Our Schedule

We have a unique schedule working with both families to get everyone's needs met.

A daily schedule often looks like this...

• Get everyone dressed
• Milk the goat
• Big Kids feed the dogs, the cats, the goats, the chickens, and the chicks.
• Have the Littles do their chores.
• Get breakfast.
• Clean up breakfast
• 20 minutes of silent reading for pre-k to 8th grade (The Littles love to look at books!)
• 10 minutes of journal writing
• push-ups, sit-ups, and stretching exercises for everyone (A little exercise makes everyone's brains work better.)
• History, Science, or Oral Reports (This varies based on the day.  We are using Magic School Bus episodes and America the Story of Us DVD's.  The 4 oldest answer worksheets based on their viewing, so they are forced to pay attention and I tailor-make worksheets for my 2nd and 3rd grader. The Littles just enjoy watching some television  and Obie takes in the most basic things like, we had a war with Britain once, germs make us sick, etc. 
• Math
• Spelling 
• Language Arts (This includes parts of speech, writing skills, and Vocabulary work)
• Reading Comprehension

From 8am to 2pm Deb helps get all of these things done as she is able.  She creates hands-on fun and therapeutic activities for the 2 - 3 youngest.  She works on clean-up and (her kids have to carry laundry over here everyday, as she does not have a washer and dryer yet) she starts laundry for both houses and preps lunch. 

After this comes lunch time, lunch time clean-up and nap time for the littles. Deb's kids also head home to finish their household chores at this time.  Once nap-time starts we typically do the other work that needs done around here.  Things like mowing, cleaning up the yard, cleaning the garage, working in the garden, canning and putting away the mountains of laundry, prepping supper, and school prep-work for the following day.

Every week we also attend a local college's homeschool courses for Music and Phys. Ed AND we work with piano and gymnastics twice a week.  Whew!  I am tired just writing it all!

Deb has been amazing in helping me to have that little extra time to pull the Littles to me for love and attention in our busy lives.  She is also fantastic at heading off trauma triggers and like me, she is more accurate than a meteorologist at spotting a storm brewing amongst the kids.  When she gets a job I just pray I can make it without her constant presence.  Even after she finds a different job she plans to help with a few things, which is just fine by me.

Warning! Foster Care Can Lead to Goats

These past 2 weeks have seen the addition of quite a few mammals to our little farm.  We grew by 2 puppies, another 30 chickens, 4 goats, 6 ducks, and a partridge in a pear tree.  Okay, not really the partridge, but you get my point.  I never intended to have 30 more chickens (We had 25 already) and 6 ducks.  That just sort of happened, but the puppies and goats were part of the plan.

This partly explains my absence from blogging (well, that and horrible internet problems).  I have been BUSY.  I also have green beans coming in already, so I am gearing up for picking and canning. I guess we are kind of becoming a homesteading family. At least when I search the internet for answers to my questions I oftentimes end up reading advice from homesteading types.  Over the past couple of years we have been working towards growing and providing as much for our family as we can on our own.  I am no expert, but it has become important to me.

I think the addition of the 3 little boys was definitely a part of the push for me.  I kept thinking about how much food costs have gone up and how they would probably keep going up. At some point I will have 4 boys ranging from 12 -18 years old and if I know anything about boys its that they can clean out a refrigerator in no time.  We get a foster care per diem right now and the boys are little, so it hasn't been too hard on us, but I am trying to think smart and plan to use our resources efficiently to provide well for my family now, and in the future.

 We save so much money by growing our own food, and by buying meat in bulk from the butcher.  Recently a family member came to visit.  Cyrus and Liv were asking why we weren't eating out as we munched on pork burgers, sweet corn, applesauce, and green beans.  We started by adding up the costs of the meal we were currently eating.  Because the produce came from our home and the meat came from the butcher, the meal, which fed 8 of us, cost approximately $4.50.  If we had gone to our favorite "cheap" sit down restaurant it would have been $45 and a tip.  The kids and the visiting family member were duly impressed.  It has been this kind of thinking that has led us down this road of attempting to be more self-sufficient. 

All of that was to explain to you why we now have goats.  Obee can't drink regular milk.  He has some kind of reaction to the lactose.  I have to buy him special milk that costs $4.45 for a half gallon!  That is nearly $10 a gallon!  We had talked about getting goats several times.  Goats would help keep down the annoying weeds in our pasture, they would be wonderful trimmers for the blackberry bushes, we like goats, and we could all drink goat's milk becoming that much more self-sufficient.

We were given Dixie, she is a Boer goat, which is a meat goat and not a dairy goat, but someone asked if we'd be willing to take her as their life no longer permitted a pet goat.  Dixie got the ball rolling.  She ate the weeds, but did not provide any milk, which was what my heart truly desired.  We started looking around and that brought us to our Nubian, Courtnay and her two kids, Stars and Stripes (names chosen by
Cy and Liv). 

