Amy's 7th Grade Year

Amy is starting her first year in Junior High. Seeing that my kids can hardly remember what grade they really are in, I suppose it doesn't matter that much, but it seems a big milestone non-the-less. She, of course, would rather be outside than in, but this year has really taken off with her reading. She started "War Horse" this morning and finished it just before dinner. She has a tendency to not ask questions if she doesn't understand something so this year we will work more at vocabulary and dictionary skills. Here's her curriculum line up for the year.

Bible: We will be going through the book, "Long Story Short" as a family and memorizing the book of Philippians. I will also have time for Amy to read her Bible in the morning on her own.

Math: Amy really likes the Abeka Math series, and we will be continuing with Math 7 this year.

Language Arts:
-Spelling: I was going to have Amy do level B of the Phonetic Zoo since we own it and she liked level A. However, when she saw me reading the Spelling Power book, she was really interested in it and asked if we could do that instead.
-Grammar: Last year we started Rod and Staff's 6th grade spelling program but only got half way through it, so we'll just pick up where we left off and keep going. It's very through so it does take her a long time, but I'd like her to finish.
-Handwriting: We started with Italic, but Amy wanted to learn "real" cursive. So I started her on a book that teaches traditional cursive and we'll keep going with that then move on to Classically Cursive.
-Reading: I plan on getting library books that pertain to the period of history that we will be studying. I also like looking at the reading lists from Veritas Press and Sonlight to pick up a few extra literature books that are at her reading level. If they have horses or heroines all the better!
-Writing: I'm going to have Amy start doing more writing with her history curriculum, but we will also use the book from the Institute for Excellence in Writing that goes along with Ancient History.
-Vocabulary: We'll be working through Word Roots with Evan as a supplement. Last time I tried it with her it was over her head. But I think she can do it now.

History: We'll read Story of the World together with Emily (and who am I kidding, Evan will probably stick around too!). Then, I'll have her look up the pages in the Kingfisher History of the World Book, write dates in a timeline, and do some map work in the Geography Coloring Book that I brought for her.

Science: Amy and her friend are going to study Biology with their sisters. They will use the Christian Kids Explore Biology curriculum. Since Evan is doing Biology too, I'll try to work it out so they can watch the movies that the big kids see and observe some of the dissections and microscope work.

Logic: When Sean is at work, we're going to read a chapter of the Fallacy Detective. Evan worked through The Thinking Tool Box a few years ago and loved it. He's been wanting to go through the Fallacy Detective ever since. Coincidentally, our youth pastor is doing a study of logic at church as well. Hopefully this will be a good introduction for her.

Fine Arts: Amy loves being in the local children's choir and will continue that this year. We will also keep reading "The Gift of Music" together as a family and listening to classical music. For Art this year, I'm thinking we'll work on painting. I sure wish the kids art teacher still taught classes! This is one area that I really don't know that much about.

Home Economics: Last year Amy went through a formal Home Ec class with a friend and just loved it. This year, I'm planning on reading through "The Hidden Art of Homemaking" with her and maybe doing some projects that relate to each chapter.

P.E.: Amy will continue with her horseback riding lessons. If she took her horse out every day, I suppose that could count for all her PE, but since that doesn't happen, we'll be trying to get in some walks. I'm also trying to find a used rebounder for her to use when the weather is bad.

She has been a big help with all the chores too. We are working on a solid morning routine and working quicker so the jobs are done before school starts.

Poor Child

Last week, Amy was lobbying for a game. She pouted, "All our family ever does together is read the Bible and eat dinner as a family!" Sean and I snickered and then played UNO with her.

She never has any fun.

Chicken Coop Condo

For their birthdays this year Amy and Emily asked for chickens. Yes, chickens. Not a Barbie or a My Little Pony, but chickens. Problem was, the chickens needed a place to live. Backyard construction projects are Sean's forte. He likes to build. He needed to build quickly because baby chicks don't stay chicks for long.

Sean designed a big sturdy coop. It took him several weekends to build. Evan added muscle to the heavy lifts. They even added power so that the heat lamp and cooling fans could be plugged in without runing extension cords from the barn.

The result of their efforts is our new "home addition" to house our new "babies."

We selected a small pasture near the barn so that the chickens would be safer (we saw a bobcat out there two nights ago!).



Sean framed up the chicken coop on 4x4 posts. Its heavy duty.



The finished project has eight little doors on the end to make egg collection easier.



There is a cute little door for the chicks and another service door for the little people to take care of the chicks.


