Laboring on Labor Day…with help!


We decided to tackle a semi-small project on labor day. Actually, it’s been an ongoing project for the past couple of years. The project included replacing rickety shelving and adding shelving to our utility room. Believe me, these wooden shelves (attached to the wall by a very small piece of wood) were packed with junk. There were similar shelves on the other side of the door…to the left but those were removed a year ago. Yep, it’s taken us a whole year to replace a wall of shelves. We’re still not completely done with this wall as there is shelving that needs to be purchased and installed above the doorway. Painting, and installation took less than 2 hours…going through all the stuff took about as long. Luckily, for me, it was Mark’s side so he got to go through and put up most of it.
Up next is to do the side where the baskets are (and Mark’s shoes are hanging from). The idea is to put enough shelving over there to put all his tools on. That’ll clear up about 3 of these shelves leaving room for bulk food items and other things we need to store. This was a massive improvement over what was here…there was no where to walk in this corner.

Mark had a little helper while he worked on the project:


He really worked hard and did a good job for a three year old! Although, he did bang his finger a couple of times. After wielding a hammer, he then helped hold screws for Mark. I could hear them talking while I was working with Zoe and Ace doing school. Not sure if Mark was able to say much but Liam was a little chatterbox about this and that. I can tell already, helping daddy is going to be their connection. Let’s see what project I can cook up next so they can have some more bonding time…hmmmm.

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Hang On!

Liam shaking his head up and down to Mark: Daddy, HAAANG ON!

Mark: Why?

Liam (head still shaking): Because my head is shaking!

We’re getting ready for a trip so life here is a bit hectic…please enjoy my children’s funniest sayings! For some reason, they’ve been on a role this week!

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Eat Your Vegetables and other Sayings

Zoe, Ace, Liam, L & J talking a couple of weeks ago.

L (or J or Zoe…can’t remember which): Is your mom older than your dad?

Zoe: Yes.

Ace: Cuz she ate her vegetables.

***

Liam’s decided he wants to be bigger than Ace and he told Ge while visiting Granddaddy in the hospital. She told him that he would be. Ever since then, two weeks later, that Ge said he was going to get bigger. He’s holding on to that hope and eating more vegetables and fruits! Whatever it takes.

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So, How Do You Do It? Homeschooling


This is a good question. We’re still working on figuring it out but we’ve got the basics of it right now. Here’s a run down of our curriculum since that’s the first question I’m asked by other homeschooling moms:

Phonics/Language Arts: Zoe is in Abeka 2nd Grad phonics/language, Ace is K5 Abeka Phonics
Math: Both are using Saxon Math 1
History: Truthquest History Early American History for Young Students 1
Science: God’s Design for Life (Answers in Genesis)
Comprehension for Zoe: She started out with a workbook but now she’s using a software program called Reading Detective
Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting (K for Ace; A for Zoe)

Now for all the non-homeschoolers: I’m writing this because I can not count the number of times that people have asked me if I have to report our curriculum/have it approved or use only what is issued. Each state governs public schools/education. As such each state has different laws as to what is required of homeschoolers. Some are more strict than others. I would consider our state’s laws medium to less strict. We have report attendance, sign a declaration of intent and keep annual progress reports. They will not supervise my teaching nor the curriculum Iwe choose to use…that’s part of the positives of being able to homeschool.

We could have chosen to use one set of curriculum which would have been easy but I know that not one set of curriculum will/can serve our needs academically and spiritually. Our goal is to raise up our children to bring glory and honor to God first and then the academics can follow.

As far as when I teach, we break it up. I’ve done a lot of tweaking but finally have a working schedule that I used based on Managers of Their Chores. Now, I have the times written down, but we have yet to hit each mark. Ceili Rain still is not on a workable schedule as she wakes up at different times during the night causing our daytime routine to not be set…so, we just follow the order which is what really works best for my kids.

The kids each have a pocket folder that I keep their worksheets in for the day. They each keep notebooks that we keep the completed worksheets in. We also journal and keep up with projects that we’re working on/studying. I love watching them flip through their notebooks and see what they’ve worked on and remember things that we’ve done. Tons of fun to see!

All the kids follow a schedule and I work with Liam for about 10 to 15 minutes on critical thinking skills. So, we have some blanket time for the youngers and playing with older siblings and sit time. It keeps the house to a minimal catastrophe at the end of the morning…on some days.

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Super DAD!!

For the past six weeks (I think), we have had a friend come over with her four children to eat supper with us, once a week. Her husband is military and doing short time in Iraq. So, this was an adventure for all the kids to get together and for us to have “adult conversation” including all the interruptions and boo-boo kisses.

So, last night, Mark volunteered his Super Dad services and sent us packing. We left, with our wallets in hand (because our purses are our diaper bags…okay, I take that back, I actually have a small purse to transfer to if needed) and attacked the fabric store. We laughed and shopped until we spent all our money! And we found some absolutely adorable fabric for our sweet girls (and her boys…I’m not that brave yet).

