Fun, Fun on the Urban Farm

My friend and fellow homeschool mom posted a picture of her baby ducks on facebook and I immediately sent her a message asking if we could come visit them. We are rowing the Five in a Row book  The Horses of Sweetbriar and it talks about wood ducks and geese so I thought this visit would be a great tie in (and much cheaper than a trip to the horse farm where my children would beg for lessons that we can not afford)

She lives in a city of 400,000 people, she is so blessed  to have a house at the end of a street that butts right up against a big ravine and a lot of land that is not used by anyone. She has was so excited to show me all her wild edibles that are growing around her house.

Her baby ducks, playing in the make shift pond from a plastic sled ( love it)

I just want to kiss this cute duck face!

 Digging a hole to make a makeshift pond for the ducks. Notice the boy who lives there has on rubber boots, he is prepared for farm life. My kids just have on tennis shoes.

Duck decided to get in the pond....sigh! Boys will be boys, a big mud hole is just too tempting. By the time we left my two younger boys were covered up to their chest in mud and all wet. Luckily, I  always (well almost always) have extra clothes in the car for all the kids.

 Falcon hand feeding the younger chickens

 Tyler so proud of the pullet he is holding, he kept kissing it's beak.

 The kids were so excited to get a hot fresh egg out of the nesting box as the chicken hopped out.

Robin holding her favorite looking chicken,  (her kids call her the Rare stripy.) She was so excited to learn that the Barred Rock is one of the breeds we will be getting in May.

 Her fenced in chicken run, but they free range in her yard 1/2 the day. In the milk crates she has cold hardy seeding growing in them ( GREAT idea!)

 Inside her coop

Her awesome seedlings growing in the basement.

We had so much fun at her house, I have so much to learn from her.

Poop! You know you are a homeschooler when you study it!

In my Life...
We spent the weekend at home improvement stores shopping and pricing out projects we would like to get done around our house.

We had a warm day so I decided to get on my bike for a workout.  It was still to cold to wear shorts and I didn't have any workout pants that don't have flare legs ( they will get stuck in the gears) so I put on a pair of skinny jeans that were VERY tight, which were problematic and  making it harder to move. After a 30 min. thigh burning bike ride, in a semi squat/standing  position to work legs harder I decided to sit on my bike for the rest of the ride  home.  I had been in the house about 5 min. and was washing out my water bottle when  Papabird  asked if I had peed my pants! I  looked in the mirror  and sure enough it looked like I peed my pants! My butt was sweating  on my ride home ...ha! ..I guess that is  another reason why you don't workout in skinny jeans.

I met my oldest friend for frozen yogurt one evening Many years ago we  worked together at a bar and would eat frozen  yogurt  almost everyday before work but we haven't had a frozen yogurt place in our town in maybe 10 years so it was fun to get together, in fact we are  meeting for frozen yogurt again tonight too!

It's a self serve yogurt bar, how fun is that?

Homeschooling and shaping young minds.....
You know you are a homeschooler when you talk and learn all about poop.

I bought his book from a used bookstore, it is a great book full of all sorts of facts and information, the kids have been reading it and laughing about all the gross facts.

The average person poops once a day and pees 4. Falcon insisted that  he only pees 3 times a day and poops only 3 times a week. I told him that there is NOWAY that was true  so to be funny and prove him wrong we started a poop chart to track the kids bathroom routines. So all week we tracked how many times each child used the bathroom  to see if we were average. We got many laughs over the poop chart and Robin loved getting everyone their poop stickers to put on the chart. She would shout "POOP STICKER!" I  must admit this was such a funny way  to prove him wrong.

The turtle at  our zoo class this week pooped all over the floor and all over the leg of the handler.

Worm poop, yes we had worms in our fridge and collected worm poop because it is good for your gardens. We have been working on worm science for the last 2 weeks.

Bird poop on my car, why is it  white?, The baby birds asked.

We seriously could not get off the topic of poop all week.

