Blogging

I have decided to stop blogging for awhile. I am taking a major hiatus from my computer altogether. I pray that all of you who read my blog will be blessed! I will miss you, but I really feel led to stop blogging for now. Take care and God bless.

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!

The good life

Yep, our new kitty has the good life. I walked into Evie's room this afternoon and found this...

I went and got Jeff, and we were laughing so hard. We tried to wake her up, but she was really out! Wow, what a priviledged kitty to have her own bed :).

This is where I found Daisy the other night. Evie was crashed out asleep, and Daisy was right there with her. I think she now thinks Evie's room is her room!

Sensory fun

I bought a book awhile back called, "The Out of Sync Child Has Fun". It is a book that gives fun ideas to help Sensory Processing Disorder kids. Many of the ideas are, well, messy! The activities are actually good for me because I tend to be a person who likes things nice and clean. I need this kind of stuff to stretch me :). I tried a new activity yesterday. It involved shaving cream and a cookie sheet. Basically, I put a mountain of shaving cream on the cookie sheet and let Evie play in it. It gives her a lot of tactile sensory imput. She loved it. She literally was up to her eyeballs in it. She put it all over her face, arms, and legs. We did it all outside, and then she just washed off by jumping in the sprinkler :). She got soaked, but she loved it. I'm thinking about trying a new activity every day during her school year.

Speaking of school year, I bought Evie's curriculum online yesterday. I am doing a curriculum called My Father's World. I used it for 1st grade too, and I liked that it was so hands on for Evie. My Father's World uses more of what is called the Charlotte Mason approach, or classical homeschooling. This 2nd grade curriculum is packed full of so much. We are officially starting homeschooling in another few weeks. The kids in this area go back to school really early this year. Most start around the 2nd week of August. I can't believe how fast summer has gone by!

Can you say, "Awww"

Daisy is fitting in really well. She is such a loving kitty. She is really calm. This morning was the first time I really saw her super lively, and she was hilarious. She has slept a lot today.

She is getting along really well with Sierra. Si Si will lick her head, and Daisy will nuzzle on her. It is funny to see, especially since Daisy is about the size of Si Si's head! I wish I could say Dolly was taking well to her. Dolly keeps hissing at her, and is hissing at all of us! She keeps looking at me like, "How could you!" I hope she gets used to Daisy soon. When Dolly hisses at her, she just sits down and doesn't get close to her. She seems like a smart little kitty.














This is how I found her sleeping on the couch. So sweet!!

New family member

This so was not planned, but we have a new furry family member! We went down yesterday afternoon to the town we used to live in. We hadn't been there since we moved 3 years ago, and some friends invited us for a visit. We got there about 4 hours early because we wanted to go by our old house, and also because we wanted to surprise some close friends, Dee Dee and Steve, that had adopted us into their family when we lived in the area. We got to their house in the country, and there sitting beside the door was a kitten. I picked it up, and it just purred and purred. Dee Dee and Steve were gone, and they came about 20 minutes after we got there. Evie held this kitten (who she instantly named Daisy) for 2 whole hours. This kitten purred nonstop the whole time, and didn't struggle once to get away from her. I was in complete shock. Evie kept asking, "Can we keep her?" My response was no at first, but I was in awe of this cat! Jeff and I asked Dee Dee if she would be willing to give us the kitten, and she was all for it. There were 3 others from the litter, and they were all unfriendly and hissed at us. This one had been tamed by Steve and Dee Dee's 3 year old granddaughter, and loved to be held. Both Dee Dee and Steve said they were afraid that the cat was going to get trampled by their horses, because she kept following both Dee Dee and Steve to the barn, and she would walk right under the horses. I have heard of many barn kittens getting killed this way. So Dee Dee wanted me to take her. We decided that we would, so went and picked her up today on our way home. This is Daisy and Evie on the 2 hour car ride home. She sat in Evie's lap like this almost the entire time, except for when I held her. Evie is watching a dvd, and it seems like Daisy is too!





















Here is Daisy when we got home today. Evie put her in a bed with some soft baby clothes. She fell right to sleep. She also fell asleep on Evie. Her markings are so interesting. She is a calico kitty, but has some sections of orange tabby cat in her. If you click on the picture of Evie holding her on the couch, you can see the orange tabby markings on her arm. She isn't litter box trained yet, so we are keeping her in our bathroom tonight with a litter box, her bed, food and water. We read that was what to do. She sure is cute!

4H Fair

Our local 4H fair started this weekend. They had free admission today, so we went this afternoon. Every year that we go to the fair, it is always about 100 degrees. I am not kidding either! Today was a first...it was so cold that we were wearing sweatshirts! It has been extremely cool here all month. It hasn't gotten even into the 80's most days, which has been a huge blessing because we haven't had to run our air conditioning! So we are saving money! The first thing we did was go to the sea lion show. It was outside, and we got seats and waited for about 1/2 hour before the show started. Here is our family photo I tried to take. I didn't know Evie was making such a crazy face!














Here are the adorable sea lions. We watched the show for about 15 minutes, and then it started pouring down rain. We missed the last part of the show because the rain was coming down in buckets. Everyone ran for the nearest building!















We headed for the goat barn, and so we took a few pictures of us with the goats. We were wet, but not soaked like some other people that weren't able to get out of the rain quick enough. It was so cold, so I was glad we got out of the rain quickly.


























The rain let up a bit, so we went across the street to the rabbit building. I love the rabbits, and Evie does too. They have an area where the kids can pet the rabbits. Evie loved this black one. She was a sweet bunny.













We went to the Holstein barn, and we got to see the cows. Evie was petting one of the cows, and the cow's owner (a little girl) let her brush him.

It was a fun day, despite the rain. The rain let up after awhile, and we were able to walk around and see all that we wanted to see. We usually eat at the fair, but we didn't do that this year to save money. The fair food smelled SO good, so it sure was tempting!