Homeschooling

This topic is one of my favorites.

For as long as I have been a mom I have always known I wanted to homeschool. Nevada has one of the highest drop out rates in the country and that doesn't sit well with me. With G, he has a huge drive to learn new things and is constantly asking questions about EVERYTHING! He knows that he will be schooled here at home and so far he hasn't shown any signs of being upset by that. My main goal with taking this path is that I want learning to be fun for him. I don't want it to be work and I want him to incorporate learning into his everyday routine. I want a trip to the grocery store to provoke questions and deep thought. A fun day at the park can also become a learning experience for him. These are what I want for him. I don't want school to be work or to be a chore. 

One of the biggest reasons behind our move was to live somewhere I felt safe enough to let the boys play and explore outside. G has an interest in reptiles and all animals really just like his momma and on our land there is plenty of potential for "herping" or for seeing any type of desert animal around here. We have sat on our front porch and watched a family of Quail run across the yard. We have seen rabbits prance through our trees. It's beautiful. This opens the door to a lot of nature study opportunities.

I think one of the toughest obstacles we have with wanting to homeschool is finding a secular curriculum we like. We are not a religious family and so many of the curriculum's we have found are Bible based. The reason for this I am assuming is that a big part of homeschooling families do so so that Bible/religion study will be incorporated in their learning. There is of course nothing wrong with that I just wish I could find one that didn't include religious overtones. 

Being able to teach G how he will learn the best is the most important thing to me. In a school setting often times kids get passed over because they aren't quick enough, or they end up bored because the pace at which they are being taught isn't on the same level as their learning pace. I don't want him to get frustrated and start hating to learn because of one of those things. 

Are you a homeschooling family? If so do you use a secular or religious curriculum? What tips would you give us, a first time homeschooling family?

Confession Time. (And a Quick Update)

Confession: I have to be the worlds most impatient person!

Seriously though. With all the work and money that had to go into this house we are left without our savings. The problem with this aside from the obvious, can't pay bills etc., is that building our homestead is now put on hold. I couldn't wait to get here on our own land with our big house and now that we are here I DON'T WANT to wait to get started on our dream. But I have to. 

Unfortunately money is needed to get this thing started and we are currently without. I may sound like I am whining, complaining, etc. and I kind of am but I am still beyond grateful to be here with my family. 

Confession/rant done. 

Whenever we leave the house Katie and I talk about how this whole thing is still so surreal and we don't think it has hit us yet that we live here. All around us are beautiful mountains and desert landscape. No huge buildings, cleaner air, horses and farm animals. It is all so amazing. If waking up still in awe isn't living the dream then I don't know what is! 

Every morning the boys wake up and want to play outside. TV time has dwindled considerably and really only happens in the middle of the day when it is far to hot to be outside. Honestly if we could stand the heat and would let him G would be outside ALL day long. He LOVES it and now that K is walking he follows brother around the yard and does what he does.

Appliances here are all electric, our dryer is gas so we have set up a clothes line and we line dry. At first, especially with how hot it gets here, I thought I was going to grow tired of it after the first day. We have been at it nearly two weeks now and I am still loving every bit of it. 

I have such an amazing view while I am hanging laundry that it is beyond relaxing for me.

I can't wait to pick back up homeschooling and to finally be able to incorporate farm/gardening into it!

Oh!

I have also had the opportunity to use the property for photos! (EEEEEEEK!) 

I am going to keep this post short and sweet! Thank you for taking to time to read this and as always you can follow our journey on 

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Settling In

I can still hardly grasp that this is the view from my front porch!

So trying to say that this move has been smooth and stress free would be an outright lie. The original cause of the stress, of course, would be moving to a new town. Having to pick your life up and move it from one city to another is not easy at all! To add to that stress, when we first got here the AC wasn't working. Now, it's June/July in Southern Nevada which means triple digit temperatures. It was well over 100 degrees our first night here and I can't sleep when I am hot. 

