Week 4 and Week 5 of Living and Active (Final Weeks)

Even though I didn't get the verse of week three memorized I decided to keep up with the other parts of the challenge. I am still fighting with that  one verse but I have gotten the other weeks and am still getting in my workouts each day.

I haven't measured yet but I am feeling different and am able to do things that I couldn't do previously. Like a backbend for example. Last time I did that was when my oldest boy was little, he is turning 10 in a matter of weeks. Maybe in a few more month I will be brave enough to post pictures of this or other activities I can do.

Most importantly this challenge has also helped me get my children more active. Now my kids are the type that if you send them out they will have a blast for quite some time. However with winter coming I am always having issues with them having more energy than we can deal with on days of snow falling none stop. My solution are Leslie Sansone's walking videos mixed with some of the easier Fitness Blender's that I know they can do.

Thanks to the great ladies I met during this challenge I know I can keep up being LIVING AND ACTIVE and they are there to encourage me.

I hope everyone doing the challenge had a blessed time. I know I did!!

Summer is gone, Winter is coming

The last month has been a blur, with our warm nights gone we are now starting to get ready for winter.

Our first freeze happened on September 27th and it was hard enough that when we went out the next morning all my tomato vines were blackened. 

Because we saw it coming, my husband came home from work and we spent an hour or more outside harvesting everything we could  find to bring in. 

This is what we could bring in, Tomatoes, Winter Sqash, Carrots, some Peppers and only one more Watermelon. My lovely girls wanted to showoff the carrots and watermelon :)

We didn't hardly get any of the tomatoes that were on the vines and found out later after quite a few freezing nights that we could have harvested the green ones and stored them over winter and they would have rippened. Unfortunately it was too late and the vines went flat.

I felt so bad seeing them all out there but they didn't taste very well since they had froze. We are pulling the vines and all the tomatoes so I don't have them all trying to reseed next year.

I did however get a good yield of Spaghetti Squash as you can see.
I had to fight the mice over growing these guys and I only had 2 vines (out of an original 10) going but I am pretty happy with the turnout, I just hope they all were ready since we just brought in everything.

Our strawberry plants are still looking great and so are a few herbs but everything else, including my grapes are down for the season. Praying the grapes will make it thru the winter!!

We also didn't get all of the onions or potatoes, technically the potatoes can still be harvested but I am not sure how long they will store. We had friends come over on Saturday right after the first freeze and they happily took 3 rows of onions. While they were with us they shared some of their chili harvest.

One of many batches roasted.

Now that everything is dead we are ripping it all out and tilling some straw in, now we get to plant some garlic we ordered.

Hope everyone is enjoying the change in weather.

Week 3

Oh boy am I starting to feel this challenge pull on me.

I am finding it harder to get my workouts in and this week I definitely didn't get my verse memorized.

Even though that technically means I am out of the challenge I am going to keep pushing thru.

I am looking at this as more of I lifestyle change and am going to keep working on that verse.

Hope everyone else out there is having a good time with this challenge.

Week 2 Down onto Week 3

Well this challenge is definitely just that a challenge.

First challenge for Week 2 was food, we didn't get to go shopping for fresh fruit or veggies so I had to get creative with our snacks. Normally we would munch on them between meals but since I was out I had to make up different things. Best one was baked corn tortillas, the kids love using them as chips (I was out of real chips too).

I also have added a part to my own personal challenge: Drinking enough water!!!

I know I don't drink enough water, I don't like water. Never really have, I would much rather a nice glass of tea, soda or juice. All with sugar in them so I am trying to not go those routes.

I have a water bottle that I carry with me everywhere since I always try to drink water and this week I have made the commitment to drinking 3 of them full each day. That will be a total of 96oz a day, so far I am a short each day but getting closer and closer to hitting my goal.

