My, my I've been a slacker at the blogging thing.  Hope you had a wonderful Christmas - we did - hubby's parents were able to come up, and my family lives right around here, so we all had fun being together.  We are a family of pranks and have gifts that show themselves year after year - we have to creatively figure out ways to "stick" people with them and this year was no different.  I will not go into all the details, but we did enough laughing to last all of 2009!!  Most of it at my Dad's expense - he was a great sport! 

I always try to allow extra time off from school during the weeks leading up to Christmas - that way I'm not stressing about the things that need to be done and barking at the kids to hurry with their work - learned that the hard way a couple of years ago - not pretty and very unproductive for all of us!  So we go  little longer in the summer to make up with it and it works.  We've been back in the swing of things since New Years and I'm glad to have our routine back.  E is still working in the same books and moving along nicely.  T is learning to read (using 100 Easy Lessons) and is so excited that he can read a few words - like me and see...

I've been looking through seed catlogs planning this years garden - I'm excited to do some things differently and try to grow different things.  We've sold both of our litters of rabbits and now are back to 4 adults - betting there will be babies again soon!  Our chickens are doing well, as is the turkey.  The goats are hating all the rain we've been getting over the last month - I look out back to 3 heads sticking out of their barn hoping that not 1 drop of rain will get on them!  Delilah is blossoming - we're hoping for babies at earliest the end of March, but more likely April.

At church this last week the sermon was on resolutions - most of them fail, but we keep making them - lose weight, exercise, read my Bible more, .....the list goes on.  He put a nice spin on the resolution idea - we can do nothing on our own (that is hard to swallow at times) and unless we're looking to God we can make resolutions until the cows come home and they won't stick - we may get 1 right, but for how long.  The resolution we can make - 2 words - "Follow Him"!  If we do that the pieces of our life will pull together - strength will be given and we will make it on Gods terms.  just thought it was a good reminder for myself that my priorities may be different than His.

A little over a week ago we had our annual Thanksgiving Feast at our coop.  Each year there is a theme and this year it was Little House on the Prairie.  The parents set up different stations that will teach the kids about something from that time period.  The learned to make butter, applesauce, grind corn, what a school house would be like, how home life was, what crafts or games may have been played....the kids traveled in "families" - the Ingalls, Olsens...Older kids are paired with younger ones so they can help one another.  Following the 2 hour station rotation we had a potluck lunch and a program to salute our military.  The kids did a great job.  We are so blessed to have a great group of Christian families at our coop.  Great friendships for the kids and myself!

To prepare for Thanksgiving at home we did a Thanksgiving lapbook and have been reading books about traditions, the first Thanksgiving, and the history of that time.  I had the boys draw a picture of a tree with just branches on a piece of poster board.  We've been adding leaves everyday and on each leaf writing something we're thankful for - family, Jesus, food, pets, water...  They look lovely!  Happy Thanksgiving!

We've become an MSG free house this week.  My friend Cindy has long shared the health problems that MSG causes and once you begin to look - it's in everything!!  It is added to food so that not as much of the real spices, etc need to be added - it "helps" the flavor out - and with it helps you health out - out the window!  So she inspired me and I did it!  Got rid of the taco mixes, hamburger helper kits, the soups.....anything full of MSG.  I searched around on the web and found out  how to make taco and chili seasoning, how to make a hamburger helper starter, my own shake n bake, and cream of whatever soup.  While I was on a roll I went ahead and made up some "starter" for biscuits, cake, waffles, pizza crust...I must confess that I do not like cooking.  I would pick a McDonald's hamburger any day if it meant I did not have to cook, but I kinda like making my own stuff - I feel free - full of cooking power - There is no thrill for me in opening a box of noodles, a jar of spaghetti sauce and browning some meat -  but now that I'm using my own canned tomatoes (if you've ever canned tomatoes you can appreciate the journey there!) and my own special seasoning -I'm the MAC cook - the family might not agree, but that's my take on it!  Regardless, we're eating better and kicking a few more chemicals from our system and I might have discovered something new to enjoy (maybe!).

