Valentines Day

I know Valentines Day was a few days ago, but I wanted to put up the pictures here for memory sake.  There was a homeschool party through our homeschool group that we belong to.  This one was for K-5th grade.  I was told that the preschoolers (AKA Aubrey) could take part as well.  My oldest three girls volunteered to be in charge of the active game station.  So everyone took part in some way.  I think this is the first time I had the boys take part in a homeschool activity aimed at their ages.  They  had a blast!!!  Well, except Jedidiah.  He had a lot of fun at first, but was totally bummed when he didn't get "all the candy" he thought he was going to get.  I told him that the candy would be in his valentine box at the end of the party, but he just pouted.  So he sat on a chair for the second hour of the party.  Silly boy.  He didn't want to do any of the activities after he realized he wasn't going to get candy for doing them.  I think we have some issues to work on!!

Anyways, besides mister pouty face, everyone else had fun.

The first station the boys attended was the cupcake decorating table.  Here you can see Aubrey eyeing all of the possible cupcake topping options.

As you can see, there were quite a few options.  The boys had sooo much fun decorating their cupcakes.  All of my boys love to help with cooking.  So this was a big hit.  They have really wanted to help decorate the past couple of birthday cakes, but their sisters kind of took over, much to their dismay.  So they were thrilled to be in complete control over these creations.

Jonah is our biggest chef around the house.  He was quite serious about this cupcake decorating business.

Even when there were mishaps, no worries, as they could be eaten :-)

Jedidiah was trying to get all of the different toppings on his cupcake.  At one point I had to stop him as I was afraid there might not be any left for the other kids!

Aubrey showing off his yummy creation.

Jedidiah's cupcake.

Jonah's creation.

Saoirse was the oldest to be able to take part in the activities.  She pretty much went to each station on her own, being a big girl and all!

Saoirse's cupcake from the back.

There was a craft table to decorate paper hearts.  The boys have a friend, Caleb, that they wanted to make valentines for.

Some of the moms were a wee bit worried about the use of permanent markers at the craft table. They might have to rethink that one next year.  Aubrey spent quite a bit of time decorating his.  I was surprised how long they sat working on their hearts.

Jonah's finished heart.

Merida was thrilled when I let her down to walk in the hallway.

Look at me go!

She is our petite one.  I have noticed that she is on the 'thin' side.  She doesn't have the chubby fat rolls that most of my kids did.  So weighed her the other day and she is only 18.6 pounds.  So far all of my other kiddos (remember, Jed is a totally different story!) were 19 and a half pounds at a year old.  So she's only about one and a half pounds lighter, but I can tell the difference.

Are you still taking pictures of me?  Yes, you cutie pie, you.

Jonah being a good big brother walking along with her.  He really does look out for her.

The valentine boxes set up on the tables.  All the kids got 20 valentines each.  I never got a picture of the boys opening theirs up, but suffice it to say, they had a blast!  They totally loved it.  Even Jed :-)

Flannery and Merida spent some time together at the end.  I have pictures of the older three girls at the game station, but I would have to blur out a bunch of other kids faces, and I'm not up for that right now.  I had at least 4 other moms tell me what a wonderful job they did with the games.  As a matter of fact the lady in charge asked the girls if they could add more open spaces to their station since it was such a popular station!  The girls told me that the moms would come to get their children and the kids would NOT leave.  They didn't want to go to the other stations because they were having so much fun.  Since all of the other stations were sit down activities, the kids were able to get their wiggles out at their station.

In My Kitchen

Things have been 'percolating' in my kitchen for a while now.  It's pretty much a miracle that my kefir grains are still alive.  I don't think I've ever had a batch last more than a year!  On top of that I have 6 kombucha scobys still going strong!

As we crawl out from under this oppressive work load due to the bugs, I am making it a priority to get on top of the things that I believe will help to turn our health around.  This reminds me of the time I was a vegetarian.  Yes, I was a vegetarian once upon a time!  However, I was an unhealthy one.  At the time I was eating the standard American diet (SAD), and just took meat out of the equation.  That still left the boxed cereals, the boxed/microwavable food, and all of the processed white flour 'stuff' on my plate!  We are much further down the path of eating healthy these days, but there are those food items that really *need* to be in the diet to make a big difference.  For us that means fermented foods.

It is an on again-off again deal at the moment.  Some days we are over our heads in work to do, others not as much.  As such there are days in a row we eat all the ferments we need to and then days in a row that we don't.  But even at this inconsistent rate we are seeing some results.  For example Flannery has had this rash on her face for *months* now.  We have treated it with all sorts of natural stuff (tea tree oil and thieves oil for example), only for it to keep on growing.  It was getting quite large and very red.  After just one week of fermented foods, it has decreased in size by a bit, and is now only a light pink!  I know if we stay at this that it will just be a matter of a couple of weeks before she is rid of it for good.

