The Other Children

Like so many of you, my heart was heavy as I celebrated Christmas with my children, thinking of those families in Connecticut whose tables had empty seats.  Their children who would never come home, never eat another Christmas dinner, never unwrap another present that had been lovingly wrapped for them.  And my heart ached.

I don't know about you, but I do my best thinking and praying in one of three places:  the shower, washing dishes, or working in my garden.  As a showered one morning, I cried out to God, "They were just babies, God.  Babies.  Not much older than mine.  Their whole lives ahead of them."  And I wept for their parents.

God doesn't speak to me in an audible voice.  Instead, He lays a word or phrase in my heart and on my mind.  As I wept in the shower, the phrase "What about the other children?" pounded through my head.

What other children?

And then I knew.  The other children who had NEVER opened a Christmas present, sat at a Christmas table.  Or seen a sunset, stroked a dog's silky ear, giggled uncontrollably, or even took a breath.

Those children.

The children we never talk about.  The children who are unnamed but not forgotten.  Only spoke of in hushed whispers.  My friend Aimee at Everyday Epistle had the courage to write about them.

I didn't know how many children that was.  So I looked.  According to the Centers for Disease Control's Abortion Surveillance (most recent data was 2009), there were 784,507 legal induced abortions in the United States.  This included both medical (drug induced) and surgical.

On December 14th, twenty precious first graders were killed in their classrooms.  And as a nation we cried out, we demanded answers.  We demanded that something be done to stop this senseless carnage from happening again.

But on that same day, approximately 2,149 children were killed in sterile rooms by gloved attendants or flushed down toilets after taking a pill.  And no one, myself included, was outraged.  No one demanded that something be done to stop this killing.

We don't talk about it.  And those who do talk about it demand that abortion is a choice.  A right that no one can take away.

What is the difference between those twenty children in a school in Connecticut and 2,149 children around the country?  We as a nation are outraged that those twenty beautiful children didn't have the chance to live the rest of their lives, to become something.  Do we have that same passion for the children who never lived to go to school?

Where is the line between child and choice?

What we got for Christmas

We got sick.

Good and sick.

Vomit and diarrhea sick.

Both Kiddos 1 and 2 came down with it first.  Kiddo1 threw up at our friend's house.  Nothing says "Thanks for letting us stop by!" like vomit on her kitchen floor.

For two days I cleaned up all manner of bodily fluids and did um-teen loads of laundry.  For these are the joys of motherhood.  Kiddo2 threw up on the way home from Christmas Eve service.  In the van.  And it was freezing as I was cleaning it up.  There should be a medal...

And being woken up in the middle of the night be a child who says they don't feel good and then vomits all the way to the bathroom.  Again, the medal...

We made it to Christmas Night before I fell victim.  And it hit me hard.  The day after Christmas we were supposed to go to the other side of Hubby's family Christmas.  I had to pull out.  So I stayed home with Kiddo3.  She wasn't sick.  On the contrary, she was perfectly fine.  And therein lay the problem.  The host home for Christmas is not kid-proof and Kiddo3 would have spent the day destroying.  Just like she does here, but here it's soft toys and her siblings prize possessions.

She and I hung out for the entire day in the basement.  On the couch.  Watching westerns.

I had just mentioned to Hubby and night before that I hadn't done my annual "Lonesome Dove" marathon during Christmas.  I got my chance on the 26th.  Kiddo3 got her first (and most certainly not her last) taste of the adventures of Woodrow F. Call and Augustus McCray.  And we watched four episodes of "Rawhide", because nothing makes a gal feel better than watching vintage cattle drives.

As of today, we are on the mend.  I'm about 50% and still lagging behind the household.

There is a counter full of dishes because somehow when mom is throwing up, others are still eating.  And the laundry is still piled high.  And house needs a good post-Christmas cleaning.  And there are still boxes upon boxes to unpack.

But for now, I'm reading The Tipping Point, building Legos, hugging baby dolls, playing cowboys, and crocheting a scarf...all while sitting down and resting.

Rest.  It's what we got for Christmas.



Love each other.

'Tis the Eve

A Blessed Christmas Eve to you all!

Our day is low-key.  My house is (kinda) clean, my presents are (mostly) wrapped.  But we're just hanging out and enjoying each other...and waiting for Grandpa and Grandma to get here so we can open presents.

