Saturday, August 29, 2009

Our two WHOLE weeks of summer have come to a close, and I'm thinking about Christmas????

Sorry, it was just a little complaint. But honestly 2 weeks is about all we got. We had a nice 3 day vacation with my family in nearby Rome, Maine. My parents did all the cooking and meal clean up helped with the boys (forrest and Mike stayed home) so it was unexpectedly restful for me. I took a kayak ride with my sister, and even got some knitting done.

It's just about time for our first hard frost here in Maine. As sad as I am about our non existing summer, and my barely existing garden. I am very much looking forward to fall. The Common Ground Fair is coming right up, an Organic Maine Tradition. Columbus Day will bring our trip up Sugarloaf Mountain to see the amazing fall view of the mountains and hopefully our Christmas picture. And we are planning another "grown-up" vacation. I know the last one didn't actually happen, but i have a plan this time! We will be going with our good friends Sarah and Andy. Now other people are depending on us to pull through, so Mike can't talk me out of it. We are swapping houses with my parents (oh ya, they get 4 boys and 2 puppies with mine ha ha!) and site seeing in Boston and on Cape Cod. Kind of funny since I grew up there, but I have never done the FREEDOM TRAIL or biked the Canal at the Cape. It's going to be a great time!

Our school year starts Monday. I have made up the boys schedules and posted them on the fridge. Forrest has been excepted into a half day(every other day) technical school as a "Bio-Tech" student. He is sooooooo excited. It's going to be a little crazy trying to work "school" back into our school day. Luckily they are going to let him take the bus and drop him down the street on their way back to the regular high school. This will save me close to two hours of driving time daily. His days will be busy if he wants to complete all the courses he has started but i know he can do it. Sometimes I find, the busier you are, the more you get done.

Gaynor will be continuing with his Oak Meadow (Waldorf based) curriculum and Math-U-See plus Rosetta Stone French. Harland will be playing and working on his reading and writing. He has stared writing phonetically on his own, making lists of characters from books and movies.I am still amazed to see this child, who has never been exposed to a traditional school model, learning all he needs to learn, basically on his own. My older ones were not this way when I took them out of school. They still feel they need a curriculum and "work" and that is fine, it is just very different for Harland. I am secretly looking forward to a more scheduled day. Although, I am quite sure Indigo has other plans.

My house is slowly coming back to me. The play room looks awesome. I got rid of tons of toys. Our school area is more organized, there is still work to be done though. I have lots still to do but I am happy with the results so far.

I have all ready started holiday knitting. I am hoping for a homemade/local Christmas. We have not followed through on this plan yet, maybe this will be the year. It really is totally mental for me. I need to get over the idea of my boys having tons of gifts to open. Quality not quantity. It just continues to be harder than expected to wrap my brain around this change. Sarah has convinced me to work on developing new traditions for the season and the big day. Maybe if I start planning now I can accomplish this goal. Got any advice for me? Bring it on! What type of non gift traditions do you have for Christmas day? Games? Meals? I would love to hear what you are doing. Yes, I realize it's still August.

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