Well, while we were shaking away these new spices, T left the room and when I went to look for him I was greeted with this sight. 

I said, "What are you doing?"  He said, "WHAT?"  and flashed his grin, "I'll put them back, I just wanted to look at my clothes!"  (I might add that I had just the day before nicely folded and sorted all his clothes in his drawers)!  My job is never done! 

After watching our goats waste enough hay the men in the house went to work on a new project- a hay manger.  They spent several hours developing their plan, measuring, cutting, hammering and the next day we painted - They did a fine job for building it using there own "plans" and had so much fun!  Here are the little woodworkers..

Trick or Treat is over and we are still on the sugar high!  The boys had fun carving pumpkins and dressing up for a day of fun with some friends!  E was a sniper and T was an Army medic.  The town near us has trick or treat downtown from 1-3 - the business' pass out candy - 1 advantage to being homeschooled - doing your candy fun in the daylight while everyone else is in school!!!!  So we met some of our homeschool friends and beat the streets in search of the best candy.  At lunch the boys - ages 4, 9, 9 and 10 had a very intelligent conversation about the upcoming election - luckily they were all for McCain - it could have been ugly otherwise!  As they ran in store front after store front, the other Mom with me realized that the boys had gone into the Obama headquarters to get candy - when they came out she said," Did you see where you just got candy?"  The boys turned around and made the most hideous sounds as they sank their shoulders and said," We can't eat that candy, yuck!!"  It was hilarious!!

R had a work party tonight at a coworkers house.  The kids enjoyed playing football and basketball, the adults corn hole and triva.  We're all sitting around talking and T appears with a kitten in his hands.  It's about 6 weeks old and has taken up residence at the coworkers house, but they didn't really want her.  4 hours later our child has fed this kitten a hamburger, ice for water and has not let the paws touch the ground.  He's sold and ready for her to come home with us.  Our cat was recently hit, so he thought it would be a good replacement, 4 year old logic!  The coworker produced kitten food, feed dish, toys, liter and liter box for T to take his new baby home with...how could we say no after all the love he had given this baby?  She is so gentle and loves the kids messing with her, even the often rough hands of a little man.  T has named her Cheetah.  I'll be calling her kitty, kitty, it's just easy to say!  One day we may have to learn to say "NO" to every little "free" animal that comes our way, but we have been blessed to have so many good experiences with the boys, things that they will never forget.   Hatching chicks from eggs, holding baby bunnies that are just hours old and gobbling at a turkey that always answers...we could be a "priceless" commercial!
 

Court Days is a little festival that takes place in a town nearby - I had never been until this year.  The news always shows people walking around with 2-3 guns looking to trade or sell, cages with animals, funnel cake booths at every corner and the biggest flea market you can imagine, well, it's true.  I was a little dissapointed that we did not pack a gun just to "fit in"!  We snickered a little, OK, a lot, and enjoyed looking at lots of things that could only be described as, "another man's treasure".  People were carrying around their newly purchased chickens, some in cages, some in the arms of a loving child.  Well all my laughing came back to get me - guess what we loaded in the back of our truck??  A new goat and a turkey!!  The buck we needed since we hope that our female goat will have babies so we can milk her - the turkey - another story.  E spent his allowance to purchase the Tom - his feet tied with his head sticking out of a feed sack, he made the trip home...on E's lap!  E kept saying that he was sweating to death - we found out that turkeys have a normal temp of 106 - that was a hot lap!  So our new additions have been named Koda the turkey and Chance the goat.  It has been fun to step out on the deck and hear a gobble from the field.  Our little hodge podge farm is coming right along!

                                              Koda

                              Deliah with Chance

First, here is the picture I took the day we started back to our homeschool coop - our "first day of school" pic.

