A Big Long Break from Blogging

It has been a year since my last post but MY OH MY what a year it has been. Here is a quick re-cap:

Januaryish - Oil prices drop and Rob gets laid off along with half of Houston, flooding the job market and upsetting our perfect little surburban life we had made for ourselves in Katy, Texas.

Febuaryish - Rob interviews with a company in Greenville, Texas that appears to be a dream come true.  Well, if your dream is to move out of the suburbs and own land and grow things.  This is exactly what Rob and I have always wanted but due to the high cost of real estate in the Houston area was never going to happen for us.  By the way, he got the job and we got two weeks to get our butts up to Greenville.

March - We got out house ready to be put on Market (paint, patch holes, new carpet), sold house and moved to Greenville all in two weeks. My head still spins when I think about it.  Luckily, Rob's Mom and my parents helped out a ton and we got it all packed and moved.  

April - Why do all the homes on land cost sooooooo much money and they all have broken slabs!!!!!!!!

May - We buy land!!!!  Four acres of Texas to call our own.

June - Hey let's build!

July - start getting on the wait lists to get utilities installed.  Due to the heavy rains in Texas this year all the contractors were backed up 6 weeks.  Maybe building isn't the way to go...

August - the patience of Job is brought up a lot.

September - Our house is delivered and set up and we only had to go one week without air conditioning. Moving people come and up deliver way to many boxes that had me hiding in the corner about to have a panic attack until Robert coaxed me out with a game plan.

October - starting to feel like home around here.  It would be even better if it would stop raining!

November - Oh my the stars at night. I can see the milky way!

December - Christmas in our new home somehow was the real turning point for this new place feeling like home.  

Somewhere along the way (I think it was May) we placed membership at the local church and started the slow process of getting to know new people.  In the fall we joined a really neat homeschool co-op where the boys got to make some new friends and I got to see some other homeschool mamas. Somehow in there we homeschooled and explored the area.  Many a day were spent at the duck pond to avoid going crazy in our small dark apartment.  

So we are back to January and a new year.  We are back to school and co-op will be starting soon.  The big boys are playing basketball.  Life is moving on and we are happy where we have landed.  I can't think about how much we miss our friends and family or I will get all leaky around the eyes but I hope you all know that we are blessed to have ended up here and I just wish I could bring you all along with us. This is my happily ever after. 

  

Fairies and Orcs

We are back to school and we have added so many things in this year.  Things that make this mama very happy that they are actually happening! Reading and math have always happened but homeschooling is supposed to be so much more than just getting school work done.  I am trying to offer a feast of ideas and expose them to the beauty of this world that God created.  I'm trying to ignite a fire not just check off boxes of completed work.

We have added morning time in which we all come together and sing, pray, do memory work and read good books together.  We then separate into bigs and littles and I work with those groups until lunch time.  After school work is done and if the weather is nice we all go outside to run around.  In winter there is not much to do on our fledgling homestead so taking inspiration for Pinterest I decided we would make a fairy garden.  

So what is a fairy garden and why would a family with four boys need to make one?  

• It is a spot that you make believe in and create a little world with sticks and stones and whatever else we can find or re purpose 
• It is where the fairies with their truth and light fight against the orcs and darkness of the world.  
• It is a place to keep their minds alive with wonder 
• It is something else to do with the long hours of our day   

So here is the beginning of our new imaginary world.  It only took a little help from me before their creative juices got flowing and they started coming up with their own ideas.  They have some birdhouses that my mom sent them to build and we are going to put them in the there as fairy houses.  

This is what we started with.  We used some wood from an old fence that perfectly made an arch as an entrance.  They had already made a pathway with rocks and sticks before I got the camera out. 

A dear friend passed down some of her mother's birds to me recently. I couldn't use them all in the house and these are made of resin and I though they would hold up to the elements. 

Barrett is laying shells (from Galveston) around a bird statue. 

Marshall went right to work making arches and pathways. He has a eye for aesthetics and construction.

Alright so it was my idea to hot glue the sparkly stones to the reclaimed wood.  But hey, as the only female presence I felt the need to pretty it up some.

From the other side of yard...  MORDOR!

They are working on getting all the green gone and making it look dark and dank. 

Back to School

We got back to book school this week after our Christmas break.  There is always an apprehension after a break when you feel that suddenly everything you taught them the last term will not be there anymore and that is when I take a deep breath and remember the motto of our school:

"Education is not the filling of a pail,but the lighting of a fire." William Butler Yeats

We actually got back to school last week but we were working on the other things, the life things.  We had a shift in chores and those require time to teach and I did not want to be pressured to rush through it so we could get to "real" school work. That just leads to frustration on my part, which leads to yelling and no one learns anything good from yelling.  Cooper is learning to sweep the floors and Marshall has proven to be a whiz at loading the dishwasher.  The twins have taken over feeding the cats and dog (big brothers taught them).  It was a good change because our morning run very smoothly now and better yet, housework is done and the house is staying a bit more tidy.

We are starting our second term this week and it so exciting to start new books.  In addition to the books we read over the whole year we are adding a biography of Queen Elizabeth and Children of the New Forest this term.  I can't wait until term three when we read The Jungle Book!  Marshall is not adding any new books but is making great progress with reading and I forecast he will be reading his fables to me by the end of term 3!  

