Flashback.... Wednesday?

Yeah, I know... there are other titled days and things that occur on the internet, like Throwback Thursday and all that jazz... but since I don't spend much time in the online social world, I can just do my own thing and not give a darn about whether or not my Flashback Wednesday makes sense to anyone but me.

I don't even know how I got started on this path, but I think it had something to do with coming across a picture from last spring when I had decided that maybe eating gluten free actually wasn't necessary for me (or perhaps it just involved me really wanting real, live, actual Pizza, or an Auntie Anne's Pretzel, or anything made with flour that actually tastes good...) and so I went back to eating regular (including gluten/wheat) for a day (and it tasted gooood....) and it totally gave me that whomping headache back just the way it was before, and it also did this to my stomach:

We affectionately call it my "Gluten Baby" every time it occurs, and believe me, it's hard, solid and completely poke-able.  Roger, the kids, even the neighbors have poked the Gluten Baby to make sure it's real.  Pretty funky and weird, right?  And may I add, uncomfortable??

I took a picture in the same pants the next day to show what my stomach normally looks like, on the gluten-free, flavor-free diet.  

But, I'm getting ahead of myself here.  So, back to how we got to Flashback Wednesday.  I wondered about how my 20-week, 5 month pregnant belly NOW compared to the Gluten Baby belly picture, and so I went digging for the picture.  And in doing that, well, then I wanted to see all my newborns on the same page.  And then, I wondered about Christmas pics from every year (that I could find, you know that digital picture thing happened at some point AFTER I had my first two kids, at least for me). 

So, without further adieu, here are my sweet little newborns:

Chase, 2003

(Maybe 1 day old?....nice, grainy camera.... hahaha)

Indigo, 2005

(Day she was born, as you can see on the 35mm printout)

Riley, 2010

(About an hour after birth)

RJ, 2012

(He's about a minute old in this photo, after they pinched him to wake him up since he wanted to remain sleeping after being born)

I think out of the 4 kids, Chase definitely wins for most hair!!

And here are the Flashback Christmas pics, starting with 2007.....

Ages 2 and 4

I have no idea where we were, but it was December as this was in my December 2008 folder... aren't we so cute?

Kids 2008, 3 and 5 years old.  And wow, our old blue living room!  And no giant fish tank in our dining area!  

The 4 of us in 2008

So, it was really bright and about 4 days until Christmas when I drug my kids out in the snowy cold (did I mention bright??) to quick get this shot before I had to get to work so we could get a card printed and get them out in the mail to friends and family... I ended up yelling at them to keep their darn eyes open and of course got all these fake funny faces instead.

But we managed to pull off a pretty decent card anyways.  Ages 4 and 6 now.

New addition in 2010, ages 5 months, 5 and 7. 

Nothing says Happy Holidays like the baby eating the lights... and look at our half-finished hardwood flooring in the master bedroom.  

Even the "best" one of all of us looked like it actually belongs on a Motivational Poster somewhere on the 'net... so we just went with.... 

...this one on our holiday card.  

In 2011 we got fancy and had pajamas with names on them....oooooh.  Ages 17 months, 6 and 8.

Santa brought another baby in 2012.  Or the Stork.  Or somebody.  He's frickin' cute. 

I didn't know it then, but this innocent 4.5 month old face is trying to tell me to prepare myself for a wild, wild ride over the next 3 years.

The girls are cute, too.  

My photog friend had some neat ideas. 

2012 - ages 4.5 months, 2.5 years. 7 and 9 years old. 

In 2013, we still have our orange living room, which replaced the blue in 2010!  My girls are growing older.  

I used a groupon for JCPenney's photo studio and got pics done, because we like, never spend our money on that.  2013 - ages 16 months, 3, 8, and 10. 

I used my happy, dressed up homeschoolers in my Christmas photo last year.  2014 - ages 2, 4, 9, and 11.  I seem to have a recollection that I gave up about halfway thru enveloping, addressing and stamping cards last year..., and if memory serves me, people with last names starting with "M" onward may or may not have actually received our Christmas card... whoops.

And for this year's shot, well, it's pretty darn adorable.  But you'll have to wait until you get it in the mail.  If you're on the good list, you know.  In the meantime, here's one from this year that we didn't use:

2015 - ages 3, 5, 10, and 12.

Homeschool Happenings Around Here

Last year, which was our inaugural Homeschool Attempt, I had given myself the goal of Having My Shit Together by the end of October.  And, low and behold, we somehow did.  

