New Look, New Post, New Perspective

I'm back! Like, really really back.

I took a much needed break from blogging and reading them (mostly). My google reader is going haywire I'm sure. I haven't checked that thing in ages. Six months to be exact.

The break from blogging gave me a little bit of a new perspective and
F R E E D O M. I was really at odds with blogging in general. 

Can I be honest? This whole "mommy blogger" movement creeps me out a little. It just does.

I wanted so badly to believe that blogging was a good way to connect with other women and learn from one another. I do feel like this can be the case. I still have blogs that I adore reading whether it be because it's thought provoking, witty, inspiring, or just pretty to look at.

But, I feel blogging has potential, and maybe already has, to turn into a way for stay-at-home mommy's to have an audience of some sort- you know, besides the audience of little people and husband living with them. I mean, women surely got by in past decades without blogging about their child's poop and uploading a picture within minutes of it happening for the whole world to see right? Did they have the need to dissect with their words the latest and newest (sarcasm should be noted) craze of cleaning with baking soda?

Frankly, I just didn't want to be a part of fighting this battle in my own heart of needing an audience outside of my home or be a part of "feeding" into that for someone else. I know it's presumptuous on my part to assume that I would be doing that for someone else. But, let's be honest. It does feel good for any human to hear accolades of how awesome we are because we (fill in the blank) or can do (fill in the blank).

On the flip side of this, I would hear comments of women who would read blogs and walk away feeling discontent because they don't feel like they are doing enough like a certain super mom blogger or because they're not as creative as this blog mommy or because their home doesn't look like this mom who homeschools and runs a photography business all at the same time.

Is that paragraph up there all one sentence? I really need to work on my writing skillz!

Back to the point.

We can all agree that seeing what goes up in a post on a blog (or even facebook) is not an entirely accurate picture of someones life. Right? Behind the staged photos or the funny stories or hard posts about trials there is sometimes much much more going on. Sometimes it is what it is.

And I wouldn't even go so far as to saying that bloggers even have an obligation to be bare bones real in all areas of their lives and fully disclose everything with mostly complete strangers who aren't in close community with them. Some may choose to do this and that is their choice. Others may want to pick and choose what they want their readers to know about them. I don't think it's a black and white issue. But, I've heard from other women out there who like different bloggers because they are "real". There are blogs that I love for the "real" factor too. However, I believe it is hard to get an accurate "real" picture of someone based solely off of their words and the photos they choose to post. That's all I'm saying.

I think the thing to embrace here is for those of us who choose to be a part of blogging is to extend grace towards one another AND to ourselves. We shouldn't read blogs and leave with the feelings of discontentment or that we're lame losers because we don't do (fill in the blank) in our homes, with our families, or in our kitchens. We must know that we are only seeing a glimpse of someones life and what they want you to know. Not the entire story. Playing games of comparison with other women who you really don't know entirely and accurately is harmful and a waste of our time.

I got tired of reading blogs (mine included) in which the author starts off after not posting for days (gasp!) by apologizing profusely for their lack of posts and how they were so so sorry. Why apologize? Why did I feel I needed to apologize? Was it because the blog quickly became all about the audience rather than the content? Most likely for me, this was the case.

I'm choosing to blog without obligations. This blog is about the things I love, celebrate, and what I want to write about. There pressure is off. I don't want to fit any molds or keep up with any trends. Most likely you'll find things in written form about my Savior, farm life,  my girls, the farmer of my dreams, simplicity (or trying to achieve it), foodie stuff, hippy stuff, and whatever else I find joy in.

I'm not terribly well-written, but it is something I do enjoy and hope to practice. I've wanted to be a journal keeping kind of gal, but sitting down with a pencil is just not my thing. I can crank things out much quicker by typing. 

One of the things I noticed about being gone so long from blogging is that I didn't document these precious little girls' and our family's lives well. I missed that. I missed putting into words how wonderful they are, pausing to document and capture, and delighting in that.

There is something truly special about taking a thought and putting it into words to weave a story. Writing makes you dig deep and pick exactly just the right word to express the sentiment you are feeling- and the Thesaurus is always helpful too!

Thanks for popping by our little neck of the interwebz. I'm not perfect. I DO want to be as real as possible. But, there is always a pile of laundry behind the scenes of any photo taken in our home. This is for dang sure! Heck, I may even post photos of the real live insanity.

