Day Book

Daybook: May 24, 2014

outside my window . . .

green grass, overcast skies, mud from the rain last night, dancing lambs

  

listening to . . . 

whirring fans, keurig filling my cuppa, sleeping babies

wearing . . .

t-shirt and flannel pj bottoms 

pondering . . . 

classical and Charlotte Mason style education; how best to blend CC with Tapestry of Grace

reading . . . 

The Core by Leigh Bortins, The Rifle (with Connor) by Gary Paulsen, Lassie (with Jessalyn) 

creating . . .

2014-2015 School Year notebooks

around the house . . . 

clipping coupons, scrubbing neglected floors, walls, etc

from the kitchen . . . 

roast, bread, crispy nuts

real education in our home . . .  

printing and mailing Classical Conversation registration papers

beauty in our home . . . 

my rose bush in the front

faith in our home . . .   

Bible Study morning basket has been a hit with the children.

one of my favorite things . . . 

my new favorite coffee cup.  It is red and holds at least 3 cups worth of coffee.

recent milestones . . . 

completing my CC Challenge 2 Contract

the week ahead . . . 

a relaxing Memorial Day and an amazingly free calendar all week

picture thoughts . . .

Avery Grace and her first experience with sand

Morning Reading

Deep Roots at Home

I spent some time enjoying this blog this morning.  The first thing to catch my attention is that the author has been married for 38 years, which is quite a feat in today's society.  She also had a recipe for Starbucks Pumpkin Scones, which look delightful.  Anyway, I read several encouraging things and enjoyed the look and feel of her blog so much that I am certain to make visits to it a regular thing.  Who couldn't use a dose of positive, warm blogginess?  It's perfect with a cup of hot apple cider or herbal tea!

Blessings,
Mrs. P                                                            

I can wish can't I???

Some things are getting done, and many, many more are not done.  I'll cross off as I do a few things because unlike my home making binder or a to to list, I won't lose this list.  This week, I hope to focus on our over-abundance of clothes.  I finally have accepted that with 8 years difference between my boys that hand-me downs are not going to work.  Even things like Levi jeans change styles in 8 years.  So that is going to free up some MAJOR space in my boys' closet and will be freeing to me to quit trying to keep it all organized!

So here is my "wish list" of things to accomplish before school starts in August.

Organize my daughter's American Girl Doll Collection.
Clean out the freezers.
Organize my sewing supplies.
Move furniture around and set up my office/school space in the upstairs loft area.
Get Baby C to sleep ALL night long without his 3:30 am songs to Momma from his gated room.
Get Baby C the remaining 10% potty trained.
Repot my house plants.
Finish weeding my flower beds. (actually hubby took the weed eater to them, can I take credit for that???)
Mulch my flower beds in hopes of keeping the weeds at bay in the future.
Have my bedroom carpet cleaned.
Clean my ceiling fans.
Clean my barn!
Redo my stone walkway onto the porch.
Finish the first 5 lessons of Henle Latin. (1 down and 4 to go...read the first 10 lessons of another text for reference sake)
Create Study sheets for weekly Algebra 1 lessons.
Create school supply lists, calendar, etc for Challenge 1 classes.
Spot clean sofas.
Cover my old sofa upstairs with the cool red duck cloth I've had for 3 years now!
Sew the patterns and fabric that I bought a month or so ago.
Wash my windows.
Scrub my porches.
Clean out my shed.
Clean out the children's clothes and hand me downs.
Be consistent about not eating things I'm allergic to.

Vacation Bible School

Next week, our church will be hosting VBS and I will be teaching the 2nd grade class with Miss J.  I thought I would repost this post from last year's VBS experience.  By the end of the that weekend, every single person in our house had the virus, including Mr. P.  It was a horrific time!  Needless to say, I hope we don't repeat it this year!

The V in VBS Ain't for Vomit!!!

