Our last few months...

Pictures from our last few months.

A lot of swimming lessons

 Each morning, we make fresh juice.   

The normal juice is made of carrots, apples, oranges, and kale or spinach.  The kids love helping.

We were blessed to be able to attend my cousins wedding last weekend.

We had a lovely time sharing in their special day and visiting with family.

After the wedding, we took a few days to relax and refresh.  

Day 1 was spend at a few different parks.

Day 2 was a surprise stop at Legoland.  

What a great portrait of this handsome guy.  Shows his personality well!

I think our little boy is somehow related to the Wolverine :o)

The hairstyle was done by the winds of hurricane Sandy.

14 steps

I came across a list that I found to be hilarious and at times very true!
I hope you enjoy it as much as i did!!!
Love my kids, and love this season of life.








14 STEPS TO FOLLOW BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO HAVE CHILDREN!!!!

Most people will tell you that 'it' is the hardest, most rewarding, roller coaster job you will ever have. No pay, 24/7 on duty and at times it seems like with very little rewards. Being a parent has it's ups and downs, I wouldn't change my title as 'mummy' for anything in the world, however when this came through my in-box from a great friend it made me laugh (a lot!).

Test 1: Preparation

Women: To prepare for pregnancy

1.Put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front.

2.Leave it there.

3.After 9 months remove 5% of the beans.

Men: To prepare for children:-

1.Go to a local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself

2.Go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.

3.Go home. Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.

Test 2:Knowledge

Find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run wild. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behaviour.

Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

Test 3: Nights

To discover how the nights will feel:

1. Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 4 - 6kg, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.

2. At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.

3. Get up at 11pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am.

4. Set the alarm for 3am.

5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea.

6. Go to bed at 2.45am.

7. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off.

8. Sing songs in the dark until 4am.

9. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up when it goes off.

10.Make breakfast.

Keep this up for 5 years. LOOK CHEERFUL.

Test 4: Dressing Small Children

1.Buy a live octopus and a string bag.

2.Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that no arms hangout.

Time Allowed: 5 minutes.

Test 5:Cars

1.Forget the BMW. Buy a practical 5-door wagon.

2.Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.

3.Get a coin. Insert it into the CD player.

4.Take a box of chocolate biscuits; mash them into the back seat.

5.Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Test 6: Going For a Walk

a.Wait.

b.Go out the front door.

c.Come back in again.

d.Go out.

e.Come back in again.

f.Go out again.

g.Walk down the front path.

h.Walk back up it.

i.Walk down it again.

j.Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.

k.Stop, inspect minutely and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way.

l.Retrace your steps.

m.Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you.

n.. Give up and go back into the house.

You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Test 7: Conversations with children

Repeat everything you say at least 5 times.

Test 8: Grocery Shopping

1.Go to the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child - a fully grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat.

2.Buy your weekly groceries without letting the goat(s) out of your sight.

3.Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.

Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Test 9:Feeding a 1 year-old

1.Hollow out a melon

2.Make a small hole in the side

3.Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it side to side

4.Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon while pretending to be an aeroplane.

5.Continue until half the cornflakes are gone.

6.Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor.

Test 10:TV

1.Learn the names of every character from the Wiggles, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney.

2.Watch nothing else on television for at least 5 years.

Test 11:  Mess

Can you stand the mess children make? To find out:

1.Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains

2.Hide a fish behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.

3.Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds and then rub them on clean walls. Cover the stains with crayon. How does that look?

4.Empty every drawer/cupboard/storage box in your house onto the floor and proceed with step 5.

5.Drag randomly items from one room to another room & leave them there.

Test 12: Long Trips with Toddlers

1.Make a recording of someone shouting 'Mummy' repeatedly. Important Notes: No more than a 4 second delay between each Mummy. Include occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet.

2.Play this tape in your car, everywhere you go for the next 4 years.

You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Test 13:Conversations

1.Start talking to an adult of your choice.

2.Have someone else continually tug on your shirt hem or shirt sleeve while playing the Mummy tape listed above.

You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Test 14:Getting ready for work

1. Pick a day on which you have an important meeting.

2.Put on your finest work attire.

