Momma Robin Chronicles

Something about Summer gets me in the mood to blog :) Maybe because I love so much going back over and reading those blog posts from the days of old. I wonder if I made myself blog SOMETHING everyday for like a month if I would get back into the habit. 

Today I am going to photographically chronicle our robin's nest on the back porch! I need one place to do so and this is it :)

So we started out in early spring with 4 beautiful eggs. Momma Robin sat on them faithfully until one day she didn't. I finally peeked up there after several days of her being a no show and there were only 2 eggs. I waited a few more days and pitched those two out, in hopes that she would come back for her second round of nesting. (Robins nest up to 3 times per year).

One day I noticed her setting on the nest again and snuck a peak, 3 perfect beautiful eggs graced the  nest once again! 

Here they are a couple weeks ago, her feeding them and even a video! I've watched her closely the last week and holy cow. She is like the energizer bunny! She literally fed them non stop from daylight til dark every single day!! No wonder they grow up so fast lol.

(oh no the video didn't work. I may have to put it on youtube first...check back later lol)
(ok hoping this new video works!)

And here is what I saw today!  Two of the nestlings have left the nest!! (only one pictured) They can fly little distances. We currently have heat advisories so I did shoo them on over to the shade a bit. I am so happy to see them looking so healthy and cute!!  One is still in the nest, a late bloomer perhaps?

Momma Was still watching over the 2 fledglings closely from my roof!

One more baby to go Momma then you can rest a while!

I hope to be back soon with more blog posts!!

xoxo melzie

Why?! LOL

I hate going so long between blog posts. I LOVE reading back over the things I  have written. (Although I need to proofread! :) )

I want to blog regularly for the upcoming homeschool year.

I will need to make it a scheduled habitual type thing, as it looks right now I will be homeschooling, going to college classes (evenings), keeping up with my big guy's football games (varsity as a sophomore! woot!) and trying to keep this house presentable (relatively speaking lol) and all the life as we know it afloat.

The summer is flying by, the heat and humidity arrived this week (bluhhhh). I am thankful for central air and a/c in my van. I do not miss those days at all.  I do miss our old house though. I had gone by there for something a couple weeks ago and spotted feral kittens! I spent several days trying to feed and tame the momma..but life got in the way. (more on that in a min lol) But sitting in our old back yard, in the trees and the quiet and the PRIVACY it made me so melancholy. I don't miss the hassle and the run down'ness of our house but I miss having our OWN SPACE. We are on top of each other over here (duplexes) and plus we are at the whim of landlords. Really gave me a vision that this is NOT how I want to spend the rest of my years! John graduates in 3 years and homeschooling can be done anywhere. I am really praying that God will fulfill my heart's desire for country living. <3

So life happening...I fell off a ladder :( We were preparing for Bible school at church and well melzie fall down and go boom! Fell right on my tailbone. I spend the first night with HORRIBLE HORRIBLE muscle spasms (John stayed up all night basically helping me move or get up to pee, thanks son! lol). Nothing was broken or too badly hurt, *just* a bruised tailbone. ::insert eyeroll here:: Peeps. There is nothing JUST about bruising your tailbone. Who knew, but you need your butt for EVERYTHING COMFORTABLE.  :o  2 weeks later and I am improving a slight bit every day. Sigh..I am impatient though lol. I wanna feel GOOD!

So here are some pics, Easter, Dec. Birthday for Jacob, and a squirrel pic. I will save that rant for another day.

Easter egg hunt, helicopter drop. Total bust he got ONE EGG lol

More fun at home. OH I wish I had the pics, we had a GLOW IN THE DARK EGG HUNT for him and a couple of neighbor friends. That was SO COOL!

my lil poser at the park.

Grr. To be continued...

Happy 7th Birthday Jacob.

 Trying to get a good pic of my bunch of rowdy boys is HARD.

From left to right...Jordan 20, Bobby 29 here (30 now) John almost 15 here, Jacob 7 and Cody 23

I am blessed :)

xoxo, melzie

Part 2 of first 4 wks of Homeschool

Using the Unifix cubes to make patterns

He made the Pattern Block Animal Pattern look super easy lol.

It's a giraffe!

Big brother had an appt at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Here he is really studying the ball structure!

He is getting so tall and big :)

This was at the Children's Hospital up on the 8th floor garden. It overlooks Forest Park.

This is him at occupational therapy lol.  He (unfortunately!) started singing "I CAME IN LIKE A WRECKING BALL!!!" lol.  Oy you can tell he has big brothers!

