The last week has brought us some very beautiful weather.  With that when the weather is nice we are rarely indoors.  We either play in the back in the grass, which is what we did both Saturday and Sunday with all the neighboor girls.  Everyone played with balls and climbed trees, it was just nice to be out and about again.  We have had several walks around the block and playtime at the nearest playground.

I have built up my walking to 2.5 miles and the days I don't walk are filled with indoor toning. 

We managed to get out on Tuesday as a family and have our first hike of 2008.  AMAZING was all I could say.  Yes of course everything was dead and the creeks were ice cold.  That did not stop us from wandering in and having lunch by the water.  We did get lost and took the wrong path back which meant even more walking, and gripes from sore little feet.  Other than that it was so much fun.

Wednesday we found out my husband is going to be jobless for 3 months, which really hit on hard times.  Robbing Peter to pay Paul as it is.  But on the bright side our tax return came, talk about good timing.  So we will use that for the next 2 months and hope he finds some side work until he gets to go back fulltime.  I know I should be really stressed, but knowing the back up came I am fine now.  We have already been living frugal so that when a time came like this it would not hurt to bad.  That is one major upside of homeschooling, some expenses can be postponed as we are going with the flow.

Today we went on a lovely walk around the river and back to the playground.  We went as a whole family again.  It really felt good to have hubby go to the park, I know it meant a lot to the little ones.   Saw tons of turtles, fish, geese and ducks.  His quote of the day... "well since I am on a 'vacation' for a bit, we can do this all the time."  The kids will hold him to it!!!

As for school, we have definately been unschooling and enjoying the changes of the season.  We are starting to plan our gardening in pots and that has led to some recycling ideas.

I buy yogurt in the large containers and can never figure out what to do with them when we are done, other than recycle them.  So we are saving them up and are going to poke holes in the bottoms and reuse them as pots to plant strawberries and tomatoes in to get our garden started.  We will try beans and herbs as well.  Everyone is getting excited in the neighborhood for spring to come so we can get these going.  I told all the little girls will have a planting day and they can plant seedlings and decorate their containers for a mini garden.  This will be our first so wish us luck.

We are going to cut milk cartons in half and use them, as well as old pots for some cactus plants.  Those old rusty cookie sheets will work great to put under our pots.  Once it gets up and going I will post pics.

Other than that we are researching indoor plants like sweet potatoes and herbs.  This is our schooling for the moment.

Bought another ELLO set, and the girls have spent hours building a little town with that.  FUN FUN FUN!

For the amount of fighting that my little ones do, when the loving moments happen they really shine.  My little one was very sick yesterday and threw up all over in the car.  The wind was whipping and I did not want her to sit in a wet mess so we had to take off her close.  The girls had recently been fighting and at a moments notice my oldest pulled herself together and helped keep sister warm with body heat.  When we got home I had to clean the car, the child, unload the groceries and put them away... so I of course was frazzled beyone belief, add to that getting the yucky clothes washed and in the machine before they made the whole house sour.  In my moment of chaos I was looking for the kids so that I could bathe my sicky and I found her already in the tub with bubbles and smiles.  My oldest took it upon herself to give sister a bath.  I was brought to tears at how much she helped out.  This gave me the chance to get all messes cleaned up and stuff put up.  She even dried her off, put on her pullup and warm jammies and had her lay on the couch.  She basically doctored and mothered her all together.  So so sweet.

This love did not stop there, we had more messes of the other sorts come later and had to bathe her again.  Once the night was through she had 4 baths total... it was a very yucky night.  My oldest even gave her an extra bath out of the whim because baby was feeling cold.  The night went farely smooth and there was lots of snuggling and hugging go on.

Little bit is still feeling a tad yucky today, but nothing like what happened yesterday.  I am very blessed that my girls understand what it means to help when someone is ill.  I could not have been happier.

Now on another note a new game that has been entertaining all:  a friend of ours was playing with the girls and decided to hang a tennis ball that was on an elastic string from the doorway.  He then showed the girls how to practice hitting it with a racket.  The next day they discovered how to shoot it from all different angles.  All the kids have been entertained with the bouncing ball.  Hanging it from different heights has had different games created.  So much fun.  And to top it off daddy got in on the action.  Lining the kids up and tossing the ball back and forth somehow led to lining up bottles of various stuff across the room and aiming to knock them down.  I could not help but try myself and it was not as easy as I thought.  The ball comes back real fast and you have to learn to duck and cover and catch all at once.  So this has gone on most of the morning.  Hand eye coordination 101!!!!

Just a glimpse into what happens around here when we get bored hehehehe.

Check out this website that someone posted on one of my disscusion boards.

www.earthocean.tv   this has so many cool videos and photos and lesson ideas.

Enjoy