April

Busy building her "bug house"

What bug wouldn't want to live in this paradise? :)

Alsea Falls

Serious marshmallow roasters

Oops

The kids have colds so dress up to the rescue!

We've had some beautiful weather this month!  We've enjoyed campfires in the back yard, walks in the forest, a trip to Alsea falls, and lots of time in the garden prepping for a hopefully abundant year.  Our chickens finally started laying eggs again too!  They have been slacking since November, so it's been nice to have fresh eggs.  Our raspberries look amazing this year.  We've never had a good crop because they are on the edge of the garden and don't get watered well and so we are going to add drip irrigation to hopefully address that issue this year.  I have twice as many strawberry plants this year too, so if the birds will leave them alone we may actually be able to get some in the freezer.  It's also looking like it will be a bumper crop year for our Asian pears and grapes. 

My Sierra could spend every waking minute outside.  She's just like me in that aspect.  She keeps herself busy building bug habitats, forts, helping in the garden, looking for snakes and bugs, and any other possible thing you can do outside.  Jaxon enjoys some time outside but is still at the age of needing constant supervision, so I don't let him go off to do his own thing.  Even right at my side he has managed to drink out of a mud puddle like a dog (he was quite a bit younger when that happened), pick a daffodil and take a bite of the stalk saying "celery", pick up a pile of dog poop explaining that he'd found some cool rocks, and plenty of other things that have me yelling "stop" but never quite in time.  Sigh.

We're getting towards the end of the school year.  Sierra's doing great in reading and math.  The only real homework she has is about 10 to 15 minutes of reading a night and a little worksheet that goes along with the book she's read.  It's always seems really simple to her and yet she always kind of dreads it.  But she loves to have me read chapter books to her.  She's really into a series right now called Animal Ark.  It's about a little girl whose mom and dad are both vets.  It's the same kind of books that I loved when I was little.  She also loves to do math and has me write up addition and subtraction problems that involve borrowing.  They haven't touched much on borrowing yet in school, so we've worked on it at home and she loves doing more complex problems.  She is a child that expects to get things right away though, and if she gets confused she gets very upset and just wants to quit.  We are working on getting past the frustration and realizing that it takes time to learn new things.  While there are some things she has a natural knack for, there are others that take much more practice.  And she thinks that everything should just be natural and easy. 

Jaxon also benefits from her math practice.  She'll write up papers for him with simple problems and have him solve them.  He really does learn from it and she feels pretty awesome when she's taught him something.  We are still working on sounding out simple words with him.  I haven't pushed reading too hard because there are a million other things to work on and lots of time to learn to read.  I'm sure he could be much father along if I pushed it.  But to be honest, he's also busy being a four year old boy.  He likes to make a mess, play with his trucks, and play with his dog.  Pretty soon he will start school and that will occupy many years of his life, so play is pretty important in my book.  While he loves to sit and listen to me read, practice math, and sound out words, I never push it.  Right now I would rather he spend time outside and get the chance to be a little boy (although I wish it didn't involve drinking Giardia water and playing with dog poo). That's just life with a boy I guess :)