Journal Jottings of a Maine Mama - April , 2016

I haven't had much time (and truth by told ENERGY) to do much blogging lately, or even reading all the wonderful things you all blog about. My life is blessed! I simply want to enjoy every day that God has given me with my loving husband and zany kids, the new experiences, the adventures, and even the challenges.I miss writing though, and this link-up. Perhaps starting it at the beginning of the week and posting the following Monday will work...

CLOCK READS
2:48pm

WEATHER IN MY NECK OF THE WOODS
Although we've had some days of steady, cool rain, the weather has warmed up. We are enjoying more and more sunny days. Some days we don't even have to wear jackets!

OUTSIDE MY WINDOW and IN THE GARDEN
All the snow is gone. The leaves have been raked off the lawn. The downed tree branches have been gathered and stacked to burn in the fire pit. The grass is green and growing. Cate's perennials have popped up as well as the Bleeding Hearts under the crabapple tree. The brook is swollen with melted snow from the mountain. Decidious trees are leaf buds. And the birds and spring peepers are back filling the woods with songs.

WHAT I'M DOING RIGHT NOW and AROUND THE HOUSE
After a busy morning filled with learning and errands, I'm resting in the livingroom. The windows are open and I can hear the hens clucking. Another egg? Sam is making homemade peanut butter cookies and watching Netflix. The dogs are napping on the other end of the couch.

TODAY'S TO DO
Laundry
Grocery Shop
Bank
Band Practice
Homeschool
Dishes
Vacuum
Scrub Toilets

DINNER MENU
Monday: Pepperoni or Cheese Pizza
Tuesday: Spaghetti and Meatballs, Garlic Bread and Steamed Peas
Wednesday: Leftovers - Baked Beans and Hot Dogs or Spaghetti and Meatballs and Baby Carrots and Celery Sticks
Thursday: Breakfast Pizza with White Pepper Gravy, Scrambled Eggs, Cheese, and Bacon and Pineapple Chunks
Friday: Chicken Alfredo and Steamed Cauliflower/Broccoli
Saturday: Chinese Take-out
Sunday: Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad

WHAT'S ON TV
I usually catch up on "Survivor", "The Amazing Race", "The Voice", and "Big Bang Theory" on Hulu or CBS sometime AFTER they have aired. We haven't had cable or local TV in several years now (nor Netflix). I do miss some of the shows on cable, but it's convenient to watch shows when it works for me through Hulu or CBS.

FROM THE CRAFT BASKET

Most of you probably don't know that 3 1/2 years ago I attended the birth of my nephew Ayden. I was also there with my family when he died 50 minutes later. Ayden, the first child of my sister, arrived at 22 weeks due to an incompetent cervix. He was perfect in every way, but too early. It's been on my heart for a while to use my crochet to create special hat and blanket sets for Moms and Dads who's babies never go home through prematurity. These parents have only a few special items from their babies so they are treasured. I took a break from my 2 temperature blankets to make 2 sets for hospital donation. (If you are interested in also donating Project Robbie is a great place to start.)

The left set is for a baby about 1 pound. The hat is approximately 8" in diameter and 3 1/2" from top-to-bottom. The blanket is 17" x 17". The right set is for a baby about 2 pounds. The hat is approximately 10" in diameter and 4" top-to-bottom. The blanket is 18" x 18".

I'm sharing my crocheting creations over at Lucy Blossom Crafts (Mondays), Frontier Dreams (Tuesdays), Small Things (Wednesdays), Oombawka Design (Wednesdays), and Lunamon Design (Wednesdays).

PAGE TURNER

A BLESSING

It's truly been a blessing to spend a couple of overnights a month with my husband boondocking in our little camper. We've had wonderful times together: fishing, exploring waterfalls, seeing new areas. The simple pleasure of a homemade breakfast sitting near a rushing river or reading our bibles before it gets too dark at night with the ocean waves lapping the shore nearby and a campfire are special times together.

