Beach Fun

I have this friend that is a single mom with 3 adopted kiddoes. We love hanging out and exchanging parenting tips and letting our kids play. Our kids are good friends. We have made so many great memories together. 

Friends

Many years ago, when  I was a young mom struggling to navigate the education system in our county, I met a group of crazy ladies at the church we  attended.

Every Wednesday evening the kids would all go to their classes. The moms would gather in the lobby to chat. They were all homeschool moms. Really, I was shocked. I had never met homeschool moms that were not jumper wearing, 15 passenger driving moms!

These ladies talked me into homeschooling. They opened my eyes to the blessing of homeschooling. They walked me through my first year, and my second and my third and fourth! lol

We continue to chat online quite frequently. Over the years our group has lost some members and gained some. We don't see each other very often, especially since some people had to move across the country!


Recently we got together again. I actually got to go out for coffee without kids! They came to my house to hang out on another day. I look forward to learning how to homeschool high school from these amazing ladies.

Allergy Progress

Now that I have freedom to do my research and follow my gut with Bubbie, we have made great progress. I have added lamb broth, probiotics and kefir in attempt to heal his gut. It has been working very well. He also took a very strong antibiotic for his SIBO.

 I truly believe the combination of diet and medicine is working for him.

We have added goat milk, which means: milk, smoothies, yogurt, cheese, ice cream, bread, pudding, cake, cookies have all been added to his diet!

Miss Melody provides us with precious milk. Goat milk costs approx $7 a gallon. It is much cheaper to own and milk a goat. We hope to eventually transition everyone to goat milk, which means NO MORE MAKING SEPARATE MEALS for Bubbie!

Then oh my.. we found So Delicious coconut ice cream at the local bent and dent store. He had his first ice cream at 2 years old! He LOVED it!!

We are almost completely off  that dreadfully nasty alimentum formula! He takes goat milk in his bottle. His GI gave permission to use goat milk, but she said it has the nutritional value of water. :) Never mind that I know many a baby that thrived on goat's milk! I keep a close eye on his weight to make sure he is not losing out.

We also had a chiropractic adjustment, where they found his back to be really locked up. Since his adjustment he has not needed his emergency inhaler once! Despite the humidity and seasonal allergies.

He is still on re flux meds and daily asthma meds. I have become much better at recognizing early signs of allergic/asthmatic  reactions AND protecting him from accidental exposures which has been beneficial to his over all health! Every round of steroids and breathing treatments is so hard on his little body.


His current favorite foods are strawberries, potatoes, smoothies, applesauce, apples, and graham crackers.

Summer Vacation, Strawberries and Friends

We ended school on June 1. We ended babysitting the next week. June 8th was Nesiah's last day of school. Summer vacation is officially HERE!

Bonfires require meds AND cuddles with Lady for Bubbie.

Guitars and S'mores are requirements for the big kids.

We have been very busy... Lots of running here there and everywhere.

Some pool splashing...

 A little bit of building in preparation of our new animals.

Goofy Chipmunk cheeks..

Strawberries.. lots and lots of strawberries. 100 quarts once all was said and done.

 We got them for 1.50 a quart! So incredibly blessed!

My kids LOVE strawberry smoothies!

We also purchased a bunny rabbit and a goat. We made some new friends and reconnected with old. We have been so incredibly busy that I have yet to see the lazy days of summer! 

..

Birthday Ballons for Heaven..

It is our tradition.. Every year we have pizza, wings and balloons in memory of my love. 

The kids love celebrating his birthday as much as I do. 

We released ballons.. 

A month later and Bubbie still talks about the boons going to Jesus, And the moon,  And to mesh with the helicopters. 

Second step of Summer Scheduling

I love lists, my kids love lists. We all need a schedule. My kids need to know ahead of time what is expected and when. It keeps peace in my house.



 We have had schedule outline almost 3 years now. We change things up as kid's needs change and responsibilities change.

Each child gets  up, gets dressed, makes their bed and cleans up their room.

