High School to House Wife....We Were Wed...

Our wedding day was magical....as I hope most are! Everything came together so easily and beautifully. So many special people showed up to show their love and support. I was so excited to see so many that had come.

The night before the wedding, my maids of honor stayed the night with me and we stayed up late talking and getting prettied up for the big day. Just before the ceremony I was starting to feel a little iffy in the stomach. I had not eaten much and I was starting to feel sick from lack of food. So I asked someone in the bride room to go get me some saltine crackers and gatorade from the store to help calm my stomach. What was I thinking not eating enough anyway? It had been such a busy day I guess it slipped my mind. I felt relatively calm aside from the fear of puking somewhere inappropriate like say....in front of hundreds. I hear Mr Wonderful was a little nervous in his room though......was it because he heard his bride was sick to her stomach? (as in cold feet? Which wasn't the case I assure you.).......When the food arrived I found out it was Mr Wonderful who had ran to the store for me and got me what I needed. Was that not the sweetest thing? Gulp....I am getting all tingly just thinking about it.

As I look towards my groom and we see each other for the first time this special day....I am giddy. Does my dad look TOO eager to give me away? Hey wait a minute!

Can anyone guess what he's thinking? Kinda looks like he's thinking about later that night huh?

"Good Trade"

"Sealin' The Deal!"

"Yes!"

Working on another Highschool to Housewife post...

I AM working on the next chapter of Highschool to Housewife BUT I can't seem to lay my hands on our wedding album which is kinda important for this post beings it is about our wedding. Darn it! I will go searching, I promise, but be patient as it takes a lot of time to scan and edit pics once I actually find them...where ever they are!

In the mean time I figured I would share which picture Sierra chose to enter in the county fair for her photography.

Style Review....4-H Modeling

Sunshine entered what is called Style Review. It is a great competition focusing on poise, interview skills, and grace. I think is is such a wonderful experience. This is her 3rd year doing this event and she did such a good job and had great confidence and excitement about it. To participate you have to have made your own garment, the judges interview you and ask you all about your garment and the process of making it and other things you enjoy etc. She did great. When asked by the judges what was the hardest part about her project she replied. "The hardest part was definately keeping the cat off the ironing board as we were making it and the understitching around the neckline." The judges laughed so hard and she was all giggles so I was happy to see her so confident and to see her visiting with the judges and not being too shy. It was a neat thing to see for me as a Mom.:) In the evening there was a public fashion show where they all had to model on a large stage with lights and a crowd, another GREAT experience. She did really well with that as well, I was not able to take pictures of that because my camera just is not good at low light stuff like that when the subject is more than about 10 ft away.:(

There was a newspaper photographer there and she said he asked for her name and age so maybe just maybe she will be in the paper! Whoo Hoo. That would be so cool, she'd love that! Then out came the little Diva....refusing anymore photos......(What? This in only the 50th shot come ON!)

Just kidding!!!

She was awarded Reserve Champion at the evening style review....I captured this next picture...I cropped it to just her because there are kids on either side and obviously I wouldn't post pics of other peoples kids without permission.:)
It was such a wonderful day....unfortunately very few pics in the building turned out, so we took a bunch at home around the yard. Also here are some video clips of the judging portion (not the evening style show).

Fair Time...

Well it is that time of year, county fair time. We are taking this week to finish up fair entries and make those last minute things. We have one outfit for style review (kinda like a mini modeling competition to teach girls about interview skills as well as manners) then we have a little jam to be made, some cookies to be baked, and Sunshine decided she will be making a yeast bread....yes she is fearless! Tobers is going to make a pet rock to enter and peanut butter cookies. He is pretty excited.

Last year I swore we were not going to be doing fair again. I don't care for the atmosphere at our local fair. I'd prefer to be able to participate in neighboring counties with less of a commercial feel or something but this is the county we are stuck in and my kids really wanted to enter things. So this year, instead of going on an evening when Mr Wonderful can go, we will be going on a weekdays midday or mornings. I don't really like crowds and I prefer to be able to relax and enjoy rather than be rushed around. So Mr Wonderful will miss out seeing it but at least we will probably enjoy ourselves more and it will be cheaper thanks to the local reading program issuing free passes for kids once they hit a certain amount of time reading.:)

I will try to post pics as we work on these projects this week.:)

Organization...

Organization is a tough one for me. I try, I really do, but in a few days it is all undone and I get discouraged. I am not a naturally organized person, I am more along the lines of creative and free spirit flying by the seat of my pants. The problem with that is that the seat of my pants doesn't seem to fly me to the routines I need to be doing. It just doesn't automatically happen without me making a list or something to go by.

These past 2 weeks I have been concentrating on building a framework of a routine. Why the sudden importance on a routine? Well, I was starting to feel really overwhelmed and not sure about the task of homeschooling another year. In fact I considered sending them to public school this year. I just felt like I was falling thru on so many things even though school itself went really well last year. I was not doing as well the the overall balance of things that are important to me that get done, like making good meals for dinner, or keeping the house presentable, or my own health and weightloss etc. There didn't seem to be enough to go around for everything and everyone that needed something.