I've needed to be creative with motivating E to read - he has such a drive to learn, but this reading thing is hard work for him.  I will say that it is much better than before, but once he's completed school work for the day the idea of free reading does not come close to making the list of things to do! So we started with a baseball chart - he earns a baseball for every non school reading he does.  If it is an easy book - he gets 1 ball - if it is a chapter book (with lengthy chapters), one chapter equals 1 ball.  It takes 10 balls to get to first base.  To make it home 40 balls!!  At each base he can pick something to do, so for 1st-3rd bases he chose extra time with each one of us - me at 1st, T at 2nd, Daddy at 3rd and home plate he chose going to Gattitown (pizza/game place) - well worth a trip there if he gets all 40 balls!  It is working well - he takes it in spurts - one day he may try to get 2-3 balls and then he takes a few days off - that's OK, the big thing is he's doing it!  Here's what our chart looks like:

We've also created a little reading area under E's bunkbed.  His reading books are under there and some comfy animals to lay on.  The boys like to make this a fort and use a flashlight to read - whatever works!  I also made T a chart - he gets baseballs for listening to books - Everything is the same except he wants to go bowling at home plate!  Better save my money!

We were lucky enough to grab a few days away for a trip to TN.  We met hubby's parents for the weekend and then stayed several more days to enjoy time away.  We had a great time time with R's parents and enjoyed swimming and hiking together!  After they headed home we spent more time swimming and went hiking at Falls Creek Falls State Park - it was neat, but the falls were almost waterless - it's been to long without rain!  We did cross a hanging bridge - T and I were chickens - we made it across with lots of heckling from Hubby and E and some not so"gentle" jumping they provided to add to our terror!  We did quite a bit of fishing - E seems to have a fishing gift - everyone else worked hard to try and catch something - he's just flick his line in and the fish would line up to get on his hook!  He started saying he was the fishing KING - we busted that bubble pretty quickly!  The best news of the whole trip - E was baptized!  He has been talking about it for some time, but we wanted to make sure he really "got" what he was doing.  We've talked a lot about it and he was ready!  So, way to go E!  

My parents have been doing some "home improvement" projects which include leveling their yard.  This has produced quite a nice mountain of dirt.  When we were there the other day the boys had 2 small paper cups, 2 sticks and lots of motivation - they spent 4 solid hours playing in the dirt pile.  I have decided that since they enjoyed that so much that Santa should just deliver a dump truck load full of dirt to our house on Christmas.  Here are the hard workers!  The pictures do not do the amount of dirt on their bodies and clothes justice!

Oh, forgot to add that they "surfed" down the hill on what little bit of sod they could find - Fun to watch as the sod stopped and they kept going down the hill!

Our animal nursery is coming along and all baby animals are growing up.  All was well until we noticed that 1 of our 2 male bunnies was collecting nesting materials - ummmmmmm, yeah, he is a she and she just had 7 babies yesterday - They look great - lesson learned - the 3 "free" bunnies that we started with after Easter that we were told were all boys, ooopppps!  And for believeing them we now have a total of 17 bunnies!!  So we've scrambled to make a place for our new crew - they look good - bad news, we are going out of town and our neighbors will be taking care of more than they thought!  Here are the new guys and our older baby bunnies - they look huge in comparison!

Hubby was working at Keeneland race track last Friday for the horse sales and we went for a visit - An eye opening experience - I've lived in KY my whole life and this was my first visit to the horse track.  The boys picked up lots of books - one listed the horses available for sale (it listed the horses parents, grandparents, great grand parents and how much money each had won) , we also had a book that was a dummies guide to buying a horse, since we are horse dummies that was helpful!!  It told you what their legs should look like, etc.  The horses were walked from corral to corral before they were taken into the selling area.  E loved sizing up the horses and trying to guess how much they would sell for - he got pretty good at it.  He listed his favorites and then wrote down their selling price.  The most expensive horse of that day - $83,000.00 - the cheapest - $1200.00.  E asked if he could bid - I said, um, NO!!  keep your hands down!  Probably should have taught auction rules prior to arrival!

