Alpaca farm

We had a fun playdate/field trip this week. My friend Joyce and her family live across the street from an alpaca farm. Joyce has 5 kids, and homeschools, so we are able to get together in the morning for playdates. Her kids help over at the alpaca farm, so we got to go over there and see the alpacas and the goats. There was one baby alpaca, and two baby goats. They were so adorable! Here is the baby alpaca...

And the mama and baby...

Here are two adorable kids holding two adorable kids :).

I seriously wanted to take one of the baby goats home. They kept nibbling on my sweatshirt. Aren't they so sweet???

Two super sweet babies :).

We had so much fun!!

Jeff did a lot of work today, clearing out the old flower bed that was against the old fence. It really opened up the back yard. You can see by the dirt patches where the old fence line was. Jeff planted grass seed there, so it should look really nice in a few weeks. The old fence next to our new one it is our neighbors fence. Jeff put up a tire swing for Evie today, and the rope is about 40 feet up in our Sycamore tree. The tire swings super far, and Evie absolutely loves it!

I have been making a lot of fermented foods lately. I am trying new things to see what I like before the garden starts producing. I made sauerkraut today. We love it! I start with this...

Then I chop it up in a large bowl. I should have chopped it smaller. I had to do a lot more work because the pieces were bigger. I added celtic salt to the bowl. It is about 2 Tblsp. of salt to a head of cabbage. It does make the sauerkraut salty, but you eat it more like a condiment and not a side dish. Just a tablespoon or two is loaded with way more probiotics than the kind you can get in pill form! According to Dr. Mercola (who is a very popular natural doctor online), he says that fermented foods have 100 times more probiotics than the pill form!!!

After I chop the cabbage up in a bowl, I take my big wooden rolling pin and start smashing the cabbage. It usually takes about 10-15 minutes to get it to look like this....

Once that is done, I put the sauerkraut in a jar. If there isn't enough juice from the cabbage to cover it, I add a little water. Then I sit it on my counter for about 3 days to ferment. After that I refrigerate it. We love it on salads, and on sandwiches. Evie loves it plain, and will eat lots of it.

I have been making kefir for awhile now, and I want to try some other fermented foods. I have a recipe for gingered carrots that sounds interesting. I also want to try radishes, green beans and turnips, since I will have so many in my garden. It is fun trying new things!

Urban gardening/homesteading

It is that time of year that I love, when everything starts to grow! I love all the seasons, but spring and early summer are fun because of all the things that start to come up. I think I truly am becoming an urban homesteader. I would love to be able to move to the country, but that isn't an option for us right now, so I am bringing the country to me. I'm trying to cram as many edible things as I can into my 1/2 acre of property.

We planted these strawberries last year, and they are doing well so far. They were a mix of June-bearing and Ever-bearing. We have been picking a handful a day. I hope they start producing more, but it looks like I will definitely have to buy some this year instead of relying on my patch. Maybe next year though :).

We planted 6 blueberry bushes two years ago, and they are small, but are loaded down with blueberries. You can see tiny berries on this bush below. I can't wait until they get huge and produce a lot of fruit!!

We expanded our garden this year. Thankfully we haven't gotten so many weird looks this year like we did last year. It cracked me up how people stared. They looked at us like we were digging a bomb shelter! It seems like people in subdivisions have forgotten what gardens are. Of the 50 or so houses in our little subdivision, we are the only ones with a garden. There is one woman who has a garden, but it is not in the subdivision, but on acreage next to the subdivision.

I started many of my plants from seed, and they did so/so. My tomatoes did great, and I planted 12 of them. The broccoli and cabbage also did great. My peppers and celery did really bad, as did my herbs. Next year I am just going to buy them. We found a guy who grows his own heirloom veggies, and he has a small greenhouse. I bought my celery and pepper plants there, and last year I bought tomatoes from him. They are always super healthy plants, and so much easier than trying to get mine to grow. I would love to have a greenhouse, but we don't have the room or the money. In the garden, along with my tomatoes, peppers, cabbage and broccoli, there are carrots, turnips, beets, peas (they are the ones near the middle growing up the fence), cucumbers and celery. We are doing a lot of things vertically this year. In the back yard, I went a little squash crazy. I planted 4 different kinds, all are going to be grown vertically. Here is a picture of my big garden.

