What to post!?!?

Well, I started on Thursday to post about our adoption day. We celebrated but the weeks leading up to it were hard and very personal. The struggles we have encountered with one of our children has really been at the front and center of our lives lately. Before it was just an occasional disruption. Lately it's an everyday disruption. I deleted that post because some who would have read it would not have understood it. I don't know that the relationship with this child will ever be fully restored. It was that bad. But we are praying through it. God works everything together for the good.

Yesterday I tried to find quotes or excerpts about front porches. Thus, all the front porch pictures. I must have really stunk at that search because I could not find anything. Please feel free to add some in the comments section if you know some.

It was just a front porch kind of day yesterday. I spent it in the house sick as a dog, but it was beautiful outside. :)

Then I was reading about some people who are facing or still facing unemployment. I thought, "Oh, I will talk about how we have survived over two years of unemployment." Then, I realized that some of my suggestions were kind of personal and I better check with my husband before I post them. So, later on this week I will post about our journey through this wilderness.

So there you have it. A whole lot of nothing. But hey, I posted. :) I guess you could just enjoy the pictures?

Be Blessed!

Finally a post

If I was more patient I would have all new pictures to show you. Pictures that are uploading right now I hope. They are taking a long time so I'm not sure they will make it. :)
So, in honor of Lily's 10 months on this earth we will look at the first couple of months again.

We've been busy lately. We are back to following a lot of suggestions in The Well Trained Mind. Karly and Kelsie are working through CLE Math and LA and we are adding in for them Writing With Ease 1, First Language Lessons 3, and either All About Spelling or Spelling Workout. We will work quickly through WWE 1 as I just want to get them used to the type of copywork, narration, and dictation we will be using. FLL is to give them some supplemental work in areas they need more work in. I'm torn with spelling for them. I think AAS might be a better program but I think SWO would fit better with our family right now.

We are also going to work through Grammar stage Earth and Space Science as directed by TWTM. I decided to use Story of The World Volume 2 for everyone. Right now I am asking the questions in the AG and writing down every one's answers. Then, Karly and Kelsie copy what I wrote. Soon I will have Karly and Kelsie write the answers to the questions in complete sentences. We are making it work.

Around the house things are changing slowly but surely. My room was clean, but now it has accumulated stuff again. I don't really know what is up with this. I need to figure it out.

I am working on my closet this week. I will start by taking everything out. I am doing this because I had to make a late night run to Walmart last night to get pants for Jonathan's suit because his pants were missing.

I am making room to keep every ones dress clothes and shoes in my closet. I am so tired of missing Sunday shoes, tights, socks, slips, sweaters, ties... so now Sunday clothes will be in my closet and we will decide what to wear the night before.

Also for some reason there is a pile of clean clothes in the corner of my closet. Usually I hang everything up when it comes out of the dryer so... I'm not sure where this pile of clothes came from.

We were given 11 diaper boxes full of clothes from 6m to 24m for Lily. I sorted through all of them and now I have a stand alone closet full of clothes arranged in boxes by date. I also boxed up her clothes she's outgrown and I need to make room in the corner of my closet for these boxes. We really have no where else to store them and I do want to hold onto some of them.. just in case. :)

Last Sunday was our last Sunday at the church we have been at for the past 10 years. Well it's actually a split off from the church we went to right after we got married. This church has been around for about 5 years. But it's a lot of the same people. It was hard, but it was such a God thing. About 6m ago God really started showing us that we really needed to expose our kids to families who were more like us. The past few months have brought some things to our attention and we started really praying about a more family oriented church. Then a few weeks ago I noticed a church up the street was changing their name and it indicated it might be more family oriented. I went online and sure enough they worship together as a family. They do have age segregated Sunday School but they do not have a youth group. They are also reformed and the Preacher's preaching is more expository. All things I love. We listened to some of his sermons and were impressed. Some friends of mine go there and she answered a lot of my questions. Next Sunday we will visit there. I'm very excited. I am leaving a denomination I have been a part of since birth, but I totally agree with everything in their statement of faith.

It's a new adventure, but God has really been leading us in this direction. I can't wait to see what happens!!

I hope you all had a great Easter!!

LOVE!