We found our groove and held onto it for dear life and continued strong into November and December, made it through the holidays unscathed and past January and the snow and even through February, that dreary month where Homeschool Blogs warn about "the February Slump" and discuss that just about everybody falls off in February, and somehow we didn't, we just kept going into March, and by then, we'd trucked through enough days of real, actual learning to know that we could slack now and then and still be done (according to the law) long before June.  And so, as it warmed up, we took more days off and explored the backyard, and then came back and hit school hard and mixed that up for a while until it was June, and we (I mean I) put together the portfolios that were no longer legally necessary in PA and had our wonderful evaluator come by and then, wham!  It was done.  

And now it's another end-of-October and, I can safely say, We Have Our Shit Together, again.  I have mentioned previously that we started light, in the summer still, here and there when it was disgusting hot outside or when it just felt right to crack open the books.  September brought a slacker week that we spent doing Not-Back-To-School activities with our Homeschool Group.  And, we even had two road trips in between now and then, a weekend and a week, where we did No School.  I had quite an enlightening moment in the beginning of the year when I realized, not by thinking of it the first time as it was information that I knew already, but I guess actually realizing, that instead of just teaching Riley "kindergarten" around the big kids' schooling last year, that she was actually in the mix, the real-deal mix this year as a Bona-Fide 1st Grader, seeing how we had clearly finished Kinder last year.  It was a real Oh Shit moment, let me tell you, to now have 3 "real" homeschoolers to keep tabs on, instead of 2 and a pretty-easy Kinder and a toddler to keep underfoot.  I quickly threw together a 3rd portfolio binder and ordered a 1st Grade math program and off we went.  

I was not concerned about RJ and any "preschool" in the least.  Honestly, just being in this family, he gets enough homeschool off-gassing that he is just fine.  I think the "Homeschool Preschool" curriculum out on the 'net is, a crock of shit, for the most part.  I much prefer natural exposure to learning for that age of children.  But, as a natural consequence of being the 4th in a homeschooling family, he was like, "Where the heck is MY school, Mom??"  So I printed him some stuff, grabbed some workbooks that Riley had never used, and sat him down when he requested it, which was pretty often, I must say, and as he already has letter and number recognition down pat, worked on letter and number writing, tracing shapes, sorting, classifying, identifying and all kinds of other wonderful things. 

In the meantime, we were watching my same-RJ-aged nephew on Tuesdays and Thursdays while his mama does her student-teaching locally.  This nephew goes to preschool part-time from 9 to 12, so here we are, walking him across the street to preschool and picking him up 4 times a week.  So then, I had this brilliant idea to let RJ go to school WITH him during that same time.  Mostly so he can hang out with his cuz, but also to have an opportunity to see what he is like in a school setting (since the other 3 all had something at some point) and lastly, it does allow me to devote some real hardcore time to office work during those hours, as the other 3 can be set up to work independently during that time.  Much to our surprise, and despite my 3-minute long speech to the teachers of potential RJ disaster areas, he is, at school, a perfect-behaving little bean.  So far.  Really, he could be just getting warmed up.  Time will tell...

RJ and Cuz on RJ's 1st Day of Preschool, wearing a Steam Train shirt and Thomas hat, of course. 

And so here are a few pictures of Us and School to add to my boring verbage about how our Homeschool Has Its Shit Together this year.  Sadly, and I must take note of this, there aren't any pictures of my completely independent and totally responsible 7th grader doing his work.  

We really like Riley's new math program.  It's interactive and uses counters a lot to show how the math works, checks skills and has tests.

RJ still hasn't chosen one hand or the other yet, he uses both interchangeably. 

Indy needs non-traditional "seating" to do her best work...

Sometimes, when you're 5, your writing for the day is copying sentences about How To Behave Properly in public.  And not embarrass the living shit out of your mother. 

Sometimes, Art Class is outside.  The Person She Loves the Most, as drawing is entitled, is Me.  Yeah, my kids Rock.

Sometimes, all those Amazon boxes can be used for projects. 

Play-Doh is great for school breaks. 

Working hard... on something that is NOT school!  You're busted, Riley!

Sometimes, school involves chores first, like putting away the dishes. 

Or, doing the dishes. 

Riley the Distracted got her desk moved to the living room in hopes that she can concentrate better...

Although she still does best with Hands-On activities, like creating, with Mud and Dirt.

This guy had quite the surprise in store for us, when he sat down and colored, pretty much for the first time ever, and whipped out this Multiple-Color-Usage, Stay-In-The-Lines, Appropriate-Use-Of-Colors set of Masterpieces... we never knew, dude!  Mostly because you Just. Do. Not. Stay. Still!!