DEVOTIONAL and INSPIRATION

James 1:17 - Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

I'm linking up to The Simple Woman's Daybook and Happy Homemaker are Mondays.

Weekly Wrap-up: Week 33 - The Final Week

And it's a wrap! 

Our 11th year of homeschooling is finished! Portfolio reviews are scheduled for tomorrow morning. It was a year ups-and-downs, but ALWAYS a learning experience. Now, onto planning and preparing for next year...and enjoying summer!

Not all my goals were accomplished this year, but I always am quite ambitious with them. Better to have challenging goals than ones easily attained, right? 

In the meantime, we're making memories! 

Sam decided to rig up the hose (using the mower) and cool off one afternoon. He's a "ham"!

We loaded up the kids and picnic food, and headed to a friend's house to camp in her AWESOME travel trailer. The kids kayaked and caught frogs. There were yummy S'mores, cooked over a fire near the pond. And 4 tired kids (and parents) at the end of the day.

We drove into the city and attended a AA baseball game. Our Portland Seadogs lost 2-3, but we had a great time, going home with 2 game balls (that players threw up to the kids).

We weeded and watched the garden grow.

And enjoyed seeing a few flowers bloom.

As always, special thanks to these bloggers for their weekly homeschool blog link-ups. Click on over to see what other homeschoolers are doing!

Did you miss these blog posts?

Six Word Saturday: Summing up Life in 6 6-word Sentences

Creative Crochet: Rugged Ripples Blanket

Tuesday Coffee Chat: Summer Singing

Wednesday Hodgepodge: Volume 222 - Something to Remember

"When one teaches, two learn." - Robert Heinlein

Weekly Wrap-up: Week 29 - The One with a Yawn

:: yawn :: 

I'm going to sleep well tonight! In fact, I've been sleeping well for many nights now. Spending time OUTSIDE has a way of tuckering me out. But I REALLY wanted to post a weekly wrap-up for you all. It's been since April 16th since I've blogged. Days have gotten away from me.

April Vacation was last week. I'm not so sure about the VACATION part. With 5 kids, 6 for 1 1/2 days, things aren't exactly relaxing. But it's pretty darn awesome to have all these kids around just the same. We spent our days walking along the lake, dipping our toes in with thoughts of swimming, tossing baseballs and seeing my stepson-to-be's first game of the season, biking, watching videos, and gabbing around a fire.

And I got baptized.

With the weather warming up (and the bugs aren't out yet), we've been tackling outside projects. The yard is devoid of downed limbs, brown leaves and pine needles once again. Sam's been removing the rotted floor of the tree house, getting it ready for new plywood, and we repaired the chicken and duck run door. I'd like to say that the door looks awesome, but I CAN say it's FUNCTIONAL. The garden is prepped for sowing seeds when I get around to ordering them.

The Spring Peepers are singing. Nothing says spring like frogs humming at nightfall. They accompany us during our evening strolls with Rosie and Winnie, our dogs.

Before I crash for the night (with hopes that someone else will take care of the animals tomorrow morning), just 9 days until THE big day!

As always, special thanks to these bloggers for their weekly wrap-ups:

Happy Homeschooling!

Weekly Wrap-up: It's arrived!

EVERYDAY LIFE

Spring arrived this week! Ah-maz-ing! With warmer days, the snow melted fast creating a new 'pond' right where our driveway used to be...and I found out that Sam's rubber boots no longer fit by the dripping wet, winter boots lined up in the foyer. (What 9-year-old can resist a big ol' puddle to wade in.) But I'll take it! There's nothing quite like opening windows, even briefly, to let fresh air flow through the house after being shut up for months.

Even 'the girls' got to stretch those wings. Olive and Opal, the ducks, went swimming in the frigid brook, and Ony, Speckles, Musty, Sassy, Lil' Rhodie, Rhodie, Ava, Nutmeg, Butterfly, and Amber found the only patch of visible brown grass to scratch up. They rewarded us with finally laying eggs again.

But oh my! the road is a muddy mess. I'm going to need an alignment!