Crawling Around

Once again I am on Karly's netbook so no pictures. Just think of my cute baby while I type this. It's really easy. She's so stinkin' cute.
She is all over the place right now. She is crawling, cruising, and even starting to stand up by herself. Yeah. It's crazy. The Doctor said yesterday to watch her because she'll be taking her first steps any time now. I believe that.
She is very spoiled and LOVES to be held. Her second favorite position is down on the floor with NO barriers. She does not like the barriers in the play yard though she is learning to accept them.
It's really easiest for me to put her down in my room while I work on the computer in here or do my walking workout.
To do that I have to make sure the room is safe. I have to close the bathroom door because she loves to crawl in there and EEWW... it's the bathroom. It's clean but it's the bathroom. LOL I have to make sure there is nothing heavy she can pull down on herself. I have to make sure the room is swept and mopped really well.
We have cats so we have lots of cat hair around the house. We also have laminate floors so the dust bunnies try to take over. She loves to chase the cat hair and dust bunnies so we have to make sure they are all up.
Her favorite thing to do is to empty a basket or box of clothes. When I want to keep her occupied in our room I will put a couple of boxes of the clothes I have packed up for her down and she will go to town.
All of our outlets in this room are plugged and we have all the cords out of her reach.
I am working this weekend on moving out some of the other clutter that is in my room so she can roam all over the room. She loves to explore and I plan to put various things she can explore in different parts of the room.
She'll be happy and I will be able to work on some stuff on the computer.
It's fun to watch her. I enjoy making a nice room for her to learn in as she grows.
I have taken some pictures of my room. I will finish up this weekend and take some more to post next week.
Be Blessed!

Excitement

I am using my daughter's notebook computer to type up this post and I don't have any pictures on it, so a picture free post. I do have some cute ones to share if I can ever talk my DH into giving me back my computer. ;)

I have had a feeling welling up inside of me for the past few days. I was not sure what it was until today. I am excited again. Excited about homeschooling, excited about being a mom, excited about being a homemaker... just excited.
I love winter so this is going to be hard for me to say, but I think I may be allergic to winter. Ever since the sunshine started showing her sweet face again and the flowers started to bloom I have felt so much better. I know there is a technical name for being allergic to winter, but it's just so S.A.D. ;0).
Maybe it has to do with getting our new curriculum. We are using Christian Light Publications LightUnits now.
I used to be totally against the "boxed curriculum" for my family, but with everything going on school was falling behind. This is my solution. It's saving all of our behinds. LOL

I am working on getting my house into shape again. This also means making this house work for me. Yes, we still have plans to move, but with the unemployment and the housing market I don't know when that will be. So, I am working smarter. Starting with getting rid of anything that will not fit into this house. I used to love decorating my house but when the house started getting cramped I removed a lot of my decorative stuff and began boxing it up to use again someday. Well, someday might be a long time from now. I took inventory of what I have and really I don't have anything I can't replace one day. So out it's going.
We are moving our school room and play room into the great room. The kids are the majority in this house so it would just make sense that we make that their main room. I am thinking even of really decluttering my kitchen to the barest essentials and making room for us to eat in there freeing up our dining room for something more.
Once the school room/playroom is finished I will take some pictures and post them.

A few weeks ago we went to a church 4 hours away to see Pastor Voddie Baucham. He is such an inspiration to me and I am thrilled to say that as much as my husband enjoyed his books hearing the man in person sealed the deal. For almost 3 weeks straight we have had family worship almost every day. He's leading it and initiating it. He's always believed it but I think it overwhelmed him. Pastor Baucham laid it out step by step and my husband took it and ran with it! AMAZING. Pastor Baucham even stopped to admire my sweet baby. Missing his own baby girl I am sure. :)

Well, after all the hum drum posts I have put up I just could not wait to put up a positive post! Thanks for hanging with me. I'm hoping this will last. :)
Be Blessed!

The Ground Beef Post

This week we are a little short on cash but we have a freezer full of ground beef. I sat down and thought of cheap meals we could have out of the pantry.

Here is the list I came up with:

Spaghetti: I buy tomato sauce and stewed and diced tomatoes at Costco by the case so we always have enough on hand to make pasta sauce. Spices and brown sugar finished off the sauce. Last time we were at Costco they had Whole Wheat pasta by the case so I picked up three cases.