Also, since starting the ferments all of the kids, except for a small area on Saoirse, have been itch free.  We still have a long ways to go to actually BE healthy, but the fermented foods are a very, very big step.  I decided to take a picture of some of the things 'brewing' in my kitchen at the moment.  Please note, that things change within days around here.  For example you will see a picture of my kombucha doing a second ferment, but it has been days and I *still* have not gotten around to making up new tea for my scobys to make another batch of kombucha.  Today is the day for that.  So don't think that I have my act all together!  There are days I am able to switch my kefir around, with new milk....like it's supposed to, and then there are days like the past couple that it remains sitting on my counter (probably hungry).  But I just try to keep doing the next thing!

 Some carrots fermenting, and a new to me recipe for some brussel sprout kimchi.  Flannery put the fresh brussel sprouts in the freezer, where I didn't want them.  I decided to give this recipe a try with the defrosted sprouts.  So far they look good.  I suppose they will be softer due to the defrosting action on the sprouts.  We shall see.

 Two of three 'pots' of chicken broth.  I have been cooking up our meat the day after shopping day.  It takes forever for meat to thaw, and so I try to cook it in the first day or two so that we have the meat available for meals throughout the week.  As a matter of fact I have another bunch of chickens that I need to start cooking today!

 Not the best of pictures.  This is a half gallon jar of yogurt.  It is sitting in a ice bath to cool it quickly so that my hungry critters can gobble it up.  With this batch I made one and a half gallons of yogurt.  A couple of days prior I had made 2 gallons of yogurt.  All the yogurt was eaten up within five days.  Five days!  Three and a half **gallons** of yogurt people!  This is why we have goats!  Ha, ha.

I love the pretty colors of flavored kombucha.  The middle jar has a few strawberries in there for flavoring.  After pouring the kombucha into these quart jars we put either juice (mango and grape are our favorites), or pieces of fruit into them and let them sit out for another one to three days.  After that we scoop out any pieces of fruit and put all of the quart jars into the fridge.

I forgot to take pictures of my kefir.  It looks like a glass of milk :-)  That's all I have at the moment.

Differences in Learning

I've written about this along the years.  I always find it an interesting topic though, and so I thought I would write about it again.   We've had a few things happen recently that bring out the obvious differences in learning styles/abilities.  I find it amazing that within our own family the number of differences between my children.

I've written about Saoirse's struggle in the reading department.  She is finally reading simple sentences at a decent rate.  This has been hard won, and late in coming as she is 10 and a half.  But I am not concerned as I know that once it all 'clicks' she will be a book lover like her sisters.  The funny thing is that Flannery, where reading came *very* easily, is not a big reader.  It took Saoirse at least a year to get the hang of blending two letters together.  I have to say, it has been hit and miss with schooling for Jonah (due to a few problems that have come up this school year).  But in spite of that, just the other day I brought out the phonics book, something Jonah hasn't been doing in a few weeks, and the child had no problem blending two letters!  So just a couple of months worth of phonics and he is on track to be at the same reading level of Saoirse by the end of the year!

 This is the lesson that Saoirse is on.  She is just blending four letter words.

This is where Jonah is.  Granted he will be on these types of pages until he has all the sounds of the letters memorized.  The memorization should come easy.  He has mastered the harder  part of blending, which is why I believe he will be at Saoirse's level by the end of the year.


Not only will he be at level with Saoirse, but he will have surpassed Jedidiah.  Jedidiah is very smart.  He is really great at thinking through how things work.  But his strength is not in areas such as reading and following directions.  And by 'following directions' I don't mean that he is being disobedient, but that he really can't follow through with what I tell him to do.  For example the other day the boys were decorating small boxes for a Valentine party they are going to soon.  They were using star beads to glue onto their boxes. About a third of the small bag of beads made their way to the floor (imagine that!!).  When they were finished I explained to the boys that I wanted them to pick up the beads and put them in a cup (that I pointed out).  Jed came out to the dining room to clean and just stood there.  I repeated the directions, to pick the beads up off the floor and put them into the cup (the bag the beads came in was small and the chance was high that the boys would have spilled the beads while trying to get them in the bag, hence the cups).  He stood there for a second, watching his brothers.  I repeated the instruction, holding the cup up that I wanted him to  use.  He bent down, picked up a few beads, and then walked into the kitchen with them!  Um, Jed, come back here, I want you to put them into this cup.  Again, this isn't him being disobedient, he really has a hard time processing multi step directions.  This plays a big role in schooling.  He is very good at math.  But, if he has to do multiple steps I have to break it down so he can follow through.  He understands the concepts, just has difficulty in doing multiple steps at a time.

