Home is where the heart is

The last few weeks are a blurr. (I always say that but it's always true!) I have photos to share but little time for uploading and resizing! Summer is fading into early fall as the weather already is cooling. I never really felt true summer this year. Only a handful of very humid days, lots of rain, and hardly much swimming.

SCHOOLS BACK IN / BUT IT WAS NEVER REALLY OUT
Kids in the area are headed back to school, but mine never left. I'm thankful my guys still have lots of pretty days left to run and play outside and enjoy this 80 degree weather. We've been on a good "school" schedule but mostly we have been enjoying the days as they come and go. The boys are learning to tell time and refine their money counting. Charlotte decided she wants to re-read the Harry Potter series and after a summer of half finishing several books announced to me, "I just can't replace it mom, so I'm going to stop trying." So cute. :)

I like that she's allowed to half read a book and not finish it if she wants. I like that she can pick what she wants to read according to her interest. I loved reading. LOVED LOVED it. I dreaded when I was forced to read. (I don't know why but I swear The Hobbit was torture to me in the fifth grade ---my kids like it though of course!)

Mothering Magazine had a wonderful article this month starting on page 58 titled, "No More Homework." I enjoyed it and it reminded me again why we began pulling our kids from school 3 years ago.

OUTDOORS
Our garden produced some green beans which we harvested the other day and will cook tonight. Our sunflowers are getting ready to bloom (symbolically just in time for the new baby that is due any second!) Our tomatoes are growing but if we don't get some hot sunny days we'll never get fruits, as I've mentioned before we simply planted WAY too late. Even if we may never see fruit we still enjoy seeing our watermelon vines, cucumber and zucchini plants, as well as tomatoes growing. We'll start earlier next year for sure. I'm not giving up yet. It's not over until old man winter frosts us!

Our new chicks are doing very well. The kids and I made an agreement with the kittens outside who killed a couple chicks. We feed them milk every morning and they leave the chicks alone. So far it has worked! Yay! The other day I took a frozen chicken we raised and killed out of the freezer. It was from last fall so I didn't think it would be all that good anymore. I simmered it into chicken stock and cooked the meat and made soup. Actually, the chicken was SO delicious I fed the meat eaters in the house some chicken for lunch and made the rest into soup. It was fantastic! So we are going to get some meat chickens this fall and stock up for the winter. I forgot how good our home grown chickens were. We don't eat chicken if we don't raise it ourselves. (occasionally I'll buy from whole foods though. But it's $$$)

CHARLOTTE WORLD RECORD BOOK CONTESTANT! We don't get many eggs since we had a lot of our chickens killed by dogs in the early spring. But we do get a few every week. Last week Charlotte gathered eggs and she found what we believe to be the smallest chicken egg ever reportedly laid. Charlotte had me sign up on the Guinness Book of World Records website and I'm currently in the process of applying her egg. It is 1 inch long, the smallest online we found was 1 1/4 in long. There is currently no record holder for the smallest chicken egg, just the largest. Charlotte has been racking her brain for the last year and a half thinking a way of breaking or making a world record. Now she found her chance. It's cute and a lot of fun for her.

Recent simple Layla questions:
"Mom can I tell you an important question?"
"Yes?"
"How do horses sleep?"
And
"Mom can I tell you an important question?" (She always starts like this)
"Yes?"
"Do animals have babies like you do?" (I can proudly say "yes" because I give birth like all animals, in mostly seclusion and unassisted :)

BIRTH OF NEW MEMBERS
Speaking of birth... the children are REALLY excited about the impending birth of our newest family member. They ask all the time and talk about how excited they are to hold the newborn! It's made me excited and feeling very blessed. Sometimes however, I want them to just quit asking! The baby will come very soon. I'm due on the 20th but I can go over by 2 weeks easily. I'm not thinking I will this time though. My body is going to get on with this birth I feel before the 20th. But only time will tell.

Have I mentioned that Layla calls the baby a "he-she" because we don't know. Cracks us up.