Now Courtnay is a first time freshener (I think that's how you say it).  What that means is that these are her first kids and she has NEVER been milked.   I am a first time milker and what that means is Courtnay and I are muddling through as best we can.  I saw Courtnay's Mom get milked.  I practiced on her Mom, and I thought, "No problem!  I've totally got this!"  The one eensy-weensy problem is that Court does not appreciate anyone handling her udder and she has absolutely zero patience for a novice.  After about a week of milking practice we are finally getting measurable milk,  Court still tries to hop, kick, and bump all over the milkstand, but she is beginning to settle and I am starting to improve on this milking thing.  We turned the corner the day I stared her dead in the eye and said, "YOU ARE NOT WINNING THIS!  I took on 3 little boys at one time.  THREE!  If I can do that, then I am definitely more stubborn than you are (Yes, I actually said this out loud to a goat)."  Courtnay, who is currently raising 2 demanding kids must have had sympathy because she settled down after our little chat.

So just remember if you are thinking about going into foster care and maybe adopting this could lead to all kinds of new frontiers you never even dreamed of before.  You might wake up one morning and go out to milk a goat and in some strange way it will be one of the most satisfying things you have ever done.

Parents need "Redo's"

I have noticed that when bad behaviors start they have a tendency to escalate.  They have a tendency to "take over" the person who displays a bad behavior.  Until all of the sudden the grouchy moment, becomes a grouchy day, and then it becomes a grouchy weekend.  I see this in my kids all the time, and I see it clearly in myself.  When my children screw up  I sometimes offer my children the chance to redo a bad behavior in the hopes that by redoing the behavior properly they will begin to develop better behavior.  I also just want to arrest that moment to keep the cycle from continuing.  Well, after some really stressed out moments over the weekend I was feeling like maybe I needed to be able to use "redo's" myself.

I kind of decided loosely to allow myself these moments. It may not mean anything to my children, but it is a huge thing for me to swallow my pride and go back and redo a yucky moment.  When I screw up and I know it, I am going to go back to my kiddos and complete a "redo" to the best of my ability.

Case in point... Tyke did not want to nap, he was being difficult, I was getting inappropriately grouchy with him.  I left the room, came back in and "redid" my nap time voice and mannerisms.  We did nap time and Tyke's last interaction before drifting off to sleep was Mommy Manda  behaving well, not immaturely.

Yes, I love the Lord.  Yes, I am a foster mom.  Yes, I asked for this gig.  Still, I am not going to lie and pretend like that means I have it all figured out.  I am not a better Christian than most.  I am selfish.  I am immature.  I am a giant grouch sometimes.   I have to deal with myself in prayer, over, and over, and over again.  Yes, I pray for my family, but more and more I pray for me.  I am not asking the Lord to calm me down, or just give me some peace for today, I am asking him to go in and remove those parts of me that don't bring him glory.  I don't want to push them under the rug anymore I want purified.  When you purify something the impurities get removed.  They don't stay a part of the purified object.  My heart needs purification to continue to walk this path in a way that will bring Him the most glory.  Tonight I am begging the Lord "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." Psalm 51:10

An Admission

Do you ever get sad and have no energy for life?  Do you ever feel like it's all meaningless? I am an optimist by nature so this is rare for me, but last week I was really struggling with Depression.  There I said it.  It's something I did not want to admit.  For me it felt like I was somehow saying that all of God's blessings were somehow not enough.  I was so disgusted with myself and I was just praying to snap out of it.  I finally got the depression commercial where the woman is a walking wind-up toy.  That is exactly how I was feeling!


I clean the house because I am supposed to... Blah.
I do schoolwork because I am supposed to... Blah.
I attend this event because I am supposed to, I smile because I am supposed to, and I snuggle my babies because I am supposed to.  Blah.  Blah. Blah.

My husband made one teeny tiny comment about my lack of motivation around the home (trust me it was apparent!) and I got mad and then sad and it all just burst out on him, and he took it like the manly man he is and very simply told me my feelings were ok.

I have really struggled because I felt like it wasn't ok to be so sad about an empty house when obviously that is in the higher plan for now.  I did not want to mention it to myself or anyone else.  In a way he kind of set me free in that moment.  I felt free to be sad at least between Ryan and me.

I am doing much better this week, and I learned one little thing about myself that I am acknowledging and accepting.  I like having a full house.  I like having kids spend the day, the night, whenever!  Even if they don't talk to me, it fills something in me.  I love having friends over and sharing our lives.  I am happiest when I am with people.  I draw energy from interaction.  I know there are people that draw energy from quiet reflection but not me.

Now, how to put a nice bow on it all?  Through this process the Lord is teaching me about who I am and what I need.  I am learning about what encourages me and what an amazing man I married.  My husband is my best friend.  When I am low he doesn't yell at me to get out of the silly hole I am in; he comes and holds my hand (at the kitchen counter) and tells me its okay.    In some way that helps me to be okay again.