Chores

I AM SO LOVING CHORES!    No seriously I am loving what we have started here at home.  Generally we have a cleaning day which usually ends up being Saturdays, where we all help clean up the house of the little messes that have gathered through the house.  Generally I would run the vacume daily, sweep and do the kitchen duties daily with the larger projects of dusting, bathroom cleaning, mopping left for Sat. Well last week I decided no more of this MOM DOING EVERYTHING and getting frustrated, repeating myself and then getting to a point where I was yelling at the kids to do stuff.  So we have started a chore list.  It is rather simple:

Loading Dishes

Garbage Removal

Vacuuming

Unloading Dishes

Just four simple tasks and each child has been given that chore for the week.  This week they switch and this will continue from now on.  What a difference it has been for me.  Home schooling the kids, focusing on exercising and getting healthy, Mom stuff, wife stuff and just daily living has been wearing me down.  Having the kids help has been such a blessing.  Not just to me but to their dad as well.  Plus the kids are learning valuable tools...house keeping, time management,  and responsibility.  They are earning extra computer time and what they don't know is that if they can do their chore daily without complaints or  asking them repeatedly to do it we plan to reward them with a trip to the movies once a month. There is nothing wrong with them doing chores and it is teaching them so much.  This week has been so wonderful!  They have taken pride in doing their chosen chore!  I hope it continues this week and so forth!

Apple Art

We have been learning about John Chapman also known as Johnny Appleseed, the myths and the facts.  To add some fun today we had art class.  Painting arms, using fingers to make apples on our trees and painted with apples. The kids tried 5 different types of apples and used them to paint with.  Learning which they liked the best to eat as well as learning which were the best to make apple star prints. 

In a few weeks we will make a trip out to a local apple orchard.  Some where they have never been to, me either for that matter.  It should be lots of fun!

 As you can tell the kids had a ball making their paintings!  I enjoyed it too!

Gardening as a Lesson

     Yesterday for school we took the kids outside and taught them about gardening.  Actually we put them to work.  Part of gardening and having a nice yard is the maintenance of the shrubs and bushes.  We had let them get way out of control so I decided to cut lessons short and take advantage of the nice weather we are having.  So out we went.  While I was cutting the shrubs back the kids were gathering the branches and putting them into a pile.  Our yard loos so much better and is now ready for the fall and winter seasons.

While we were cleaning up the yard, what was a lesson on gardening turned into a lesson on insects again. We found numerous spiders of all kinds, a few praying mantises, a cocoon, a termite mess and red ants.  The kids had a blast looking at them.  We put the cocoon into a jar and we are hoping the moth or butterfly will come out. They had a grand time playing with the praying mantises.

  The two little fellas below are Bear and Charlie.  They are our neighbor's dogs.  They are the sweetest pups I know.  They came to help too.  Although I think they were more of a distraction than they were help.  But we love them anyway!

Bear

Charlie

  We got a lot accomplished in a small amount of time.  Plus I got a great workout. We all agreed that next time we will cut the bushes back in the spring and again at the end of the summer so it won't be such a large. 

 Speaking of workout...have I shared that I am on a new weight loss journey?  This is one I have to succeed at.  I can not give up and I plan to share about those struggles on my other blog Broken Potterie.  I generally write about things God has spoken to me about and I still will do that but I need to journal what I am feeling and how I feel about this journey so go over there and check it out.  Although to be hones tat the writing of this I have not written anything as of yet but I will be!

Field Trip

Home schooling is HARD WORK!  Yes it is most definitely work!  I get paid with laughter, smiles and occasionally the grumpy attitudes as well.  This past Friday we went with another home schooling family, my best friend Marty and her children to Big Bone Lick State Park. We got our directions from Google and let me tell you it is the first time I have been disappointed in their directions.  It took us a back road way which would have been fine if the miles had been accurate.  Needless to say 2 hour trip turned into longer because we had to back track to find a gas station to get accurate directions.  Anyway we got there and had a great time.  The park is is founded on a natural salt spring.  This salt spring thousands of years ago drew in mastadons, giant sloths, mammouths and giant bison.  Due to the marsh mud lands these animals would get stuck and die.  Leaving behind many fossils.  There is a great history about the area and I encourage you to visit!

Check out the pictures below...

My gang and Lucy in front of the mastadon head fossil.

The boys checking out some fossils.

Sara loved this beautiful mural.

We were suppose to be able to see bison at the park, all we found were the droppings.

Hiking.  We hiked 1.4 miles that day.

 

After the hike.  The kids were tired, hot, thirsty and enjoyed the cool stones they sat on.

Ending Summer

Summer is coming is to a close.  This past weekend we decided to take advantage of Sean having a day off and we took the kids to our favorite swimming area.

 Stoney Cove, in Rowan Co. KY.  We love it there.  It is a special place for Sean and I.  It is where we spent many summer weekends together before and after we got married.  Now it's a place full of family memories as well.   This weekend the kids went hunting for crawdads, fish, toads and insects of all kinds. 

 There caught some minnows, this little toad and a few crawdads.  All of which came home with us except for the toad.  The minnows and the crawdads now take residency in our turtle tank.  They know that the turtle will probably want to eat them and they are ok with that.

