My little Pea

Little, yet not so little anymore. He turned one! Sorry, I have no cake to prove it... :( But I DID take photos on his birthday!

I was fortunate to catch him in a great mood.

I wish I could say he's always in such a good mood, but no, not when he's working on 3 or 4 molars!

"But look Mommy, I got up here by myself! (I know I'm not wearing any pants, but Mommy didn't know I was going to climb this 5 gallon bucket with bare legs...)" Hey, I'll bet it worked better without pants anyway! Yeah, otherwise he probably couldn't have done it. Now there's one reason to go pantless.

...my little pea...

Two Peas in a Pod

My oldest two are so friends with each other. I have been thankful for that over and over. Whatever they do together, they do well.


When I started homeschooling Jessica, I soon realized one positive aspect about it that I had never thought about before. I would feel sorry for my big little boy if his sister was in school all day long and he couldn't play with her like he does every day. He will often sit patiently beside her and watch her do her homework or do some coloring beside her, and once she is done, they will run and play again.
Washing dishes can become a very interesting chore. Although I often have to intervene, I have to smile often at the ideas that can be born when two little people stand at the kitchen sink for 30 minutes every day! This includes a lot of science experiments!

He is all up in arms about protecting his sister already. They posed this way and then asked me to take a photo, and I couldn't resist.

Field Trip to the Museum

The homeschoolers made a field trip to a Pioneer Museum. We all had a grand time.

Many of the girls decided to dress up Pioneer style, so I decided to join in on the fun. I never had the chance to dress up Pioneer style when I was little, but I still have a little girl in me, and my daughter loves it when I play dress up with her!

Last week after learning that we were making a field trip and other children where dressing up for it, I scrambled to get a pioneer dress made for Jessica. It was well worth the effort. She likes Laura Ingalls so much, and now she will be able to play Laura when she wants to!

Patiently waiting for the train.

I am sure the kitchens all look very similar in museums, but I never get tired of looking at them and imagining what it would be like to be working in them.

What I found of special interest was this cradle made out of a barrel.

I thought these two looked so cute and alike in their blue dresses and braids.

This is Grandma's glasses, this is Grandma's hat.... :)

"I gotta see what's in here!"

Giggly little girls.

After the museum trip we went to the park in town and had our lunch there and the children had a chance to play.
It's great to be a homeschooler!

Back in time to -- the Civil War Days

My hubby loves American history. He could tell a person a thing or two when it comes to the Civil War. When I found out that there was a battle re-enactment in Lamoni Iowa on Labor Day weekend, I told him about it and sure enough, he wanted to go see it. We went and were impressed. For a re-enactment it was very good.

I assume most of you know what the Civil War was about. If you don't, well, I won't bother to explain it right now.

The blue, versus the gray-

-and the red, hehe.

Let's get em, boys!

Bloody murder. Except in this case there wasn't any real blood. Or real murder, for that matter.

Dem Yankees. Always so uniformed.

Mmmmmm... As for me, I'm glad the North won, and that's all I have to say about it.

Camps. Very authentic.

A cute old-fashioned family. Some of the soldiers hadn't showered for 4 days! Whew. I guess they really took this re-enactment thing to heart.

Aw, lookie here. My little wanna-be-soldier gets to hold the General's pistol. It couldn't get better for a 4 year old than that, can it now? He didn't even know whether to smile or to look mean...

This is Rain Woman, from the Blackfoot tribe. Jessica has waited so long to see a real Indian, and finally had the chance! She felt mighty special to be so close to one.
Ah, the lovely ladies from the civil war era. Too bad my little girl has her eyes closed in this one.

Don't feel too bad for the one-armed soldier. Later on I saw that his arm had grown back. If only it had worked that way in real war.

To hear these canons fire sounded real good! Movies can't make it feel that real. In fact, we both decided this was much better than a movie. We got to see the big picture of what happened all around the fight at the same time, instead of focusing only on a small area.

Maybe some day we can join in on the fun as re-enactors! Yeah, I think we would enjoy that!