Our Purging Weekend

So far so good.  Although I wish we made a bit more headway.  But every bit counts, right?  My laundry room looks awesome.  All the rooms got cleaned, and the girls say that they have all their things boxed up.  I'll go in there later to take things up to the attic.  Then we will have two rooms done, oh wait, no three, as they say their bedroom is done. 

After doing a bunch of work, we took a break and went outside...ya know, for some vitamin D :-)  I was thankful for a warm day.  I've got another sinus infection in the works, so I'm trying to cut it off with some sunshine, garlic and some echinacea/goldenseal pills.  Everyone has been, for the most part, feeling ok.  A couple of minor issues.  However, Saoirse is still having headaches, and feels dizzy, although not as often.  I think a trip to our holistic practitioner is in order.  I need to find out the root cause of it.  Otherwise I'm not sure how to address it.  The headaches started after we started the diet, and when she came down with croup.  Not sure if those are coincidences or not, but I would like to find out. 

When we went outside to day the baby was napping (Isa stayed in to listen out for him), and I took my camera.  Most of the time, like 95%  of the time when I am taking pictures I have a baby in my arms.  It's a nice change to have two arms free to take pictures.  Below are some of my two armed photos :-)

I love capturing the normal everyday things around here.  I have been trying different styles of photography to see what fits me best.  I love the photography style of SouleMama, and other 'real life' photographers.  I have another favorite, but her link is on the other computer.  The first thing Saoirse did was to gather up the eggs.  She didn't want to take them inside, so she spent half her outside time making a special spot for them...you'll see where at the end of this post.

 

Jonah and Jed spent most of their time chasing chickens.  Jonah was successful, Jed was not.

A chicken whisperer in the making?

Jonah found a seat to sit in to hang out with his catch.

I have a feeling that the good feelings are only one sided, especially when Jonah gets ideas....

...ideas like giving a chicken a ride.

I love the different colors of our Americanas.  Some are dark, like the one above, and some are a cream/yellow coloring.  Very pretty.

This is a Buff Orpington.  I just liked the set up, with the chicken running in the foreground, and a peek of Jonah running in the background.

I decided to check on what the other girls were doing.  You can see them in our woods.

They were goat sitting :-)  We let the goats out to get some roughage.

Flannery was working on something.

Banging away.

Gathering up rope.

Ta-da...a swing.  Now where to put it?

On a low lying limb.  However, there was a large stone under the swing. We persuaded her that it wasn't the most wisest of spots.

Moira was working on something as well, but I never found out what.

Sometimes things come out a bit blurry, or 'off'.  But I found that I still loved the 'captured moment', blur and all.

It's not about the perfect shot.  It's being there.  Hanging out with my kiddos and taking a snap every now and again.

I enjoy trying to capture different angles.

Capturing life.  That's what it's about.

I really love this one.

Time to head back to the other kiddos.  Saoirse, Jed and Jonah are afraid of the goats.  So they stayed behind the fence.  Jonah was hanging on the fence trying to see what we were up to.

This one is pretty cute.

So here are those eggs we saw in the beginning.  Saoirse made a nest for them.  Yes, a nest.  But where was this nest?

Ah, yes, of course.  In the jogging stroller.  Thankfully this is a play stroller :-)

Organizing School

I'm sure I mentioned in the beginning of our school year that I did things differently this time around.  I really, REALLY love Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy.  I wanted us to succeed at implementing her methods.  We have a LONG way to go.  I still need to delve into her books to get a better grasp of all aspects of the philosophy.  Bit by bit!  Last year we tried our hand at the Charlotte Mason method, and it was pretty much a flop.  But it had nothing to do with the method, but with ME.  It got to be too overwhelming to try to find our place in multiple books.  Most were online, where a bookmark is not possible.  And with our real books, we kept losing the bookmarks!  Oy, what is an organizing mama wanabe to do?  Well, keep thinking of a way to make it work, that's what :-)  Over the summer I brainstormed.  Yes, this actually took brain power to do, I'm not organized by nature, so I actually had to sit and think on it.  I took my annual trip to McDonald's with my *huge* bag of books, pen, paper and other stuff.  I like to get away to plan our next school year, but I can only do so come night time (when babe is asleep), so that leaves little options open to me as to where I go :-)  Anyways, I sat and thought out what days we would read each book. Then I thought out how I was going to make it happen.  And here is what I came up with. 