THE BOYS
I feel bad I don't have much to say about the boys. They always are, and always have been "The boys." They play, rough house and make me crazy. They thrive on video games, sticks, swords, and the trampoline. Ethan and Sage are both doing great. They talk non-stop and act opinionated as this age group does. They are great kids. I'm trying to teach Sage that being right isn't important and I'm trying to get Ethan to stop bickering about things that really don't matter (especially with a 4 year old --he's awful about bickering with Layla!!)

NEXT POST
Might be a picture of baby 6

July wrapping up (and unwrapping birthday's for everyone!)

We have had a busy last several weeks. The kids had a lot of fun at drama camp despite that I had to make some complaints about inappropriate content in some songs little kids were being taught to sing and dance to. (totally teenage themed for the WRONG 6-11 age group) It was resolved graciously by the theatre however and there was no lasting damage done :)
At the end of the drama program the kids put on a performance which was just great. They worked so hard. I was just ecstatic to see them all on stage. I love theatre and always wanted to make it part of my children's lives, as it had been a important apart of mine long ago ...before babies, birth, and natural family living became my passion. The kids were supposed to go to the June camp but we waited for July because then our friends could do it with them. Next year I am strongly considering letting the kids do both camps! They had that much fun.





Penelope below is helping me make pizza dough. She's such a mess in the kitchen. She wants to constantly help to the point where I now sneak around to cook!


My parents came to town for a special event: A birthday party held for ALL of us. This was the first year of a tradition they would like to start where each summer they visit and throw our family one big birthday party. Gifts, cake, decorations, the whole thing. This way they don't have to mail packages out 8 times a year and they get to see all of us open the gifts. So without the kids knowing they decorated our home, brought in cake, and wrapped gifts and had a surprise party. We knew, kids didn't though! It was a blast!

Above is the tropical themed party with my parents and all of us.
Below is the cake, which had a "93" candle the total combined age of 7 of our birthday's, also read: 'Happy Birthday Ricky, Shauna, Sage, Ethan, Layla, Penelope.'
The unborn baby got gifts too, but "he" doesn't have a "birthday" yet :)



August should slow down a little bit. July was all about sleepovers, library events, drama camp, cousin Echo being in town, growing caterpillars and releasing them as butterflies, Etc.. Layla's birthday is coming up (party on July 31, actual birthday on Aug 1) In August we have a couple busy weekends, some playgroups, and then a new baby being born. I suspect we'll be home most of August and September. Oh I have 2 kids that need to go the dentist for small fillings in Aug, and Charlotte will be getting braces. Yikes I better get those appointments scheduled (I want those done before baby comes)!!

The excitement and anticipation of a newborn is really building around here.

Homeschool: What we do when we aren't doing anything elseWe have a new program we are trying for Sage at http://www.readingupgrade.com/ And he finally likes a reading program. (FINALLY)

And http://www.spellingtime.com/ had some great sign up package deals I'm not sure I wrote about. Charlotte is signed up now for 1 year at the rate of $59.99 She can do spelling, states, vocab and math. They are broken up into quick daily lessons and it's good quality. We are loving it. I'm thinking about getting Ethan signed up as he needs to hit the spelling lessons.

The spelling and states is great. Charlotte really likes the vocab too. The spelling is so cool because they give the kids the words, they get activities, practice, quizzes, then at the end of the week a test. The results are emailed to the parents. So it's super easy to keep up with how the child is doing with minimal effort!

My favorite Layla Question this week:
"Where do the movies go when you turn off the TV?"

Summer School

Is it really summer? Because the kids have been doing nothing but exploring their world and asking lots of questions about life, science, social studies/history, art, religion, and more. Learning all the time (unschooling/homeschooling) means summer holds the same learning power as the rest of the year. Actually I'd have to say we are much more productive learning in the warmer months of the year. The colder months seem to bring us more wasted time, dark evenings, and lazy days than spring, summer, and fall.

The kids have been enjoying weekends with dad being home. They have had many meaningful discussions. I over heard some world religion ones, mentions of physics, Albert Einstein, Issac Newton, and some other guy --the name escapes me right now. LOL.


What sparked at least some of those subjects was Charlotte enthusiastically pointing out that this months issue of Muse Magazine had pages about Leonardo Da Vinci. What tickled her though was the page number for the section about him was written backwards. "Just like his notes he wrote backwards to keep secret!"


