M.I.A.

Oh, guys, we need a new computer so badly. I love the Mac which we purchased immediately after our wedding (when we briefly had money as newly weds), but it is barely chugging along at this point. Since it has put in a solid seven years, I feel good about replacing it, but first we need to figure out exactly what we're looking for and even where to put it. I'm hoping to go the cheapest route: Mac mini plus a wireless keyboard. We could just run it through our tv which is great (for as much as we use our computer).  Anyway, you'll know when we've finally settled on something, as I'll start blogging again...but until then here's a summer fun picture.

Lonely Goatherd

This blog post title is only too appropriate as this song is a constant refrain in our house.  In between the other Sound of Music songs, that is. We saw the play at Asheville Christian Academy a few weeks ago as the kids' sweet babysitter, Miss Amy, was Maria.  She was amazing and Owen was totally riveted the whole two and a half hours.  Caelum and Esmé took turns napping but enjoyed the play as well.

Two weeks ago, we went to Mountain Top Creamery for a homeschool field trip.  It was tucked up in the mountains near Chimney Rock, quite close to where my parents rented a mountain house for a little reunion last summer. The field trip was awesome.  First the boys bottle-fed kids that were only three days old.

Owen, bestie Grant, and Caelum

Then they had a tasting of goat milk, goat milk cream, and various kinds of goat cheese.  Caelum could not get enough of the goat milk. And Owen's favorite? Aged goat cheese! It had a strong flavor that even some of the moms couldn't handle, but he loved it. Such a refined palate from an otherwise picky kid.

Chugging his second cup of goat's milk

Then we took a tour of where they milk the goats and make the cheese.  My favorite part was when one little girl started gagging because the goat cheese smell was so strong in one building.  The culmination was milking Lady Caroline. Caelum was all business.  The lady who ran the creamery wanted to make a trade for him and have him work there.  Owen also did great and was not at all tentative.  I shouldered my way past the kids for a try and apparently did it wrong. "No, not like milking a cow.  Just gently squeeze." You'd think I'd know enough about milking at this point.

 After the tour portion was done, we had a picnic while surrounded by 300 goats.  We purchased some plain goat cheese (which Zach and I polished off in a few days) and a wedge of aged goat cheese, for Owen. It was a great time and educational!

Mark Me Absent

Let's say, hypothetically, that I've been homeschooling my kids.  I haven't really been.  We're lucky if we get a day or two in per week.  I keep telling myself, "This is only preschool for Owen! We'll kick it into gear next year when Kindergarten starts." Despite my laziest efforts, I feel that Owen - and Caelum - have actually learned a decent amount this year.  We've had a lot of fun "field trips" (ie doing what we would normally do and maybe learning something along the way). I've appreciated my Nature Center and Biltmore House passes for this very reason. Also, separate goat creamery field trip post to come.

At the Biltmore Estate Gardens, doing a plant scavenger hunt (with special thanks to Gretchen, who came up with the hunt!)

At Biltmore, again, with other homeschool friends

 

At home, if we actually do school, it's a pretty easy routine.  Now that Classical Conversations is over, we're just focused on reading, writing and 'rithmetic.  We occasionally talk about the calendar and weather.  Owen and now Caelum both do a lesson from The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading.  We read a story from the Jesus Storybook and Owen writes a summary sentence in his journal and Caelum draws a corresponding picture in his journal. They'll each do a page or two in their Singapore Math workbook. And then we usually call it a day.

Caelum's rainbow for the story of the flood.

Owen doing some math

Classical Conversations was a great way to feed Owen's insatiable appetite for history.  He loves to sing the various history sentences, and for the end of the year recitation, his class got to present the history section.  He was overjoyed.  This morning he was singing his favorite one as he played with trains: "In 1994, South African President de Clerk allowed free elections.  Nelson Mandela became the first black president, demonstrating apartheid was ending."

Owen's class doing silly faces

Watching the egg drop on the last day of class. The kids made egg protectors and then they were dropped out of a first story window.

