i hope to recap each or at least every other week of school this year so i have a better record of things we’ve done. pictures at the end of the post!

i can honestly say this was the easiest first week of schooling that i’ve ever done!  i know it’s only my third year, but wow! i hope they’re all this fun and easy.

i think a few factors helped our success:

• the alarm clock. this amazing invention was so interesting to all the boys for the first few days. they were very easily getting into bed on time for the first few nights because they were excited for the alarm to wake them up. so now, they are already used to the earlier bedtime, the no video-on-school-night rule, and they are getting up before the alarm wakes them for the most part (8:00 a.m.).
• fun, new curriculum. last year, i focused on getting the two older boys reading and basic math skills. we chose really good classically-based curriculum (and we’re continuing to use them for reading/spelling/math this year), BUT…it got tedious and the joy was lost from our school time. last year was a hard lesson for me. we all got frustrated quickly and too easily. i take responsibility for stealing their joy, so i was really careful in selecting good, fun material for the subjects that we added this year: history, Bible, and grammar. each morning, all three boys are eager to start, and we’re doing a lot of coloring, pasting, memorizing with hand-motions, cutting, creating, writing and drawing. it’s even more fun for me this year!
• heavy doses of prayer. i’ve been trying to get up two hours before the boys’ alarm gets them up. since i’m used to an early wake time, this hasn’t been too difficult, but i’ve been using this time for quiet lesson prep and praying for a good day. i want so badly for the boys’ experience in school to be a good one, and when their mama is frustrated and angry most of the day, that’s doesn’t really make for a good experience. i’ve been praying for patience and the presence of calm. it’s been a great change this year!
• frequent recess and snack breaks. we are usually done with all of our lessons by lunch, but i’m still finding it very helpful to break frequently for snacks, drinks, or playing outside. my mom supplies our snack needs (drink boxes and snacks from trader joes!). we’ve had great weather this week, so i’ve been sending the boys (and me!) outside a lot. this helps all of us to better focus when we re-gather for the next subject. the two older boys open up the chicken coop, feed them and water the animals in the morning, so we’ve had a lot of time to be outside during the school day, not to mention afternoon free-time!

we had a field trip day on tuesday with only Bible after breakfast that day as an “official” class. october starts our local co-op class (every other tuesday morning) and all of our field trips will take place on tuesdays, so it’s good to get in the habit of tuesdays being a bit “off” of the normal at-home school schedule.

in a nutshell…this week the boys memorized a catechism question related to their Bible class, “The Butterfly” by Christina G. Rossetti from their grammar class, made several drawings of our related memory work, found their places in their math lessons, reviewed phonograms from last year’s spelling/reading work, and started their logs for history, grammar, and Bible.

*                         *                       *

i’ve also gotten back into meal planning this week. all summer i’ve kept a lot of meat and charcoal on hand as well as fresh veggies. we grilled meat, tossed a salad and voila! a meal!  but now i’m writing meals down on the calendar and shopping in advance again to prepare for the cooler/colder months when the grill is out-of-order. here’s our week of meals so far:

monday – ground turkey with chick pea curry over rice

tuesday – field trip day The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh: out for dinner

wednesday - Chicken Enchiladas Verdes (SO, SO good)

thursday - Spiced Pork and Apricot Stew with salad

friday - Sticky Roasted Chicken (rotisserie-like, baked in low oven for 5 hrs), fresh green beans and tomatoes

saturday – out to a friend’s BBQ

sunday – homemade pizza and salad

*              *               *

sand “mover” at The Children’s Museum:

Adam with george at the Curious George exhibit:

Hands-down, the boys’ favorite part of the museum…controlling this wooden robot:

Rowan’s favorite book because of the monarch butterfly on the cover. We collected butterflies all summer and the monarch was their prized butterfly (he’s still in search of a viceroy, Uncle Dan!). we all love the lessons in this grammar book as well (First Language Lessons by Jessie Wise).

want to read more weekly wrap-ups of other homeschooling families?  check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers every Friday!

the first day of school is always fun, sin’t it? the anticipation the night before of waking up to freshly sharpened pencils, new books, new notebooks, and new things to learn are always high on the student’s mind.

rowan had a hard time falling asleep last night. maybe it was the “last-day-of-summer ice cream cone” he had eaten just hours before? or maybe it was the anticipation of TheAlarmClock i gave them for this year’s school. i set the alarm for 8:00 a.m. which i think is way too late, and of course, they were awake in their beds by 7:30 waiting for that buzzer to sound. i think by the end of the week, that buzzer will become TheirEnemy.

