{pretty, happy, funny, real}

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

         Every Thursday, at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

                                                                         

                                

{pretty}

Craig has been growing hydroponic veggies since January.  Its his latest hobby. I love sending the kids out to pick me fresh tomatoes or peppers.  Earlier in the year we had spinach, broccoli, lettuce and squash.

Nothing is more pretty than seeing Grandbaby #8 with Grandma, who visits almost daily to see her brood.

                                                {happy}

Emma is ALWAYS happy (except when she's hungry, of course).  She's already 10 weeks old.

Catherine loves holding her baby sister!

Happiness is playing with the water hose at Grandma's.  No need for swim suits here.  They just use Grandpa's old tee shirts. 

{funny}

I was teasing Craig when I took this picture.  I told him that he's officially an old man.  Not because he turned 40 this past December, but because he was wearing a white undershirt all day.  Only old men wear white undershirts around the house.  Meanwhile, I've been running around in my Birkenstocks.  Does that make me his old lady??

Anna with her best friend on her birthday.  I know there's nothing funny about casts.  Thankfully its off.  The funny part is that it took us 3 days before taking her to the ER.  She didn't complain and said she was only sore.  Turns out her "sprain" was a small break.  

{real}

Summer time is when I move furniture around.  This summer I'm relocating our books and turning the school room into the boys' bedroom.  The six girls will be divided among the 3 bedrooms upstairs.  I'm starting to feel like the old woman in the shoe!

Kolbe reading to his brother Vincent.  Its ironic that Curious George is being read to Vincent as he's probably related to that troublesome monkey!!  I love that Kolbe doesn't realize he's practicing his reading when he reads to Vincent.  Life is busy and some days the only way I know Kolbe has practiced his reading and Vincent has been read to is by pairing them up.

To see some more {pretty, happy, funny, real} posts, visit Rosie at Like Mother, Like Daughter!!

Throw-away Thursday

Schoolroom still in progress ....

LOTS and LOTS of bags have been thrown away. I finally have parted with the girls' math workbooks. How many did I have? Well, let's see ...... kinder, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, kinder, 1st, 2nd, and kinder. I don't know why I was saving them. Maybe for their ACT's or SAT's?!? LOL!

Honestly, they represented hours and hours of hard work. And math is one of my favorite homeschooling subjects. I better stop talking about it before I go dig them back out of the trash bags!!

I'm still purging! I'm happy to say that progress has been made. Here are pics of the new desk and bookshelf. They are so much happier now that they have found a home!

The top portion is holding coloring books, crayons, scissors, colored pencils, envelopes, writing paper, stickers, tape and stapler. Also handy is the cd player and dictionaries. The drawer holds ALL of our flashcards (state/capital, number, +,-,*,/, UNO cards, phonograms, Greek/Latin root words, Latina Christiana I cards .... I think that's it so far).

The bottom half holds ALL the music cd's needed for this school year. Sophia, Anna and Isabelle each have their cd's they will listen to for music. Although, they will end up listening to each other's as well. Kolbe will just be ahead of the game thanks to his big sisters. Also, extra school supplies like crayons, glue, pencils, etc. I'm hoping they don't touch them. If so, I'll have to move my stockpile.

Books on the new shelf. Scary how its already more than half full!! LOL!


Finally, my favorite change is the removal of Catherine's toys from the schoolroom. I don't mind if she plays in here, I just can't store her toys in the schoolroom anymore. I cleared the closet space underneath the stairs and turned it into the toy closet. Now, all baby toys, tinker toys, etc. go in there. She's happy to have all her books handy on the little shelf right next to the sofa chairs. I've had to stop SEVERAL times during my purging to read my munchkin a book. I'm glad she gets the point!!

In case you should think I'm nesting, I'm not. I do this EVERY summer. I have to reorganize and throw away stuff from our schoolroom annually. I'm always amazed how much cr*p we accumalate in one year. Now I understand why school hallways look the way they do during the summer!! LOL!