Chili: I buy bags of beans and cook and freeze them all the time. So we have kidney beans in the freezer. The cases of Tomatoes and sauce come in handy here as well. Just add the ground beef and spices and top with a little cheese, that we also buy in bulk and the it's dinner time. I have cornmeal so I will probably make corn muffins to go with the chili.

Shepherd's Pie: Frozen mixed vegetables, some BBQ sauce, ground beef, mashed potatoes, and cheese.

Poor Man's Stroganoff and frozen broccoli: Whatever noodles I have on hand, ground beef, sour cream, mushrooms, and mozzarella cheese. It's much better than it sounds. :)

Hamburgers and baked beans: ground beef, dried onions, garlic powder, Worcester sauce mixed together and made into a patty. Topped with cheese and tomato on a hamburger bun.

"Hamburger Helper" and frozen corn: my own mix. Diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, some spices, ground beef, and shredded cheddar all mixed together with whatever noodles I have on hand.

Of course if we get tired of eating off of our ground beef stash I also have lentils and black beans and rice that I could make.

We go to Costco about every two-three months and stock up on meat, cheese, and tomato products. Sometimes we get other stuff but so far those are the things that seem to be the cheapest at Costco. It's amazing with those three things on hand how many meals I can make.
I get our rice and pasta there sometimes. I love their frozen broccoli and we get a few bags of that, but we don't really like a lot of the other frozen veggies there.

At the store yesterday all I had to buy was frozen veggies, two packs of lentils, sour cream, eggs, a couple of tomatoes, flour, grits, tortillas, hamburger buns, and bread.

I have not gotten back into making our bread yet so I still buy the best I can at the grocery store.

Just a little peek into our menu for the week. :)

Be Blessed!

So much to say

I have a few quiet minutes and I have so much to cram into this time of blogging.

First I do want to follow through on the grocery post but we have not done a lot of grocery shopping the last couple of weeks. Just eating out of the freezer/pantry.

I will try to work through it and figure something out. :)

DH is still unemployed so we are doing all we can to make our money stretch. In March it will be 2 years. It's really taught us a lot about trusting God.


I am working through a Bible study book called Becoming More Than a Good Bible Study Girl by Lysa TerKeurst. It's been a real blessing in helping me to get back on track. One thing I read that just blew my socks off was that there is a battle going on for you and your affections everyday. Of course the devil does not want you to spend quiet/quality time with God so he will fight for your time. When I read this I thought, hmm, who do I want to see win? Do I want to see the devil have ANY victory? It has really helped me to be more committed to my time with God.

We are still in limbo with homeschooling. Finally I decided I had to switch some stuff up. I thought we were going with Math U See, and we still might, but in researching I found Christian Light Education. Someone from the Well Trained Mind message board said she used it for Math and Language Arts and I thought, YES! I have tried so hard to stay away from workbook type curriculum that it never occurred to me to use them for the necessary and not so fun subjects. It will really free me up to spend more time with the fun stuff like History and Science. Also CLE really fosters independence which I so very much need from my older kids right now.

I might even order the Science books so I can make sure they are getting science and then add in more living books and hands on stuff as I get the chance. As soon as we have a little more money I am going to order the next set of God's Design For Science. I really enjoy those books for Science. For history the younger kids are using Story of the World while my 6th grader is using Mystery of History.

For writing my 6th grader is using Writing Strands. My 5th grader is doing copy work and my 3rd graders are using A Reason For Handwriting the transition book.

Lily is growing so much. She is crawling and standing and even doing a bit of cruising. She is 8m old today. I was pushing a cart around the children's museum the other day and she was holding on to the back and taking a few steps. I can't believe that it's already been 8 months! I feel like I was just having her yesterday. Last night we found her very first tooth poking through. What am I going to do with this baby?

She only weighs about 14 pounds and she is so short that her 3-6m clothes all still fit her perfectly. It's a good thing because when I looked at the 6-9m box the other day it was a pretty empty. I have some clothes but it looks like a trip to the consignment store will be in order. I love it there so it's no hard thing for me. :) I can get the cutest outfits for $2 and $3. A little more pricey than the thrift store but I know the clothes are clean and intact.

