We finally finished up with baseball today. It has been a great season and the boys have really come a long way. We are going to miss being at the ball park. But with it really heating up outside it will be a nice reprieve.

After ball and yard work we took off for the movies. The "cheap" movies was playing "Nim's Island." We weren't sure what to expect from this movie. I was pleasantly surprised! I really enjoyed the movie. It was by for one of the most wholesome movies I have seen in years. I loved the storyline and it's unique plot. It didn't hurt that Gerard Butler was one of the main character's. For those who don't him, he plays Leonidas in the movie "300" (one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE MOVIES.) He also stars in the movie "P.S. I Love You." I think I would enjoy any movie that he stars in. He seems soooo soulful. His eyes are amazing. Ok, I guess I made my point. I will move on...lol.

If you haven't seen this movie, you should. It is a great family movie. Even Zion who is three enjoyed seeing the animals in the movie. It is very rare to find a movie that is entertaining for the entire family as well as wholesome. When we do we should try to go see it. Hopefully it will encourage the industry to make more movies of that nature.

Baseball, baseball, and more baseball.

We have spent the last three evenings at the ball field. I really love watching my kids play. This is Isaac in his new catchers helmet. His eyes absolutely melt my heart.

A New Do!!

Isaac with his "new do." This is the FIRST short haircut he has ever had. Doesn't he look cute?

Not so much.

Memorial Day!

Summer is finally here. Ok, not so much. But it is the "unofficial" start to summer. We decided to get in the spirit of things and kick the summer off with the ever popular dip in the pool. We headed out around 11:00 this morning. Unfortunately, it was a little over cast and the water was VERY cool. I was freezing!!! The kids didn't seem to mind, they never do. They had a great time and are looking forward to many more days at the pool.

Isaac was having a difficult time smiling with his teeth chattering so hard.

Elijah ready for competition as usual.

This cracks me up!!

Zion trying to look cool in his "Hunter Hair."

Despite the cool water and breezy air we really did have a great time. It was a great start for what I know is going to be a wonderful summer.

Will Your Kids Eat That?

After talking to several people I was assured that The Hillbilly House Wife had MANY GOOD ideas to help maintain a frugal home that have absolutely nothing to do with my menstrual cycle. . So being the fair minded person I think I am I decided to give it another try. I went back on the web site this morning in hopes of finding some really good penny pinching ideas for my family.

I was immediately drawn to post which tries to explain how an entire family can eat on just $45 a week. Sounds pretty good, huh? I read on and clicked on the weeks menu. Breakfast didn't look so bad. I don't eat breakfast anyway (I know its the most important meal of the day.) Lunch left a little bit to be desired yet still edible. Then on to dinner or as we here in the South like to call it SUPPER. The suggested dinner menu is as follows: Pinto Beans; Onions; Hoecakes; Collard Greens; Iced Tea. Will your kids eat that?

Let's start with the Iced Tea, one of the seven people living in my home will drink tea. I guess everyone is on water. I can live with that, water is good for you. Onions? Even my husband won't eat onions. And Collard Greens!! My Mother-in-law is the ONLY person I know who will even look at collard greens, let alone eat them. I could possible force a few pinto beans and hoecake down my family. Only to have them return to the kitchen an hour later with the ever familiar "I am still hungry." The menu also includes items such as Creamed Tuna & Peas over Rice,Lentil Chili, Baked Custard, and the ever popular lunch of Batter Bread; Margarine; Spinach; Milk. Now either I have extremely spoiled and culunarily (is that even a word?) challenged children or this woman really doesn't feed her family on this menu. If she did I am sure a riot would ensue.

If I tried to feed my husband these items we would have been divorced many years ago. On second thought if I cooked this menu I would be super model thin, because I wouldn't eat any of that junk either. So, maybe despite my inability to provide edible meals for my husband he would stay with me for my body. Much to my delight, this is something we may never learn.

FYI:
hoe·cake / ˈhōˌkāk/ • n. a coarse cake made of cornmeal, originally baked on the blade of a hoe.

I will be completely out of character and reserve all comment on that!!!

COME ON!!

• Did you know that you can actually Make Your Own Sanitary Pads! They are cheap, healthy and environmentally friendly. Modern women have lost the art, but YOU can reclaim it. Free Patterns and Instructions plus lots of links to more free patterns and instructions!

I am all about being frugal. I have even been known to clip coupons, recycle my aluminum cans, reuse plastic bags, and even plant my own garden to save money. But this borders on the edge of insanity. I was on a friends blog the other day when I came across a link to the Hillbilly House Wife. I must admit I was intrigued. So of course I clicked. I read down through the first page and was thinking, ok so far so good. Then there it was....MAKE YOUR OWN SANITARY PADS!!!! My first instinct is to laugh. I am sure there is a joke in here somewhere. After all, it is the Hillbilly House Wife Blog. But much to my horror there was no punch line. Just another link that will actually gives you step by step instructions to reclaim this hidden art. Did that say "art?"

