Crazy Start to the"New" School Year

Well, normally I'd say we're all set and breezing through the beginning of the new school year. However, this year that's not the case. It seems that when we bought our new home in Kentucky that the previous owners were hiding a few facts. Such as the presence of mold in the house due to the last flood in the area. Because of that we have had to leave that house and begin looking for another one.

We're currently staying with some family while we look. Some of the school books had to be tossed, some were accidentally left in our storage unit, and the rest we were able to remember and bring with us.

Currently we're doing our lessons first thing in the morning while Mommy drinks coffee. And while all planned lessons are getting done, we're having a bit of trouble getting back into our usual rhythm.

I have no doubt that we'll be in our groove before long but the adjustments are interesting. In the meantime I'm doubling up on my coffee.

On a non school related note, I managed to severely bruise one of my knuckles and I'm still not sure how I did it.

And on a crafting front I've been very busy working on, and filling, baby set orders.

Life Gets Busy

It seems like no matter what you do life ends up getting busy!!! More so if you're moving, during the holidays, or when you've already got a lot on your plate.
Many of you remember that we spent awhile in September packing up the house we'd almost finished the way we wanted. We moved in early October to another state and it was over two weeks before we were able to move into our new house. Then it was already Halloween!!
November showed up and went by in a blur! Lots of yard work comes with two and half acres in the fall! Thanksgiving was spent at the new house where I mangled the sweet potatoes.
Which brings us up to December.... So far this month we've taken down and old fence in our front yard, burned leaves, torn down an old block building, and drove almost 700 miles to be with family at Christmas!!!
We've still got tons of things to do when we get home... But, it'll be 2015 by then so I'll worry about that when the year rolls over.
For those of you curious (and who haven't found us on Facebook yet) we've already logged over 400 hours since September towards our 1000 Hours Outside Challenge. Our second time taking the challenge is going much better than the first so far!!!
I'll be back in a day or two to share our plans for 2015 and later in the week I'll review 2014  :-)

*this post was written on mobile*

Whew! We're Doing Good

Soo much stuff happening in the blogosphere! I've been peaking in at all of my favorite blogs. But, since we've moved south I haven't managed one single blog post...
Not because we had nothing going on (TONS happened), not because I didn't want to share (because I've managed to keep up fairly well on Facebook), and not because I couldn't find time (though we were busy)...
It's because we've been busy living that my blogging got put on the back burner. It took time after we'd already gone south to finish the paperwork on the house, then cleaning, moving, unpacking (mostly), Halloween, lessons, Thanksgiving, outside hours (we're racking them up this year), projects around the house, crafts, and gift making I wasn't sure we'd make it this close to Christmas!!
More details to come before the week is out. Merry Christmas, y'all!!!!

Week of Packing

OK, let me just start with packing a family of 5 people, 2 dogs, 2 birds, and a cat (found a home for the other cat) really is a pain in the neck of epic proportions! 

We began packing on Monday with some neighbor's help and while the women were inside the guys were outside building the sides onto our trailer we'll be moving with. The kids were in and out of the house. Everyone was productive and we got a TON done ... but I didn't take even a moment to snap a picture because we were trying to get things accomplished. I made supper for everyone and then we all went to bed exhausted.

Tuesday Noni came out around noon. But, other than children being sent to organize rooms, dishes, and laundry being done nothing else got accomplished. She came out and we visited, had lunch at a local diner, then visited some more. Tears in her eyes and mine when she left. It's only 10 hours away but that's 9.5 hours further than we are right now. There are plans in the works for a spring visit from her though and we're planning on coming back up at Christmas time. *No packing got done this day.* I made a chest blanket with super soft, super warm yarn for Daddy who often coughs through the night when the weather changes and went to sleep shortly after the children did.

So, you'd think having taken a day off we'd have been packing on Wednesday. Nope, Daddy and I were hurting. The children hadn't finished going through their rooms and spent a good part of the day doing that. I spent some time on the computer and then went to crochet. As you can tell, again I didn't pick up the camera.

Thursday we finished packing up 90% of the house... I didn't take pictures. I don't mind moving as I've done it a lot but it's always sad to leave a place you've been in for over a year. There's memories in every corner, in every item you pick up, in every single thing everywhere. I'm a pretty sentimental woman and sometimes packing is the worst thing ever for me. I get it done and we're always ready on time but there's moments when I never ever want to see another box or bag again. 

Friday we finished packing all but the kitchen, it looked like a tornado had put everything we own in the living room. Most of the kitchen was packed up as well. Coffee pot and a few dishes and pots were all that was left to pack. A visit to Grandma and Papa's house, supper at one of the Aunt's houses we never visit often enough, then back home to crash out.

What the weekend holds for us: Saturday we're packing the trailer up almost completely and getting a good night's rest. Last minute things will be packed Sunday morning into the trailer so that we can get to Grandma and Papa's around noon. We'll sleep there Sunday night and hit the road Monday morning sometime... I'll be updating via Facebook once we're actually on the road.