 Best place for science fun for sure! Best part is they just don't know they are being scientist. 

 I love going because of all the butterflies we see.  We have seen these same butterflies enjoying the rotting pears we have in our back yard.

 I have caught pictures of this little orange butterfly in our back yard but this beautiful blue and black one I have not been able to get until the other day at the lake.  I believe it is my favorite of the summer for sure.

 This is the same butterfly (below) just a different view of my little blue.  I have yet to figure out it's official name but I will!

 My wonderful husband and Kristofer relaxing in the sun.  This was posed!  Kris really didn't want his picture taken but he complied! How can you not enjoy this view (below)?

 My little buddy Eli!  I love this kid!  He has had a rough year with having surgery, losing a lot of weight because of it and then this summer was diagnosed with Acid Reflux.  He is a little trooper!  I love  this little guy!

Manage Your Time

So as you all know, at least those that read my blog consistently, that this year we are home schooling all of our children. What an undertaking this has been.  Being able to manage my time and balance it between school stuff, home life and personal time, I have been a bit overwhelmed.  Honestly I still am but I have found a great little book that has helped me greatly!
  What is that book you ask?  Let me share it with you!  "JUGGLE (Manage Your Time, Change Your Life!)" by Deanna Shrodes. This book written for Kindle has helped me greatly the last few weeks.  It is now available to purchase just follow this link: Juggle. 
  I absolutely love this book!  I have read many time management books over the years that left me feeling like a failure and would never achieve my goals. Some time management books have been so long that I never finished them but not with this book.  Juggle reads so easily and has real life situations as examples.   I immediately started using the steps that Deanna has to help you with your time management.  It has helped me greatly in my daily and weekly plans and goals.  Whether you have long term goals or short term this book will help you set priorities and give you steps to reach those goals.  Being a busy home schooling mother of 4 active children, time management has felt beyond my reach. These easy steps that Deanna shares in her book have given me hope. What a Godsend to me!  Seriously, no matter what your goals are, how crazy your life is, "Juggle" can help! 
   Deanna is a gifted writer, speaker, Pastor and wonderful friend. If you want to learn more about her go here.  I found her via a dear friend of mine, Michele, and have been following her blog ever since.  I had the privilege of meeting Deanna a few years ago and since then have had a great friendship, although long distance, a very cherished one. Deanna is always looking out for others doing her best to encourage others.  Check it out I promise you won't be disappointed.

Tragic End

Sadly I have to report that Ms Robin and her nest of eggs were destroyed by a neighborhood feral cat. Last Monday (sorry it's been a wild week getting ready for school), I went with one of my best friends, Marty, to get school supplies and had a great lunch with her and my other best friend, Angie.  When we returned the kids immediately went into this long story of how Jaron, our oldest went to take pictures to see if the eggs were hatched yet.  One had started to hatch over the weekend so we were hoping we would see babies.  Sadly what he found was only one egg. They searched and searched for the eggs but never found them.
   Being that the nest was up so high we though maybe the mother bird had knocked them out of the nest or something.  We kept watch hoping we would see Ms Robin return for her last egg but she never returned.   Such sadness the kids showed.  I too was sad.  We had such high hopes of blogging the events with the little family. 
   Thursday while I was tending to one of our other sunflowers and was harvesting the seeds I noticed near our fence line on the the concrete what looked to be egg shells.  After investigating (putting on my glasses), it was the robin's egg shells.  After a bit more looking around I did find part of Ms Robin hidden under our pumpkin vines.  The feral cat had had a great breakfast Monday morning.  Sadly we checked the last egg and it too had been cracked open and although there was a baby inside it looked like the cat's claws must of scratched the baby just enough to kill it.  So sad!
   It has taught the kids the circle of life I guess you could say.  We hope in the spring we will find another nest that we will be able to chronicle the events.  We tend to have 2 or 3 every year in our pear tree.  We just hope it will be close enough that we can see them.

Saga of Mrs. Robin Continues...

This past weekend we had a couple of days of storms.  Lots of wind and rain and honestly we didn't think the robins nest was going to make it through them.  To our surprise it did but not without some damage.  You see the nest sits upon the flower head and due to the rain the section of the flower head the nest sits upon has started decaying rapidly. 

 Yesterday it came to our attention that the nest itself was starting to lean and was about to fall off. 
It rained again last night and this morning.  Something had to be done so with some help from our best friends (they loaned us the wood) I built a platform for the flower head and nest. 

 We are hoping this will help those precious three eggs hatch in a few weeks. We were happy to see Momma Robin has taken to the security we have helped provide her nest and eggs. 

Isn't it interesting how we seek the Lord for protection and sometimes He sends us a friend that will give us advice, we follow it and later find out how God was protecting us.  In this case with the birds we could of let nature take it's course and yet the Lord sends us to help protect His creation.  Feels great to help a few helpless eggs and a momma bird.  It reminds me of the scripture, "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" Matt. 6:26.  In other words God cares for His creation and will take care of them even if it means He uses us to do so.  He also will take care of us and He does use others to help!