I must admit this is one lesson we will not be covering in our homeschool lesson to day. I know this will disappoint many of you. I normally take advantage of any opportunity to drop the books in order for a hands on activity. I am the woman who is willing take a field trip to Taco Bell for a lesson in Spanish/American culture. But, SANITARY PADS! Come on.

Smores!!

This is my new fire pit that I received for Mother's Day. I love it!!! Fred put it together for me tonight. And started the fire. It didn't take us long to figure out that the wood we had was a little too green. It took us about an hour to get a decent fire going. And green wood puts off a lot of soot. Oh well. It wasn't long until we were roasting hotdogs. Not just any hotdogs, but Nathan's Hot Dogs. My absolute favorite. Then it was on to the smores. We really loved roasting the marshmallows. We had a great night. It was fun to spend the evening with my family.

The Weekend in Alabama

We spent the weekend on the farm in Alabama. The boys absolutely love being out on the farm. Grandad loves riding them around on the four wheelers. Of course, Elijah has to drive himself. lol

Grace spends her time at the barn with Grandmother. They groom all the horses. Grace loves braiding their mane and tails. Grace is totally in her element around all the animals. I on the other try to keep my distant as much as possible.

Although, I don't particularly enjoy the "Alabama Trip" I do enjoy seeing my children have fun. The freedom they get to experience when there is so good for them. To have free reign on 165 acre farm is above and beyond cool for a nine year old boy (Elijah). I am glad they can explore and learn in that environment. Riding bikes and scooter without worrying about cars. Running in the fields with the dogs without worrying someone will grab them. And riding your own pony are only a few of the privileges they get to enjoy. I am glad that they have this great opportunity.

Piano Lesson

Today is "music day." Grace has a piano lesson and Isaac has a violin lesson. Elijah had guitar earlier in the week but he still needs to practice. So far no one has showed an interest in learning to play the drums. Needless to say, we are very thankful. It takes two hours to get through music practice as it is. Did you hear that? TWO HOURS EVERYDAY of screeching violin, out of tune piano, and way to loud guitar. Much to the dismay of the music teachers there are days that we don't practice. I don't want to hear Isaac play twinkle twinkle for 5,000th time. Or listen to Elijah play Ode to Joy anymore. Neither of those even begin to compare to hearing Grace play Chant Arab for the past two years. I simply can not stand that song!!!

I pray that after all this torture someone learns to play an instrument. I know I should feel guilty for my attitude. I know I should take pride in hearing my children play. I hear other moms brag about their children's ability to play. Maybe they don't have more than one child. Or maybe all their children play the same instrument. Maybe they are just a better mother than I am. But in the words of my good friend, "it is what it is." What it is, is shear and utter torture.

This too shall pass. My children will learn to play beautiful music. They will use their hard earned gift to glorify and honor the Lord. And when I am old (95 or 100) they will come to the nursing home and play for me and all my buddies on Sunday afternoon. Then I will be grateful for all those hours I listened to them practice. All the gas money I spent going to lessons. All the tuition I forked on for those lessons. And I will long to hear Grace play Chant Arab one more time.

Shall We Dance?

We started the school day off with a small unit study on ocean creatures. Isaac got a new Sea Splash Unit study for Elijah's birthday. Yes, I know how crazy that sounds. However that is a story for another day. So we decided to get it out and have a little fun. It was pretty cool. It came with a story book, plastic sea creatures, fact cards and a really cool game.

We actually learned alot of interesting facts. Our favorite fun fact for the day had to be about the sea horses. Did you know......

"In the sea horse home, the male has the babies!!! The female sea horse leaves her tiny eggs in the males's pouch; then he carries the eggs around and feeds them until the babies are ready to be born. Sea horses keep the same partners for life and every morning they do a greeting dance for each other!!!"

Now how cool is that. Grace was particularly interested in the "male has the babies" part. I on the other hand enjoyed learning about the morning dance ritual. Wonder what I would need to do to get Fred to tango in the morning. On second thought it wouldn't take much to interest him in the tango. On the other hand break dancing might be out of the question.

I digress, back to homeschooling. The unit study is now done and we are back to the daily school grind. And some of us actually learned something. Grace learned that she wants to marry a seahorse we she grows up. I learned that I learned that putting a "pole" in our bedroom isn't such a bad idea. Now I just need to convince Fred that it won't hurt the resale value of the home.