At this very moment the kids are napping.  Hubby and I read Christmas cards and letters, commenting on pictures.  It's a tradition.

Supper is in the oven:  roast leg and shoulder of grass-fed Icelandic lamb  along with roasted quarters of Uncle David's Dakota Dessert squash.  A local feast to be sure.

Tonight is our church's Christmas Eve service, a wonderful evening of litany and carols.  I'm playing the piano and I've practiced all my favorite hymns.  My two most-favorites?  O Holy Night and The Friendly Beasts

My kiddos are doing a wee bit of a program tonight.  There are five kids aged five and under.  I threatened to bring our electric net fence to the sanctuary to keep the kids at the front of the church.  We've practiced once and it was a bit like trying to herd cats while teaching them to sing.

Our little church will be filled to bursting tonight.  Forget about getting "your pew".  We'll circle the church with candles and sing Silent Night as Palmer plays his guitar.  I look across my small flickering flame at the faces I've know since childhood.  Some faces have become wrinkled, shoulders stooped and hands shake a little.  But their eyes are just as bright, their smiles just as big, their hugs just as tight.

This service, more than any other, is home to me.  And while I celebrate my second Christmas without my dad.  It's my first Christmas back home to the loving arms of my family.  Not my family by blood, but by birth.  I was born into this congregation, this family.

My Christmas prayer for you this year is that you have that same family.

Merry Christmas, each and every one!

A New Addition

How do you know you're officially welcomed to the community?

Someone brings over a cat.

Meet Dandy, he's the newest addition to the farm.

(And Kiddo3's reason for coming outside every day.)

What's new at your house?

Love each other.

Close Encounters

A new skiff of snow brought a close encounter with the sleds.

Kiddo3 (who has no fear) has close encounters with heights on an hourly basis.

All four goats had a close encounter with a four year old girl.

And look here, it's Karlek!  She's growing up!

We're working on gentling her.  Kiddo1 has declared this a personal mission.  She sat amazingly still and waited for Karlek to come to her.

After a lot of snuffing and sniffing by the heifer, Kiddo1 turned to see if I saw how close she was.

I did, precious girl, I did.

Kiddo3 had close encounters with the chickens...and they gave her the giggles.

What close encounters have you had lately?

Love each other.

O Christmas Tree...and a Peanut Tale

No one will be 'pinning' my tree this year.  Or any year for that matter.  {I talk like I know about pinning, but I don't because I'm still not on Pinterest.  I may never be.}  But I'd rather have my tree than any one else's.

You see, Hubby and I both have a fondness for the Charlie Brown special.  We love the less-than-perfect trees.  It fits with our good-enough-is-perfect life.  

I have shoeboxes of antique ornaments from my grandmothers and others I've collected.  I also have a vintage aluminum tree from my grandmother.  All of these are locked away until my kids can drive.  Because by then, perhaps they will not rearrange my tree 15 times a day.

Not that I mind tree rearranging.  I don't.  But I also don't want those antiques broken. And considering I've got ornaments held together with super glue and wire already, there's a good chance the old ones wouldn't make it through a season.

Each year the kids get an ornament that has something to do with who they are at this point in their young lives.  We also get a family ornament.  Hubby and I have an ornament for every Christmas we have known each other, seven of them!  

One year, I bought ornaments for all of my family members.  It was the December I was working in Houston, Texas and had to Christmas shop while I was there.  I knew I wouldn't be shipping stuff home so it had to be small gifts.

I found this bag of peanuts ornament for my dad and burst out laughing in the store.  It was perfect!!

When I was single, I taught Human Biology as a night class at a local college.  I would leave work and go straight there and teach anatomy for three hours.  I loved it!

What I didn't love was the fact that my dog was a half hour away and I couldn't let him out before class.  Enter my dad.  He would plan his errands and such for Wednesday afternoons and stop by my house to let out the dog.

In addition to my dog, I also fed birds in my yard.  With a heated birdbath and different foods available, birds flocked to my yard, particularly in the winter.

Bluejays love peanuts in the shell.  I would buy a 50 pound bag of unsalted peanuts at the feed store.  But you can't put them all out at once or the bluejays will hide them all in a few hours.  So I kept a small bag of them just inside my door and took and handful out every morning.

