New school year

I have just put in our order for this up coming school years books! This has to be the most exciting time for homeschooling families, it is for ours. It helps give that extra push to get the lessons we have left done so that we can move on to bigger ideas.
This year in addition to getting books and study aids from A Beka books, I also got a year long family pass to both the Mayborn museum and the zoo in Waco, TX. I hope that this will add lots of fun to our school year as we take many trips as a family and with other home school families.
Jamie will be starting her K5 year and Michael is starting on Nursery school. Some of the things Jamie will be doing include, feather progressing in her reading skills, learning addition and subtraction, discovering Gods world through sciences, and starting a journal.
Michael will be working on understanding the concept of numbers, recognizing written numbers, counting, and his ABC's. Both children have art project books. Some of the most fun kids get to have is when they are covered in paint and glue and my kids will not be let out!
My the Lord bless us in this new school year, bless me with the patience to go the pace my children set and my children forgiveness for my flaws.

New Chicks

We have just expanded our flock! We made a 1 hour drive as a family to get our new little chicks. It was a lot of fun when the box of chicks came to the window and you could hear them chirping away. Buying and finding the right chicks was both easier and harder than I had first thought. Finding where to buy a one day old chick is just a mouse click away, BUT most places have a minimum order of 15-25 chicks. That is all fine and dandy if you have a large Coop or yard to house your fluffy little friends. We on the other hand have a small backyard and no need for 25 bantam birds taking it over. I did come by a recommendation of a place near by that only requested a $25 order min, and I could pick them up. That was the other thing I was worried about, having a box at my post office full of chirping chicks.

So now came the fun part, picking what birds to order. I thought that bantams were only in a few breeds and boy was I wrong! I can't tell you how many types and colors you can get but there are many. I came to love the look of Wyandottes. They come in a few different color combos so to make my life easy I ordered and mix of colors. It will be so much fun to watch as these birds get their feathers in and how they color up.

Here is out flock right now. There are 11 chicks total and we plan on keeping 4 or so of them, the others we will sell.

Family Trip

This last weekend we made a last minuet trip to Seaworld. As Seaworld allows for military and up to 4 family members admission for one day free we thought it would be a nice family trip. It was very nice to have some time together with out having to worry about the house and meals. The day was on the border of being hot but that made it nice when we got wet. Michael and Jamie got their first ride down a water slide. They didn't like the splash at the end so Michael only went once and Jamie went twice. Elizabeth HATED the water! and time a drop would touch her she would scream. It was funny for Mommy and Daddy to watch but not for them. That was our first stop(the water park) and that is where I twisted my ankle. At the time it didn't hurt much at all. As the day went on it got worse until we got in the car to leave and made a side trip to Brookes Army Medical Center, BAMC for short. This is the hospital that Jason did his Medic rotation in. That made it a little better. The next day we had planed to go the Alamo and the river walk. We did make the Alamo but not the way we planed. I found a bench and sat there and let Jason take the kids around. It was still nice to be outside on such a nice day. well here are some photos that we took of our trip. Behind the scenes of Seaworld. The dolphins were showing off for us.

Elizabeth and Jamie after the wonderful Azule show. Elizabeth looks hungry, she is eating a program.

Jamie had so much fun talking to the girls from the show. These ladies were so nice to the kids.

Everybody smile!

Michael, unlike Jamie wasn't so sure about the colorful people.

Michael was all tuckered out midway thought the day. Seaworld or not nap time will come.

We got to go in the back and pet a shark and feed the stingrays.

Michael waned to swim with the shark!

Jamie and I getting to touch the shark.

Jamie was having fun pushing the "green stroller".

Music to my ears

Jamie and I have started piano lessons this last week. I have wanted to learn how to play the piano for years now, and took lessons for a short time after Jaime was born. Sadly my piano teacher, and best friend, moved to Africa. Seeing as travailing to Africa once a week for lesson was out of the budget, I took a brake for a time. Now that Jamie is 4 years old and asking nearly every day to learn I thought it was time to start up again.
Our first lesson went very well. Jamie took very well to her our teacher and to the method she uses. Jamie is using the book 67 Fun Songs primer by Jon Schmidt. I am using the 67 Fun songs by Jon Schmidt and love it! These books are a wonderful way to learn the basics of sight reading. In one lesson I have picked up so much that I have started to play simple peaces. I look forward to watching Jamie progress in her playing. I think that having a child at the piano making beautiful music makes a home a wonderful place.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Today is the little mans birthday. To think that 2 years ago Michael came into our lives and changed them forever. I can still remember that day so well. Oh, how blessed and scary it was. I had just given birth to this beautiful little boy, but that little boy wasn't doing so well. As the nurse took him off to the NICU I knew that he would, with time, be just fine. To have my newborn away from me was the worst feeling. It felt like part of me was missing. Now 2 tears later Michael is growing and doing just fine. We have been so blessed to has this sweet boy in our lives and I am looking forward to many more years with him in our family.