Skate Day

Today is the last "homeschool skate" day of this school year. My kids have really enjoyed learning to skate and spending time with their friends. I have enjoyed the fellowship of other homeschool moms. So everyone is happy with the event and that is ALWAYS a good thing.

I remember learning to skate as a child. I went every Friday night to Skatetown in Fountain City (the same skating rink my children now go to). The rink still looks the way it did in 1978 aside from a few new paint colors and new video games. I am sure it is the same ugly brown boot rental skates. I still remember when my aunt Lisa handed down her white boot skates to me. I thought I was so cool. I didn't care that they were hand me downs. They were WHITE. Not only that, they had PINK pom poms on the toe. What could be better? NOTHING, not in my eyes at twelve years old.

Grace now has her own white skates, minus the pink pom poms. They do however have pink wheels! And Elijah has inline skates. They haven't experienced the unfortunate yet humbling experience of the "brown boot rentals." But somehow they learned to skate just the same.

I think learning to skate is somehow a bridge to adolescence. The ability to out run (skate) your mom speaks volumes. The entire concept of gaining speed and independence is definitely a precursor to things yet to come. But don't forget Mom still has her old skates and although the pom poms are long gone I can still skate with the best of them. I can and will catch you and until you learn to skate backwards I can still swat your behind at the same time. So for now, you are not quiet out of my reach.

Mother's Day Weekend

We had a great weekend. Busy as usual, just the way I like it. Saturday started off with shopping for my mom. Then it was home to get things ready to head off to Townsend. Kora, Lloyd and the Hunt were camping at the Ye Old Mill Campground. We left the house around 1:30 and arrived (after several stops) around 3:00. The big boys immediately took off for the water. While Zion and Aaron enjoyed a snack at the campsite.

After drying off we headed up to Caves Cove. We had a wonderful picnic dinner courtesy of Lloyd. The burgers were amazingly good. And everyone had a terrific time. We then loaded up in the back of Lloyd's truck for a evening ride through the cove. It was sooooo nice and the animals were out in full force. Here is a picture of the bear we saw. Grace affectionately named him "Mikey.'

We spent the rest of the evening at the campsite roasting marshmallows. We had a great time. Thank you Kora for having us join your camp and for all the fun. I know the kids will remember it for a long time. We really did have a wonderful time.

Sunday was fairly typical. With one HUGE exception. Fred shut the doors and let me sleep in on Sunday morning. When I finally woke up he had fed the kids and everyone had already been bathed and were waited to go to church. They weren't dressed of course. He knows how picky I am about that. But everything else was done. It was a real blessing. We went to church and then to visit my mom. We had dinner at Puelo's Grill then went shopping. The kids (FRED) got me a new fire pit for Mother's Day. I love it and cant wait to use it. We spent Sunday evening at the ball park.

We all enjoyed the weekend and feel very blessed to have each other. And to have great friends. LIFE IS GOOD.

Call it what you will:

Field day, picnic, or end of year blowout. What ever the case my kids had a blast. If you have not been to the new park in East Knoxville (beside target) you should go. And you should go soon. It is really nice. Here are several pictures of today's events.




After lunch the activities began. It all started with the sack race.

The it was on to the three legged race. Elijah and Hunter made the perfect team.

We soon moved on to the all time favorite, tug-of-war.

Finally, we started the real fun. The cool whip eating contest is always popular.

Even defeat can be sweet.

James White Fort

My children were upset with me because I had not included out latest field trip pictures on my blog. So in no particular order, here they are:



Aaron waits patiently in the courtyard for the rest of the children. lol

Grace trying not to look as though she is posing. Do you think it worked?

And they say girls go to the bathroom together?!?!?!

I wish I could get Zion to work this hard at home.

Maybe if I use lye soap like this man to wash Elijah's mouth out it would work better.

Aaron here you are again being such a patient and sweet child.

Ok, I am going to try to get back on track.

The past few weeks have been very busy. The highlight was celebrating Elijah's Birthday. We went to Laser Quest with some of his friends. Elijah had a great time, I think we all did.

Here is Elijah with Josiah, Hunter, Gabe, Grace and Christina.

Elijah turned nine years old. It is really hard for me to believe he is that old. I enjoy him so much. Of all my children he is the most like me. His intensity and competitive nature reminds me of how I was as a child. Ok, I am still that way and I love playing games and sports with Elijah. Fred is not competitive at all so Elijah and I often feel as though we have a little connection with each other. It is really nice to feel that you have a special bond with your child. Especially when that child is one of five.

I know!!!! It has been a while.

I think the most important thing you can teach a child is to ALWAYS follow the rules. Zion totally agrees.