this morning, we had breakfast as a family, started bible class together promptly after breakfast, and then proceeded into history, spelling, math and concluded with grammar. it was a full, busy morning – but we all had fun!  i wonder how long until the groaning starts?  i’m optimistic, but also realistic.

the chalkboard provided a loose schedule for our days, and the first of our weekly memorization work (click on pictures to enlarge). this week, we start with a creation recap memorizing the 9th question of the Westminster Shorter catechism. the bible curriculum we’re using is called God’s Great Covenant and i’m so excited to use an actual covenant-based curriculum!  the first unit is four or five weeks of creation and since we’ve done TheCreationStory oh-so-many times already, we’re doing that whole unit in the first week, and continuing on with Abraham next Monday.

the units that we’ll be covering throughout the year are all about the covenant between God and his people. just like the storybook bible that we’ve been using for years (The Jesus Storybook Bible) says, “Every story whispers His Name” and i’ve always loved that teaching view of the bible to our children. all the stories of the Old Testament point to, and whisper the name of, Jesus, our Messiah. we want to continue telling the Big Story about God and His people to our children. they were baptised into a covenant family, not just our family, but the family of the people of God.

There is an Old Testament Part II that covers the second half of the Old Testament (Samuel to Malachi) that we’ll continue with next year.

yes. That’s my beautiful, artistic “earth”.

Rowan thought it was missing a little something, so he added clouds.

After school, we went out for lunch! The boys chose Eat-N-Park because of guaranteed dessert (free smiley sugar cookie – oh, they’re so smart!).

My favorite part of the first day of school! Everything in order and neat and fresh!

Sawyer’s recap of the day – makes a momma proud!

i have to admit, i’m a sucker for fun family gatherings, events, or parties. who isn’t?  ask your kids: if every day could be a party, would they disagree?

it’s back to school time in this country as the majority of schools start their school year this week. we start lessons on monday and i’m already thinking about how to start with a bang…which translates into PARTY!

i love hearing other family back-to-school traditions and how they spend their last day of summer vacation together, or what they do to commemorate each first day of school. this is our third year, and the only thing i’ve done is take a picture in years past! here are our first two years’ pictures (‘08 and ‘09).

this year, i’m a bit more on my ball, and as well as taking a photo of all the boys, i’m making their favorite breakfast (we’re still choosing the perfect coffee cake or cinnamon roll recipe). also, we’ll be taking them out for lunch, as lunchtime marks the end of our school day. unfortunately, their favorite place to eat is chuck e. cheese. let’s hope their taste in dining matures quickly!

next week, i’ll post pictures of our first day…here’s to a great school year for all of us!

for the first year living up here, we did nothing except try to plant a garden (didn’t happen) and had a baby (adam!).

that was a lot for us, so we took it easy the fall and winter of our first year. but plans started picking up the following spring and we dove head-first into homesteading our little plot of land out here in the rolling hills of western pennsylvania!

that next spring, we ordered and DROVE to ohio to pick up our 15 egg-laying chicks. they were still wet when we picked them up (from hatching!) and we brought them back to our home, set them up with a warm brooder box in our laundry room and watched them for hours (kenny even got up twice in the night to check on them!).

we even had a garden that year, that was eaten to the ground by groundhog, but at least we planted and tended a lovely garden!

fast forward to this summer and we’ve found some balance to the whole “hobby-farming” endeavor. we have a new barn with an actual fenced in 1.8 acres. within that fence, barnyard politics rule…not the rules we thought to set up. the donkey is in charge of the five sheep and the two goats. the chickens keep their distance and the cat sneaks some water when the donkey isn’t looking (and then makes her way back out of the pasture fence).

the bees died out this winter and we didn’t get more, we tried to get 10 chickens in our freezer, but only consumed two (gave the rest away). the best laid plans…and all that jazz.

our garden is booming this year thanks to a very patient and green-thumbed kenny. the beans were a huge crop, the limas and edameme are just about to pop, and the tomatoes are all lovely and blight-free this year! we have a cutting garden again (zinnias!) and we had fresh lettuce and broccoli and herbs and will be picking some beautiful butternut squash (for soup!) soon. not to mention the decorative gourds for the dining room table fall decor (that i won’t be spending money on!).

we’ve been eating farm fresh eggs for years now, and i can tell you they are superior and worth the effort o keep hens just for that. last night, we had our first dinner of roasted herbed whole chicken that were raised, killed, and cooked by our own hands and it was good…but not WOW! the drumsticks were tough (probably because the donkey love to chase these chickens and they got a LOT of exercise!), and the breast meat, although large in quantity, were just as tasty as the herbed butter we cooked them in. what was satisfying was the fact that we can now, if we ever need to, raise and harvest our own chicken.

i am glad for the opportunity to learn and teach this way. i’m learning just as much as our boys are, and that is satisfying enough!

