Sometimes I Say Yes

I'm a no Mom. Or at least I feel that way. But when Stella asked if she could have a tea party, I said yes. I surprised myself with my answer.

Eli came across the scene and asked for his own mug of tea before the girls got started. It's shocking to me, looking at these pictures and realizing how grown up he is getting.

A Birthday Weekend

This weekend Cash turned 9. I can't even. I have no words. How did this happen?
We partied on Friday. Then on Saturday we took a little trip down to the Cossatot and explored the visitors center, which is fantastic and well worth your time, and took a short hike. We capped it off with a playground visit and spent Sunday being worthless and lazy. Birthday weekend success.

Escape

 We escaped one evening last week. Packed up the (fresh from the mechanic) Landrover and took a little drive over to the Caddo river. Our mission: try out paddleboarding for the first time and camp one night. Get some fresh air and enjoy some family time.

A few things I learned during this trip. Don't forget to buy wood if you aren't camping in a heavily forested area. We did and what we could salvage made for a very green fire indeed. Also, premaking breakfast burritos and wrapping them in foil is a genius idea. Then you can just throw them on the coals. I did virtually the same thing for dinner the night before except I used tin pie pans. I chopped up potatoes at home and threw them in pie pans along with butter and seasonings. Then I made hamburger patties, wrapped them in bacon and then wrapped them in foil. They went in the pie pans alongside the potatoes. Foil over all that. These dinner tins went on the coals and after the potatoes were done I took the foil wrapped burgers out and opened them up and they continued to cook over the coals. It was one of the best campfire dinners I've had yet.

 And a very funny sidenote. We were camping at Caddo River Camping & Canoe and it is actually right in the middle of a small town on the river. This was the non-river side view from our campsite. The next morning when Warren was having a devil of a time getting the fire going again for coffee, I broke down and hiked over there for a few McCafe's. I know. I know. Next time I will just have to wait for french press java.

Marching On

We had a lovely Winter Break. It ended (one could argue it continued) yesterday with a trip to Mid-America Science Museum. We traveled there with friends and had a wonderful time. Cash threw his brand spankin’ new boomerang in the creek. Luckily he was able to retrieve it. This year’s homeschool day theme was Weather. An interesting one considering last week it was 12 degrees and the past two days it has been 60+ degrees. Arkansas sure has some funny idea of Winter.

Today we are back to the grind. Math, grammar, history, reading, science. All that fun stuff. I anticipate this week being a bit of a struggle. It’s always hard for my tribe to get back in the groove. I find it easier if we limit technology for a few days so they can absolutely focus on school, instead of having that distraction of Minecraft or Netflix in the back of their mind. I have often toyed with the idea of eliminating the television completely from our home. I can imagine that the children might actually mutiny if I were to do that. In the past we’ve limited television and video games to weekends only. That didn’t seem to work since they attempted to spend their whole weekend glued to a screen, as if they had been in withdrawal all week. At the beginning of this school year we agreed to allow them one hour of television time and 30 minutes of free computer or tablet time at the end of the day if they completed their work without attitude. That seemed to work for a while, but all too quickly I would forget how long they had been watching or I would give in to one more show or one more level.

Obviously I am struggling with my feelings towards too much technology!

How do you handle the issue in your homeschool?

Chaos

Want some honesty?

A little bit of true life around here?

I mean surely you know its not just all homeschooling, homebrewing, knitting, cooking damn fine food, exercising, getting your zen on, chickens running around, classically educating kids up in here.

I did just say up in here. And now I feel really dumb. Anyways.....

Sometimes its messy. And I don't mean the house. I mean my mind.

 

Take my bed for example here. It is a pretty accurate representation of my mind. There's always a bunch of stuff on it. Like those folded towels? Totally stuff that I need to just put away because I went through the work of making it all nice and neat and now I'm just going to leave it sitting there cause I am lazy. And the knitting. Something I am really enjoying doing but its also driving me a bit batty because its hard to multitask and knit. I can watch TV and knit but I don't really like TV. I can educate myself on YouTube (homeschool lectures are the bomb! no. really.). I can listen to the kids do their daily out loud reading. But...I can't read and knit. And I have about a bajillion things I want to be reading right now. Everywhere I turn there is a book strategically placed by myself that I want to read or reread. Also on the bed and in my mind is stuff placed their by my children. In this picture its that pink bundle tied with a scarf. Its nothing really important, but the gesture of her gifting me with some of her stuff wrapped all prettily like....well I have a hard time tossing it out. Same goes with all the stuff they say to me. I can't toss it out of my head. Miscellaneous socks? Obviously those represent my husband and the never ending frustration involved in picking up after him. Those socks will stay there damn it! As will the nagging in my head. It will stay in my head. And surely you notice how plugged in I am. Laptop, tablet, and I took the picture with my phone. I am basically on all the time. All the time!

 

The kids take quiet time daily. I try really hard to make myself take quiet time as well. No chores. No phone calls. No stress. Taking a siesta with Warren is ideal. Yoga is ideal. Reading blogs or books is ideal. But the last two days I have broke my quiet time rule for myself. So at the end of quiet time I was hiding behind my coffee wishing quiet time lasted another hour or so.

 

 

Don't leave quiet time!!!!!

 

 

I suppose I just wanted to put it out there, like a lot of mommybloggers (shudder) do, that what you see and read here is only a half truth. It's pretty and we are lucky to be able to homeschool, and brew beer, and eat amazing food, and keep chickens, and visit the rivers to see the flora and fauna.

 

But the rest of the time its just total chaos!

 

Except I made the kids do yoga last night to calm their little bodies and minds. So ha! Except I didn't Instagram it for proof. The jokes on me.  

This Moment

Linking up from SouleMama where every Friday she posts a simple single moment from the week.

Here is mine.

Happy First Day of Homeschool 2013-2014

 Welcome to a new school year! I type this as my little darlings are still snuggled in their beds. Okay, well one is in their bed and one is in my bed. I am a true believer in self waking, that is getting up when your body tells you to. And little ones need a lot of sleep to be their best. So for now I will work on this post and get organized for the day.

I had to share these back to homeschool pictures I shot a few days ago. I found this school desk at a roadside flea market and knew it would be a perfect prop.

 

Cash is a big 2nd grader. The flexibility of homeschooling allows him to work grade level on language arts and reading but to work ahead a level in math.

Despite her age, Stella is basically doing 1st grade this year. She flew threw everything Kindergarten in 6 whole months. It would be hard to make a child who can read and write sit through a Kindergarten curriculum when she wants more difficult work.

I am so happy that we began this adventure last year. It was my test to see if I could do it. To see if the kids would thrive. To figure out what approach works best for our family. Things will change and I know we will adjust when they do. For now though, this is what it looks like for us.