  Only two survived. Here's the crowd, watching the decimation.

At the rehearsal for the end of the year program, I let the much-neglected-at-CC Caelum stand up front.  He recited all of the history selection and sang the presidents song.  This kid is so ready for CC, but he's still too young.  Next year I hope to be more active about working with him during the class time.

At the rehearsal

Singing the presidents song at the performance

The end of the year program was great.  Owen loves to be in front and really enunciates and speaks loudly.  I wish I could put the video up of him doing it, but our computer is on the outs.  There was also an ice cream social at the end, which was a fun way to celebrate the end of the year.

All of Owen's class

 When I allow myself to stress about whether this homeschooling thing is going to work or if they are learning anything at all, I can easily calm myself with how much reading we do.  It's still mainly me reading to the kids from our huge stack of weekly (or bi-weekly) library books, but more and more, Owen will want to read.  He also loves to be read to from chapter books.  We've read From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Mr. Popper's Penguins, Farmer Boy, Little House on the Prairie, all of the My Father's Dragon books, and many Magic Tree House books.

The boys did a read-a-thon with Usborne books and in two weeks, we tallied 13 hours of being read to and 3 and a half hours of Owen reading.  The boys get some books as a reward and a portion of the money raised is used for books for a women and children's shelter in Asheville. Caelum wanted to "win the competition" so he would try to read along with me, which translates to mumbling and then saying the last word of the sentence after me.  I'm glad the desire to read is there!

Reading!

 Now that our weather has been so nice, there's been lots of yard time.  For our "plant unit" we did leaf rubbings, planted lots of seeds, labeled parts of plants, used straws to demonstrate stems, and talked about the Parable of the Sower.  And the continuation of this lesson has been lots of weeding and watering!

 
I am so thankful to be home with these sweet faces.  A big shout out to all my other, um, relaxed? homeschooling moms out there. Let's call it our educational philosophy.

Contrast and Compare

Hannah is so good about doing comparison posts of her kids.  It's always interesting to notice the similarities between the siblings and reflect on how quickly time passes and the babies move on to the next stage.  Here are my babies, all around six or seven months:

Can you tell who is who?  It's not really far since Esmé is almost always in something girly. Owen is the one on the Clemson blanket.  I look at the picture of Caelum and I just see Esmé, but then check out this bonus Owen picture:

That looks like Esmé!  Her eyes are definitely going to darken, like Owen's eyes. And I presume her hair will be dark too. She's going be a looker like her Daddy, I can tell already.

Nobody puts baby in a corner!

In other Esmé news, she rollllls to get around.  She starts on a blanket in the middle of the room and then gets herself into a corner in a matter of minutes.  She sits up like a champ and prefers to sit and watch the activity than to be in her bouncy seat or lying down.

Good Grounds

Joel.  Such a giver.  All I had to do was give him a call and say, "Hey brother, will you drive 12 hours in the car with your wife and five kids, all to help Zach fix the deck?"  And they did! We were so glad to finally get our deck reinforced, so that we can comfortably use the sunroom without fearing collapse.  And of course we were ready to spend time with the Mannings and give them a chance to meet Esmé.

 

The Mannings were there when I got home from Florida, so I was able to see two out of three siblings in one day! Pour one for my homie, Jason.  I'm hoping we can see you guys soon.

Joel and his "helpers"

So much engineering prowess in this picture

Anyway, Zach and Joel worked hard and quickly on the deck and got it done in a day.  That left time for games, playing in the yard, and hiking during the rest of the visit. My parents spent a few hours with us on Saturday and took all the grandkids out for donuts and a park trip.  We met up with my parents again on Sunday when we went hiking after church.  Turns out I didn't get any pictures of that, but we went to Triple Falls and High Falls, and it was a beautiful day.  You'll just have to take my word for it.