Jeff is talking about making a root cellar to store our veggies for winter, so I won't have to can or freeze everything. I am also learning about how the pioneers used to preserve things, before canning. They did what was called lacto-fermentation. The lacto doesn't refer to dairy, but refers to the lactic acid that results from the fermentation process. The pioneers didn't have pressure canners or regular canners, so they fermented a lot of foods. It actually is really easy and very healthy. I fermented pickles and sauerkraut last year (I did a few jars), and kept them in my fridge. They can be stored in a root cellar too (most root cellars stay at around 50 degrees). They are supposed to be loaded with probiotics, and the salt in them preserves them. I was amazed at how crisp and fresh they tasted, even after 8 months!

We have had lots of fun animals and critters around. Our Orioles came back and made another nest in our Sycamore tree. I keep trying to take a picture of them at our Oriole feeder, but haven't been able to get one :(. Both the male and female have come to the feeder at the same time, and they are so beautiful! Our ducks are also back, but haven't been swimming in our pond as of yet. The tree frogs are everywhere, and we can hear them chirping. They love hanging out under the cover of our hot tub. Evie found this one :)....

Our school year is almost done. We have one month left. We were going to be done the first week of June, but we took a week off. We will only have 6 weeks off in the summer, but I have a plan for next year. I want to start the first week of August, then take a week off each month and 2 weeks off at Christmas. I figured that we will have our 180 days in by the 30th of May if we do that. I love the idea of being able to have a week off every month! I think it will avoid burnout for me.

Evie started soccer, and is having so much fun. They did soccer pictures a week ago, and we were able to take some great pictures instead with our camera. I didn't want to spend $30 for 6 wallets and a 5x7, which is what the package prices were. I thought this picture turned out great. There were several other really good ones.

My birthday was on the 9th. It was the big 4-0. It feels strange just typing that. When I was a kid, 40 seemed so old and decripit. Now here I am! Not that I am old and decripit :). I actually had a wonderful birthday. I didn't want a party. Jeff took the day off of work, and he and Evie showered me with lots of love. The night before, they made me go to my room and relax (oooohhhh the torture!) while they secretly decorated the house and made me a cake. I figured out what they were doing when Evie came in to ask me how I was doing, and her face was covered with chocolate :). lol! They decorated with purple balloons and streamers. Purple is my favorite color :). On my birthday, I opened my presents. Jeff got me a really sweet book with pictures of our family. I cried when I saw it because it was so sweet. It was an actually book he had printed out. He also got me this.....

I LOVE my swing! I am out there several times a day, swinging whenever I can. It folds out into a bed too, but I haven't done that yet. It is so relaxing, and a wonderful place to go out and read. Evie and I have homeschooled out on it too, which is great.

We are making changes to the backyard. Jeff privacy fenced in a larger section of the yard. It looks so nice, and really makes our back yard look bigger! We have a chain link fence across the other side of the back yard, and we want to fence that in with a privacy fence too. Then it will seem like our own little oasis back there. Jeff said he was completely fine with me getting a few chickens (Yay!), so I can do that once we fence in the rest of the back yard with privacy fence.

I wanted to post this picture because it is SO funny. I use a hot water bottle every day on sore spots, and put essential oils on beforehand. The hot water bottle helps the oils sink in better. I had heated up the bottle with hot water, then stuck it on my bed. Then I went to go get something. When I came back, I found Sierra laying like this....

And no, I didn't put it like that, she did! I guess her legs or paws were sore, or she just liked how warm it felt. I love the guilty look on her face :)!

Okay, this blog post is ginormous. I will end it with a picture of my beautiful irises. Oh how I wish they lasted longer, and that I could bottle their scent. The scent of them reminds me of fresh grapes cut from the vine. During iris season, I definitely take time to stop and smell the irises!

So much to do.....

We are just all tired out! lol :).