Our second morning here we discovered that we had NO cold water pressure. Talk about a nightmare! We had to deal with plumbing issues for about 5 days. All of the remaining money we had saved had to be used for it. As I said NIGHTMARE! 

I know all of this sounds like I am whining, but in reality it's the exact opposite. These issues that we have run into have, yes pushed us to our breaking point and we have shed quite a few tears wondering how we are going to make this all work but, the people we have met because of this make the whole thing almost completely worth it. I mean, when you think small town you probably think Mayberry, neighbors helping one another, things like that. These are exactly the things we have run into. I was driving through a parking lot here and an older mans car had broke down in the middle of the driving lane, instead of pulling up behind him and honking then whipping around him two men, one going the opposite direction stopped there cars and helped him push his into a spot. Just tonight we saw a very nice man buy a homeless woman food and drink. These man came and worked on our house and we didn't have to pay a dime for labor cost we just had to cover materials. I can almost guarantee that in Las Vegas had the situation been the same, where these men just showed up to our home to fix what needed fixed it would have all come out of our pocket and we would be so far in debt our children would feel it.

These instances are one reason we wanted to get out of the city, why we wanted small town/ country living. 

We have 5 acres of land. 5 ACRES. We can't even wrap our heads around what we are going to do with all this space. We are going to give homesteading a go though. A farm/garden are definitely the top of our list. There is an 8 car garage that will work very well as a workshop:

 As well as a smaller third building that will work fantastically as a photography studio for myself with a little work: 

This is definitely the start of a wonderful journey for us, one that our kids are excited for as well. I hope you will follow along and if you have any tips, pointers, advice or questions don't hesitate! I love hearing from you!

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New Name, New Chapter, New Beginning.

So much has happened so fast.

 

A month ago we decided that life in Las Vegas was not doing it for us anymore. I grew up in a town called Pahrump about an hour from here and honestly have so many amazing memories. For years we had talked about moving out of Las Vegas and Pahrump was always a good contender. It has the small town feel which is exactly what we decided we want for our family. We dream of being self sufficient. We want a home run by solar energy, a private well so we can grow our own food, raise our own meat, all those things. We had set a goal for the end of the year. As the days went on, though, I would read news headlines on my feed and be so unbelievably depressed by the stories I saw happening in my city that I didn't think I could wait until the end of the year.

 

We decided to get an estimate on our current home, we weren't expecting much to be honest but, surprising we were given an offer we couldn't turn down. So the race to find a new home was on. We got a realtor out in Pahrump and started pounding the pavement to find a house all while in the process of selling this one.

 

After a few weeks of discouraging issues, lender and credit problems, not finding a house the three of us could agree on or that was big enough for our family, you name it, it was thrown at us, we finally found an option that almost sounded too good to be true in my opinion. We went to take a look at a home that was 5 bedroom 3 bathrooms, perfect for our family, on 5 acres making it perfect for growing our own food as well as the boys having more land than they would know what to do with to run and play on. Honestly this was the first house the three of us agreed on without argument.

 

The reality hit us quickly, we went from a stand still to having a new house, in a day! We are still currently awaiting escrow to close on the new house so we can get keys and get moved in but we have such big plans for our new home that none of us can wait. I know it is going to take some adjusting to for all of us but I am so excited.

 

The reason I felt the need to share all of this is that I will be turning this blog from our green baby adventures into our journey to becoming self sustaining. I really hope you will follow our journey and if we manage to inspire at least one person then I will be happy!

 

 

Would you enjoy a self sustained lifestyle? If you have thought of or are taking the path we are what tips do you have for us?

A new home made laundry soap

A few months ago I posted about our homemade laundry soap.

You can see that post here:

Laundry soap

 

Well, we finally ran out so it was time to make more. Momma wasn't a huge fan of the paste like consistency of our first soap, plus once we got towards the bottom of the jar we were have to stick our entire hand in the jar which made for quite the mess and wasted soap.

 

This time around I hunted down a recipe for a powder detergent to try instead. I found one that had the exact same ingredients:

 

1 bar Fels Naptha

1 Cup Borax

1 Cup Washing Soda

 

 

I will admit that the process on this one was a bit tedious.