We started classes back at our coop last Monday.  I'm teaching the 1-2 and 3-4 grade boys again.  We are starting with fishing - I set up a target and they divided into teams and got points for hitting the target while casting- they had a good time!  We're going to learn how to tie different knots, how to use weights and bobbers, tie on hooks, put on a worm and how to take a fish off.  We'll do some safety tips and each boy will go home with a fishing pole they made.  We're also learning a Bible verse every week.  I think we will have another fun year!

Here are just some pics - the boys still love to dress up and one night decided our poor dog needed to play too - Poor Duma, she had fun running around and we cracked up at this pic of her!

We did some fishing with my parents a few weeks ago and the boys, once again had to coordinate their outfits!

 School is going well - E decided during our writing book exercise that he wanted to learn how to write cursive - In hind sight I wish I would have taught this to him sooner!!  He does not reverse letters as much as he once did, but cursive does not allow letter reversals - he said after writing a few sentences, " this is alot easier than that other way - I don't have to pick my pen up to think."  He's enjoying learning about the solar system and looks most forward to his writing book - never would have thought I'd say that!  We've been playing "pumpkin toss" to drill our times tables - mostly counting right now - I start by saying 3 and toss to him - he says 6 toss back....We go through all the numbers doing this - the action of standing up and moving helps it stick for him.  T gets in on the game and we count to 20 - still says 7 every time he gets to 5 - but hopefully we'll break that habit!

E has always gone dove hunting with his dad, but this was E's first year to be the guy shooting the gun.  It was also T's first year to join the hunt, filling the role of the bird finder or acting like a dog!  The boys required Dad to wear head to toe long sleeve camo with his orange vest - they all needed to match!  Here are the brave hunters before we left for the shoot.

E was very proud when he returned to our friends house (my friend and I skipped all the action - went to the Dollar Store...alone!!)  and ran through the door saying, " I'm a better shooter than Daddy - he missed a bunch!"  The little fellow got his limit and was very proud of himself!

We've been doing some construction projets - the boys wanted to build a stand for the goats to stand on - so they came up with a plan - they cut and nailed all the wood and the goats are very happy to have something to jump on and lay on.  Here is Lucky with T on the stand.

We then set out to build a hay rack.  I explained to E what they look lie and he said, "I think I have a better idea."  And off to work he went.  He sawed by hand every board (very hard work for those arms), but refused to let me use the table saw to help.  And had his brother hold boards while he hammered.  Here is the builder with his finished work.

Good job E and T!

In the last 2 weeks we have added 2 new chicks, bringing our grand total up to 7 and a litter of baby bunnies, born on Labor Day - 7 of them.  Here are the baby bunnies the day they were born.

No hair, blind and deaf - they are so ugly they are cute!  I love that they look like they are hugging each other.  They change quickly!  This is at 6 days old.

Here they are huddled up at 9 days old.

Day 10 they open their eyes and are exploring their crate - they are huge now at 2 weeks old.  They are so sweet!  Every morning we go to the garage and clean cages, refill food and water containers and I get all the babies out and check them - Momma bunny did not like this at first, stomping her foot at me.  After I would return the babies to the crate, she would go in and check them and let them nurse.  Everything you read about rabbits says they nurse 1 time a day and it is usually early in the morning - I can assure you that my "early morning" and a true early morning are not the same thing, so she allowed us to see her nurse her babies.  A real treat!

Here are the 5 older chickens - not as cute any more, but we look forward to their egg laying start in a few months!

So our garage is full of animal baby crates and no we cannot park the car in it, but we are having much fun with our little brood!

