I turn around for a minute and the silliest things always happen… Soul puts the ipod in her shirt because that is how she sees me walking around the house, then Brave puts minty foot lotion all over Soul’s arms, or Brave and True douse Soul in baby powder all over her body. It doesn’t always seem silly at the time, but I guess it isn’t so bad that I have time to take a picture!
Friday night was lovely because the girls are at the grandparents and Ben and I had the house to ourselves. Love it! Today we will be relaxing, getting a few things done, going on a date, and maybe adding in some lovin’!
This week’s learned and links…
– Soul can say, “Scuse, peas”, means “Be excused please?” and “Wa wat”, means “Wanna watch” because she wants to watch some book read alouds on the computer.
– The girls love homeschool and are really excited about learning.
– True and Brave are so forgiving to put up with my frustrations when I am not being the best mama.
– Soul is feisty and tries to fight her older sisters.
– We are quite close a to name, at least we got one on the table.
– I need to work on being more encouraging to Ben like in Ephesians 5:22-33.
– Check out my newest living room ideabook on houzz. Would love all those things, definitely out of my budget though!
We went to the flea market to pick up a little side table we had purchased from a vendor back in June, but had no room in our car to take at that time. We walked around a bit, but didn’t really find anything, or maybe we really just weren’t looking cause we have spend-phobia right now. There were two things I really did like, but they were already sold, so it is just as well. This was definitely our last time at the flea market as a family of five and next time we go we will be a family of six and introducing our newest little one to our love for hunting old pretty things. I so can’t wait!
The funniest thing of the day is that the two older girls insisted being in the stroller, while little Soulie insisted on walking around herself. She is a trooper that one!
on me: shirt, target. undershirt, local boutique. shorts, old navy. shoes, jessica simpson.
This belly is getting increasingly hard to dress with each week. My shirts are suddenly getting shorter and shorter and pants and skirts are getting tighter and tighter. Most days at home, I am literally in pajama shorts and a tank all day cause it is just easier that way. I seriously dread getting dressed cause I never know what to wear (and I change my clothes about 10 times before I settle on something to leave the house). Then, I have been obsessively looking for shirt dresses on etsy cause soon enough, that is all I will need to wear again, though this fall/winter I am thinking of adding more jeans and pants into my wardrobe. I will give being a jeans girl a try, not sure if it will really work though!
Today has been such a good day so far as I had yummy lunch and dessert with Danni and Linda and now I am at my mom’s waiting to pass the girls off to her for the evening. Ben and I want to spend one quiet relaxing Friday night alone and have a semi-peaceful Saturday before our life gets a little bit crazier soon. The girls don’t object to being at their Grammie and Grumpy’s because it includes waffles for breakfast and BLT sandwiches for dinner and usually, they sucker their grandparents to take them shopping. Ain’t being a grandkid, grand?!!
Enjoy your weekend friends and I will be back later with a little friday recap!
It’s been awhile since I wrote about my hypnobirthing class, but is has been awhile since I had one. Life took over for us and Ben and I haven’t been able to have a session with Dr. AnnaLynn, tonight will be our last one.
Last class, believe it or not, Ben did not fall asleep during our hypnosis session. I think he was trying very hard to keep alert, my mom sat in to watch me go into hypnosis a bit, so she would know what to expect when she was there with us in the birthing room. And I have been practicing a whole lot since then. I try to do it every night before bed, then I use it to lull me to sleep, and once in the mid-afternoon. The afternoon practices are harder because the boisterous energy of True and Brave in the room sometimes won’t let me relax.
I know I am the guinea pig for all my friends and some people are still weirded out by the whole idea. It really isn’t that strange friends, it is just getting to a place of deep relaxation and using your imagination. It really is quite nice. Some people try to get me to put myself in hypnosis in front of them, but I think that is just too weird, so I don’t. Plus, I need my music and anchors and need to be super comfy and being in the middle of a pizza parlor ain’t the comfiest.
