May :: A Month in Review :: Large Family Style

Aargh!  It's already time for a May month in review.  Finishing off the school year strong was my top priority along with preparing for Nick's graduation party along with getting the garden planted along with, along with.  Doesn't it seem like there are so many along withs?  Most days my head is just spinning with all the to do right nows.  My notebook system to do list wasn't working - the notebook was always getting buried in the paper mess that is my life and the to do list became a never do list.  I needed something more in my face than a notebook so I bought a magnetic white board for the fridge door similar to this:

And it's always in my face because #1 I like to eat and #2 My family likes to eat so I'm always reading the list and working at shrinking it.  It's been a good thing and I still use the notebook for shopping lists and menus.

In my April month in review I shared a picture from Nick's turkey season.  He's a huge protein nut and cooks plenty of his own food.  Well, the day he shot the turkey I was with Amber at the hospital while she recovered from her appendectomy.  He breasted out the turkey and baked it just as he would for chicken breast.  It was so tough, basically inedible for those of us with average jaw strength.  Hah!  I suggested he turn it into crockpot turkey and rice soup.  I walked him through the process, but he did all the work of chopping vegetables, etc.  The turkey tenderized pretty well in the crockpot and the soup was delicious.

The season changeover called for a great big shoe cabinet clean out.  With a family of 9 we have a ton of shoes, not because we believe in excess, but we all have a number of interests and many of those interests call for certain shoes.  And country life requires a good stash of junk shoes so we tend to keep shoes for gardening, lawn mowing, cranberry planting, and all sorts of outdoor activities until they fall apart.  I know, that's very green of us.  Below you can see what we took from the cabinet; we sent seven pair off to Goodwill, 10 pair went into the trash, and the rest were placed neatly back in the cabinet.

Maria and I baked a giant 2.5 pound of whole wheat bread in a very old pan found in my Grandma's basement.  I wish I knew the story of the pan - where she got it, if she used it, why it was in the basement and not in her kitchen cupboard.  I suppose I'll never know; even though, using it still brings out stories.  Stories I share with my littles who never knew their Great-Grandma.

Mother's Day flowers - we spied three huge Bumblebees pollinating this day.

One of Joseph's favorite games is jumping on the trampoline with toys.  This day he grabbed his horse, but he's also jumped with balls and sand pile trucks (that one I put a stop to, I don't want him to fall on a metal truck - that'd probably hurt).

Amber loves finding paintings on Pinterest for inspiration and painting them with her own style.  She uses this fold-able easel and a variety of supplies to create some really fun paintings.

It is rhubarb season; I've been baking with rhubarb and juicing it.  This weekend I put up 15 quarts of rhubarb juice.  I'll share a post on how I do that soon.  This little number, though, is so good.  I doubled the recipe and reduced the sugar.  That way there was enough to go around and it still tasted like rhubarb should - sour and puckery.

The virtual homeschool program end of year field trip took us to Circus World Museum.  See Maria clinging to Dad; she was nearly scared to death of all the newness.  She warmed up a bit for a carousel ride.

107 year old carousel

Circus snacks:  popcorn and ice cream

 Apparently we raised a little lady.

Fishing....always fishing around here and an endless supply of cheesy smiles.

He's not riding yet.  Matter of fact, a couple weeks back he actually punched me when I lifted his foot onto the pedal.  I'll give it some time before I try again.  Until then, though, he walks the bike around the yard every chance he gets.  And in the background was my Memorial Day treat, a tilled garden ready to plant.

That's a wrap for May.  Another blink of an eye and it'll be the end of June; all our much anticipated events of early summer will be over.  Enjoy every day, each is indeed a gift from God.

Valentine's Day Plans

Valentine's Day is right around the corner, literally in just a couple of hours it'll be time to celebrate all those we love and cherish.  We're always a little late in decorating - like today we threw open the windows, let in all the fresh air we could handle, and cleaned like crazy until all the flat surfaces were dust free and begging for red and pink and glitter.

We even unearthed these artistic beauties.  Inspired by a similar project at Art Projects for Kids, Peter and I glued popsicle sticks together, Maria and Peter painted them and then they got buried under piles of stuff.  Today they were found and proudly displayed for Valentine's Day.

