Tuesday, March 31, 2009

I Want One So Bad

One of these.

I so badly want one of those so I can fix it up and turn it into one of these

Go here to check out all of the great pictures from a weekend with this group of girls. It is all I can think about these days.

For our 11 year wedding anniversary my hubby got me outfitted for fly fishing. Something I have been wanting to learn how to do. I have always enjoyed camping and don't mind roughing it a bit ( I am not a high maintenance girl, lucky for my hubby!!)I just want to look good doing it ;) I am heading home in May to attend an all girls fly fishing school, and I couldn't be more excited. All three of my brothers fly fish and I tend to try and keep up with them, but with three pregnancies and nursing and well you know, I haven't been able to give this one a try! I would love to be able to join in on the fun with the Sisters on the Fly and their glamping (glamor camping). A girls weekend away sounds like loads of fun to me! It all fits into my crazy dream of a more simple life. Slowing down a bit and enjoying what God has made.

Wish me luck!!

Friday, March 27, 2009

The Girls Must Come Home


I can take it no more. I have been without my girls long enough. The girls must come home. I think we will only be bringing one back from the farmer. Hattie is just too loud so I think only our Easter Egger will be coming home. I have also looked into the bantams but they won't be available until May/June.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Happy Birthday Buddy!!

My guy turned 5 today. I can still feel him in my arms all warm and cozy swaddled. He was so excited to have his birthday today. First thing in the morning he got his whistle pop, something my mom always did for us. I remember how great it was to get those whenever one of us had a birthday. So to continue the tradition all three got them today and they were blowing away on them. The ones we would get had music inside the wrapper, jolly rancher needs to do that too.

Avery reading her card to him. She made it herself and is was very sweet. She got him a Ben10 watch. He swears he turns into an alien when he turns the dial.

His big gift from us was a big boy bike and helmet. We will be taking the training wheels off the next nice day we have and teaching him to ride without.

I am sure this next picture is going to end up on the blog Cake Wrecks. However I feel I first need to explain. For almost a year Keegan has asked for a banana cake for his birthday. It's what he has wished for every time we send off a balloon wish. So I had to deliver and this was the best I could come up with. He loved it though and that is all that matters.

In the nie tradition we sent off our balloon wishes for Keegan for the up coming year. Now that his banana wish came true he had to think of a new one....

Gone are the days of the big birthday parties. We decided that we are a built in party and we had a great time. We played pin the tail on the donkey, the kids got a wooden whistle and a bubble wand on there plates as favors and we all watched excited at what Keegan received. It was an awesome day.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

It's a Miracle

For the second day in a row Keegan has come to the school room ready and willing to work. It is nothing short of a miracle. This work box system is wonderful, a true Godsend. Here is Keegan at our listening center doing a coloring page that goes along with the devotional on cd.

Tripp asks to do "school" too. He sits down at his table and waits for me to give him a work sheet. When he finishes he calls me over like the big kids to see what he has done.

Here Keegan is again working through his boxes. Hallelujah!!

And here is my girl Avery. She is doing her reader from the Sonlight curriculum, it is one of the only things we are still using from them. She too is loving the box system. She got to do a bulletin board game with compound words and 10 min with the skip it on the deck. She is such a great kid for me. She would do school on her head if I asked her to, but with this we are able to do the fun stuff and she loves it!

In the boxes for tomorrow? Science for Avery first and then some regular work and a fun puzzle page. Keegan will then take the science project that she has started and finish it with color mixing, you know yellow and blue make green kind of stuff. I must say this is the first time all year I feel truly organized and together and I am having fun again. That is what it should be about anyway.

Other news, I mowed the front and back lawn today. So begins the never ending cycle of mowing 2 sometimes 3 times a week. And bonus a storm blew in and, wait for it............ it's raining AGAIN!!!!!

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Another Day

It's been another day here in the rainforest we call home. Another day not seeing the sun. Another day of muddy dogs and paw prints on the floor. I am praying tomorrow things will be different, they HAVE to be different. So to cheer myself up I thought I would post some pictures of my emerging fruit orchard.

Do you know what kind of work out it is to dig holes for trees to go in? I ended up with nine trees in all. I dug half of the holes and planted and filled in all 9. How good did I feel after pleading with my husband to please dig a few holes for me and in the time it took me to dig one he had the rest finished? It pays to have a hot husband handy who can dig a hole. Please note the "ugly" face Keegan is making, this because my little photographer Avery was taking the pictures for me. Also note that Tripp is helping. Every time I started a new hole he would yell "I help" and would proceed to put dirt back IN the hole.

Another angle. So now I just wait for the fruit to appear. 4 apples 4 peach and 1 cherry, I can't wait! You can see my sad empty hen house in the back and Tripp still helping. I will be getting some bantam chickens this summer, that way no one will be able to tell if they are chickens or doves. Smart thinking huh?!

Monday, March 16, 2009

A Restructuring

First things first, let me tell you about this picture below. As if I don't already have an addiction to Starbucks iced chai, I had to go and try their oatmeal. Sat I got a steaming cup of it with mixed nuts and brown sugar. Not expecting much, I was in heaven after my first bite. They make some good oatmeal......

It has rained here for more days than I want to count. I am in desperate need of my vitamin D and I am praying we see a glimpse of it tomorrow. In the mean time this is what I am greeted with when Piper feels like coming back inside. This is the down side to a white dog, just like a white couch they don't hide the dirt very well.

