snail mail

snail mail, it's the good old fashion way of receiving mail.

yes, i know email is quicker and greener, but sometimes it's

nice to take a walk out to your mailbox and receive a piece

of mail that has actually been touched by the person who

has sent it to you. since the little miss is getting ready to

celebrate her 6th birthday we decided to do it the ol' fashion

way. so friends, get ready to make that trip to your mailbox

we just sent you something through snail mail.

the apples of my eye

one of the great things about homeschooling is we do it all together.

so when we visited riley's apple farm with our homeschool group my little

fella got to come along with us. he had just as much fun as the rest of the kiddos.

he was easily entertained with all the apples and kept himself busy.

here's some more pic's from our fun day...

we've been busy...

yes we have. we started our school a couple weeks ago and it has been non-stop since.

lots of nature, lots of reading, and lots of fun. for one of our school days our

home school group took a trip up to riley's apple farm. most of the families in our

group are reading the little house books and we all agreed that this would be a fun

trip to give the kiddo's a little taste of little house life. and it was we all had such a

great time. here's some of our photo's (there's actually alot)

that captured our day....

we gathered apples and lined them up

we pumped water for various projects like laundry and watering the garden

we hauled it back to the laundry station

we did the laundry

we hung apples for the winter

we built a log cabin

we ground our own coffee beans,

started a fire from nothing,

and brewed this tasty coffee

the mister enjoyed his cup.

the last one of the day and he said

it was the best coffee he had

we peeled apples

we made dolls out of corn husk

we played with friends

we washed apples and made apple cider

we made a kazoo from two sticks and a rubber band

we enjoyed a tractor ride around the orchard

we picked apples

we enjoyed each other

we ate carmel apples

we loved it!

why we homeschool

it has always been our intention to home school our children. before the

mister and i were even married we discussed homeschooling our children.

we were set on it, we were gonna do it, there was no questions in our

minds... until we actually had children. this little being came into our

life and everything we thought we already knew wasn't quite what we

thought. we started to question ourselves. is this the right thing for her?

how will this affect her when she's older? is she going to feel different?

sheltered? what about friends? and on and on and on. it was mainly me

(the over-thinker). i started to second guess our decision mainly because

i felt alone. none of our kid friends were taking this route. i had no

connection to homeschooling besides the fact that i had actually been

homeschooling the little miss from the beginning of her life.

(we all are home schoolers whether we like it or not, right?)

so, i spent the last year researching and preparing for this coming school

year. we have found a method that we think will be compatible to our

lifestyle and beneficial to the little miss. we also hooked up with a great

group that i feel privileged to be a part of. we officially started "kindergarten"

this last tuesday and here's how it went...

learning in nature

my students

our nature friends found this bunny tail at the beginning of our hike

crossing over the creek

running through the labyrinth

we found this half eaten craw fish.

the little miss needed to take this one home.

time for art - she drew the waterfall that we saw on our hike

i didn't get a photo of it, but that's okay because i like her drawing better

looking for a stick to use as a fishing pole

fishing in the creek

i like this.

i like nature.

i love homeschooling.

there's no doubts.

on the shelf

if you don't know this already we love books over here.

we have a lot of books and i keep buying a lot of books

and we just can't get enough books around here. we

will be starting our first official year of homeschooling

this coming week. our main "curriculum" consists of

reading, reading and more reading. to organize my

thoughts and our bookshelf i thought it would be

helpful to lump some of our books into months.

because we have so many books i put them into

catergories that i would like to go over with the

little miss through out the school year.

so this is what i did... i organized them accordingly,

stacked them neatly, tied them with twine

and attached a cute little tag i made with my new stamps

i just purchased. i'm pretty pleased with the outcome

and i feel a little more prepared for the school year.

my idea is each month we will unwrap a set of books

and place them in a basket for that month of reading.

of course, we have several shelves of untied books that

are classic and timeless and just need to be enjoyed

year round, but for now i am excited about my book

packages and i look forward to their unwrapping

throughout the year.

here's a few books on our reading list for this year...

beatrix potter collection

little house on the prairie

winnie the pooh series

miss rumphius

five little peppers and how they grew

one morning in maine

the jolly postman

families

mr. pine's mixed up signs

the story of babar

the little island

make way for ducklings

frog and toad

little bear

and the list goes on and on and on......

from our home to yours we hope all of you have a wonderful, successful school year.