This week we have been enjoying Vacation Bible School at our church.  Since it's 13 miles from my house, I volunteered to help in the nursery so I wouldn't have to make 2 trips each day.  It all started nicely, but then on Tuesday, it happened.  A baby in the nursery vomited.  The lead nursery worker was holding an infant and saying how sweet he was to cuddle with her when BAM...he vomited all OVER her.  I ran and grabbed a can of Lysol in one hand and Clorox anywhere in the other.  The teen worker grabbed paper towels.  We cleaned her up as best we could so she could go home and change.  I then started the sanitation effort.  I say effort, because despite anything I do at this point, the babies are all exposed as are all the nursery workers.  And despite my efforts it is nearly impossible to sanitize an entire nursery, while tending to the remaining 5 babies and toddlers.  I sprayed the carpet with Lysol, put the 9 month old and my 11 month old into exersaucers so they couldn't escape and crawl into the "germ zone."  I got the other babies in another part of the room with toys and then filled the sink with hot soapy water.  I sprayed Lysol on everything in the room just for good measure.  I scrubbed toys. Do you know how long it takes to wash baby Legos, Fisher Price farm and Noah's ark??? Literally hundreds of small toy parts were washed and then sprayed down with disinfectant again.  The next day at VBS we sent another kid home in the kindergarten room.  Of course, that wasn't in my room, I was focused on the toddler that bit 4 times and sort of forgot all about the vomiting.  It seems that toddlers who are at VBS all week and not getting the amount of sleep they need become cannibals.  ;-) Those not protecting the babies from the biter, were very aware that we had another case of the virus.  Craft time was backed up 10 minutes while they cleaned vomit from the floor.  On the way home from VBS, I asked my kids what they learned at VBS and they told me that you can put cat litter on puke and sweep it up.  Not exactly what I had hoped they would learn.  Yesterday, the lead nursery worker's daughter vomited from her classroom all they way to the bathroom.  That took about 30 minutes to clean since it was on carpet.  I know this because my dear Father in Law cleaned it up.  I'm pretty sure that he received sainthood with this task.  Thankfully, the church has a massive steam cleaner that helped in the sanitation effort.  We wished the lead nursery worker luck as she left to take her daughter home.  I got new helpers and we had a pretty good rest of the day in the nursery.  All the babies managed to sleep good the night before and not one child hit or bit.  Around 11:00 the children's pastor brought me bottles of Germ X.  Nothing says love like a free bottle of Germ X.  Wal-Mart was probably concerned when our pastor came and bought them out of Germ X on a quiet Thursday morning.    Around 11:00, the napping babies wake up and are ready for lunch, diaper changes etc.  We all noticed right away that my baby was awake, but quiet.  He didn't smile.  He sat off by himself.  He didn't even play with the balls, his favorite toy ever!  We knew something was up.  We all sat and stared at him waiting for him to spew.  After all, it's apparent that this virus is spreading rapidly and it had begun in this nursery.  The rest of the time at VBS he wasn't his normal self, but no spewing happened.  He did finally play a little and even smile a bit.  We decided that maybe he just didn't get his full morning nap.    After his afternoon nap, he was his normal smiley self.  I thought to myself, "Oh Good!  We escaped the tummy bug"..UNTIL 4 am.  And at 4 am, he finally spewed.  I was awakened from a dead sleep with the nearly silent vomit of a sleeping baby.  A sleeping baby in my bed, of course.  I flew into action.  I turned on the lights and screamed, "We have vomiting!!!"  Mr. P flew out of bed, grabbed towels and washcloths.  He is amazingly quick and agile at 4 am.  Just remember, though,the key word is "vomit."  Any other word you say at 4 am will only result in further snoring on his part.  I got the baby cleaned up and was rocking him.  Mr. P was attempting to go back to sleep.  I looked at my poor sick Baby C.  Kind of like a cat hacking up a hairball, his little tummy was visibly lurching.  His face was pale and grimaced.  He would fall asleep, only to wake with this petrified look on his sweet baby face.  Around 5 am the last of his stage 3 Gerber Nutritious Dinner came up.  ( I kid you not, Gerber actually prints nutritious dinner on the jar!)  After that he slept until about 8:15.  So far we have only had one instant of dry heaving, but no more puke yet.  I'm taking full advantage of the lull to wash bedding and get it back on the beds before the next wave hits.  Miss A is headed to a youth conference tonight so we are praying that she doesn't come down with the virus while she is there.  Mr. P is on call in case I come down with it or the other kids come down with it while they are at VBS this morning.  My morning plans include getting the bedding back in his crib and my bed and if time permits, a bleach dip for the entire household.  What do your morning plans include this lovely Friday morn? Does anyone have hints on how to dip my entire household in bleach in  record time?
Blessings,

Mrs. P

Top 10 things that occupy my time....

I know that all 2 or 3 ... heck, who am I kidding...I think the one person who reads this blog  (Thanks Daddy!), might be wondering what I've been up to lately since I obviously haven't been writing...so here is my list, Top 10 style.

