Consistency

It's never been one of my strengths, but I am trying to be more consistent.
Not just with blogging, but with life as a whole.

I've been working hard on my AlphaKids. Want to see?

I still have about 62 more letters to extract.
Well, 62 more pictures of letters. They're still collected from the same 26 letters shown here. They take 15-20 minutes each to extract, when I don't stop mid-Y to post to my blog, so that's another 15-20 hours' worth of work ahead of me before I can start offering custom names.

In other news, we've discovered that Jasmine does much better with routine and consistency than with a loosey-goosey schedule. She's calmer and happier and more pleasant. So if you ask her what she thinks of her summer vacation, don't be surprised if she looks at you like you have three heads. She's loving that we're doing school nearly every day, and I am too. We still have breaks, and we'll still take vacation, but the idea of a 3-month summer really doesn't need to be a part of our lives any more than sitting behind a desk and raising her hand to talk to her teacher does.

So I guess life in general is full of learning opportunities for me to figure out how to be consistent. How long before I really learn it?

Conversations

1.
Hudson: {closing the window} Did it, Mommy!
Me: Hudson, why did you close the window?
Hudson: Because......cold.

2.
{Josh, Jasmine, Bekah and Hudson head outside for awhile after dinner. Jasmine and Bekah go get their bikes. Hudson gets his "bacuum," or lawn mower.}

Bekah: Daddy, I'll get your skateboard.
Josh: No, thank you. I'm not going to use my skateboard tonight.
Jasmine: Daddy, I'll go get your skateboard.
Josh: No, thanks. I'm not going to skateboard tonight.
Bekah: Daddy, here's your skateboard!
Josh: I. Don't. Want. My. Skateboard. Tonight.
{to me: }Could you grab my book for me?
Charla: Don't you want your skateboard??
Josh: ACK! Why does everyone want me to skateboard?? (replaying conversation)
Charla: oh. I didn't hear the "don't."
Hudson, coming over: Daddy! Skateboard??

I don't think I woke up this morning

and I have proof.
This morning Josh mentioned that he needed more frozen fruit to keep making smoothies.He also mentioned something else he needed, so I checked the pantry and then wisely added it to the grocery list.

Or so I thought.

When I walked back into the kitchen 4 hours later, I was astonished to see what I'd actually written on the list:

umm.....

Life's been pretty normal lately. Well, "normal" might be too strong. But nothing stands out as being photo- or blog post-worthy.

That doesn't mean I don't take pictures still, of course. x

The kids were "bored" Saturday morning, so I put 'em to work. 

 They had a great time, and the crayon spots on some of the walls are now gone!


Hudson stood at the door, calling "kiss? kiss??" after Daddy when Josh was leaving for work this morning, so I got Josh's attention. He came back for that kiss.

 Hudson still watched him leave...


And last week's theme for my 52-week challenge was "craving."
This was a bit of a stretch, but I figured it works.
I love baby toes. Hudson's feet are almost past that 'baby toes' stage, but not quite. So I got this picture to hold onto that baby-ness :)

I've finally gotten back into extracting my AlphaKids letters. I got side-tracked with the ballet pictures I did, and then never got back into it until this week. I'm reading an awesome, incredible book right now and he's helping me figure out what I should do with my photography while still doing the parenting/homeschooling thing :) If you have a dream job in mind and don't know how to get there, or even if you don't quite have a dream "job" in mind, this book is SO fantastic!


(yes, I'm giving it a bigger plug than I usually do. Because I can't believe how much I'm enjoying the book and how much I can see it's already changing the way I look at my world.
So now that I've way over-hyped it you'll probably hate it, unless you've already discovered it yourself...
I'm such a good salesman.)

Strawberries

This was technically a homeschool outing, but it didn't feel like it so I'm writing about it here instead of on the other blog :)

Yesterday we met with two other families from our homeschooling group at a farm an hour from us.
Jasmine was over the MOON because Grace, one of her very best friends, was going to be there. The two of them and Kevin, the other going-into-first-grader there yesterday, had an amazing time together. You can see her pictures here.

Here's my take on the day!

He's not doing very well at hiding the evidence:

"and she just doesn't know. should she stay? should she go??"

(no, I'm not calling my beautiful daughter a hippopotamus. After all, Hippopotami are not to be messed with!)

We came home with 6 quarts of extremely ripe strawberries (we think the hours in the hot trunk ripened them even more than they were when they were picked!) I've frozen about 4 quarts of them, we ate one and turned one into strawberry shortcake. Delish!

Trains

We had so much fun on Sunday, riding an old-fashioned steam engine-pulled train!

We managed to pawn off all three kids by the second half of the trip. I found that pretty amusing, since it was a homeschool outing!

We loved watching the engine steam! (here it was going from the front of the train to the "new" front of the train, for the return trip).

The only thing I wish I'd gotten was a picture of this going around a corner. But this will do ;)

We loved the accordion player! He was hilarious!

The kids had a great time playing with their friend's dad!

They had a little race. Poor Bekah's legs just aren't quite long enough to keep up...

Botanical Gardens

You can read all about our adventures here, but I wanted to share my favorite picture here. Because it had nothing to do with school and everything to do with having beautiful children!

Beautiful, aren't they?? Of course I'm not partial or anything....

Enchantment

This week's challenge theme is "enchantment."

My picture might be a bit of a stretch, but Hudson really does have me under his spell.

Especially when he's wearing his overalls.

I can't get enough of those overalls:

 
*happy sigh*

Dreaming of Disney

Yesterday we got the 1,309,473,273th thing in the mail about Disney Cruises since we got home from the trip in early December.

Apparently Hudson's ready to go back.

In the evening, we were cleaning the house. Jasmine decided it would be fun to switch roles, so she was Mommy and I was Jasmine.
I played it for all it was worth ;)

"Mommy, can we go to a Disney Cruise again?"
"No, sweetie, I don't think so. See, that was for something special. Grandma spent lots and lots of money on that cruise, and so it was something we can't do again."

You mean she was listening?!?!