EKjourney Backup

Glorielle turned 7, July 26th.   Since she is my baby, every passing year takes me further away from the baby stage of life.  It hardly seems possible that we are this far removed from that seemingly long stage in life where I was pregnant, nursing, juggling babies, toddlers, and little ones, where our life revolved around diapers, meals, naps, and playtime.  This current stage of life with elementary aged children, pre teens, and just entering the teens is so different with our focus being on character training and education instead of playdough and naps.  In some ways easier, in some ways harder.  In just 3 short years, all of my children will be in the double digits and my oldest child will be eligible for a driver's license.  I suspect our focus will continue to be character refinement, education, and preparation to launch into the world. Sweet last little baby They were all so little! So, this big girl is my hat girl.  She loves hats and wear...

It was a perfect week for working outside with the temperatures cooling into the lower 80's instead of awful mid 90's.  Phil and the children cleaned out the dry room and hauled many many loads from storage.  Under the trees, we have 3 big piles: yard items, Goodwill items, and garbage.  We will continue adding to these while the barn gets cleaned out this week.  Meanwhile, I went through boxes and clutter piles in the house, hung pictures, dusted and wiped down surface areas, and added a ton of things to the Goodwill pile!   This week, the temperature are back up into the miserable range and Phil will be working on the barn clean and I will be planning for our homeschool year.  Phil goes back to work a week from today.  I miss him already!  I am thankful that we have had these two weeks to prepare for school and I am hoping for a productive week so I am planned and organized before we start the new year. Piles under the tree. We leveled out ...

We have been so busy this month with cleaning, unpacking and purging, kids activities, Phil's gone for almost a week, and hauling the rest of our stuff from their various storage areas.  We have a little more than a week before Phil goes back to work and we have been working long hours trying to prepare ourself for the next school year.   Beautiful evening lighting: Phil was cutting the boy's hair and I didn't want to see Brighton's beautiful curls go.  I asked Phil to give him a mohawk.  Phil did and then realized I wasn't joking about leaving it that way.  I love the way it turned out.  Phil is getting used to it LOL. This picture was taken on the day that my Gram passed away.  It was a very hard couple of weeks.  I was very impacted by her end days and her passing. So peaceful (taken on the 7th). Phil had a conference in Seattle: Banana art? Meanwhile, I tried to plan something fun for the children every day. Smores after working hard outs...