I haven't had much time to blog lately. I finally finished all the paperwork for the adoption, and we are sending it this week!! Yay!! Between that, and canning, it has been a really busy time. I canned 20 pints of salsa, 28 quarts of pickles, 25 quarts of peaches, and 7 quarts of tomato sauce so far, along with drying herbs. See why I am not blogging? lol! The garden has been so good this year. I am so thankful. My tomatoes have been late, but I have been getting some from Jeff's parents. Mine are loaded on the vines, but are just now turning. I am only going to do sauce and chunks. I am done with salsa. I still have applesauce, pearsauce and grape juice to do, so fall is going to be busy!

We start homeschooling tomorrow. I had planned on starting it in August, but I wanted a little bit more vacation time. This time around, we are NOT going to homeschool year round! That did not work well at all. The breaks during the year were great, but once summer hit, it was so hard to get it done! We didn't get our 180 days in until the end of July, but we did finish. This time I am hoping to go Labor Day through Memorial Day, with very few breaks in between. That way we get a long summer.

On a hair related note, I am trying some new products to try and bring out my curls. They are from Jessicurl. Since I am trying to save as much money as I can for the adoption, I sold a bunch of stuff on eBay to get the money for the hair products :). I ordered this stuff called Rockin Ringlets, and Confident Coils. I had a sample of the Confident Coils, and was so happy with the results! My waves really came out, and stayed very nice without frizz. If I worked on it, I could get some nice curls too. I was fighting the wavies before, but decided again to try and embrace them. My hair is just not ever going to be straight unless I straighten it with a flat iron, which takes way too much time and kills the hair. So, I guess I'm a wavy girl!

Happy New Year!

Okay, I'm only 20 days late, but it is still a new year :)! We have been getting lots and lots of snow here, which has been really pretty. I am sitting here right now watching about 10 cardinals in the trees around our bird feeders. With the snow behind them, it sure is pretty.

I know it is only January, but I have been having fun trying to plan our garden. Last year was such a wild year for our garden. First, we dug up the garden in the spring, when Jeff was still unemployed. Then Jeff got a job 2 hours away from home, and we thought we were moving. We put the house up for sale, and we grass-seeded over the garden. Then Jeff found a job close to home, so we tore up the garden again. We didn't end up actually planting the garden until the end of June! It was amazing how God still blessed us with a good garden, even with us planting so late. This year it is fun to actually be able to plan more what I want. I got my latest heirloom seed catalog, along with some new books about gardening. One is about companion gardening, or what plants work best beside each other. The other is a seed saving book. I would like to be able to learn how to save seeds from my plants, so I don't have to keep buying tons of seeds each year. I also bought a book on herb gardens, but I haven't gotten that one in the mail yet. I really want to have a nice sized herb garden this year. I would love to grow things that I make tea out of, like chamomile. Our yard isn't very huge, so I am going to have to get creative! I would love to plant some fruit trees on our property too. We planted 4 blueberry bushes this past year in the side yard, and I want to get a few more. I can't wait until they start growing big enough to produce berries!!

I'm almost halfway done with homeschooling. We have done about 80 days so far. The breaks we have been taking every 5-6 weeks have been nice. Around Christmas, I started having doubts about the year-round schooling. I was wondering if I would really miss having a full 3 months off in summer instead of 6 weeks. After our 2 week Christmas break, I was shocked at how much Evie forgot. We had to go over a lot of stuff again. So it looks like year-round schooling is the way to go for us. I may take those 6 weeks in summer and spread them out, taking a week break after a week or 2. That way stuff will stay in Evie's memory more.

Evie started back to horseback riding again this week. She is on a much less ornery horse, which she is thrilled about. She is getting so comfortable with riding that they are tying up the lead ropes, and she has been riding without anyone holding the lead ropes. It has been really cool to see her grow so much with horseback riding. It is so refreshing to go to her therapeutic riding center. I love that the people there treat her like a person. They don't treat her like she is strange or different. They don't tell me I am doing a terrible job as a parent, or tell me that I need to control her hyperness by spanking her more (I can't tell you HOW many times I have heard that one--as if spanking magically solves hyperness). At her riding center, they treat Evie like the amazing human being that she is. It is so refreshing to go there, and it lifts me up. I am amazed at the lack of understanding most people have when it comes to sensory processing disorder. How people have treated us has been one of the hardest things for me to deal with as a parent. Anytime a kid is perceived as anything but "normal", it seems like either the parents or the kids get blamed. People say horrible, cruel things about us as parents, and about Evie. I haven't blogged much lately, partially because I have been going through some difficult times with all this. I have been quite outgoing and social for most of life, until recently. I have really started to become introverted and quiet because of the huge lack of understand people have had. Wow...didn't mean to go off on that. I honestly would love to write a blog post on how I am feeling, but it would probably not be the happiest blog post in the world! I am learning that God is the only one who can be trusted completely with things. I know that I can share how I am feeling with Him, and He won't judge me. If I feel all alone, without a friend, I know that He will be my friend. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have Him in my life.