Total Bag Count: 14

MENU
✿ Hamburgers & Pasta and Veggie Salad ✿
✿ Scrambled Eggs, Hickory Smoked Bacon, Fresh Pineapple & Biscuits ✿
✿ Spaghetti with Ground Chicken Meat Sauce & Steamed Green Beans✿
✿ Marinated Beef Strips with Broccoli & Baked Fries ✿
✿ Boston Cream Pie Ice Box Cake ✿

SCHOOL SNIPPETS
Sam does "van school" while Cati is at Jazz and Concert Band and her clarinet lessons. I keep most of his work in a binder, slipping Easy Grammar inside and his current reading book. (I keep pencils and a hand sharpener in the van.) Do you ever do school-on-the-road?

Cati wrote Name Poems and Word Patterns poems this week. She's getting close to finishing up her study of basic 'formula' poetry. (I'd share the unit with you, but it's something I have from my student teaching in 1998 and it was OLD then.) She's also only 12 lessons away from finishing up Saxon 76.

In U.S. History we watched NROC on WWI and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR and The New Deal. We skipped art study this week and spent more time outside...and began to 'spring clean'.

At STEM school, Jake switched his Physics research topic from 4D to antimatter, continued to build a steam-powered power plant, focusing on the turbines, commuted projectiles for Math to get a ball into a basket without practicing, and "learned the things he hasn't" in Astronomy. (I'm not sure what that means!)

BOOKS
Mom- Seeing A Large Cat by Elizabeth Peters
Cati - The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
Sam - Invisible Stanley by Jeff Brown 

PEOPLE & PLACES
✿ Jazz and Concert Band & Clarinet Lesson (Cati) ✿
✿ Cub Scouts (Sam & Jake) ✿
✿ Wayback Wednesday at Movie Theatre: Back to the Future (All) ✿
✿ Boy Scout Camping (Jake) ✿

FAVORITES

I got a chuckle out of this Lego Pain Scale from Facebook. Those of you with Lego enthusiatists will understand all too well.

ON THE 'NET

How to Have a Perfectly Clean House
50 Best Unschooling/Self-directed Learning Posts in 2013

As always, special thanks to these weekly wrap-ups:

Weekly Wrap-up: Dreaming of Spring

EVERYDAY LIFE

But I'm ready to start planning our garden and buying our seeds. I've been pondering creating another raised bed from concrete blocks. The kids have BIG gardening ambitions, but the 24x16 garden last year was a flop when we got busy with summer; we could only keep up with the 12x6 raised bed. Square Foot Gardening is much more reasonable (and enjoyable) for us.

Photo Credit

I've been knitting up dish cloths all week. They're quick, useful things! (Find instructions here.) I love the earthy colors I chose to knit them up in. I'm still pondering what to create next, but I might try a reusable mesh bag for groceries or library trips or the lake this summer. It requires CROCHETING and I haven't attempted that. You Tube!

Total Bag Count: 6

I'm about 14 bags behind on the Declutter Challenge. In my defense, I did start a year ago throwing out and donating unused items, and it's really just too cold to tackle the garage which REALLY needs a purge-and-organize.

Photo Credit

MENU
✿ Scrambled Eggs with Broccoli and Jack Cheese & Blueberry Pancakes with Maple Syrup ✿
✿ Beef Au Jus Sandwiches on Homemade Herbed Bread & Steamed Carrots and Peaches ✿
✿ Cheese Pizza & Fresh Strawberries ✿
✿ Chicken Cordon Bleu & Herbed Biscuits and Peas ✿

SCHOOL SNIPPETS
Sam has discovered that reading isn't so bad! He's rereading the Flat Stanley series, but I'm just pleased as punch that he seems to be ENJOYING it! He's moving along in Horizons Math 2, working on his understanding of place value, time and regrouping.  We started body systems in Life Science this week.