Well my quiet time is coming to an end as I hear little people stirring. I had fun sharing what is going on with us. I do love to blog.

Be Blessed!

When your floundering

Before I start this post I just wanted to tell you that the pictures are of my little Jonathan. He just turned 5. He is growing up so much!!
I know I was supposed to come back last week with menus. I was hoping it would jump start me back into blogging. Not so much. Things kept coming up that kept me too busy to get back here. Mostly things that are opening my eyes up more and more to the need to get back to basics around here. When I started this journey so many years ago now, I had passion and vision. I believed in myself and God. I just knew that I could accomplish great things in my home. I knew where I was headed.

I still believe in God and slowly but surely I am clawing my way back to where I left Him. I don't know if that's the right wording. I still believe that God is totally in control and will provide all my needs! I have faith, but as I said before that faith is weak. I am climbing back to that place where I had passion and purpose and vision. I keep slipping and sliding backwards but I KNOW that I am headed in the right direction. I am climbing into His arms for a time of regrouping.

As I reflected this year on how much I wanted pure beauty in my life and in my home I realized I need to start with simplicity. I have to simplify my life more. I need to get rid of the clutter, physically and mentally, that is clogging up my life. Robbing me of being able to focus on the important things in life.

My vision of a rigorous Classical Education for my kids is being put aside for a simpler, gentle Charlotte Mason type education for my kids.

My vision of a great organized home is being replaced with a clean, efficient home. One that is simple and neat and peaceful.

My vision of the perfect family with obedient ,compliant children all the time is being replaced with a family that loves together, laughs together, and lives together. Not that I won't expect obedience but maybe a little less tightly controlled in some areas.

I'm letting go. I'm going to stop floundering and start floating.

Be Blessed!

In the kitchen

I'm sure I'm double posting pictures but they are so darn cute! Also, I just did not feel like downloading more pictures. LOL
Last year I started couponing. Just a little at a time and it was hit or miss. When I did coupon I could usually feed our family for the week with $50 - $70 out of pocket for that week. I like Southern Savers because she puts all of the sale items on her website not just the ones with coupons.
She uses her price book and when she sees an item go to the lowest price she will post it on a shopping list. She will also post all of the coupon deals with matchups and links to any printable coupons.
I do clip all of my coupons and keep them in a binder. I tried just clipping them as they came up but it was too overwhelming for me so I clip them one night a week while I watch a movie on Netflix.


We shop at Costco about every two months or so. We spend about $300 though if I went alone I could spend as little as $100. I can get 2 months worth of meat for $100. Ground beef and chicken breast only.

When I really stretch I can feed our family for about $80 a week. I don't buy a lot of junk food even though coupons are for junk food. Once I get back to making some stuff from scratch it will be even less. I had to give that up for awhile so I can get back on track with my kids.

This week I will chronicle what we eat. I think it's a soup heavy menu this week.

Be Blessed!

My day off

Today I took the day off. The kids are vegged out in front of the T.V. The baby is nestled in someoneelses lap until it's time to eat again. Yeah, I think she is watching the movie as well. I asked sweetly for the computer to veg in front of, or maybe not so sweetly, who knows? Roy pulled out Karly's netbook and he is busy changing the world via Reddit. Yep, it's that kind of day.

I have been reading the blogs on my sidebar. Yes, all of them. It's been fun catching up. It's also been fun getting some ideas for the New Year. I think that this years theme will be staying home and making beautiful happen. I want to stay home as much as I can this year and work on getting the kids back on track with school, reading aloud as much as we can, and learning to be content with one another. That being said, I did sign up for co-op through our group this year. We will be meeting every other week and our co-op will be a 4-H group focusing on Gardening. The kids have piano and dance on Tuesday. It's Upward Soccer time again and I am going to sign up Adrian and Jonathan. So I do have some outside commitments. I have to plan five birthday parties this year as well. Of course we have to see Michelle and the boys occasionally. :)

So, yes, I will not be a complete homebody, but I will not look for excuses to leave the house either.

As far as make beautiful I want to focus on many areas. I want to make my relationship with my family beautiful. I want to make our home beautiful. I want to make our life beautiful. I am so not talking about magazine beautiful or worldly standard beautiful.

