weekend. He enjoys it and he is a really good cook. It is a nice break for me also. I am blessed.
:: I have finished Julia's lesson plans and started Mary Jane's.
That was my weekend. The pool is closed today because it is Monday. (yay!) I am hoping to finish up the rest of the laundry today and maybe finish Mary Jane's lesson plans. Football practice starts tonight for the boys.
The start of another week.
I leave you with pictures from the garden. We planted some flower seeds. Not sure what these are because they were in a "wild mix" packet. It is fun to see what is coming up.
Have a fun Monday!
I wish I could say lazy days of summer, but summer just seems to be flying by so quickly. The strange thing is we really haven't been busy with any particular activity. The days are just full. So what have we been doing?
:: The pool. Every. Single. DAY. The children love this. Me, not so much. I was laughing with Terry that I am tanner here than I was in Florida. Everyday we pack the cooler with drinks and snacks and head down to the pool for a couple of hours. It is good exercise and fresh air and it keeps us cool. And when we get home I need a nap. :0)
photo courtesy of Aunt Sussie :0)
:: I have been "curriculum" shopping and busy narrowing down materials for the upcoming school year. This year will be a little more "workbook" intensive than I would prefer but with the new baby due in the fall the kids need to be a little more independent in some areas. I am not purchasing a packaged curriculum. I am choosing materials that I like and then I will make up lesson plans to get us through at least until February. I have been working on those which is very time consuming, but worth it. I have also been hunting around for the best deal on these books. I have found a lot of them used at great prices. Ca-ching!!
:: I have also been planning and preparing craft bags for the upcoming year. The little girls love to do crafts. Really, all of them love to do crafts. If I don't plan these out they seem to not happen. I have been looking at this post at as cozy as spring for inspiration. Great ideas here.
:: Knitting. I have been knitting a lot for me. I finally finished my Baby Surprise Jacket. This is the quickest I have ever finished a knitting project. I took me less than two months. And for all of the mess ups I made it didn't turn out as bad as I thought it was going to be. Unless you are looking for the mistakes I don't think you would notice them. I am going to do a separate post about it and make note of all of the lessons I learned while knitting this sweet little sweater. Here is a picture of John Paul holding up the finished "masterpiece".
Can you tell what we are having????
:: We have been gardening. This has really been Terry's project. Our container garden is doing very well. The tomato plants are taller than Patrick. We have quite a few green tomatoes. I can't wait until they turn red, which seems to be taking forever. These are the healthiest tomato plants we have ever had. We think the difference is in the watering. We didn't realize how much water tomato plants drink. We are frequently filling the self watering containers.
:: Purging and unpacking. Terry and I have come to the realization that we are going to be in this rental house for a while. Real estate in Florida is not moving at all. Especially cottage farms. So we have decided we are going to unpack everything and purge. Big Purge. We have lived without all of the stuff packed in all of these boxes for a year. Chances are we don't really need it. We are going to maybe paint the walls and hang things up. We can always patch little nail holes when it is time to move. Someday. I need to make this house a home for us. I think this will also help me to feel a bit more settled. This has been such a strange year for me.
:: Going through the kids clothes and purging. This is so time consuming, deciding what to donate, what to consign. My goal is to be done with all of these projects before mid August so that we can just focus on school when we start at the end of August.
:: It hasn't been all work though. The kids have been playing outside quite a bit. We planted bean and pea plants under this magnolia tree. Patrick, Catherine, and Amelia can frequently be found out here "snacking".
On those days when we get rain, we pull out the watercolors and paint. This picture was taken at 10am. It was so dark out. We decided to stay in our jammies and paint.
So that has been our summer so far. It is all good.
What happened to May?
It absolutely flew by and was a whirlwind of activity. I have a LOT of pictures to go with that very busy month. Now that things have slowed down a bit I am hoping to get caught up here on the ole blog. That is the plan for the next couple of days.