Cati is reluctantly continuing her Daily Grams. She's finding the whole thing monotonous and boring so I'm tempted to drop it, but she doesn't want to BEGIN anything else. It's too early in the year to discontinue a whole subject! She's already completed her year of Life Science and is almost there with Saxon Math 76. 

They watched vidoes on the 1870-1900s in American History, learning about economic changes and social upheaval during the 'Gilded Age' and Teddy Rooveselt, and solved some mysteries in Art Fraud Detective: Spot the Difference, Solve the Crime!, studying paintings by Pieter de Hooch, Hendrick ter Brugghen and Marinus van Reymerswaele.

In STEM school, Jake printed out his finished 3D plans for a steam-powered 'power plant' (to run a Lego train set), solved quadratic equations, learned quantum physics, and continued his (mostly) winning streak in Chess.

BOOKS
Mom - The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin & Seeing a Large Cat by Elizabeth Peters
Cati - The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
Sam - Flat Stanley & Invisible Stanley by Jeff Brown

PEOPLE & PLACES
✿ Concert Band & Clarinet Lesson (Cati) ✿ 
✿ Boy, Girl & Cub Scouts (All) ✿  
✿  Garage & Dunkin Donuts ✿ 

FAVORITES
I have this big, old TV in my bedroom. Would you believe that with the proper connections the XBOX will connect to it and play my "Big Bang Theory" DVDs? The kiddos aren't thrilled with my 'borrowing' the XBOX though.

Photo Credit

As always, special thanks to these weekly wrap-ups:

A Peak At Our Week: Session 5 Week 1 - Beginning the Home Stretch

In My Life This Week

Spring HAS arrived at Our Side of the Mountain! Relaxing in the hammock under the budded maple trees, the Spring Peepers and wild birds sing loudly and the red squirrels scamper around the branches above. Green grass is growing and early flowers have sprouted in Sugar Maple's garden. The heat inside the house has been shut off and the windows are open days. And we're on our last session of Year #9!

Cluck and Quacks

The Saplings fashioned a make-shift pen for the lil' chicks out in the veggie garden for their first outside romp now that they have most of their big girl feathers. Although Nutmeg, Amber and Butterfly were on high alert, they scratched and pecked and fluffed while the older hens, outside the wired fence, ignored them.

On the Dinner Menu
☀ Ham, Cheese and Broccoli Strata with Pineapple Chunks ☀ Hot Dog Roast Outside with Baked Beans, Cole Slaw, Potato Salad, and S'mores ☀ Homemade Ham Fried Rice with Veggies ☀

Homeschool Happenings
SIMPLIFYING.

I've wanted to figure out a way to get some of this "delight directed" learning in despite my more "traditional" school views. But where to start? Gardening! Alaska! This week I decided to sit down WITH THE SAPLINGS and just learn about gardening and Alaska without any preplanned studies. We read. We wrote. We drew. We discussed. Whatever worked. And the sapling were confused. Not our usual approach to school.

We also read on in SOTW 2: Middle Ages, completing our mapwork and wall timeline along the way. And the younger saplings worked on their Saxon Math and Math-U-See. Sugar Maple is super excited that she should finish her ENTIRE math book this year.

In preparation for writing his first 10 page+ research paper, White Pine read How to Write a Term Paper (Elizabeth James and Carol Barkin) and then chose his topic: Comparing Union and Confederate Civil War Battles . He spent the rest of the week taking and citing notes from his research...and finished up his Computer Science 101 class from Coursera and continued on with Biology, World History, Geography and Cultures, US History Video Project, and Algebra. 

What We're Reading
☀ Darling Jim (Christian Moerk) (SP) ☀  Julie of the Wolves (Jean Craighead George) (SM) ☀ The Bear Scouts (Stan and Jan Berenstain) (BF) ☀ Prince Caspian (CS Lewis) (Read Aloud) ☀

Places We Went, People We Saw
☀ Scouts (All) ☀ Softball (SM) ☀ Library ☀ Co-op/Playground (All) ☀

Our Favorite Thing

Something to Share

As always, linking up to these WONDERFUL blog hops!