R is for Routine

 

I would like to start with a truth. 

My original idea for R was to write about rebellion. 

Since I’m a rebel and all I am not going to write about what I had planned. 

Routine is what has saved my sanity lately. 

Remember back when I posted about how I wanted to be more spontaneous.

How do you plan for something like that?  Well next time I will write about other ways I plan so that I can be more spontaneous.

But the biggest way is by having routine.

If every day when my kids get up they follow their list then I know they are ready for the day and whatever we decide to do. 

With a bedtime routine if no matter where we are or what time we decide to go to bed they know the routine and can do it whenever, where ever.

The way I have began incorporating routines is with the bedtime routine. 

I found this great premade one, which is the one we use for bedtime.  I like this one because it is simple enough and has no bedtime snack or drink.  We don’t do those things.  I also like it because it has no time.  If we stay up late because we are watching a family movie, or went for a drive to the mountains to have a campfire it’s fine.  If we need to go to bed early because we spent all day at the pool or park and are just worn out, we can.

Our morning routine is a little more complicated and I am still working out the kinks of it.  I will post more about it when I have it done.  I will explain what I think I am going for though.

I want it to be like

• Wake up
• Eat breakfast
• Get dressed for day

Can I watch TV?  You must answer yes to all of these.

• Did I do all of the above things?
• Have I read for 15 minutes?
• Have I done something helpful?

Can I play outside?

• Did I do all of the above things?
• Do I have sunscreen on?

These routines are for my kids.  I am also incorporating routines for me.

Routines are allowing us to be spontaneous while still having some structure. 

 

Our County Fair ~

 

Emily and Katey both entered multiple things in our county fair.  I am just highlighting a few of them.

Let me start off with some fantastic news!  Emily entered a pillowcase from a sewing class she was taking with our homeschool co-op and it got 1st place and qualified for the state fair!  WHOOP! WHOOP! 

Katey entered an extra pocket she made using the book Sewing School 2.  Katey is still a Cloverbud with 4H, therefor she is not judged.  She still got a ribbon. 

Another favorite is the Little Red Barn put on by our local FFA.

The fireman’s challenge is a sure hit every year as well.

 

Katey was chosen to go up on stage our the Scales and Tales Reptile show.  She got kissed by a lizard!!

We went to the Demolition Derby this year and they had Monster Trucks there.  It did make for a long night all the setting up and taking down of everything.  It was still a lot of fun.  This was a great derby.  (Last year we actually ended up leaving early it was so boring)

After the derby we went to the family dance with a local band performing.  It was a lot of fun and one of my favorite things every year.  This year a young man asked Emily to dance, and she said “yes!”  It was so cute and I am sure it made his night!   That takes some guts right there!

All of these things were free for us!  All of them!  There were reserved seats you could pay for at the derby, but we just sit in the free seats.    Don’t get me wrong I did spend money at the fair on food and rides, oh and I bought some things at the booths, but you can do many things for free at your county fair! 

I highly recommend going and participating in things.  We love the fair! 

 

 

Small Scale Nature Study–Summertime!

 

 

Our community is great about putting on free activities for the kids in the summer.  One of the ones we went to they had a nature trail walk with a plant and tree identification clue game.   Each child got a paper bag to collect things on their walk.  When we got back to the pavilion we made a tree collage with the items. 

There is a small creek at the park we were at and my little budding entomologists were fascinated with the Water Striders.  Which they had learned about on the Brainfood Learning Insects DVD, we watched.  

We had to catch a few and bring them home.  We watched the movie again to pay specific attention to the part about them.  We also researched a little more on the internet.  The ones they caught didn’t last more than a day.  All the kids in the neighborhood had fun observing them and learning about them. 

This was all it took to open the door wide about nature! 

Join the fun and go exploring. 

Summer, What Have You Done For Me Lately???

 

We are such an outdoors family that we tend to pack our summers full of outdoor activities.  Here are just a few highlights as I am cleaning out the camera on my phone.

Camping:

We took a fun camping trip with about 35 of our friends over the 4th of July.  It is always one big family friendly party. We had a blast!

Huskin’ Corn:

That is definitely a summer activity around here!   I grew up huskin’ corn on my back porch, my kids are gonna grow up huskin’ corn.

 

 

An indoor movie matinée with treats and all. 

We don’t do movies um ever.  Once a year, in the summer, really!   We usually hit the drive in one night as well, but ours burned down this summer and there are no plans to rebuild.   

A Garden:

Again, this is just like the corn.  I grew up with a garden, I have had a garden almost my entire adult life.   We love us some veggies!   They are so much better homegrown and it is such an experience for my family. 

What are some summertime traditions at your house?

