At this moment...

We're dreaming about a homestead in the country.

We're pondering living off grid.

I have 3 bags of organic apples to make into yummy apple butter

and chunky applesauce.

I have 2 bags of pomegranates to make into jelly.

The kids and I are remodeling the chicken coop.

The backyard bushes need to be trimmed...badly.

I'm mentally planning our food storage.

I want a couple of these.

I want to try one of these.
I'm scared to try this but I still want one :)

Excited for my new book to come in the mail.

Because of our puppy I need to replant our carrots, lettuce, and broccoli.

I'm so glad fall is here.

I'm so thankful for where the Lord has me.

Where are you at this moment?

Happy Birthday Miss Adventure!

Oh sweetie, how I love you.

Three years ago we welcomed a beautiful little girl into our family.

Your birth was fantastic.

You arrived on your due date.

 You grined at me when you were put in my arms.

You nursed all day and cried all night.

 We love your bright eyes.

You weaned yourself at 18 months.

You potty trained yourself at 2 1/2.

You are quirky, adventures, and my mini me.

 You have bought so much laughter and joy in our home.

 I'm so thankful for the dynamic you haved added to our family.

Happy Birthday My Love

Something Sweet

Conversation With Lego Men

My Son: Want me to show you where my church is?
Lego Man: Yep
My Son: My church is at my home. My mom teaches me.

This made my heart smile. I never want to forget that conversation. Ever.

Where do your children learn about the Lord?

Kindergarten

Ahhh....school is starting!! Do you remember that feeling of going back to school? The dread. The dissappointment that summer is over. That nervous feeling for new teachers, new schools, new friends. What if my clothes aren't cool enough? What if my hair is not pretty enough? What if I can't find my friends before lunch? I hope my kids never feel that dread or nervousness about school.

Then again there was always excitement too. Buying new clothes, shoes, and backpacks but having to wait to wear them til school started. Excited to be around friends again and see who the cutest boy is that year. I hope my kids have lots of those feelings about school too. To this day I'm giddy over school supplies!

Long story short...we feel that raising our children in the way they should go includes education. Yes. That means we are the weirdos on the block...the homeschoolers.

We feel that education starts at birth but we are starting our first official year of Kindergarten in 2 days. And we are SO excited! I thought I would put our school year out there just in case anyone is browsing for ideas.

Bible:

I really like this book. It is the closest to the bible I could find. We go through a story each day and discuss what happened in each story and how it applies to our lives. For each story there are 3 questions to ask your child.

We memorize a new bible verse every 2 weeks. This book not only has A-Z bible verses it also has a children's story to give the child a better understanding of the verse they are on.

Unit Study (Themes): 

I will choose half and Little Astronaut will choose half. We will use our home library and the county library for these. Over Starbucks and Juice boxes he told me he wants to learn about...
Magnets
Telephones
Electricity
Architecture
Pyramids
Lighthouse

I will add...
Weather
Space
Ocean Life
Helicopters
Insects
Dinosaurs
And lots more...

 

Phonics:

I didn't want anything fancy, frilly, or distracting.

This book is black and white...simple.

We are using Bob Books also.

Math: We are doing hands on math...using a lot of manipulatives and learning what a number 3 is not what the number 3 looks like on paper. Ruth Beechick is great because she lays out where your child is developmentally and shows you how to teach simply according to that stage.

Writing:

We will be building up fine motor skills by...mazes, connect the dots, tracing, cutting, and art. I printed up a bunch of  mazes, connect the dots, and tracing sheets online. Eventually we will make it to writing letters but in the mean time I really like Rod and Staff's ABC Series. It is black and white to keep the distractions down, uses pictures of everyday objects, and is SUPER affordable! We will be for sure meshing some of their stuff in our school through out the years.

I used to draw very well. Then I became a little cooler in school and never picked it back up. So I'm excited to be using this book to build our kids love for creating and to reignite mine.

So far our Read Alouds are :

Busy Times (Rod and Staff)

More Busy Times (Rod and Staff)

Climbing Higher (Rod and Staff)
Five True Dog Stories
Dolphin Adventure
Stuart Little
Charlotte's Web
Doctor Dolittle
Mary on Horseback


Little Astronaut will have the pleasure of picking the order we read them {Grin}


I could go back to work and then we could put our children in a very small private school but they still would not get the opportunities they get at home...to pick and choose what they want to learn about, to spend time with people who really love them and have a special interest in their real future not just their test score future. They wouldn't get to dive into the interests God has put in their hearts. And after homework, dinner, baths, and bedtime stories I wouldn't be able to give them that either.


Home education may not be for everyone but I'm sure glad it is for us...

Where the heck is Hawk??

Ginger broke into the chicken coop the other day and had Ducky cornered when we walked out there. So the next day I can't find Hawk...

Me: Where is Hawk??...Oh no...Ginger ate her...no...I would have heard that...oh no...she died from the heat...(walking around the yard) where the heck is she??

Miss Adventure walks outside: Where's Hawk?? (This is her favorite chicken)

Me: Uhm...I don't know sweetie...oh Lord let me find her first...

Finally I check behind the AC unit on the side of the house...

*Gasp!* Is that what I think it is!? It is! An Egg!! Yay Hawk!

One egg?? No way 3 of them...

(No, I don't think this looks like a comfy spot to lay an egg either.)

The kids and I were so excited!! The next day she laid one more so Miss Adventure and I had 'Hawk Eggs' for lunch. Can you tell she thinks this is the coolest thing?

Now let me tell you...it was kindda wierd thinking...I own that bird. I feed it. I watch it walk around my yard.  And now I'm going to eat it's eggs...what if a baby chick is in there?? (impossible btw) I dunno I was just a little freaked out about it. For your information a fresh homegrown egg is hard to break, has firm yolks, and has a deep orange coloring. This was all new to me. 

