First Day of Homeschool 2013

   After an amazingly busy, jammed packed spring and summer, we made it to my favorite time of year, back to school time. Yes, I am that crazy person that gets excited over notebooks and planners. I get giddy over new highlighters and binders and desk organizers. It means that life should be settling down back into a routine and no major surprises. It also means that it is time for me and Conner, my oldest, to start putting school back into the day.
   The great thing about homeschooling my kids right now is everyone is under five years old, which translates to a lot of playing and learning though playing. Also I haven't gotten to the point where I have to notify the school board of homeschooling intentions. In Mississippi, I have to give written notice that my kindergarten age children and up are to be home schooled and what curriculum I intend to use. Since we are still a young household, most of the day I am un-schooling my children. I mostly talk with them about our daily life and let it go from there.
   Most of our learning comes from being outside. Conner's vocabulary is expanding exponentially right now, so as we talk, I correct him on his sentence structure and phrasing so he is more comprehensible. He gets really excited when he finds a new caterpillar or colored leaf, and begins stumbling over his words. I gently encourage him to slow down and think about what he is saying. It does get down right amusing when he memorizes songs that he hears. His dad is a big fan of Pit Bull and Robin Thicke, so I am always giggling about what lyrics he thinks he is hearing.
   My second child, Miranda, is only 18 months, but even she is learning every day. She is very much in the middle of everything. Her favorite thing is to help in the kitchen. She has her stairs to get up to the counter and her rag for wiping messes up. She is also my go for girl. She is at that age where simple requests are finally understood and she preforms them fairly well. I can ask her to bring me diapers for her baby brother and she will for the most part.
    This year, I am starting to add more structure into our day. In the past, before the third pregnancy, I had started a preschool curriculum with Conner called Letter a Week, it's a free online curriculum and even has baby and toddler curriculum on there as well. I left the web address at the bottom of this post. I hope to reinstate that curriculum, as Conner seemed to love it and I hope to incorporate the other programs offered with my younger ones to give them a head start if they show an interest.
   Interest is the key to homeschooling, it is the keystone to if this will work or not. With all of my babies still being very young, I don't have a large window of opportunity for attention time for structured learning. If I spend too much time trying to get them to sit still and behave then they are learning what I put together for them. It took a lot for me to get to that revelation, even with everyone giving me advise on the subject. 

 http://www.letteroftheweek.com/preschool_age_3.html  

The birth of baby three

   July 15, 2013,
   Well, this story comes a little late as everything has been a whirl wind of excitement since the birth of our third child, so here it is. I started having contractions that morning and monitored them with one of the many apps for contraction timing. It felt like false labor for most of the morning, but come that afternoon I was sure it was time to call my Midwife to get her on the way. It turns out to be true what they say about labor getting quicker with each baby. No sooner that finishing dinner, my contractions got more intense and frequent, luckily just as my midwife was pulling into the driveway.
   I had planned on a water birth or just labor with this pregnancy but one very vital thing hadn't happened for me to be able to get into the tub until after the midwife showed up, my water hadn't broke on its own. I was left pacing my room and bracing on the wall while the debate of tub or no tub waged. We were also strapped for hot water since the kids had had their baths and the dishes had been washed, my mother in law began to warm water on the stove. Eventually, I was allowed to get in the water and it was a complete relief. The heat and weightlessness was a God sent and gave me the breather that I needed for what was to come.
   After I was settled in the water the urge to push became very urgent. Humorously, every time the urge to push came I would yell, "Pushy feeling", which everyone got a kick out of. It was the only way I could think to communicate what was going on with my body. The midwife checked me and I was just shy of fully dilated and she said what seemed like the stupidest thing in the world to me at the time, "Don't push." Are you kidding me! I'm not trying to push, my body is. How do I stop something I'm not choosing to do? My midwife is also trained in hypnobirthing which I was unable to remember at the time, and she literally stared me down and forced me to breath through each contraction. My poor husband tried to comfort me but at that point I was in a to the death staring contest with the midwife and there was no breaking it. Oh, water still hadn't broken yet.
   Finally, this crazy lady staring me down concedes and allows me to loose control and begin to push. Once, I felt my baby drop into the birth canal, it was a no holds bar, I was getting this human out of me ASAP. It took two, count them, two pushes to deliver my third child, our second son into this world. What I was later told was if my midwife hadn't ruptured the sac on my final push, my son would have been born without his water breaking. This rarely happens, mostly because rupturing the amniotic sac is a means of starting labor, so I was really amazed that my child almost did this. Once he was out and placed on my chest, I was amazed at how tiny he seemed. At seven pound four onces, he is my smallest birth so far. We named him Jasper Wyatt.
    If you have any funny or quirky labor stories I would love to hear them.

