Felties!!

I think it was about two years ago I longingly thought it would be super-duper fun to make felt creatures and sew. Time, materials, and know-how was an issue. But after getting some books, creating some horribly stitched creatures that fell apart right away and then practicing more, I think we are having fun! The kids have actually been learning to sew, which I have blogged about on "Roots and Wings" blog, but these are some creatures I put together. I made a set of three animals for baby E's birthday. She gives the koala kisses and seems to understand that *I* think they are important at least...haha.

Then my younger son wanted a "potato pirate". I kept asking if he wanted brown felt and he kept saying red. I then realized he was actually asking for a tomato pirate. Potato pirate was finished today finally, after much nagging by my son, and he is a super happy camper.









I find stitching to be relaxing as I am by nature a bit manic, must do all things now! personality. It is great to sit down, slow down, and stitch. It is meditative and relaxing. The kids love their creatures, too!

Miss Koala and Ms. Bunny are just hanging out.

Bird is always in the clouds...she was suppose to meet them for lunch!

Cute baby goings on

We are so enjoying our little baby E right now!

As soon as she awakens and she is still in a good mood, she reaches over and takes her little nails and scratches my neck or arms and says, "tik, tik, tikkle"...

Umm, what? Seriously so cute.

Also, she is not really talking yet, but her little cute mini voice has the perfect polite pitch when she says, "Hellooo."

AND after a recent visit from Grandpa and Uncle with their dogs, she now pants and "woofs" and licks her chops to pretend she is a dog (also when she first wakes up).

Sigh. This stuff will be long forgotten if I don't write it down...

I never would have imagined my days would be at home with these four kids. I never even entertained the thought of being a stay-at-home mom EVER in all my days, even when I got married. I guess when you are nineteen and you get married you aren't really thinking about long term family. Had I been, I'm not sure if I ever would have gotten married.

 I remember a friend and I in high school discussing how we'd never have kids because of the pain of childbirth.

But then there was my dream. It wasn't a dream I had at night, or an epiphany, or a conscious thought..

It was more like a wish in the back of my mind for a big family. A big family that I was always a little envious of when I saw others enjoy theirs. Actually, Josh and I both have the same ideas about this. We both come from families spread out all over, but he did end up with some cousins nearby. Me? Alone. Totally alone until  I joke that I essentially prayed my little brother into existence when I was eight. No nearby aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers or sisters. If there's anything melancholy about me at all, it's lonely -  lonely that sat on my being until my brother was born.

No, I never consciously wished for a big family and there were times that I wondered if me wanting a baby was a good thing. Then my God would remind me that even though I don't see things lining up correctly, that his timing is different than ours. So different that even a false diagnosis of infertility was thrown in the mix. What a surprise when I found out that little diagnosis was wrong. That wouldn't be the first time a doctor has missed the mark, and it probably won't be the last. Also, that time in our lives was marked by poverty, uncertainty, job loss, and then a breakthrough. But it was still tough.

But my babies always seem to bless us just when we need them.

On Tuesday our fourth baby will turn ONE and I can't believe how we cherish and love every moment. She makes us laugh with her huge squinty-eyed grins and I think when she smiles that her nose looks like a koala because it flattens as it crinkles. It's just the cutest.

She is learning to walk and can go just small distances if encouraged.

She absolutely devours our garden cucumbers...loves them!

Just eatin' a cuc like it's an apple - straight from the garden. 

I decided to make her felties for her birthday and will post pictures of how they came out when I give them to her. Here is a sneak peek of Big brother sewing her a monarch and learning a blanket stitch...now that's a good big brother!

Brother sewing baby E's monarch 

I have to say, I am having to unlearn some of the ideas I had about feminism, empowerment, and the like. I love to stay home and I know that no decision means more or less freedom. Freedom comes from learning to be happy in your circumstances.

In more general terms I have learned that although there isn't a lot of happy to be found in certain struggles, there is a strength that can be learned. I am hoping that I can teach my kids this spirit of endurance by example and that life certainly can't be kept in a box. We only have a few pieces of the larger puzzle at a time.

I know I'm mixing this post up with varying degrees of happy and weird melancholy existentialism and somehow encouraging hindsight, but that's where I'm at today. 

