April 30, 2013

Today has been a pretty typical day around here. We got up this morning with Ronnie so that we could continue doing our morning bible reading and devotions together. This is SUCH a wonderful gift for our family. I love getting up and spending a few quality minutes with Ronnie before he goes to work. I love being in the Word with him and Kyle as the very first thing we do (OK, except for making a cup of coffee, maybe). And I love that we are praying together and my husband is going out into the world with God already at the forefront of his heart and mind.

We were planning to be gone most of the day today...Kyle was supposed to go work with my Uncle, but due to the weather radar showing that it was supposed to rain ALL DAY LONG, we did not go. And of course, it was sunny all day until around 6:30 this evening :) But had we gone, it probably would've rained.
I was going to meet my SIL, Jen, for lunch today while Kyle was working. We don't get to spend much time together normally and I was thrilled that she could do lunch on such short notice. So I was disappointed to cancel that. But next week we will try again for both things!

I did major house cleaning Sunday, so today I didn't have much to do in the way of chores. Just some dishes, laundry and of course, vacuuming ~since that is a daily necessity with pets! I got most of my things done early (another benefit to actually getting up at the crack of dawn) and spent a good amount of time piddling in the butterfly garden. There is SO much going on there! Things change SO quickly! (See my upcoming post titled "Plants and Caterpillars and Butterflies, Oh My!) And I was scoping out the bird nest that I found last week...yesterday I found that it had 3(!) eggs in it..and the mama was sitting on the eggs today! Yay! I am REALLY excited about that!

School has been going great. We have enjoyed LOTS of field trips and hands on learning. In reading today, we started a new book! Sterling North's "Rascal". I have this great study guide/lapbooking study to go along with it. One of the Chapter 1 activities was to write an editorial. Kyle was aggravated initially at having to do this but then he got involved in his writing and enjoyed it :) He was BEGGING to read chapter two, lol.

We are just about done with school for the year. I want us to go through the end of May though, especially since we did not begin this year until October. I am not really sure why I feel like we need to do this, I just do. We will stop Math at the end of May--I tried using a different curriculum this year, because I was given it for free, and it was a disaster! So I bought our regular (Saxon) and we did not begin it until about halfway through the school year...so we need to complete at least half the book to be "on task" so to speak. It is a 7th grade book, so whether or not we finish it doesn't really matter since Kyle is in the 5th grade. But, I will feel better knowing we are on track (in my mind, anyways, lol). We will hit the halfway mark in the book this coming Friday. But...I want to keep going. Kyle has been learning some incredible concepts and is really enjoying the challenge that has finally started coming around.

We will be done with our English book in another 2 weeks or so. Kyle has learned two more sentence patterns than in years past. Shurley English is AHHHMAZING!

I am SO behind in blogging about field trips, homeschool days and hands-on educational experiences. I will get caught up one of these days. Kyle has learned and experienced SO much this year in the way of Science and History. We have attended TONS of events this year.

Ronnie and I decided (for the hopefully final time) where my raised bed boxes will go. He will be making me three 4ftx4ft raised beds for gardening. I am very excited and can't wait to get started! But with all the other projects going on around here...it's a tad of the ways down the list :)

In my sewing room today I have been tinkering around. I have a birthday party to attend this Saturday night and have been getting some squares cut for the little girl as her present. I probably have about 500 of them cut! SHE SHOULD BE STOKED!!! (I taught her how to sew and quilt last summer and for Christmas this year she asked for (and received) a sewing machine! yayy!). I am also toying with a quilt pattern where I am altering the size of the pieces so that I can use my Accuquilt to cut them. It is a scrap quilt, oh so cute...and I am working on a test block to see if I can make it work. I am also in the process of making a few more Farmer's Market blocks....but that'll be in my upcoming post titled "Process Post, Farmer's Market Quilt".

Well, that's about the sum of what's running through my brain tonight. Tomorrow Kyle has a physical. So we will be out of the house rather early for that. We'll probably go out to lunch, then he will have swim team and then we'll head to church. In between all that, we'll get school done and I will get some sewing done!
Good night ya'll!

Around the House

We have been doing little things here and there around the house. I love our home and LOVE doing things to it!
One project lately is that Ronnie has been fixing some cracks in our canoe.

We went up to Ocala two weeks ago and picked it up.
My Uncle has been storing it for us there since 2009! Ronnie redid the fiberglass and whatever else had to be done and is now ready to paint it! He is using an aircraft polyurethane paint that will glide like a dream in the water! Bright red too! :o)) I can't wait to see it painted!
He and Kyle are going on a kayaking/canoeing trip this weekend with my Dad! They are cruising the Econlockhatchee River and will camp, riverside, wherever they stop for the night!

I cleaned and re-arranged my front porch! Yes...front! Lisa and I sat out there and had coffee the morning after I completed it! Don't get me wrong..I MUCH prefer my back patio but this particular morning the back porch was a wreck and we didn't want to be out there. (That was prior to Mother's Day when my boys helped me clean and re-arrange the back porch).

The same weekend that we went to pick up our canoe, we also got a bunny! "Snowball" (as Kyle so creatively named her) was staying in our Xlarge dog crate until we ordered her a new home! I found this fabulous "bunny condo" on Ebay for a great price. Ronnie put it together for me...and voila! It is beautiful!

My flowers are blooming beautifully out front!

Kyle bagged up all the mulch I had raked out of the bed...we are wanting to redo the mulch in that bed and give it some shape / delineation. I am so thankful that Ky did this for me! (He did gripe and I did pay him, but...still, lol)

So...that's some of what we've been up to!