Backyard chickens

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Well in our yard the chicken came first. We are now the happy owners of 3 bantam chickens. 2 hens (egglaydean and Henna) and 1 roster (Cluck Norris).
First off Bantam chickens are pet birds. These birds are not meant for meat or eggs, though they both can be eaten and lay eggs. These cute birds are 1/4 the size of the normal farm bird. We plan on trying our hand at hatching a few eggs but that will be later. Here are a few photos from this evening.



You can see that we have made a run for our birds to stretch there legs and wings. This is the first time they have been outside of a cage. the owners before us never let them out.

Michael and Jamie are feeding the birds. Yes Michael is naked, he is potty trained but now won't keep his clothes on. What can I say, he is SUCH a boy!

Jamie loves her chickens. Our kids were born for the country.

green thumb

"You have a green thumb!". This is what Jason told me this afternoon as I took him on a tour of our sprouting garden. It has been so much fun watching all our plants show themselves. We have now added strawberries to the garden because when we asked Jamie what she wanted that was the first thing out of her mouth. Our garden is expanding! We have now added a fence to help keep out the dog and kids, no more sun bathing in the beds. We will also be adding 5 more 2x4 ft beds, 4 2x2ft beds, and 4 4x4ft beds. What a lot of veggies we should have! It will be so nice to go out every night to pick a fresh salad.

These are Jamie's strawberry plants. I ordered them from Burpee Seeds.

Here are our sugar peas, beans, cucumbers,zucchini,spinach,broccoli, radishes, and cauliflower.

WE have tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, corn, onions, carrots, broccoli and something else I can't remember right now.

You can see the fence we put up around the garden, the kids play area, and in between them the chicken coop. Yes a chicken coop! More on that in the next post.

Spring is here

These are the radishes. These came up first. It was nice to have something to look at as the other seeds were still working on sprouting.


They are hard to see but here are our spinach plants. I love a good spinach salad.

Our sugar peas came up just this morning! I watered them in the morning a could see only one, by the time I took this photo there were 5!

Again it's hard to see but here we have 2 cauliflower.

This is the garden from my back door.

There you have it, our first garden! I pray that I can keep everything growing and producing tons of veggies for our family to enjoy this year.

Homesteding in the Military

So we have been doing a lot of praying as to what we should do with our family. Do we stay in the military and move every few years, should we buy a home and settle down, or do something in between? The one thing we know for sure is that we want to be more self-reliant. The price of food, fuel, and fun is going up everyday. As a family we have chosen to stay away from credit cards and needless loans. We have seen many of the young families around us well over there heads in debt due to them. So as an answer to that we have started a Square foot garden in the backyard. We are also playing with the idea of getting some chickens to add fresh eggs as well.
Jamie is very happy to have a garden in the back yard, and is eager to help. Michael is a bit more of a hindrance. Oh he enjoys helping plant the seeds, but he also likes to pull up the plants! Our dog Sam is also finding the garden useful. She thinks that the beds are just that, a bed for her to lay in. I have now added some netting to keep little hands and big dogs out and will be adding a short fence soon.
As I was watering the garden this morning I came across 4 seedling! our radishes are coming up to say hello. It is nice to have something to show for all the work I have put in. Sadly Jason won't be here for the main harvest. By the time we are in the season to enjoy all the work he will be in Afghanistan. Such is the life of an army wife. It is all fine and good so long as he comes home to me and the kids.
ANYWAY... we are taking the first step in having a homestead in the military. I just pray that we don't get caught up in some silly rule that limits what we can do. I will post pics later but for now I must get back to washing clothes.

pre-deployment

OUr family has been going through al lot in the last few months. Jason is gone at some point every month for training for the up coming deployment. With Jason gone I have been given time to learn how best to care for our house with him gone. To put it lightly the house is a mess. With three wonderful, yet messy, kids to clean after and teach/play with it has been less then easy to keep our home in the order it should be. I often find myself wondering how I will last a whole year without Jason coming home at night to help look after the kids as is pick up the chores not done for that day. We had a wonderful gift of a 4-day weekend the weekend before last. It was so nice to have time with Jason and the kids and not have to rush to get all the Saturday errands do in one day. Well Monday night came around and it hit us that we got nothing done in the house, the dishes were stacked in the sink, clothes needed to be washed and put away, and there were toys EVERYWHERE!
Now here I am trying to play catch-up with the house chores and still get the daily tasks done at the same time. I feel so over my head. I want to just hire someone to come in and get the house back in shape then I'll take over! I know that is never going to happen so here is sit taking a well needed rest from my all morning cleaning. Jason is leaving on Thursday for 3 weeks and will miss yet another Valentine's day. I am happy that He has a job, and that I can be a stay-at-home mom but there are days that I would love t drop the kids off at a sitters and hire a maid.
As the wise Annie once said "The sun will come out tomorrow".