I love being a part of their discovery and learning everyday. I didn't always think this way, but now I see that public school keeps a part of my children that I wouldn't get. Just like daycare gets a part of baby or toddler hood from children. (yes I know some people need to use the services of childcare, I'm grateful I don't though, and I have opinions about it's misuse and overuse). I never wanted my children in daycare, I always thought about how much a parent (and child) misses by not being "there" constantly throughout the day. I now feel that way about public schooling too. I see things in a different way now that I have been homeschooling for years and I now know first hand that children do learn all about interesting important things without structured, planned lessons. My children are more excited about learning then I ever was! I am so excited for them.

Layla keeps up with the good questions too:
Layla asked me, "What is under the toilet?" So she headed off a conversation about septic, waste disposal, and health. This morning she also woke up sleepy eyed and crawled into bed with me like usual and said, "Mom did I brush my teeth?" "Yes Layla you did last night." She rubbed her eyes and said, "Oh good thing, cause in my dream I was eating food."

Hahaha. She is SO good about her teeth and tries to keep them brushed very well! And she is SO funny.

dads birthday, math, garden is trying to grow, Layla questions...

We have been learning about money, going to the library (saw Dino O' Dell perform at the library last week), somewhat tending to the garden, keeping up with household chores, and the regular homeschool things.

The older kids have had many interesting and educational conversations none of which I can recall now though. Charlotte has been playing a "game" with the boys she came up with and told me to write about. It's very simply a skip counting game. Basically you just take turns skip counting as fast as you can and as high as you can by 2's, 5's, 10's, and 25's. That's great practice for them all and they seem to have fun. They came up with this all on their own after lunch one day.

The garden is going pretty good. The chickens keep scratching at it. The tomato plants are NO WHERE near what we had last year :( Both in quality and quantity. It's got me bummed out. But when you don't start planting until June what do you expect, ya know.

This week I learned that money conversion (exchange rates) is much more complicated than I ever knew. lol.

We are headed to the library for craft and story time this morning. Today is Dads birthday so we have some preparation to do before he gets home tonight. There is talk amongst the kids of balloons, party hats, streamers, and the like. Cousin Echo will be in town by tomorrow morning. We have a homeschool/Kayak playgroup planned for Thursday, and 4th of July is Friday. Dad will be home for a 3 day weekend yay!

Pictures: Penelope and Layla at the Friends of MO Midwives Picnic 2 weeks ago (They love this hat and they frequently love putting this hat on their daddy too.)



Pictures: Drawing bugs last night (like my walking stick? LOL) We all took turns teaching each other ideas about how to draw bugs.


Layla at bedtime snuggled up with me trying to drift off asks me all kinds of interesting questions, especially for a child 1 month away from turning 4. For example:
"Can you ever get out of jail?"
"Will police take some one to jail for not being in their seat belt?"
"Where does your food go if there is a baby in your tummy?"
"How does food turn into poop?"

And the more serious, "If you die in your dream you don't die fo' real, right?"
I could tell she already knew, but was just double checking.

Summer days, life with kids... and no crock pot

What we've been up to...
Our garden is heading right along. The kids have helped me slowly but surely plant cilantro, tomatoes, yellow squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, broccoli and sunflowers. We plan to get some lettuce in the ground soon. We added hay to our lasagna garden but the chickens make a total mess of it and scratched it all up, which uprooted a lot of strategically placed moist newspapers. That was pretty aggravating. But, nothings ruined I just have to go out and pick hay off of the plants every other day. In hindsight I wish I would have skipped the hay because of the chickens. I have a big sheet roll of plastic I should cover the hay with... if I find the energy or time I'll do that. The kids have really been a lot of help this year with gardening. It's turned into a real family/group/homeschool project that they all seem to enjoy.

The kids have been enjoying some nice weather, lots of outside play, parks, the library, and the small local water park. (When I say small I mean small...but fun)

Aside from our regular www.time4learning.com program we have been doing the kids have been working on math with www.mathusee.com materials and Charlotte has been doing www.spellingtime.com I am getting ready to purchase the Big States Time section which teaches states, capitals, facts, abbreviations but I am waiting until she gets more of a routine down with all we've already got going on.