And one day in the near future when I have my act together enough (will that day every come??) these blog posts will be put into a printed book for my girls to have for years to come. In the meanwhile, I'm just glad I can hit "save" and it's done.

I'll leave you with a snapshot from yesterday of my girls playing together smiling and happily...a rare moment.

Busy Bags:::: Geoboards

I have some of the craftiest friends around. My friends Kirby and Chelsea organized a Busy Bag Swap!

A "Busy Bag Swap" is basically where 26 mamas make 26 of one single craft and then swap them with the other mamas making 26 of their craft. Brilliant! So basically you do 26 of the same craft and then walk away with 26 different crafts for your children to enjoy. That is way too many numbers in one sentence.

This past year in homeschooling, having activities for my younger ones to do was (is) a challenge for me. So, I was thrilled when I heard about this opportunity!

We had to do a blog post with directions and information on our projects so I thought I might as well give my untouched blog some lovin' since I did the work to make a blog post and all.

For more of these Busy Bag Projects, head on over to these gal's blogs and look at all of the wonderful projects that were in our Busy Bags.

Kirby's Blog
Chelsea's Blog

Family: I've been happily married to a farmer and the man of my dreams for over 10 years. I've got to give him shout outs on this busy bag project too! Thanks Jason! We have 4 girls: Kaylyn (7), Laney Rae (4), Ruthie (2), and Exie Jo (7 mo). We live on a farm in Brenham, TX.

Our Farm: www.YonderWayFarm.com

Our Family Blog: www.YonderWayFarm.blogspot.com

How do you spend your free time?

I think most of us mommies chuckle at this. In all reality, my free time is devoted to catch up on things I can't do when I DON'T have free time. Is that vague enough for you? Good. I love cooking and experimenting with recipes. I'm a foodie. Dork alert: I love reading natural health books and alternative methods of health treatments. I do love being crafty and creating things although I don't get to do it very often. The beauty of this has been that as my girls have gotten older, I have included them more and more into this aspect of my life. We have fun with that! I also thoroughly enjoy photography.

When you were a child, what was one of your favorite ways to spend your day?

I remember playing school with my sister all of the time.

Fondest memory with your mom as a child?

I loved going garage sailing with my mom on the weekends. She was also so sweet about letting me pick out some 25 cent decoration for my room. I thought I was quite the decorator. It also always seemed as though she had some fun activity for us to go and do.

What does special time with your children look like?

I like to take just one or two of my girls at a time with me on special errands. I have found this to be such a fun way to spend one on one time with them. My girls LOVE to play beauty shop so we are always playing that. We also spend a lot of time in the kitchen together. My older girls are becoming fond of cooking and this makes my heart so happy! As much as I can, I try and include my girls in whatever activity that I am doing around the house.

Favorite outdoor activity with the kids:

We live on a farm, so we are constantly outside doing something together. I guess one of our favorite things to do is collect eggs in the evening with daddy. We pile in the bed of the truck and go driving around the farm at sunset. This is one of my favorite times of day! Another favorite thing we do is school outside on pretty days. We lay out a quilt on the grass and have school there.

A favorite tradition that you want to pass down to your kids:

Whatever the holiday may be, I feel like one area that we are firm in is opening up our home to family and friends and surrounding ourselves with lots of people on holidays. We love having people over and celebrating!

Our family picture.....this is comical. We currently do not have a family picture of ALL of us since our last baby girl was born. So, we had to make do with a snapshot of me on the couch with the girls. My hubby was behind the camera. And I may or may not have just told my 2 year old "Smile, or you'll get a spanking."

Busy Bag Activity:

Geoboards are so versitile and can be used a number of ways in teaching a variety of concepts. My 2 year old all the way up to my 7 year old have enjoyed playing with their Geoboards. 

You can teach basic geometric shapes using these boards.

These are so fun for my girls to sit and do together. I also find this to be a really easy activity that doesn't require very much assistance from me. And its really sweet to see the older kids teaching the younger ones their shapes on their boards.

For the older children, you can create geometric shapes that are a bit more challenging.

 

 Or you can teach your child some of their numbers and letters too on the boards.

We even like to freestyle and see what shapes or patterns we can come up with on our own! The possibilities really are endless.

