Update Quicky

Last night we attended the year-end celebration for the local homeschooling group. It was a great night of awards, talent shows, slide shows and food. Good times! A full year come to an end, crazy how fast it goes. I have decided I will keep the boys home again next year, for sure until we know what we're doing or it doesn't work for us anymore or something better comes along... I'm reading a great book called "The Charlotte Mason Companion." It's a layman's overview of a homeschooling approach 'invented' by - you guessed it - Charlotte Mason. It's inspiring me for next year; new things to try, new hopes for us. I have enjoyed it but now I am looking forward to summer, without the constant "am I doing this right?" fear on my shoulders... I'll sweep that one under the rug until late September.

Riley's exams start on Monday and she's been studying up a storm, she's on track to do very well!

Mattea had a major crash this week. After bruising her right cheek last week, she fell head-first off of Bridger's bed into their open toy drawer, cutting and bruising the bridge of her nose and then the other cheek. She has a nice big swollen shiner and I'm very glad I had witnesses to the event as it looks rather awful. Does it stop her though? No, of course not. Seconds later she's at it again.

I think we've started the road to getting the kids all into bunk beds...

We're looking forward to a visit in one month from both Barton's parents and his two sisters. It'll be SO GOOD to have family around! Let's hope it's not still 6 degrees.

Speaking of 6 degrees, I've been meaning to post photos, but I planted a lot of veggies and herbs and fruit this spring. I did most of the transplants to the outdoors on the May long weekend and we had a good 2 weeks of heat after that. They were doing really well, though I am now worried with this chill. Hopefully we don't get snow... *wince*... I planted:

Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussel Sprouts, Lettuce, Spinach, Beets, Radishes, Carrots, Peas, Tomatoes, Hot Peppers, Green Peppers, Zucchini, Cucumbers, Pickling Cucumbers, Pumpkins, Strawberries and Rhubarb.

I also did Cilantro, Basil, Oregano and Dill.

I don't have high hopes for the root veggies/carrots and my tomato plants look like they might be giving up. I'm tempted to replace them with a sprout from a local farm/nursery.

I know I've planted too many of the other veggies close together, but I grew most from seed so I wanted to see how they did after transplant and I couldn't bear to throw any out. I'll go Darwin on them soon and pluck some out, giving those that look the fittest the best chance at survival. I mean, how many brussel sprout plants do you really need? Actually, those are the ones I'm most excited about. We did a field trip last year to an organic farm and they told us they can trudge through 3 feet of snow in February and STILL pick brussel sprouts. We'll see about that...