The Paradox of Random Tandem

We are one month into homeschooling, which I am recording over at Roots and Wings Academy blog. We are having fun times. I am amazed that so many people think they can't do it. I think people imagine the worst. I can't imagine not having a structured environment for the kids and still staying sane. We are so much happier this summer and the kids are so much calmer and focused when they all have limits on media, time set aside to be creative, learn and practice math, read tons of books, do SOME writing and workbook activities, start a garden observation journal, social studies, etc...it sounds like a lot but really they have so much free time still. Plenty to throw some chores in there and always help keep tabs on their little sister.

I think things will change, but right now it hardly even seems like *they need me much, they are just so independent. We have little conversations here and there...I'll give my little lectures through the day that my daughter calls "theories". "Here goes mom on one of her theories again..." It's pretty funny. But learning just naturally takes place all through the day. The whole paradigm shifts and then all of the sudden everything else falls into place with attitude, no more weird energy or boredom -- all that just sets us up for trouble.


As far as my summer class -  school is easy peasy. I love this professor and I already have Race and Ethnicity in America all lined up for the fall with him. He is one of the most organized professors and promptly grades and gives feedback. He reminds me of my ultimate all time favorite professor who teaches English and Lit - he is an amazing person and he's partly why I'm a writer today. That and my humanities teacher who kept hounding me to pursue writing and asking me about my plans. 

Speaking of work, I think I've landed a huge freelancing job that is going to equate to hundreds of articles for an insurance company (which frees me up from searching and bidding for work)...I'm not totally convinced I am capable of writing for this industry but we are doing the welcome page and we did a PR. If it doesn't pan out I won't be heartbroken, but I'm hoping it's doable!! It's fun getting my nerd on! Not so fun trying to revise an important part and having TOTAL CHAOS in the house at night but that is an environmental given, I suppose. I'm thinking I need to have like a margarita mix handy at night or something. For real.

Baby É is crawling!! All over the house finally. We've been in a rush to keep things cleaned and vacuumed which is not a small feat. She is such a little joy!

Started summer school today, Sociology!! I am SOO incredibly excited because I have been waiting to take this class but it never worked out before. I'm at the end of classes that I can or need to take before transferring to a four year and finishing. In 2004, when we had two kids and separated from the military, I started taking classes and bit by bit, I'm getting there. I know that God gave me the strength when I was going full time initially and was able to keep focused on what I needed to learn -- the grades and accomplishment of the work were a great confirmation that I was on the right track.

As far as future plans, I have no specific goal other than to LEARN right now. I know where I'd like to go in the future, but I don't want to jump ahead of myself. I feel like right now I am still learning and I want to let that happen first before I make unnecessary career goals. I think more research needs to be done, especially for the career I am feeling led to.

So yea, I'm definitely not the only military wife I know going to school "late". Something about moving every few years and only in the passed several years have colleges even gone online -- which is very weird to think, but true. It feels like I am playing "catch-up", but I've been raising some great kids thus far. God allowed me to serve, work, teach, and minister overseas through the chapel as well when we were there, which was amazing and something I never would have premeditated wanting to do until it happened. I have always had feet that need to be moving or I am miserable, so I guess I just need to remind myself when I compare to others that my life is unique and nothing about it has fit the in the norm really at all so far, but something about it works nonetheless (it's a God thing). Sometimes I need to just embrace the "road less traveled by" and be thankful for it.

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BTW, Here is our home school blog if you want to follow THAT whole journey.

http://rootsandwingsacademylearning.blogspot.com/

Home Academy starts now.

Before summer even began, my mind was getting into gear for our home academy 2012/2013 year. My goal right now is to NOT let their brains atrophy for summer break. I purchased workbooks to keep them busy and to also see how many concepts they understand for the upcoming year.

In March, I spent a day or so looking around at the multi-subject workbooks and landed on this brand:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1609963326/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i05

I purchased the pre-K, Grade 3, and 6. This keeps them a bit busy and covers the three "R's" so to speak.

Generally speaking, our little home academy is going to cover these other areas each day:

The arts
Imaginative play
Physical fitness
Relationship building
Organization/Time management
General chore upkeep (geared for ability and age)

We've also got some weekly stuff set up. Sis has piano lessons, and I am going to try to keep encouraging her to work in drama. She is not yet open to the idea of being on stage, but she is no doubt very much "into" performance, directing, producing, etc. She loves to entertain and make people laugh. She produces little short films and podcasts on her own. The podcasts are hilarious and modeled after NPR's Cartalk. I laugh so hard I cry.