Then there are other issues like Saoirse trying to work out math problems in her own way.  Although it works for now I am trying to explain to her that once the numbers get bigger that her way will be much harder.  I have to remind her daily to work out her math problems as she was shown in her lesson.

Then there are simple remedies that a friend gave me which have very much helped some of my kids.  My friend has done a lot of research on learning disabilities and has passed along some very helpful ideas.  For example, Flannery is very good at math...like Jed she has the concepts down pat.  But she kept messing up when the numbers got bigger and she would carry on to the wrong place unit, which gave her the wrong answer.  So this little hint has very much saved our sanity:

 This is the normal way that my kids do their math problems.  Each number on their own line.  For Flannery, this was a problem.  But...by flipping the page 90 degrees you get this:

Now each number is in its own column.  That made it possible for her to line up the numbers correctly, and carry any numbers into their correct column.

My friend has also taught me a way to help Jedidiah narrate the story we are reading.  We use the Charlotte Mason method of learning, and narration is a big part of that method.  Jonah had no problem being able to tell me about the WHOLE passage we had just read.  Jed on the other hand could only tell me back one sentence!  One sentence.  I had been telling Jed, "Tell me what we just read about."  But my friend told me to say, "Jed, what did you hear me say."  That really did make a difference.  AND the fact that I really had to stop after ONE sentence and have him repeat it.  At first I wasn't sure if it was going to work, since he would try to repeat each word.  It took a week or two for him to get the hang of it.  Then I was able to read 3 sentences and have him tell me what we had just read.  We did not have much time yesterday for our school time, so I read the whole passage and Jed was able to tell me the major points of what we read.  This is a HUGE improvement.

I am sure I have a ton more examples, but for now these will do.   How have you dealt with learning differences?  Any little nuggets of help that you could pass along?  I know for myself, I often can't 'see' the easy, simple things that can be of help.  Like in the math problem above.  All it took to help my daughter to move forward in math was to rotate her paper by 90 degrees!

A little slice of life

My time is flying by!  We have been busy with all sorts of things.  Thankfully a lot of that is with *normal* everyday things.  And, of course, some of it has not been...but I have been determined to live life as normally as possible.  I still have a post planned on our newest bug situation, but for now I am waiting till we are in the clear.  We are getting there!   So that is the good news.  The bad news is we are still not free and clear.  One day, one day.

In the meantime I thought I would hop on here and share a bit that we've been up to.  As we find ourselves a step closer to getting back to normal the girls and I have been having some discussion on the projects we would like to tackle around the house and outdoors.  I find it very therapeutic to talk about such things!  For example I am very excited to be getting new chickens.  We got rid of our whole flock at the beginning of this bug situation.  I found out that I really miss seeing those silly birds on a daily basis.  They come running when you walk outside.  They 'greet' us when we pull up form being out and about (really to see if we have any crumbs to throw to them).  They just stroll around the property eating all sorts of bugs.  Speaking of which, I realized that we may have a tick problem this year!  Yikes.  When we first moved to this house the kids would get ticks *daily*.  I hated having to do tick check duty all day every day.  Then we got chickens.  Ahhhhh!  No more tick problem.  The ticks make their annual appearance around March 15, give or take 2 days (no, I'm very serious, it's always within a day or two of the 15th).  It takes the chickens about two weeks until we don't see any ticks, but that is a whole lot better than doing tick checks for the WHOLE summer and fall!  Needless to say our new chicks will not be big enough to get the ticks at the first sign of them.  So we will be dealing with them for longer this year.  Oh well.

On to the pictures:

 The official One Year Old Birthday Cake! The girls made two cakes, this one and a round pink one.

 Each of our children has taken part in the tradition of 'picking their fortune'.  NO, we do not believe it to be true in any way shape or form, but it is fun to do, and make up stories about their future life.  Merida chose the cross necklace...which means she is 'supposed' to end up as a nun, or in some ministry.  Moira was our only child to pick up two of the objects at the same time!  Ha, ha.

 We let Merida feed herself her cake.  Lets just say it was bath time after that!

 Who needs  a fork?

 Some needed park time.  I really try to make sure the kids get outside every day.  This winter has been very wet, so we've had a few too many days inside.  And let me tell you.....it shows!!!  These little boys need to get OUT and RUN and JUMP and get rid of some of that energy that will inevitably be channeled in the wrong way if they stay inside :-)

Climbing up the spider web.

 The girls spent half their outside park time playing with their Breyer horses.

 At one point they snagged my camera to take pictures of their horses in the setting sun.

