Wake (and my new essential oil shelf)

Wake. Wipe the sleep from my eyes. Kiss Baby F on his head and slowly try to creep out of bed without waking him. Start my coffee. Feed the water kefir and start a new batch. Check on the kombucha. Smile at it (the instructions that came with it told me to do so). Rinse the sprouts and place in the windowsill if need be. Coffee is ready. Pour a cup. Wander outside in the brisk morning air to walk the garden and sip my coffee. Enough cucumbers to make pickles yet? Make a mental note to harvest some more calendula today. Go back inside. Start some sort of breakfast for the kiddos. Wake them up and begin our day.

I am savoring every moment of the new morning rhythm I have fallen into these past couple of weeks. It feels odd typing that. I have always been a night owl and loathed the morning time. But now, as our homeschool year begins, I am starting to appreciate the beauty of time spent alone with my thoughts in the early morning light. What a difference that short amount of time makes in a day.

You can see by the first two photographs that Baby F is quite proud of his new abilities. Maybe even happy over his finished baa-ble hat, too? He has been pulling himself up on everything and anything sending me into a bit of a baby proofing frenzy. He is still so tiny which makes the sight of him standing all the more funny. We also had to put our mattress on the floor due to his daredevil antics. Somehow I forgot about the mattress on the floor stage of babyhood. Then again, we only had to previously do it with Little L.

Kevin turned my last vintage berry crate from a farm in Oregon into a shelf for my rather unreasonable essential oil collection (remember my last one?). Well, I thought it was an unreasonable collection until I saw it all on the shelf - I still have plenty of room for more oils! The girls alphabetized my oils for me before we moved them. I wish I had better photos of the finished product but we have harsh fluorescent lighting and no windows in our bathrooms in this house. But trust me - it is great!

p.s. - We are all over the stomach bug! Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers.

Wake (and my new essential oil shelf)

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

The act of creating, in one form or another, preserves my sanity amongst the chaos of life. This explains why I always have more than one project going at a time as well as why my housework tends to fall behind. I enjoy seeing what others are working on and keeping calm with, too. What are you creating? What is keeping you going? Snap a picture or two and share it with the rest of us by leaving your link below.
I almost thought I wouldn't be able to take a photograph let alone post tonight but thankfully I am having a small break from all sickness in our house.

Look at the baa-bles!! I am in the homestretch now. I finished Baby F's hat over the weekend and posted my mods to make it infant sized on my rav page. The only hat left is Kevin's and he is still choosing his colors. He said he wants something boring neutral. His hat might be a bit more time consuming because I am adding our two german shepherds in with the flock of sheep. I am using this border collie chart but then will hopefully modify them to be shepherds.

What are you working on? Happy creating!

An InLinkz Link-up

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

The act of creating, in one form or another, preserves my sanity amongst the chaos of life. This explains why I always have more than one project going at a time as well as why my housework tends to fall behind. I enjoy seeing what others are working on and keeping calm with, too. What are you creating? What is keeping you going? Snap a picture or two and share it with the rest of us by leaving your link below.

I am done with the three girls' hats. Woo hoo, halfway there! I just might get this project done in time after all. Now I am on to the boys, starting with Little L. He requested blues and greys, or what he calls "sharky colors".

What are you working on? Happy creating!

An InLinkz Link-up

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

Books, bookcases and homeschooling

After a few rough days around the house I decided to start homeschooling tomorrow instead of in September like I originally planned. I think all of my children, but the two oldest in particular, could really use the rhythm change. We are ridiculously behind with our schooling anyways so this will be good. I just dread all the work ahead of me and how Baby F will be during lessons (he is the reason we had to put homeschooling on hold in the first place). The girls also start AHG back up tomorrow as well. We are in for one hectic, transitional day for sure. Say a prayer for me, please!

In other news, I finished painting my bookcase. The blue turned out a lot lighter than the paint chip showed but I still really like it. I used a paint that had primer in it but it still ended up needing five coats. Next time I will just go ahead and buy a separate can of primer to speed things up. I really wanted to distress the bookcase but after doing all of those coats of paint I am afraid of how it will turn out. So for now I will just leave it as it is. I took that photograph of it before I moved it to it's new home at the end of our hallway. It really dark down there so I knew I wouldn't be able to capture it's color there.

Those books you see on the nightstand are K's current reads. She got fed up with the kids versions/re-telling of Robin Hood so we just went ahead and found the real thing. She is such a bookworm. I can't seem to keep her in books, she reads them so fast. I am rather picky about what she reads, too, making it that much harder to keep up a good supply. Classics are always good, though. She loves Anne of Green Gables and re-reads it regularly. I would LOVE any books suggestions you may have for her (5th grader, almost 11 years old and reading above her age level). I just purchased Lark Rise to Candleford to give to her on her birthday. I think she'll enjoy that.

Oh and you see that sweet, big-eyed, smiley baby? I took those photographs right after we finished a 5K run on base. The whole run he was either insanely happy or contently sleeping. This must be the secret to his happiness that I have been searching for for six months now - just keep running!! AND if you looks really close in that first photograph of him you can see his very first tooth popped through. His second one is on the way. 

One last thing - I wanted to apologize for falling so far behind on responding to comments. I am not ignoring you!! I am hoping to play catch up later this week.