For our online books:

I actually took screen shots to show you all, only because I am so computer illiterate that when people try to talk computers my mind spins.  I like visual.  So here is my visual tutorial on how I make this less painful to do during our school time:

Ok, above you see my screenshot into window's explorer on my laptop.  Below is where I normally access my folders, right on my desktop:

Those 'graphics' documents are not normally there, they are the graphics I'm using for this post!  Ha,ha.  So just ignore them.  Off on the right hand side you see our school folders.  We are still in the first trimester (3 weeks left), but I just got done organizing our second semester stuff, so that is there too.
From the top down, we have: Term 2 together (the things we do all together, like art study, and composer study), Year 3 AO-2 (Year 3 Ambleside Online, semester 2)...and I think you can figure out the rest from here.

If I were to click on the Year 3 AO-2 folder this is what I get:

Above you see the books I will be reading to Flannery and Saoirse for the second semester.  These are the books that are free online.  We will get a couple from the library as well.  If its time to read Children of the New Forest, I just give it a click and....

We come up with each week of the second semester.  On a sheet of paper, in my school organizer binder (tour of that coming up) I have which days of the week that we read each book.  If we are to read Children of the New Forest today, and we are in week 13, I just click on the week 13 folder.  When I do that we get this:

We see we will be reading chapters 1 through 3.  When I click on the above document it opens in Word.  And off we go to read! 

This does mean that I have to separate each online book into separate documents.  Most of the books on our schedule tell you how many chapters you are to read each week.  Some just tell you to read 1/12 of the book for the week, leaving the guess work up to me.  It took me a couple of nights to do our first semesters planning.  But I was able to do the second semester in a couple of hours, now that I know what I am doing. 

What do I do with our real books?  How do I keep track of what page we are on?  Colored paper clips!  And when I have two girls in the same book, but on different pages, I just use two different colors :-)

The yellow one is for Saoirse, and the orange one is for Flannery.  This is their phonics book.

See?  I just flip to the page with the paper clip, and the side of the clip that is more like an 'arrow' is the page we need to read.  Something this simple makes my life so much easier!

Now for a look into my school binder.  I have a simple 1" or 1/2" yellow floppy 3 ring binder.  The first two pages are for the order in which we do things, and which days we read their books.  Above is Year 6 (Isabella and Moira).  The things in orange we do together (all four girls).  Then the older girls go off to do the rest of the things on the list.  I read to the younger two girls, and help them with the things they can't do on their own.  We have not been doing spelling like we should, I plan on making sure to get that in there for the second semester.  I really like the All About Spelling program, I just need it to work for our family.  I don't do well when I have to go all around the house grabbing our school stuff.  We plan on doing our big house purging this weekend, I am hoping that I can find a way to make some of our other schooling things work for us.  I also need to work Jedidiah into the works.  There is a year 0 I believe, that I may start Jed and Jonah off with.  I think Jed would do well with regular phonics lessons. 

After the daily schedule, are our attendance records.  There is one for each girl. I blocked off the top that has private information :-)

After the attendance records I have a monthly calendar.  I have a whole year, and when I'm done with one month I move it to the back of the pack. 

After my monthly calendars I have this yearly one.  I use it to plan out our vacation days.  I make sure to do it in pencil as illnesses and other surprises come up and I need to rearrange things. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not strict with this!  But I do try to make sure we get our required 180 days of schooling in. 

All of the other above papers are in the first tab of my binder.  Behind the second tab you will find the detailed reading schedule for Ambleside Online that I got off of the Yahoo Group.  The one above is for Year 3, the first semester.  There are some books, mostly history, that we do not read.  Jeremiah has his own plans for history for the girls, so we go by a different reading plan. 

I didn't take pictures of the other things in my binder as there are only some blank schedule sheets, some scripture encouragement, and the GAPS protocol outline (the different stages). 

There you have it.  Finally finding my way in the sea of homeschooling :-) 

WOW!!!! Oh. My. Goodness.

