Abundance

I feel like the gardens are producing late this year. I know my tomatoes are late. I've canned about a dozen jars here and there of spaghetti sauce. Now that the weather has dried up and stayed warm, the tomatoes are really coming on. So I've been busy canning. My problem is the best time for me to do it is after supper. That means some pretty late nights!

I ordered a 20+ pound pear add on with my Bountiful Baskets this time. I remember always having home canned pears at Grandma Mary's and loved them. Granted, I didn't grow these in my backyard but they'll still taste better than the ones from the store!! I used honey in one batch of syrup and sucanat in the other (that's the darker ones). I read that you can leave the peel on the pear and cut them into chunks and can. So I tried a couple jars that way. We'll see how we like them. I started around 8pm and finished what I had jars for around midnight. Of course there were a few interruptions in there! I still have probably 5 more quarts' worth of pears to can. 

We also got quite a few bananas in this week's baskets. They actually ripened a lot faster than usual, which is fine with me...banana bread! My absolute favorite. So I made 3 loaves of that tonight, too. 

My tomato plants are finally producing quite a bit. Still haven't gotten what I had planned on out of them, but it's better than nothing considering how our weather has been this season!! I made about 15 pints of plain tomato sauce with these. And as soon as I finished these, Aaron went out and filled the bucket back up!! I told Aaron if we ever build our own house, I want a canning kitchen with a great big stove and big, open counter space. He looked at me like I was crazy. It just completely takes over my kitchen, which is why I usually wait until after supper to do it!

Baskets full of goodness Saturday morning!! Mmmmmm!

The Case for Cursive

I've heard a lot of discussion about cursive in the past year or two. I'm not even sure most, if any, schools even teach it anymore. Most people think the need for cursive is obsolete. Technology has made even teaching handwriting seem unnecessary. I'm one of the few people that can actually make a pretty good argument for learning cursive...Aaron's job! Cursive handwriting (nice, neat cursive handwriting) gives over 300 people a source of income in this area. When people ask why I would even want to teach cursive, I have a very real, "close to home" example of just exactly why I choose to teach cursive!

But after today, our first full day of school, I have yet another reason for doing it...look at Jacob's paper. Notice his name at the top and his cursive n on the rest of the page. 

This is with very little practice! He'd written it maybe 10 times before this page. I am amazed! I mean, he's been writing his name for almost 2 years. I'm still just slack-jawed over how well he wrote his cursive letters!

There you have it...my case for cursive. ;)

Busy Weekend

Last weekend was busy, to say the least. But it was a good busy. First, Audrie, Cherie, and Binga came to visit Scott's again. We spent most of Friday afternoon over there. 

The baby mini was in the pen. Isaac and Anna had a blast playing with him and his mama and daddy!

Too stinkin' cute!!!

Isaac didn't want to ride very long this time because I wouldn't go out of the corral! I couldn't even "go bast" because the saddle was too small this time for both of us to sit IN the saddle. So he lost interest pretty quickly in riding in a circle slowly!

Grandpa and Grandma got here that evening, too. They brought a nice, big delivery of produce from Anders Farm Stand!! Colorado peaches, Rocky Ford cantaloupe, sweet corn, peppers, green beans. Mmmm!!!

Bright and early Saturday morning, I got even more delicious produce!! Can I just say again how much I love Bountiful Baskets?! Can you guess what I spent all Sunday afternoon and evening doing?!

A little less bright & early, the ladies went to the annual Women of Grace women's conference. There were close to 750 women this year!!! This is about 2/3 of the room. It was, as always, phenomenal.  Kris Goertzen is such a gifted speaker. The Lord always uses her to speak to the heart of things and pour Biblical truths over our souls. I strongly encourage you to make plans to attend next August! 

After the conference, the men and kidlets met us in town to see the movie Planes! The kids were ecstatic! Two bags of popcorn and 20 minutes later, Isaac was ready to go home! I think it was a combination of getting to the theatre 45 minutes before the movie started, him being tired, and not feeling great. I really thought he would love it. Oh well. Anna and Jacob absolutely had a great time!

Grandpa was a weeeee bit nervous about this lap-sitter......

It's Movie Time!

Grandpa has been wanting to take the kids to see the movie Planes since he first saw previews for it on Cars 2! The time has come :) This is Isaac's first theatre experience so we shall see how he does. I have a feeling he's going to love it!

 

Time for School...Almost

It took me quite a while, but I finally got the school room organized. It was a disaster. We didn't use it last year except as a catch-all for junk! I felt like this year, with Isaac being 2.5 he would do much better with us doing school in there. I had great visions of what I wanted to do...and then I realized how small the room was with those stupid, giant steps that take up half the width of the room. And then I remembered that we weren't going to spend half our life savings to remodel the school room. I was very frustrated with trying to figure out how to make it all work without breaking the bank with a remodeled room and new organizational  furniture. So I turned to pintrest for inspiration! And I found it. I went through my school stuff from my "real" teaching days and had plenty of things for the walls. Then I found some other bookcases and storage things from around the house and just made it work! I threw away 2 trash bags of stuff!! I decided to just get some big floor pillows and still do most of our actual work at the dining room table. Then whenever we need to do any teaching in the school room, the kids can just use floor pillows. Really for the most part, we'll only need to be in there for Jacob's phonics and maybe some of his math (for the chalkboard). I'm excited and am really hoping this will work out. 

Books and puzzles to keep Isaac occupied while the big kids do school.  

Anna and Jacob will both be learning cursive this year. 

Bookshelves for all our school books and our "Character Counts" corner. 

 

The calendar wall! This is where Isaac will probably do the most damage!!!

Oh Anna

It took us a while, but we finally figured out (after several years) that Anna sleep-walks. She tries to hold conversations and looks like she's awake, but she's not. She has no recollection of her little adventures the next day. This is what usually happens: she'll come out of her room, usually at least a little upset (sometimes hysterical). Then she'll tell us something that makes absolutely NO sense. None whatsoever. But she insists on being understood! Sometimes she wakes up when we take her back to bed, but most of the time she does not. Take just a few minutes ago, for example...

Aaron and I are sitting here making a menu and going over the budget (fun times in the Wallman house!) when Anna comes to the kitchen. She goes to the fridge and opens it (definitely out of character for her! Jacob, on the other hand.....).

What are you doing, Anna?

I'm just...I'm getting a drink. (as she closes the fridge and opens the freezer)

Anna, why are you opening the freezer?

(She walks to the sink and looks over the counter at us) Why do you always make me do this???

(completely confused) Make you do what, Anna?

Make me go to bed like this! Why do you make me go to bed like a pig?! (she puts her head down on her arms)

Aaron takes her back to bed, assuring her that she's not a pig.

Oh Anna!

The Things He Says

I still never know what Jacob is going to say. It's one of the many pros of homeschooling this kid...no embarrassing stories (true or not) are told to his teacher! ;)

Tonight we picked Aaron up from the airport after a weekend trip with his dad to Arizona. He asked all the kids how their weekend had been. Jacob gave a sideways thumbs, which evidently means so-so. When I asked him why that was, he answered, "Because you were mean to me! You wouldn't let me eat. Ever!!" I did catch him hiding behind the couch eating  cantaloupe this afternoon, like he hadn't eaten all day. *eyeroll*  After I pointed out the 3 meals I gave him today he said, "And you yelled at me. For no reason!!" That kid.