Well, the first day back to school was good, we made it!  Here's what E's days will look like:

Monday - our coop(which starts back after Labor Day), Reading, Bible, Great Composers   (music - learning about and listening to the great composers) - after Christmas we will change from music to art and use Discovering Great Artists

Tuesday - Reading (we follow a model developed by Dianne Craft for R brained learners/dyslexic's  - we have come up 1 1/2 to 2 grade levels in reading since using her materials (including the Merrill readers she suggests), First Language Lessons 3, Bible, Story of the World 3 for history, Saxon  Math 5/4, Spelling Power.

Wednesday - Reading, First Lang Lessons, Bible, Spelling Power, Saxon Math, Exploring Creation by Apologia - about the Solar System.

Thursday - same as Tuesday

Friday - same as Wednesday, skipping the First Lang lessons

For writing I've taken a composition book and taped different pictures from magazines on each page - mostly about deer hunting, ball, war, etc - then we'll come up with a writing plan for each pic - my plan was to do this just 2-3 times a week, but E loves it - I think because his creative abilities are free and he's writing about things he loves.  He actually wanted to do 2 pages today and wants to do this everyday he says!  Seeing as writing is so labor intensive for him I am singing big praises that we've found a way to unleash his abilities!

We've also got to tackle cursive writing or I'd like to try - I'm going to wait just a little while before I throw that at him.  I want to get very established in our routine before I go and change the methods!

T is 4 and wants to keep busy with his "school work" too!  I love the way he says it!  So, I'm keeping him busy cutting, pasting, and coloring.  He likes to write letters and numbers and is remembering the names of many of them.  We're using cookie sheets with magnetic letters - I write a word out and he finds the letters and makes the word on his pan!  He wears me out wanting to do this. 

E is enjoying Upward soccer..what makes it different from league soccer?  They practice only 1 time per week and have 1 game per week.  They learn a Bible verse every week and get a star to place on a soccer poster when they learn the verse.  They have a devotion time during practice and the games.  The teams are evenly divided so that kids of all different abilities are evenly placed on each team - they have a "try out" where they have them do a series of "drills" and that is how the kids are divided.  Every area has different sports available - soccer, cheerleading, basketball, flag football....we've done basketball a couple of years and love it too.  It is nice to be involved in something that does not demand all of your family time, but exposes the kids to different skills.

I am presently holding chick # 5!!  Yeah!  We're getting this hatching thing down now!  We helped baby #4 escape his egg - it was amazing!  The kids loved it.  We made him a nest of towels and laid him on the heating pad after drying him off a little.  Look at the difference in the 2 chicks that are 5 days old and the baby that is not quite 1 day old.  (Those are the first three)  The 2 oldest have already started growing their real feathers on their wings!  This has been a great experience - it is nice to let the boys see what nature can do - all baby chicks don't come from the post office or Tractor Supply!

We're looking forward to getting back in the full school groove on Monday - "looking forward" may not be the right wording, but sorta.  It's been a good summer, but more of a schedule will be good for all of us!

So far we are the proud parents of 2 baby chicks...so cool!  Both are black with a little white spot on their head - we have them in the house in a container under a light to keep them warm - Momma hen is still laying on her eggs, don't know if we will be lucky enough the have a few more babies or not, but we're enjoying the 2 we have!

Our garden is still doing very well - We have canned and frozen so many things!   Ziploc freezer bags and Mason jars are my new best friends - I gripe at them on a regular basis because I have to spend so much time with them, but am thankful that I am able to fill them up and store them away for the future! 

Have you been watching the Olympics?  We enjoyed watching the opening ceremony - quite a geography lesson to be learned by that - many countries that I had never heard of (I'm sorry to say) - We were watching swimming on Sunday night when the men's 400 relay pulled out an awesome gold at the wire - I thought that my children were going to be the youngest heart attack victims prior to that race ending!  Alright, I was screaming at the TV too.....We yelled and jumped around and celebrated like we had won the medal ourselves!  AWESOME!!  I remember as a child feeling that it was an honor to live in America and the Olympics pulls that out in us - When you ask the kids who they are cheering for, "Well the US, of course!"  This country has plenty of bad, but how lucky we are to live in a place where we can homeschool our children  - legally - go to the church of our choice - legally - and pray to God anytime we choose - legally!!  I feel lucky to live here! The National Anthem still chokes me up when I think of the sacrifice made by those that have come before!  So Go USA!!

