Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Contentment

It has been difficult being content in our current house. I am an ideas person and a do-er so once I decide something, I'm all in. I decided several years ago that I wanted an acreage and so I was finished living here and frustrated that we had to stay.

I had an "ah-ha" moment yesterday and realized that I'm okay not having an acreage. I like my house and know there is a lot of potential here. I am in no position to take care of livestock and homesteading takes time. We're not quite where we want to be financially and I don't want to be stuck with an acreage and a crappy house that we can't afford to fix up.

So. I'm finally content and it feels great.

We will eventually have some land and, I hope, a terrific house that my husband will have built. Until that happens, I'm going to make the most of our current house and see how much food we can grow on our little suburban homestead (what that sentence really translates to is that my husband has a lot of projects to accomplish around here and I will continue to add to them with wild abandon).

Saturday, October 13, 2012

The Fun School, Week 12

Math: Maeve worked on mental math and is quite good. She's still adding and subtracting, but she's half way through Singapore 1A and is getting it. Yay!

Language: Did some lessons out of Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind. Worked on handwriting. Read several books to her brothers and picked out a lot of library books and read those too. Maeve and Finn also did their first crosswords puzzle.

Science: Started learning about birds. Read about birds in general, birds that can't fly, and penguins. We'll stick with penguins for a bit since Finn loves them. We've started reading through the Magic Tree House research guide about penguins. I need to see if I have Eve of the Emperor Penguins and if not, I'll get it from the library. Maeve has lost interest in geeking out about frogs since they are all hibernating so we're sticking with Sonlight for science.

Finn got a library card which was a very big deal to him.

I worked on number recognition with Oren and he has no interest. No interest in the alphabet either. I need to put together a construction/building unit for him.

Tillie is learning how to crawl. Lord help me.


Secret Homemaking Society

I am a sorority girl at heart (Alpha Gamma Delta for those interested) and think it would be fun to create a homemakers sorority. We could have a secret hand shake, knock, song, and this could be our creed:

I believe that homemaking is a noble and challenging career.
I believe homemaking is a art that requires many different skills.
I believe homemaking requires the best of my efforts, my abilities, and my thinking.
I believe home reflects the spirit of the homemaker.
I believe home should be a place of peace, joy, and contentment.
I believe no task to is too humble to the cleanliness, the order, the health, the well being of a household.
I believe  a homemaker must be true to the highest ideals of love, loyalty, service and religion.
I believe home must be an influence for the good in the neighborhood, the community and the country.

found here

What do you think? Anyone with me?  

Friday, October 12, 2012

Christmas Stockings

I found a few neat stocking stuffer ideas for the kids.
Bedtime passes
Snowman poop
Coloring case
52 things
Photo books - I buy cheap, small photo albums and fill them with pictures of each kid. It's a review of all of the fun we had that year and my kids love looking at the pictures.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Motherhood

I love these. I don't remember where the first excerpt came from, but the second is from a blog called Chocolate on my Cranium.

"When I’m faced with bickering siblings, a demanding child, a burnt dinner, a telephone ringing…all at the same time…I deeply feel my inadequacy and lack of spiritual goodness. I want to lash out and grumble and throw the phone across the room~ :) I want to use strong emotions to communicate and change the situation! But if anything good is going to come out of me, I must rely solely on God’s grace in that particular instant.

Truth is, we all have a well we draw from. The poor in spirit draw only from the well of God’s grace. When life’s demands come knocking, we could pay with strong emotions, withdrawal, self-reliance, control, and many other fleshly solutions. But in time, the Lord will bring us to realize these are worthless, damaging, inadequate, and undesirable.

That is when we can learn a different way, the way of paying with grace.

The Kingdom way of living is relying each moment on the grace of God to lead, enable, and sustain. It is drawing deep on Him, breathing in and breathing out, trusting His sufficiency and goodness to be enough. And He does not disappoint.

So today, when you need to “pay out” to meet life’s demands, draw on Him (and maybe tuck this scripture away in your back pocket?)

“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.”    II Corinthians 9:8"



"Motherhood isn't - as many may think - an easy vocation. To do it properly, to do it well, is increasingly difficult in a world that is steaming towards ever loosening morals and steadily chipping away at traditional family values. To make a stand and refuse to allow such things to seep into your home and affect the developing hearts and minds of your children is hard work.

In the eyes of our Heavenly Father, motherhood is higher than any walk of life. The world tries to tell women, "Do something important with your life." God says, "What is important is sitting at the dinner table staring at you." Children are not an interruption of your life's work, they are your life's work. The greatest vocation is found in the hungry eyes of an infant, the inquisitive stare of a child, the hopeful gaze of a youth, the confident stride of a teenager, and the independence of a young man or woman stepping beyond the bounds of home for the first time."

Monday, October 8, 2012

The Fun School, Week 11

This was a week filled with beautiful weather so we took advantage if it and spent a lot of time outside. It was great.

Freaking Tomatoes

 This is only half of all of the tomatoes we cleared out of the garden. I gave away two sacks and will be canning the rest when they ripen. I'm about done with this canning business and ready to hunker down and relax in front of my wood burning stove.

Monday, October 1, 2012

The Fun School, Week 10

Maeve is fast at adding and subtracting! She can add double digits (she doesn't know how to carry yet) too. She finished her subtraction dollar section workbook so we'll go back to Singapore. I am very proud of her.

We talked and read about germs, noses, and eyes last week. We're reading from the Usborne Book of Knowledge. The kids haven't been doing the worksheets that go along with what we cover, but I'm happy they are at least listening and engaged.

Most of our learning lately has been happening in bits and pieces throughout the day. The kids got a physics lesson the other day about motion and the importance of seat belts. We researched and set up a habitat for Prairie lizards. We talked about our neighborhood, landmarks, and our address. We read from Little House in the Big Woods. We hiked and collected seeds. We planted tulips and daffodils. We worked in the garden. The weather has been great lately so I haven't been pushing the organized learning too much. I know that this season will soon pass and the kids will be stuck inside.