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 :).

New updo and hair toy organizing

I tried a new updo that I have had in my updo book (a book of hand sketched hairstyles that I made), and for some reason I have never tried it. It is the Chinese Bun, and it was SO easy! It was also super comfy. I took a picture because I actually really liked how it looked!

















I also organized my hair toys. I bought a jewelry organizer, and used it to organize my stuff. I filled both sides and hung it on the wall. I love that I can see all of my hairsticks and homemade hair pins. Here is one side




















And here is the other....




















I love that I can see all of my things! It has helped me use them more, which is always good. I'm trying to be more creative with my hair. I'm trying to wear it different ways to avoid boredom.

Today was our first day of homeschooling. It went really well! We homeschooled from 8:00 - 12:00, and it was a cram packed time. We are doing Rosetta Stone Spanish this year, and it was actually really fun! Plus I get to learn Spanish too :).

Homeschooling is in full swing!

It has been a very busy last few weeks. Way more than I can blog about. We started homeschooling 3 weeks ago, and we are loving it! The new curriculum is so fun, and I am loving it as much as Evie! The picture to the left is of Evie and the ships she made. They were the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, and she put them in our pond. One side was Spain, and the other was America, and she had to use only wind power to get the boats from Spain to America. It was pretty fun :).

We went on a recent homeschool field trip that was really fun. A family that lives in the area has a huge farm with all kinds of exotic animals. They have fallow deer, turkeys, an ibex goat, a baby zebra, antelope, and a bunch of other animals. We got to feed a lot of them, which was great fun for the kids. There was a huge turnout, with probably 30 kids or so plus adults.

Here is Evie feeding some of the animals...

Waiting to see the baby zebra..

Here he is. Isn't he sweet??

Lots and lots of antelope. It was a fun time. I will have to update on what else has been going on with our lives later. Too much to write in one blog post!

Why I homeschool

Some days I wonder why I homeschool, and other days I get such fulfillment out of it. Evie really loves to read, and today I asked her to go pick out one of her books to read outloud. I love hearing her read. It gives me such a sense of accomplishment because I taught her to do that! It is really rewarding. I think I may have to have Evie's eyes checked again. She keeps holding the book really close to her face. When I ask her why, she says it is because she loses her place if she doesn't have it close. She doesn't seem to have trouble seeing with anything else, but I should have her eyes checked just in case. This video is about 2 minutes long, so it is a little longer than some of my other videos. I was just really proud of her for reading so well. She is sounding out all the big words. Today she was reading words in her homeschool workbook that were really big like "communication" and "admission". She did great!

One really cute/funny thing she did today was something she did outside. I heard her singing really loud (which she does daily), and I look outside and she is singing and dancing in the driveway. Then I see a bin that she turned upside down, and on top of the bin is her piggy bank. I asked her what she was doing, and she said she was trying to make money! She said that she wanted to sing, and maybe if people heard her they would think she sounded pretty and put money in her piggy bank. The picture is of her dancing, and you can click on it to make it larger. She told me she is trying to save her money so she can give it to some friends of ours. They have 5 kids, and the dad lost his job in November because of the economy and has not been able to find a job. I was really proud of her for being really selfless and thinking of them. It was a proud day :).