Our new additions. There are four Buff Orpingtons, three Golden Campines, four Andalusians, and one that might be a Sussex - but we don't really know. Amy can tell the 12 chicks a part and knows them all by name.


Last week we adopted four grown hens and a beautiful rooster to the mix. They are separated from the chicks for now because, well........ chicks are food to chickens. So the chicks need to grow so they won't be food. The hens are already providing big brown eggs for our family.


We are looking forward to the added eggs once the chicks become hens and lay their own in about five months. I'm sure there will be extras to go around!

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

I've been reading the "Little House on the Prairie" series to the girls at night. Yesterday we got to live out a scene from one of the books. Laura helped her Pa make hay by trampling it down while he pitched it into the wagon. Haying was a two person job. Well, we actually buy hay for our horses. But our city has a regulation that our weeds have to be cut down so many feet around our property and our house. Evan is out of town, and it's a two person job! So the girls and I helped Sean as best we could. After cutting down so much grass we figured we could at least feed it to the horses. I'm sure glad we don't have to do this in order for our horses to eat. It's a hard job!

The Kid's Bathrooms

The girls are very happy with their muted purple bathroom. It's actually the same paint that we had at our old house in the guest bath. We had a bit left over and this way they can use all my old decorations.

And we got a few new ones as well. I found the cute green accordion hanger at a garage sale and the flower print at a different one.

Evan went for the more sophisticated jungle theme. A friend of ours had the same cute jungle theme in their bathroom so we gave them our towels and bath rugs.

The jungle stuff that we had in the kids bath at our old house from Africa goes really nice with the new updated theme. And lucky for Evan, jungle is really popular right now so it was easy to find new towels that went well and were a little more masculine.

Sean found this great bamboo screen for the window.

We put the mirror from Emily's bedroom in his bath. I think it looks really good!

Up next, the dining room...

Happenings...

*I started this post last Friday, but never finished it because Sean and the girls spontaneously wanted to go camping in the yard. (Evan was away at Yosemite with the Boy Scouts.) Then Emily woke up with a fever and I've had sick girls since! Sorry that this is a bit random. I had intended to write about what happened for that day. Then I didn't finish, and it seemed wierd. But it was already written and I needed a new post!

Sean is off for a week and a half. Since he doesn't get holidays or weekends off, he gets random vacation times. This means that we won't start school officially until September 21st. In years past, this would have bothered me and worried me greatly. God has shown me that it is indeed sinful to worry and strive against my husband's lead. Regardless, we make plans for the year, but God sometimes has very different ones! So I have peace. We will have to hard charge with school a bit this fall to finish strong, but I'm trusting God that He will provide in that area as well. Evan proved last year that he was able to, and we're praying that this will be the year for Amy as well.

We flea-bombed the kitties' room (otherwise known as the Tack Room). They did not like being placed temporarily in the pet carrier. I used it as an object lesson to teach the girls that sometimes we have to do things that kitties (or little girls) don't like, but that we know are good for them.

After playing with Soliel and grooming her, Amy was in need of a shower. Emily had just sat in the dirt making cakes and was filthy too. She decided that she wanted a shower as well. So today she took her first shower. At first she cried because she didn't like it, then she cried because she didn't want to get out! She's giving up naps and we're adjusting. So she has been crying a lot lately!

Amy put on a t-shirt and laughed. Her belly button showed! Since we're not into the Brittney Spears look around here, she put the shirt in the outgrown box. I think the country life is agreeing with our kids. They are growing like weeds!

For lunch we had leftover soup I made last night. Inspired by this recipe, I made use of what we had: homemade chicken broth, chicken (from the same bird), 3 carrots, a potato, a bag of leftover cooked green beans, two kinds of kale from our farmers market and CSA basket, a handful of chopped parsley, a small piece of grated ginger, one bay leaf, and my secret ingredient a tablespoon or two of sweet wine (I used port). It was so good! And I love that it has a lot of calcium from the kale and homemade broth (since I used the bones, not the whole bird).

We are trying to develop better habits in the kitchen. My new motto is: The dishes aren't done until the stove is wiped down. Thanks for your motivaton in that, Paula!

In my quest for healthier cooking and specifically gluten free cooking to help Emily I've discovered a couple of new blogs that I love! They are on my side bar under Cooking Blogs. Enjoy!

Update...

Evan came back from camp taller. He's outgrown all his shoes, so he said I could have his Teva's and we'll buy him some shoes instead!

Amy's math book arrived. Poor girl, she'd much rather just ride horses all day! Yesterday some friends came by and helped us set up a Picadero (a square pen used for horse training). Amy should be able to work with her horse a bit more independently in the near future.