I ordered E's school books for this year today and am so excited to greet the delivery man that will deliver my package - I love looking at the new books and coming up with my big plans for the year!  By Jan I have to get excited again, reality comes sneaking up, and I have to recharge my creative juices to finish out the year!   It will be good to get back in the groove again!

 We've had some excitement here...1 of our hens has been sitting on her eggs for almost 3 weeks now - which means baby chicks soon - she was off the nest for about 5 minutes today and I took the pleasure of counting her eggs - 16 EGGS!  The saying, "don't count your chicks before they hatch" probably is true, but this will be cool if even 1 lives! 

 I enjoyed sharing a surprise with the boys last Monday - Went out to see if by chance our eggs had hatched ( I know it was to soon, but I'm excited!) and saw a pile of white fur in one of the nesting coops (our bunnies stay with the chickens - they seem to like each other) - I was sick thinking that something had killed one of the bunnies - I went and opened the coop to see a nest covering 3 newborn bunnies, just hours old - Maybe this does not seem like a surprise to you, but when you think that all your bunnies are boys, well, babies are a bit of a surprise......all 3 babies ended up dying, because we could not figure out who the mom was quickly enough ( they only feed 1 time a day and are not with the babies all day - keeps the babies protected in the wild) - 1 of the males killed them, but now we know who she is and will be ready if, wishful thinking, should say when she has more babies.  The boys handled this all very well, better than I would have as a child!

Last but not least, a couple of weeks ago our family had a visitor - I had prayed about this visit, not looking forward to it, with the hopes that God could work through us to reach a couple of lost souls.  I prayed for many things as they related to the 4 of us, each of us having strengths and weakness.  As time passed during the visit I struggled to maintain a good attitude and had to leave the room and pray, not only for myself, but for E who was wearing thin from constant "joking".  I can hang with the best joker out there, but like my Dad always said,"all joking is not joking!"  Well, I prayed and recomposed myself and went back out.  God blessed me in an unexpected way, a 9 year old!  I cannot put into words what he said or did, but we found comfort in each other!  He was the ray of light that gave me the courage to do what I had to do!  I hope that we planted seeds for our visitors, but I relearned a lesson that I already knew - God often uses the young, weak, small to show his love.  When we turn it over to Him - he uses our "weakness" to show how mighty He is!  

Well, if they do count as a vege then we are in good shape!  Our garden is being so productive - we planted a little late and are now in the thick of things!  I've put up 18 quarts of pickles using the recipe that my Mom used when we were growing up - I had the cucumbers, onions, garlic and salt soaking in the kitchen sink - went outside - came back in - and Oh the smell!  I told R, " It smells like home!"  Took me back to my childhood days of pickle making!  It is funny how some smells throw you back!  We've flash frozen 15 quarts of cucumbers, 4 quarts of zucchini, and are munching on the few squash that we've picked so far.  In the next week to 2 we will have massive amounts of tomatoes ripe at the same time - they have been just giving a few each week so far - squash and zucchini coming out of our ears, as well as green beans!  A friend ours grows acres of corn and we will be picking 27 dozen ears to freeze next week !  Onions, carrots, and potatoes look good too!  It has been good for the boys to work in their "section" pulling weeds, etc.  E is very excited that the corn he planted is almost ready to pick - his pumpkins and green beans are doing well too.  Whenever someone comes over he says, " Want to see MY rows in the garden?" 

R and I were talking - if we could figure out how to use weeds for food - we would not even have to work at this thing!  They just sprout where they please, require no watering, don't care if they are crowded out by the weed next to them and bloom and reproduce like mad!  Hope you are gardening - How's your garden going?