I am at 36 weeks now and normally go somewhere in my 38th week (what?! can I really be that close?!!), and I am pretty excited about my body doing the birthing process this time around. I am not quite ready yet, as there are things that still need to get done before this baby makes an appearance (I need to put together a hospital bag and a going home outfit) and try to clean more of the house. I am just anticipating when it will be time to put all I have been practicing into action. Really, I am so excited! I have dreams all the time that this baby just slides right out of me!
At the same time, I am really cherishing these last few weeks as this will be the last time Ben and I will be in this place. Unless God pulls a fast one on us, four is as high of a number as we will go, so I am trying to memorize and enjoy every little bump and kick I feel inside of me. I will really miss feeling a baby inside me. I think I am also finally slowing down as I have been more tired these days and though I have been working out this entire pregnancy (I try to do 5-6 days a week with Ben), today was the first day I felt like, “Whoa! This workout is kinda hard now.”
I was telling Ben last night that maybe we should make a papier-mâché out of my belly. Strange, I know, but I am just trying to figure out a way to capture these last days in this stage of our life. My heart is really full trying to fathom and enjoy it all and not let it escape too quickly, but at the same time we are super duperly excited to meet the newest one! I think we may even have a name. Maybe. Almost. We will see…
From homeschool to food, don’t you love how I can jump from one topic to another so quickly?! I am a lifestyle blog after all, at least I think of it that way. I am sure there will be lots more school talk round these parts, especially since this is all so new to us and there are so many aspects of it that I want to capture and reflect upon. All in all, homeschooling day two went well, I just need to be more patience. God, help!
On a food note, we tried out this delicious salmon recipe last week. I really liked it, though next time Ben and I both agreed that the recipe could go a bit lighter on the vinegar.
Marinate salmon fillets for 20 to 30 minutes in two cups puréed watermelon, 3 oz (3 to 4 inch long piece) grated fresh ginger, 1 cup sake, 1 Tbsp soy sauce, 1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar, 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes and 1 tsp salt.
For the salsa:
1 cup diced and seeded watermelon
about 1/4 cup diced red onion
1/2 cucumber diced
1 Tbsp toasted (dark) sesame oil
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
1 tsp red pepper flakes
3 to 4 leaves of fresh mint chopped
1/4 bunch of cilantro chopped
2 tsp sugar and 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil.
Mix and adjust seasoning and sesame oil to taste.
Grill the salmon fillets or roast in a preheated olive oiled baking dish at 350° for 15 to 20 minutes. Arrange the fillets on a bed of mixed lettuces, garnish with cherry tomatoes. Top the salmon and the lettuces with salsa. Serves four.
The recipe contains onions, which I can’t really stand right now, but having ice cream afterwards makes the lingering onion taste in my mouth go away. Problem solved. These days though I am craving some sort of teriyaki beef. Hopefully, Ben and I can get a date night in on Friday and satiate this craving of mine. I so can’t wait to have my normal appetite back and have me some sashimi and beer! That’s right… I am looking forward to drinking a beer!
Deciding to homeschool was not an easy one. Ben was more on board with it than I was. I think what intimidated me most about homeschooling is kindergarten. I never wanted to be a kindergarten teacher and that curriculum just does not interest me (I yawned a lot today), so that fact I have to get through those primary years to get to the stuff that I love teaching really freaked me out.
I have nothing against public schools, in fact I taught at one and most of my friends do and they are really fantastic teachers who are able to take learning out of a book and give it some real life application and teach students how to think critically. When I left the classroom, the way things were being taught was really shifting and we were focused on helping students become critical thinkers. Of course right now, the thing that is hurting in public schools in California the most is the budget crisis.
We decided to homeschool because we want to be in control of what and how our children learn. We want to be able to give them the Christian worldview and to teach them who they are in Christ. Yes, we know we can’t shelter them forever and they will eventually get out into the world and be exposed to all those things we are trying to keep them from. But hopefully at that time, they will have a clear view of who they are in Christ that the decisions they make
The first day of school went fairly well. Okay, maybe I did have some frustrating moments and the girls got sent to time out a few times (better than the principal right?!), but it wasn’t bad for a first “official” day. Actually, the “official” day is on Tuesday, but we want Friday off, so we started today. It’s kinda nice having that flexibility!