I am talking about the beauty of a mother and child sitting together over a cup of coco talking about something important in that child's life. I am talking about the beauty of a home filled with joy and laughter. A refuge from this crazy world. I am talking about the beauty of a brother and sister cuddled into the big chair reading a book together.

Of course there is also the beauty of changing a diaper and just being glad there is a baby in the home that needs to be changed. The beauty of correcting something in a loved one that will help them grow and mature into a beautiful adult.

It's not all fun and games, but we can find the beauty in the everyday.

Be Blessed!

Merry Christmas

Is this not the best Christmas idea ever??

I gleaned it from Dollar Stretcher.

Give envelopes with a gift a month. For example:

One month could be for a night at the movies.

One month could be for lunch out.

One month could be for a trip to the park.

You get the idea.

Fantastic idea.

Just wanted to share that idea with ya'll.

What are some other ideas for an inexpensive Christmas? What would you include in your envelope a month?

Be Blessed!

Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

I just spent this last week in NC with some friends welcoming their second grand baby. A boy. The first for their oldest daughter. It was so much fun. I remember all to well snuggling up with this new mommy when she was a preschooler. Such memories. It's a joy to be home again. While, Roy, Lily and Kelsie were with me, I had to leave the rest of my little chicks behind with their grandma. I am so sincerely blessed to have such an amazing mom. She dropped everything to look out for my little ones. I am glad to be home to my nest and my babies. Right now they are all outside playing while daddy finishes cleaning out the car. I am supposed to be getting the house back in order and finishing up some school organizing that I never completed. It's why my school year has been so rotten thus far.

I just wanted to stop in here and say, "Hi!" While my blogging has been sporadic lately it is something I enjoy doing. I have not given it up. :) Needless to say my bedroom did not get finished this week. :) So, I will be aiming for next week.

I am blessed to be going to a wedding tomorrow of a wonderful friend. She is a widow with four beautiful children and God has now brought an amazing man in to come alongside her as a father figure. She is so excited. I can't wait. Next week is full of Drs. appts for my mom. Please pray that on Friday her surgeon will give her the ok to become mobile again. She is getting bored sitting at home. Wednesday our homeschool co-op is having a Thanksgiving feast. I can not believe how quickly this month is moving by.

Well, that is my week at a glance. I hope you all are going to have a blessed weekend and week as well.

Toodles.

What happened?

Don't you love my new bedroom?? LOL
No, that is really not the finished product. I have been working steady but it took a little longer than the week I was hoping it would take. Illness, doctor's appts. and life in general just kind of took over. Not a bad thing, just slowed me down some. I'll be finishing the cleaning of my room this week and working in the boys room as well. I'm so excited because once I get all the clutter out of the bedrooms and give them a good scrub down I am going to be adding some things to really make the rooms shine. I love fall for all of the colors and freshness. The coziness and the smells. That's what I want for my home.
Be Blessed!

And the next day...

I just realized yesterday that I have been duplicating a lot of my pictures in posts. I guess you can always tell which ones are my favorites. LOL

My bedroom project is moving right along. Last night I made sure all of our bed linens were washed. It was wonderful to go to bed on clean fresh sheets. Today when I got up I took the time to make up the bed. I cleared all the clutter from around our bed. I made sure all of my pictures were in the picture box and pulled out the framed ones that I want to hang up in the room.

I finished sorting through the baby stuff on one side of the room. Almost everything has a place. I have to clean off my shelf to make room for the rest of the stuff.

Today I will tackle the side of the room that somehow became our clothing storage spot. I have all the kids "winter" clothes in boxes on that side of the room. I need to get those moved to their closets. I also have a few baby bags to go through over there.

As a bonus I found a couple of packs of size one diapers we will be whipping through the next two weeks. A friend dropped off a huge pack of size 1-2 diapers so we will be set, I think. I have two smaller packs of size 3. I don't forsee buying diapers for a few months. :)

It's so freeing to say goodbye to stuff!!

My Bedroom Challenge

Whew! Time sure does fly right now. We finally got back into school slowly but surely. Hoping we can build some sort of momentum.
But for now I really want to post about my bedroom. Just a note though, there are NO before pictures... I am hoping for some after pictures. LOL

About a month before Lily was born my nesting instinct was CRAZY and it all focused on my bedroom. I had hubby finish putting in our new floors and paint over the red walls with a nice light creamy yellowish white color. We were in the process of finishing painting and rearranging everything when my water broke a week early. My room has stayed in a constant state of chaos since!

