Preparations

Today I tackled the raised beds and the shed. Anna and Daniel helped. I really intend to have a fruitful spring, summer and fall garden this year. We'll see how our little June baby affects those plans...

I was pleased to discover that the six modest strawberry plants from last year had multiplied into 21 in our weeded over garden. So I dug them all up and transplanted them to the fertile and well-cared for soil of a raised bed. I'll be so excited if we really have a strawberry patch worth picking. I'll deal with the squirrels and cardinals later.

We still have spinach, parsely and cilantro that survived all the snow. Our plastic would not stay on in the snow and wind, despite many great efforts by Kelsey and Daniel to pin down the "hoop houses". Today I planted some winter lettuce seeds and if they don't sprout in the next two weeks, I'll just try again. No losses.

It was a joy to see our little babe yesterday under ultrasound. That always makes everyone more excited. I'll be working a little harder on the blanket I'm knitting. Noah's making more progress with the potty and sleeps every night with Daniel. I've organized all the baby and toddler clothes again. So, we are in the preparation stage for the baby's arrival and doing well. Supposedly our baby weighs one pound and six ounces right now. That is the same weight of the Duggar's recent premature baby, Josie, at twenty-five weeks. I sure hope she gets to go home soon and that our baby comes at the right time!

I decided after twelve years of homeschooling to catalog all of our books into the computer. I have purchased many "history through literature" programs and was beginning to forget which books we already own. So this year for the first time, when I am ordering books for next fall, I will know what we have without asking the children repeatedly. I'm also having to box-up some programs to preserve them for use later. Our children love to read and most of our books are paperback and get destroyed by too much lovin'. We are blessed to have settled into a wonderful rountine with Beautiful Feet history and Teaching Textbooks math and Apologia Science. This will all make my life much easier when ordering and help keep our home a little more organized. Curriculum roulette makes a homeschool hard to keep neat. Finding a really good program for everyone is a blessing... If only every room had a built-in bookcase (and beds hidden in the walls) we'd be set! I'm also preparing for Kendal's last official year of school and praying for wisdom in choosing those books. She'll finish history, take business/personal accounting, read more literature with biblical worldview study guides, finish Chemistry and...we'll see.

I asked each child at breakfast to name their favorite thing that our family does that they hope to continue in their own family. Their responses were encouraging: homeschooling, family vacations, reading the bible, going to the library, making meals from scratch, and having one girls' room and one boys' room. I need to ask those sorts of questions more often. : ) Next we chatted alot about how Bob and I would help them with all of those things as grandparents, how we'd like to help when babies arrive or when the parents need a vacation, etc. It's really fun to imagine them all grown up and us as the blessed, white-headed grandparents of a couple dozen grandchildren.