Charlottes Web

Baby Canary wearing her Wilber pants for story time today. I love these cute piggie pants so much!

A neat web Duck found outside on the ground with dew on it. We looked everyday for webs. We found many webs and many Charlotte's! There was a really neat web in our garage but Papabird took it down before I was able to snap a photo of it.

 Some copy work Robin did from the book. She made a web but spelled "radiant " wrong

 A spider web Duck worked on with  words he can read. We then rolled a pair if dice and would add bugs to his web when he got the sum of the 2 dice correct.

 A farm animal book(not put together in the picture) that the 2 little boys worked on.

 Some other books we read, I even learned something from the Farm IQ book. That chickens will turn their eggs everyday to distribute heat to their chicks. We even have a hen sitting on eggs right now.

Meet Sharkbait our soon to be mama hen.  Robin checking  the nest boxes to see if she is still on her eggs.She got her name from  a character in  Catching Nemo after the dog got a hold of her and bit off her comb! Our baby chicks did not make it they were only partially developed. We will try again soon.

 At the end of the book I surprised the kids with fair food while they watched the movie Charlotte's Web to compare and contrast,
They ate:
Gluten free Corn Dogs
Cracker Jack (from the story)
Cream Soda
Salt Water taffy

Watching the movie, even Canary was interested in the movie.

Speaking of the fair I downloaded  a fair food app for the kids to play with on the ipad. This really has no educational value but  was just a fun tie in.

I also downloaded Leapfrog's International Food Fair. A bit more educational.

Of course we had to take a trip to our State fair this summer.Robin choose a yellow seersucker dress just like Fern wore, and a yellow and orange bonnet. She wanted to ride the Ferris Wheel  like in the story so bad but it was such a hot day and over a 2 hour wait so the kids did not ride any rides.

We did play a few games.

Ate some fair food.

And of course checked out all the pigs looking for Uncle and Wilbur!!!

We did not see any Blue Ribbon pigs but we did see a blue Ribbon on the Girl Scout Project Robin did on Poison Ivy for the fair. She also got second place on her origami butterfly mobile she made her baby sister. and a few honorable mentions.

I really LOVED reading Charlottes Web and doing projects that went along with it. It was especially fun going to the state fair as a wrap up. I hope our next book ( The Borrowers) will be this much fun.

Bits and Pieces of our summer so far...

Whats been going on during my summer you may wonder? A little of this and a little of that.

Do you know about the MENSA book list? Here is a link scroll to the bottom to see the  different grade lists. It was my summer goal to read at least 4 to the kids before summer was over. That may have been a lofty goal. We just finished up Charlotte's Web ( blog post on that coming soon) and started the Borrowers. So far the kids like it better.

We spotted some monarch caterpillars on our milkweed so we brought them in to  protect them (endangered species) until they grow to monarchs then we release them back out in nature. We haven't lost one yet.

We have done strawberry picking and blueberry picking. We did not get near as many blueberries as we usually do because Falcon my biggest helper was in the East Coast with his Boy Scout troop.
After a hard day ( hour, maybe) of picking I treated the kids to the best fresh doughnuts around and an apple cider slush from the orchard.

The wind blowing your hair, the warm sun on  your  face,  and sticky fingers......ahhhh summer as a kid!

The mouser cats enjoying the straw for the chickens.

Watching a SCA event at our local library. Don't know what SCA is, here is a link to help you out. My husband is a member as well, he joined well before we had kids and hasn't been active since.

Saw Maleficent the theaters. This was a bit of an adventure for me since Falcon was out of town. We went on a 95 degree day which also happened to land on discounted tickets day at the theater (yay!) I had to walk the halls for a bit with Canary to get her to fall asleep. During this time Robin had a melt down while I left her in charge because the boys were asking her to many questions too often and she got frazzled and stressed. ( Welcome to my world dear Robin) All in all, it turned out well despite the fact that there were a few tears shed by Robin ( who was stressed by the extra burden of keeping the boys in line) Canary who was just cranky from missing a morning nap. and Duck who was repeatedly told by me to be quite and stop talking so loud.

