Though they don't love pulling weeds... They enjoy kale, spinach, strawberry, banana smoothies! :) Fruits of our labor-minus the banana and the yogurt.
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Growing up, Mom always gardened and canned and froze and cooked from scratch. Home grown and home made tastes so much better. Now with all the realization of what modern foods are doing to our bodies, for the sake of health, many of us are trying our hands at growing supper. I have tried a garden nearly every year. Let me tell you, I am by no means a natural green thumb! The first year, we lived beside a Mennonite family who took great pains with their garden. There was their garden- Large, perfectly manicured, producing much fruit... A few feet away was mine- Small, more weeds than vegetables and producing little to nothing except maybe a few zucchini. Over the years I have learned a few tricks of the trade-the hard way, by trial and error. In TX the final summer we were there, I was very diligent at tending my garden daily. It was beautiful and well watered until the summer refused to render temperatures less than 120. The garden bore big leafy plants but no fruit. Out of 6 zucchini plants I harvested 3 zucchini!! Two rows of green bean plants produced 5 green beans! ''Here kids, here's your green bean for the year.'' Disheartening! So, despite my many efforts, as of yet, my gardening expertise has failed to produce more than a few things to eat.Last year we spent a year with my parents. I was pregnant and nearly bedridden, but my parents helped the rest of my family put in and bring about jars of green beans, tomato juice, applesauce, grape juice, bags of frozen corn, a cellar full of potatoes, freezer jam and frozen berries and my taste for homemade was renewed! The final button pushing my desire to try the homegrown/homemade thing yet again was a book called Animal Vegatable Miracle by Barbara Kingslover The first change in our habits and diet was from processed breads to homemade mostly whole wheat breads. We also began baking homemade ''healthy'' cookies (similar to cliff bars) and homemade granola. We've always baked most of our own cookies and desserts. This spring, a local strawberry patch provided a field trip worthy couple days of learning experiences. The results were good eating, bags of frozen fruit and jars of freezer jam. We are still working on building up our supplies to put up a year's worth of good food, and are doing what we can to make this a reality this year. So far, our garden has provided yummy lettuce and spinach and is looking pretty for good eating later in the summer. Healthier eating, experience, exercise, knowledge, family time, memories, saved pennies... These are all benefits of the plan.
I just found out I can update my Blog on my phone. Hence the silence for a few months since we moved and don't currently have Internet access for our computer.
Summer has come and I have much catching up to do. Look forward to several new posts coming up. How does a family of six kids move quickly? What does summer mean for homeschoolers? Gardening - give me the basics. These will just be a few!
Baby G is growing so fast. He's still small enough for a bath in the sink but is proving his stuff sitting up, army crawling and pulling up on everything. We have to turn chairs around backwards so he doesn't pull them over on his head. He signs "more" and waves. Says "all done" and proves he understands much. A lesson in patterns with cheerios, needles and string turned into fun costume material. Uno is a classic.
This month we've been faithful working in each of our Complete Books of Math, spelling tests, sentence structure and basic writing skills. We have continued to learn the names of the states and have begun studying the mid 1800's. We've frequented the library and practiced reading. We are enjoying the Caroline Years. On family nights we have learned with fun games such as Dutch Blitz, 10,000, Uno, Phase 10, Cadoo, and the guys have been playing Risk. We have also played "Somebody" (a science game on the human body), Scrabble, Warr (card game) and other card games. We enjoy the outdoors when we can- playing ball, hauling wood, or just free play. When the weather is too cold or yucky we enjoy exercising with DVD workouts such as "Can You 24", "Windsor Pilates" and "P90X". On Valentines we had fun molding chocolates. Maybe those of you who don't know us personally find some of these "journalistic" entries boring, but it is a nice way to look back and see what has happened here and there as well as keep friends around the world updated on the kids. Hopefully for some of you other homeschooling mommas these types of posts just encourage normal living. 2013 Did not begin as we imagined and hoped. Gary broke his foot and my back went out. Then the flu hit and made its rounds through the family. All in all we spent nearly the first two weeks of the new year on the couches. Making the most of every opportunity though- we enjoyed a lot of reading aloud and just being together. When we were healthy we enjoyed playing with Christmas presents- remote control cars from Grandparents that G loves practicing his crawling skills on, new skates and basketball hoop also provides many hours of fun and of course the gift of snow from up above is wonderful fun. G is now half a year old! Amazing! What a cutee. He is all over the place these days and LOVES to eat. He keeps us all smiling. As the excitement of a new baby has begun to wear off JUST a tiny bit with the older ones- L has begun to realize how much fun her little brother is. She still enjoys feeding him and has found a way SHE can "rock" him to sleep. :) We have been studying the United States and are enjoying puzzles in our lessons. I love the different personalities of our kidos- K loves to organize and went through the school cabinet making it "nice and neat" for me. We put G to work sweeping- he loved it! B helps keep G everyday for a little bit during quiet time. He makes a good blanket. Watching what we feast on. Good stuff. The most handsome men ever. Little guys growing so fast! BTW- I think A has gotten just a bit taller than C- just by a hair...