As for Claire requirements:
Workouts-
Monday-Fitness Blender with my kids and 2 stretching workouts after theirs
Tuesday- Hip Hop Abs from Beachbody (a fellow challenge member was doing them and encouraged me to dust off my discs and put them to use)
Wednesday- Another HHA session and it felt good!!
Thursday- HHA ab workout session
Friday- Cleaning the house but not much else because I pulled something in my left lower back.
Saturday- I walked around our field and tried to help friends harvest onions. Back was still hurting too much.
Sunday- Felt much better so I did 3 Fitness Blender stretching videos.

As you can see the Second challenge was not giving up when I hurt my back on Friday. I went to my support and asked for prayers.
Verse-Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough troubles of its own.
Matthew 6:34

This verse is hard for me because I am constantly trying to prepare for days ahead, I don't like to not be in control or at least ready for what each day brings especially with homeschooling four children. I also like to have a list of jobs to do when my husband is home so I feel that we use our time wisely.

Like I said this verse is a personal struggle for me, one I am still working on.
Accountability-I check in with my group every few days, sometimes daily if I have the time. I try to post every evening when I have complete my workout.

Over all I am thoroughly enjoying this challenge and I am loving the changes I can see in myself already.

On to Week 3!!!
I can't wait to see what it has in store for me :)

Week 1 Living and Active DONE

Well last week was a challenge. 

With the kids and hubby around all week I really didn't have time to myself which would normally be my workout time. 

However with hubby home we spent tons of time in the garden/field at my mother in laws. We had rows of onions and potatoes to harvest and with temps dropping it was time.

My workouts looked like this:

Monday: 2 Fitness blender videos each 15 mins long

Tuesday: working at the Food Bank= loading over 150 food boxes= constantly moving for 2.5 hours.

Wednesday: Two 30 min sessions of harvesting potatoes plus 15 mins or so on onions.

Thursday: Absolutely NOTHING!! My body was hurting so I took the day off.

Friday: 30 mins of harvesting onions and a fitness blender video for stretching (I was still hurting after Wed!!)

Saturday: Random work around the house but nothing to big

Sunday: 3 Fitness blender videos= 33mins total

All in all I had fun starting the challenge and on a plus note I can now hold plank for more then 15 seconds at a time. Its amazing that one week of regular working out can help you feel better.

Eating went okay, I did find out that I don't eat enough calories every day. So trying to work on that now.

I got the memory verse memorize and have been checking in regularly to my group, they are the best!!

Here are some potato and onion photos from our work days to enjoy:  

Thirty minutes of harvesting
set to dry.

One of 3 rows we dug. 

Truck Load on Sunday for Hubby
to take to friends and family

Mini Melon sized onion.

September Already!!

Wow where has this year gone? I honestly can not believe that we are in September, I am so not ready for fall. The past month went by really fast and I am so behind in my fall prep. I am hoping to get a jump on them this week. Biggest job right now is cleaning out the kids closets. I have noticed that all the kids have had major growth spurts and now have out grown last springs wardrobe. Normally we have quite the score at or local thrift store but the last few time I have gone in there was nothing in my munchkins sizes. 

I need to sort and donate all the stuff we no longer need and try to see what I might have stashed for this fall. I am so not the organized type but I try so wish me luck as I enter a very scary zone since the first room up is the girls......the two of them have trashed their closet in the last couple weeks since our rain has made it nice and cool, I guess that's taken in their young girl minds to mean dig into everything because they are cold.

On top of that we are having our first week off of school (started today) and it will be spent with quite a bit of it harvesting the remaining potatoes and majority of the onions from my mother in laws field since it is getting closer to freezing time. My husband is planning on taking a truck load of onions to friends and family when he goes to work next week.

For a fun part of their week the kids also requested that they get to have target practice with their .22 rifle and their bow. 

All of that is on top of our bi-weekly food bank volunteering which is this afternoon. 

 I look forward to sharing pictures!! 

2nd Annual Living and Active Challenge

 Peak313 has done it again!!

Last year at this time Clare created Living and Active, a challenge for our Spiritual and Physical Fitness together along with our Accountability and she has brought it back starting today.

I am the worst person to stick to a fitness program unless I have people holding me accountable so with the help of my lovely Facebook group I know I can do this. 

