Some more pictures of our dreamy mountain weekend.

Joe made a friend!!

Who doesn't love a campfire and some yummy smores?

Another friend for Joe.  This time it's a Hickory Tussock Caterpillar.

Worms are for fishing and for examining.

The owners of the property created some deep pockets within the creek.  Perfect for jumping in and exploring, if you like cold water!

We took a lovely trip to the mountains Labor Day weekend. 

The weather was gorgeous! 

We found the cutest cabin on Grassy Creek.  The little *subdivision* only had 4 cabins.  Two of the cabins were rentals.  One reserved for the owner of the property and one was for the caretaker.  The caretakers were a sweet older couple that loved the mountains and loved taking such good care of the property.  Our cabin was spotless and so cute.  Firewood was cut and prepared for a fire by the creek.  They supplied us with plenty of outdoor chairs, tubes, fishing items, etc.  They even had a motorized John Deer tractor to ride that Joseph loved. 
It was perfect!

Before we headed to the cabin, we stopped at a little cafe' in downtown Boone for brunch.

See the boo boo sweets has on her face?  She fell right before we were going to leave.  We had to rush her to Urgent Care, for we feared she may need stitches because it was quite deep.  But, the doctor just glued it with steri strips and said we were good to go.  We were so thankful she was o.k.  

Beautiful Grassy Creek and beautiful husband.

Our sweet home for the long weekend.  Darryl and I loved sitting on the deck with coffee in hand watching the creek.

Little Joe's favorite amenity all weekend...

Organic coffee with cream and gorganzola sourdough bread with Kerrygold butter....yummmmm...

Matthew having a ball kayaking down the creek.

Sharing secrets and stories.

 Our sweet Joe has begun soccer this fall.  He really wanted to play baseball like his big brothers, but they didn't offer baseball for his age group in fall season.  So, he agreed to give soccer a try.  We are all so glad he has had this time to experiment with something new.  He is having a ball!

What a joy it gives me to get to see him play.

This is his time to shine!  

                                                      We are so proud of you Peanut!

 Oh my, I'm so far behind on blogging. September has been so busy! 

 We had a wonderful trip to the mountains, school adjustments, baseball and gearing up for lots of fall fun.  We've also had some pretty major family crisis', a health scare and a myriad of other things that make me just happy I can breathe a sigh of relief now.  I do hope the next couple of days will afford me the time to catch up on my blogging.  We are on a fall break and with that gives me more free time to catch up on things, sew some Halloween costumes for the kidlets and hopefully knit a bit.

We have been really enjoying using chalk pastels as an art medium.  The kids always produce such lovely work with them as they create such a soft effect.

In September, the kids made baseball pictures.

Nature Study

We celebrated one of our last weeks of summer with a beautiful Friday morning nature scavenger hunt.  I found this printable online that had these wonderful things to find on a summer hunt.  We engaged all of our senses.  We found things by sight, we touched things in nature, we smelled beautiful flowers and found some surprises along the way.

I love to set out a blanket under the grove of trees in our front yard.  It invites the children to sketch and sit for a while.

Our basket is ready with our nature scavenger hunt printables, magnifying glasses and binoculars.

Little sweets dressed herself this morning, hat and all!

We found this spider in our Zinnia patch.  I thought it was just a common garden spider, but after some research, we learned it was a Green Lynx Spider.  

It's quite beautiful with a lovely pattern on its body.  

The children decided they wanted to sketch the spider in their notebooks.  So, I ran inside for some field guides to learn more about it to share with the kids.  We learned that the Green Lynx Spider lays her eggs during September and October.  She can lay up to 600 eggs!  It seems my flower patch will have lots of spiders come springtime.  We also learned that the Green Lynx Spider seldom bites, but its bite is venomous.  However, the bite, while painful, is not deadly and usually just leaves some swelling.  The species name, viridans, is Latin for "becoming green"  It seems they also hunt many crop pests, but sadly also eat honeybees.

Here is Joseph's Green Lynx spider drawing.  

And Nicholas in the background enjoying the sun on his back and warm breeze.

Matthew really took his time on his nature journal entry.  His spider was very detailed and quite beautiful.

Even Sweets is impressed!

A warm sunny morning spent with my children in nature is such a gift.

To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again.”
                                                                                           -Ralph Waldo Emerson

 First Day of School

Our First Day was August 24, 2015.
Two eighth graders, one preschooler and a spunky, sweet 2 year old tagging along.

Our little Joe started preschool!  Sweet, precious Joe is my special student~he just loves to learn.

We will be using All About Reading Pre-Reading to get him ready to learn how to read.

We are continuing with lots of songs, crafts and stories.

I've got lots of fun scheduled for him this year.
  Preschool is my absolute favorite time to homeschool.  I just love to watch those light bulb moments when he makes connections and realizes he is figuring things out.
He is such a joy to teach.

Joseph will be enjoying lots of field trips this year, storytime at the library and gymnastics twice a month with our local homeschool group.
I've learned over the years to really savor and enjoy this time.
To take it slow.
And, to say yes.

Nicholas and Matthew started 8th grade this year.

I pray this year was not like the last year.  To be honest, I really, really wanted to give up last year.

Battling two very strong-willed and difficult children, along with hormones thrown in the mix did not make for a pleasant year.  I pray this year we can work together more, smile more, play and goof off more, but also they can respect my authority, as well as the other teachers they have for online classes.  

Really, this is a daily struggle to find the joy.

Please pray for us.

I want to make this work, but it's really H.A.R.D.

Update:  A couple weeks in and it's going great!  The boys are excited and engaged in their learning.
We still have some not-so-great moments, but the good far exceeds the bad.

Gosh, I just love these boys to pieces!

Little Joe working on his letters.

Sweets joining in on the learning fun!