Last week we painted pictures which was nice. I don't get the paint out enough anymore and I'm going to start to. We do a lot of clay/sculpey stuff, crafts, drawing... but we need more painting! And they really don't make too big of a mess with it (even the little girls).

Today the kids asked about currency exchange rates. So tomorrow we are going to spend some time online looking into that. Not sure how that came up but it did.

Layla (4 in August) informed me yesterday that blood is in our veins. I thought that was cool and funny. I have deep prominent veins (runs in my family) and she said, "Mom you have a lot of blood in you, see." And she pointed to my veins.

She is working right now on a surprise picture for me. She's so cute. I am thinking about introducing letters to her via Waldorf style. She needs me to keep her busy this next year I can tell. She is going to bore easily.

Oh and Layla made me laugh so hard yesterday, because you see Layla has a way of having an answer FOR EVERYTHING. She's quite a pain actually. For example yesterday I asked her to please stop hitting the wall with the flag pole to our wooden castle....

Layla: Why?
Me: Because I want to have that for a very long time.
Layla: (keeps hitting it against wall)
Me: PLEASE Layla I want your children to be able to come over to my house and play with that someday, I want to keep the castle nice forever.
Layla: Forever?
Me: yup
Layla: Well... (in total snooty tone) what if my kids break it anyway?

I can't win with her very often. She is so good at comebacks! Arugh!

Layla told me she wants to go to Australia to meet Bindi The Jungle Girl. I told her we would have to save up money to go there someday. She said in that ever so cute kid voice, "MOM! I got lots of money in my room we can use!"

BROKEN THINGS...
A couple weeks ago I broke our crock pot. It was really a bummer because we use a slow cooker a lot around here, plus I had it a long time (One of the first things Ricky and I bought as a couple together). Well to replace it Ricky and I went and bought the biggest one we could find and spent a decent amount of money on it. Well today, only one week and one pot of chili later, Ethan broke it! It was in the sink waiting for me to wash it and he tossed his plate into it and it broke. Ethan was horrified having to come tell me. I really could not say anything other than, "What?!! Okay. Okay.... It's okay. Hold on..."
I went to my room and told Ricky quietly, "OMG Ethan broke the new crock pot $$%#! I came in here because he already feels so bad but I am still so mad."

You see, I didn't want him to know I was mad about it so I just left the room for my first reaction to get out of my body.

He peeked his head in our room a minute later sputtering (in near tears) about how he thought the crock pot was our gigantic plastic mixing bowl in the sink. They match in identical color. I told him I totally could see how he could make that mistake. He wasn't even being careless. At that point I hugged him and said, "Ethan it's okay. You didn't mean it. It was an accident. You know we need that crock pot and you would never want it to break." I then hugged him and said, "At least you aren't broken, right?"
He smiled up at me.

At the car wash....friendly people and poop tales

So this definitely falls under the category of "life with six kids"

Today after playgroup I stopped by the car wash. We did the drive through tri-color thing and then headed for the DIY car vacuum. I seriously don't think I've vacuumed this van since we got it. It was a horrible mess (took me 4 cycles of paying the vacuum machine .75 to finish it!) So during my vacuuming some of the kids ran around in a nice grassy spot and some kids stayed in the van as I worked. I met eyes with the guy at the vacuum station next to me and I said hi to him. (I say hi to nearly everyone) He was a friendly man in his 40's he said hi back. Inbetween my vacuum shutting off on me he asked, "How many kids you got over there?" [lol] I answered back with one hand, "Five."
He asked, "And one one the way too!?"
I laughed, "Yup, I think we're done now though..."
He then said, "I'd say so! But who am I to talk? I'm one of nine, big families are nice."
When he left he wished me good luck.

I happily continued paying the over priced vacuum that kept shutting off on me. I love when I hear positive things about big families. I also like (most the time not all the time) the attention in public. It does sometimes make me feel self conscious though. I'm afriad people think I'm selfish or irresponsible. Or that I lack the education to use birth control. [lol] Lots of people assume we do it for religious reasons, some people thing we are just plain nuts. We really just love having kids.