Last year I quit early because my ankle which I had sprained early in the year. It started to really hurt causing me to favor it and hurt the other one. Not the best results but I am fine now and I even asked my doctor this morning what he thought about me doing the challenge and he told me to go for it! ( I just happened to have an allergy shot appointment this morning.)

Over all I am very healthy, just over weight. My blood pressure and tests are great, but my family line does have medical conditions that are a concern.

 I have been feeling pretty sluggish lately and had already decided I needed to get my booty back into gear. So when Clare posted that she was doing another challenge I was very ecstatic.

The challenge consists of 3 parts:

Spiritual- She gives us a memory verse aka Soul Food each week

Physical- Workout 4x a week 

Accountable- You can have a friend/family member that holds you accountable or you can find a Group to join (there are two on Facebook) and last but not least she does a roll call each Monday for you to check in on.

If you are the slightest bit interested in the challenge you should join, you never know what God has planned for you!!

If you need an accountability partner I am more then happy to help!

You can do this!!! 

We all can!! 

Today's soul food is:

“Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”

Ecclesiastes 4:12

I also did my Physical requirement for the day with 2 videos from Fitness Blender. I did a full body stretch and a yoga video, each were just over 15 mins a piece.

 Don't forget to check out Peak 313 and the information Week 1.

Week Four of School

We are half way thru our fourth week of school here at Serenity and all is going very well considering I only got half of the curriculum I had planned (nothing like having to fix a car instead). We are trying a new scheduling system of 6 weeks on and 1 week off, some of the other homeschoolers that I have heard doing this call it Sabbath Schooling. Once we get our History curriculum it will work really well since they plan there units on a 6 week long basis. That will give me a week in between to prep for the new unit and do a deep tidy on the house or even take a trip without having to drag school along. 

I am really hoping that before the new year starts after the holidays I will be able to get the History curriculum I wanted. Not sure if I am still looking at the Language I was originally. It will all depend on how we adjust to adding the History in. Until then we are doing a lot of reading aloud with books that involve history and am having the older two do some Hooked on Phonics SRA readers I got at the thrift store. They breezed thru the first few and now its getting challenging. That and some sight word spelling and vocabulary is how we are rounding it out for now.

The most important curriculum I got was for math I am LOVING it and so are the kids, I am already looking to buy the next level since the kids are enjoying this one so well. We decided on Teaching Textbooks this year for my older two (4th and 5th grade) since they weren't happy with Math-U-See (but still doing a blend of Alpha and Beta for my third child). I am hoping that Teaching Textbooks comes out with 1st and 2nd before my youngest needs them, thankfully I have a year or two!! It was getting hard to do math since so far none of my kids are thrilled with MUS so finding one they really liked is a good thing, my 2nd grader is very upset he doesn't get to use it yet. He loves sitting next to the other two while they do it and is learning a lot from just watching.

For Science we are starting Apologia Exploring Creation thru Astronomy this year as a family, technically haven't really started it yet. I am waiting till after our first break since I don't have all the supplies yet. We have reviewed the curriculums plan and started reading random library books about the solar system already.

I also started an actual handwriting program (A Reason for Handwriting) for the older two, daughter is loving it but my son not so much. I am thinking it may be a bit too advanced for him still so I am hoping that I can get him a lower level and get my other son started on it also. 

The thing I am most impressed with this year is that the older two kids are really turning into self starters, they are getting up early and starting on their math (son) or handwriting (daughter) without me asking and most often even before breakfast has been started.

We are also starting to do some random cooking lessons and am looking forward to tomato canning soon (at least I hope its soon) with the older two helping, it will be the first time they get to help can from the garden.

Well Them's the Brakes

Yep that's them....he he he.

Since my husband works out of town our weekends are always pretty crazy but this past weekend was extremely crazy. First off we have a family reunion/camping trip coming up so my husband is working a really weird schedule to fit it in and therefore didn't get home till dinner time on Friday night but leaving Sunday afternoon instead of having a week off. To make the most of it Saturday was spent doing random work at home that needed both of us followed by a nice family dinner at my mother-in-laws with us leaving the kids there. Sunday was spend with the two of us doing some more garden work and clean up from the day before, again trying to get as much help from him since he was leaving after lunch. Now here comes the crazy, hubby drove my truck the night before and noticed with in seconds that my brakes were squishy. We noticed a few weeks ago that something was up but since time is very limited right now we planned on waiting till hubby had another week off. 