Joe is done with school for the year. Whew! His last quarter he made the A-B honor roll. All in all it was a good year for him. We have a couple of weeks left for everyone else. Which is a bummer because I am totally in summer mode at the moment. I could probably just call it a year, but I want to tie up some loose ends and complete those unfinished workbooks. We are so close.
I am looking forward to the next school year and how it will look. My brain has been busy thinking on this and looking at different materials. I want to have lesson plans all written out for everyone, at least through December.
Have a great Monday everyone!
Well, hello there! I feel like it has been forever since I have posted anything. And I guess it sort of has been. I gave up reading blogs for Lent, (which has been very fruitful) and it seems to have affected me posting anything on my blog (not so fruitful). Not that I posted a lot on here to begin with, but I do like to check in here. I know some of our out of town family reads our on-line journal as a way to keep up with what is going on. So I guess I will do my best to do a catch up. Warning, this is probably going to be long
I guess I have been a little uninspired, and a little busy, and a little over the cold weather, and just blah! I like to keep it light here, and some things are best to just keep to myself, but I will say it has been a very difficult winter for me. I am embarrassed to say that. I am homesick. I miss my Dad, our friends, our home, our garden, our farm, our lifestyle, the sunshine, etc. I don't want to whine, when there is so much suffering going on in the world right now. Many, many people have lost everything, and I am so truly blessed. My suffering is nothing compared to others. I will count my blessings, and bloom where God has planted me. I will.
Well, Spring is here on the calendar. The trees are blooming, daffodils are popping up everywhere. The trees are slowly starting to burst into green. Last week we had some weather in the 70's!! It was beautiful and sunny. I was in heaven. I thought I was in the clear and then this morning we woke up to a blanket of snow. SNOW! Thankfully it has melted.
The children are doing well. Soccer season has started and we have four players this year on two different leagues. We are running all over town, but it has been good for them after being cooped up all winter. Joe is also running track for the first time and is doing really well. I haven't timed him yet but the boy is fast. He is not to shabby in the Long Jump either. I haven't taken any pictures yet, but when I do you know I will post them. (for you Dad!)
Homeschooling is going well. We have eight weeks left before we will call it a year. In February I switched things up a bit. We semi-ditched the workbooks, except for math and phonics and have been using more of a Charlotte Mason approach and it has been going well. I stopped posting over at my Learning Notes blog because I was really documenting twice and that is just silly. I make lesson plans for each child and that will be our record. I will still keep that blog in the meantime for recording things here and there. I think ;0) Thinking about our options for next year. There are tons of opportunities here for homeschoolers. Thinking and praying really hard for next year. The children finished their classes at the Enrichment Academy. Overall it was a good experience. I am not sure if everyone will participate next year. We have mixed reviews.
They did have a "Parents Night" to end the year that was really nice. Here are some pictures!
Patrick with his science experiment. He made "Flubber" and learned what a polymer is.
Julia with a picture from her Pen and Ink Drawing class.
This next picture is amazing. Each child in the class was given a portion of the picture to draw. Julia's portion is on the left, fourth one down. When it all came together it was a beautiful picture of Jesus. I love it. I wish there was a way I could scan it and frame it.
Patrick's artwork
Mary Jane performed on stage. She took a Sign Language class and they sang songs and signed them.
Here is Mary Jane and her artwork
What else... let's see, in knitting, I am still knitting those socks. The socks I started back in, oh, October or something like that. It is going painfully slow, and it is by the grace of God that I haven't frogged the whole project. John Paul has gotten a hold of them a couple of times and pulled out the needles. I managed to get all the loops back on the tiny needles. It is a miracle I tell you. The funny thing about socks though is once you finish one you are not done with the project until you knit the second one. Hopefully I will have them ready by next winter. I would love to knit a pretty spring shrug or something like that but I made up a knitting rule not to start a project if I have one going. Silly, I know, but I can see myself with a big ole stash of yarn and I am trying not to go there.
Well, I am going to say bye for now. Patrick turned 8 on March 19. We had a party for him yesterday with some of his buddies. That deserves it's own post though. Have a great Sunday evening.