That's all- just a little update. December went by quickly with lots of creating and making. We pretty much cancelled school for the month other than a bit of math and reading everyday plus a lot of reading aloud and creativity. We finished reading the Martha Series and began the Charlotte Years. Above is a few pictures of baking chocolates, breads and cookies. The kids had fun shaping the candy cane cookies. With all the baking came clean up time! Rocky thought it was cold enough he should be allowed inside! Silly dog. We enjoyed using Mom and Dad's advent log this year for our wait for Jesus's birthday. Bethany reading a Christmas story to the little ones. A fun evening spent watching the Massanutten Regional Brass band and Youth Brass band. I was wanting to do some crocheting for Christmas so taught the kids how to as well. Kindsey began with finger knitting, but has enjoyed making chains as well. Several days we spent the afternoon reading aloud and crocheting. Somehow it took me a LOT longer to get my own projects done though! I finally did get slippers made for everybody in the house and the boys had fun making beards. Asher was creative at designing and making at his own bee. During all this time of creating Leana decided Garrison was a pretty fun companion. Christmas time is here! Pretty kids and handsome man! Garrison loved all the decorations and got completely over stimulated with the commotion on Christmas morning. He's on the move these days and we found him in every corner of the living room getting his hands on all the gifts and paper from the packages. We had a white Christmas this year! Lots of fun for us all.
I love Christmas. I love things decorated for Christmas. But I have to admit I don't like decorating for Christmas. Maybe it's too much like moving with boxes and mess and things unsettled. Maybe I've had too much of that and the hustle and bustle is overwhelming. Maybe it is because we have a few children. Children who are full of life and want to be fully involved or in charge of the decorating. Maybe I'm just a little bit too controlling and perfectionistic for that! Maybe I'd like decorating if I could take about a week and be alone and do it in peace and quite. Alas, that is not feasible Maybe I need to just relax and stretch a little further. Flexibility. Peace. Smiles. This is supposed to be a happy time. A family time. Ok. Deep breath. 'It's the most wonderful time of the year.' Father help me in this. Mess stresses me (though you may not believe me if you saw our house on a general basis). Moms are supposed to set the mood and make Christmas memorable, right? But mom has an agenda, a schedule, a plan, and it's so stretching when things get here there and everywhere. Over the years God has continued to bring me back to that lesson of flexibility. I used to think I was flexible- that was in highschool when I was physically able to do a split and all sorts of things. Now with growing family, and continual changes that word takes on new meaning. So, comes the time of year when things get a little out of order and the "fruit basket gets upset" all for the sake of bring peace and good cheer to the home. Ahh! I can do all things. This week we worked on decorations. We're not done but we did manage to do a bit of what was hoped for and hopefully had fun in the process. :) The kids were all about gathering greens and trying to help make wreaths. Little Miss "I can do it!" Martha Stewart was determined to push the wheel barrow. B (and C) made their own wreaths for the first time this year. They both did a great job. I decided to try and keep it simple this year, both for sanity sake and for the pocket book. A few red bowed swags to brighten up the balcony, B's wreath on the light post (think Narnia), My wreath for the front door (missing bow until I can run pick up more ribbon!) and C's sweet little blue spruce and holly just covering the hanger. C really wanted to work with those two greens only, but they are both so terribly prickly to work with that he decided he did not need a very full wreath. :) There's a few other decorations around outside, but like I said sweet and simple and we aren't finished yet, so maybe some more pics next week. My main goal this week was to be sure we were ready for advent. Here's our traditional advent log and the devotional we use as we look forward to the holiday. A babysit G while we decorated outside this year. He did a fine job and taught G how to sit up on his own. G got his first "black eye" this week (barely visible in the picture) hitting himself with a toy- the same day he bruised several fingers accidently getting them slammed in a dresser drawer while "helping' an older sibling put away laundry. Baby loves his brothers and sisters. Aren't they sweet?! I love the look of adoration in their eyes as they look at each other. Busy little cooks. K was all ready to stick her "favorite casserole" in the oven. B's potato soup was delicious. And we even managed to bake a HUGE batch of chocolate chip cookies to begin our Christmas goodies. Don't tell anybody I froze most of them in hiding for the 12 days of Christmas. :) Will they last that long? Martha Stewart/Betty Crocker/K helped from start to finish on the cookies -even though it was such a big batch. So thankful for a convection bake oven! and Kitchen Aid mixer! And an island in a big kitchen! Ah, the luxuries! Trying to let our hair grow long again so we can have fun with pretty braids and up dos. The boys are still enjoying paper dolls and have created ever so many this last week. Every time I turn around they are working on another set. I'm terribly behind on laminating with contact paper! I hope I can catch up! :)
We have been enjoying reading the Martha Series about Laura Ingals great great grandmother in Scotland. We have been reading through the New Testament recently. We finished Acts and began Romans this week. We also had fun reading then acting out the story of Deborah this week. Our Christmas music repertoire (both of what the kids can play on the piano and what we have is growing and it is SO fun, to hear the kids walking around singing "Bless the Lord O, My Soul." at the top of their lungs. L sings "Sing like nevee, O my soul. O my soul. O my dear. Bless the Lord." God is good to us. There is much I don't write here, but I am enjoying keeping a quick "scrap book/journal" of our weeks. I still like writing in my paper journal as well and much will stay there. :) We made it through the week and bed is long calling my name. Thankful Baby G is sleeping through the night at least a few times a week. This was Thanksgiving week and the family came to our place. So we spent the beginning of the week cleaning and preparing. The cousins enjoyed their time together as did the adults (who aren't in this picture! ) :) We found some great paper dolls at hyyp://practicalpages.wordpress.com. All of the kids have been having lots of fun coloring, cutting, laminating and playing with dolls from different time periods and countries. Daddy was home a bit more this week. Can you tell the girls (and boys too) missed him? :) And of course, baby is still much loved! From top left- Daddy and girls, K playing memory with G and L. B playing with baby G (she let me braid her hair!- all the girls did and had "curly" hair for Thanksgiving. G practicing standing. Bottom Left- This is what I found when they were supposed to be cleaning! "G was sleepy...." And L has decided little buddy is fun to play with as well. She was rolling over with him and trying to lift him up off the floor. He's nearly as big as her! We enjoyed beautiful weather. Glorious sunrises and walks in the fields. C being a wonderful big brother waiting up for L and helping her across the fields. For an outing we went as a family to see the Rockingham Male Chorus. They were excellent. Think Mama's lap can hold more? That's only three there! We continued to be well fed by little cooks this week. God is faithful and good to us.
