Gregory loves to help out around the house. Felicity, on the other hand, hates it. A few minutes ago I was able to catch Gregory helping with the laundry on video.

This is something our family is learning everyday. Everyone has their opinion on simple living, and many think those of us living this lifestyle (or learning to live this lifestyle) are quite um…nuts.

I read this post by Amy over at Homestead Revival this morning. She really has hit the nail on the head with this wonderful post. Please go over and read, you’ll be glad you did.

If you are not already on the same page as those of us living simply, or working toward our goal of Simple Living, do take all of the information to heart and really think about what is being said. You just may change you mind.

We absolutely LOVE Melissa and Doug toys at our house! I couldn’t even tell you which is each childs’ favorite. We have lots of the cut and play wooden food, puzzles galore and loads more.

Which is your favorite M&D toy?

Well, regardless of your favorite, head on over to their blog and enter to win this:

Photo credit Melissa & Doug

There’s ways to earn more than one entry, just read the entire post.

Felicity has a new kitten, as I mentioned a few days ago. Friday, Felicity wasn’t feeling well, so I was able to take a photo of them.

I tried a new recipe for breakfast this morning. Banana Bites were delicious! I got the recipe from Weelicious. Weelicious specializes in HEALTHY recipes for babies, toddlers and kids, but Mike and I loved them!! The warm, mushy banana inside of the pancake was out of this world delicious! Even those on a gluten free diet can make these, as you can use any recipe for pancake batter.

Felicity and I ate them with dark Karo and Mike ate them with some of my freshly canned Peach Jam.

I made a batch of pancake batter from my Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book and it took 4 bananas to use all the batter. I froze the extras for breakfast on another day or just a yummy snack.

Today and tomorrow we are doing major cleaning and cleaning out at our house. We are implementing a new schedule starting next week for our family. So, everything needs to be “ship-shape” so we don’t have to play catch up, but rather just start on Day 1 of our new life.

Years ago, we lived on a good schedule. When Mike and I both worked full time outside the house, and Felicity was a baby, things just “worked”. Not really that we meant to, everything pretty much just fell into place at certain times, and we rolled with it.

When Mike’s work schedule changed from a set schedule to a changing shift schedule in 2004, things just fell apart. It has been that way until now. I refuse to keep going the way things are. He’s been in an “8-5″ job for 10 months now. Time to get our family’s’ lives back on track and together.

We have made the decision to return to homeschooling Felicity this year. It has taken Mike and I months of weighing out things to come to this decision. We’re excited and Felicity, while not excited, is looking forward to shorter school days, Fridays off, field trips and learning at her own pace. We are using a couple of different curriculum options, that’s one of the joys of homeschooling. Picking the classes from which curriculum that you find fits your child best. The class she is looking the most forward to is “History of the Horse through Literature”.

It’s offered by Beautiful Feet and not only is about the actual history of the horse itself, but combines loads of American history, art, geography, math, bible and more. All this while learning about her favorite creature in the world. I picked up the guide last spring just on a whim, as something to do during the summer, not realizing it is a full school year course. So we’ve saved it to start this fall.

Gregory will continue to attend the private school for children with Autism where he has been for 3 years. He loves it and is thriving, so we will definitely not change anything there.

Time to get started on my day. Have a great weekend.

We’ve decided, since we still live in the city limits and don’t have any idea when we might finally be able to find a place and move to the country, our Seramas will be re-homed. I’m not happy about this, but I know it’s the best decision. I’m really tired of all the crowing in the house. It really gets quite loud. I’m also tired of changing their cage. Most of all, they need to live outdoors. That’s where they are supposed to be. They will be so much happier. Maybe not as spoiled with as much human contact as the get from us, but in the long run, they will be better off.

But we are not definitely not pet poor. Felicity has a new kitten. She has always wanted a pet that she can hold and play with and that will sleep with her. “Her” dog, Bailey, loves her, but isn’t a dog to sit in her lap or hang out with her as Felicity would like. So now, she’s got a new baby to baby. Her kitten’s name is Marshy, short for Marshmallow. But she’s not completely white, as you would think. I’ll post photos in a day or two.

Have a great Friday.

I discovered the ValueTales series of books a couple of months ago. I told Felicity about them and she was excited and wanted to read THEM ALL! I had no idea just how many were in the series nor did I have any idea how old they were.

We went to our trusty local library to check THEM ALL out. Well, our branch had none. Only one out of six branches in Amarillo had any. They had six of them. That’s it. So we had them transferred to our closest branch. Felicity LOVED THEM! 

I promised her I would start getting them for her as I could. I love to buy used books on Amazon and eBay.

Just now, as I was browsing around on Amazon, look what I found!!!

I am going to pre-order this and surprise Felicity with it. I hope it is as good as the originals. Wonder if there will be more treasuries, until the whole old series is in them?

Oh and by the way - sorry I’ve been gone so long. June’s been a bit crazier than expected.

A new teacher arrived at my son’s school last August. I wasn’t so sure how he would do with a new teacher. At our first teacher/parent meeting, I was quite apprehensive. She told us by May, Gregory would be potty trained (because she wasn’t going to change diapers and didn’t want him to end up a grown man in diapers), eating solid foods and off the bottle.

WOW was I scared! Gregory seemed so fragile to me. I was afraid of how he would handle all of these changes and more importantly, how WE, his parents, would do as he was forced through these changes.

It didn’t take but a couple of weeks for us to see big changes in Gregory. Changes for the positive. He was handling them just fine and we were amazed at home!

You see, his teacher, Ms Leslie, has two special needs children of her own. She knows, first hand, how to work with them, how to teach them and most importantly, how to love them.

I will write more about Ms Leslie and our adventure over the past school year, but I wanted to share this article about her son, Preston.

Story about Preston

Ms Leslie is a fantastic teacher and a great friend to her students AND their parents.

I have found a new fantastic author, photographer and blogger! Her name is Olivia Collins. I found her on, of course, my favorite online forum, Backyard Chickens. I found a thread about a book she had recently published, Fatima of the Gold-dust Feathers and immediately fell in love with her writing and photography. In this thread, she gives “blurbs” from each chapter of the book as she writes it. I was hooked immediately! I will be ordering my copy of the book this week. Below is a photo of the cover of the book, used with Olivia’s permission.

Olivia also has a blog that you can visit here, if you like.

Olivia is quite a gifted young lady. Do click on over and read the blurbs from her book, and order yourself a copy! I know you will enjoy her writing and photography as much as I have.