Ok, I know, two posts in one day.  I just published my first post, then had to change Jed.  Like I said below, he's really been eating a lot lately.  His cheeks (before he got his fat lip) were looking more full.  so I decided to go ahead and weigh him.  Weighing Jed is still stressful to me for many reasons.  I almost fell over with the numbers I saw!!! It might not seem huge to some, but for Jed, this is HUGE!!  The last time I weighed him he was about 28.2 (or 28.4, I don't remember off the top of my head), but today he is 30.2!!!!  That's two pounds, TWO pounds in one month.  You have to understand that since we started this diet, only two months ago, he has now gained 4 pounds.  This is AMAZING!!!!  Jed gained all of 4 pounds for the WHOLE entire year (from August 2010-August 2011).  He just gained that in two months.  I have tears in my eyes.  This is like the icing on the cake, with all the other improvements we've seen in his behavior, and speech in these past two months.  There have been days when I really want to throw in the towel with this diet, but we've stayed the course.  I'm a realist though :-)  Jed has thrown us for so many loops that I don't hold my breath.  But I've learned to celebrate any steps forward that we do have.  And right now I'm celebrating.  I might just whip up some Vanilla White Bean Cake to celebrate!! Yup, I just might.....got to go make some cake!!

Family Pow-Wow

A quick update on Jed:  He seems to be doing much better.  His lip was noticeably less swollen this morning.  When I asked if it was hurting him, he said, no.  For the past few days (before this happened) he has really upped his food intake.  Please pray that would continue.  I would hate for the antibiotics to mess up any steps we've taken forward. 

Ok, we had our Family Pow-Wow.  It went well.  Much better than I had anticipated.  I think part of that was that the girls were able to deal with the blow that we were pulling them out of soccer, before we had our  meeting.  There are a few very hard decisions that we've had to make.  This has been hard on all of us.  We've even got some criticism from others about our decisions.  Let me repeat what I've said before....Parenting is HARD!  I don't pretend to know what I am doing.  I am sure some of our decisions are right on, and maybe others are not.  Either way, we are continually putting everything before the Lord.  And we know that He will guide us.  If we take a wrong turn, because we weren't listening, well He can help turn us around.  So what went on in our pow-wow? 

We told the girls that we've made many mistakes.  We told them that we wanted our family to operate in love.  We wanted to really focus on ALL of us changing our attitudes towards each other, and towards God.  With our current activities we didn't see that working...it hasn't so far.  So we explained that changes....lots of changes were going to need to happen.  We also told them that all changes were so that we could move on to do *more*, but for now we had to be living with a lot *less*.  We wanted them to know that what might seem as restrictive, was actually for our eventual growth and freedom.  I had come to the meeting with a list of ideas to implement and things that needed to change.  I wrote down everyone elses ideas that they had.  I think overall the meeting was a success.  Now Jeremiah and I need to sit down (this is going to take an on going commitment to our vision) and lay out the steps that we will take to reach our 'goal'.  Some things we figured out right away, others will take time to implement, or money to save to make the needed changes.  But we really wanted the girls to *see* for themselves that we do indeed have a plan and that we are working on it.  I think in the past we just kind of sprung it on them that things were changing, and they had no input.  Nor did we really stick to our plan, as we didn't have one!  Plus, we took things away, but replace them with good things in its place.  We made sure to take all of these past mistakes into account this time around. 

So why the changes?  Quite simply:  Our childrens' hearts.  We've already lost one of them, with a couple of more on the line.  We totally take responsibility for the state of our house.  It is our fault that we've let our children's hearts grow cold.  The biggest changes are for US, as in Jeremiah and myself.  We have not been loving our children as we should, nor encouraging them.  On top of that we've let a lot of outside influences in.  Some children can handle those things, IF they have been built up, and strong.  This is not the case for ours.  And as such, not only do we need to change, but we need to make a bunch of changes for the kids.  Below I've kind of listed out what our Pow-wow idea sheet looked like. 