One day, I happened to mention "peanuts" in passing to my dad (who LOVED peanuts in the shell) and he said, "Oh, that reminds me.  You need to get some new peanuts.  The ones you've got are getting stale."

I asked, "What peanuts?"  Knowing I didn't have any people-peanuts in my house.

"The ones by your door in that bag."

I held my head in my hands.  The poor man had been eating those peanuts every Wednesday for months.

"DAD!  Of course they're stale, they're BIRD FOOD!"

What is your favorite ornament story?

Love each other.

Bale-grazing the Flerd

 When we were organizing our move to the farm, we knew that we need to purchase hay.  We were looking for small square bales.  But no one makes those any more.  And if they do, they only make enough for themselves.

Big, round bales it is!  Our neighbor put up the hay near us and sold us 40 bales to feed our flerd through the winter.  As we were preparing to move the hay home, I began to wonder.  Friends and fellow sustainable ranchers that we admire do bale grazing for their cattle.  But they use a single strand of airplane cable as their electric fence.  A single wire does nothing for sheep or goats so that was out for us.  The electric net that we used in the summer is hard enough to set up in tall grass, snow would be impossible.  It seemed that bale grazing round bales just wasn't done.

It seemed we were doomed to a winter of either forking hay into feeders or starting up the tractor and pushing snow every few days just to feed a bale of hay.  We were not excited by either prospect.

I continued to search for information.  Surely someone, somewhere had bale grazed sheep on round bales.  And then I found a ranch in Saskatchewan that had done it!  I forwarded the article to a very smart and innovative grazier friend who said, "I don't see why it wouldn't work!"  Game on.

Literally, as Hubby was hauling hay home I came running out and told him what I'd found.  He immediately began setting bales.  I'll continue to share more as the winter progresses, but this is what we've found in the last six weeks:

Hubby placed the bales on their end.  That puts the strings around the outside of the cylinder.  He cuts just the bottom three or four strings.  This allows the flerd (7 sheep, 4 goats, 1 calf) to eat only on the bottom of the bale.  The sheep and cow are very good at eating straight in.  The goats, however, prefer to stand on their hind legs and eat which pushes down more hay than they eat.  But by only cutting the bottom strings, it prevents the goats from pushing down the top hay.

After they have eaten away about a foot or so on the bottom, the top strings are cut.  Some of the hay sloughs down but the bale remains upright and tidy.

In this photo, Hubby has just cut the top strings.

This is after a few more days.  The flerd continues to eat at the bottom and more hay sloughs down.  At this point we open another bale.  Not that the flerd is done with this one, but to allow more of them to eat at one time.  Within the goats and sheep, there is a pecking order and we want the more timid ones to be able to eat as well as the boss ones.

And this one is almost gone!  Naomi is in the photo to provide scale.

The flerd will continue to pick on this little pile and have now pretty much cleaned it up.

I am amazed at how little waste there is with this feeding method.  When I was growing up, we fed round bales in feeders.  And those feeders are still here.  But if the openings are big enough for our cow to put her head in, they are big enough for the goats to climb into the feeder.  And goats would prefer to poop on hay rather than eat it.  Bale grazing is a wonderful solution to all of our problems!

I promise to keep you updated on the bale grazing experiment!

Love each other.

Love Each Other

As some of you know, I was a teacher for five years in the second largest school district in our state.  I taught 9th grade Physical Science in a school of about 900 students.  The events on Friday in Connecticut were close to home for me.  I've been the teacher in a locked-down classroom.  I've had drug dogs search my room and hallways.  I've been threatened by a student.  I've witnessed parents threaten teachers.  I've sat in my desk and thought "Where could we go?  How many kids could I get out the window?"

I've looked into the eyes of a student that were devoid of all affect or feeling.  And I've felt the skin crawl on my scalp knowing something was going to happen.  I've sat in a student's desk every morning and prayed for him and for us.  Prayed that he wouldn't smash a piece of lab equipment and cut his lab partners or his own wrists before I could get there.  I've watched and listened to tear-stained parents tell us that they've tried everything but until he hurts someone, there's nothing else that can be done.  And we look at each other and wonder "Will it be us or them?"

Many people's reaction to the school shooting on Friday is to increase gun control.  "If guns were illegal then this wouldn't have happened!"  Perhaps.  There's always that chance, we'll never know.  But legislation does not prevent hate.  Or evil.  Or mental illness.