Emily definitely has some allergies going on. We're looking into getting her tested. Because I'm pretty sure her food allergies are delayed, the regular skin prick test might not show much. But she responded really well to going off of wheat. And I found a great lotion. Thanks, Jess.

We're still working on meal plans, but Sean did find a way to get all three trash cans up to the road!

Happy Birthday, Cowgirl!

We celebrated Amy's 10th birthday this past weekend with a sleepover, and last weekend with a horse! So far in our family, 10 has been a milestone birthday.

Soleil, our new horse!

Amy did a great job leading her into the "scary" barn.

Amy made sure to give her horse a bath before her party. She spent more time grooming Soleil than she did herself!

Emily and her friends, Kate and Rose talking about the horses, playing to be horses, and trying to stay out of the way of horses.

Evan loves helping with the horses too! (We're boarding 3 others for a little while; lots of fun!)

A happy cowgirl!

Enjoying Life in the Country

Driving new toys...

Baking cakes...

Decorating cakes...(With a neighbor's flowers)

Painting fences...

Shooting squirrels...

Red Hats

My parents came down for a quick visit this weekend to see Amy perform with her choir. My mom brought down these red hats she found for a dollar. The girls loved them! They put them on at breakfast and Emily even picked out a red dress to wear to church so she could wear her red hat!

Quality Adjectives

Today as I was helping Amy work on a writing project, we were talking about the use of "quality adjectives". She was fighting the improving of her vocabulary, so I left her with a cheat sheet of "quality adjectives" and instructions on which words she may not use. (This is a tool that the Institute for Excellence in Writing promotes.) She finished a sentence or two then slipped me this note.

"This is RUTHLESS. May I please have a break. I am tired!"

Evan and I thought her use of "quality adjectives" was so funny!

Country Girls

This summer, Amy had the opportunity to take horse back riding lessons from a good friend of mine. She had been wanting to do it for a couple of years now, so my parents gave Amy lessons for her birthday present this year.

It was so fun to see her in a different environment. She loves horses, the country and her teacher. She donned her jeans and her boots and was in her element. Since my friend has three little girls, Emily had a nice play date while Amy had her lesson each week.

So now, were praying about whether or not to keep up the lessons. It's a bit of a drive to get there. It's always so hard to keep the activities in balance. We don't want the kids to be doing so much that they are over scheduled, but this seems to be something that Amy really loves. Our art teacher retired this year, so that's one less class. And with Sean's weird schedule, and homeschooling, we have some extra free time during the week that we wouldn't have otherwise.

Amy and Emily with "the kitty". (No name yet!)
Amy grooming her horse before a ride.
Emily, Kate and Rose pretending that they are horses. Notice the rope around them!
Amy was concentrating so hard on learning her new skills.
She looks so grown up in this picture!

Summer Highlights

Thanks for coming back after such a long break! I missed blogging, but definitely needed the break.



We started off the summer with Evan and Sean going off to Boy Scout camp at Catalina Island. They had a blast! The girls and I got to go spend some time with a friend whose husband was away on a mission trip the same week. It was lovely. Lots of long talks, a few horseback riding lessons for Amy and giggly girls.


Sean and Evan on a long hike, pausing in front of the bay.

Evan with his group's camp staff.

Evan earned his merit badge for shooting and also made it into the dime club (five shots into the center). He has really good aim!


The whole troop with dads and even one grandpa.

The kids entered art work into the fair again this year. Evan took two first place ribbons for his photography and two second place ribbons for his paintings. Amy took two first places for her art.

Amy's watercolor.Evan standing in front of his winning photo of Emily.

In July we went to San Diego. We went to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, the Wild Animal Park, and the Midway museum.

The Midway Museum is an aircraft carrier that has been decommissioned and opened up for visiting. Here's Evan sitting in the cockpit of one of the planes.

Emily at the petting zoo. She kept wanting to hug this goat!

The kids at Sea World, taking a break in the shade.

We took our tent trailer and camped while we were down there. The kids loved being able to ride bikes and scooter when we got back from the day's activity.

One of my goals for the summer was to go through drawers and cupboards and clean! While I didn't get to all of them (or even as much as I had hoped) I did get a lot cleaned out. And when I went through the bottom kitchen cupboard, I found out that the whole shelf was sagging and about to break! Sean fixed it for me and then built me a nice sliding shelf so I could get into the back corner without having to lay on my stomach and blindly reach under the shelf.

The finished product!

Summer's harvest of lavender.