It has been some time since I've chronicled what we've been doing in school and around the house. Which is something I want to do better, just as a reference to look back at. So, here we go. Roadblock is a staple in our week. We use this game to teach all of the kids according to their skill level. Learning to Read, vocabulary and math facts are all easily taught this way. For the older kids the words suffice as pronunciation the first week and vocabulary words the second week. We have little prizes available for successfully completed Roadblocks. We have also been working through Adventures in American History by My Father's World. We are updating our history timeline's and getting a lot of good reading in. Usborne's Science in the kitchen has provided some neat projects, but I have to admit this isn't my favorite subject so we don't do more than about one project a week. We spend quite a bit of time in the kitchen though. Each of the kids are assigned a day in the kitchen in which they choose the meals for the day and create or help create them. Every other week, I make the menu and the off weeks they get to choose the menu. They love this and it helps give everyone their chance in the kitchen without fighting over who does what. We also do baking throughout the week as a team or special project for a child or two. All this cooking and baking requires shopping! The little girls loved the miniature shopping carts we discovered at a local grocery store. For music, we worship together with Mommy playing the piano nearly every weekday morning. . All of the kids are learning to play piano as well. This is an exercise of great patience for both mommy/teacher and child. But the benefits are very great. Being able to play real music is a confidence booster, worthwhile accomplishment and wonderful outlet for energy and creativity. I thoroughly enjoy hearing the finished products and even the stumbling efforts on the way there. Little fellow gets all kinds of attention from all of us. He enjoys every moment of it from funny faces, to race car bumbo rides, to pillow and sheet sleigh rides, to being considered a baby doll, to hiking in the woods and riding Daddy's shoulders. We got to be a part of reading the Bible through from start to finish aloud as a church.
We took several outings including trips up to the mountains and the local homecoming parade and game. Fall brought decorations and Thanksgiving fun as well. It has been a good fall. I had planned to let the kids each help make a breakfast or two a week before I started reading that "Cleaning House" book by Kay Wills Wyma, but then I decided to go ahead and let them have a whole day for themselves. They made their menus and for the most part I let them choose what we would have breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Monday is Asher (7). Breakfast: eggs and toast with sausage Lunch: tuna and crackers Supper: hamburgers Tuesday is Bethany (10) Breakfast: pancakes (obviously with pb and syrup) :) Lunch: grilled cheese and tomato soup (which got changed to a healthy cookie while still in town and a quick bowl of Ramen noodle soup for those who were still hungry when we got home late) Supper: meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn and applesauce. (Yes, she wanted table cloth, candles and glass place settings as well.) Tomorrow is Cason (8) Breakfast: Biscuits and gravy "With sausuage patties!" Lunch: eggo waffles with fruit smoothies Supper: chilli "with chips, sour cream and cheese". Thursday is Kindsey (5) Breakfast: cream of wheat and grapefruit, Lunch: ramen noodles and fresh vegies, Supper: chicken casserole "with french fried onions on top! and green beans" Friday is Leana (3) Breakfast: grapefruit and toast Lunch: pbj Supper: tacos or taco salad Saturday and Sunday were then left for me (Maybe Garrison and Gary will pitch in as well!) to take care of. Menu planning has never been easier! It's rather obvious our family tends to be rather heavy on the meats (especially hamburger!) and breads, but we are working on that- you know, the importance of choosing a well balanced meal including more vegies and fruit, etc. Hopefully we can also work on not needing a "feast" every night or meat every meal, but for now I'm proud of them for putting forth the effort and doing most of the work. Of course, at their ages, I am still in the kitchen with them as they work and helping with instruction and difficult aspects but honestly for the most part they are doing all the cooking. |