A note though on some of the items.  Some of them may seem a bit odd.  But one thing we really have never worked in or towards is a family vision.  We don't have a clear cut one for now, but there a certain things I know we are working on.  I think a good model would be that the man and woman marry and they have a plan of sorts.  Something they are working on together.  Then the children come along and help them in that work.  That does not mean that they can't have their own things they want to pursue or enjoy, it just means that there is a family togetherness that works towards a similar goal.  For us, we never really had that, and the whole idea of each man (or kid) for themselves had moved in to our home.  Maybe that is how a lot of people live, but that has proven to be unsuccessful for our family.  Trust me, there are many days where I don't know which camp is correct.  And it makes it all the  more confusing to see our children failing, mostly because we've been trying to have one foot in each camp.  So we are trying to pull the one foot out, and move it into the one camp.  Anyways, when you see "dehydrating" on the list it may seem totally odd.  But that dehydrating is a part of what I deem 'family preparedness', and it is a goal I would like to see us implement, and do *together*.  So on to the list:

(These are not in any order!!  Just our thoughts thrown on to paper.)

Allowances
Scripture memory
bean chairs--chairs for their bedroom for us to do one on one Bible study
Abortion clinic--witnessing
Bulk cooking--to make a lot of this happen
4-H classes--we will look into, but only if as a family
Camping
Running/exercise as family
expand garden--to preserve and sell
Really working on taking care of our animals
Schedule--loose, but make sleep and meals consistent
Bare bones house--taking all, but essentials, and putting it into the attic
Huge cut backs on computer--no games for now
No library books until house in order--girls keep trying to sneak off to read instead of doing  their work
Tire or disk swing
Sand box
Practice frugality
Thrifting
Sewing/crochet, etc
Preparedness-dehydrating, planning, drills
Games--family night, board games, outside games
New rituals--ex: bonfire reading w/ hot cider, family read aloud
Home speech therapy
Art
Making books

That is the list.  Although I am sure we will be adding to it, and prioritizing it.  But at least we have something to work on.  Must go.  We've had a lazy morning.  Jeremiah took Moira on a field trip.  The rest of us kind of sat around :-)  Sometimes these things happen.  But off to work now! 

Prayers for Jed...and Me...and...

well, lets just make it for the whole family shall we? 

So, what's up with Jed?  It never is a dull moment around these parts.  Yesterday proved that all the more.  I was sitting in the family room, right outside the boys bedroom.  I heard this "thunk", or maybe more of a "thud", but it was quiet.  I was actually surprised to hear Jed start crying, as it didn't seem like whatever happened was that bad.  After the first couple of seconds of crying I could tell, this was more serious than I first anticipated.  I had the baby in my arms, I can't remember what I was doing with him, but I couldn't just plop him down.  I called one of the girls over to grab the baby so I could go see what happened.  As Moira was walking over to me, she could see into the boys room.  She *exclaims*, "MOM, Jed's bleeding, and there's blood EVERYWHERE!!"  Um, that can't be good.  I asked her where he was bleeding, and then, "come take the baby!"  She was able to tell me that he was bleeding from his mouth.  I hate facial injuries.  I'm not sure why, but they really freak me out.  So I was able to get to him, and see that he was indeed bleeding, a lot.  We got him ice, and applied pressure.  After about 10 minutes I gave him some Motrin for any pain and swelling.  I had him rinse with water so that I could have a look.  Well, it certainly didn't look pretty, but I really wasn't sure if it was stitch worthy.  We held some more ice, and rinsed some more.  The cut (which was caused when his fell on his bed frame...that was the "thunk") was only about 3/8 of an inch wide.  It was certainly jagged, but didn't seem very deep.  Little did I know, that was just the edge of the gash.  I had him rinse multiple times the rest of the day and would keep looking at it to see how it was doing.  There was the obvious swelling, and some bruising, and the cut.  It looked yucky over all, but again, not stitch worthy.  Until....today.

  This morning Jed's lip was more swollen then the day before, but I expected that as he hadn't had a round of Motrin in the over night hours.  We needed to get out to get the girls to their science class.  The rest of us hung out at the park, until their class was over.  I was getting Jed strapped back into his car seat, to go pick the girls up, when I noticed his lip looked funny (on the inside, but seen from the angle I was at).  I pulled his lip back a bit and I just about passed out from what I saw.  Did I mention I don't do well with facial wounds?  This 3/8 of an inch cut was more like a 2 inch gash!! The swelling that happened overnight had pushed what ever part of the gash that was holding together on it's own, totally wide open!!  A longer story made shorter, Jed was seen in the ER.  It had only been 24 hours, but the wound was *already* infected!!  What!?!  My sister told me that mouth wounds were *really* bad, but I was still surprised that it was already infected in such a short time.  So Jed started a round of antibiotics this evening.  But because mouth wounds are that bad I am asking for prayers for a quick healing.  Let's just say I cried a river of tears over it all this afternoon.  Due to one word....abscess.  I really can't go there again.  Please pray that the antibiotics cover his infection completely, and that no other complications will result. 

