Peace reigns...for now

Can you hear it?  ..........Yes that my friend is called PEACE and it is very rare and very sacred in my house. The older boys are out at for the evening (so is their Dad) and they younger three are snugly tucked up in bed.  Although I had to convince Sophie (4) that tonight wasn't a good night for a pyjama party. Where she gets these random ideas from I don't know.........Hang on.......Well that didn't last long did it.   Unbeknown to me the girls had sneakily shut their bedroom door and proceeded to have a wee bit of a pyjama party complete with the application of blue make up and white cream on the face.  As I said where they get these ideas from ...well I just don't know.  Plus on the back of very loud protesting when I put a dampener on said pyjama party, Jesse was rudely woken up and needed some loving to put him back to sleep.  Not that I minded snuggling on the couch with him in my arms, its one of my most favourite things to do.

I told you peace was a rarity here.  So half an hour later here we are. I have twenty or so minutes to get something down on 'paper' before the others get home.

Its autumn. Not my favourite time of year at all.  Give me Summer and Spring days any day.  I am battling with getting my washing dry. At present there is a three to four day turn around time for clothes to be washed and dried and put back into drawers. So as you can imagine my 'to-be-washed' pile is super huge. I wish I had a drier but not the bill that goes with it though. But in all the dampness and cold-but-not-too-cold days these is a beauty that autumn does display.

 The beauty of COLOUR.

 Casey took this photo the other day, just one of the many foggy but beautiful sunrises we get treated to.

 

Autumns richest colours

 I love this photo.

This Cherry Tomato plant look like its bejewelled with rubies. 

 

Kaitlyn just loves to take herself off and spend vast amounts of time creating and just being.  I love that she has the freedom to do this.  Here she is building a 'Fairy' house.

           

 

 Just one of the many beautiful trees that turns gorgeous shades of autumn...

 

But with beautiful trees comes piles and piles of leaves!

 In School......We spent some time looking at Yeast.  Its actually quite fascinating believe it or not. So we had a go at making some Ginger Beer.  I had never made it before so it was a bit of a gamble to whether or not it was going to work or not.

 

 

  (Our Ginger Beer Making

did not look like the picture below)

 

 

The finish product really surprised me in how it turned out (sadly I didn't get a photo of it) but it was actually REALLY fizzy when we opened it AND tasted not too bad either.  But for future reference less lemon and more ginger!  Most definitely be making it again.

 Jesse, our wee man is SUPER DUPER cute!  Nearly six months now and is growing so fast. I know I always say that they don't stay little for long but they so don't.  He is sitting now can you believe it?! I can't! He can still fold himself completely in half with his feet up by his ears.  He hasn't quite worked out whether or not he wants to suck his thumb or his fingers so just goes with whatever reaches his mouth first, sometimes its even his arm. Still spends the majority of the night snuggled up next to me and likes to sleep with one hand on my cheek. Bless him. Still prefers to sleep on the couch during the day in amongst all the noise and goings on. (see below picture) Sleeping in the resounding quiet of the bedroom just wakes him up, go figure.  Loves to grab the cat when she walks past and intensely watches the ducks and chickens when we feed them.  Loves to bath and splash water all over himself.

By GOLLY he is just so darn cute!

 

 

 

Happy Wednesday to you!

 

  Ps.  The Dress!  Well I tried it on again tonight  AND I fit it!!!  BUT I could fit it better.  But it is still very exciting considering I wouldn't of been able to get it anywhere near me four months ago!  I will try it on again when I lose another 1.5kg I think.

The Gift of Time

One of the biggest reasons for our decision to home school the kids was the gift of time. 