Just checking in…… and rambling……

 

 

Here I sit outside in my lawn chair, enjoying the summer nights. 

Here I sit thinking, writing, listening, watching and enjoying it all.

I have to say it.

I am not ready for summer to be over.  Not at all!

I still have all these grand plans to do before summer is over.  We have had a ton of rain these past few weeks.  The nights have been cool and relaxing. 

Don’t get me wrong, this has not been one of those lazy summers you hear about.  NOPE!

This has been one of our busier ones.  We have traveled much less this summer than in the past.  We have just had more things to do around here. 

I am however ready for all the neighbor kids to go back to school.  haha.

I am ready to get back into routine with everything. 

It seems like Tommy hasn’t even been here at all this summer.  He has either been at his dads or at scout camp or out with friends.  We are really excited he is back.

Emily has taken up piano lessons and stayed busy with friends, she has joined in quite a few activities going on at the library.

Katey has been continuing her girls group classes, Handmaidens of Virtue.  I have actually started school with her already she is up to two subjects a day.  I decided since the older kids are easier to get started and fall into routine.  She is a little slower going and has a harder time falling into routine. 

Tyler has been growing and growing.  He is just the age where he is discovering friends.  He has a few neighborhood boys he likes to play with.  They swim, play video games together or play with cars trucks or trains.

I have stayed busy, sometimes working, always being a mom and a wife.  Most recently I have been busy planning our next year.  I will have a 9th grader, a 7th grader, a 3rd grader and officially a preschooler.  Some of my friends put together a freezer meal exchange as well as a mixing party.   There were 8 of us that participated in the freezer meal exchange.  There were also 12 of us for the mixing party.  At the mixing party, we were all assigned ingredients to bring.   We then made brownie mix, pancake mix and taco seasoning.   I have recently ended a friendship that was just too much drama for me and I have had more time and been more at peace with myself since ending it.  I still feel sad sometimes, she was a friend.  I just couldn’t handle some decisions she was making.  I have never ended a friendship like I did this one. 

My husband has been really busy.  If he hasn’t been working, he is at home working on two ongoing projects.  One is a picnic/ patio set made out of pallets.  The other is a type of remodel on a small utility trailer we purchased. 

The future:

I really feel like so far I have been choosing out great curriculum, that will work well with who we are.  I hope to have it all finalized and post about it later on this week. 

We do still have one or two more trips planned.  We are starting school the middle of August, with our “official” start date not being until Sep. 3rd.  That way, these first two weeks of August serve as a cushion to not make me feel to guilty about taking other days off throughout the year.

I have made and set some new goals as well.  I am going to balance my checking account every day!  Gasp, I know, but the reality is, I don’t.  I am also going to be better about planning dinner and grocery shopping better. 

I am really looking forward to this school year.  I just am not ready for the cold. 

 

Oh Summer, Summer, Summer…..

 

Oh, Summer, why do you distract me from all the things I had planned?

I had grand plans of doing school 5 days a week in the mornings.

I had grand plans of completely cleaning out my house.

I had grand plans of going and doing so many fun things.

I had grand plans of so much!

While some of these things have gotten done or at least mostly done. Some of them have fallen clear by the wayside, and others well I still have grand plans for them.

This has truly been “The Summer of Going With The Flow”  

We haven’t done school near as much as I had hoped. 

My house has been cleaned out, except for this room and that room sort of thing.  Oh and that room too. 

We have gone and done tons of fun things.  This was the first year we didn’t actually do a bucket list for summer, and I almost think we have done more stuff than we have in years past.

Plan plan plan all you want, if it is not in God’s Plan for you, then you may as well have not planned at all!

Hmm, maybe I will try that…..

No, better not. 

The pictures used throughout this post are from our trip to Dinosaur National Monument, and the Wall of Bones.

Homeschool Mother’s Journal

 

• In my life this week…  I have had one less kid, as my oldest has been away at scout camp.  My other three have definitely been getting their fair share of summer fun in. Tyler caught a little sunburn on his shoulders even after I applied sunscreen multiple times that day.  I had to attend my husbands company party without him.  Talk about awkward!  We went to a picnic at the park day with a bunch of friends.  I also did a freezer meal swap with 6 other ladies.  Which meant because of my procrastination I was too busy to get my meal done sooner,  I ended up waking up at 5 am the day of to do my cooking.  I had it all ready and made it there just 5 minutes late.  Thank goodness for my pressure cooker.  I made Pork Barbacoa Café Rio Style from a recipe I found on Pinterest. 

• In our homeschool this week…  We really have taken this week off of any intentional learning.  We hope to get back at it around the first of August. 

• Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share…  Freezer meals!  I can’t tell you how much doing these swaps saves my booty.  On nights when I just don’t want to cook, or whatever.  We just pop a meal in and bam, DINNER IS SERVED!

• Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…  We did one of the most fun (which reminds me, why isn’t funnest a word? UGHH) activities we have done in a while.  The Pioneer Museum is hosting a drawing for a very fun basket if you go on a scavenger hunt and take pictures of yourself at all the pioneer historical markers around town.  We did it!  We got all 12 markers in one day. 

• My favorite thing this week was…  2 things actually!  My son came home from Scout Camp safe and sound.  The scavenger hunt mentioned above.
• My kiddos favorite thing this week was… Tommy’s was going to scout camp.  Emily’s was probably sleep.  Katey and Tyler’s was definitely the scavenger hunt mentioned above.

• Things I’m working on… blogging more.  And this week is fair week!!  That is a big deal around here!  We are getting ready to take our entries over and start the festivities. 
• I’m cooking… Just the Café Rio Pork Barbacoa copy cat recipe that I found on Pinterest.  After I made that, I did end up going to lunch at Café Rio over the weekend. 
• I rewarded my kids this week by…  I bought a special box of ice cream treats, that I never buy.  The expensive ones.  I let them each have one.

How has your summer been going?  Is it keeping you as busy as it is me?

This post is linked up to The Homeschool Mother’s Journal over at So You Call Yourself A Homeschooler.

Summer is........ Mud pies and more

It made How about letting you kids get dirty?  

I recently took my kids to a lake and just let them play in the mud.  

Since playing in the mud isn't something they do daily, this was a real treat for them.  

Tyler made a "yummy mud pie". He kept telling me how tasty it was.  I don't *think* he ate any of it since his mouth was clean.  

He even got his clothes dirty, it was fine.  I chose not to get mad about it. 

Katey took her bug catching back pack, which is where all her bug catching supplies are.  

She had a blast searching for water skeeters.  She hasn't caught one as of yet. 

I also taught them how to skip rocks.  Since I am not a professional by any means, it didn't go over very well.  In think they understand the concept of it, just the actual getting a rock to skip takes practice. 

It made for a great fun morning! 

It was relaxing not to get stressed about all the dirt and mud. 

Our Summer Chore Schedule

 

I use the summer months to take advantage of activities my community has made available.  The kids to various things from swimming lessons, to volleyball camp, piano lessons, cooking classes, book clubs at the library, movie nights at the park, camping with friends and family and just general playing with friends. 

 

This makes it hard to keep everyone together majority of the day like I can during the school year. 

This means that our Chore Schedule must change.

 

 

Our Summer Schedule looks like this:

 

I make a table on the computer and assign out boxes. 

My boxes going across are the days of the week Sunday to Saturday.

My boxes going down are:

• Alyson (me)
• Tyler (3)
• Katey School
• Katey Chores
• Emily School
• Emily Chores
• Tommy School
• Tommy Chores

I fill out the boxes once a week.  My goal is to have them filled out by Thursday of the previous week.  That gives me leeway in case I don’t get it done.   - Can we say “procrastinator!’ 

I take notes on the edge of the pages of jobs that I see that need to be done, such as wash the sliding door, or wipe the light switches, basically jobs that aren’t on my rotation- you know the as needed jobs. 

I use those notes as I am assigning out the next weeks chores. 

We rotate 3 different things amongst us.

• Kitchen/Dishes
• Frontroom/Laundry
• Bathrooms/Stairs and Hall

If you are not on a rotation chore, you get a different assigned chore, such as the ones I take notes from on my previous weeks, or other things I have on a rotation schedule, such as yard work, mopping all floors, cleaning out the car, etc. 

The rotation chores also get an additional job, along with general cleaning.  The kitchen person may have to help with dinner, the bathroom person usually has to deep clean something, and The laundry person may have to vacuum or dust a room.

We still do the occasional quick clean, where everyone helps with everything.  They just don’t happen at a prescheduled time.  They happen when I can’t stand the mess anymore.  LOL.

I am able to x out exemption days, if you have a pre-scheduled, pre-approved all day activity, then you can be exempt from an assigned chore.  If you happen to be home when I get overwhelmed with the house, you are still expected to help do a quick clean. 

I love the independence this gives the kids.  They have to have them done before they leave to do anything else, unless of course it is pre-approved.

I also do not let them play or neighbors over before noon.  That gives us time to wake up leisurely,  eat breakfast, do our daily work, and eat lunch. 

This gives everyone plenty of time to do all their daily’s and have a relaxing morning. 

 

Do you change around your families chore schedule with the seasons?

Yellowstone~ AND WHAT I AM NOT GOING TO TELL YOU

We had some other business to take care of up that way and decided since we are driving all that way, we may as well stop by and discover Yellowstone for a few days.


