warm weather, worms and water

The weather has been gloriously warm here! It's really crazy to think that this is March!! Usually we still have a lot of snow!! Instead we are wearing flip flops and shorts, getting sun burns if we aren't careful and really enjoying being outside.

This week Aurora has become very interested in worms. We've found quite a few and some really huge ones hiding under the leaves that we cleaned our of the garden, so we've been talking about worms, what they eat, how they help plants and what animals like to eat worms.

We've also been talking a bit about how dams work. There is one by our house that she loves to walk to and we've been talking about how it can stop the water or let the water flow through.

We started reading Little Women. I wouldn't have picked it for her yet, but I have a really beautiful edition with greats pictures in it so she got excited about it and begged me to read it to her. We are also reading an old book called Adventures in Animal Land. It was mine when I was a kid and loved it. She's really enjoying it so far too, we are about 5 chapters in.

again....

Man, It's already been a week and once again my good intentions have not led to more posting at all!!! This is terrible. :( With a 6 month old who seems to be in a "hold me all the time please mommy or I will scream" stage and Aurora, and life of course, I seem to find time for either this or my photography business. It seems to go back and forth between those two depending on what's going on, how many clients I have and all that.

So despite putting most of my "free time" (ha ha!! as if we moms of babies and young kids have any REAL free time-which is why I stay up WAY too late every night) into my business, I have been tossing an idea around in my head for a long time for a series o(n this blog) that I am pretty excited about. I haven't seen anything like it yet (doesn't mean it's not out there, just that I haven't seen it - nothing new under the sun right?) I am hoping to get it up pretty soon!! I am so excited! so stay tuned!!

Besides that our week has mostly consisted of keeping Gideon happy, or that is how it seems to me. (It's just a stage, it's just a stage!) The weather is starting to warm up so we've been getting out more which is great!!

My family tapped trees to make maple syrup this year which was AWESOME!! We've talked about doing it for ages but finally did this year. Now I admit, I was really only supervising ok, just watching and chatting and taking pictures which Gideon strapped to my back while Aurora running around in the mud with my nephew.(it was super sunny and Elliot is very fast, but here is a quick pic of him covered in mud and completely drenched eating ice cream)

 And here is one of the sap! :)

I'm excited that spring is finally on it's way so we can get out more, do more nature studies and all the wonderful things that come with spring, summer, and fall.

So bear with me if I am bad about keeping up, and stay tuned for the series, I think all you homeschool moms will really enjoy it, or I hope so!! :)

finally an update!

I've been terrible at updating the last month or so!! Life has been a little crazy, my husband was on 4 straight weeks of afternoon shifts leaving me alone every night of the week, but one, with a very fussy baby and Aurora who was acting up because Gideon was taking so much attention (teething I think). Basically I've just been trying to survive and not go completely insane. Some day I was more successful than others. ;) 

I got Gideon a Healing Hazel necklace that is supposed to help with teething pain, eczema and many other things. I haven't noticed a difference with his eczema yet (poor baby has it so bad only adult steroid cream seems to make a difference. :-/ I'm going to try flax seed oil and see if that will help without the harsh cream.) but he is at least sleeping a lot better, only getting up 2-3 times during the night instead of every hour or more. That alone has greatly helped my sanity. He's also been less fussy in the evening. 

This week we are all trying to, get over nasty colds again but did manage to get a few things done today. We baked buns and cookies, gave all the bath toys a good cleaning. did some painting and worked on Aurora's verses and some new songs.

Here are a few pictures from our week. 

 Aurora usually comes into our bed sometime in the morning and cuddles (goes back to sleep) Gideon often will come into our bed after his morning feeding and usually falls back asleep too o this was them snuggling Sunday morning

 Gideon is getting so big! He says "da" now which is pretty funny, especially when he is really mad and yelling it. Of course he wants mama then not dada but oh well.

 He's not crawling yet, (Aurora was crawling everywhere by his age) but he's mastered rolling

 Here is one of Aurora' paintings from today. She looked at a picture of a sunset and painted it. I talked to her about what colors went where. She did a great job! (This is the picture she looked at)