Vacation

This week I took a much needed vacation from just about everything. Evie has had way too much going on, to the point where she was wired and overstimulated. We both needed a break, so I took the week off from homeschooling. I am very seriously considering year round homeschooling. I looked at this one woman's schedule online, and she takes a 2 week break after every 8 weeks of homeschooling, and then she takes 2 weeks off for Christmas and 1 week off for spring break. She takes a month off in the summer. I modified the schedule, just playing around to see what I could come up with. I have gotten burned out easily with homeschooling because of the sensory issues Evie has. I came up with a schedule where I took a week break after every 4 weeks of homeschooling (instead of the 2 weeks after 8 weeks that the woman that I read about did). To me, 1 week is a good vacation! Besides the week off after every 4 weeks of homeschooling, I figured in 2 weeks off for Christmas, and a month off in summer. It worked out to be 180 homeschool days, which is what is required. This way I am not constantly looking forward to summer. I get a nice break in summer, but not so much that I lose motivation. We are going to try it and see how it works. I really like the flexibility of homeschooling.

I am finding that I need to do more to meet Evie's sensory needs. Evie was diagnosed as what is called a "sensory seeker". She craves sensory input, and her sensory nervous system is basically screaming at her all day long for more input. It has been a really challenging past few weeks for us. Some ways to help with the sensory issues is to let her squeeze special squeezy balls, hit punching bags, swing in special swings, play tug of war, and do therapeutic horseback riding. I am thinking I need to invest in an indoor swing, and a punching bags. The squeezy balls are a challenge. She usually pops them really quick. We bought one once at a store, and she popped it in line after we paid for it! I took a picture of Evie at her therapeutic riding class a few weeks ago. I wish my camera took better pictures in the arena, but the lighting there is really crazy. She really enjoys horseback riding, and it is really calming for her.














Last weekend we got to meet our new addition to our family. We got to meet our new baby cousin, who was adopted from China. She is about 10 months old, and is soooo precious!




















Evie got to hold her, and she just relaxed in Evie's arms. It was so sweet. She is blowing bubbles in this picture :). I got to hold her twice, even though there were about 50 people there. I wish I could have held her even longer! She is such a precious baby girl!

Getting into the groove of things

I have been neglecting my blog. I have been really busy since school started. So much going on! I started homeschooling after Labor Day, and it has gone pretty well so far. There is so much more involved with 3rd grade compared to K-2nd. It takes us 3-4 hours to get everything done. Evie is learning Spanish this year, and was doing great until I hooked up the headphones to the computer. Now she has to speak it, and if she doesn't get it just right, the computer will give her this beep sound. Then she will get frustrated and groan into the mic, and it will beep again :). Lol. She got pretty fed up with it today. It is really picky about the pronunciation, which is hard for a 8 year old. Besides homeschooling, Evie is in gymnastics and horseback riding, so we have been busy running from place to place.

Jeff and I started having a date night every Friday night, and that has been fun! We have a babysitter come for about 3 hours, and we go out to eat. Lately we have been hanging out together at coffee houses. It has been fun being able to reconnect with each other after being apart for all those months.

Bow season started a few weeks ago, but it has been so hot that the deer haven't been moving much. Jeff did get a deer about a week and a half ago. He got it right before he left for a business trip, so he wasn't able to help butcher the deer. I decided I wanted to try making venison broth, so I asked his dad to save me some bones with meat on it. He gave me a bag full after we got done butchering, and I was too tired to notice it much. I just stuck it in the fridge when I got home. I got up the next morning to cook it up, and when I opened the bag, I found that he had given me whole legs....not cut up! So I had these 3 foot long deer legs that I am supposed to try and fit in a stock pot. He must have thought I had a HUGE stock pot! I shoved them in the pot, and was hysterically laughing because these deer legs were sticking out of the pot. I told Jeff later that I felt like I was cooking up body parts, and he said, "Well, you were!" I finally took the legs out of the pot and tried to cut them up. After much work, I finally managed to get them in the pot without sticking out. I cooked up 20 quarts of broth. I used my pressure canner, and all but 1 jar sealed. I used the broth to make gravy over the weekend, and it made the most wonderful gravy!

I had a wicked computer virus, and Jeff had to completely wipe my computer. I had to hand write down websites I wanted to keep and my favorites list. The virus was so bad that we didn't want to risk reinfecting the computer by copying anything onto a disc. It seems to be working so much better now.

Well, this isn't the most exciting post ever. Sorry if I bored you all :).