Summer Recap

Oh, the things you can do when your wonderful husband cooks dinner!  

Like finally getting around to doing a new blog post!  

We had a fun, busy summer during 2016.  No camps or lessons, but lots of days with friends, Vacation Bible Schools, school review and planning for next year, Real Estate, a few birthdays and a family vacation!  And also lots of chicken wrangling.  Lots.

Our 6 girls have grown up a lot over the summer.  Here they are in May.

 Lucy

 Hedwig

 Buttercup

 Our Datsun trailer is up and running as a coop (now painted a lovely sky blue) and the kids have become adept at chasing and catching the chicks when they need to.

The girls are now full grown and laying eggs.  We usually have 4 a day at this point, but we think that two of them aren't laying yet.

 Hobbes, proud layer of the very first egg.

They also like to visit when they escape their fence!

  Gus and Kip kept busy with friends, art projects and legos when it got too hot to be outside.  

 I did a lot of school planning and worked around the house and in the garden.

Food in the garden becomes....

food in the freezer!

Laundry on the line becomes....

more laundry!

Scott worked long hours all summer and closed on several houses including this beautiful one just down the road from us!

 July brought our trip with the Deterding side of the family to Deep Creek Lake. 

Boating:

  Hiking:

   And relaxing on the lake:

  Scott and I got away for a weekend for his birthday in August, renting a SWEET ride and enjoying historic Leesburg, VA. 

 

 

 

   

 

 

Gus turned 9 on August 17th.  We can't believe it!  He is as energetic and vocal as ever, full of silly stories and infectious laughter-especially when being tickled or hearing a joke for the first time (or the 4th time, really)! 

 

 

We got him his own tool set with everything he needs to work on restoring and improving his collection of matchbox and hotwheels cars.

 

 We also enjoyed a visit with Scott's mom Carol Ann, full of swimming, shopping and very good eating.  As usual, I ended up with NO pictures.  Be forewarned, Nonnie!  Next time, I'm gonna take a million!! 

Now that we're back to school and on a more regular schedule, hopefully, I'll give more updates on what's happening around our homestead.  I just have to get Scott to make dinner more often  The kids like his cooking better than mine anyway! 

~Amy

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...

As a teacher I love summer break, truly I do, but as a parent I start getting nervous around this time every year.  I am a structure girl and the "emptiness" of summer leaves me a bit worried.  What will we do each day?  How will I keep the kids from turning into whiny, mush blobs after a few days of freedom?

I always like to have a plan.  I usually make a daily schedule of sorts, but this year I ran across the best blog post about prepping for the summer.  This lady is into prepping for everything apparently, but I'm just stealing her summer system:  specifically her "bored" jar idea, a "Time with Mom" jar and a jar dedicated to dealing with sibling fighting.

I remember my Mom having a Bored, Nothing to Do jar when we were kids, so it feels right to introduce that tradition into our home.  The Time with Mom jar is probably more for me than for the kids, really.  In all honesty, I need to be held accountable to put down my summer to-do list and spend quality time with the kids.  And I think the sibling fighting (Love One Another) jar idea is brilliant.  It's full of ideas for things the kids can do together to encourage each other and also move on from whatever is causing the problem.  I love the theory; we'll see how it goes in real life!

The original idea used colored popsicle sticks, but we didn't have any, so I came up with the paper strip idea.  Kip and I painted abstract water colors on thick paper and then I cut them into strips and wrote all my ideas on them.  I looked at lots of summer bucket lists and added some more ideas that are specific to my kids.

Time with Mom: snuggle and read together, go hiking or to the playground, build legos together, etc.

I'm bored: build an inside fort, watch the clouds, eat a snack under the tree and read a book, play Solitaire, etc.

Love One Another: run around the house 5 times together, tell each other 3 things you like about each other, share one of your toys for the day, etc.

I also decided it would help me to have themes for the days of the week, so I could wake up and at least have one solid idea of what we're going to do.  So we're going with Make Something Monday, Time to Read Tuesday, Wet Wednesday, Take a Trip Thursday and Fun with Friends Friday.  And I've got big plans for "summer schooling." I guess we shall see how that pans out!

We want to be frugal, so no camps or other official activities are on the calendar, but you better believe we are signed up for every VBS and library program I know about!!  

Have a happy summer, everyone!

Hi-Lo

Some days after school, the kids and I play a game we call Hi-Lo.  It's not really a game, more of a sharing experience.  When it's your turn you get to tell the highlight of your day and the lowest moment.  It gets some good conversations going most times.  

Well today I'm going to share my highs and lows of this Saturday.  Both of them star this little crazy one right here:

The high:  She wanted to make a special treat for everyone this morning and ended up basically baking a cake all by herself.  She started with milk, a banana, some chocolate chips, vanilla and some mini marshmallows.  Then she added flour and cooked it in the microwave.  It was actually pretty good!

The low:  After dinner, we were all working/playing in the yard.  She came up to me with a big bouquet of leaves that she wanted to put in a vase inside.  One look and I knew....You guessed it: poison ivy.  We immediately instituted emergency Technu hand washing, which I thought might be sufficient, until she told me she had rubbed the leaves on her cheek because she liked them so much.....I think we might be doomed.  

But, high or low, we love this little girl so much!  She makes everyday brighter.  

Cuties are here!

We picked up our babies today at Homestead Gardens!

Two Barred Rocks that are about 2 weeks old:

Two Ameraucanas and two Buff Orpingtons that are just a few days old: 

The kids are so excited and have already started working on a list of names.  So far the suggestions are: 

Jeffrey

Spots

Stripes

Yellow 1

Yellow 2

Guess we'll see which ones stick.

The smaller ones are just the most precious things ever:  tiny little chirps if you wake them up and the most hilarious way of falling asleep.  They will be standing up, and then close their eyes and their little heads will just slowly lean down until they are resting on their beaks, fast asleep.

The bigger ones are, frankly, pretty boring.  I'm glad we got a few little ones so we get to experience the tiny chick phase.

Real Life Right Now

The last few weeks have been fun!

An early morning rainbow sighting with the kids

 A surprise weekend away, just the two of us:

 

Family roller skating, for the first time:

But, it's also been pretty tiring.  Scott is plugging away at two jobs, I'm still teaching part-time, and the kids are working hard at school. (And doing well!)

I am still trying to keep our diet "clean" and spending a lot of time cooking from scratch and trying to manage our food budget.  

This morning was a pretty typical example.  I made coconut milk earlier this week from shredded coconut, then attempted to make the leftover coconut into coconut flour.  I looked up a ton of recipes and decided to try this one:

Fluffy Coconut Flour Pancakes

Looks delicious, right???

Well, this is what they looked like for me!

I have no idea what I did wrong (although maybe my homemade flour had something to do with it).

I had to stack about 10 to make it look anything like a fluffy stack of pancakes!!

Besides me, Kip was the only one who would try them! I don't know what magic food photographers have, but I don't think I'm going to be able to trust a beautiful photo for a while...