As you can probably tell from how this was written I'd planned to have this finished and posted by Friday evening ... it is now early Sunday morning. We're nearly finished with the packing (it's obviously taken longer than expected) and we're loading the trailer once the sun comes up. Still stopping the night at Grandma's house and hitting the road sometime after breakfast on Monday.

Posts you may have missed this week:
Our Time Outside September 2014
An Odd Kind of Love

Who we're linked up to this week:     
Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
Homegrown Learners
Squishable Baby
Our 4 Kiddos

And for those of you who have yet to look us up on Facebook you can find us there by following this link . As yet it is the only social media account we can be found at.

** We'll be trying to do Pinterest, G+, and Twitter after the move! Be on the lookout for updates! But in the meantime you'll always find us here and on Facebook **

Whew! What a Week!!

It always surprises me when I go through the pictures at the end of the week just how much stuff we've actually done throughout the week! I think when you see them all you'll be surprised as well!

Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday we did lessons (2 days worth on Thursday) and spent a TON of time outside. Wednesday we spent the entire day with Noni!!! Here's pictures from those four days, some of them I'll even caption ;-) hehe!

This was Peanut Sunday/Monday night :-)

Monday's nature study begins :-)

Mommy running up the hill to catch Peanut!

Us standing at the top of the hill

That's one big hill! Same picture as above only Daddy didn't zoom in!

This stump was holding water...

View that Peanut was looking
down on

ECJ showing Peanut Daddy's "find"

Nature journals and drawing/labeling going on as a group!

Recess time Tuesday

Peanut (and later I) slept on the couch most of Tuesday night because
she wasn't feeling very well (she was better by morning).

Peanut "grooming" the dogs Wed. morning

Posing in her new outfit from and auntie :-)

He's posing on top
of that lion drinking fountain!

She wasn't sure she liked the chipmunk "ride"

Sitting side saddle due to her skirt (her idea at that :-) ... makes me one proud Mamma)

Even though it wasn't near hot enough for the splash pad at the park with Noni
ECJ found the button to turn it all on...
they ran around "avoiding" (kinda) the water for about an hour!!

Thursday afternoon we did two days worth of lessons and this
is how the girls did them (side by side)
most of the time!

 Whew! See what I mean? So, now it's Thursday afternoon and we've got a bunch to do around here. We're showing the house twice this afternoon, we have to make (and eat) supper, then drive about an hour away to pick up the trailer we'll own which we'll be moving with! Obviously I won't have time this evening to write anything else and I'll be super busy tomorrow too as that's the day we begin to pack and we'll be doing our final lessons for 2 whole weeks!! So, for now there's no update for Friday.

Things I crocheted this past week: (though I've worked on more that's not done lol)

First ever "big" bear... stands about ten inches tall toe to head
I did mess the leg positioning up a bit but since I'm keeping it (was practicing the head for a lovey
I'm making and decided to make the bear for myself) the legs don't bother me...
She'll eventually have a face lol

YCJ's cat ear headband for her Halloween costume this year...
she wants to be a black cat with one white ear and a white tipped tail
so sometime tomorrow I'm working on her tail!!

 Posts you may have missed this week:
Knowing When to Take a Break
Good News! (explains about the move)
Spelling You See. Review Before the Review
Camper Q & A

 Who we're linking up with this week:
Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
Faithful Mom of 9
Squishable Baby
Homegrown Learners
Our 4 Kiddos

 And for those of you who have yet to look us up on Facebook you can find us there by following this link . As yet it is the only social media account we can be found at.

** We'll be trying to do Pinterest, G+, and Twitter after the move! Be on the lookout for updates! But in the meantime you'll always find us here and on Facebook **

*** Also, after next week's wrap up (so one more after this one) I'm pretty much only going to be on Facebook until I can get to the library while I'm waiting on internet to be installed at the new house. ***

Just Another Week in ....

This week had it's ups and downs ... they're not ones the children really knew about and we'll be sharing a lot about them next week so you'll just have to wait in suspense! Other than that this was "Just Another Week in Paradise" (though paradise is not what I call it around here lol).

Monday and Tuesday we had regular scheduled programming around here! Here's some photos of what our lessons looked like:

YCJ saying her rosary while ECJ reads from his prayer book (YCJ has several rosaries,
currently her bracelet that holds one decade is her favorite to use.)

ECJ reading a Bible story to the girls by the sunshine coming through our side window!

Wednesday we took an impromptu trip to Gaga and Papa's house where Daddy and the campers toiled in the soil pulling weeds and replanting shrubs (Papa was nice enough to pay the campers for their work). Meanwhile Gaga and I were busy inside trading family gossip and working on a gift for my mother (Gaga has much finer hand sewn stitches than I and helped me with some finishing touches.) Later we had neighbors over for BBQ.