 Feeding time.  I take the evening feeding of the animals.  Three of the girls do the morning feeding.  They are responsible for their feed and water, that way, come evening all I have to do is drop their feed.  After taking this picture I realized how much this animal feed is the equivalent to human boxed cereal.  Sad, yes.  How I wish money grew on trees!!

Merida LOVES the swing.  She gets excited when she knows she is going outside.

 Our dwindling hay stack.  One of our big outside tasks coming up is to rake up all the spent hay to put in the compost pile.  We have quite a big clean up day ahead of us.  Lots of 'stuff' makes its way outside....never to make its way back in!

 Aubrey asked me to take his picture.

 This is part of a village that Flannery built.  She had stables off to the other side, that didn't make it in the picture.  It's amazing what they will do, or think of, when they get outside.  One of their favorite things to do is play gypsies.

Years ago I had a photo titled, "Red Boot".  This is, "Blue Brush".   I know, very creative.

We were on our way up the road to get the mail.  Saoirse looked cute with her hood up.

Saoirse also looked cute with sandals and hot pink socks!  That's what I call style!

Two birthdays!

So our two youngest have their birthdays right smack in the beginning of the year.  This year we had a bit of an issue going on around here.  I've made mention of it in the past post or two, and we thought we were over the issue, but such is not the case. I have a post coming all about it, but it has to do with the 'bugs' we have been dealing with.  Needless to say, that had put a damper on the festivities.  I was finally able to come to peace over the situation on Merida's birthday.  I determined that I would NOT let this situation steal my joy over celebrating my child's special day!

Aubrey wanted to have a strawberry cake, with orange and blue frosting!  And that is just what he got.  He also had the privilege of having a friend over to celebrate with.  It was a sweet evening of fun for him.  We got him a bunch of dinosaur things.  A mug, t-shirt and some books.  His friend got him some hot wheel cars.  A hit all around.

Merida's special day was spent readying the house to be 'bombed'  No small task for our size family.  We spent some time at the mall (we had to kill a total of 4 hours out of the house...on a Sunday).  So the mall it was.  I think we have been to the mall twice in 10 years, and that was just to run in and get a girl's ear pierced each time.  The escalator was a big hit with the boys :-)  We drove home to open the windows to the house.  Then we headed back out to get something to eat and run to the store.  After all of that is was 8 PM when we got home and had to give everyone baths and fresh bedding.  Needless to say we didn't celebrate her birthday until the following morning.  But when we did, she loved her cake and present (a ride/walking toy).

We remembered to play the 'fortune' game that we have done with all of our children on their 1st birthday.  We set out four items: a shot glass (we used a kids medicine cup), a piece of fruit, a coin and a cross necklace.  The idea is that the first item they pick up is what their future will be.  Please note this is all done in fun, and to carry on a tradition that my parents did with me and my siblings.  Merida chose the necklace.  The idea of the necklace would be that she would be going into the ministry :-)  The coin represents wealth, the shot glass...well I think you can figure that one out, and the fruit is for becoming a farmer.

Merida loved her cake.  I have a picture of her taking a bite out of the side of her cake.  So cute.  I only have pictures of the birthday kiddos with their birthday signs at the present moment.  The other birthday pictures are on the other computer.  I'll have to upload those later.  But for now these will do:

 Aubrey wouldn't keep his hands out of his face.  He kept posing in funny positions.  Ah.  The life of a four year old :-)

I love his look here.  Too cute.  He had a dinosaur theme for his sign, with some plants vs. zombies items thrown in, compliments of Jedidiah.  Both Jed and Jonah really wanted to help out with the birthday sign, and making the cake. I can say that proved to be a daunting task, trying to wrangle the fun of cake making from their sisters.

 Lots of kitty cats for Merida's sign.  One of her first words was 'kitty'.  This little miss took her first steps just a couple of days before her birthday.  Now she is a walking machine.  She still falls all the time, but she is starting to prefer walking over crawling.

Here she is with her new ride on toy.  We had one of these for Isabella, many moons ago. I think it bit the dust after Saoirse.  I don't remember having it around for Jed.  So a new one was in order.  She really loves it.  But....so do her brothers!!  They try to take over and ride on it.  Many a fight has been had over this toy in the past few days.  Ha! I think they have finally gotten it out of their system as there has been less fighting today about it.

Please pray for our family as we continue our battle to stay strong in the Lord.  Between the bugs, and all the work that is going into killing them, and upping our immune system, and the vacuuming and laundry to keep the bugs from multiplying has been a bit taxing.  And, not just two minutes ago Jonah came to me saying his head is hurting.  Not a good sign.  He's not a child to just have a headache.  Sigh.