While on the Homeschool Lounge I came across a great thread talking about a new craze in the homeschool arena (not really i just made that up). It was about a system a woman named Susan Patrick came up with to help teach her autistic sons. She had found that it was also beneficial to anyone homeschooling, no matter the age or with or without any learning disability. It is called a work box system. The summary of the system is that you divide up the kids schooling into the boxes and they work through starting at number one, until there are no more boxes left on the shelves. Here are Keegans shelves in order. I am not doing this product justice, so if you home school and care to look you should follow the link above to find out more info. I swear this is one of the smartest things I have come across. I read the 122pg ebook on Sat. There are so many great ideas.

One of the things that using the work boxes allows is time to get to all those creative things we all want to do and have the best intentions of getting to, but always seem to run out of time. For me that is centers. I went to Dollar Tree this morning and stocked up on some great teaching resources that the kids can use for review, but to them they are just playing a game. The beads are for pattern stringing, instead of just making necklaces out of them. I got 4 bulletin board games that practice compound words, counting to 10, color matching, and long and short vowels. I also got earphones and a audio cd devotional of bible hero's so they can do a listening center. I am hoping to add to it with some easy books on tape for Keegan to follow along to and some more in depth ones for Avery.

I will post and update in a week or so on how this new restructuring of the schoolroom works. In the mean time you might want to check out this blog to see it in action. She has been using it with her girls and has some great ideas and links for things to use with the work boxes.

Monday, March 9, 2009

T.F. Part 3

This is my third and final installment of my "Time Flies" series. There were so many pictures I could have posted but I think these were a good overview. So every night when we would get back after dinner and hanging out in the lounges we would come in to find our bed remade and turned down and a cute towel animal on the bed. It was always such a great surprise to see what we would get for the night. Here they are in order.
Puppy

Now here is where my funny story about a 3 year old comes in. The second night was our dress up night and we were coming back to our rooms after dinner to get a little more comfortable. Well I walked into my bedroom to see a cute bunny on the bed. Next thing you know our friends were laughing hysterically. We quickly went next door to see what was so funny and there towel was shaped something like a male body part. We still aren't sure what it was suppose to be, but boy did we get a laugh. While all this was going on we had left our door open. D had walked back to our room and I was coming in to take my customary shot of the animal and all I found was this:

Yes two eyeballs, I fussed at D thinking he had tossed our cute bunny aside before I had a chance to take a photo of it. He said he hadn't touched it, and I said well I know I didn't what could have happened. Now our friends were in our cabin and we were laughing at the vanishing towel animal when I heard a little one running down the hall laughing. I happened to peak out the door and all I saw was a three year old girl dressed in her nice dress and MY TOWEL ANIMAL trailing along behind her!! Her mom was trying to stop her, she was in a fit of giggles just shear silliness, I yelled down the hall hey she has our towel animal. And her mom said oh is that yours?! I told her to take the good stuff and all she brought out was the towels. It was so funny and we had a great laugh and so the only picture I got of the night was the two little pieces of eyes that were left behind.

we are not sure what this was suppose to be?? A snake, a snail.....?!

We also had an elephant, I'm not sure what happened to that picture
Our final night we walked in to find a monkey hanging from the ceiling, these guys are so talented!

My final farewell photo. Us in the taxi praying for our lives, our driver was a bit crazy with his driving....

Friday, March 6, 2009

Almost Perfect

Today was one of those days that you praise the Lord for everything He has made and granted you. The kids and I stayed home all day while my husband made a quick morning run to HD. For the first part of the day I put away clothes and washed more than I care to remember and still am not done. I was picking up our bedroom from our vacation. While I did this the kids went out back and played, the dogs were not far behind. At 12:30 I went down and made lunch and the kids requested that they eat outside. I made my man his lunch plate and then made my own and walked out to survey what he was doing. He is making our fire pit a permanent feature. I gave him encouragement and once the lunch plates were cleaned up and Tripp was cleaned, changed, and put to bed for a nap, I spent the rest of the day outside. I turned my garden over and started planting my small orchard. Avery and Keegan never went in except to use the bathroom. We were all outside together, doing our own thing, but doing it together.

I have been struggling with my homeschooling lately, the devil is getting in my mind and telling me I am doing an injustice to my daughter. Then the Lord gives me a day like today to assure me I am not. While digging a hole for the fruit tree and finding grubs and worms for the kids to look at, I sat back and smiled to myself. There was no where else I would have wanted to be today. It was almost perfect, I say that because I think perfect should be left to God. So I have no pictures with this post because I was too busy today just enjoying life and my family to stop to take a picture of it. Besides the pictures would have never done it justice.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

T. F. Part 2

Every night there were things like this

We would eat from 8:15pm-10:30pm every night, oh the luxury of taking your time to eat, absolute bliss!!!

While we took out time eating we were watching this (please note the guy on the table he moved his hips like nothing I've seen before all while the boat was rocking)

A little friendly competition, boy do I hate to loose, I lost....

And a lot more of this


My next and final post of the Time Flies series will be soon and will focus on our towel animals and a funny story about a 3 year old.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Time Flies Part 1

There was a lot of this

Plenty of this

A lot of this

and this.....

Good times with friends

and some of this.....

More to come of time on the ship, where there was plenty of eating going on. How we wish we were on that ship still, I had such a great time with my guy.