a big (little) family

Trying to maintain my sanity and live to blog about it.

Deep Clean Week 1: Unanticipated Depth

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Last Sunday, I devised a plan. My kids are getting older, and the house maintains fairly well with our daily chores, but it doesn’t get good and scrubbed very often. I decided we’d pick one room per week, and make a list of deeper cleaning to be done in there. I wanted to start in […]

School, children, shopping… life.

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Pierce walked up to Liberty and asked her to read to him. She was sitting on the couch with an English textbook in her lap. She agreed, and started reading… her textbook… out loud. I’ve never heard such expression in the descriptions of parts of speech. Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives… it might as well have […]

TOS Review: Mathletics

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Sterling and Eden, ages 7 and 9, have been working on the award winning online math program Mathletics from 3P Learning as part of a review for the Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s review crew. They worked on a nearly daily basis during the week online, playing math games and doing math problems, even competing with others […]

Back to School

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We started back to school yesterday. It was one of the worst days ever. I’d planned to go back two weeks ago, but when the day came, I couldn’t do it. We took two more weeks off and jumped in. It was one of the hardest days. Ever. We started late. Children disobeyed. We reached […]

TOS Review: Hewitt Homeschooling

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I have been reviewing Hewitt Homeschooling and their My First Report: Middle United States with Sterling. Sterling is seven and has just begun second grade, so he’s at the bottom edge of the age group for this – he needed a bit of help, but understood the work. This is recommended for grades 1-4. When […]

The Many Faces of Elliot Adelaide

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With just a week before Ellie is five months old, she’s growing and changing at a rapid rate. She has the most expressive baby face I’ve had in a baby, and we thoroughly enjoy watching her expressions. A few for your enjoyment… There’s the “that toy looks fun” face…. the slightly worried face,   the […]

TOS Review: Apologia’s Flourish

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When the Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s Review Crew was offered a book published and offered by Apologia Educational Ministries titled Flourish: Balance for Homeschool Moms by Mary Jo Tate, I all but begged to be on the review. Having never been disappointed by anything from Apologia and finding the title of this book intriguing and perhaps […]

Life, Shopping, and Soft Hardwoods.

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Early Saturday morning, I poured myself a cup of coffee. The cream container in the fridge had a smidge more cream than I wanted. After a momentary debate, knowing there was not much in the container and whether to throw it away or put it back, I put it back in the fridge. Moments later, […]

Days gone by

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I was asked for video, and while I don’t have the capability to take a video now, I did find this one from 2011. It makes me laugh.

In review: our last few weeks.

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Before we went on vacation, the boys had a bit of auto maintenance to do. Sterling was assigned the role of tire pressure adjuster. Pierce supervised. It would seem Pierce did not approve of the level of noise the work conditions required when the air compressor kicked on. The day before we left, June 26, […]