It's a catch all bag she can use at work in the hospital and wash as needed.

Thursday we did both Wednesday and Thursday's lessons. Plus we managed to get a nature walk, journal, and drawing session in as well!!

Cracker Jacks watching CNN Student news together.

Gathering hay bits on our nature walk

The ever camera shy Daddy :-)

Snail we found on nature walk
that Peanut spotted first.

Other side of snail.

So, that brings us to Friday... And as I'm finishing writing this up Thursday evening Friday hasn't happened yet. But, we have a full day of lessons planned including some work with our musical instruments and some videos on the production and uses of hay. And of course we plan to get outside one heck of a lot more again tomorrow!!! (And I have about a billion things to work on crochet wise alone one of which is repairing a 75 year old afghan for a family/friend *gulp*.)

Posts you may have missed this week:    
Peanut Turns 6!
A Look Back at our Year Outside (TONS of pictures)

Who we're linking up to this week:     
Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
Faithful Mom of 9
Squishable Baby
Our 4 Kiddos
Homegrown Learners

*If you first see this and the links to the other blogs where the link ups are just know that their link ups have not become available at the time you view it and as they do become available I'll be adding their link in. Thank you.*

And for those of you who have yet to look us up on Facebook you can find us there by following this link . As yet it is the only social media account we can be found at.

First Week "Back"

This has been one of those interesting, first week of the new school year, life gets messy, kind of weeks.

Monday I didn't have to work and it was our first day back to fall lessons. I'd purposely made the first half of this week lesson light so that there wouldn't be any arguments or fussing when it was time to do school so it ended up being even lighter than our summer lessons. We only did our Spelling You See lessons and our new math lessons (well, of course our Bible studies were in there but we never skip those). For Spelling You See the girls are both doing the Jack and Jill level together and ECJ is going to work through the entirety of the level that we helped test before it's general release (it's not available yet for purchase). The Cracker Jacks are working on Saxon math for the first time and Peanut cracked her first grade McGruffy math book. Here's a photo explosion of our first day...

Yeah... that was pretty much our day in pictures... We did some binder and folder decorating after our lessons, plus some wall decorations for fall. Took a trip to a beach side park about half an hour or so from the house (where of course they had to feel how chilly the water was). After a kid crafting explosion, during which Peanut either colored or hid under our round coffee table, we had a supper of hot dogs and mac and cheese. It was a really good day.

Tuesday lessons got finished before I went into work for the day and everyone had a relaxed day after Mommy left as the only thing they had left on their schedules to do was pray the rosary and watch a few of the next episodes of Liberty Kids (I picked up the entire series, 40 episodes, for $5 at WalMart on the 3rd).

On Wednesday we'd planned on doing lessons but slept over just a bit and by the time chores, prayers, breakfast, and personal hygiene issues were taken care of Noni got here! So, it was off to the first stop of the day. We'd been aiming for Chuckie Cheese and ended up at Bounce and Play because they'd taken over Chuckie's old place in the mall. I wasn't impressed at the prices, games, or bounce houses but the kids enjoyed themselves...

Then we stopped into a candy store at the mall where we saw this:

It's a 28 pound gummy python that costs $150 to order!!! There were other large gummies there as well but this one caught the campers attention. ECJ also got himself a banana flavored sucker with a scorpion (no stinger) encased inside *shudderEWshudder*. After which we went over to Toys R Us where the children picked out a few early birthday gifts and un-birthday treats and then headed home for an early celebration with cake for Peanut since Noni has to work this weekend when Peanut turns 6...

So, then we came to Thursday... the anniversary of 9/11/11. We meant to do our regular lessons this day as well but ended up talking more about what happened 13 years ago instead. Which was just fine with us. I won't get up on my soap box and talk on and on about why we think it is important that our children, who didn't see the event first hand, know all about this event ... Let's just leave it that we thought it important enough to spend the entire day on it.

And now it's Friday and we'll be finishing up this week's lessons today. The plan is a nature walk this afternoon if the weather holds, I'll be breaking out the jackets because it's supposed to only reach 60* today (last week at this time it was 90*!). After which I'll be dedicating a lot of time working on my crochet. I have several Christmas orders to finish, a few projects I'm doing for stitch-a-longs, and Christmas gifts for family. I know that I won't get them all finished this weekend but I also have a few small things I need to make for Halloween to finish up some costumes. In other words I'm going to be hugely busy this weekend stitching.

Here's the start of one of the lovies I'm finishing up today...

Here's a link to a bunch of lovies on Pinterest which will show you basically what these are if you didn't know... crochet lovies

Since I didn't post earlier this week here's a shot of Moragon "playing" with her new toy:

Who I'm linking up to this week:   
Our 4 Kiddos
Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
Faithful Mom of 9
Homegrown Learners

And for those of you who have yet to look us up on Facebook you can find us there by following this link . As yet it is the only social media account we can be found at.