Anyway, back to the carwash because the fun part now begins:
Penelope and Sage have been all over the front seat, the windshield wipers are going because Penelope turned them on. A water bottle is spilled all-over the passengers seat, and I'm trying to get the van mats back in place. I head towards Penelope, who is in the drivers seat, to put her in her car seat and I notice she smells. I lay her down and change her. While I'm changing her (and before I can get a new diaper on her) Charlotte moves about in the van climbing seat to seat and fights with Sage, after I holler for her to take a seat she accidentally hits Layla in the lip and Layla bleeds. While I check on things Penelope in the meantime is unattended in the drivers seat diaperless. By the time I get back to Penelope she has pooped more -all over the drivers seat! Thank goodness I had just put a new pack of disposable wet wipes in the van this morning. I used lots. She had it on her leg, feet, butt, seat...

Then after I clean her up (still diaper less) I toss her to the middle of the van so I can clean the seat. By the time I clean the van seat up she has pooped on the van floor. At this point I look around me... is anyone watching this spectacle? Thank goodness no. I'm the only one in the parking lot of the car wash. We load up and I laugh to myself. I also thought to myself what endearing friends and family members have told me before about having all these kids; "If anyone can do it you can."

Thanks. :) They have no idea how meaningful those words are at times like this.
At that point I also realized the garden was not getting worked on this afternoon. There is always tomorrow.

Last week ~ and Father's Day

The above picture is of the kids doing sand art outside last week.

Last week was a great week. Aside from a seriously needy Penelope and grouchy moody Layla (both kids have been sick) last week was so productive. At the time I was having a hard time dealing with the girls, but in hindsight we accomplished so much and the week unfolded into a routine of homeschool, housework, outside fun, arts, and gardening.

I taught the boys how to clean the bathrooms, all the kids have newer "more advanced" household chores. I've struggled with taking the time to show them how to do more housework because it's just faster if I do it myself. That sort of attitude just hurts them and me though!

Father's Day was spent grilling on the new BBQ we got for dad and playing outside. We had what we called an old fashioned Father's Day; playing in the garden hose, kiddie pools, grilling, making organic homemade vanilla ice cream, and we left the air conditioning off and used a box fan in the house to keep cool. By 4:30 P.M. However, this barefoot and pregnant mama had enough of no air and turned it on. We then settled down on the floor and watched a season of Punky Brewster. We love getting old shows from netflix. They are so much fun for the kids (and us) plus we can introduce them to good story plots and wholesome lessons. They just don't make TV like that anymore.

Ricky seemed to have a very nice Father's Day. I'm so glad. He is such a great dad to these guys. They are lucky children. And I, a very lucky woman.

Lasagna Garden

We didn't water yesterday... and by yesterday evening the temperature dropped significantly outside and a beautiful thunderstorm rolled in. So did wind. Ricky and I found ourselves running around the lasagna garden picking up newspapers that were blowing far away into the woods. Ricky started spraying the dried papers with a hose because it wasn't yet raining. Once the rain started and he sprayed they were weighed back down and they stayed put. (I was supposed to put hay on them already but haven't yet! Once I do they will stay put!!)

The day before yesterday the kids and I finally planted our starter plants. We planted tomato, cantaloupe, watermelon and zucchini. We have seeds to plant today if the storm blows through (it's still storming this morning). We hope to get some sunflowers, cucumbers, green beans, and lettuce in the ground. Since we are planting so late I'm going to order some fertilizer from Gardens Alive in hopes for a bountiful harvest this year.

Photo Below: Lasagna garden layered with newspaper, cardboard, old leaves, old cloth diapers and retired corn from our play-corn-bin. We will add hay this week. You can spot a row of tomatoes to the far left. When you are ready to plant in your garden you just dig up a spot and go! We have nice top soil under here already, but if we didn't we'd have to wait for this to break down more. Next year when we start at a new spot it won't be this fast because we will be starting with little soil. The debris helps stomp out weeds (it suffocates them) while creating a nice home for worms and mulch for the garden.