Ugh.

 

I may be smiling in this picture, but my body is saying otherwise.

I don't want to say this, because I.HATE.HIKING.

But...

I need to do more hiking.

 

Now, I'm going to go apply more heat to my aches.

 

 

(Love you, honey.)

Run 'em ragged.

 

Yesterday, we went on a picnic and went hiking. It was a wonderful day to be outside. They were in there happy place. It made for such a perfect Monday.

 

We also made a stop at the teacher supply store. In other words, I went shopping while the littles tore it up and Holden ran crowd control. The looks are now taken with a grain of salt. I got it done and that's what matters, right?
As Dane Cook says, "I did my best!..I did my best!.."
 

We've pushed bedtimes back to later. Last night was even pretty late for our usual 7 o'clockers. Since the hubby's new job hours have kicked in this week, we decided that we needed to tweak bedtimes. It's bittersweet. Bitter because the littles are still waking up at their normal before the sun, you're definitely not ready to wake up yet times. However the big is taking well to the new switch. Thanks to a loud box fan and PBS Kids, the littles keep fairly quite, once you get 'em downstairs. The key is to get to them before they can rise and shine their big brother, which seems to be our middle son's goal every morning. He loves his big brother.

It makes sense to me: go to bed later = sleep later.
We're just not there yet.



Why do they get up so early????
I better make some more coffee.

Oh me

 

 

One of our favorite family things to do is to go hiking. I wouldn't say it's this girl's favorite thing to do :) but when most of your family is made up of boys, hiking is what you do. Plus, there's nothing like watching your boys run free in beautiful open fields. Truly. When we're out hiking, they're in there earthly heaven and I wouldn't give anything to miss that- except.......

 

Yesterday at church, I wore a belt over my sweater and it kept bothering me. I had worn the same outfit before and never had an issue. I kept thinking, "Is it on too tight?" And so I would loosen it up, but when that didn't make a difference, I changed as soon as we got home. I felt like I had a sore on the side of my back. When I looked in the mirror, I realized that our lovely fall hike had left me with more than sweet memories and a handful of freakin amazing instagram photos, it had left me with a tick. Yes, this girl said tick. Gross. Please excuse me while I go take another shower... The honey was sweet enough to remove it for me. That's something you never think you're going to have to ask your husband. Scream!!!!!!"Honey, can you please help me remove this tick?" That's sexy at it's finest, right there. That's also real life and real love.

 

After googling ticks and pictures of the ones that carry Lymes Disease, I'm going to make an appointment with my doctor today and get on some antibiotics. If anything, just for peace of mind.

 

I'm thinking homeschool might look a little different today...Perhaps, we'll be educating ourselves on tick safety before, during, and after a hike. I think we all might could benefit from that!
 

With Thanksgiving this week, and our traditional Christmas decorating on Black Friday, we have lots and lots of errands to run to get ready for it all. I've been blessed with three little tinies who love to cook and you better believe I'm going to put them to work! One of the things I've come to embrace during this very new journey of homeschool is that everything becomes apart of learning for us. Cooking includes math and real life application. Now that we're immersed in homeschool, I'm realizing just how many opportunities there are in a day to teach my children- too many to count!

 

On a different note, I read a wonderful post, this morning, from Life in Grace, titled, My poverty (and yours). I think you should read it too :)