Science loves Spring!!

The change of season always brings about a serious love of science. It's the time in the world when the earth comes alive and we marvel and wonder that everything didn't die without the heat and shelter we need as humans. We praise green shoots that bring flowers and food. We admire birds and hopefully feel enthusiastic as we seek energy after a resting winter. The natural flow of the world just drives my kids to ask a million questions - and what home school mother wouldn't use this to her advantage?!

We're planting things left and right, raising baby chickens, baby goats, and studying water cycles. It's a very fluid study that follows their demands and expands far greater than I expect.

Have I mentioned I love Spring?!

Daunika, Aurora, Declan and me set out to full understand how the rain comes to be. Enter these nifty little bags of water, sealed of course, and sharpies. Now, Aurora wrote the cycle as Clouds > Rain > Water  and Daunika and I discussed it further and she wrote Condensation > Precipitation > Liquid form > Evaporation.

And of course, I made one for Declan to "experiment" with us. He was thrilled and in true Moose fashion, he held his own with asking his questions.

To further develop this - we heated up the bags with a hair dryer to create evaporation. Once enough evaporation had occurred  the water droplets became heavy and began to fall creating precipitation. The kids were THRILLED!!!

So, for hours, our kids ran around yelling "I can make RAIN, I can make real RAIN!!!!!" What a success. Getting kids excited about learning is amazing and Daunika can recite the cycle and explain it fairly in depth without skipping a beat because her learning was fun and that helped her really remember it. She wrote a beautiful journal entry about rain helping our earth too.

Letti is our remaining baby goat. She is so loving and free spirited. She is getting big fast too!

Our lettuces, despite complete and total neglect (literally!) they are surviving. We placed several seeds all in the planters and set them outside. I haven't covered them up because I wanted to see how they would fair honestly. It's so early in the season, I am seeing what a few seeds do in response to cold. So far, our peas are grumpy and only a few sprouted but our lettuce and spinach is rocking it!

I'm getting ready to move our chickens over into a new set up, I'll update soon loves!

Mornings

I always chuckle when I hear people who rave about "eating dinner as a family" is essential to family unity. Well, we're screwed if that's true! I absolutely love eating dinner together as a family, don't get me wrong, but in my own home - dinner is often rushed, forgotten in the midst, and often easily thrown together in the crock pot for the simple fact that I know I'll completely forget it the rest of the day! So in my own home, dinners are not our meal - nor is really breakfast - but actually mornings.

We begin our day together. Unified. No two days ever exactly look the same but our mornings include a variety of activities such as snuggling in bed (this usually means a giant dog pile that crushes all important organs, but who cares?!) Damon and I are polar opposites in snuggling. He could have all of us sit on him and snuggle forever. I can NOT stand to be squished long. I'm always the first to jump out of bed... Damon mosies out of bed. We start a pot of coffee, or a pot of tea, and usually tackle some dishes. We feed kiddos, sit together in the comfort of our couch or in the sun shine outside. We slow down before the day begins because we understand that the moment that it starts, we don't get another chance to truly BE.

This morning I got up and worked out a bit before waking my dear husband. When I checked in to see where everyone was... this was what I found in my bed. Pretty darn perfect huh?

Daunika has been enjoying having junk food for breakfast this week. Usually it's something more than cereal, but these past few weeks are seeming like a complete blur to me and I admit that the break from cooking every meal is much needed right now.

This was us this morning. Our nifty big-kid snapped this for me <3

And how I ended my morning.... In the sunshine with kids running around me and loud music while hula hooping? Pretty much perfection! 

Spring Spring Spring!

Oh oh oh. I love Spring.

Truth be told, I actually love all seasons. Growing up in such a wet and rainy area, I didn't realize what I missing out on until 9 years ago when we decided to be weird and move to Idaho. At first, I hated the changes. I wasn't used to them. Now, I love them. It's amazing how your body begins to long for the sunshine and warmth in the midst of winter and then in the fall, you long for hearty soups, fireplaces and snuggling. It's really fascinating!

Around here, we're enjoying Spring!

Kalani enjoyed her first egg hunt. Every year we do one Easter egg hunt with dear friends. It's a good time for the kids and great fellow shipping with yummy foods and great conversations! 

We've also spent time prepping our garden area. Early in the morning after spreading several yards of manure, Damon got up and rototilled this awesome area. We're hoping to have a rocking garden this year!

My AWESOME brother and his lovely wife welcomed their first child 2 weeks ago. Athena is a tiny peanut and I am enjoying snuggling a tiny babe on Monday nights for family potluck! 

Warm weather always brings the loading up on all veggies!! Last week we ate 3 bunches of spinach, 1 head of lettuce, 4 bunches of bananas, 10 lbs of apples, 7 bell peppers, 3 heads of cauliflower, and 5 pounds of carrots. Can I tell you how excited I am to be growing a GARDEN again?! We eat amazing amounts of veggies. 

I'll be the first to admit I have absolutely no idea what my husband and girls are doing in this picture. I snapped it because it shows our typical life! I was cooking pancakes and looking out the window and saw our kiddos with shovels and my husband out there digging to his hearts contentment. Leveling the ground by hand? Sounds fun right?! 

I drove 170 miles round trip to bring 1000 lbs of chicken food home. I've been frustrated with my options in the valley for GMO free feed. What's so interesting to me is that people will rave all about their healthy chickens and fresh eggs, but are feeding them cheap chicken food that has gmo corn and gmo wheat and worse, some of the cheap brands directly add in "fillers" that just makes me want to hurl thinking about it! So, I was thrilled to post up on facebook a group run to Wieser Idaho for GMO FREE chicken feed!! I came home with 1000 lbs of feed. WHOO HOOO!!!! 

This weekend we watched the LDS General Conference. It was a wonderful experience for us as a family to unify ourselves to slow down this weekend and rest after a hectic week and another one right around the corner! 

We printed some little work books for the kids. We sat around, listened, enjoyed, reflected, colored, ate, and then for Sunday afternoon we joined some wonderful people in the ward for lunch and watching conference with them! It was great :)

We're carrying on around here indeed, I love Spring! What are YOU doing this Spring!?