We have a number of activities that'll take us away from home, but we'll still celebrate love.

Books we'll read

Saint Valentine

A Child's Calendar

I Love You, Dear Dragon

The Kissing Hand

It's actually the day after St. Valentine's Day.  The house is still mostly clean from our Monday crazy cleaning.  Bellies are full of Tootsie Pops.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Disney Princesses valentines are strewn about.  The Valentine m&m cookies are gone.  Love was indeed in the air.

I'm wishing you all a beautiful week of love.💗

Quick Activity Cards...{for pre-schoolers}

Pinterest is awesome!  Ideas abound, boards are created, pins are saved.  Technology is so cool.

But what happens when you pin a pumpkin craft to your Halloween board in July?  I'll tell what happens to me.

I have an ah-hah! moment in October when I remember I pinned said pumpkin craft.  But what board did I pin that to?  The arts and crafts board?  The 4-H project board?  The Activities for Joseph board?  The Halloween board?  The Homeschooling Fun board?  I browse through my Pinterest boards, get side tracked with other cool ideas I'd forgotten were pinned, conduct another quick search of pumpkin crafts in case a better project shows up, then realize my crafting time has come to an end, and I have nothing to show for it.  I'm disgusted with myself for getting side-tracked...again!  My kids are dissappointed.  It's a lose-lose situation.  Until now.

Technology is cool.  But, it still can't beat paper and pencil for some things.  I came up with this idea to put technology in its place and show it who's boss.

It's so simple.

1. Grab a stack of notecards.
2. Find a super cool idea on Pinterest.
3. Write up a quick summary on a notecard.
4. Rubberband all the super cool ideas together.

Now whenever you have a few minutes to craft or you need to keep your pre-schooler busy, pick out a notecard and do the activity.

Here's a sample of my notecards.  And note:  not all the ideas came from Pinterest.  Some of them I actually thought up myself.

1. Wiggle, Wiggle - wiggle a jump rope on the ground like a snake and let the kids jump over it
2. Sidewalk Chalk Fun - trace toys with chalk on the driveway
3. Alphabet Jump - chalk the ABC's on the sidewalk, yell out a letter and let the kid run to it
4. Mixing Colors - fill Styrofoam egg carton with colored water, let kids use an eye dropper to transfer and mix colors
5. Pillowcase Clothes - decorate old pillowcases, cut holes for head and arms, then play
6. Make-up Smear - photocopy your own (protect your eyes) or print a black & white copy of your face, give kids old make-up and let them make you pretty

These are just a few of my notecards.  And this isn't just for pre-schoolers.  Joseph, our 8 year old with Down syndrome can benefit from a stack of activity notecards with speech activities.  A stack of summer boredom cards or fall fun cards - any topic you'd like, for any age you'd like.

Linking up with

Feast of St. Christopher - July 25

Early last week I happened to notice that St. Christopher's feast day was coming up - July 25.  A medal of St. Christopher hangs on Warren's key ring.  Often he mentions that it was a gift from his mother when he got his driver's license.  As the patron saint of travelers, and summer being the official travel season, St. Christopher is the perfect summer saint to learn about.

Celebrating saint feast days is kept super simple around here.  I pulled out Picture Book of Saints and read the one page St. Christopher story.

Then Joseph grabbed the microphone and book and did a little singing for us.

I printed copies of this coloring page from The Catholic Kid.

Joseph added bits of color to his, while Peter colored his St. Christopher like a rainbow.

I like to add a craft project to our saint celebrations, so of course I went straight to Pinterest, but found nothing.  I had to be creative all on my own this time.  After looking at the coloring page, I decided to paint walking sticks.  Sam cut and peeled the bark off a few green branches.

Peter got started painting his walking stick right away.  There were no rules, just paint till your heart's content.

Joseph waiting patiently for Sam to strip the bark from his walking stick.

Mom might call these walking sticks, but little boys, they might call them fighting swords.  Either way it was a nice way to spend a summer afternoon.

St. Christopher, patron of travelers,

Pray for us.