The gift of time
for the kids...... 
Time to just be. Time to spend with family and not hurry off to school where they spend the majority of the day only to return with homework and then fly off to sport practice or rally/youth group.  Time to spend doing something they love or that has their interest for a time - uninhibited time.  Time to form deep relationships with siblings, parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles.  Time to master everyday life skills that are so often forgotten in todays hurried world.  Time to be children.

for us as parents...........
Time to see, feel and experience our children as they grow and explore the world. Time to form deep relationships with them. Time to impart God's love, wisdom and life experience.  Time to observe their wonder in learning, experiencing and living.  Time to appreciate who they are, their hearts and their creativeness.

The boys found this old cage? trap? thing in an equally old shed on the farm. Consequently transformed it (or tried to) into a working trap. They didn't manage to trap anything although they were pretty close to capturing one of our free-roaming chickens. I bet she got a heck of a fright!

This is Sophie eating breakfast (very) early one morning with the girls pet pumpkin called 'Cracker'.  You can't see in this photo but Cracker has eyes. He also wears hats and drinks tea. Fancy that.

Any home schooler will tell you that learning can take place anytime, anywhere and anyhow.  Children learn just by experiencing things.  At times this just happens, other times you have to identify opportunities and make the most of them.

Which is why a few mornings ago there was a lot of dew on the ground and outside on the fences, trees and  swing set a number of spiders had been hard at work building house aka spinning webs.  They were beautiful to say the very least.  I was reminded of a teaching moment in a book and I saw this as a perfect opportunity to investigate 'webs', how they work and to appreciate the beauty of nature. (even though it was the school holidays)

So Web Catching we went!

Step One.
Find the perfect spider web on an extra dewy morning.

Step Two.
Using a black piece of paper or card.  Put it carefully behind the spider web and VERY carefully and slowly bring it forward, so that the web sticks flat to the paper/card.

...you might be able to fit more than one web on your paper/card.

 

 

Step Three.

Gently shake baking flour all over the black card making sure you have well covered the web/s that you have 'caught'.

 

 

Step Four.

Gently shake excess flour off into sink or outside and you will have a beautifully preserved spiders web!



 

 

Step Five.

Display somewhere nice.  I am still yet to track down some blue-tack to put all ours up.

 

We all had lots of fun doing these, even Sophie got into it.  Of course they especially like sprinkling flour all over the place! 

 

No spiders were harmed in the making of these pictures, although they were probably a bit freaked out. I can almost hear the spider conversations now.

 

"Hey Merv!, Did you see what happened to my house?"

"Nah mate"

"It was here a moment ago"

"Nah mate you're dreaming"

"Well I can't believe it, you turn your back for a second and all your hard work just vanishes into thin air"

"Hang on a minute, come to think about it...I did see a great big black nothing come...maybe they took it?"

"Dude I think you better lay off the aphids! A great big black nothing! - yeah right"



 

 

I kind of feel sorry for them now BUT no need all webs were restored, replaced and then some the very next day!

 

Thought you might like to check out the sunrise that Casey (11) took the other morning.  Aren't we spoilt with a sight like that.



Working on...me.

So as you may of noticed that I haven't been around a while.  I have missed you.  But it seems as though every time I sit down to write I end up hitting the delete button either that or I write in my head and there they stay or I talk about them and that's that, they remain as conversations.   Anyway I am in the midst of a piece that is yet to be decided if it ever makes in on here - my confidence I think has taken a hammering again! Geez what is with that!  But for now I have one that is a little more hmmmm lighter, so to speak.

Baby Jesse is nearly FIVE months old now!  Yes I know. Time has gone so fast.

By golly he is cute! (just a tad bias I know)

He is very nearly sitting, which actually doesn't surprise me as he gets great encouragement from his brothers and sisters. I mean who wouldn't want to reach milestones when you have your very own cheer-leading squad.
I don't know how most of you (ladies) feel after a baby but my post-baby body leaves a lot to be desired.  Yes I know, I know I know - Jamie always tells me "well (he) took nine months to grow you should really give yourself nine months to get back to the start". Bless him. But nine months honey is just too damn long for me and this time I wasn't waiting that long.  After having Jesse and all his huge-ness and being backwards and all, really did leave me with NO strength in my core muscles (stomach muscles, back muscles, inner muscles, inner inner muscles and leg muscles etc) which isn't good or conducive to getting up off the floor or bending over to clean the bath, plus I had flab where flab certainly wasn't welcome. My super inspirational sister 'n law set me on a path that enabled me to begin to reclaimed my pre-baby body.   (Just so you know - you ARE NOT getting a "Post-Baby-Body-Pre-Workout-Programme" photo either.)