Nope!!
Sunday our plans changed, on the way over to get the kids and have lunch, there was a bit of fluid on the ground where the passenger tire was. Hubby got out and checked sure enough, brake fluid! My brakes needed done immediately since we planned on driving the truck over 100 miles this coming week and he didn't want to try to rush and do it when he got home (the night before our trip) in case something went wrong. We figured its better to give up our early arrival day in exchange for hubby going to work late to fix the brakes. Thankfully my mother-in-law kept my kids so we could run in with her car and get parts.

Luckily brakes were done pretty quickly Sunday night (at least in my opinion it was quick) and hubby made it to work only a bit late since he waited till early morning to drive down.

Hoping he can make it home at a good time on Wednesday to help me load the truck,  if not I think my kids are excited enough for the weekend they may do it by themselves.

Until then I am a cooking and packing fool ready for camping!!

On a side note, that rain I requested the other night came a tiny bit. The entire time we put the brakes back together and bled them it lightly sprinkled. Not enough to really wet the dirt but enough to cool the outside down nicely and it even continued to sprinkle off and on all night. The garden loved it and needed to be rain delayed but you couldn't even tell it rained on the rest of the ground.

Well good night all off to walk the dog one more time and hit the sack!!

Where is the Rain?

I know I live in the desert but this is a bit depressing!!!

Normally by this time in July we have had multiple monsoon storms but this year.....

NADA!!!

This year is my sixth summer living out here and every year is always a tad bit different, but this is crazy.

This summer we have already had it above 100 degrees multiple times (which never happens till August) and now we are barley getting sprinkles of rain too. You know the "rain" that is just enough to wet the air and make you shut the windows but once you get that last one down it's done and the dirt is still dry.

It's kind of a bummer.

It wouldn't be a big deal but IT IS MESSING WITH MY CAMPING plans!!!!

Every year my in-laws gather together for a camping trip. Some family members travel great distances to make it. We rent a group camping site where we all set up a ton of tents and we each taking turns cooking for the group and playing games.

We love it!

Seriously!!

We love it no matter how it turns out, I mean we have had some years where we have had to change lakes, had flooded campsites or leaking tents, missing shoes or jackets. Those things just make it more interesting in my opinion. The part that is driving us all a bit nuts is the no campfires.

The sad part is every year the weekend after we have our big event the forest rangers open the fire pits for the season. This has happened  to us the last two years.

We took that as a sign to move our dates a week later this year and now it is even drier and hotter with the rain just teasing us.

It's not a big deal but I am really wanting a campfire.

I miss watching all the kids roast marshmallows or my nieces do "camping theater" as we all sit by the fire. Its just so fun and that smell of the fire just makes it even better!!

The last time we had a fire Baby Girl was only a few months old, she is now a little sassy four year old that is wanting to make s'mores with Grandma and the cousins.

So here is my  plea for it to rain as much as possible BEFORE we go camping next week. I seriously doubt its going to work but hey this girl has got to try!!

Now I am off to enjoy another rain-less night with my loving husband. 

Weeding and Planting

Today I spent the morning weeding.

I despise weeds!!! Not all weeds, just the nasty ones.

Mostly TUMBLEWEEDS!!! 

Why do they exist?? What is their purpose? Other then to stab me when trying to plant peas??

That is what I did today. Stab the crap out of my fingertips and plant peas. 

Snow and Snap peas, yummy!!

 We had some planted from the spring but they didn't produce much and something tunneled underneath them. 

I then built a trellis for my one pickling cucumber vine that made it. I kept scratching myself with the chicken wire so I decided to use some old wire shelves I had. I have plenty of it left for the peas when they are ready. 

I can't wait for the garden to start producing food.