1. my “little” brother is in town. he spoke at a conference in TheBigCity and now he’s spending a few days up here in the boondocks. Rowan, Sawyer and Adam are monopolozing his time by climbing on his shoulders, coloring him pictures and cards, and planning out his entire schedule. Yesterday, they took him to Playthings Etc their favorite store ever, and the swimming pool, where we were only one of two families there (warm and sunny! where were all the people?). today they plan on getting in 18 holes at the local mini golf ice cream stand. They love their uncles.

2. we spent yesterday morning processing two of our meat chickens. kenny didn’t let the boys watch the actual “act” but they were there watching the plucking, the disembowling, and the cleaning without being grossed out at all. i was proud of them. we have two gorgeous chickens in our fridge right now, and we’re roasting them tonight with fresh rosemary and butter, corn on the cob, and a big ol’ salad. the farmer friend who helped us stated that the birds looked great – not overly full of yellow fat, which means they had a good eating life (free-rangers!).

3. if we put all the expenses we’ve had since getting these chickens, it comes to approximately $16 a chicken. totally not worth the money, time, work…but it was worth the experience!

4. the boys have been collecting butterflies all summer (running around with a net, catching the “pretty ones” and then giving them to kenny who puts them in a jar with rubbing alcohol until they are done moving). we have a pretty good collection now, and “uncle dan” has added to our interest by finding monarch butterfly eggs and baby caterpillars on our milkweed from our front yard. we now have a gallon jar of baby caterpillars and one egg, lots of fresh milkweed and will be raising and releasing monarchs over the next few weeks. endless fun! if you’re interested, here’s some information!

5. if you have any advice on being at the beach with a young children, please send it my way!

6. i have that nervous feeling of “new schoolyear jitters” that i haven’t had in years. i never thought teachers got it as well!

7. here’s a great free resource for your family – whether you homeschool or not, it’s a fun little video that can help you and your students see the growth of this country.

for more quick takes, visit jennifer at conversion diary!

it’s always hard for me to believe how big the boys are getting and so quickly.

today rowan, our oldest, turns 7!  this summer alone he’s learned to ride a two-wheeler bike and to swim without any flotation device…we couldn’t be prouder of you, rowan tucker!

the spring after we moved into this house, kenny was hankering for our next home improvement project (the first being to rip out our second floor bathroom and install a shower). i strongly urged that we needed a deck. there was a 3×8′ porch off of the back porch, but there wasn’t a nice place to sit and enjoy our back yard view. we’ve done several other room updates in the house since the deck project, but we still feel as though the deck is one of the best additions or changes that we’ve made since moving in.

this weekend, the deck was the one “room” where we spent the majority of the day. here was our saturday….

kayle, our outdoor cat, always joins kenny and i for the morning of cup coffee on the deck. she’s been a 100% outdoor cat for a full year now,a nd she never tries to get inside. we think she’s really enjoying her “retirement years” in the great outdoors. we see her in the morning when we feed her, and wake our senses with caffeine, and in the evening for her second feeding. the deck is the perfect location to greet the morning.

after a morning and lunch hour of sprinkler running, we spend some reading and playing time in the shade or sun. rowan looked up from their game during this time and said, “what a great family vacation day!” it felt like it as we relaxed, read, enjoyed the non-busy moment…a rare moment these days!

and what a perfect close to the perfect day! thai peanut skewers on the grill with fresh thai springrolls. we ate outside, of course.

it’s the perfect summer room, and i’m so thankful we have this space to enjoy!

it’s so easy to get so caught up in the frenzy of the technology-rich world we live in today. i admit to being just as caught up in it as the next one.

as the sun shines warmer in this season, i’m reminded again of one of the reasons we wanted our little nook in the country: to slow down.

certainly we all know that raising children doesn’t really allow us to sit back, enjoy our the quiet for hours on end. but that’s not the kind of slowing down i’m talking about right now. this is what i intend to do as i try to make the summer months last forever (before being thrown into the cold, harsh winter that makes me want to stay in bed all day long!):