April is national poetry month so,....
Falcon wrote another amazing poem, he really has the knack for it! He wants to go to a poetry get together this Saturday!

I helped Robin write  poem about Girl scouts that we will be submitting to the state fair this summer.
The kids had a great time reading poetry from this book

We are no strangers to poetry the kids are  required to memorize at least  6 poems a year
We love Shel Silverstein for silly poems
For serious poems we like

Falcon met up with some other homeschool boys to give Golf Frisbee a try, he had a lot of fun. Now I am on the search for Golf Frisbee. It's a serious sport evidently, I had no idea!

When scanning facebook tonight before writing in my blog I cam across an article   whose headline ran Meet the family that sent 6 kids to college before 12! Of course it sucked me in, you can read it here  I thought I was ambitious wanting  to have my kids in college at a University by the age of 15, after reading this I  am feeling a bit inadequate! 

I can't wait to read this  new book where the family above is discussed in more detail along with some other great stories.

Favorite picture of the week....

Mom, Dad and  10 little baby mallards walking through the zoo.  The Zookeeper walked with them until they  finally decided to enter the elephant exhibit and hang out in the water. This was so fun, my 2 littles we overjoyed! I was so sad that  the the 2 older kids were in zoo classes at the time and missed this cool find.

A trip down memory lane...
I discovered that another homeschool friend of mine worked at the same place I did in her 20's and we just missed each other by a few months, she had stopped working there just as I started. It was fun chatting about this very interesting place that we worked, sharing stories and catching up on people we still talk to from that industry.

Linking up with

and Hammock Tracks 

Homeschool Mothers Journal

Do you find yourself  composing blog posts in your mind all week long but when you sit down to actually write you draw a blank?  If so then you are just like me!

Exciting news of the week...
Falcon is heading to Jr. Olympics in Detroit this year we spent Sunday at another tournament so he could Qualify for the AAU, another GOLD for him! So proud!

In My Life...
When discussing home improvement one evening with  Papabird and I got into an argument about weather or not we have hardwood floors under our carpet. I insisted that we do according to the age of the house.  So, we marched out to the living room and I ripped up a corner of the carpet to prove him wrong...... HARDWOOD it is! So we are ripping up all the  carpet in out house now. We have nice carpet and it's all stain free but hardwood  is so much nicer!

Papabird and the 2 littles working on ripping up the carpet. They got out all their tools to help, check out Owl's blue working mans plumbers crack!

Living room finished! We will need to refinish the floors still there are a few spots with water damage and quite a few pain splatters from what looks like ceiling paint. Why someone would just let paint drip all over that beautiful wood is hard for me to understand!

School time...
I have 6 weeks of school lesson plans done now, yay me. I am usually not one to write out lesson plans but now that I am educating 4 young minds I feel I have to or someone doesn't get enough   one on one schooling or stuff just doesn't get done.

Robin and the littles are doing a unit study this week on worms. We have had a lot of fun digging for worms, studying them and doing a lot of experiments  with them.

Now that the weather is getting warmer we have new rules:
No TV or Video games until after 3:00 PM and that's only if I approve of it.
A mandatory 2 hours of outside play time.

The kids have been watching this documentary in the car on our travels around town. I was SHOCKED by how much they liked this, one day we actually sat in the driveway watching it because they didn't want me turning off the car and getting out.

What's cooking this week...
Braised cabbage and BBQ beef
Chicken fajitas
Chicken salad
Gluten free chocolate chip cookies

Outside my window at this moment.... 
The sun is shining on a partly cloudy day

That Awkward moment when.....
Having 4 kids I seems to have  awkward moments, this weeks moment may be TMI for others, be warmed!
So as I was saying.... That Awkward moment when your 6 year old daughter is watching you  get dressed and says" Mommy, I won't have to wear underwear that goes in my butt like yours when I am a mommy will I? (I had on thongs) "No honey you will never be allowed to wear these!"  Uhhhh I guess I need to buy  some  white Fruit of the Loom granny panties to set a good example eh?