There has been evil in the world long before there were guns.  From the time of Cain and Abel, hatred and evil and violence have been a part of this world.  Legislation will not change that.

As a Christian, I know that God is good.  And He is not just good when things are going great.  He is good.

Friends of our family have a miracle baby.  Truly, a miracle baby.  He wasn't supposed to live more than 48 hours.  He continues month after month to do all the things his parents were told he would never do.  He is a miracle.  And many people say, "Oh, God is so good!"  And I think, "Would you still say that if he would have died, just as the doctors predicted?"  Because God is good, in every circumstance, He is goodness and light and love.  In times of darkness and suffering, I hold tight to Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."  All things.  ALL THINGS.  Even the most horrific.  Even beautiful children slaughtered in their school.  God can and will overcome this evil.

Our farm name is Morning Joy Farm.  From the 30th Psalm, verse 5:  "Weeping may occur for a night, but joy comes in the morning!"  Right now we are weeping in this dark night.  And they are heart-broken sobs.  God hears those sobs, and He cries with us.  John 11:35:  "Jesus wept".

There will be activist groups, there will be politicians who propose legislation, rules, to attempt to stop something like this from happening again.  But laws will not change this.  Just as you cannot legislate away hate, you cannot legislate kindness, compassion, and love.

There is far more kindness, compassion and love in this world than there is hate.   Look for it friends, share it with each other.  With people you know.  With people you will never know.  The kindness in your world is never reported on the news.  And if it is, investigations are done to show that the kindness that was shown wasn't really a kindness after all because the person didn't really deserve it.  (I'm referring to the wonderful officer in NYC who bought a homeless man shoes and then news outlets dug into the homeless man's history and found out that he wasn't homeless and that he was a veteran and should have been using his VA benefits.)  I refuse to bow to that evil-mongering.  I refuse to believe that there is nothing else in this world.

So what do we do?  How do we move forward?  Hug your people.  I don't know who your people are, they may have many different forms and titles.  But hug them.  And put down your phone and your iPad and talk to people.  Encourage one another.  Look out for each other.  And if you'd like to be an activist, campaign for a better mental health system.  Because "there's nothing else we can do until he hurts someone" is not a treatment plan.

I don't know why this didn't happen in our school.  It was a possibility more than once.  But today is a gift, treat it like one.  (And to quote Ann Voskamp) "Who am I to deserve another?"

Love each other.

He would have been 74 today

Today is my dad's birthday.  He would have been 74.  Yesterday, Kiddo1 and I helped serve at a funeral for one of our church members.  My dad's best friend served as a pallbearer.  It's been over a year and it's still hard for me to look at Steve without crying.

His voice and laugh and mannerisms are so closely intertwined with my dad that the ache is raw.  My entire life, he and his family were such an integral part .  We considered them family.  (I've written about them before HERE.)

When we buried dad, it was the middle of harvest for Steve.  My mom told him to go back to the field after the funeral.  That he didn't have to come to the cemetery, which was the complete opposite direction from their farm.  But when we got there, Steve was there.  Mom asked him why he didn't go to the field.  She knew how busy he was.  He replied with his voice breaking, "I had to take Bill home."

I still can't think of that moment without crying.  I heard Steve's voice from the fellowship room today as I washed funeral dishes in the kitchen.  I cried into my dishwater.  Do you know how many hours I've listened to my dad and Steve talk on the phone?  Or over canasta decks?  I can't even count them.

And now I sit in my dad's house.  Where he lived for 69 years.  We have his phone number.  His tractor.  His land.  Sheep and goats are back on his farm.  He would love that.  He would shake his head at our pig, but he'd also smile because I convinced him once before to let me have a pig.

He would pull the kids into his big chair and tickle their toes.  He would take them fishing.  He would build wooden things with them.  He would listen to their stories and tell his own.  He would laugh with them.  He would sneak them another cookie.

It is in those moments that I miss him the most.  The moments I know he would have loved.  Those moments of love that we are missing out on.

But I still have my "family".  Avis made Christmas presents for all three of my kids.  She lets them sit with her in church and holds them on her lap.  We spent an evening at their home over Thanksgiving, laughing and sharing just like the old days.

And just like the old days, I have Steve's voice to remind me that friends are more than a profile on facebook.  Friends are the ones that take you home.

In Case You Were Wondering What The Kids Are Doing

Let me show you....