Today while I was nursing Lily I decided to watch an episode of Hoarders. Ladies, if you want inspiration and motivation to clean up your house look this show up. It's on Netflix Instant Play right now. Talk about a swift kick in the seat!

I ended up watching two episodes and then I hauled my lazy rump off the couch and hit my bedroom running!

Right now I am sorting through my baby clothes and boxing up the newborn clothes for future use, I hope, one day. I also still have some bags with baby gifts in them that I am going through. I took a water break and though, oh let me post this on my blog for accountability.

Hopefully next Wednesday I will be back with some after pictures. That is my plan. I wish I could do it all in one day, but I do have a family that needs me. :)

So, I am challenging myself to make a clean, organized, peaceful space for me and my man (and our little baby girl who shares our room right now).

Plus, honestly, how can I get onto the kids for not having a clean room, when mine is such a disaster???

Join me if you'd like!

On the homefront

We started back to school today. PHEW! I have some tweaks and changes to make but we will get there. It's definitely different with the baby around. She did well though and enjoyed watching Jonathan while we did Phonics and Math. He kept looking at her and asking if she was watching. LOL She giggled and cooed.

I want to make some changes to our housekeeping, but I think I will wait until after next week to start that. My problem is I try to start everything at once. It rarely works out. Right now Karly and Kelsie rotate the dishes. I really want to get Tamara and Adrian involved in that as well. They are both getting old enough. Also, because of the baby some of the children are slacking in their areas. I need to get back on top of that.

I checked out a comprehensive baking book from the library. I will be dragging the girls into the kitchen to go through it with me. It looks like a lot of fun and I think the girls will enjoy it. Starting next month sometime we will start working through the Raising Maidens of Virtue book together.

I'm looking forward to spending some time with them. With Karly turning 13 this past April I am all to aware of how quickly time is going. I want to make good memories with my girls!

Be Blessed!

Just an update

Things are going well around the house. We are settling into a routine with Miss Lily and gearing up to start formal schooling next week. I have everything but Science and Latin.

Lily, of course, is starting her 3m growth spurt and I am trying to keep up. She fusses most of the day and I feed her most of the day. The great thing though is that she normally sleeps through the night. I'm talking almost 8 hours. I usually have to wake her up and play with her for a few minutes to get her to eat. My milk supply seems to be hanging in there. I have heard that around the 3 month growth spurt is when a lot of moms lose it.

We celebrated Tamara's ninth birthday this month. It's hard to believe that she was only 3 when she came to live here. How time flies!

I'm thinking of rearranging my house again. I sometimes get this idea and it won't leave me until I do it, so I will probably just do it. LOL

Well Lily is awake so I must go feed her.

Be Blessed!

How do you get back to normal?

I have a few steps I am going to take.
The first one is to make sure that I pick up my Bible and prayer journal every day. Why is it that the first thing to go when your life is topsy turvy is your Bible reading? Shouldn't it be the one thing you continue to do during the chaos? Crazy!

The second is to sit down on Sunday evenings and come up with a meal plan and schedule for the next week. Right now working out a schedule on a week by week basis works for me. I can glance at my calendar and see what is going on for the week and plan around that. Like I said before this week will be a really fun week, but I would like to start our read alouds again and I want to get some projects done as well. I have to loosely schedule everything right now with the baby, but having written down what comes next will help when I am pulled away by my precious baby.

The third thing I will be doing is revamping our chore system. I need to streamline it more so that I can check up on how everyone is doing in a more efficient way. I'm still noodling this as I'm not sure how I am going to work it out. I need to give Jonathan some chores and really Tamara needs to start learning how to work in the kitchen. So, lots to think on here.

And the fourth thing I am going to do is continue to read other peoples blog posts and ideas. It sounds like it's counterproductive to getting more organized, but it's what motivates me. My new favorite thing is the link up on Raising Homemakers. I am so motivated just from that! I am the type of person who reads Little House on the Prairie, Janette Oke or an Amish fiction book and I want to hop right up and go make my house a little homier. Blog time for me is educational time. I'm constantly learning.

