Total Odds and Ends

Not a lot of time to post, but wanted to add these odds and ends.  I've been talking about purging the house for some time now.  We've done some work, but it has been taking WAY too long.  So I had to lay down the law :-)  No going anywhere, or having people over UNTIL ***ALL*** the purging is done, in every room of our house.  So there :-P  I know it is going to be a whirl wind couple of weeks until the new year.  I have a lot of new things planned to be added into our school semester, one of which is not spending all day doing chores!  I think the girls are excited about some of the new things.  I am sure some of it won't be so exciting.  Isabella told me last night she was excited to start a Book of Centuries, a Book of Firsts and for us to put on a play.  The girls were talking last night which book (one of their literature books or a Shakespeare play) that they want to do.  I told them they would make up the play, make costumes, and that we could get some white sheets from the thrift store for them to paint scenes on.  Anyways, all of this will not be accomplished if we find ourselves having to constantly clean the mass messes around here.  I told them that after the purging we will be instituting a schedule for school time so that one girls will be with the boys at all times.  It's the little guys that make the most messes.  Both those measures should help.  Off to exercise (making progress!) and clean.  Here are some odd placed pictures:

 After we made our jars we set them out on our porch one night.  We stood out there for a prayer time and then made some hot chocolate (half gaps legal...no cocoa is allowed, but we used almond milk and  honey for the other ingredients).  I've really enjoyed having these colorful jars around.  We need to light them up again.  We've just been so busy we haven't thought about it.

 Another picture of jars.  Are you all getting tired of seeing our jars yet :-)  Hopefully  not.  There are more jars below...but with a different purpose.

 Ahhh, now this would be some great jar content!  Fermented salsa.  I made 6 quarts, and all of it's gone.  Granted this picture is older...maybe a month or more.  That was a lot of chopping!  I bought some more ingredients to make up a couple more quarts.

 I was having a huge fermenting/whole foods cooking day that day.  Along with the salsa I was making yogurt (in the green crock) and chicken stock in the black crock.  I also was soaking beans and making a new fermented beverage....

 Beet Kvass!   I have one word for it...YUCK!  Ha!  However yucky it is it is supposed to be a huge liver purifier.  I keep forgetting to drink it because it's so unpleasant.  Maybe it's saltiness has subsided by now?  One can hope.

And this my friends is what my kitchen looks like when I do a whole bunch of fermenting and cooking.  Don't worry, it got all cleaned up....a few hours later :-)

Moira's Mouse

Moira asked me to ask everybody to see her mouse which she wants everybody to go to her blog to see "Squeaky" which is a crocheted mouse that is very adorable. Here is a sneak peek

This is "Squeaky"

 

 

That's all for now.

Love,
Me

Play Time in the Cold

Please note that "cold" is a relative term :-)  It was a whopping 50 degrees out the other day.  You'll see that in some ways our time is the same.  Some things differ, like when Jonah catches on that it is much colder than the day before.  Jeremiah helped to load the pictures and decided to add captions to them.  I decided to leave his up (His will be in black) and to add mine as I had planned (in blue).

 My new Danskin clogs

See, layers were in order.  Hey, you Northerners....you know you can get hypothermia in 50 degree weather don't you?

Aubrey exploring... dirt.

This little boy's footsies had to be covered...no baby toes to admire.

Aubrey sharing his rock

Aubrey learning to share.  I'm sure it is easier to do so with a rock, let's see if it transfers over to when he has some ice cream :-)

Flannery's left foot, painted nails

Sandals are still in use in these parts.

Carefully making hopscotch fun

Hopscotch in miniature.

A girl and her grid

This game of hopscotch was done in jackets and shoes!

Shoes definitely not required

Apparently the shoes didn't last long.

I'm, like, reading

We have a wide variety of activities we do when we are outside.  Running, building, creek wading are popular, but every once in a while it's nice to be outside with a good book.

Uhhh, yeah, still reading

You can't see me!

Trying to keep warm as we wait for friends to arrive.

Peak-a-boo!

Unfortunately our friends were not able to make it.  So instead we just took some pictures. 

Austere pre-teen

Moira while waiting.

Jonah cuddling up

Jonah finally figured out that it was cold outside.  He went in to grab some blankets.  It was soon after this that we headed inside as everyone was chilled to the bone.

Yep, still reading... and Jonah is cuddling up

Jonah tried to share Bella's blanket first, but then he decided he needed his own (as seen above).

There you have it.  Our weekend was rounded off with church and hanging out around here.  I've gotten a ton of their school planning done so far, but more is needed to be done.  The reason it is taking so long is that I am trying to incorporate two curriculums together.  We are also putting in the other 'subjects' that we were not doing last semester.  And because we hadn't been doing them it is taking me some time to figure out how to best approach them so that our days run smoothly.  I'll show my new schedule when it gets done.  We are taking a mini break from school for the rest of the year. The oldest two have one more science class (it resumes in January), and the girls will be doing one math lesson daily (as they are behind).  Other than that my focus will be to get their schedule done and to finish our decluttering.

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The Christmas Pictures

So we set up a little area in our bathroom (which has the brightest light in the house), to take some pictures.  Isabella mentioned how we should get some professional pictures taken for Christmas. Well that just wasn't going to happen.  So before I knew it the girls pulled out their makeup and dresses and asked to get their pictures taken here at home.  We put up a white bed sheet and taped some Christmas lights to the sheet for some sparkly glow.  I'm not sure if the glow effect worked as well as we hoped, but we did get some nice pictures.  You may have already seen these on the girls' blogs, but if not, here they are:

Isabella

Moira

Flannery.  For some reason she didn't want to give a big smile.

Saoirse, who is looking much older than her 7 years.

Jedidiah.  Scrapes, bumps and all :-)

His pictures are on the dark side as I didn't edit them yet.

Jonah

It was impossible to keep this boy in one spot!

Aubrey

Cute as usual :-)

Christmas Pictures, trial run

In photoshop my pics were looking digitized, so I am posting some here to see how they show up.  Sometimes weird things happen in other programs, but work out fine on another venue.

 

And make sure to take a look at Isabella' blog to see a lot more pictures!

games

Any guesses as to which outside game the girls decided to play?  I think the first picture gives it away.  It was supposed to rain this afternoon...we're still waiting for it to start.  So we got outside earlier than normal.  It was a balmy 70 degrees out.  After the rain it's only going to be in the low 50's.  Brrrr :-)  We were supposed to run a couple of errands, but were locked out of our van.  One errand will wait till tomorrow, the other, well they came to us.  We had company over and they left behind something.  It was a wonderful time of fellowship.  Take a peek at our outside time.

Does this give our game away?

The making of the game.  Since we don't have a hard surface and chalk we have to draw our game this way.

Someone's hop, hop, hopping.

Another hopper, with two very attentive siblings who are making sure the rules are adhered to.

Turn over.

Shoes are not required.  Yes, it is December.

Flannery's turn.

Waiting.

Camo and butterflies.  Hmmm.

This little guy is no longer content to stay in my arms when we are outside.

Look at him go!

Oh the faces :-)

Mmmm, dirt.

Must. Have. Baby. Feet.

Yet another attempt for a group shot.  I only got this one picture as my camera battery gave out.  Bummer.  Try, try again.