 

You have to grate the Fels Naptha up extremely fine. Luckily my hand grater has the little tiny grate in it. It took me about 7 or so minutes to grate the entire bar.

 

 After you finish grating it, you add your other ingredients to it and mix it up. I would suggest a whisk for this process as it helps to mix all the ingredients together nicely.

 Once you have it all mixed up you just add it to a jar with a lid of your choice.  

 Once I had it in the jar I shook it up just a little bit. You use 1 tablespoon per load same as the other soap.

 

My oldest has sensitive skin so we were having to use Tide Free and Clear for his laundry. I decided to give the home made stuff a try just using a small amount on his clothes with an extra rinse. So far he hasn't had any breakouts and I have washed his clothes in it multiple times. We still have to buy the Tide for Baby K's clothes though. Soon enough I will try to convert his clothes to using the homemade stuff instead as well.

 

 

Have you given any homemade detergents a try? What did you think of them? Feel free to share in the comments!

Post Circumcision

We are coming up on the one week mark since Kayson's Circumcision.

He has healed well and has had an extremely great recovery. I expected a lot of crying and discomfort but he has seemed to be his same old self.

 

One HUGE downside to this experience is the fact that we can not cloth diaper for two weeks. I guess it isn't really a matter of CAN'T, more of a don't want to risk ruining our diapers because of the Vaseline that has to go on him.

 

After having used cloth his whole little life seeing him in 'sposies is so strange! I really don't think it is something I'd be able to get used to. Worse than that though, is the smell of the disposable diapers. Maybe I'm crazy but I definitely feel as though they have a smell and it isn't one I enjoy.

 

Does anyone else think disposables have a smell?

Controversial subjects

There are vast amounts of articles out there on the subject and

in all honesty I feel like no matter which view you take on it, you will find ample evidence to back you up.

 

I always TRY to approach things with a to each their own attitude. I also try very hard not to judge, but I am human. On this subject though I never looked to much into it. With Gage I was a young first time mom so I did a lot of things that some would deem "wrong". I didn't even know that not having him circumcised was really an option and even had I known it was an option, I'm not sure I would have not had it done.

 

I'm sure that many "green" or "crunchy" mommas out there are probably cringing at the fact that I admitted that. I gave up allowing myself to feel bad for decisions I have made as a mom though. There is no rule book or instruction manual, we all do the best we can and hope our children don't come out worse for the wear. (Does that even make sense?)

 

With Kayson, I did take the time to read into it a bit. I actually came across one blog from a mother who's first child was and the rest were not. This mother expressed her regret over her decision with her first born. She also expressed fear of that her first son would hate her for it.

 

 From my PERSONAL stand point, I didn't/don't want my boys to feel like one was given more or better of anything. I want them to feel as though they are equal in every way.  I didn't want the boys to be bathing together at some point, as brothers do, and for one of them to notice the difference. I didn't want them to question whether we loved one more than the other. While these may seem silly fears, children notice things and take things certain ways. Kayson was born with a slight issue with his penis, one that if not corrected could cause issue for him later in life. Therefore not having it done wasn't an option anyway. 

 

Circumcision was just one more thing that our boys would have the same. I will NOT fear one of them feeling less loved than the other. I will NOT have regrets.

 

Because of the issues he had we had to wait until he was four months old to have it done. He had to be put to sleep and given anesthesia. As moms we were of course terrified but his doctors and nurses were so amazing. After the surgery yesterday his doctor told us that it was a little bit worse than they had originally been able to see with out the operation. Luckily everything was fixed and he is fine. He has had some slight fussiness but hasn't seemed to bothered by the whole experience. He has been just as happy as ever and is still that same smiley boy he was before. I am glad that now we can put this behind us and not stress or worry about it anymore.

 

I feel like this post bounced around a lot and may not make much sense. Katie and I are both exhausted after spending 6 hours in the hospital yesterday so you'll have to forgive my scattered thinking.