A Day At An Amish Farm

We got to go to a Amish farm last Friday for a homeschool field trip. Jeff got to go too, and it was a lot of fun! It was a bit of a cool day, so we had to bundle up. First thing we did was shake cream to make butter. All of us joined in with that, even the adults. It was fun, and afterwards we got to go into the farmhouse and watch one of the Amish ladies wash and work the butter to make it smooth. It was very interesting! Then we all piled onto a wagon with haybales and went into the woods. I was amazed at the horses that pulled us. There were about 20 of us, and the 2 draft horses pulled us through some major mud. We left 2 foot deep ruts in places, and they pulled us like we were light as a feather. Amazing animals! We got to go out into the woods and see maple trees tapped to collect maple syrup. Then we went into a sugar shack to see the maple syrup being cooked up. Boy did that place smell good! After that the kids got to collect eggs. The farm had a huge area with probably 100 or more chickens that roamed both inside and in the chicken house. There were lots and lots of eggs! The Amish family was so kind and giving, and they had us all come inside for a wonderful snack of cornbread, butter (the homemade stuff we all helped make), and real maple syrup from their trees. YUM! The kids then piled into a buggy and went for a buggy ride. It was a fun filled day, and we were there for about 3 hours. We all really enjoyed it! The video is of Evie shaking the cream to make butter. I was joking that she had to do it for an hour :). It actually only took about 15 minutes. Sorry it is sideways! I wasn't thinking about it actually being sideways until it came up that way! I haven't figured out how to change it. Oh well. The sound you are hearing on the video is windchimes. Aren't they pretty?

The crazy English language

We had a day like this today....

Yep, it was a bit of a crazy day. The English language is such an insane language to learn when it comes to reading. We have been learning about homophones. Those lovely words that sound the same but are spelled different with different meanings. Like the words red and read, or led and lead. Evie is getting the homophone thing. It's words that are supposed to have "rules" and then the rules change that get to her. Like words that have two vowels like the word "rode". The rule is that the e at the end is telling the o to say it's real name. She got the hang of that completely, and was doing great...until she starts seeing words like "love" and "come". Okay, so that "e tells the vowel to say it's real name" rule just got changed. We had about 20 of those changing em up and not following the rules words today. The book called them sight words. I call them pain in the neck words. Then there are the words that have the exact same spelling, and different pronunciation. Like read and read, lead and lead. We had a bunch of those today too. The book didn't even attempt to explain why in the world we have words that spell the same but are different. She finally just looked at me like this whole thing was just crazy. I don't blame her one bit!

Homeschool science experiment

Here is a video of Evie's science experiment. It was fun!

Beautiful Monday

It has been such a beautiful day today. The windows are open in my house, and it is starting to smell like fall! Right now I actually have some alone time, which doesn't happen very often! Evie is at a nearby sprinkler park with a friend. Her friend's mom called and asked if she could take Evie, so she is going to be gone for a few hours. I'm sure she is having a blast too! Yesterday afternoon we went to the park as it was a gorgeous, cool day. We walked along the river, and Evie had fun chasing all the geese :). I laughed when I saw the picture of Evie, Sierra and I because Sierra was the one with her eyes shut! Normally the people are the ones with their eyes shut. I guess it was too bright for her. Evie kept saying she wanted to take our picture. We told her she could, but she ended up cutting off part of Jeff's head. She still did a good job, considering she is only 6!

I am surprised at how early the schools in our area are starting. Most are starting either tomorrow or Thursday. That just seems so early to me. I am thankful to be able to homeschool Evie. I love how flexible it is. I don't have to get up at the crack of dawn and get her ready to go. I love that! She is now in first grade, and we are homeschooling more often now. I would like to start doing it 5 days a week once September starts, but I am slowly working our way back into it. It is going well so far!

A Productive Day

It has been such beautiful weather these past few weeks. Very cool compared to a typical June. It has been in the low 70's for the past several weeks, and I love it! I can have windows open and enjoy the weather. Evie and I have been taking lots of walks during the day. Today God gave me a serious burst of energy! I got so much done today. I love those kind of days :). I am still homeschooling Evie 1-2 days a week during the summer so she won't forget all she has learned. I took several weeks off, and I was shocked at how much she forgot. I didn't want to have to start all over in the fall, so I figured 1-2 days a week would be a great way to keep things fresh in her mind. Today we homeschooled for about an hour (that is usually all it takes), we walked the dog, I did 5 loads of laundry and folded them all, I played with Evie twice, I exercised on the elliptical machine, I weeded my flower beds and I just made a yummy quiche for dinner! I hope I have another day like this tomorrow :).

