Life is really Sweet lately

I'm exhausted. We are homeschooling, and cooking and cleaning and childrearing and resting and bonding. What a day every day brings! Slowly we are getting into a rhythm after baby. Right now I do school with Becky and Reuben starting after breakfast. Sometimes this is 7am. Sometimes it is 10am. Really different every day. Becky does school Mon-Thursday with a break on Friday! Reuben, now in forth grade, needs Friday school, but it's just him and me on Fridays. Also, we try to do something fun on Fridays to celebrate the week. Today we went to a coffee shop and played Rummycube when we got home, then the kids watched a movie (they chose Howls moving castle) while I nursed the baby for her nap. These are treats indeed on a Friday in the midst of our busy life schedule.  

pics from this last month: co op, a playdate,
and Esther's favorite activity 

Reuben is year 4, Becky year 1. For the first time I have had to modify a bid of the Ambleside schedule. Reuben has too many readings so we moved Robinson Crusoe to an audio book that he is not narrating. That's the only thing I have changed. Robinson Crusoe is very interesting and very long! We just got to the part of the shipwreck! I love Plutarch and Reuben is meh about it. He very much dislikes The Age of The Fable (TAoTF). To me, TAoTF reads like something I read in college. It is very dense! I like it. I can see why my 9 year old is challenged by it! 

It's crazy how something happens every week to get in the way of school that I have to deal with. Three weeks ago Brian was working 12 hours a day and worked through the weekend! The next week I had a miscarriage, it was quite sad. We didn't tell the kids this time. Why sorrow them? I was around 7 weeks and since we hadn't told them (or anyone) that we were expecting we just kept it mostly to ourselves. Then this week I was stuck with a horrible coughing sickness that gave me a concussion. Trials all around! God is so good and I am so glad I am still here and able to be with my kids. I am slowly getting better!

half finished cardigan I am making for B
and Esther being adorable

I am hopeful for a quieter November. 

I am currently reading the book The Wide Wide World and I love it. Never have I more wanted to yell at a character than I do to Fortune Emerson, Aunt to dear little Ellen. Ellen is 10 when the novel opens and has a loving, but chronically ill mother (don't I relate) and a distant and cold father. She is eventually sent to live with her Aunt when her mother must go abroad for her health. Oh, Aunt Fortune! I could give her a piece of my mind for sure! I don't like it when adults expect kids to act like adults and I hate it when adults treat kids with silence and cruelty. She does not love the little girl who comes into her care. Anyway, the book reminds me Heidi so far. I am halfway through.

What are you guys reading? How is life? God is so sweet and good. I am so busy, my family is amazing and we need more tea. Love you all and God bless.  

Books that are Similar to "Little House in the Big Woods" By Laura Ingles Wilder

When I google "books like _______" I get a bunch of drivel that isn't anything like what I want. Usually it's modern "sequels" or trashy hastily-written "period pieces" that are nothing like the source material. This is beyond frustrating! So, after reading A LOT of books, I decided to start making my OWN lists.

Here are some books I think are quite like the Little House series and that readers of Laura Ingles Wilder will love. To be added to this list, I have the following qualifications. 1) Written in or about the 1800 or early 1900s, with aspects of homesteading and prairie life. 2) Well written with as-life characters! 3) Similar in style or form to Little House. 

These are books that I think a reader and lover of Laura Ingles' writing will adore just as much. I did-- and my brain classes them together. Links take you to Thrift-books--not sponsored. Enjoy!

1) Caddie Woodlawn (great for kids too)

2) Bears of Blue River (great for kids) 

3) Christy (for adults only)

4) A Lantern in Her Hand (teens/adults) 

I will keep updating this post as I find more. Please leave a comment if you think you know of any similar that I or others should check out! 

Baby Pants

I made these beautiful baby pants for my friend Julia who is expecting a baby on the first of November.  Julia is a beautiful mother and wife--she has three lovely kids, her eldest son Zebulon loves playing with Reuben, my firstborn. She had a beautiful baby named Siloam who passed away in the womb last year--and now her new baby that is due in November has been diagnosed with possible downs syndrome. Please keep her in her prayers as she transitions into whatever role God has for her and this new life he has blessed her with!!! She and I have lost touch a bit due to her church moving an hour away, and her family joining a different co-op, but even as she and I go our separate ways a bit as we raise our families--I love her and still think of her daily. And she's still my best friend, and I hope I can be a good friend to support her in birth and life. 

I forgot to take a finished picture of the pants before giving them to Julia, so this is the last progress photo I sent her. But they turned out SO cute--little newborn pants--and I hope to make a 0-3 month pair for her before she goes into labor...next week maybe? :)