Happy Birthday Claire and Lucy!

Claire turned 3 at the end of April and Lucy had her 2nd birthday yesterday.  We've been able to have a bunch of birthday celebrations with our family in the last two weeks...

Claire's party with Nanny and Poppop at Hong Kong Pearl

 

Claire's party at Mika and Grandad's House

Lucy's Party with Nanny and Poppop...again at Hong Kong Pearl

Party at Grammy and Grampy's House

Our park in Langhorne was having a Pet Fair on Lucy's birthday so we spent the morning there.  It was a perfect event for the birthday girls to enjoy.  They got to pet a ton of dogs, see an exotic animal show and have free pony rides.

Claire is holding "Buttercup", an 18-foot python.  After I took this picture she gave him a big, long hug and the snake started to "snuggle" back.  Yikes!  She said "I love you Buttercup" as she was petting it goodbye.

At theCinco De Mayo Auction at our church

We have had a pretty eventful week with the chickens.  After not really doing much with them for the winter months, it was time to shovel out the coop.  We discovered a huge infestation of chicken lice.  I won't go into detail because it's too disgusting to think about.  But we had to tear down, disinfect and rebuild the coop.  Then we gave the chickens a spa treatment.  We have to repeat the whole thing next week to make sure everything is totally cleared up.  What a disaster.  Almost makes me regret getting them.  But then look at this egg!!  They're worth it.

haz-mat suit

Chicken Spa - A wash in warm water and Dawn dish detergent followed by a rinse in water and apple cider vinegar.  They are clean but now they all smell like stinky feet.

My lovely assistant - tenderly drying all 11 chickens

taking a break

pissed

Thanks for viewing!  Have a great week.

We're back at it...

My season of awful has finally come to an end.  I am 16 weeks pregnant and able to function like a normal human being again.  We had so many family and friends help in various ways during that time and I'm so grateful!  I don't know how I would have managed otherwise.

I am very anxious to get back to a routine so we've been gradually working our way into our new schedule. We'll start our year of homeschooling at the end of May while most people are finishing up with school.  But with a baby due in October, I'm planning on taking a big break so we'll need to start early to get everything in.

While I was lying on the couch for months with this ridiculous all day nausea, I did have an opportunity to re-read Charlotte Mason's first volume on Home Education.  I can't even express how amazing this woman is and how much of a mentor she has been for me.  SimplyCharlotteMason.com has been a great resource for putting together an individualized CM-type education.  I used their free curriculum planner and ordered all our supplies for the year.

While we're waiting for our materials to arrive, we'll use these next few weeks to continue to settle into our routine.  It was a job to fit everything in on paper  Nora's needs are great.  Everything has to be accounted for - where she will be at any given time and how she will be positioned so that she can be engaged in whatever is going on.  We need to make sure that she is getting the stretching, bracing, physical therapy and walking practice in daily.  And then there is her education to fit in.

So here's our routine in case you're curious:

5:30	Quiet Time
	Run
	Dress
	Breakfast Prep
7:00	Wake and Potty Time
	Nora Dress/PJ's Away Stretch & Braces on (@ 4.5 hrs) Cruising & Balance Walk* Washing & Hair at Table * omit; leave at 7:30 on TP days		Claire Dress/PJ's Away Washing & Hair Tidy Room Set Table Free Play		Lucy Dress/PJ's Away Washing & Hair Tidy Room Get Water for Nora to Wash Free Play
7:45	Family Breakfast
8:00	Clean Up		Nora Works Independently		Claire & Lucy Clear Dishes
8:15	Food Prep		Nora in Fun Pod		Claire & Lucy Free Play
8:30	Nora's Therapy Exercises			Claire & Lucy play outside if possible or watch exercise video
9:00	Potty Break
9:15	Transition Downstairs
9:30-11:30	Morning School - Outside
	9:30	Family School Block 1 - Art/Drawing - at backyard picnic table
	9:50	Family School Block 2 - Gardening
	10:10	Bikes
	10:30	Nora School Block A - Reading Lesson - at backyard picnic table
	10:50	Family School Block 3 - Literature or Nature Study  - pretzel sitting on blanket to read
	11:10	Lunch - Scripture Memorization & Language Practice
11:30	Transition Upstairs - braces off for reciprocal crawl to potty
11:45	Potty Break
12:00	Story Time
12:30-2:15	Naptime
	12:30	Coffee Break & Prep Tea Time/Nora quiet time - clean mirror & toilet
	12:50	Nora School Block B - Handwriting - at kitchen table
	1:10	Nora School Block C - Reading Practice - straddle sitting on floor
	1:30-2:10	Exercise/Nora quiet time
2:15	Potty Break
2:30	Tea Time - Poetry/Music/Picture Study
3:00-4:15	Afternoon School - Living Room
	3:00	Family School Block 4 - Math
	3:20	Family School Block 5 - Bible/History/Geography
	3:40	Family School Block 6 - Guided Imaginative Play
	4:00	Daily Chore & Tidy All - reciprocal crawl to potty
4:30	Potty Break - braces on (@ 1.5 hrs)
4:45	Dinner Prep		Nora in Fun Pod		Claire & Lucy Set the Table then Free Play
5:15	Family Dinner - braces off - Clean Up
6:00	Family Time or Bath - Hymn Study/Devotions/Game/Bathtub Science
6:45	Bedtime Routine
	Potty & Wash PJ's Stretch & Read - night braces on Circle Prayers Goodnights
7:15	Prep for Next Day

I need a nap just looking at it all!  :)  It's nice to have a goal to work toward even if we don't always get to everything.  Charlotte Mason says in Home Education:

"I venture to suggest, not what is practicable in any household, but what seems to me absolutely best for the children; and that, in the faith that mothers work wonders once they are convinced that wonders are demanded of them." (Vol.,1 p.44)

(Please, Lord, give me what I need to do this.  My capacity for wonder-working is awfully low!)