They go to the barn and each child has certain animals they care for. Elizabeth always takes Bubbie with her. He will only listen to her and the boys get annoyed at him. ;)

                                                      


Fayth works better close to me and she is more of a girly girl, so she helps me in the house. Her morning job is to vacuum the living room and help me with Nesiah's morning care.

Each morning one kiddo makes breakfast. I used to be the cook of all meals, however I received to many complaints. So now each child gets to cook what THEY want for breakfast. Which has really really cut down on the complaining. The one's who want scambled eggs, get scrambled eggs on their morning. The one's who like dippy eggs, get dippy eggs on their morning. They do not like when other's complain about their meals, so they stop their own complaining. A win, win situation. I do cook breakfast on Sundays and Fridays.

After each meal, each kid has a special job. They rotate jobs every day. One person cleans the table and counters. Another one washes dishes. Another one dries dishes and the last one sweeps the floor. they rotate every day so it keeps jobs from getting monotonous.

Currently I sort and wash all clothing. But the big kids fold and put away their own laundry. I take care of mine and the littles.

They love the story of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn

Mowing the lawn. We live on 3 acres but most of it is pastures. So we have a small yard which we mow with a walk behind mower. The yard is divided into 3 pieces, each of the 3 older ones mows one area. They rotate weekly. We have them numbered 1-2-3. This has really worked well.


The boys are responsible for keeping the vehicles clean and the girls and I work on the keeping the house clean. Everyone has assigned jobs. If I need them to do my job or some awful/big job, they get paid. But they do not get an allowance or pay for regular activities.

We try to make sure that we get together with friends atleast once a week, the boys play with neighborhood boys more often. We are not putting up our pool this summer because we have a very intelligent, very active, very mischievous 2 yr old that scares the life off me quite frequently. So we hope to play at the local creeks. I bought some fun tubes etc.. plus the boy's friend owns a pool and they are planning on allowing us to swim atleast weekly.


We do lots of spontaneous fun. I like my schedule. I like routine. But I love last minute get togethers with friends and fun roadtrips.

We are still learning to work with Bubbie who is allergic to everything, including the air in the summer! So I foresee some long days of monopoly and dice.I am learning to just be. To just hang out with my kids. They will soon be grown up and then I can enjoy peace and quite.



Today for example: We got up late and got a slow start. While the kids did their chores, I washed up a huge stack of dishes from yesterday. We then made pancakes for breakfast and just hung out eating for over an hour. We watched Tony Evans on the computer then Bubbie and I napped. While the big kids played with the Polly Pockets. We had a very late, find your own lunch. Now the kids are playing with a new game I purchased while I waste time blogging. Nesiah just hangs out with us. She is happy just being in the middle of everything. This... this is the perfect kinda day.

Yes, we have behaviors, no we are not perfect. But if anyone feels the need to ruin the peace and calm, they will get send to their room for a long nap. This has taken years and years of training...

Theses two had so much fun in the creek. This kid biked 4 miles to the creek because I did not room to bring him along.

Our summer Schedule Outline...

Summer Schedule

14 Do everything without complaining or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe 

7:00 mom up, coffee, quiet time

7:30 Kids get up, get dressed and make beds

8:00 Barn Chores/Journi vacumn

8:30 Breakfast

9:00 Clean up

9:15 Bike Riding

9:30 Brain exercises /cleaning

11:30 Start lunch

12:30 lunch clean up, daily  job

12 to 2 Abraham/mom nap big kids listen to audio story

1 to 4 creek time, bike riding, ball playing, lego time

4:00 clean up and get ready for dinner 

4:30 chore time

5:00 dinner time

6:00 clean up  and odyssey time

6:30 outside play

7:30 bath, teeth, lotion

8:00 bedtime

Mow/Clean Barn on Friday~ wash vehicles on Saturday ~ clean bathrooms and vac on Saturday ~ 

Meals on Mondays ~ Laundry Thursday and Monday