Ticket to Ride

Pompeii - yes, you get to drop the game pieces into the volcano

I was relieved that the weather was perfect and glad that the Illinoisans were provided a break from negative temperatures and many feet of snow. The Good Grounds Manning kids are so sweet and play nicely together. I love when siblings are kind to one another (and to my kids, obviously!).

Steph and some of the girls on the swingset

Precious Caralee

Uncle Zach making ginormous bubbles

Picnic in the front yard...now this can be done on the deck!

Cadence and Haven are tall and old suddenly!

Gramma in full gramma-mode

Joel and Steph love to be productive, and it really worked in our favor.  After the deck was done, they were ready for another project. Six months ago, Zach and I had bought a massive art piece (ie rusty metal thing) done by a local Asheville artist.  Because we're hip like that.  We knew just where we wanted to put it in the living room, but it would be a little precarious. Read: wood plank balanced on a ladder, balanced on the steep stairs. So it sat in our garage for a long time. With Joel and Steph's help, it finally got hung!

Everyone rejoicing! (Carly is being held up in the staircase, not dangling over the rail)

Lots of action

Esmé squashing Carly

All in all, a delightful and purposeful weekend.  I'm thankful for helpful siblings, precious nieces and nephews, present grandparents, and great memories.

Sister Sister

My priorities when naptime roll around (presuming I got a decent amount of sleep the night before and don't instantly run to take a nap when all three children magically coordinate their naps):

Clean the kitchen, wash the floor, read and have a cookie and tea, and then, maybe, just maybe, update my blog.

Today is one of those special days. 

Two weeks ago I went to visit Rachel on a much belated "Welcome to the World, Dylan" trip. My parents watched Owen and Caelum, Zach had a peaceful house to himself, and Esmé and I had a lovely excursion together. Rachel and I had really enjoyed being pregnant at the same time, for the first time ever. As I had guessed, being together with our babies was even better.  Esmé and Dylan are only seven weeks apart, so we are very much in the same cycle of breastfeeding, diapers, and cooing at the baby. 

One of the best parts of being in Tallahassee at their very new house was spending time with the big Braun Boys. Usually, when my boys are around, the kids all run off and play together and we barely see them. Much to Owen and Caelum's chagrin, I got to play with the boys all by myself!

So many nephews to love

I drove the boys to school each morning, which was so fun since I don't have to do it all year.

Ethan made me a marker and melted my heart with his sweetness.

Cole and I had lots of good bonding time.

Including a special trip to the park

And a treasure hunt...no luck though.

Rachel sure has her act together, especially for having a c-section four months ago.  The footage of which, I might add, I watched with relish.  That is some intense, beautiful stuff.

Note their awesome house

She's even making lasagna!

The Braun boys were great with Esmé.  They were sweet, gentle, and helpful.  It's clear that they are accustomed to having a baby around and they enjoyed making her laugh.

Tyler is an old pro at this baby thing.  And how about those adorable glasses?

Tyler feeding Dylan some cereal.

Ethan entertaining Esmé

Sweet Cole and Esmé

Adam is so good with babies as well.  He watched the two of them while Rachel and I drove Cole to preschool, got a pastry, and took a tour around town.  Adam put the babies to work and successfully got them both down for naps.

Dylan is a good-natured, easy, smiley baby...unless he's in his car seat.

Selfie with DCT

Esmé is big enough for an Exersaucer! Huzzah!

I get all weird, dependenty when I'm about to leave my family, but I must say, it was easier to go with my daughter in tow. She did surprisingly well on the four flights and slept better in Dylan's crib than she does at home.  And how sweet does she look in a summery dress, surrounded by Spanish moss?

Sleeping on the plane.  Phew!

Thighs, I mean Esmé, was intrigued by the swampy topography

We had to do a quick photo shoot with the two cousins. It's hard to get the two babies smiling at the same time, though Tyler was doing his very best to get them to do so.  It was a wonderful trip.  Thanks again for having us, Rach!

Beautiful babies

My favorite outtake

Dylan is as long as E, but not quite as roly poly.

Such a good aunt!

Sisters!