So two weeks ago I realized WOW it is so much easier to stay more ontop of things that it is to let them pile up like laundry, dishes, and other cleaning. I have some great routines in place as well as some handy check off sheets. They are helping me a great deal and I can already start to feel many of the things becoming automatic.

I think it boiled down to priorities. It really is important to me that I homeschool the kids. I can see the difference in them. The problem with the cenario up till now is that school was first for me, once school was done I would kinda relax and feel like I did my deed for the day and I'd not be as connected with the kids for the rest of the day. I had to change my focus onto being a more connected Mom all day and not so much energy going into only the schooling part. Also keeping the house neater frees up my energies to be doing fun things, and making nice dinners, and my mind is clearer when DH gets home.

Also I am taking more deliberate time for devotions and prayer time. It seems to be helping me to focus on how I want Jesus to be the center of my day and how I can learn to be more focused on his plan for this family.

This week is Vacation Bible School for the 3 older kids. They are really enjoying it and I am enjoying the quiet time in the mornings with just Whippersnapper. I am getting a lot of cleaning and dejunking done around here too.

Anyway I have been learning alot from my fellow homeschooling Mom's about organization, routines, and smart tips for managing the chaos that seems to come with homeschooling.

We are tentatively starting school next Monday! The kids are excited, well Sunshine and Tobers are anyway. Spud Man hopefully will get there. I think he will once he sees how different this year will be compared to last year. Things will be alot more relaxed and the goal is to teach the love of learning and the ability to find where everyone can learn what they would like to learn. As well as the more traditional schooling. I have to keep in mind I can teach all day long but if the kids have no connection or interest with what I am teaching it is a waste of my time, it is like a gallon of teaching for an ounce of learning. So I have to be careful that I am not going thru the motions and they still aren't reaping the benefits of my time. It is a balancing system that can be tricky some days.

So here is to a more organized school year!! Sunshine in 5th grade, Spud Man starts 1st grade, Tobers is doing preschool and Whippersnapper is learning what toddlers learn best....everything new and exicting in his world!

Adventures...

A couple weeks ago we went out to my parents ranch. It is only about 15 mins away and they have a nice creek about 75ft out the front door. I spent many summers there playing for hours on end. I took the kids down to the creek to play while my Mom and I sat in lawn chairs and chatted. 2 of the kids' cousins also came to play. We'd been there about an hour and noticing a doe in the creek about 50 yards away and she looked like she was escaping the heat in the water like we were, except she just appeared to be feeding long the edges of the creek and meandering around. So we had been chatting and watching the kids play up and down the creek from us. I noticed our doe had left after an hour of being there. Then about 15 mins later I noticed something low to the ground coming out of the brush right where the deer was no longer there, first I thought maybe a beaver because it was moving so slow and so short, then more of it came out of the bush and a little more and then I realized it had a big long tail! It was a cougar on it's belly creeping out to the edge of the water and it got a drink....about this time once we realized what it was started yelling for the kids to get out of the water and get to the house (thank goodness it was so close). We got the kids to safety and the last time I looked at the cougar it was sitting up looking at us. Thank goodness it didn't try to chase us! I doubt it would have. It wasn't a very large cougar but still a cougar 50 yards from where my children were playing in the water! YIKES! Anyway that was enough excitement for one day! LOL

They called the state trapper (who is entirely too busy in our area with cougar sightings etc) and he was supposed to come out and track it with dogs but we never knew if he actually made it out there or not.:( Unfortunately the surrounding areas are getting overrun with cougars. Ever since they changed the law about not hunting them with dogs. They have no fear of humans like they once did and the younger ones (because there are so many more of them now) are getting pushed into more populated areas because their mom's push them out of their territory etc. Anyway I think this one was a younger one because it wasn't real big but they tend to be more dangerous because they are inexperienced hunters and are more tempted to try to attack a human and they are more bold IMO. This isn't the first time we have seen cougars out there over tthe past several years but when we were growing up we had never seen a cougar on the ranch......as much as we were all over that land on horseback and on foot it is amazing. Now we see several a month.:(

That was the week I decided to stay off the internet for 1 full week! No internet so that I could make sure and think about my priorities and take some time to think about life, these precious kids. It was the best thing I could have done, it got me out doing things I don't normally do and we had quite an adventure of a week!!! First there was a huge windstorm at my parents that blew over about 30 trees and we had to cut trees out of the road and the kids all got to ride in an excavator and see the guys falling trees etc. It was pretty neat and the kids were loving it. Then the cougar sighting the next day, we also did several fun things that week like sewing Sunshine's 4-H project, going to Tri Cities for fabric shopping etc. It was a very good time and I can definitely see myself limiting internet for several days per week or another week at some point just to keep my focus on life going on around us.:)