First Day of School/neglected 5th child

 So, to start the first day of school off on the right foot, we all got totally ready and marched outside. When the kids weren't looking I taped a sign on the door that said "Welcome to *home* SCHOOL!" They got really excited as we marched down the block (thinking they were actually going to "real" school), then confused when we turned back around, dismayed when we came back to our own door, and slighty indignant/slightly amused when they saw the sign and realized we were just walking back into the house.
So...not sure it had the intended effect. I tried making them call me Mrs. Crandall all day, or teacher, but that only lasted until I announced it was time for Math. The boys cheered like so, while Sadie booed:

 "I LOVE Math!!!!!"

 

"I still think I'm going to 'real' school after I pose for this photo."

 "I'm just along for the ride! Once everything gets going I'm pretty much ignored until I beg for food!!! Wee!"

 "I won't really know what's going on until later, at which time I will be incensed when I can't play LEGOS all day."

 

 

And these are for Aunt Alissa, who is helping me to remember to take more photos of the 5th child. She'll be lucky if we can fill her photos album before she is 15.

But look she can sit up all on her own. I found this out when Sadie shouted it across the house one day. I promptly replied, "No she can't! She's too little!"

 

 Ramona REALLY loves the dog.

That time of year again...

The time of year where it's cooling down slightly, but still too hot most days to want to be cooking a lot, but we still need to DO something with all this food we've grown. So we load up our stoves with boiling hot liquids, and disperse steam through out the entire house and wonder why we ever thought planting thirty tomato plants and six grape vines was a good idea....

Good thoughts on Large Family Life

"Each child does not just "add" to the love in our family- they multiply the love, as we each develop a new relationship with this new person.
When we married, there was one relationship in our home-- the one between Doug & I. With the addition of Ethan, there were 3 relationships-- with Doug & I, Doug & Ethan, and Ethan & I. With the addition of this 6th baby, there will be 28 relationships going on (simultaneously!) in our home. That is a lot of love, a lot of learning, a lot of sanctification, a lot of relationship. So many opportunities to experience love, seek & express forgiveness, learn to understand others' perspectives, serve one another. I praise God for this."

http://www.makinghome.blogspot.com/2012/07/large-family-thoughts-mom-of-five-and.html

Just something new.

 Kids jumping on giant air pillow at the strawberry pickin' place up north.

 What do you know? The pot of gold must be in our house. It's even a DOUBLE rainbow! So, all these little mischevous people must be leprachauns.

 Between the humidity and splash pad Sadie's hair is free to do it's curly thing a lot lately. Almost makes me feel bad for trying so hard to tame it. But this is pre-dreadlock stage.

 Mona likes kicking herself out of her swing. I could buckle her in, but she doesn't seem to mind.

Why we homeschool...

They agree on one thing: education is the transfer of a way of life.

“The most important fact about the subject of education is that there is no such thing. Education is not a subject, and it does not deal in subjects. It is instead the transfer of a way of life.” -G.K. Chesterton


 “I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being…The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and new — the rotting corpse of Christianity,together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent with the promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of ‘love thy neighbor’ will finally be achieved.” -Humanist Manifesto


http://www.generationcedar.com/main/2012/06/the-problem-with-education-we-dont-know-what-it-means-but-the-government-does.html

Beware of Dog!

The last few weeks of school have been very heavy on ancient Roman history.
We read how in Pompeii they uncovered a mosaic that read "Beware of Dog!". And of course, we've looked at lots of Roman art and architecture, a lot of mosaics included.

So, as a fun "end of school" project I thought we could make mosaic stepping stones for the garden.

First, we got some $1 patio blocks from Menards, and flipped them over to the flat side. I had the kids draw out what they wanted. Jude wanted a sea horse and wanted me to draw it, but he drew, all by himself, a hamburger fishing for his sea horse. So, see if you can spot that later, ha!

I had a bunch of broken stained glass lying around. Seriously. I bought it when Jonathan and I were dating, thinking I would do something with it, and just now, 10 years later, did something with it!

We bought a $12 glass nipper and went to town cutting it and helping the kids arrange it. Then we used $3 silicone glue to glue the pieces in place on the stones.

We used $10 tile grout, and gooped it over the top. After two hours we used steel wool to buff most of it off the glass. Then the next day, after it had hardened some more, we buffed the rest off. Then sealed it with $3 acrylic spray.

So our total cost for this project was around $30, but we do have a lot of materials left-over we could use to make probably between 5-8 more blocks.

It was fun, and the kids liked the final result! They will go in our garden in front of our swinging bench!
Here are some photos of the process:

 Above and below is before grouting, after fixing the glass with glue.

 Jonathan helping with the grouting.

 Violet's heart.

 Jude's sea-horse and fishing hamburger.

 Oops, someone who likes flowers got a hold of the camera and took a bunch of photos of flowers.

 Sadie's.....flower....and bird.

Ezra's turtle!

 Okay, and I added these later...Jonathan helped me move them (heav-Y!).

 These are the kids flowers. I let them each pick an annual at Wal-Mart, and this is their flower bench.

This is probably really dangerous, but fun!

I can't exercise....with or without youuuuuu!

Obligatory Easter photos...and MORE!

Thank goodness Jan thinks to take Easter photos, and we live close, otherwise, we just wouldn't have any! But first, (just because uploading put them in this order) are some photos of Ramona. I was trying unsuccessfully to catch a smile. I got a weird one, I think...

This is hard to do with one hand, so here is a photo of the kids enjoying their Easter loot, BEFORE finding it!!! It's a physics problem.

Best family photo. Jude looks to me like a young and upcoming underwear model for JC Penney. You know, underwear, or khakis, or loafers. One of those.

Or maybe I was wrong and he's destined to become Mr. Universe. Stay away from steroids, son.

And I've run out of funny quips, so I'll comment on how Sadie looks super-imposed on this photograph. But really, she WAS there.

Found them.

Here is our poor exploited daughter giving a double back rub.

All I can say is: it was this photo, or a creepy one of her pouting and staring at the mulch.

Happy belated Easter!

Brandon Heath - Give Me Your Eyes

Peaches and Mohawks

Surprised by flash.

One is really zonked out. One is pretending for a photo op. Can you guess which is which?

Our little peach tree blossomed for the first time! Please no more freezing weather!

A natural mohawk? I'm thinking this one will have curly hair, too.

Active Alert

Ramona Belle

Ramona Belle was born early Thursday morning March 15th at 12:47 am.
She weighed 7 # 13 oz. 21" long, and 13" head and chest circumference.

Her name means "Beautiful counsel and protection."

I had been having contractions that were mildly annoying since Sunday evening, but they were irregular (anywhere from 3 min to 20 min. apart), and they didn't hurt *that* much. Plus, they always stopped as soon as I went to sleep and didn't resume until the next evening.

We let the midwives know, but weren't optimistic that anything would come of it. Then, Wednesday night, they were getting a bit more painful, requiring a bit more concentration to deal with. So once, again, we let the midwives know. They offered to come over and see us, which I didn't think was necessary considering some of the contractions were 20 min. apart. But they insisted they didn't want to miss the birth (to which we were thinking, "yeah right!").

They came around 10:00 pm and talked with us and stayed for about 20 minutes. I thanked them for coming out, but told them I didn't think anything was going to happen and I was going to go to sleep if I could.

About an hour after they left, my water broke, contractions started in earnest, and they had to rush all the way back! Less than an hour after my water broke, Ramona joined our family!