As for me?  Sinus issues again.  Sigh.  Cold?  Yeast?  Not sure right now.  But what I do know is that whenever my sinuses get "wet", I 'catch' a bacterial infection.  I just got done with a round of antibiotics last month.  We are still adhering to the GAPS diet, and I am positive, that in the long run we will overcome all these issues, sinuses included.  However, it's going to take time.  In the mean time, I need to find some way to lessen the likelihood of getting 'wet' sinuses.  Not sure if that is even possible.  Either way, prayers are welcome.  I was so very sick with my last sinus infection, I most certainly won't let that happen again, but non the less it's disturbing to think I'm heading down the sinus infection path so soon after the last infection. 

As for the family?  Well, just to cover our bases ;-)  I will be writing about our family pow-wow that we had a few days ago.  Good stuff, hard stuff.  Right now I'm off to wash out Jed's mouth, then put the boys to bed.  I think I will be hitting the hay myself after that.  The baby has been waking up at 5:30 since the time change.  Speaking of the time change, I think I want to sue who ever is in charge of this time change for loss of sleep :-)  Can I do that?  ha, ha!!!

The Sweet Babe

Big sister and little brother

Yummy breakfast

Let's start with last night, first.  We had a bon fire, as seems to be a custom of ours when the weather turns colder. We had a couple of families over and it turned out to be a wonderful night.  The girls wanted to dress up, as we are not partaking in halloween.  That was fine by us, as there is no harm in playing dress up.  We made some healthy candy apples, some hot cider and a wee bit illegal hot cocoa drink (no cocoa is allowed on the GAPS, but we did make it with homemade almond milk :-)).  The apples didn't turn out too great as we didn't allow enough time for the caramel to cool properly.  They still tasted yummy. 

This morning it was time to think what we would have for breakfast.  Eggs?  Ugh.  Smoothie?  That was a favorite choice, but no frozen bananas around.  Hmmmm.  An almond muffin creation?  Nah.  How about cake?  Yes!  There was a white bean vanilla cake recipe that I was hoping we could use for our birthday celebrations.  I thought about waiting till Aubrey's birthday to use it.  But then I thought, what happens if it tastes bad?  So I made up one trial cake.  It is not like a box cake, obviously, as it's made with white beans.  But we've been on the GAPS diet now for two months, and this was a wonderful treat.  I used less honey, as we were eating it for breakfast.  But everyone thought that that it didn't need any more honey, they liked it just the way it was.  Everyone wanted seconds!  But we didn't have any.  We only got one piece each.  Go HERE for the recipe.  I made up some strawberry topping, and we had a bit of our caramel sauce left over from last night that we drizzled on top.  It was a winner.

Homeschooling.  I had some thoughts on that today.  Some good, some sad.  I've been a bit consumed lately with other things on my mind, as so I haven't put much thought into our schooling.  I really do need to read the whole Charlotte Mason series.  I will make it apart of 'my curriculum' :-)  Anyways, there are some wonderful blogs out there that others journal about their experiences with Mason's philosophy of education.  Wow, I have so much to learn.  And here was the sad part...I really wish I had come accross this philosophy before we started homeschooling.  I know I can't turn back the hands of time.  I just think about all there is to learn about this schooling philosophy, and how short our time is left with Isabella's home education.  Only four more years!  I need to dig in!  Plus I realized that when I start teaching Aubrey the basics, Isabella will have graduated!!!  Oh. My. Goodness.  The good news is that I am glad I found this philosophy at all, and that we *all* will benefit us.  I am praying that Isabella will be able to take what she has learned and apply it to all her life.  Speaking of which we are needing to make some big changes in how we do life.  Yes, I've talked about this before, and we have implemented a few things here and there.  But every day it is more evident how far off the path we are. 

Off to life.  Errands to run, food to make, school to do, outside time to partake.

Isabella on the prairie.

Isabella better watch out for the Indians.

Cake time!  Nothing like being able to eat cake for breakfast :-)