Another thing my girls have enjoyed doing with this project is drawing their shapes directly onto the grid cards as well. This would be a simple thing to throw into a diaper bag or backpack on the go.

Here is how I (mostly my husband) made them:

In all reality, if I were making just ONE geoboard, I might consider using THIS method of buying a wooden pre-cut plaque with routered edges. They are about $6 a piece at Hobby Lobby and you could probably get one for half price when they go on sale. However, they weren't on sale when we were purchasing materials for this project, and we were making a lot of them so we had to keep our cost down. I don't know if I'd use the thumbtacks, so we opted for something a little more durable and used nails instead.

Since these were mostly for small children (preschool aged), we chose to do a simple grid of nails of 5 across and 5 down.

Breakdown of Supplies:

1. We used a 2x8x10 board. My husband cut them down into 8"x 8" squares. We used 2 boards total to make 26 of them. 

2. We measured out a grid (this will depend on the size of board that you use) on cardboard as our template for nailing the nails into the boards. ****Honestly, this was the hardest part of the whole process was figuring out the grid and the measurements for it.

3. My husband graciously nailed in 650 nails into the boards in our grid pattern.

4. We spray painted them after the nails were in. I wanted this look over the unfinished look, but you do NOT have to spray paint them. 

5. I designed the grid cards (file below) in photoshop with various shapes. I also included a row of blank grids so that you could free-hand other geometric shapes, numbers, or letters. I used the Bakers Family blog grid template and then designed my own shapes on the cards verses leaving them blank.

 6. Printed them on cardstock at home. I then laminated the 8.5 x 11 sheets of cardstock and cut them into rows. 

7. I put these cards on a metal ring along with a pencil bag and the cloth potholder loops and hair rubberbands so it would all stay together. ** The potholder loops were a little lose for the shapes that weren't so spread apart, so I included some hair rubberbands in there as well.

Price Breakdown:

(2) 2x8x10 boards of wood: $12 ($6 each)

(1) large box of nails: $6

(4) cans of spray paint: $12 ($3 each)

(3) large bags of potholder loops from Hobby Lobby: $12 ($4 each) I put a handful of loops in each bag.

(26) metal rings from Walmart: $8 (pkgs of 8@ $1.88 each)

(26) plastic pencil bags: $6.50 (4 bags for $1 at a local dollar store)

***For printing and laminating, I used my own personal printer and my own laminator. I would estimate about $10 for me to do this. However, it will vary if you print them at a copy center or laminate them somewhere else. 

Total cost for 26 Geoboards: $56.50 OR $2.17 each.

Downloads:

Shapes Page 1 

Shapes Page 2

Sisters Playing

A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost. ~Marion C. Garretty

It's not always roses and sunshine around here.

Our life is not perfect. It's perfectly imperfect.

And I'm so thankful for the gift of living this life; my life. And not just living it as merely to survive it. But, living to embrace it for all it's perfections and imperfections.

Praying that in the perfect moments I overflow with thankfulness.

Praying that in the imperfect moments I produce growth.......and humility. By His grace alone.

I captured one of those "thankful" moments the other day. I'm trying to be better about that and seizing the opportunity to just stop. and. pause.

"Take it ALL in and slow down," I have to remind myself.

Looking through the lens of a camera helps me do that. I see things I want to forever remember and never ever forget.

How little chubby knuckles held both Thomas'.

How her face was fixated when caught in a moment of creativity.

How sister smiles and belly button parties looked.

Snapshots that I want to etch in my memory when the years have gone by and I'm trying to remember how it once was in this season.

These pictures will one day make me cry- I'm sure of it. What seems as "everyday" now, will one day be but a memory and a photograph.

There is so much more life to behold and take in. But, I want to pause and remember the moments as we meander through it.

Some kids have lemonade stands.....

Our kids sell beets. I feel a Dwight Schrute joke coming on.

It's official. The cousins are back!

And the entrepreneurial spirit is running rampant around here.

If you come out to farm at any point this summer, you might leave with something a tad on the interesting side.

The "Cousin Store" is open for business!


Oh, but you don't eat beets, you say???

Well how about a peach and frog. Delish.

Last summer it was rocks and cow bones for sale in their cute little storefront. This summer they have real live vegetables and critters. I tried to get Kaylyn to make rose flower arrangements to sell to no avail- we have lots of roses.