Kiddo1 loves to help in the kitchen.  This day we made buns and she did her own pan.

The day before Thanksgiving we made pies.  She took my excess crust and rolled it out to make her own small pie, complete with face and hair.  We put in the pumpkin filling and she got it eat it all herself!

Kiddo3 has been very busy.  When we were packing, she was unpacking.  Now that we're unpacking, she's packing.  All with those beautiful blue eyes and adorable cheeks...

Just before Thanksgiving, we got a bit of snow.  This kids insisted on getting out the sled and having Hubby pull them up and down the driveway.

This is a sight we see almost every night.  Kiddo2 is every inch a cowboy and he lays his clothes out just like a cowboy every night.  And he tells us, "Watch out here, there's a cowboy!"

Kiddo3 is not to be outdone, she wears a metal bowl as a magic helmut.  And with a paper towel holder as her sword, she's ready for Elmer Fudd!

It's not all fun and games around here.  THE FARM doesn't have a dishwasher, just a mama with a sponge.  So the girls have been pitching in to help rinse the dishes.  Kiddo1 is much more help than her sister, but they're both learning.

And that's what the kids have been up to!

The Legacy of Lovely

I've told you before about the family legacy I have in fabric and thread.

Now that the card reader for my camera has arrived, I have pictures to show you.  Sit back, relax and prepare to be amazed.

This is the Rose Weeks quilt.  

Rose Weeks was my great-great grandmother on my Grandpa White's side.  She died in 1903.  We don't know exactly when, but at some point in her life, she made a quilt for each of her children.  She had two sons who never married and they put their quilts into their trunks and never used them.  When these uncles of my Grandfather passed away his mother (the uncle's sister-in-law) took the quilts home and kept them.  Only after she passed away and my grandma helped to sort through her things, were these quilts discovered.  One quilt was given to my grandpa's brother and his wife while my grandpa and grandma kept this one.

Grandma took this quilt to a quilt show in 1983 to have some experts look at it.  They were amazed that this quilt was in such good condition.  Also, they praised the uncommon workmanship and seamstress ability that Rose Weeks displayed.  Every bit of this quilt is hand pieced and hand quilted.  Every point on those triangles matches exactly.  It is a work of art.

At the time, Grandma didn't know the name of the pattern.  The local newspaper wrote an article with a photo about the quilt.  A woman from Washington State wrote to my grandma and told her the pattern was called "Path In The Woods".

If we have to guess, we would estimate the time period of this quilt to be just after the Civil War, possibly as late as 1880.  What makes this quilt even more rare is that it is not a scrappy quilt.  It is made in a two colorway which is not typical of that time period.  The majority of quilts were utilitarian and used scraps and various fabric types.  These types of quilts during that time would have been expensive to make and an extravagance for the quilter.

 This is a Lydia Gaub quilt, my great grandmother on my Grandma White's side.

Notice the more utilitarian style, there are silks, flannels, twills, and cottons in this quilt.  The four patches made use of even the smallest scraps.  This quilt is hand pieced and hand quilted, probably in the 1920's or early 1930's.  This quilt has been used, most likely to warm a family member's bed during the Depression.

This pinwheel pointed star quilt is also a Lydia Gaub quilt.  The date is might be the late 1930's, but probably the 1940's.  Even though it is a scrappy type quilt, the solid color background tells me it was made at a time when my great grandmother had money to spend on background fabric.  This quilt is not used and is in excellent condition.  Also a sign that it was made after family members left home. 

 This is a Christine Schaible quilt, my maternal grandmother.  Grandma Schaible was a huge fan of applique.  All of her quilts were appliqued, some also contained a small amount of embroidery.  If I have an appliqued quilt, this grandma did it.  No one else did it!  Her quilts are all hand appliqued and hand quilted.

See?  More applique.  That's Grandma S.!  Both of these quilts were probably 1970s or 1980s.

This quilt was on my bed in the basement of my Grandma White's house.  The style is extremely practical and it is actually a duvet cover with a thick cotton comforter inside.  Warm as all get out!!  Even though it isn't the art piece the other quilts are, this one has such wonderful memories for me that I treasure it just as much.  This one is probably a 1950s or 1960s era quilt.