And here he is switched back to the left hand (see right hand use above).  Amazing, bud, simply amazing!  That plus your love of singing, and that crying-if-Chase-doesn't-let-you-play-his-trombone thing you do, you are gonna be one Artsy, Musical Guy!

And then, if we weren't busy enough, because sometimes God is a Laughing God, and because just when Everything's Great, and your back-up vehicle fits just the 6 of you and no more (for those days when your Daily Driver Diesel decides it needs a little Engine Attention), and you have reached that point of Travel-With-No-Bags-And-Strollers and "Go Potty, Getchur' Shoes On and Get In The Car is a reality, well, then this happens:

Riley says it's an Alien, and RJ took the 3D pic into preschool for Show-And-Tell for Letter D, for Dinosaur... but it's most likely either a Boy, or a Girl, due to arrive in early April 2016.  

Fall is Here

Fall being here generally means I can update my kid ages.  Indy turns 10 a few days after the first official day of fall, and then the 95-day stretch in between the beginning of kid birthdays and the end of kid birthdays is over.  June, July, August and finally, September, knocks 'em all out.

Like this:

Chaser turns 12.  12!!  Omg. 

He is too cool for home-baked cake.  Cheesecake Factory gets a visit. 

 Riley turns 5, and requests Red, White and Blue Rice Krispie treats for her friend celebration.  

RJ turns 3, big sis Indigo decorates his cake special with Thomas. 

She is pretty good with that icing pointy-thing. 

Indy turns 10. 

I have no cake pic because we took it with our other camera that I don't know how to get pics off of yet. 

So now we have fully upgraded - in 95 days, from 11, 9, 4 and 2 to 12, 10, 5 and 3.  I can stop stumbling over their ages now. 

Cross that off the list.  Done.  

Also somewhere in those 95 days (also mostly called summer, as Chase's birthday falls a day before Summer begins and Indy's 2 days after Fall begins, so yeah, summer), we did some other stuff.

The gardens produced for us.....

...and we ate well....

....and we made pickles, sweet and spicy, mmm, mmm, mmm!

The best-tasting potatoes ever!

This is called Plant-to-Mouth Gardening.

Cleaning and snipping green beans.

More cucumbers anyone??? 

Some people slept during local town fairs.  Don't worry, I ate his platter of delicious Polish fare, as to not be wasteful.

We threw in some school for good measure:

This tiny traveler hopped on a plane with her grandparents to visit her great-grandparents in SC.  

And this shaggy-headed tot scoured Pinterest for the perfect new 'do:

Lookin' cool, RJ!

We worked on the farmhouse.

Somehow I still end up like this before 7am on most days (view clock in background for proof)...

Soccer started for Riley in town and Chase out of town.  It wouldn't be nearly as much fun if they played in the SAME town, you know.

RJ still finds afternoon grocery shopping to be an ideal time for a nap. 

Let me explain this cart for a minute, lest we look bad - the Lunchable is for Riley, it's been explained that this is the only one she will ever get because they are fake and nasty (she heard about them and was curious, and for $2 I let her experience it), the Boston Market frozen meals are for my neighbor, who has a love affair with them and can't find them in his regular store anymore, and the Potato Chips are mine.  Because I deserve them, dammit.

Another nap in another store. 

I visited an allergist for the first time in, oh, 28 years.  I thought a few things might come up. 

Confirmed.  Nature hates me.  This here back of mine, which came up in less than a minute, caused quite a stir in the allergist's office, and I did not have to go the whole 20 minutes, because I was maxed out on everything in about 5 and they were starting to worry, standing by with epinephrine, and clipboards, they all had clipboards.  They brought interns in from another part of the hospital to have a gander at the Super-Allergic Patient in Room #2.  Glad I can be so helpful.  See that non-reactive spot on the left side?  That's feathers.  I can be around feathers, out of all the environmentals.  That's it.  Feathers.

Since my back was filled up, they hit my arm for some more.  This here's me reacting to the entire Farm, and some foods that I already suspected because they make my mouth super-itchy, like Avocado and Apples.  It was a fun time.  I'll post more about that adventure later, mostly because according to the test, I'm SEVERELY ALLERGIC TO PEANUTS.  Except I don't react and I eat peanuts all the time.  So, ha, take that all you Bumper Sticker Moms - I was right!  Most of you don't actually need to teach your kid to hassle Moms with Granola Bars that are in a 1-mile radius of them. 

And, more excitingly, we rode THOMAS! (I'm also not allergic to trains.  Good thing.)

Peep, Peep!