Today...

   After two days, Sarah's restaurant shut down.  She was happy about it though, too much work she said.  LOL.  This morning everyone (kids) slept in really late.  Breakfast was lunch for them!  I remember doing that as a kid and I am so glad they get to do that now.  Just remembering what it was like to have to get up early, get all the stuff organized for school, get out to meet the bus on time...yikes!  So glad that is over with. 
   Austin and Evan set up their farm again, but then decided to go outside for a while.  It was 2C here today, so plenty warm enough to do stuff.  Austin took the ranger out in the field for a drive, with Evan and our dog Mia along for a ride.  Austin and Ryan bought this Ford Ranger a couple of years ago and have been driving ever since.  It is also a standard, so they are learning something that most people never get to do.  All my kids know how to drive a standard, even Evan, although he can't really reach the pedals too well yet.
   Ryan is outside also build something in the garage.  He made me a candle holder from some old lawnmower gears.  Awesome!
   Tonight Sarah and Evan are going over to their Aunt and Uncles while Mark and I go out.  We are taking Mark's parents to the Scotts Tournament of Hearts Curling.  The two older boys are staying home by themselves.  We have watched it so many times on t.v. but never seen it live.  I am really looking forward to it.  It will be a pretty late night, but a lot of fun.  I will see it I can take some pictures when we are there, but sometimes you are not allowed.   

What the kids did Yesterday

I was going to post this last night, but I went to a friends for a jewlery party, had a couple glasses of wine and didn't get home until almost midnight. :)

One of the barn cats.

Yesterday, my youngest son Evan (8) wanted to go outside and take some pictures.  Since we live in Alberta, and it's February, I wasn't sure what he was going to take pictures of, but gave him our little camera and off he went.  He was just in our yard, but found some pretty cool stuff.

The picnic table after a light snow in the night.

The snow pile looking back toward the house.

A great gound level shot looking toward my clothes line and the garage.

  As you can see we don't have very much snow this year.  Last year there was at least 5 feet of the stuff!  It makes for a nicer winter, but the spring is going to be very dry for local farmers.

Self portrait with the melting snow and beautiful blue sky.

An extension cord wraped in a heart shape.

Then he played 'tractors' for a while with older brother Austin (almost13).  This is one of their favorite things to do together.  They know every make and modle of each piece of equipment.  They use pencil crayons and straws to set up roads and fields.  They cultivate, spray, seed, and harvest lots of stuff.  One guy usually does some custom work for the other.  They have pretend cattle that they buy at the auction market, feed, and then take to the slaughter house or another feed lot.  And much, much more.  They don't always get along, and sometimes the game ends quickly, but sometime they play this for an hour or more.

Evan setting up in the hall.

The farm expands from the hall into the living room.

This was one of those times when they didn't play together too long.  But that's the way it goes sometimes.

Evan and sister Sarah (10) then set up a resturaunt in the living room.  I let them use the china and some fancy silerware and glasses.  They spent most of the afternoon with this.  It then extended into the kitchen and we had a candle light supper. 

Sarah and Evan starting to set up.

The 'kitchen'

Dinner is served.

The older boys, Ryan (14), and Austin, spent the afternoon working on their 4H speeches and building with the Lego Mindstorm.  There also was some x-box playing in there as well.

I think we had a pretty great day.

It starts...

Here is a quick overview of what we have been doing in the past.  In 2008, after much deliberation and worry, we decided to pull all four kids out the school.  They were attending a Catholic School, even though we are not catholic.  We wanted to send them to a Christian school, but since those around here are private, way too expensive.  So we left the public system right before Christmas.  It was scary and weird for us.  After about three months of just trying a few basic things, we were settling down nicely and were glad to be done with public school.  Then I went to our provincial home school convention.  I was very excited and happy to finally learn more about what I was doing, and how this home school thing really worked.  I was completely in love with the idea of home school and very excited to try all these great new things I was learning at home with the kids.  They were just happy not to have to go to school, but it was still a struggle.  When I first began thinking of homeschooling, I had a vision in my mind and heart of what that would be for our family.  I pictured us sitting around reading, then the kids would get excited about something that we read and would spend the rest of the day working on a project,of their own making, and having fun.  I pictured them exploring things, trying out new ideas, and learning a ton.  I didn't know it at the time, but that was unschooling!  So, hear I was at the convention, learning about all the great families, all the great stuff they were doing, how 'simple' homeschooling could be, how easy it was, etc.  All I needed to find was the right curriculum for each child and I would be set. Right? Wrong. Three years and thousands of dollars later, we were still struggling.  The older three were ok with it.  Nothing too exciting, just getting through each days lessons but my youngest was really hating it.  I mean HATING!!!!  Everyday he cried, every day he struggled to get the stuff done, to learn to read, to do a whole sheet of math questions.  He was starting to feel stupid and really starting to hate learning in general.  Although he was good at math, liked to listen to bible stories and any read alouds, loved science projects but hated answering questions and so much more.  I know now that the older three were also feeling this way, but because they had been to public school for a few years already, they were already trained to just do what they were told to get it done. If only I could find the right curriculum, if only I could find the magic that was missing in our home school, all would be wonderful once again.  I had heard about un-schooling and had tried it very breifly, but thought that it was crazy!!!  Why would I let me kids do whatever they wanted every day, they needed to LEARN things...lol.  That's what crazy people do.  We went back to worksheets and curriculum.  I realized that there would be no magic curriculum for us, and so was resigned to just work with what we had and be content, even though we hated it.  That was all that was out there and we just had to live with it.  All those other families who were loving their lives and home school were just different than us, and somehow we were the strange ones.   I was feeling kind of down, so I found a book in my local library:  Learning at Home   A mother's guide to homeschooling by Marty Layne.  Check it out here.  She homeschooled her kids in the early 90's when there really wasn't much for curriculum.  This book reminded me of my initial dream of what homeschooling could be like.   Could I really do it that way?  Could it really be that simple?  Were other people doing this and having success?  After some more research, the answer, of course, is yes!!  After a talk with my husband I discovered that this was his homeschool dream as well!  Who knew?  Since I was the one 'educating' the kids, he wanted me to be happy with what I was doing.  What a guy.  It was decided.  Simple as that.  I had a long talk with all the kids about this new lifestyle and they were excited.  Who wouldn't be, I knew I was.  So that is the condensed version of where we are now.  Who knows where it will take us?  I know we will enjoy the ride!!  Even the bumpy parts!