Just doing some free time art work. He is very creative.

And yes, this happened.  This momma's heart was so full!!

Not only my son but my little tender hearted brother in Christ now and forever.  <3

:)
I will be back sooner than later with more updates!

xoxo melzie

Starting week 4 of Homeschool!

Week 4 started today!  That is going by oh so quickly.  We have good days, we have great days. And we do have the occasional not so great days lol.  For the most part though we are both loving it.  My Father's World is a great all inclusive curriculum which is a little on the easy side for my little one, but is progressing at a nice pace to keep him engaged but not too hard. 

I have lots of pics to share so I will get to it!  I may break this down into two posts lol.

Before that though, let me get to the things I love, the things I don't love, and the things I was surprised about.

The things I love: The relaxed pace. We can take more breaks on days we need to. We can slow down in the mornings if need be and get a little later start. We can take days off for doctor visits or other activities. I love seeing him work and learn and CREATE.

I things I don't love: The art book included with the curriculum. It is called Learn To Draw With Children and it's very complicated and intimidating.  We just do free form art or theme related crafty stuff.

The things that surprised me: Jacob loved doing the Jewish months/seasons. He did not enjoy the scroll that much. He seems to be looking forward to the Hebrew stuff this week. He is learning the memory verses very easily!

Ok on to the pics!

He got a lego starter set for the first day of school surprise!

He is extremely good at following the directions and spotting the correct pieces.

My sweet friend Dianna sent him another lego set :D  It's a little harder, he's made a few things so far.

He also got a set of Picaso magnetic tiles

Watching a video about cleaner fish. You tube is our friend most days

Next post I will show more pics! 

So far I can say homeschooling is MUCH easier than I had anticipated. 

For the most part it goes very smoothly, although we found out the hard way that school is almost pointless when Dad has a day off lol.  That was not a good day..

Ok next post for more pics from the first 4 wks!

xoxo melzie

School Starts, School Changes, School Ends

Sometimes I look back on my life, almost 42 years of it and it seems as if it were a blur. The early years especially, but my beginning mom years as well. I had to think for weeks and weeks, why does it seem as if I worked at a big Dairy Queen at some point. I knew I had worked at a small hometown one for over a year, my memory is not that bad.  But I could picture making Treatza Pizzas and Ice Cream Cakes, and the small one I worked at, we got those from the big one, we did not make them ourselves.

Then as we were driving through Sikeston one day it hit me. When Cody was tiny and I lived in Sikeston with him I did work there, probably just for a few weeks. My boyfriend I lived with then was less than reliable to put it nicely.  Whew mystery solved.

I don't remember the details, I don't remember the people, I am equally sure no one remembers me from there. It was just a foggy little spot on my road map of life that meant nothing and I remember little of.

Sometimes I feel like my 2 semesters at school will be that way. Like this twilight life I lived, that is only bright and shiny to me. To the people around me it was short lived, another flaky moment in the life of melzie that she was here today and gone tomorrow. Sometimes I feel like the *real* me is that way, indistinct and undefined. But those useful parts of me shine brightly, taxi servant, cleaner, dishwasher, cook. Baker, laundress, alarm clock. Alarm clock and cattle drover, getting people where and when they need to be on time.

All people really know about me is I like hippie stuff and I am extremely useful.

This summer session was hard. I loved the earth science class. I loved the sociology class. Both required work and commitment but I was glad to give it. The art requirement class was HARD and the teacher was total crap. I don't make blanket statements about people that way very often at all. I can find the good in anyone. But this lady drove us to insanity then *forgot* to enter several of our grades and oops it is too late anyway. She copied and pasted feedback but would give one person an A and the other a D, identical feedback. (guess who got the D?)

I maintained straight A's throughout my short lived college life, EVEN IN MATH PEOPLE. But now I have a B in her class. Barely.  Bah.

So that said a small break was welcomed. That class was hard, some weeks we had 13 assignments due. Then she wouldn't grade them all or would not grade fairly. She didn't like me. (rare!)

~DEEP BREATH~

So I am off college this semester. I am on to bigger things you could say.

Homeschooling WildChild Jr aka Jacob.

That is a post for another day.

xoxo melzie

Flash Flood

I am not normal. I have come to this conclusion upon numerous occasions. But the one I refer to today is on the subject of school starting. I loathe it. I start dreading it about mid summer. I manage to stuff it away and avoid it until about the first of August. That is when the school supply lists start coming out in stores. When my oldest two started school only a couple years apart, I did not know. I did not know that when a school year starts, you blink once and it's Christmas, twice and it's over. Then they grow all summer and outgrow shoes, jeans, and sitting on your lap, and kissing mom, and eventually they outgrow their parent's presence all together. 

