Picture of the Week: In the Rain

 

rain collage cbw

It’s officially the rainy season here in the Pacific Northwest. To “celebrate,” we purchased the boys (all of them, including Will) new rain boots, and a raincoat for Small Fry (which he is not wearing in these pictures – these were taken before we left, and we bought the coat while we were out that day). Will and Small Fry have never had any, and Seahawk and Munchkin either outgrow or wear out theirs each year. Mine are two years old but still in good shape, so I didn’t get new ones. When Will brought the boots home one night earlier this week, Small Fry was so excited! The kids were already in bed but not asleep, so Will let them out to try on their new boots. Small Fry and Munchkin got matching pairs; this is likely the last year Munchkin will have “fun” ones before he’s into the bigger sizes that come in black.

The morning after Will brought them home (the only way to convince Small Fry to go to bed was to promise him that he could wear his boots again in the morning), it was raining, so we all put on our jackets and boots and walked to the store. Small Fry absolutely loved going out in the rain with his boots on. There’s something magical about walking (and jumping) in puddles and staying dry!

Blessings,

Wendy

Wednesday Chat #12

chatsonthefarmhouseporchIt looks like it’s been quite a while since Patrice at Everyday Ruralty has posted new questions, but it’s been even longer since I’ve answered any, so I’m going to do an old set this week.

Please tell me something that you have done recently that was really fun.

A couple of weeks ago, we went swimming. We used to go every single week before Small Fry was born, but then with a newborn it was much harder to go. And then we got used to not going rather than going, and pretty soon it had been well over a year since we’d been. The kids were the ones who really, really wanted to go, so Seahawk paid for the trip with his allowance. (It’s only $6 for the whole family on Tuesday evenings.) I was worried that Small Fry would be afraid of the pool since it had been so long since we’d gone, but he loved it. We’re planning to go again next Tuesday. [Read more…]

Picture of the Week: 3 Brothers

3 brothers

Love.

We’ve been walking a lot lately. Small Fry usually rides in his stroller, but he would almost always prefer to walk as well, and sometimes we let him. It really all depends on how big a hurry we’re in to get to where we’re going. The other day was one of the happy days when he got to walk, and the three boys were just too adorable walking in front of us to not document.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Blessings,

Wendy

First Week of Homeschool

First Week Back

As I mentioned last Monday, we started school last week, and I just want to take a moment to reflect and share our progress with one week down.

A lot of homeschooling families do the “ease into it” approach at the beginning of the school year. I don’t think that would work very well for us; my kids just don’t have that personality. You give them an inch (in this case, a light day of school) and they’ll take a mile (requesting to have the entire day off instead). So last Tuesday, we just dove in head first.

I mentioned in my post last week (about our curriculum for this year) the list of subjects, so I won’t go too overkill on listing them all again. Instead, I’ll talk about how they’re working so far and how we like them. [Read more…]

Homeschool Curriculum Choices 2014-15

curriculum choices 14-15

I know I’m a little late to the party here considering school starts tomorrow (!!), but I wanted to share what my kiddos will be learning this year.

Bible

In addition to the Bible itself (which is all you need, and I’m not suggesting otherwise), we’ll be continuing our worldview study using Apologia’s What on Earth Can I Do? We received this as a review last (school) year, and it’s really good, so after a summer off from it, we’ll be diving back in this week. Our history (which I’ll discuss in a minute) will also be very Bible-heavy this year.

[Read more…]

Simplicity: Limiting Waste

simplicity copyI’ve talked a few times about how important it is to me to reduce the amount of waste we produce. I’ve read numerous books on the subject, too. And you know what? No matter how “easy” those authors say it is to live a “zero waste lifestyle,” they’re WRONG. It’s really hard. At least it is where I live.

But I try. And I think we do okay (if my neighbors’ full garbage cans every week are any indication, anyway). We go through, on average, one plastic grocery bag two to three times a week in waste. By limiting our waste, we’re not only contributing less to the landfill (a passion of mine), but also saving the money on garbage service – we don’t have it at all. Because we go through so little waste, we just take our bags to the grocery store and dump them in the public waste bins. And when we do get a surplus of large trash items, we borrow my dad’s truck and take a load to the “transfer center” for a small fee.

So how do we keep our waste low? There are three basic steps. [Read more…]