• read from books more, and less from my computer. i get lots of news sources read in the morning and at night. i don’t want the dull light of my laptop screen to steal my senses of the magic found in novels, historical books, biblical reference books that line our shelves. i need to tune out the LOUDNESS of today’s current events and just hear the whisper of it in the background. i’m going to immerse myself in reading printed paper. probably enjoyed with a cool drink sitting in the sun on the deck.
• spend more time in the pasture. i should really do my share of work mucking stalls. my dad and kenny do all of that work now. i need to get my hands dirty and help them out. i’m really good at straightening up, mowing the lawn, making the outside pretty. but i’m not so good (yet!) about dealing with the muck. and 8 animals makes a lot of muck!
• make lemonade. no, life hasn’t give me lemons. but i want to let the kids remember summer for cool, tangy drinks on the deck after a long hot run around the yard. we rarely have anything but milk in the fridge (not even juice!) but on these hotter than hot days, i’m giving the kids lemonade. and not from a mix. i’m learning myself how to make real, honest lemony-lemonade.

if i spend all of my free moments this summer doing all those three things every single day, i think i will have successfully slowed down. and then perhaps i’ll be ready to dive into the crazy schedule that is “back-to-school” followed directly by the Holidays.

look closely at this picture. adam’s sporting a penguin sticker that reads, “adjustments are cool.”

after four rounds of antibiotics, his head/ear/sinus/eye infection seemed to come back this morning. i have changed my mind about tubes being the only way to combat ear infections. i’m no doctor, but i’m willing to join the ever-growing population of parents taking their kids to chiropractors to fight off ear infections.

we all went. it was kenny’s lunch break, and i was glad to have him there, asking the questions that i couldn’t think of. after a great conversation with the chiropractor that i’ve been going to recently, an interview he had with adam, and many questions and answers later, adam had a gentle spine (neck) adjustment. this was the part i was worried about: how would he react to a neck or spine adjustment? truthfully, it wasn’t his favorite part of the appointment. but his reaction was mild (“mama, can i snuggle?”) compared to prior immunizations he’s had in the past (screaming for five minutes straight, begging never to return again).  we’re now on the look-out to see how his eyes are in the morning, if his lymph nodes are decreasing in size, and if the adjustment was successful. we go back for a follow-up on wednesday.

for the record, we still trust our pediatricians. we are going there next week with rowan for a follow-up to his ER trip over the weekend (for pneumonia). we’re just trusting our gut to follow this route for now.

i’ll update to let you know how this approach is working.

* we’ve lost a total of 7 chicks since their arrival. the odd thing is that they are all broilers. all the layers are completely healthy and growing. we’re not sure, but we think the hatchery sent us some bad broilers.  of course, this could be totally irrational, but we’re not sure why they keep dying. some of them aren’t displaying signs of typical chick illnesses (“pasty butt” – i know i don’t have to explain that to you!), they’re just weak and then they’re being pecked to death. it’s discouraging going out to the brooder each morning seeing another dead one. rowan is quite happy that the “chickens that we’re going to kill” are the only ones dying. his heart for animals is their cuteness and pet-like-ness. he doesn’t see them as a dining room table centerpiece. yet.

* we had plans to spend memorial day with friends from pittsburgh (rowans’ godparents) at a local beach/picnic area. on the way, we both were met with darkening skies and the threat of severe weather, so we headed back to our house. we had a great time watching all six of our boys run around, play with water, play boy games, march in a parade around the house. then we got the call that my brother and his wife had their third baby yesterday: reuben james!   later in the evening, i called my grampy to wish him a happy memorial day. it’s always a treat to chat with him on the phone. he’s always incredibly thankful to hear from his grandchildren, and downplays any holiday that honors his service in WWII. he’s thankful for the recognition, but then he asks about what’s going on with me and the boys. he lives in the now, and only honors the past with memories instead of dwelling in it. he still gets together with members of his flight crew on occasion. i can only imagine the bonds these gentlemen share. our local town celebrates any patriotic holiday BIG time, and with yesterday’s unveiling of a new veteran’s memorial, the town was crawling with older veterans and their wives. i wonder what their war stories are.

* last week’s sunny days in the high 80s were pure heaven to me. we officially “opened” deck, with herbs and flowers…the garden is in and flower beds are weeded. this week the temps are dropping 10 degrees and rain is added to the forecast. i’ll enjoy it for about a day, then i’ll be wishing for the hot, sunny days again. if this summer is anything like last summer, we’ll have already had the warmest temperatures with last week’s “heat wave.” i’m hoping for some high temps all summer, including our trip to the beach.