10. Packing clothes for various youth camps, business trips, 4-H camps, and preteen camps.
9.  Washing mountains of laundry from said travels.
8.  Potty Training Baby C to about 90% (more on that in a later post...with my track record, 90% ROCKS!)
7.  Training to be a Classical Conversations Challenge 1 Tutor and/or having information meetings
6.  Reading Challenge 1 literature, the Core, Teaching the Trivium and Henle Latin. Hint: don't read Latin just before bed ;-)
5.  Making Paleo diet food or other "healthy" treats and then throwing them away
4.  Did I mention laundry? and ironing? and dishes? and mopping? well, not mopping, but I should have been
3.  Picking up legos.
2.  Weeding my overgrown flower beds.
1.  Cleaning a dumped container of _______ off of ___________.  If you guess coffee, ovaltine, shampoo (x4), toothpaste or sunscreen off of floor, counter, new ottoman, or carpet, then you get BONUS points!


So what kinds of adventure is your summer bringing?


Blessings,
Mrs. P

Miss Cluck Cluck

Miss Cluck Cluck, our porch chicken

Do you have your own porch chicken?  I highly recommend having one.  They strut their stuff in their fancy bloomers, clucking so gently to add to your porch sitting experience.  They will scratch up your flower beds, keep grasshoppers at bay (thus saving your rose bushes) and eat any stray rabbit feed, if you happen to have rabbits on the porch like I do.  The only problem is that they also leave deposits on your lovely porch, which require lots of daily clean up.
I didn’t set out to get a chicken for my porch.  I mean who would do that, unless it was a resin chicken from Hobby Lobby.  But Grandad has this chicken, (we refer to her as Bloomer Girl) who is timid and afraid of his rooster.  One day, she ran to our house to escape the rooster and she found her oasis, which we refer to as the porch.  So now, regardless of where the other chickens are, she has chosen me and lives on my porch.  We realized a few weeks ago that she isn’t even going to roost in the hen house at night.  We caught her going under our trailer at dusk.  So now we know she isn’t only a porch chicken by day, but by night as well.  I would shoo her away and try to force her back into her flock (well, actually I did try, but it didn’t work), but she is just too cute.  I’m telling you, that fluffy yellow bloomer bottom is just too much!  So since, I can’t seem to get rid of her anyway, I’ll just keep her and try to look on the positive side of things.  Like the fact that organic grasshopper control couldn’t be any cuter! 
So if you don’t mind the daily porch clean up, I highly recommend a porch chicken.  :-b

Blessings,
Mrs. P

Happy Mother's Day!

Image from www.reviveourhearts.org

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day.  I want to put a link to the Revive Our Heart Radio series titled Beyond Bath Time.  It is such an encouraging series for mom's and the calling to be mothers.  It also reminds us that our mission field and ministry is our children.  I enjoyed it and hope you will as well.

About reposts...

I'm in the process (very slow process, I might add) of moving posts over to this blog from my original blog on Homestead Blogger.  So if it's an old post, I'll just put repost in parenthesis next to the title.  If you haven't seen the other blog, you are welcome to see it on www.homesteadblogger.com/handmadeatthefarm

I started it a few years ago to chronicle our homestead adventures, so there is mostly homesteading and recipe posts.  I started this blog later to have one spot for all of my homeschooling resources.  And now, I'm just trying to put it all together to make it easier on myself now that life seems to be so busy with 3 kids to teach, a toddler running about, goats kidding and needing to be milked, attempting to not eat foods I'm allergic to, etc, etc, etc...I'll spare you the whole boring list.

Blessings,
Mrs. P

Today's schedule

Why do things all tend to pile up onto the same day?

Today's to do list:

Miss J- eye appointment at 9:15
probably eye glass fitting afterward
Miss J- speech therapy 2:15-2:45
4-H Meeting 6:-7:30

Now throw in a full day of home school between all of those appointments..anyone remember the fun of pre-algebra and 3 digit addition along with Latin, geography, history, phonics, etc???
Also toss in 3 meals and clean up of said meals...I think we may just eat out for dinner.
AND... one of the big kids just fed the baby a piece of peanut butter toast...now I'm back to square one. I have to run and give that child another outfit change and wash him up before I have to leave in 20 minutes! And I can almost guarantee you that I will also have to change a diaper after the complete costume change and de-peanutbutter-ification. (It's my blog. I'm allowed to make up new words.) And add to the "House Rules"...Do NOT feed toddlers peanut butter toast when mom has already dressed him for the day!
Folks, it's going to be a busy day around here....wish me luck!

