Fun at School

I am glad that my kids tolerate having me as their teacher because I sure love it!  Even though we are no longer going to Costa Rica this summer, I have still enjoyed learning Spanish with the boys.  I wish that I could have signed the boys up for my Spanish class, too, but since most colleges don't accept 10 year olds we are just enjoying taking the class together.   I must admit, though, that is humbling to see your 9 year old lap circles around you in a college class.  He is kind enough, though, to watch me take my tests and not point out my mistakes.

In addition to learning Spanish, I just love math.  I know this comes as a shock but it is really fun teaching my boys math and seeing them become quite proficient.  As a college teacher of many students with math phobias, I am grateful that I can help my boys avoid such problems.  Both Michael and Joshua have started junior high math and it is just so much fun to study with them and help them learn and really understand the concepts we are studying.

History is another favorite.  I know that I learned all about history growing up but don't remember much of it.  We spent the last couple of weeks studying the Civil War which was fun after visiting Virginia over Spring Break.  It was fun to study the battles and leaders, how the war began and ended.  I had never particularly enjoyed history growing up but have found it much more enjoyable to study on my own and with my kids.

There are many other subjects we study but in general it is just a lot of fun to study together and learn together.  I also love that learning is much more fun when we get to choose the topics and explore them together and at our own pace.  Homeschooling rocks and I am grateful that I have this opportunity to teach my boys!

Growing So Quickly

I realized something about babies. . .  for the first few months you feel like they will never grow up, they will never sleep through the night, and you will never get anything done ever again.  Then, a few months go by and you can't figure out where the time went and how your little baby became a larger baby who is now crawling, climbing, and playing.  This age is so much fun!  Hyrum will now play with us which is great fun.  He likes to wave, play peek-a-boo, climb, tickle and do that great game that when you tap his mouth he makes noise and listens to it come and go.  He is actually pretty creative with this game and used my face one day to create the same effect.  Needless to say it was a little uncomfortable, but it was super cute!  Congrats to James for capturing that moment.

Hyrum is also growing like a weed and has finally put on some chub.  But with the chub he is outgrowing his infant car seat, so we had to go in search of a new car seat.  Apparently now kids are supposed to be rear facing until they are 2?  I am not sure what is up with that but since he is only 9 months I left him rear facing for now.  I think that he would love to face forward soon, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

The boys are loving Hyrum more and more now that he plays with them, and he sure loves them.  He nearly jumps out of my arms every time he sees Michael and will crawl to his brothers sometimes before he crawls to me.  Sweet!

And they loved to play with his new car seat and car seat box.  Joshua had fun helping me figure out the car seat and find the well hidden latches (I might not have found them without his help) while Jacob had a blast playing in the box.  Life is good when we have empty boxes to play in.  Remind me again why we buy toys?  I will put out a bunch of toys and Hyrum will ignore them all find something else to play with.  When will we learn!    So, life is good and hopefully after today's snow storm we will see Spring!

Farming

We are really excited to do some small scale farming with the boys, but as most of you could probably have guessed, neither James nor myself know very much about farming.  So, we take every opportunity to learn as much as we can before we get going with this new venture.  Today we had the opportunity to go and visit with an older couple here in Virginia who have cows and chickens.  They took us out to the cows where the boys got to feed them corn.  It was really fun to see Jacob just run around helping and working without hesitation.  He didn't let those big cows intimidate him one bit.

Jacob and Michael trying to convince the cows to take the corn out of their hands.  

Joshua convinces the bull to eat right out of his hand.

We had a lot of fun feeding and learning about the animals and how to take care of them.  The boys would have stayed all day just watching and feeding the animals.  It was a great trip and reminder that farming is exactly what these boys need! 

Hanging out with the chickens.

Selling your house

Selling your house has to be one of the most stressful things I have ever done in my life.  I have packed up most of the toys, so that getting the house show ready can be done quickly and easily.  But with that means that the boys are never allowed to make big messes and with the colder weather that just doesn't make for very much fun for them or me.  And there is always the looming thought that someone could call to come and see the house.  While it is a blessing to have people come and look it is also stressful and has been keeping us on edge to make sure that everything is ready to show all the time.  We have been fortunate enough to show the house to 4 people already which as a FSBO is pretty incredible for the first week on the market.  Two of the four have mentioned that they would like to come back next week for another look which is amazing.

With all of the stress we felt like the boys and us needed a break.  Fortunately, this is Spring Break for James, so we headed out to visit our closest family who happen to live in Virginia.  It is pretty sad the closest people live over 12 hours away.  The weather here is beautiful!  They received about 1 1/2 feet of snow this last week, but the temperatures were in the 50's today.  So, the boys got to play in the snow without getting cold.  It was perfect!  And what is even better is that there is still snow on the ground.  We've only been away for a day but I can already tell that the boys are happy to be away from the stress and just enjoy life.  And their parents feel the same way.  We are still coordinating showings and working on getting things ready for the new house, but just being out of the 'show ready' house is making everything so much nicer.

We are hopeful that we will have an offer by the end of next week (if not more than one), so we will keep everyone posted.  Here is the link to the new house we are planning to purchase for those of you who haven't see it yet.
 (http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/572-Knox-Highway-26_Galesburg_IL_61401_M83507-61808)
 It is an interesting home and currently have 7 offices, a kitchen and great room on the main level.  We plan on turning those offices into four bedrooms and a dining room.  We will be sure to take plenty of before and after pictures once this show gets on the road!  But for now we will coordinate and relax a little and enjoy being together as a family with a little less stress.