With the the new year, I wanted to take up a resolution that did not have anything to do with my weight.  So I decided to teach myself to watercolor and tip toe into the mysterious and elusive world of Art.  Most people think of art (drawing or painting) to be an innate talent and if you are not good at it then "oh well" I just can't do it.  I refuse to believe that because I am not good at football but I can still play it!  Sketching and drawing and painting used to be taught and most educated people had a working knowledge of how to put an image to paper.  I am so grateful this is one of the forgotten subjects we can add into our sons' educations.  They will be taking an art class once a week through the YMCA and I can't wait to see what they create! Once I master watercolors I will teach my boys so we can use the skill in our nature journals.  Speaking of which here are some of my recent paintings. (I put these online not to brag, quite the opposite, they are far from "right" but you have to start somewhere and I encourage you to start!) Youtube has a ton of tutorials!

Holly bush - I had to find one with a berry on it because I really love color and all the greens and brown get boring to me. I messed up on a shadow placement - can you find it??

House Finch - The red is the wrong red and I didn't blend my colors very well but I still love him!

Fall Nature Study - Mary Jo Peckham 2014

This was the last time we made it out to Mary Jo Peckham this year.  This walk began and progressed like all the others. The kids  running as fast as they could from thing to thing while the other moms and I tried to keep up.  We did have to start to run once they kids had formed a group around something and the twins started yelling "Look momma, a dead bird!" Having no idea what state of decomposure it was in or if it was fully dead even I started running and screaming "don't touch it!"   Luckily it was  a good find (no maggots yet). The kids were all fascinated and we used a stick to turn it over.  I could not tell why it died.  His fellow vulture buddies did not seem interested in eating him.

Hydrangea. Looks like they are going to pinkish.  The soil acidity determines what color they are going to present (My momma taught me that).

The trees do change color here in Houston!

More rock domination by the twins.

Cooper tracing a leaf.

Dead vulture. Not very pretty birds while living but they do serve a vital purpose in nature.  Aesthetics aren't everything when it comes to nature study. Myself, I am always drawn toward the "prettier" things like flowers and such but I have had to train my eyes to see the beauty in rocks and pine needles. I am learning to love the color brown after a lifetime of avoiding it.

Graham still looks for nests in the rocks every time.

Always watching

wee little froggy

Renaissance School Days

We went to the Texas Renaissance Festival for their school day program this year.  I was super excited because we are studying the renaissance this year in school. Although I wish one year they would ditch Henry VIII and let Mary and  Elizabeth fight it out.  Now that would be history coming alive!

Marshall's at least feeling fabulous.

 

 We made it to the joust just in time due to some traffic on the way.

Cooper wanted to ride the flying trampoline ride.  Don't ask me what this has to do with the Renaissance but he had a blast. I suppose they can't fling kids out of trebuchets so this has to suffice.

He was nervous the entire time but never wanted to quit.  He finally got to do a flip at the end.

Marshall, not being a fan of heights, decided on the mechanical joust.  He got the ring on the second try! Huzzah!

Barrett trying to figure that lady out.  "She tall!"

Cooper's not impressed with the dancing.

"Ye Olde Funnel Cake"

About 16 years ago this used to be a chicken on a stick shack called the Royal Arms Tavern.  I worked here my senior year of high school.  It's now a stroller rental place.  The irony is not lost on me even though my stroller pushing days are almost over.

Best bubbies. They were so tired from walking they finally held hands because I was walking too fast.

Nature Study Monday - warning there are maggots!

We met up at the hippo park today for some more exploring.  The big boys spent quite a long time digging up rocks out of the path.  They even started collecting tools to help them dig from the tree limbs and sticks.  This was the prize of the day that was finally unearthed after about 20 minutes of digging.

I took the little guys for a walk and I found the mother of all nature study find.  A pretty well decomposed squirrel with maggots underneath!!!  Best quote about it was "That is awesome... and very disgusting."  Nature is not always pretty but this is part of the process of dying and decomposition and I am glad the boys were able to see it firsthand.
 

 Marshall found a stick with a "V" in it and was using other sticks to balance it.  I like this kind of experimenting.

Barrett said he was a frog jumping off his rock. 

Nature Study Tuesday - wait nature study is on Monday right????

 The boys did not let me forget that "we did not go on Monday and we need to study nature!"  So, we went to the park Tuesday because evidently we have made nature study a habit (inward evil chuckle at making this a habit). We picked up Cooper's best buddy Luke and headed out to the park that is commonly referred to as the hippo park or pocket park and our favorite name for it "the stink park" since it is right by a waste water treatment facility.

Five boys at a park all with bicycles and plasma cars and all had a good time.  Trees were climbed, stick sword battles fought and nature was explored observed and even sketched from memory the next day.

Graham noticed the moss growing on the concrete.

"I'm a beaver!"

Fungus growing inside a hollowed out tree

Nature Study Buddies

No water bottles for this crew, I now only go to the park with my trusty 2 gallon water cooler

My rules of tree climbing - "Don't climb anything you can't get down from by yourself."  Seriously, there is a natural internal tether kids have to the ground.  If they know you are not going to come rescue them, they will 99/100 times not climb too high.  Even when they call me to come help them, I only offer footing advice and stand there in case of a fall.  It is far better that they learn the courage to take that blind step backward than to be rescued over and over again.

"Quick momma take a picture of me being a sloth!"

Graham has brought a twig to the stick fight.

Chinaberries and my new super pretty nail polish.

I have to admit this is my watercolor of the different berries I saw.  I get better sketching out of the boys when I sit and do it with them.

Marshall's sketch of the culvert covered with moss and a blue jay

Cooper's culvert. He drew in what he thought it would look like with water.

Cooper's sketch of the tree he climbed, a spider web he saw, and his bike.