So with the help of Joy over at Massive Motivation an online/virtual personal trainer if you please, I started my programme.  Day one very nearly killed me!  BUT nearly 12 weeks on and I can say I am very happy with the outcome.  I am pretty sure that Joy thought I was such a baby at times, especially when I threw a tantrum about having to do Burpees and told her I didn't think I would be able to walk for the next few days after doing an intense leg work out.  Actually I did have trouble walking for about three days after that.  Joy gives you a Five-Day workout for you to follow (Mon to Fri) (Yah -weekend off) all you have to do is......actually DO IT!  She makes you sign a contract with yourself which sites words like 'character' 'commit' and 'cheating yourself'.  So all the times I though that it wouldn't matter if I only did 5 burpees instead of 10 thoughts went back to that darn contract!  And I also knew that I would have to tell her at the end of the day how I went and I couldn't very well lie to her could I.   I stayed under Joys tutelage for 8 weeks and then decided to try and go it alone and I have to say that I think that I have done pretty well not being accountable to anyone.  I think that's why it worked so well is that I had to tell her everyday how I went. If I was left to my own devices I would of putter out, I just know it.  So 12weeks on - I can jump now!  I know sounds pretty bad but I really did have trouble even jumping off the ground now I can jump up my steps AND at last count I ran 4.4kms in 30 mins! Wahoo! Now that makes me excited!!  Although I am far from one of those ladies who glide down the road!  Exercise has become a habit for me now, a good habit.  I understand a little now when people say that they are addicted to exercise because I too get hankering to do something active in the weekend when those days are suppose to be rest days.

So two days out from 12 weeks I have only missed one day of workout and that was yesterday, I was just too tired and had a crappy attitude.  I have lost 12cm off my waist and nearly 8kg AND I have muscles where muscles have been dormant for years and years!  So you could say that I am pretty proud of myself. I am back to pre-baby weight/size and this is the fastest I have been out of pregnancy clothing.  I still haven't finished yet.  For me, this hasn't been entirely about how I look but a big part has been about how I feel in myself.  At the beginning Joy asked me what were my goals and my reason/s for starting this.  I told her....
1. Even though I had 6 kids I didn't actually want to look and feel (physically) like I had had 6 kids.
2. I wanted to feel strong again, none of this weakling who gets puffed walking up the driveway business
3. Secret squirrel here.....I have this dress that my younger sister gave me.  I really like it and even though I have no idea where on earth I would wear it. My outings consist of church, soccer, supermarket and the occasional visit with friends - and it really isn't a dress I would wear to any of those places.  BUT if I ever did have the opportunity to dine with the Queen and/or attend a Cocktail party then I would like to have the option of wearing this dress. Here is said dress...

Photo doesn't really do it justice!

I think I have about another 5cm to go before I can successfully pull it off.

 



 

If I do get to the point where I fit it I will show you the before and after shots!

Gulp

So if there is anyone else out there that is wanting to get into shape and wants something more than just a diet, then I REALLY recommend Joy. She will design you a programme especially for you and your needs and provide you with super encouraging (not in a telling off way) feedback.  I certainly couldn't have done all this work without the help and encouragement from super husband - Jamie, or my super children (who all joined in at some stage with me - ask the girls about Pilates they will give you a demo) and Tash, my super sister 'n law, who by the way looks totally amazing too after all her hard work she has put in. 

 

Go on, you will feel so much better for it!

 

See you soon, promise!