Robin's new door. For her birthday we bought her a new door for her we would  paint a mural on it.  She decided on an ocean themed door. I plan to work on the door more next week. So here is the ocean blue door. I  love it so much I want to paint every door in the house a different color now. Just think how fun that would be when company came over and wants to use the restroom. You can just tell them it is the room with the green door, or yellow door or whatever color we paint it!

Robin and Canary enjoying a bed time story that I bought at the bookstore this week. Canary is reading it to Robin. this is her new favorite toy she loves that it crinkles and I love that the book is Guess How Much I Love You. When Falcon was a baby I received that board book from the hospital. I read it to him everyday many times a day because I did not have any other childrens books. So now I make sure I give almost every new mom a childrens book.

I am on Day 5 of operation  CLEAN THE CRAP IN THE HOMESCHOOL ROOM!!!!!! What you cannot see in this picture is the 2 bookshelves full of stuff that needs to be cleaned.

I am late, I am late, for a very important date.....

I am not a fan of Alice In Wonderland but I have never read the book so maybe my opinion would change. (Note to self read Alice in Wonderland to the kids this Summer)

Before adding a 5th bird to my nest I was always on time. Well 98% of the time. Usually I am only late if I get lost or the gps sends me on a scenic route when roads are closed. My mother taught me  importance of being on time. It is disrespectful to show up late, it is like saying the other persons time is not important to you. So, if you know me and you show up late know this is how I feel about your tardiness.

 Now that I seem to be late quite often in the last few months I do not think it is always the intent of the person being late to disrespect me. I  believe a lot of times it is just a frazzled mommy of many kids failing to be more organized and plan well. So if you are not of mom of many and are lot often I believe you are just saying to me that my time is not as Important as yours. Action speak louder than words.

The last 3 months I have tried soooo hard to plan WAY in advance when I leave the house but something always comes up......
The baby poops right as we walk out the door.
Some one trips and fall down the  steps and gets hurt on the way out.
Someone is in the car waiting for me with no pants on.
The dog throws up and I step in it on my way out the door.
Kids cannot find their shoes.
The baby want to nurse.
These are all recent things that have helped contribute to my lateness in the last 3 months.

I am trying to embrace the fact that with 5 kids I may be a tad late from time to time and that I need to just take a deep breath and try not to stress too much over it. I am also going to try and be more forgiving to others who show up late to my events.

While reading Charlotte's Web to the kids this week i came across these wise words from a wise Spider....

"Slowly, Slowly!" said Charlotte " Never Hurry and never worry!"

Workout Wednsday #2

My workouts
I haven't been able together in as many bike rides as I wanted. Papabird has been working on the garage so I didn't have anyone to watch the baby and  I cannot take her with me.

I  started incorporating some DVD workouts, I planned to start  Jillian Michaels 30 shred program but there was no disk in the case! So I  moved on to shred it with weights.

I had a  few set back in my workouts this week. I tripped over a large log a child of mine out in the driveway  while getting into my car and  hurt my ankle pretty bad. I can walk on it but it hurts pretty bad. NOWAY I could do some of the cardio in those DVD with my ankle so I  did lot on upper body strenght training to get rid of the undder arm jiggle!

I did most of the workouts on this site and added in skull crushers as well.

I did not finish through the 30 day squat challenge, I got halfway through then quit I am still exersizing just doing more than just squats now.

Weightloss  2  more pounds 13 more to go to get to goal #1

My favorite snack
8 oz of coconut almond milk
1 frozen banana
1 T of caco powder
1-2 T of chia seeds.

My favorite green juice
6-8 Kale leaves
8 celery stalks
2 -3 cucumbers
3 green apples ( must be green)
2-3 lemons ( peeled)

Makes 2-3 quarts so you have lots to drink all day.

I may add a few raw eggs  from my hens to this In the future to up my protien intake.

Love this one.

Relaxed schooling- lots of reading

After coming down with mastitis again I know I need a more relaxed week so. I could attempt to rest a bit and clear up the mastitis I have again.

Reading reading reading,

 I started reading aloud Caddie Woodlawn  to all the kids

We did a bit of research on Wisconsin (where the story is set at)
Read about President Lincoln

Played United States Bingo

Pete the Cat

This is such a great picture book series, I cannot believe I haven't checked these books out sooner.

