Homeschool is Coolschool

There have been many moments this week where my overwhelming emotion is gratitude. Gratitude for my family and our lovely home and land. For my job that keeps food on our table and clothes on our back. For clean spring water, fresh mountain air , and a night sky full of stars. For the ability to homeschool. Now this is a surprising one for me. My feelings around homeschooling are usually such a mixed bag of emotions. I know it is what I want for my kids and what my kids claim to want for themselves, but man, it is hard. My goal in the beginning was to homeschool for as long as we could, mainly until a child felt strongly about going to a regular school. But I knew that if Noah said he wanted to try school before 7th grade, I would probably try to convince him otherwise. My intital goal was to homeschool until Junior High...and then if he wanted to try school, I would be willing and open to making that happen. Well, now Noah has been homeschooling for 7 "school" years (k-6), and we are closing in on that time (before junior high) I set as a goal. Noah will be going into 7th grade this year! Unbelievable! So, if he shows interest in regular school, I can see myself being willing and open and not trying to convince him otherwise. Holy moly! So, today I am especially grateful for the 7 years of elementary grade homeschooling with Noah. I am grateful for that mixed bag of emotions that came along with homeschooling because I strongly believe that it is our challenges that bring us the greatest gifts. And I am proud of us for meeting our goal without strangling each other because, heaven knows, it was not ever easy. Rewarding and enriching and fun, yes. Easy, no way. So I am grateful for having the ability and motivation to homeschool, for children who flourish in the homeschool environment, and for the opportunity to re-learn some really cool things alongside my kids.

Nimuae's Week
Reading Dr. Doolittle
Times tables (1's,2's,3's,5's, and 10's)
Form Drawing
Natural Resources
Weaving:
weaverbirds, pot holder, placemat

Noah's week
Research for paper on Medieval castles
Pronouns
Mutliplying decimals
The Middle Ages and Vikings
Animal Kingdom: simple animals

Cuteness

Gita Pi "Super-Cute" Luca

Day for love

Things I love about today....

1. To celebrate Valentine's Day when I was in elementary school, we would each bring in a box that we decorated with hearts and valentine cards for our classmates. By the end of the day, our boxes would be filled with the cards and sweets that our classmates brought for us. Sometimes I feel sorry that my kids won't share these same experiences because we homeschool. So we make it a point to create some type of card and treat for all of our friends on Valentine's Day. The kids love filling a basket with their creations and walking around the neighborhood delivering love. And I love that we are giving our kids a sense of tradition, even if it is a bit different from those of my childhood.2. I love the new Supermom apron that David gave me (along with flowers and chocolate)...what a man!

3. I love the excitement that my kids show for holidays. They woke us up in the morning as if it was Christmas. "Mom, mom, wake up! It's Valentine's Day!"

4. I love all of our animals! The goat herd is growing with the addition of the two new babies. While the babies had their outdoor time in the sun, we had a great conversation with a neighbor about the getting more animals. Kelcey and I are already searching for new chickens, and now we are also looking at adding hogs and turkeys. I love having this connection to our food, and I love having other people to share the farming with. The cooperative nature feels so good and enables us to have farm animals with 1/3 of the work.5. I love that my kids have such wonderful friends with wonderful parents. Because each of them were playing at a friends house this afternoon, I was able to do three weeks of lesson plans with no distractions....and I love that!.

6. I love that my brother-in-law Alex married Kelcey. I could not have asked for a better sister-in-law to be living next door. I love that Kelcey and I get to do things like make Valentines sugar cookies together.

Welcome, Bubbles and Camina!

The waiting is finally over! Windy's babies were born this afternoon. The day was warm and sunny with just a bit of wind, the moon was full....conditions were perfect! David noticed Windy was showing some signs of labor when he was up at the barn milking this morning. Nimmy decided to stay home from class, the possibility of goat babies was more exciting than "school". So we spend the morning checking in on Windy and her progress. When she seemed close, we gathered the troops (Michelle, David, and myself, along with Nim, Gita, and Kestrel) and the supplies and set up camp in the kidding stall of the barn. After some nasty messes and some re-positioning of baby goat hooves (the first baby wanted to come out one leg at a time...not ideal for mama or us), our herd gained 2 adorable, healthy baby girls! Babies Camina and Bubbles are doing very well, although mama Windy is refusing to nurse her babies (which we were warned by her previous owners might happen) so we are bottle-feeding. David and I are about to head up for the 10:00pm session...here are some photos. Enjoy!

Mama Windy is in the zone
(I love the look that Michelle is giving Windy's back end)

The girls huddle together to watch the birth. Thoughts? "Amazing and kind of gross."

Beautiful and healthy baby girls! Could we have been more lucky?

Mama giving the babies a slober bath

Nim with the kids. She intends to train Bubbles to be a show goat!

Attitude

Sunny 62 * Saturday in the park

Noah bustin' a skateboarding move

Some of my "playgroup friends," Eliza and Shelley, and neighbor Aurora

Aquarian buddies, Nimuae and Nadia

Gita checking out big dog Hagrid

Shelley, Meredith, and Mullein

The first walls of Jason and Michelle's house

Slumber Partay

In honor of Nimuae's 8th birthday, and because we always seem to stretch the kids birthday celebrations into birth week celebrations, we had a slumber party this weekend. The kids' dear friends, River and Caleb, who used to live next door but moved to town a few years ago, came over for the night. Noah and Caleb set up a tween boys world over at the Loomers (who are still in NH) so the girls could have reign over the house.

The girls asked for privacy upstairs so David and I were happy to camp out with some movies in the living room. When they invited us upstairs, here is what we encountered....

The next day, we met a bunch of friends at Tarwheels, the roller skating rink, for some roller fun. Now, I do not have a mental picture of what I looked like at 8 years old at a roller rink, but seeing this picture of Nimmy gives me a pretty good idea. I love her knobby knees!