Before I get to what my sweet husband had our kids do, I’ll just have this one little story:

I had to drop some food off to a homeschool association meeting before going to the fabric store. While driving all over town trying to find the place the meeting was, we did a u-turn and wound up behind this scooter. Not just any scooter a very tiny scooter. I mean Zoe’s dolls could have ridden it and stayed on (okay, maybe not that small but it was pretty close). And riding this scooter was a not so tiny man. He was pretty overweight. The road we were on was quite hilly and if my physics is correct: tiny scooter + large man+ large hills=put puttin’ along. And yep, that’s what we did. No joke, he had to bounce up and down to get it to go all of 10 mph going up the hill. I tried to coax my friend into going out and giving him a little push to keep him going. She tried to get me to slow down in case he started going backwards and we hit him (giving CPR while out is just not fun). Once up the hill, he had a red light. We were beside him and then we passed him…and then discussed how he was a glutton for punishment going down a major road.

So, while we were gone, what did one man do with nine kids six and under???

Here’s the answer:

Why I Love Mommy from justabunchofcharacters on Vimeo.

On another note: Granddaddy is home from the hospital and heading for a check up with his cardiologist today. He had only a minor, very minor, heart attack. PET scan on Monday showed adequate blood flow to and from the heart. Praise God!

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A Plethora of Little People Parading

oh, and one gun. Zoe and Ace had friends over yesterday afternoon. For entertainment, we set up my camera on the coffee table and did a quick lesson on stop animation…here are the results:

Little People Making a Little People Movie 1 from justabunchofcharacters on Vimeo.Zoe and L’s first attempt…

Little People Making a Little People Movie 2 from justabunchofcharacters on Vimeo.And second, with me directing. Don’t you just love the little hand that appears and disappears…eerie huh??

Little People Making a Little People Movie 3 from justabunchofcharacters on Vimeo.Ace and J…after about five shots, they were done…oh, the attention span of five year old boys!!

Little People Making a Little People Movie 3 from justabunchofcharacters on Vimeo.Liam had to get in on it…he chose the gun as his subject. Fitting for him.

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Super Wy!

We took supper over to Kevin and Tracy who you may remember from here. I had to bring my camera as I only had a few beautiful pictures of this sweet boy. He has this cute little head crinkle he does and he looks like a little old man…simply adorable.

Ceili Rain’s feet are on the right and big W’s are on the left. Yep, his feet are almost exactly the same size as my five month old. She has these petite little feet and he has these massively big ones!

Can my kids resist holding a baby??? Nah…they loved it.



“Give me the baby!!”

Why are you taking these pictures, woman!?!

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Where’s the Beef??

We finally jumped in and did it. We purchased 1/4 share of cow. The best price we could find was a place in South Carolina. The plan was we would travel an hour away and meet them at a market and pick it up there. However, the processor labeled it wrong and as such we had to travel to a farm two hours away to pick up the beef. It just so happens that the farm, Sharon Rose Farm, had “Family Day on the Farm.” So, after rushing to a birthday party and then rushing to leave, we hit the road to travel. We would have made it for more festivities, but we took a wrong turn (if only we had a GPS, huh Grandmere) and got there just a little late. However, the owners of the farm were extremely nice and gave us a tour and gave our hot tired children water. The kids got to run around and, hopefully, learned a little about farming (school day).
The farmer uses these old Farmall tractors and he had two of them out. Liam and Josiah were enthralled. They loved climbing on them. Oh, that’s a prince or a cowboy on Liam’s cheek. I didn’t hear the conversation between him and the artist but it looked like a doozy.



She’s a tiger…look out!!


The funnest thing was meeting the baby chicks. Now, folks, these aren’t laying hens. That’s right! I just held and petted someone’s supper. He was so cute and fluffy though. I love baby chicks. I remember my grandmother hatching and incubating them (mostly laying hens for them) when I was growing up…ahhh, nostalgia. None of the kids would pick them up.

Don’t you just love the way my face “glistens!” It felt like 100 degrees in there as they were “incubating” the chicks.
Freshly weaned baby pigs. Here’s your bacon and sausage.
They also have a milk cow. In South Carolina it is legal to sell raw milk, but you have to be liscensed (and raw milk dairies, so I’ve heard, are much much cleaner than regular dairies…I’m just saying). This is their milking trough/area. Liam thought he’d just have a little seat here.

Uncle B raises free range chickens (for food) and I thought he would get a kick outof seeing all their many cages.
I think Josiah was trying to whisper escape plans…not quite sure.
Someone’s steak, burger, and other assorted meats (Sorry if your vegetarian…I’m not, obviously). Liam asked me why the cow had to die and I borrowed an answer I read from Uncle B and Aunt B, “That it had done what God had created it to do” He was very happy with that.

We were too, as we had some sirloin tip roast kabobs marinated and grilled today! Yum yum.

This is only the bottom half of our 20 cubit foot freezer. It barely took up two shelves! So, see not much room needed for the food.

We purchased the meat from Native Meats. We did not buy a box but emailed them personally about purchasing the 1/4 share cow. We got 70 pounds of meat out of 1/4 share.

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The Fam

I love these guys! I am truly blessed with a beautiful fun family.

These were taken while we were visiting family 4th of July weekend. Carey Jenkins was our photographer and she was great working with eleven children and six adults! Here’s just a glimpse from that day. If you live in her area and are looking for a photographer, giver her a call!!

My dad saw this picture and got his breath caught up! Yep, that’s a lot of kids!!


How adorable is he?!?

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It’s Snowing!

We made snow last week using Insta-Snow. The kids loved it. It was not my intention for it to cover the kitchen floor, but it happened. I took it away shortly after and put it in the freezer. My intention was for them to use it to make snowmen, however, they took it out side with some friends and made snowballs and had a snowball fight. Oh well.
But before all that, the boys decided to throw it on each others heads.

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