It's been a while since I checked in - my apologies!! I hope each and every one of you is well. Right now I am so busy that I honestly don't know what to do with myself - I feel as though I am in some sort of weird time vortex, where my entire world has shrunk to one word: homeschooling. There is so much to learn, so much to do, and the outside world has almost ceased to exist while I deal with the onslaught. Don't worry, it ought to let up in another thirty years or so, but in the meantime, I am busy.
I hope to write about all that in another post soon. But in the meantime, here are a few snippets of daily life from our family:
A few minutes of peace (usually the 3yo is fussing because the 6mo is trying to pull his hair or steal his toys):
Several years ago, a friend told us that any summer following a mild winter is likely to be bad for insects (or rather, good for insects and bad for US having to deal with them!) because fewer freezes means more larvae will survive the winter. We are for sure paying for last year's mild winter, because bug populations (spiders & scorpions) have been awful this year!
Moving on from arachnids....
Two weeks ago, someone FLIPPED A SWITCH with our cute little Baby Moose! In one weekend he went from, "Hello, I'm a really cute baby who just sits here looking adorable" to "Enough of this baby stuff! It's time to crawl!" - and while he was at it, he got two more teeth and is now getting into everything. Yikes! Toddler-time is on the horizon!
Speaking of Baby Moose: This past weekend we went north to visit DH's parents. While we were there, Grandpa decided to make some sort of goofy face at our little guy - and he did not like it! He immediately burst into petrified tears - and kept it up all weekend, becoming hysterical whenever poor Grandpa got near him. He relented just as we were leaving, permitting Grandpa to hold him while the car was loaded. Hopefully this will be a temporary aversion!
Celebrating the Chublet's third birthday at Grandma & Grandpa's house:
The Chublet's first birthday cake that he has been able to eat! (Before this, his texture issues prevented it.) He's definitely in favor of the idea!!
Happy birthday to the cutest and most darling Chublet!!
In other family news....
Here's another weird thing - our very own version of crop circles! Is this odd, or what? They appeared in our yard after an irrigation day - odd dark green circles about five to eight feet wide, in various places across our yard. They're still there, though not as prominently as before. Anyone know what these are?
In other family news, our eldest is... reading. Oh, my goodness - did you get that? He is READING! One night last week he randomly started reading off street signs and road markers - completely out of the blue. Despite the fact that I have been teaching him phonics for almost a year, he has never been self-motivated toward independent reading. I am not worried about that, because all of what I read points to great results when boys are not forced into academics too early. But this was a huge milestone, and a very exciting one. (He is still only reading very elementary words, nothing fancy, but he's definitely on his way.)
Right now, we are dealing with starting the homeschool year (daily lessons, field trips, park days and playdates), trying to make various decisions for our family, going through our second of two family birthday seasons, and dealing with life in general. Things are packed, but I am learning a ton and God is definitely using this season of my life to stretch me far beyond my comfort zones in every way possible. I have never prayed so much or so hard, nor done such difficult and stretching mental work as I research, study, plan, and labor to develop our homeschool. (College was nothing compared to this.) Life is hard, life is challenging, life is stretching - life is good. And God is good.
 |
| Getting into a sitting position on his own! |
 |
| Our 6yo's invention - a balloon jet pack. |
 |
| Convinced that he is about to lift off. :) |
Google "fairy rings" and see if that's what you've got. I've heard of them; it's some sort of fungus or something that starts as a small circle and gets bigger (larger circumference, not thicker) until it outgrows its spot or gets too big and disappears.
ReplyDeleteKathy, I think you're right! I did Google images, and some of those pics matched exactly. It was really interesting because there were many really different things that were all called fairy rings - some were rings of actual mushrooms, some were rings of bare dirt (in a grassy area) and some were the rings of darker grass that we are seeing here. But I think that's what they are! They've disappeared for now, so we'll see if they come back. :)
ReplyDelete