Kaylyn has requested to sell all sorts of odd things so I sound like a broken record repeating,"Honey, let's stick to selling things that people buy on a farm."

Exie Jo {{{4 mOnThS}}}

Exie Jo is almost 4 months old!

I think I say this with every single girl in this house.

I. Can't. Believe. It.

Exie Jo is the most smiley baby.

Yesterday she was worked up and crying because she could not see me. When I walked in front of her, she immediately turned off the tears and turned on the smiling.

Her favorite thing is to be held and sit in my lap. I'm so thankful to have a baby that likes to snuggle!

And she is sleeping through the night and on a very amazing schedule so this mama has absolutely no complaints.

Here are some more pics of her precious self!

Happy Birthday Little Lovey

Happy Birthday Ruthie Claire!

Today you are 2.

You have an exuberance that is unlike any other.

Your face is full of animated expressions.

Your eyes catch everything in sight. You are the most observant child I've witnessed.

Ruthie, there is excitement and laughter in your soul. It's so sweet to watch you get worked up about something.

The words you say are music to my ears. You are talking so well. The other day I was helping you do something and you blurted out in full sentence,"I can do it."

No doubt there are some quirks about you that are to be mentioned. You aren't a fan of water (i.e. bath time). You can't stand stuff on the bottom of your feet. You get this from your momma.

And "I ont some" ("I want some") is your favorite sentence.

You love to sit and read books. And you are already such a little momma helping out with your baby sister, Exie Jo. Your favorite toy is your stroller and baby doll. And the pig is still in your arms 24/7.

Ruthie, I pray sweet blessings over your life and that the Lord would grab a hold of your heart at an early age. I pray that His kindness leads your little heart to repentance and a saving faith. And that the same exuberance you have now as a child, would be used in ways unimaginable as a daughter of the King.

"The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you;
The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace."
Numbers 6:24-26

Here are some cute photos of your sweet self.

A common face....

This is you in your "pig coma".


Our sweet big 2 year old! Look at those curls!


Daddy and helping his excited princess!




Mama helping you open your presents because you were more interested in the cake.

Your family loves you so much Ruthie Claire!

Happy Birthday Eldest Love

Happy Birthday Eldest Love,

You are a delight to this home.

My days are sweet with you alongside me. You are my right-hand gal- my "go to". Always eager to help, serve, love. It is pure joy to watch you with your sisters and how you dote over them so proud and grown-up.

Kaylyn, your brain is filled with creativity. Your need to create always keeps me on my toes- and sometimes wears me out because I can't keep up.

Yesterday, you brought me a man made out of leaves.

Your speech in Classical Conversations a few weeks ago was about what you want to do when you grow up. Your answer: a seamstress who made modest "stylish" clothing.

And what 2 1/2 year old knows what the color "magenta" or "chartreuse" is???? You my dear.

In watching your little life, I'm reminded of the gifts that God lavishly gives us to serve His kingdom and for His glory. I pray it's all used for His glory and His alone.

You wake up eager to create and inspire and want the biggest and best thing that the day holds for us.

Lovey, you are full of surprises! You love to give gifts to people that you specifically create for them. It's one of your favorite things to do.

You are also our little joker around here. You love to laugh and tell jokes. You are learning the art of telling a joke. And another favorite thing of yours is to play practical jokes on people.....good ones, not gross ones.

Our firstborn, you came into this world glowing.....literally. We battled jaundice for 2 weeks and had a billirubin light in our living room the whole duration of that 2 weeks. You were our little glow worm. I always knew you had the gift of "lighting up a room".

Kaylyn, you are a blessing to this family. We love you beyond words.

Father, give Kaylyn the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, and the knowledge of You. That the eyes of her heart be enlightened that she will know the hope to which you have called her, the riches of Your glorious inheritance in the saints and His Incomparably great power for us who believe.
(Ephesians 1:17-19)

And just for fun, here are some things I found on my camera yesterday as I was loading pics. A few weeks ago you had a fashion show and wanted me to photograph you.




And then these were extra special because I discovered that you had a photoshoot of your own with your stuffed dog "Flower". So funny! Again, you are FULL of surprises. AND apparently you know how to set the timer on my camera too. Could you show your momma this trick???

I love you sweet girl!