Robin is reading Little House chapter books she is loving those.

Falcon is reading the Bible. Although I do not believe in God I will support my children if they choose to. He is really enjoying the stories and wondering why so many of our Christian friends do not watch tv shows or read books with magic in them because there is so much magic done in the bible.

He also started this book

I am reading 

Adventuring around the town.....

Monday we met a friend at an outdoor garden play space and the kids played for about 2.5 hours.

Tuesday I was supposed to go birding in the marshes with friends but decided to stay home and rest to help heal and get over this mastitis.

Wednesday Robin  and Duck had math coop at the big library that my kids love.

Thursday Girl Scout trip to Petco to work on  Badgework.

Then off to our homeschool geography coop to present our work on Canada.

Despite being sick this week I had to sit up and rock Canary almost every night around 3am for awhile holding her upright to held drain her plugged  nose so she could nurse.

School week highlights

We went to a baseball game and as I was trying to snap a good selfie of Canary and I ( she was in the Moby wrap) when I noticed 3 other people within 3 rows of me doing the same thing. I wonder how many of those ended up in social media of some sort.  The first guy was with his 2 kids snapping a picture, second one I saw was a man holding up a beer next to his face with a big smile, and the last one was a younger woman maybe in her twenties doing the duck face shot. Not familiar with duck face?

Here you go! It is seriously the dumbest looking pose ever. I every time I see woman doing it I just want to slap it right off there face. Do guys really find this appealing? It is not even a natural looking face, nobody  makes that face not even while kissing!!

Moving on....
Robin made a fairy garden at the library this week with her friend.

Went to the planetarium and saw Dynamic Earth

We started Story of the world volume 2

All the kids have now finished up CAT testing via Seton testing services and I mailed those back.

Working on finished on our projects for  our zoo homeschool fair. Here is Robins finished project:

She did a seek and find. On one side Robin had 3 facts listed about  different animals you try  guess what it is then lift  the flaps to see if you are right. Then you can find the animal on the picture  on the other side. The habitat she was assigned was Ocean and she had to list a mammal, reptile,bird,fish, endangered animal and an amphibian that lives in  that habitat.

We are back on track going go a weekly math class for ages K-3 that my friend teaches,they are learning geometry.This week the kids did some math projects based on the book ...

I have been feeling overwhelmed with clutter  and want to create a more zen like atmosphere in the house. I don't mind having a small house but I think I have been filling it with too much in unnecessary  stuff.

I finally cleaned off my dry erase boards after a year. If you didn't know rubbing alcohol works great at cleaning the boards and getting them white again.
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Linking up with....

Workout Wednsday 8 weeks postpartum. #1

What is workout Wednesday ?
Well  at least once a month (maybe even 4 times a months) I will post what I am doing during my workouts, my weight-loss ,  and a current favorite healthy meal or snack (maybe both.)

I am really an all or nothing type of person. I wanted to jump right into working out  doing high intensity interval training again but I know I need to start slow, as I have had a few set backs in recovery already doing too much too soon ( blood clots, hemorrhaging and mastitis),

My workouts:
So here  is what I have been doing since May 1st.
Walking -about a mile or two each walk in the park with the kids.
Bike riding -Robin and I went on a few 30 min bike rides (she doesn't go as fast as I like but her legs are much smaller than mine, so a light easy bike ride for me is a hard bike ride for her.) When I go on bike rides with her I try and stand as much as possibly holding a squat position just over my seat to make it more of a workout.)

I have gone on a few bike rides by myself. I go much farther, faster and longer by myself.

 I started the 30 day challenge with the kids every day we All do the squats and push-ups.

A few times this month   I did my squats while holding the baby. Not because I wanted to but because she was cranky and wanted to be held, and not be  put down. So I had the extra added bonus of 14  more pounds to lift yay!

My favorite  snack this week:

Sugar snap peas with some organic Greek dressing.

Weight loss - 4 pounds.

I have been quite sore, but it is the kind of sore that I LOVE. It is the feeling of getting stronger and reshaping my body.