3.Take a cup of cream and put 1 cup of lemon juice in it

4.Stir

5.Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt

6.Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture

7.Attempt to clean your shirt with the same saturated towel

8.Do not change (you have no time).

9.Go directly to work

You are now ready to have children. ENJOY!! 

http://blog.mamami.co.uk/2011/11/14-steps-to-follow-before-you-decide-to.html

I'm taking a break from doing my homework to post this.   Yes, I did say homework.   Can you believe I am sitting in my kitchen trying to get my creative juices going so that I can write a 5 paragraph essay that is due tomorrow morning.   I only have 1 paragraph to go!    This is the first homework I have had to do since 1993 when I graduated high school.  (Stop trying to calculate my age and just keep reading) I can tell you emphatically that I do not miss it :o)
So, this homework came from a 2 day IEW intensive that I am attending with my kids.  This year we are truly blessed to have joined a Classical Conversations Community(will call CC for short).   CC is a community where parents and kids meet together 1 day a week, and take classes together.  Every year, we pray about what direction to take with homeschooling. The homeschooling community continues to grow each year.  With that growth, comes more and more opportunities to partake in.   With 5 kids to educate, I am always looking for ways to enrich our homeschooling, as well as our family.   We'd heard about CC years back, but this year it became a viable option for us.  We researched and prayed about it, and by the beginning of the summer, our family registered to join the CC Community.   Before the year begins, kids and parents can take a 2 day intensive to help get us ready for the school year.  So, this is why I sit here doing homework instead of laundry, or mopping, or whatever task lay in wait for me.   I will be learning along with my kids, so that I can know the curriculum throughly, and know how to teach them the rest of the week.  At home, we will do the CC work, along with other work that I have planned for them.   I am beyond excited about the coming year.   :o)))

By the way...we are back from our adventure on the road.  We were gone 3 1/2 weeks and enjoyed ourselves immensly.  Our RV took a beating (broken window, dents, scrapes, blown tire, etc) and added over 3,400 miles to it.   The trip was a growing time for us all, as we had some bumps, scrapes, and vomiting too.  But in the end, we survived close quarters well and look forward to future adventures!

Tubing in NC

Earlier this week, we stayed at the Deep Creek Tube Center and Camp Ground in Bryson city, NC.   

This will be a stop we will make again on future trips.    We tubed all day right on the property.   This creek had some "lazy river" sections, but also had a lot of mini rapids.  This made for exciting trips for the kids, and some wet times for mom :o)  

 Our lil' man loves to copy his sister.  

She posed for me(picture below this one), so he had to pose too.

The beginning of last week was spent in West Virginia at Camp Creek State Park

For the locals, this is probably just a nice park to picnic in.  To us, it was an awesome place to hike up mountains and explore creeks.  We see beaches all the time, but creeks are not part of our everyday lives.  The kids played for hours in them and around them.

One morning, we decided to go for a lil' hike up a nearby mountain.   We got on one trail and then decided to switch trails along the way. That detour led us on an almost 3 mile hike.  We went that far with all 7 of us.   Don't imagine this to be 3 flat miles.   No, we walked more then a mile going up steep trails, and the rest hiking down with some flat areas to finish it off.  I carried our 2 year-old for most of the hike, and hubby was pushing our double jogging stroller which was occupied with a 4 year-old for some of the trip.  This was the hardest physical activity we had ever done as a family.   At the top of the mountain we had a few kids who were just wiped out.  We had 1 child who sat down and refused to move a step more.   After some pep talk, we all were able to get moving and we all made it down the mountain.  I cheered them on as we reached the end.  I was one seriously proud mama!

This was the group victory shot taken at the bottom of the mountain.  See the enthusiasm flowing out of the 2 older ones :o)  They were too tired to smile

Just a shot from the inside of our bus

Our next stop was at Breaks Interstate Park

This pick proved to be a great choice.   We were at the top of a mountain with all the RV's in a circle, and in the middle was open space and a playground.  There were a few other families there with kids of similar ages to ours.   The kids literally played all day, only stopping to eat.   There were no tv, computers, or phones.  Just a bunch of kids playing for hours.  

Christmas Tree farm in West Virginia