Not sure which it is, or if it can/ will actually happen, but the goal by the end of this month is to get our schedule a little quieter! :)
It's been non stop the last few months - between handling farm chores (we did decide on a name, by the way - "Windy Acres" - it just fits :), feeding and fattening up our new babies (wow are they getting big!!) and playing mama-vet to a sick calf (long story, but he's much better now!!), then of course my normal day to day stuff of schooling the 6 oldest kids, preparing for our oldest daughter's graduation (less than 2 weeks away!!!), keeping up with laundry and trying to keep up with housework (a little here, a little there - it's mostly done by the end of the week each week) and adding in a couple hours of driving my husband to and from work each morning and evening - whew, I'm ready for a break! :)
Happy endings - 4-H projects are wrapping up and the kids are "gearing down" and getting busy with individual projects to submit for the fair in July - that comes with it's own set of busy, but I'm trying to keep everyone on top of what needs doing so there isn't any last minute rushing right before the deadline!
School... well, the 3 youngest aren't old enough yet, the 3 middlest are done (yeah!!) for this year, and the 3 oldest are wrapping up - Lord willing they should be all finished by the end of this week! (please, please, please....) We've pushed hard and are all looking forward to the break :) Of course, the beginning of that break includes my annual lesson planning for the upcoming year - usually takes a couple hours a day for about a week and I'll have at least our summer term and first semester planned out! I'll tackle the second semester in December, and probably not before... *grin*
Cub Scouts - Andrew is close to finishing up his year as a Wolf, and will be crossing over to Bear later this month. He is beyond excited - this means that he gets to get his hands on the new book and start working his way through a new set of projects, some with Daddy, some with me, and some on his own - regardless of who he does things with, it gives him a whole new set of adventures to tackle. It's great to see him take off with this and enjoy it all so much!!
Speech class - Abigail, Rachel, and Sarah are finishing up their classes tomorrow, with the "grand finale" being their presentations for parents. Each girl (as is true of each of their classmates) has been selected by their instructors to do certain tasks/ performances for the parents & guests for their last day of class. It's been a great learning experience for them, and we're looking forward to the next class coming up again next school year! :)
GRADUATION DAY!!! Such an odd feeling, realizing that Natasha will no longer be in high school after this year... wow! She starts college classes, or at least that is the plan, in the fall. I've requested that she take a minimum of one year of basic courses, and of course she can add in electives for fun stuff (underwater basket weaving anyone??) She's really thinking that she would like to work as a bank teller until the time comes for her to be married (no, nothing on the horizon there - just something she's thinking about long term. She is in agreement that a wife's place is ideally in the home once she is married, so while she's interested in learning the intricacies of banking as a short term goal, she is eventually wanting to marry, stay home and have children, and has talked about how she looks forward to homeschooling them when the time comes (oh, that does a mama's heart good!). Until such a time as the Lord brings the young man into her life that He has for her, she plans to remain home, taking some classes to expand her education and working part time while she prepares for the future.
This also starts the mark of some new things - more time with the barn babies - working on barn projects more, more time to play outside, gardening projects, weaning the bottle calves in a couple more weeks (or rather, starting the weaning process...) and gearing up for butchering our second cow (he's finishing now!)
TJ is very much looking forward to his CT scan at the end of this week, which will determine if he will be allowed to start walking anytime soon again or not - we're all hopeful that things will look good and the doc will give him the green light to start putting some weight on his new foot and work on regaining the strength that has been lost over months of not using it. His running will be on the back burner for some time yet, but he's really looking forward to at least getting to walk on both feet again. Upside is that once he's back up to strength, he can be more independant (this dependance thing has been hard on him, and I know he's feeling guilty watching me do all the work that we both normally do, and when I'm too tired to stay awake for a good conversation or anything else at night, he feels it even more so) - the downside is that it will put him back out in the missile field, so he won't be home every day again for who knows how long. That part stinks, because it's been nice having him home every evening (even when I'm not energetic and awake enough to be much company, lol). I guess pretty much every knife has two sides to it, though, huh? Some things are good, some are not as much.
That said, when he's driving again, I'll also regain those hours of my day driving back and forth from the base to catch up on things that I've fallen behind on and can have more energy to spend with my husband when he is home - and more focus on the kids, too! :) IN the meanwhile, kids and I have been working together on barn things and feeding animals and what not, along with school time, so at least it's not like we have to ship them off to public school and then they only get me when I'm already worn down to a nub of alert energy :) Homeschooling is a tremendous blessing in so many ways!
Another up and coming is with the animals - kids will be getting horse riding lessons starting at the end of this month, through the summer - even better, it's a barter deal (suggested by their teacher, who is also one of their 4-H leaders) - they get 2 hours of lessons once a week at our house with our horses in exchange for a quarter of beef when we butcher our next cow! Sweet! :)
We also have the upcoming learning experience on training hogs and calves - that is going to be a new experience for us, but we're looking forward to getting those things figured out that escaped us so very badly last year! ha! :) I'll be out there learning right alongside the kids, too - I don't want a repeat of George, our last cow (and wow is he yummy!!) with his charging and rough play when he's 5 and 6 times a grown man's weight! that got a little scary for me, lol - I"m looking forward to learning how to teach the calves (while they are still small enough!) how to lead tie, halter, and follow on the lead rope without the bucking and playing and trying to wrestle the humans handling them! *grin* all good lessons for them and us to learn!
So, yeah, it's been a wild and busy ride these past months, keeping up with most things and trying to at least cover the surface of things that haven't gotten the attention they need - looking forward to our school break, the graduation of our oldest in a couple of weeks, the opportunities with outside and animals and gardens and all sorts of stuff we're learning about :)
We have a trip scheduled in August for kids to see the eye specialist again - if all continues to go well with Rebecca, the doc said she will probably not need the eye surgery we had anticipated her having, which is exciting! Ben seems to be developing a more acute case of the same issues, which becomes more and more visible to my untrained eye, and so I had him in for a check up the other day - sure enough, so we have a referral in for him to see the same doc, as well as Andrew, who has a much more mild case of the same. It's called an eye muscle disease, but isn't a disease in the sense that I tend to think (when I hear disease, I think cancer or heart issues - this isn't scary like that, as with treatment it can be helped and can retain their eyesight (a definite bonus! *grin*) Anyway, sometimes patching the strong eye to make the weakening eye work harder, sometimes corrective glasses and/ or eye exercises do the trick. Having a great doc with the knowledge and expertise (experience and education!) to know how to best help each child's individual needs is key, and we are so thankful for our doc with his decades of experience!! Anyway, the long drive is nice and scenic, and the city we go to see that doc is big with a Hobby Lobby and a Toys R Us, so the kids always have a blast on those trips, long days that they are. :)
I'll try to get updated pictures of our growing barn babies soon - but of course that's time dependant, so we'll see when I can! In the meanwhile, hope you have a great rest of the month, and I'll try to update more when things get a little quieter and less busy around here. :)
Little man Caleb is needing Mama nursies, Hannah and Ben need snuggle stories, and so I need to run! :)
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