Favorite picture of the week....

I love that I got  a shot of Falcon a good 3 feet off the ground!

Another Week Come and Gone....

Our everyday life....
April is National donate Life month.
This cause is very near and dear to my heart, a good friend and fellow 36 yr old homeschooling  mom was just recently diagnoses with a rare  pulmonary disease and needs a double lung transplant.

Save a life and please registrar to donate here 

Some warmer weather has moved in, by that I mean 35-50 degrees! That is  pretty warm to me, so we have had a bit more of a relaxed week taking it a little easy and not hitting the school work as hard as usual, and spending some much needed time outside and with friends.

We went to an Easter egg  event at our zoo where Zookeepers  hide Easter eggs in animal exhibits and we watch the animals find them. There were to many people and I as getting irritable and anxious I literally had to yell at some lady for yelling at my kids and making Robin  cry. It ended up being a misunderstanding though but that woman was about to see how Mama bird protects her young when threatened!! I also needed to leave an exhibit because it was so crowded I was getting claustrophobic.

Our van was leaking fluids so we had to take  it to the shop $800 dollars later it was fixed! We bought this van brand new 3 years ago and have had to dump more money into it than any used vehicle I have ever owned!

Educating young minds....
Robin has a friend over to play and they played "school" Robin got out the Smithsonian book of natural history  then they made trees out of toilet paper tubes.

What we are reading....

I am reading

Falcon is reading

This is a fascinating non fiction book about cadavers, SERIOUSLY! Everything you ever wanted to know about a dead body, what do they really do when you donate your body to science? ( I had no idea the answers) What is the Body Farm? What is the  most environmentally friendly way to get rid of your corpse after you are gone? There are so many more questions I would have never thought of answered in this great read. I first read this  book about 6 years ago and thought Falcon would enjoy this read. I am trying to get him reading more non fiction than classics for school right now. He just finished The Voyage of The Spanish Armada.

Robin is reading

Robin is currently on book 4 of this series. So far this is her favorite American girl series next to Kaya. 

Duck  is  having me read to him

I must admit, I really despise reading boy character books! At least he is excited now about books I just do not care for his choices right now.

Owl is having me read to him
Although he reads it to himself in bed every night after I read it to him!

Falcon has been working at our office building doing spring cleaning by clearing out bushes and overgrown trees he gets paid $7.00 an hour and is eager to go to work everyday.

I made a spring cleaning list and was able to cross 3 things off already, here it is:
( The kids will all be helping with these items as well in the coming weeks ahead)

1.              Clean un finished side of basement. (8 hour job!)

2.              Get aquarium cleaned and prepare for chicks

3.              Get heat lamp for chicks

4.              Clean out fridge

5.              Wash kitchen cupboards

6.              Wash all kitchen walls

7.              Clean  the top of fridge

8.              Move all kitchen appliances and sweep under

9.              Change water filters

10.                       Clean and vacuum all beds with baking soda and lavender

11.                       Wash all drapes

12.                       Move beds and vacuum under them

13.                       Wash all dining room walls

14.                       Wash windows in my room, living room and kitchen

15.                       Wash windows upstairs

16.                       Wash windows in Robin's  room, dining room and bathroom

17.                       Build bunk beds

18.                       Clean and dust basement windows

19.                       Wash all baseboards

20.                       Vacuum all baseboard edges

21.                       Vacuum couches, freshen with lavender and baking soda

22.                       Wash dogs

23.                       Paint foyer ( call Mike to finish foyer ceiling)

24.                       Change furnace filter

25.                       Wash bathroom walls and cabinets buy a basket to hold bath     toys.

26.                       Clean black shelf in basement

27.                       Wash all mirrors tvs. and computer screens.

28.                       Finish 366 days a year photo book.

29.                       Put up mailbox in front of house

30.                       Clean ceiling fans

31.                       Install ceiling fan in dining room

32.                       Clean washer and dryer get basket to organize stuff that goes on top