Still here, and very pregnant

So sorry to everyone that reads here, quite a lot has been going on that has kept me from posting. One of the main things has been baby three growing by leaps and bounds and keeping me very tired.

Lucky, I have mastered a bed time routine for my two babies that has been working wonders. Firstly, we have moved to making freezer meals to cut down my time in the kitchen. This is pure genius for moms of more than one kid and i highly recommend it. In fact i plan on writing about it soon with some of our personal favorites.

Secondly, we have moved dinner time up from 6pm to 4pm. This came about mostly so my husband can eat dinner with his family before going to work. This also became beneficial as I noticed my 10 month old was getting hungrier earlier due to growth spurts. For the most part every one eats fine, except Mr. picky eater 3 year old. He is the worst when it comes to meals. If it's not bread or chicken, he doesn't want much to do with it.

After hubby hours to work, the kids go to Bath time together. They get to play with their toys and soak in a home made bath soak. I make up the mixture ahead of time in sandwich bags and dump it into the bath water each night. It's 1/2 cup Epsom salt, 1/2 baking soda, and 10 drops lavender essential oil. After about 10-30 minutes they are tired and smell amazing.

Baby girl gets out first and is rubbed down with coconut oil before getting pajamas. Next, big brother gets the same treatment. Every one in the house is sensitive to commercial lotions so we love our coconut oil. Once pajamas are on, we all cuddle on the couch to watch a movie.

As everyone starts passing out, I start moving them to their rooms. This has been the biggest hurdle as my oldest has co slept with us since birth. Baby girl from day one has slept better alone so no issue there. Moving the boy out was a different story. About the only thing that worked was letting him cry about it till he passed out. I don't like doing it but now her willing goes in to his own room to sleep and it is great. Sometimes, he needs me too lay in there with him for a bit but not for too long. Now that i have gotten my bed back it's beyond amazing.

By sticking to our new routine i now get a full nights rest and am better prepared for the day. I highly recommend a routine for little ones and big ones. Speaking for my crew, they love knowing what to expect. They know that after daddy leaves, they have so long before bath and cuddles with mom. It's wonderful. I hope that i will continue to find time to post too, i miss it.

And baby makes 3

Yep, we are pregnant again. None of our children were planned per say but we have welcomed everyone of them. I am about 4 weeks along now, the dog food making me queasy was our E.P.T.
   I am very excited about this pregnancy because I will get the chance to practice all the interesting holistic ideas I found out about after Miranda was born. For starters, there is a pregnancy tea that I found out about when I was looking for a lactation tea. It's called tea for two and it is amazing. It doesn't need to be sweetened for me (and I live for sweet tea). It also helps with morning sickness, which with two under 4, there is no way I well be able to slow down for that.
   Next, I am very excited that I found out about some yoga moves that a will help with the pregnancy and labor. Unfortunately, I haven't lost any of my pregnancy weight from Miranda and everything I have researched says not to loose weight while pregnant. I am hoping that with not having the pressures of working out side the home, eating more real foods, doing yoga, and staying hydrated, I might be able to maintain my weight or just become more healthy for the baby's sake.
   As I mentioned earlier, I am moving away from processed everything and trying to just feed me and my family real foods. By real food I mean whole (not overly processed with heat or chemicals) chemicals, artificial anything, and gmos. This had been a goal my family has been working toward for years. We have slowly changed eating habits to more homemade fairs and have almost eliminated shopping from the middle of the grocery store. Some of our next moves are buying in bulk and sprouting grain then milling it to make flour.
   These are just a few of the things I am excited about for this pregnancy. We will be using our midwife again if this proves to be a pretty normal pregnancy and God willing have another home birth.
I will be keeping y'all posted more frequently and reorganizing my blog here soon.