So it's been a poopy day....literally

My day started off in a normal way. I was sitting at the desk, checking my menu to see what was for dinner, Mr C and Baby C were playing, Miss J was next door at Meme's and Miss A was feeding show goats. Soon (we are talking less than 5 minutes) Baby C walks up to me from the kitchen. He has a plastic spray bottle and he is just spraying himself down with carpet cleaner. I grabbed him and he giggled and tried to run away. I see that his entire shirt is wet and he has a fresh floral scent instead of baby breath. Man. He had ingested some of the cleaner. I send Mr. C for a wet wash cloth and look up poison control's phone number because of course, the handy poison control magnet that the pediatrician gave me at the last well baby appointment is no where in sight. Here's the dialog-

Me: My toddler has sprayed his face and ingested carpet cleaner

Health care specialist: What is the brand of cleaner?

Me: it was unlabeled. I bought it in bulk and I can't remember what kind it is. I use it to treat spots on carpet.

Her: Hmmm (I think this means "LOSER!")

Me: I got it a long time ago. He couldn't have eaten much. (translated to---I promise I'm not a loser)

Her: Is there a list of ingredients?

Me: Um no, I mentioned it wasn't labelled.

Her: hmmm (double loser, maybe???)

Me: I know it's like Folex or spot shot or something like that.

Her: What is your name please?

So I tell her my name and the baby's name and age. (so she can make a proper report with CPS---just kidding) And after a bit she tells me to shower him and give him some juice in case the probable alcohol/hydrogen peroxide content of my unlabelled chemicals causes him to have a drop in blood sugar.

Baby C gets stripped and I make fresh juice in the juicer to make up for being the loser mom who let the baby drink carpet cleaner. About the time I had him all clean and Johnson baby bath smelling instead of fresh country floral scent, he poops in the tub. And not just a little. He poops a giant man size poop. He immediately starts screaming because he is afraid of the poop. And honestly, I'm not too thrilled about it either. I wanted to scream and run the other way too. But, what's a mother to do.

After I get the tub cleaned up and baby C all washed and dressed again, he manages to climb onto the bar while I move chemicals to higher cabinets until Mr. C gets home with cabinet locks. Miss J gets him down and in the process he kicks off a cereal bowl. Cereal bowl plus ceramic tile equals lots of sweeping and mopping. I clean that mess up and we go rather eventlessly through the rest of the morning as it's by now about 8:30 am. (Of course in my book, when you have bathed a baby twice, cleaned poop from the bathtub and swept up a broken cereal bowl half full of milk and corn flakes, that's eventful enough for TWO days.) At nap time however, I hear him screaming for all his might. I get into his room and realize he's done it again. Another poopy diaper. At least it wasn't the in the tub this time and to my amazement it isn't even a diaper blowout, although the smell is horrific. He is screaming "Mommmmmmyyyy!" I decided I better change him fast before he grows up with some sort of poop trauma. I change him (3rd times a charm) and rock him back to sleep. I guess all the day's events caught up with him and he just wasn't going to sleep in his crib, because every time I laid him down he popped right up crying. At that point, I just gave up. So Baby C and I snuggled up on the couch and took a much needed nap declaring it a poopy day.

My Heart is Full

A repost from my homesteading blog on Sept. 5

My Heart is Full

Rocking a sweet baby boy

Soft creaks of the old rocker

Scents of baby soap in his hair

Sweet snuggles and soft skin

Feeling cool breezes drift through open windows

On a fine fall day

Girls giggling in the background

Sweet scents wafting on the breeze

As they make soapballs

Soapballs lined up neatly

Drying in the sunshine and breeze

Whistling of the tea kettle

Cups of hot blueberry tea with honey

Scones with fresh goat cheese and raspberry jam

Crumbs on my new couch

Smiles on all

School books strewn across the kitchen table

Long division, graph paper, maps of Canada,

Mechanical pencils, and big fat pink erasers

A big girl that once was a baby in my arms

So pretty and getting all grown up before my eyes

Sewing machine waiting patiently

Fabric squares being cut

Colorful threads standing in a row

Snaggle tooth grins from a 7 year old girl

Proud of her first sewing project

Excited to sew on the sewing machine

And not by hand because sewing machines are for big girls

Sweet baby boy sleeping in his crib

Tiny eyelashes closed and fluttering

With sweet baby dreams

Arms stretched out for the whole world

Soft blanket tucked in tight

My heart is full.