I won’t bore you with the story of how we got a flat tire on our 5th Wheel half way there, or share about how we were broken down for two days in Idaho Falls.  I will tell you how lucky we are that we have amazing family there that made it all bearable.  I will also share with you how amazing the people of Idaho Falls were for us, they delayed service on their cars so our truck could get pushed through and fixed since we are not locals.  I won’t share how we spent half a day cleaning oil off the trailer, or even talk about how I ended up extremely sick and ended up in urgent care.  I am not even going to tell the story about how my husband was so upset with our camping spot that he almost got us kicked out of the RV Park.  I am also not going to dwell on the fact that my camera broke for the second time halfway through the trip, and this time it is not under warranty any longer.



What this post is about is the fun we had once we got there.  We stayed in Island Park, Idaho, which is about 30 minutes from West Yellowstone, we arrived 2 days later than we had anticipated. We tried to fit as much in as we could in the short amount of time we had left. 
 
Our first day we went to John Sacks Cabin in Island Park.  Here we were so lucky to see not one, but three moose, a mom, a dad, and a baby drinking from the river.  Johnny Sacks cabin is an amazing cabin that John built in just 3 years, including all the furniture and cabinets using only hand tools.  He also created a pump to pump water from the spring into a holding tank up the hill and gravity naturally pressurized his home with water.  Another neat thing he did was install a water wheel where the spring come out of the mountain and used to to power his home, by way of a generator. 

Here we are waiting for the cabin to open.

After that we took our first trip into Yellowstone. On our way there, each day we stopped by another spring and filled our water bottles up with fresh water.


We stopped at the Fountain Paint Pots and hiked around, staying on the trails, of course.

Katey told me she had no idea this is what Yellowstone is, she said she thought it was just shopping.  She must be thinking of West Yellowstone.  LOL

We went in and saw Old Faithful, these are phone pictures.

. 





We were very lucky to see a mama and a baby bison crossing the road.

It also started to storm on our way out of Yellowstone.  We were able to see an amazing double rainbow as well as an amazing sunset! 


Katey had so much fun working on the animal scavenger hunt that was given to her as well as working towards earning her Jr. Ranger Badge.

There are many kid geared areas in the visitor’s centers.  It was really neat to see how a geyser works from underground.
 

One of my very favorite spots in Yellowstone is Isa Lake.  It is a lake that sits on the continental divide.  It drains into both oceans.  I am just fascinated by that.






We continued on and had a picnic, walked on the shore of Yellowstone Lake barefoot, as well as went to a ranger led activity (I recommend going to any ranger led activities that fit your schedule, they are amazing, you just learn so much) so that Katey could earn her Jr. Ranger Badge.  We also were able to see 3 bears,  a momma, a daddy and a baby in Hayden Valley, Yellowstone, as well as countless bison. 

We finished Yellowstone up by going to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, we saw Upper Falls, where the power of the water hold you in awe.


The next day we were to be packing up and heading to Mesa Falls.  We ended up sleeping in a little and packing up took longer than we thought, so we had to skip that this trip.  We are planning on going back very soon and next time taking all the kids.

Here are a few tips I have acquired while traveling Yellowstone.
Pack a “hiking backpack” with

• snacks
• water
• binoculars
• camera
• sunscreen
• bug spray
• bear repellant
• compass/whistle/flashlight

Plan most of your meals picnic style, there are restaurants to eat at in Yellowstone, as well as plenty in the surrounding towns.  But taking advantage of their amazing picnic areas allows you to experience so much more of Yellowstone.  (It is usually also less expensive).
We packed a small Coleman type barbeque that takes those mini propane tanks. 
Some Picnic ideas (some using a grill) are:

• hotdogs – chips- fruit
• hamburgers- fruit- pasta salad (premade in a Ziploc bag)
• sandwiches (cold or grilled)- veggies with dip
• salad bar style fixins (precut and in Ziplocs)
• Mac and Cheese (in a pot)- veggies
• Soup (in a pot)- rolls

Other picnic items to pack:

• paper towels
• paper plates
• plenty of drinks
• cooler with ice
• pot
• garbage sacks
• grill
• spatula
• can opener (if needed)
• spoons/forks/knives
• cutting board (if needed to cut fruits or veggies, or to prepare sandwiches on) – sharp knife
• table cloth or blanket

All these items with exception of the cooler and grill can be packed into a tote for easy organization and carrying.

Be sure and keep your swimming suits, life jackets and towels in your vehicle as well, there are plenty of places to swim in Yellowstone.  Our favorite is the Fire Hole River.

I hope you get to experience Yellowstone with your family soon.