Onions are starting to fall over and random potatoes are drying up. Squash are coming and hopefully tomatoes are soon to follow.

Here are some photos from Saturday.

Eight Ball (Green Round Zucchini)

One Ball (Yellow Round Zucchini)

Green Patty Pan

Hale's Best Cantaloupe

Wednesday = No Kids

It's pretty weird having Wednesdays all to myself.

For the past month I have dropped the kids off at Grandma's for "summer school" and  when she also started taking them to Wednesday night church it just made sense for them to spend the night giving me quiet time.

Now the question is what have I done with a day of no kids. 

 The first day I literally cleaned like crazy. We had been super busy the weekend before so the house/ kitchen really needed a good cleaning. Then by 4:00 pm I was going a bit nuts, the house was too quite. I don't like quiet!! Being a mom of four kids quiet feels like something is wrong. I solved that by blasting my music. I don't get to do that much with kids, someone always asks to turn it down (their dad's influence even though he used to blast music too!!) I also found myself in bed early, like 9 pm early. Lights out and everything!

Second time I didn't work myself nearly as hard but cleaned out "trash" or what I call trash and the kids called treasures. I bagged it all up and then tied the bags so they couldn't see inside, then when they got home they helped load it up to take to the dumpster. 

Week three was a different since I wasn't home. I helped my brother in law and his girlfriend take their dogs into be fixed so I spent the day driving back and forth to town and preping school and this time I decided to take it easy again. 

Now here on Wednesday number 4 without kids I finally relaxed for a bit. I started by eating breakfast since I didn't eat with them before they left. Then I walked the dog (we adopted a new dog last week that likes to chase ANYTHING that he sees so he has to be walked on a leash). Worked on breakfast dishes and a few other things in the kitchen, with me going shopping for the month next week cleaning out the fridge and inventorying the freezer was needed. I also watched some NCIS, we started watching them a few weeks ago and I am totally hooked. 

Then I decided since it got cool outside a little earlier then it has been the last week I would go feed the garden. I have been wanting to do this since I noticed some squash on the vines Saturday. 

It took me over an hour to feed all of the squash and cucumber plants, grapevine and sprinkling it around the tomatoes. 

I then transplanted some chocolate mint from root cuttings my husband got and  my aloe plant that has been needing to go outside. The aloe will have to come back inside at some point before freezing nights come but I am hoping this will be good for it. 

Then I transplanted some standard mint and a tomato plant. I had to transplant these guys because something is messing with my waterlines. We noticed something wonky with the watering this weekend but assumed it was because of the unusually hot weather we were having last week. I assumed wrong!

I still don't know what is up with the water but plan on getting out there tomorrow night with a kid or two to find out and to dig up a few more herbs that are getting deprived of water. I am hoping moving them at this time of year won't hurt them to much, but since the waterlines are buried where they currently are I can't figure it out without digging them up. Hoping that with monsoon here (in a way) it will help them.

I spent over THREE hours out there working before I realized the sun was basically gone.

Tomorrow I am planning on doing a good cleaning job inside the house since Friday will be spent helping at the food bank and hubby comes home. 

That's enough for tonight. I will be back tomorrow with new tales of gardening work and how much laundry I folded (staring down some that's been calling my name all day).

Goodnight!!

Returning to Blogging

I want Serenity Life to be my online journal of our accomplishments or experiments with the children. This year they are going to start journaling their days as part of school so I figure why shouldn't I join in that fun, one day they can even read all of my entries.

With school starting in a month I figure if  I can blog a tiny bit each night I will have a routine down before life gets crazier. These blogs may be completely pointless and the void of any real interest but I want to do it. I am going to do it!

I have so many ideas running thru my head as to what I should blog about and will start with them tomorrow. 

Topics to come:

2013-2014 Curriculum choices (still narrowing things down and preping but I have a general idea)

Garden Journal (first squash will be here any day)

Food Experiments (even bad ones which I have had recently)

Kid Funnies (with four kids I have quite a few)

Tips for the house

If you like my posts please let me know, that encourages me to keep going.

See ya tomorrow!