Homeschooling

I have been homeschooling Evie since September of last year, so I have almost one year under my belt. I am now only doing it 2-3 days a week since we have so many days in already. I am planning to homeschool at least one day a week during the summer months so she won't forget everything she learned. Lately she has really been fighting me on homeschooling. Today was one of those day. I don't like having to fight with her nonstop with it. It is a pain, and it is stressful. Maybe that is common among homeschool families. I will have to start asking other homeschool moms. Evie is doing so well with homeschooling, despite the fact that she battles me about it. She is writing all of her letters, reading sentences, telling time, learning Bible verses, and lots more. She is very smart, but has her own learning style. She actually learned her numbers (identifying them to 100) when she was standing on her head. No, I am not kidding. She can stand on her head for hours (and does), and so I figured I would just let her while I show her flashcards. Crazy, but it worked. I'm thinking they won't let her do that in a classroom. Reading has been her biggest challenge because she has a very hard time sitting still and focusing. She gets super frustrated and screams at the book. I have had to go back in the book several times to help her catch up because the book advanced too fast. That is one great thing about homeschooling. You can really cater to your child's needs more.

About a year and a half ago, Evie was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder, which is on the autism spectrum. Because of the SPD, she has everything from serious hyperactivity to noise sensitivity, chemical and food sensitivities. The poor kid almost always has a rash from something, whether it is from some food, or some chemical. We had her tested for food allergies, and she was allergic to 28 foods. And they weren't weird foods either. She was allergic to wheat, all dairy, soy, all tree nuts but peanuts and walnuts, all grains that have gluten, all citrus fruit and some other major stuff. We have tried to eliminate those foods as much as possible, but she has to eat! I have had to be really creative. Evie loves our hot tub, but the chemicals in it give her a rash from head to toe. Jeff is going to see if he can change the filter to a salt water filter so she can be in it. Evie is 100% energy from sunup to sundown. Some days it is so exhausting for me. We are believing God to heal her body completely from all of this. We know God is a big God! He is a healing God! Some days are really frustrating for me, but God helps me through. I know that God wants me to homeschool her, but some days I wonder if I am cut out for it. I must be doing something right because she is learning! Someone in my online homeschool group sent me this video not too long ago.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VM6uqj0_jQc

The video is only about a minute long, and it is cute. I didn't realize that it was Tim Hawkins in the video until one of the homeschool mom's mentioned it (he is big among many homeschool families because he is funny, clean humored, and he and his wife homeschool their 4 kids). It is a great video, and gave me a much needed laugh for today. By the way, those are not all his kids :).

Jeff left for a business trip to Oklahoma and Texas this morning. He will be gone until Friday. I miss him already. He hasn't had to travel as much lately, so I have been really glad for that.

Serious Homeschooling

Yep, it's reeeeeeeeaaaallly serious business at our house when it comes to homeschooling. Can you tell from the picture? I would say we could count this as maybe a science lesson, don't you think? Evie figured out that if she had erasers at the end of the pencils, they would stay in her ears better. Wow, my little Einstein (hey, isn't that a kid's tv show?). She is actually supposed to be writing her letters. Let's just say she was having way too much fun sticking the pencils in her ears :).

We went to Lowe's over the weekend, and they had a kid's workshop where kids could make an ant house. It was really cool actually, and Evie had a blast. She was looking everywhere for ants the past few days, and found about 1000 of them out near one of our small trees this morning. We filled her ant house with sand and ants, and she was fascinated all morning. She put an apple in the ant house, and a leaf. She said the leaf was so they would be comfy when they sleep. Here is a picture of her with her ant house....

She had homeschool gym class at the YMCA today, and after that she decided to free the ants. Maybe she felt bad making them stay inside on such a nice day :). Jeff took Evie out for a date tonight, so I have had some time alone. For Evie's first 4 years of life, I was always with her and never left her. Jeff kept trying to get me to have some alone time, but I didn't take him up on it. I realize now that alone time is very healthy, and I am starting to really enjoy it again. It took me awhile though! I hated it at first because it felt so foreign. Jeff is trying to take her out or completely take care of her at least once a week because he knows I need some breaks. He is so thoughtful :).