I found this alphabet sampler and couldn't figure out who it belonged to.  I texted a photo of it to my mom who called me, laughing.  "That was my first quilt!"  She was learning to embroider and her mom helped her get started and then pieced the blocks for her and quilted it.  Knowing my mom as an excellent seamstress and embroiderer, it was a very pleasant surprise to see her beginning work!

That's it for the quilt show!

Now, let's look at the crochet and tatting...

This is a large table cloth that my Grandma Schaible crocheted.  It is close to 104 inches long and 60 inches wide.  Each stitch is so small and delicate, there is literally miles of crochet thread in this table cloth!

This is a doily also from Grandma Schaible.  My grandma was VERY prolific and had piles and piles of beautiful finished work.  I just took a couple of photographs to share with you...

This is a bedspread, for a full-size bed!

This is a doily tatted by my great aunt Emma.  Tatting is a form of lace making and my beloved great aunt was a master.  She tatted a doily that her friend convinced her to enter it in the Open Division of the Home Economics exhibits at the state fair.  She not only one Grand Champion for hand work, she won Supreme Champion for all of the Home Economics entries!  The next year someone asked her if she was going to enter something else.  She said with a smile, "Why?  There's nothing else to win!"

 And lastly (but certainly not least), these gloves were crocheted by my Grandma Schaible (see, I told you she was prolific!).  They are amazingly delicate and so beautiful.

Did you enjoy the brief tour of my textile history?  What was your favorite piece?

How to Cook a Lamb Roast

With fresh lamb in the freezer, my mouth was watering at the thought of a roast.  Lamb roast is amazing and so easy to do.  Let me show you!

First we're going to sear that roast in a bit of oil over high heat.

Look at that color!

While you're searing it on all sides, chop up an onion and add it to the bottom of a roaster.

No fancy herbs or spices here, just salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste.

See, isn't that beautiful?

Next, add about an inch of water to the bottom of the roaster.

One recipe I read for lamb roast said to add beef broth.  WHY??  If I wanted it to taste like beef, I would have roasted a beef!  We want it to taste like lamb so we just a bit of water to keep things moist.  We don't want to boil the meat.

Add the lid to seal in the moisture.

We're going to cook this low and slow.  This technique is called "braising" and is an excellent way to cook grass-fed meats. 

I started this roast just before 9am.  And yes, I do think about lamb before 9am.

We were having this roast for lunch.  

And a mere three hours later this is what we find!

Tender, delicious, fall apart yumminess.

I served this with an herbed rice and creamed peas...wonderful!

See how easy it is to cook lamb??

Preschool at Home

Before we got married, Hubby and I agreed that I would leave my corporate-Fortune 500-company job and if we had children, I would stay at home with them.  Six weeks after we got married, we were pregnant - game on!  We chose to have our children at home with us rather than in daycare.  

Fast forward to this summer when the subject of preschool came up.  What do we do?  At our other farm, preschool was full days and cost $20 per day.  As her parents, we did not feel that Kiddo1 was ready to spend an entire day away from home.  She still takes a two hour nap most afternoons and that wouldn't happen at preschool.  

Yes, I am a trained and certified teacher.  But I taught big people, high school students and adults.  I'm not trained to teach people who don't even come to my waist.  I mean, I don't know how to teach things like how to write the letters.  "Here, do an A.  Do another one." just doesn't cut it.

So I began to look at some preschool activities that we could do at home that would give me some direction and ideas on how to do hands-on learning of preschool concepts.

Enter Letter of the Week from Confessions of a Homeschooler!  Erica at Confessions has a wonderful, fun, and developmentally appropriate curriculum for preschool.  Her curriculum is downloadable or on a CD and VERY affordable.  You print out what you want to use, or all of it.  I laminated everything but the consumables because I have two other kiddos who are going to do preschool with mom at home.

Not everything we do is from Letter of the Week, but the vast majority of it is and it has been so fun for both of us!

Kiddo1 begs to do school every day.

And, of course, it's "monkey see, monkey want to do" around here so Kiddo2 gets his markers and some construction paper.  Here he is making a map to Grandma White's house!

And even Kiddo3 wants to be involved.  She has some big crayons and other manipulative-type stuff to work with (note the big buttons on the table, she was putting them into a jar).

So, there we are, doing preschool at home and loving it!

***FYI - Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler has no idea who I am.  I found her curriculum online and ordered it.  It's been awesome.  Over and out.***