Today, we did some phonics, writing, math, and spanish (really basic stuff). The girls really liked the end when they got to do free journal and document the bits and pieces of what they learned today. They dictated to me sentences of what they learned and I wrote it down. I am sure once we get into a regular rhythm of things, I will break down our precise schedule for you, but we aren’t quite there yet and we don’t do “school” all in one sitting. The day is broken up into parts and we do a chunk of school while Soul is napping. I hope to get baby and Soul on the same nap schedule, so it will make things manageable for the girls’ learning time.
I didn’t really do “preschool” with True as we did things weaved into the day, but it was never official, but with Brave, she is just being taught the same things as True. She doesn’t get some ideas as quickly as True, but I figure she will get what she can and next year when she is in kinder, concepts will be much quicker for her. The tricky part is being patient with her and remembering she is still a whole year younger than True.
Thank you for all your encouragement and your questions regarding our decision to homeschool. Here is some background information on me that you may or may not know about that helped aid our decision to homeschool.
1. I have my California Teaching Credential and taught 4th grade for a year before I got pregnant and decided to retire early. Not that having a credential automatically makes you a great homeschool teacher or vice versa.
2. Mysiblings and I were homeschooled by our parents. My younger siblings did it through through elementary school and I did it from my sophomore to senior year in high school. My remaining two years I was integrated into a local private school and took my math and science classes there (it was too hard to teach myself physics and calculus), but I was so mixed in with the students of that school that I even went on the Senior trip with everyone.
3. Most of my really goodfriends are still currently teachers, so if I need help or have questions, I have plenty of support and trust me, I have already bugged some of them.
I know you must all have lots of questions of the whats, whys, and hows we are homeschooling and I promise to address that in another post soon, but I will touch on just one subject of homeschooling that I know some of you are wondering about.
True is indeed a shy girl and we do think it is important for her (and the rest of our kids) to be able to get social interaction. Though she is at home, she isn’t deprived it as we are part of a this church family where she is able to engage and meet with other children every Sunday. In addition, our homeschooling is done through a public charter school in which we have the option of signing up for “enrichment” classes one or two days a week. She will be attending a full day of school once a week and will be definitely getting lots of social time through there. And honestly, she does have (almost) three little siblings she interacts with daily who are very close to her age, so she will be more than fine. Plus, when I was a kid, I was just like her, super shy and always hiding behind my mommy’s leg, but look at me now… Ben says I ain’t shy at all, though I think I am just a smidge.
That’s our philosophy on the social aspect of homeschooling and I remember when I was homeschooled there were some kids who were a bit more peculiar than others, but really, I think they would have been just as peculiar if they weren’t homeschooled. Plus, peculiarity isn’t such a bad thing, I am so glad everyone is different and has their own quirks! Aren’t you?!
I have a large growing pile of fabric scraps. I refuse to throw them away because I am sure they can be used for something. I have been seeing different types of interesting necklaces made of buttons, beads, and fabric. Then, I figured why not make one out of my scraps...
I think it made my white shirt a little less boring. This was so quick and easy to make.
How to make a recycled scraps necklace (which is very similar to the straps on my braided tablecloth bag):
1. Take your scrap fabric, I cut a .5''-1'' snip and tear the rest of the fabric down for a nice frayed edge. Used 3 different fabrics for each strand.
2. Take 3 of the torn pieces and tie the ends together with a rubber band.
3. Braid the 3 pieces together and tie ends together with rubber band when done.
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for more strands. Remember you can make the strands any length you want, if run out of fabric, just weave more into the braid.
5. Once all the strands you want are braided, gather one end of each strand together and straight stitch together with sewing machine. Repeat for the other ends of the strands. Snip off any excess.
6. Gather ends of the necklace and sew together (snip excess) or a ribbon can be sewn at the ends to be able to tie the necklace closed, but I just sewed both ends together.
7. Voila! A nice way to make use of all your lovely scraps.
Sorry if the directions get you a little lost, but it really is easy. I promise. Maybe I should put some in the shop. Please share any other good ideas you may have of things that can be made with scraps. I would love to hear (read) them!