Mmmm...fresh eggs and turkey bacon...it was a yummy, satisfying, powerful, homegrown experience {Grin}

Today as we pet her we made sure to say thank you for her eggs...

I never thought

I'd be making my own dog food...

But for this sweet girl...why not??

This is Ginger and she is our new first family dog.

We picked her up from my in-law's ranch and had to treat her for fleas...they were everywhere; poor girl. Even in between her toes :(

Then a couple days later she got Parvo. Guess what...If a property ever has a dog with Parvo on it all your future dogs will get it to. It stays in the land forever! Crazy right?!

Just in case you have a puppy that comes down with this...Pray! And then keep her fed and hydrated. Dogs don't die from the virus but from starvation or dehydration. Ginger lived on Nutri-Cal, milk, and watered down gaterade. She lost a bit of wieght but she's alive and thriving.

Shortly after this I ran into a neighbor and she said that I should look into the cons of feeding your dog corn meal. So I went home did a bit of googling and found these two links that were very helpful...

http://www.dogster.com/forums/Food_and_Nutrition/thread/330428
http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=myths

Here's the jist of it (from the first link)...

The digestive systems of dogs (and cats) are made to digest meat better than anything else. Corn is used in dog food as a source of protein that's much cheaper than meat is. Some dogs have problems digesting corn, and even if they can digest it, it's usually not fully digested (which is often why dogs tend to have smaller poops on a corn-free food than when they ate food with corn in it). Also, corn is a common allergen for many dogs.


That said, if meat is the first ingredient in the food and corn is relatively far down on the ingredient list, then it's more likely that it's there for a little extra protein, as opposed to making it the sole protein source of the food. The problems happen when corn is the first ingredient, or there are a couple of different corn products in the list (called ingredient splitting: if meat is first and then three different types of corn are next, there's most likely more corn than meat in the food). Corn is considered a filler--something that bulks up the food for not much nutritional value, and little cost.

Protein from meat is much more bio-available to dogs than protein from corn (or other grains), meaning they can use the protein more easily. So even if you get a food with (for example) 22% protein with corn as the main protein source, there's actually more usable protein in a food with 22% protein with meat as the main protein source.

So I priced the 'Right' dog food and decided we couldn't afford $60+ to feed our puppy. Then I found out you can make your own...duh...and that dogs need a diet that consists of 40 percent meat, 30 percent vegetables and 30 percent starch.

I have a whole bag of Boots and Barkly dog food so I'm mixing 1/2 and 1/2 to keep costs down. Ginger was still recovering from the Parvo virus and would play for a bit but then her energy would sputter out. So I fed Ginger her new food yesterday morning and within 30 mins she was playful and running around like crazy having a good ol' time. Her energy didn't fall out like it had before. From this I was sold...I can't feed her perfectly but I can do my best for her and hope she doesn't develop any arthritis, blindness, or sickness in her later years due to her food. 

You can do it too! Today I mixed up 2 big chicken thighs (cooked), 5oz tuna, 1 lb peas/ carrots mix (mashed a bit), and 2 cups brown rice (2cps measured dry). Costs were about $5...and this will last a week.

Next week I'll do 1-1 1/2lb ground beef (cooked), 1lb peas/ carrot mix (mashed a bit), and 2 cups macaroni pasta (2cups measured dry). Costs will be about $5 for a week.

Meat can be: Beef, Chicken, Turkey, Tuna, Salmon
Veggies can be: Anything I think...Carrots and peas seem to be the most common. No onions and only tiny bits of garlic.
Starch can be: Oatmeal, Potatoes, Rice, Pasta

You can also throw in plain yogurt, cottage cheese, and/or eggs.

Make sure they get plenty of exercise of course and enjoy your new dog...she'll thank you I'm sure {Grin} 

Great Pets!

"Chickens are the best pets!"

This quote is from my husband who is NOT an animal person.

That is a BIG deal.

And he's right, they are cool 'pets'.

Chickens eat snails, slugs, ants, and some left overs.

You don't even need to pick up any poop because it's just free fertilizer.

 I also found out 4 chickens can gobble up 4 tomato plants in minutes. Not so good.

We had a big snail problem before the chicks but now it's hard for

Ms. Adventure to find any in the morning to play with. Sad for her but great for the garden.

Chickens are so easy too!

Babies need:

A box to keep them in (we used a 20gal Rubbermaid box for 4 chicks) $12

A heat lamp + bulb (got ours at Walmart) $12

Chick waterer $4

Chick feeder $4

Chick food $30 for 50lbs

We use Organic food.

It's so gross to me that the minute those sweet chicks are born

 they are given a food with hormones and antibiotics.

If that is not a gross factor for you food is much cheaper.

Just today I mixed some oats, lentils, and split peas in their food.

(chopped a bit in my magic bullet)

They seem to like it and I really want them to eat more compost food

so I've been trying that too. I think you have to train domestic

chickens to eat left overs. Mine only eat real food when they are really hungry. 

Once they are about 6weeks old and/or have their real feathers

they can be moved outside. (at least 60* at night)

Outside Chicks need:

A Coop $40

Feeder and Waterer off the ground $8 each

A dowel they can roost on $5

Nesting boxes for laying $10 each or make your own

Chicks will start laying around 20-24 weeks

Door on the right will be where we put our nesting boxes

for easy egg collecting.



And that's it! We let ours roam the backyard from 8am-8pm.

Then they get locked up for the night.

We love having chickens! They are so fun to watch.

The kids love them and their

eggs will be nice too {Grin}