See you next week...hopefully with some pictures. 

Recent Events

This past week was sort of eventful and we really didn't get anything done with school since the following occurred:

• We had that snowstorm which knocked out our power for a few days 
• Mark broke his elbow and will be in a cast for 6-8 weeks
• Nora also had a cast put on her right leg to stretch it out for the next month or so
• We found out that baby #4 will hopefully be here in October (!!!)

After I get the hang of being my husband's right arm and fitting in extra therapies with Nora, make it through this week's expected snowstorm and get used to the always-there nausea, maybe I'll get around to attempting some educational activities.  Or maybe not.  Unschooling is looking like a better idea by the day!  

Oo Octopus & Ww Water

This week we combined Oo Octopus with the words to remember: "Even the octopus praises the Lord!" and Ww Water: "Jesus gives me Living Water."  We didn't do a whole lot with the curriculum, but we did start the unit off by watching a Blue Planet episode.  It is just fascinating.  While we were watching it, Nora asked if there were Psittacosaurus' that lived there. (She remembered that name from a dinosaur book we read through two weeks ago - I had forgotten that one!)  I said no, since they were not swimming dinosaurs and all the things in this show live in the ocean.  She said, "Oh I mean the ones that their mothers don't have to say "Henry, chew your food!" ... Me: "Oh! you mean Ostracoderms!  Yes, you're right - that kind of dinosaur did live in the ocean."  We reread the poem and tried to find some sea creatures that reminded us of what an Ostracaderm might look like.  Nice to know things are interesting them and being retained.

I am enjoying finding new recipes with our wheat free diet. I still bake whole wheat bread for Mark and the girls but I've been wheat free since the new year with one or two exceptions which I have paid for immediately.  Turns out that I'm very very sensitive to wheat and I didn't need to be feeling as bad and sluggish as I've felt all this time!  Wheat doesn't seem to bother anyone else very much, but they've been happy to eat far less grains than we had been eating.  The cashew flour pancakes with raspberry syrup were delicious...

Nora will be getting botox next week in her right leg followed by a series of casts over the course of a month.  Hopefully that will allow her to increase her range of motion since she is getting tighter with every growth spurt, making her walking even more of a challenge.  We keep up her stretching routine....Claire even helps out.

Here are the pictures from the week...

Sledding!

It's a loooong way down and back up.  He carried Nora up so many times.  What a good man.
Claire even went down all by herself!

Talking to Grammy on the phone - little teenager

Thanks for the matching hats, Grammy!

Reading...

Nora can sound out so many 3 letter words now

A popsicle stick and clothes pins help us make a problem.  Dinosaurs, chalk and a slate help us solve it.

Now we put the babies in their cribs - this was a big hit, of course.

Now 2 bears invite 3 more bear friends to a picnic....5 bears all together.  Nora kept doing this on her own and came up with stories to go along with her figures.  

Handwriting...

Visiting...

We had a lovely visit with Nanny and Poppop.  All of the knick knacks got a lot of love.    

 Playground...

She kept saying "Higher, Daddy!!"

Baptism...
We celebrated the anniversary of Claire's baptism on the 29th by talking about it and doing this Godly play Baptism story.  I did it pretty much word-for-word as the woman on the video demonstrates.  They were enthralled.  It was a really beautiful way to remember our baptisms.  They enjoyed playing with the story materials for a few days afterward.  One time I was able to grab a quick video of "Baby Bella's" baptism before they started fighting and they spotted me:

Chickens...
I love this video.  The weather warmed a bit today and Claire was able to visit her friends. You just have to see this chicken love...

I don't even know what to call this week...

Bleh.  It happened again. 

It's been a relatively long stretch since I've been depressed or whatever.  On Wednesday I woke up with sort of a paralyzing fear of facing my life that day.  I didn't want to get out of bed.  

When I did manage to emerge around 1pm, I did it from the safety of a hoodie.  (Mark was home and took over.)

For the rest of the day I tried to collect myself and be a functioning human being again but all attempts failed...

Yup, just something that happens to me.  I'm trying to be ok with that fact.  It only prolongs the sadness to be angry at myself for feeling that way.  So I ride it out and try to be patient with me.

Occasionally telling myself things like this helps:

(either that or it's really annoying)

Of course that's only helpful for a little while - until the novelty wears off.  

In the past I've been able to climb out of it by working myself into an excited tizzy about some project:

That usually makes me feel better about life for a little while, because at least I'm productive.   And being productive is good, right?!

Nope.

I've been keeping a journal for a few months and I can see that for me, too much productivity easily leads to a crash.  

In the interest of being "real" and transparent, I'm letting you all know about it.  No concerned phone calls needed.  I'm ok.  The girls are fine.  They have a mommy who just sits around and is available for snuggles.  They seem to enjoy it. 

This is just life.  It's all part of the journey.  But it's not my favorite part.

 (Thank you, Allie Brosch for providing the illustrations and humor to this post.)