Encouraged

This morning I awoke to a dreadful migraine headache, dizziness, nausea, the whole bit. It took all of my energy to tell my Allie(11) that she would need to give Ashlyn(3) breakfast and to let Caleb(7) know that he needed to do his morning routine and play quietly. I went back to bed and slept for three more hours. When I got up again I was feeling a bit better, so I went to check on the state of affairs, expecting things to be in a bit of disarray. To my surprise and delight, the kitchen was neat and tidy and all of the breakfast dishes had been dutifully hand washed. But to top it off, the two older children had done all of their independent schoolwork for the day, graded it, and put it away. Don't you love how the Lord can take a bad morning and turn it into the greatest of encouragements. If you read here often, you know that I am focusing on habit training. Well, this morning happily showed me that a few rails have been successfully laid down. Glory be to God!

First things first....

I've been reading a great (life changing!) book from the Simply Charlotte Mason company called Laying Down the Rails. It's all about habit training - the whys - the whens -and the hows. And of course my thought process when I chose this book was how great it was going to be to get those kids whipped into shape - well the Lord had other plans! My eyes are daily being opened to all of the habits I need to form or reform in my own life. I have been inspired to get my housekeeping regimen back into practice (after a 3 1/2 year hiatus - that's when Ashlyn was born) and to re-evaluate my food choices. Healthy living is also a habit -one that has to be worked on in order to be maintained. Yes, I'm still gonna to work on those kids, but I'm going to work on me too.

If You're Curious the New Cleaning Schedule is Below:

Apple Trees in Bloom

Allie was practicing her photography skills on our apple trees this afternoon. The blossoms smell even better than they look.



Daisy came along to keep her company.

Under the Clothesline

It is 80 degrees and sunny today with a gentle breeze - the perfect day to wash and hang out my quilt on the clothesline to dry. The kids love the cool shade a quilt on the line offers and often play underneath - today was no exception.

I Think I Can - I Think I Can

Caleb learned to ride his bike - YIPPEE! He was given this bike for his sixth birthday (almost two years ago now) and the fear of falling off has kept the bike sitting on the porch most of those two years. Well this week he decided he was going to learn to ride that bike and that was all it took. He spent the last two days practicing and practicing and alas he rides. The funny thing is, today he said, "Mom, I learned to ride my bike in only two days!" I smiled and cheered him on as I laughed to myself "give or take 695 days" :O)

Bee Happy!

Ashlyn (age 3) drew a very sweet little bee this evening.

Homeschooling Perks!

My Allie loves to bake and she is quite good at it. Today she turned three unsightly bananas into delicious banana bread***YUM*** Nothing like sharing fresh-out-the-oven bread with your kids without even lifting a finger.....now that is what I call a perk!

Sweet Ashlyn doing "stool"

"Stool" is Ashlyn's pronunciation of school and she wants to be a part of it so badly. Here she sits, in her jammies, at the old fashioned desk that sits in my bedroom. This is the desk that is used when someone wishes to work in quiet. Ashlyn said she was drawing a picture of a pig with spots and she "wrote" the pig's name at the bottom of the page.

A very useful narration handbook

My friend Christy suggested the greatest little resource to me today and I just have to share it with all of you. This little gem is at lulu.com and is titled "My Little Handbook of Written Narrations" by Angela Wilson. It is written to students in grades 4-8 and is a step-by-step guide to writing narrations. It is 36 pages in length and includes, in addition to the 5 steps, graphic organizers, samples of narrations, a grammar guide, proofreading marks and what they mean, and finally a lesson plan and grading rubric for the teacher (if you keep grades). It is well worth the $4.50 download price. My daughter was very happy to add this handbook to her language notebook!

What should one do on a beautiful, sunny, spring day?

After several soggy and or chilly days, the sun and warmth of spring prevailed. We must have spent 2 glorious hours outdoors. It was good for all (especially for Mom who had said,"Please don't run in the house." and "Can we be a little quieter?" at least a hundred times) So here are a couple of ideas of what one can do on a beautiful, sunny, spring day.

Run around a make LOTS of noise (Soldier Caleb)



Hug a chicken. The "girls" with our favored hen Sassy


And of course one cannot ignore puddles as nice as this....one must JUMP!