Books, bookcases and homeschooling

Three Island Crossing (Back on the Oregon Trail)

Last weekend my family and I traveled to Three Island Crossing State Park in Glenns Ferry, Idaho for the Three Island Crossing re-enactment and celebration. We have had a love for all things Oregon Trail related since we traveled the trail ourselves back in 2009 (you can see our adventures here), so this re-enactment was something we were all looking forward to. The girls even created special outfits for the trip. Unfortunately, at the last minute the officials deemed the river levels too high for safe crossing and cancelled the re-enactment. We decided to still head out there for the festivities anyways.

We all enjoyed walking the trails the pioneers did and taking it all in but the weather was excruciatingly hot. Our children were having quite a hard time with it (one in particular was just having quite the rough week) which took away their enthusiasm for the history and beauty we were witnessing. It made me think of the pioneer families who suffered through it before me. I wonder how they handled the heat exhaustion and the meltdowns. We stayed only a few hours and then decided that if we really wanted to discover all the bits of history there, it would be better for all involved if we came back in the early autumn. At least now we have something more to look forward to!

On a related note, I thought I would share some of our favorite Oregon Trail/Pioneer books with all of you. We spent the week before the trip re-reading them all.

Younger children:
Apples to Oregon
Papa and the Pioneer Quilt
Prairie Day
Best Friends

 Non-Fiction:
 If You Traveled West In A Covered Wagon
 The Oregon Trail
Lewis and Clark
Laura Ingalls Wilder An Author's Story

Chapter books:
Bound for Oregon
The American Girl Kirsten series 
Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell (Dear America series)
 The Little House books

I should add that these chapter books were fast reads (aka a bit too easy) for K but just right for C.

I also picked up Reading, Writing and Riding Along the Oregon-California Trails to add to our collection while at the museum gift shop. I am looking forward to using it with the girls in the coming weeks. Do any of your have Oregon Trail related children's books you love that I didn't mention? I would especially love to know of any for K's age range that might be more at her reading level.

Three Island Crossing (Back on the Oregon Trail)

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

The act of creating, in one form or another, preserves my sanity amongst the chaos of life. This explains why I always have more than one project going at a time as well as why my housework tends to fall behind. I enjoy seeing what others are working on and keeping calm with, too. What are you creating? What is keeping you going? Snap a picture or two and share it with the rest of us by leaving your link below.
Working on C's baa-ble hat now. Once I have it finished I will be halfway there! Then on to the three boys.  Little L wants "sharky colors" for his hat. We'll see exactly what he has in mind soon.

What are you working on? Happy creating!

An InLinkz Link-up

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

I Don't Do It All

A favorite photograph of mine taken in May (so, no you are not crazy for thinking Baby F looks smaller!)
 
Hey everyone! Has the thought ever crossed your mind that I seem to accomplish a lot? Well, I promise I don't! Want proof, such as my loathe of carpets and *gasp* my feelings on homeschooling? While I am at it, have I ever mentioned how creating keeps me sane?! Come join me over at my friend Bethany's blog Baking Humble Pie. I had the privilege of doing a guest post for her "I Don't Do It All" series. While you are over there check out the other posts in the series, too. I have so enjoyed reading each one of them.

Now off on some Oregon Trail adventures we go! Happy weekending, friends!

I Don't Do It All

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

The act of creating, in one form or another, preserves my sanity amongst the chaos of life. This explains why I always have more than one project going at a time as well as why my housework tends to fall behind. I enjoy seeing what others are working on and keeping calm with, too. What are you creating? What is keeping you going? Snap a picture or two and share it with the rest of us by leaving your link below.
Does painting count as crafting? I hope so because all I have had time for these past few days is painting coat after coat of paint on this bookshelf. The wood is really dark and the paint color I chose ended up being much lighter than I expected so I have a feeling I will be working on this for quite awhile.
What are you working on? Happy creating!

An InLinkz Link-up

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

His First

Those eyelashes! They are so long! Rabbitbrush The very best of friends This was about our halfway point. Can you see the building at the bottom blending in with the trees? That is where we started from. Curly dock Exhausted after our hike After the hike photo by C. Ignore my postpartum hair, it is so thin now all I can do is pull it back in a bun. Burdock Baby F went for his first real hike today. It is hard to believe (for me) that it has taken this long for him to get out with us, but then again he doesn't enjoy leaving the house much. That's okay, though. It was a beautiful hike up in the Owyhee Mountains and he actually fared very well, despite the unbearable heat. He slept through a good chunk of the hike on my back and was awake and chipper as we ate our dinner over the campfire afterwards.

The children and I had fun identifying plants and figuring out what their uses were as we hiked (like rabbitbrush for dyeing wool and curly dock for eating as well as dyeing wool. Both of which came home with us). I have become quite obsessed with finding uses for everyday weeds over the past few years. Oregon had so many we could use. I am still learning what is around us here in Idaho but there seems to be quite a few.

You see that photograph C took of Kevin, Baby F and I? Up until she took it we didn't have any photos of the three of us together. I am treasuring that photo, even if I am a sweaty mess.

Apparently I am quite exhausted from our hike as I can not seem to put words together so I think I had better sign off here and go get some rest! I hope you all had as wonderful of a weekend as we did!

His First