I hope to get back to semi regular blogging. It's a nice outlet for all the thoughts in my head. :)

Be Blessed!

Getting Back To Normal

And what exactly is this normal I am speaking of?? :)
It's being a wife, mother, and homemaker. It's trying to re-prioritize my life. It's recognizing that this small wonder really needs me right now, but so do my other children. It's eeking out time with my wonderful husband and trying to reestablish a comfortable home life for the rest of the family.

My baby is growing up so quickly. She is already 2 months old. Where is the time going??

I have tried off and on to get some school going but it's not working out.

Next week we will celebrate the first week of public school here by playing.

We will play at Chuck E Cheese on Monday, the Museum on Tuesday, the beach on Wednesday, bowling on Thursday, Friday is TBD.

I plan to post on my Large Family Review Blog about how we managed the whole week affordably.

After our week of play we will buckle back down to our Read Alouds and finishing up workbooks.

The last week in September we will formally start our new year.

In the mean time I will be thoroughly cleaning the house and rearranging/reorganizing some of the more cluttered areas.

I will be working with the children to reestablish their chores. Right now it's almost an anything goes scenario with their chores and that is SO not working out for me. :)

Lily is getting older and is establishing a more set routine for herself. Right now it's totally baby led as far as feeding and napping. But I am seeing more of a pattern.

My kids need more of a routine, my hubby needs more of a routine, and I surely need more of a routine. It's been pretty chaotic around here.

I have new ideas and new tricks up my sleeve. We'll see how it goes!

A perfect post

Lady Lydia has the perfect blog post up right now. It's for Daughters Taught at Home it spoke volumes to my heart. It is so the vision I have for my own home and family. The one thing that really caught my eye was she said something about the more daughters you have at home the more lovely your home should be. Now I don't think she is necessarily speaking to the moms of three daughters under three. No, she is speaking to me. The mother of soon to be four daughters. At 13, 10, and 8 they should be assets to our homemaking. Instead they don't finish jobs, don't do them well, or only do a half job. My oldest tried to sew a skirt and because the whole project was to overwhelming for me (really, a skirt?) it became to hard for her because she had no guidance. Now it sits half sewn. I blame myself.

Why do my girls not do their best when it comes to homemaking? Because I do not do my best in training and teaching them. I do not do my best because I am overwhelmed when I look at all that needs to be done. I never learned. I never even tried to learn. Why do I want to pass that legacy onto my girls?

So I am going to start today. Today I am going to work beside my daughter who is in charge of cleaning the bathrooms. We will go down the list and do each chore. I am a bit limited in what I can do, but I think just me being there and being joyful will go a long way. I will also instruct her and show her as we go. My plan is to spend the rest of this week with her in the bathrooms and then next week when she is in the kitchen I will spend the week with her there.

I might have the girls clean in shifts for the next few weeks (with a hiatus of course for me when Lily comes) and spend time with each of them showing them the joy that can be had in homemaking.

I plan to put together some craft kits for the next few weeks and have them do some creative stuff for at least an hour every afternoon. After Lily is here and we settle into more of a routine we will spend that hour in the afternoon going through the books Keepers At Home and Raising A Maiden of Virtue. I started the Maiden book with Karly but we did not finish it. Now I want to go through it with all of the girls again.

Also my plan is one day a month to have daddy and the boys go out and do something or stay home and do something and the girls and I will have tea and a craft day at home or a nice brunch and time to browse craft shops or something like that out. We will probably start that up in the fall.

These are all things I have been thinking about lately. Funny the great ideas you have when you can't implement them.

I am looking forward to bonding with my little ladies. To teaching them the joy that is to be had in being keepers at home. In serving those around them. Of course to show that joy I will have to learn it.

I admit as much as I love the thought of having this new little baby to love and the miracle that she represents. And as much as I look forward to having more, I am not a good pregnant person. I don't know if it was the stress that permeated the last year and the first half of this pregnancy or just being so ill of health. I have been very ill through it all. But that's another post. This one is focusing on my little ladies.

I will be posting a baby update soon. I will be 38 weeks on Sunday. Almost here! :)

Be Blessed!