Little Y is amazing and smart and I love to teach that guy. He listens and asks appropriate questions...it's unique for boys that age and I'm eating every minute of it up. Last week we learned the skill of cutting with scissors - he had so much fun cutting out the numbers and matching them with the corresponding domino dots. We are starting on letters as well, and he can identify most if not all. We are working on sounding them out, and so for him, I am thinking he will be an "early" reader but no pressure.

Big brother is of course going to be a joy because he wants to learn and understand. Last Friday something was eating him. Really eating him and we didn't know what it was. I wondered if it was because school was over and he was worried about home school, or missing his best buds, or something like that. At bedtime I asked him again what was wrong and he finally had a little break down and told me. He said he felt stupid because, "everyone in my class knows multiplication but me!!"...I loved his class and the idea of high ability placement...but there was a negative aspect...he was comparing himself (a true second grader)...to a ten year old!! AGH! The class had a bit of a mixture, including one of his best friends who was actually held back a year. So of course I told him, yes, third graders learn their multiplication facts and he is not technically in third grade, had an A in math, and is doing fabulously!! Poor little dude! To have that eating at him is so sad and somehow endearing at the same time. I love him.

I'm toying around with how all of this goes down during the day. I handed out checklists for this week, but I'm thinking that I will have to start announcing times for each thing...I was hoping they could or would want to be more independent but yesterday some of the stuff didn't get done.

I think I'll be starting another blog maybe just for myself and adding tags of "goals", and specific subjects and activities that we do each day and week. Probably a LOT less wordy than this just to keep myself from feeling like I do "nothing" (yes, wahms and sahms feel that way, even though we never sit down for more than three minutes)...and to be keeping accountable that we are organizing enough to cover each subject.

A sweet day with the littles to remember

I recently just turned down a really big project. It was a big project that was going to lead in to more big projects. I got the very thing I've been hoping and praying for and then I turned it down.

Sometimes when we pray and wish and hope and then something happens that looks like what we've been waiting for we think, "wow, it's finally happening the way I want..super duper!"

Except, it wasn't. Super duper, that is. The project had to do with writing for an particular section of an industry  that I have absolutely no positive feelings for - it's bad for the environment, particularly children, and yet very common and highly competitive. Yet I actually met with the owner -what was I thinking?? I was thinking that the money could really help - isn't that why everyone works and the root of all compromise?

Moving on - once I decided I wasn't doing it, I felt freedom. Freedom like when the semester is over for that first week and suddenly all this newly found free time is appreciated.

The second day of my "new found freedom", today, my little guy was being very ornery and yelling for TV while I was nursing and putting his little baby sis to sleep. I come out not-so-happy and declare that he is taking a much needed media break...actually I've been secretly trying to get up the courage to do this; he takes entirely too much screen time and it was starting to be appalling to his dad and I.

And did we ever have fun!!

It was a rare day of nothing to do, baby taking tons of naps, and my energy level being high...

Little Y at imaginative play

We built a train track...here Little Y is trying to make a monkey zoo train...The monkey can be seen partly falling from the gray and red contraption as it will be safely transported on his cargo train to the zoo

Train speeding to it's destination....

Mandatory picture pose with a cute conductor!!











Next, we make a birthday cake for his daddy...see how excited he is!! We are making a chocolate cake from scratch and he gets to help!!

After mixing, he made a bit of a mess. But that's OK...it's going to be delicious. 

Then, he brought a big flip book to me that was given to us by a friend of my mom's who is a massage therapist. The book is a visual aid for muscles, nerves, cells, and also shows the skeleton. He was asking me questions and we had a little science lesson. I love conversational back and forth lessons...this little guy is so fun to teach! 

After this, we went to the park and he rode his trike around the neighborhood. He was whining about getting an ice cream cone when it happened. He stuck his hand under his wheel and scraped his skin off. Ouch. He cried the whole way home and then asked for a "fruit flat" instead of ice cream.

Go figure. 

We followed that whole thing up with a rousing game of "Go Fish" with his sister. He lost miserably, but still a good sport. Prior to that we actually got a game of  "Shoots and Ladders" in (seriously where did I get all this time) and he absolutely trampled me mercilessly so I didn't feel bad for him.

So glad for that media "punishment"...we had so much fun!! 

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Another important event happened today. Baby E ate solid form food for the first time on her very own with her new pincer grasp skills. I've been noticing this very look that I have captured below for several days now, and although she really doesn't finish pureed foods that I give her, it was my intuitive belief that she, like her brothers, will skip that stage entirely...she LOVED grabbing bits of oatmeal and she had mash-ish green beans for dinner.