T minus and counting too moving day

We finally found a homestead to buy. Now while we are playing the waiting game with banks and inspection and what not, I am desperately trying to get everything organized and packed again. Did I mention I hate packing just slightly less than I hate moving. At least this should be the last time God willing and the creek don't rise.
   Goal 1 is to get caught up on laundry and as I fold I am inspecting everything and anything that needs to start over goes in the donation bag. There is also the bag of no hope for all the holey clothes we have enjoyed a little too much. Strangely enough doing this has greatly reduced the amount of laundry I am doing every week.
   Goal 2 has been even harder and that is going through my son's toys and making the broken ones disappear. He is a very smart boy and knows when something is missing. He has confronted me several times about his favorite car with three wheels.
   That's about all I have time for right now. Just normal cleaning, parenting, homeschooling, homesteading, cooking, you know home making stuff. Of course, if I can keep up with that then I will be better prepared for the move.

Pre K at home

Conner will be turning 3 years old in October and many of my friends with kids his age are putting them in pre k. I am assuming this is the age for it. He is very smart and has picked up a lot already as you have seen with his cooking and cleaning. I would definitely say he is on track or ahead of his peers.

So next week we will be starting our pre k. We have our library trip planned for Monday. We are going to try the letter a day program I found. It's free, a major plus, and it seems simple.

The main thing is a learning board. This is where I got creative. Instead of making 26 different boards for every week, I made 6 signs ( theme, shape/color, number, vocabulary word, letter, nursery rhyme) and taped them to the fridge door. Also, I am finding workbook pages to tape under each label for him to work on.

In addition to working with Conner, I am hoping that some of this may rub off on Miranda. She is very observant for her age. I have an app on my phone to track her progress and she has hit all her milestones up to 4 months and she is only 2 months.

I am also hoping that this will give our day some more structure so I can document and research items about homesteading, schooling and cooking. I plan on making a seperate blog to follow the experience of homeschooling my children. So keep an eye out for it.

Cloth diapers my way

After two years of disposable diapers with Conner, I was fed up with them.  I hated how quickly the diaper pail filled and how full the garbage can was all the time. I hated when they busted open. But most of all I hated paying $20 a box for something I was going to throw in in garbage. The hunt for a better way was on.

Of course there were many who didn't understand why I wanted to put more work on my shoulders with cloth diapers but I was determined. I researched as much as I could and realized I wasn't alone in wanting something else.

There seemed to be three groups on the subject. First, there are the environmentalist that want to switch to feel they are helping save the planet. It makes since that not throwing away 10+ diapers a day for one baby for 2 years. Lets follow the math 10*365*2=7,300 diapers from one kid. (Don't start doing the math on if the hubby changed his fair share).

Then there are the trend setters. If a celebrity does it, endorses it or mentions it them it must be cool. Not many admit to this group but they exist

Then there is my group, those tired of paying for garbage. There are numerous ways to go about this but this is what I am doing. I went to Walmart and bought 5 packs of the gerber prefolds and a diaper pail. Then I went to target.com and bought 3 thirsties diaper covers with snaps. I lay two of the prefolds in the diaper cover like a thick feminine pad and snap it closed.

Now, when you first get the prefolds, wash them 6 or 7 times in a row to get the oil off of them so they will actually absorb something. Because I double up on prefolds I do laundry every day or every other day. It costs about $120 up front to go this route but compared to what I would have spent on disposables. Back to the math 1 kid *10 diapers per day *365 days per year *2 years =7,300 diapers per kid's diaper age /100 diapers per box optimistically *$20 per box of generic diapers = $1,430 thrown directly in the garbage. For the finally of my math fun $120 < $1,430.

When I finished with the visual of pitting that much money in the garbage made me sick. I also can't go back because Miranda os allergic to the disposable diapers.