It’s no secret that we finish school in early May to take advantage of (usually) pretty weather and to give us time for adventures before the summer crowd hits.  Well, this May has been almost a complete failure.  Either the weather has been horrible, or we’ve been down with one of many sicknesses that swept through our house.  While there have been a few really great days, mostly it was a rough month.

Today, finally seeing the end of sickness, we could not wait to expend some energy and see friends at gymnastics.  I also promised the kids a trip to Sweet Frogs, since we never got to have an end of school year ice cream trip.  After a lovely gymnastics class, (and even better- adult time with great friends during the kids’ class) we went to Sweet Frog.

Sweet Frog is pretty packed, being a hot summer day the week after public school ended, and our family is drawing stares as I help five children choose yogurt flavors and toppings.  Suddenly Emily turns around to face the majority of the patrons, coughs once and throws up in the middle of the floor.  She’s really not sick, I promise!  She’s having some breathing issues, which sometimes choke her so that she throws up.  Very embarrassing!  I know I look like such a negligent mother, staying at the yogurt place even though my baby is ‘sick’.  We find a small table in a tucked away corner and enjoy our yogurt.

We make it home, but a storm hits almost immediately and knocks out our power.  While the storm is quick, the power doesn’t come back on.  I am totally unprepared for a power outage.  I have one flashlight, and only a few candles, AND it is dinner time.  An hour later, having found only goldfish and cereal bars to eat for dinner, I decide we’ll drive until we find a restaurant with power and real food.

I pull into IHOP with 4 very excited children and one very tired toddler.  Before I finish ordering that toddler manages to spill a cup of water on the table.  Next, a big kid spills a drink.  We haven’t even gotten our food yet and the waiter has already brought us three stacks of napkins.  My coffee arrives, and as I add cream and sugar Emily grabs a cup of half-and-half and squeezes.  That tiny 2 teaspoons of liquid seems like a water balloon popping.  We are both covered- faces, arms, clothes, neck…AND this happens right as the waiter walks up to check on us, “Would you like more napkins, Ma’am?”  Oh, and suddenly a preschooler needs to poop.

You really can’t make this stuff up!

Our food arrives and our rough day begins to turn around.  Hungry children start eating.  They all order pancakes and have so much fun trying all the different syrup flavors IHOP offers.  Who knew, syrup flavors would be a highlight of the day?  I actually get to eat while my food is hot, no one else spills, and everyone is fed and happy.   I’m sure our poor waiter sighs with relief as we walk out that door.

I worry that we’ll arrive back at home with no power, so we also stop in a local used bookstore.  Turns out they have toys, soft chairs, and a puppet theater for kids!  Michael is proud to choose his first real chapter books to buy, the little kids play, the big kids choose new books and read in comfy chairs, we sign up for a summer reading program so the kids can earn free books- and we manage to keep Emily down to knocking only two shelves of books into the floor.

I do love when an unusually rough day turns into a really great memory…but I am very glad that everyone is now tucked into bed and the day is over!

I know I always say posts are worthless without photos, but I didn’t have the camera with me today.  I did Instagram a collage of our adventure from the IPad, if I figure out how to get it to the blog I’ll add it here.  Until then you can look for BigFamilyBlessings on Instagram and follow our feed.

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What a week we’ve had!  Spring is definitely here with its busy schedule and tons of fun.  We had sports every night this week, except for Friday, often with multiple practices or games in one day.  Plus we had a play date one day and spent a day at a local farm too.  Today, before Rob left for work I snuck away for an hour nap.  Our full schedule and too many late nights at the fields finally caught up to me- though I’ll probably regret it and be up all night as a result of that little nap.

I need to take back what I said about 9-10 Softball.  Miriam had a game this week that was action packed!  I found myself screaming and cheering as much as any person at a professional sporting event would!  It was an awesome game.  Miriam hit a ball all the way into outfield and got a triple!  She also played catcher for the first time.  Later in the week her team got to practice with a local high schools varsity softball team.

I only took my camera to Miriam’s game this week, since rain threatened most nights.  Rebekah played two weeknight games, winning both times!  Michael, Peyton and Emily kept busy at the games playing football, blowing bubbles, playing at the playground and eating snacks.

Apparently the busy week caught up to Emily as well- she just woke up from a 2.5 hour nap.  Usually I’m lucky if she sleeps a full hour at naptime!

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We had such a great time attending the Pink Lady Fire Truck Pull sponsored by  Cops 4 the Cure, a wonderful organization committed to supporting employees and families of the police department who are affected by cancer.

Sometimes events are difficult with a lot of little kids, especially when Rob is involved in the event, but the Fire Truck Pull is so relaxed and family friendly that we all have a wonderful time.  Plus, I don’t worry much about the kids safety in a crowd of Police Officers and Firemen.

The kids loved the dunk tank– the officer inside was a wonderful sport, allowing the kids to run up and press the button if they missed with the ball! They also played corn hole and danced to live music on top of watching and cheering for the fire truck pulling.  Rebekah made a new friend, so I was glad I packed enough snacks for an army on an overnight trip! I find it funny that my introvert is the one who makes a friend everywhere we go lately!

As Rob’s team pulled the fire truck, Emily was on my back yelling, “Go Daddy!  Go Daddy!”  They pulled the truck over 100 ft in 20 seconds, winning the Co-Ed Division!

The kids also got a turn to pull the fire truck.  Last year Rebekah cried because pulling the truck scared her; this year she was at the front of the line!

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Homeschooling…ya’ll I just have to share how much I LOVE homeschooling my children.  I know I’ve been scarce around the blog lately, but that’s because this time of year just rocks for homeschooling adventures.  We’ve been busy soaking up as much fun and adventure as humanly possible.

My second favorite thing about homeschooling is the flexibility in scheduling that homeschooling allows.  Sometimes, it’s easy to get bogged down with checking off the ‘to do’ boxes and miss the amazing perks that come with homeschooling.  Ya’ll I’m a box checker- getting to the end of the books, teacher guide, etc are pretty important to me.  I do often remind myself that even public school kids don’t read or complete every page in their textbooks each year, but I am still compelled to complete to the very last page of almost every subject I teach.

How do I balance these two, competing, areas that I feel are important?  Through creative scheduling!  I’ve found that opportunities for fun and adventure are scarce in the hottest and coldest times of the year, so I use those times to our advantage for completing our ‘bookwork’.  We often begin school as early as July, doing schoolwork only on days that we don’t have anything fun planned, thus completing several weeks of work before public schools open their doors.  Then, in January and February we often do double work in at least one or two subjects each day to get even farther ahead.  This means that though it’s only mid-April, but we only have 9 days left of written work to complete our last subjects!

As the weather has finally turned Spring-like we’ve spent hours playing in our yard, riding bicycles, going on a nature hunt with friends, roller skating, having park play dates with old friends as well as brand new friends, and spending extra time just soaking up the beautiful weather.  Though we only have 9 days of ‘school’ left, we probably won’t finish our year until the first week in May.  Instead of bookwork every day, we’ll be ‘schooling’ while spending a day at a local farm, going strawberry picking, learning about Colonial Life at a local plantation, having park play dates, visiting the nature museum, and riding our bicycles.

Homeschooling  has some amazing perks, you just have to remember to break routine and take advantage of them!

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