So when my 3rd son John came along I knew. He was my easy going baby, affectionate all the time, hugs, kisses, momma was his whole world. When the time came for him to go to head start I held back a year. Then the time came he could attend head start and pre-k both, so being gone all day I sucked it up and tried it out. I gave him ONE DAY in both and balked. NO way was I ready for all that time and space. *lol* I did put him in pre-k but I grieved. I was so sad all the time, I went into an actual depression. Growing pains!

To fill that empty nest God gave us Jacob, my little wild child part deux. *lol* And fast forward to school years, I let him go to head start with a minimum of craziness on my part. He did well but I dreaded kindergarten. I started making noise about homeschooling, knowing that this tender little soul was not ready for the daily grind. But he was excited and I wanted him to experience it. I will make a long ugly story short for now and suffice it to say for 1st grad this year homeschool is a reality. We start next week on that new adventure.

But John. Oh my little hawgerman. We've had growing pains again this summer, him chafing for more freedom, me hanging on tighter than I should, just like when he was 4. (oh shoot I thought I cried all my tears out last night!) (sniffle sniffle blow) I thought I was going to be ok now that Jacob is homeschooling. I always get melancholy when school starts as my kids get bigger, but I think I was trying to fool myself. I've been putting off this flash flood of emotion. I've been letting it out as grumpiness or criticism. That is a nasty little flaw I have, hiding hurt behind a critical or angry spirit. Well it all came to a head last night and well suffice it to say I am surprised my swollen worn out eyes could see to get up this morning.  I had to get up last night and as forgiveness from him for my mean spirit. Heck while I was in a spirit of regret and sorry I even had to get ahold of my older wild child Cody to ask his forgiveness over hot dogs and hammers (long story). Then last of all I had to talk to my Father God and ask His forgiveness for my ugliness.  

So here we are today, 1st day of 9th grade. I know how fast these next four years will blink by. I hate it. But I hate more the regret and wasted time that trying to dam up this raging river of time brings. I will go with the flow and try to enjoy the ride. My favorite song by Garth Brooks comes to mind, The River.

 "The River"

You know a dream is like a river
Ever changin' as it flows
And a dreamer's just a vessel
That must follow where it goes
Trying to learn from what's behind you
And never knowing what's in store
Makes each day a constant battle
Just to stay between the shores...and
I will sail my vessel
'Til the river runs dry
Like a bird upon the wind
These waters are my sky
I'll never reach my destination
If I never try
So I will sail my vessel
'Til the river runs dry
Too many times we stand aside
And let the waters slip away
'Til what we put off 'til tomorrow
Has now become today
So don't you sit upon the shoreline
And say you're satisfied
Choose to chance the rapids
And dare to dance the tide...
I will sail my vessel
'Til the river runs dry
Like a bird upon the wind
These waters are my sky
I'll never reach my destination
If I never try
So I will sail my vessel
'Til the river runs dry
There's bound to be rough waters
And I know I'll take some falls
But with the good Lord as my captain
I can make it through them all...yes
I will sail my vessel
'Til the river runs dry
Like a bird upon the wind
These waters are my sky
I'll never reach my destination
If I never try
So I will sail my vessel
'Til the river runs dry
Yes, I will sail my vessel
'Til the river runs dry
'Til the river runs dry

xoxo melzie

Terribly Neglectful Blogger

I am a terribly neglectful blogger!  I am thinking of starting a new blog altogether...we are going to be a homeschooling family this fall and I thought a blog just for that might be fun.  Or maybe I'll just integrate it into here. I know as I get ready to begin, I am LOVING the availability of homeschool blogs directly related to our chosen curriculum: My Father's World 1st Grade.  So maybe I could be a resource a future mom could look and and enjoy.

We are logging some hours of reading and art this summer, some PE etc.  We will be starting our school corresponding with the public school starting, since big brother is still attending public school (9th grade).  I would LOVE to homeschool him as well, but that is not working out thus far.

I am done with that earth science class, now I am doing intro to Sociology and a creative arts class that is actually a child development class. I am somewhat enjoying both but SERIOUSLY looking forward to a break.  There will be about a 10 day gap between me finishing class and homeschool starting.  I am not returning to college this fall semester. I am leaving the option open for the spring semester.  I will dive into homeschooling giving it my full attention, and go from there. If it seems I will have oodles and gobs of free time, then I will prayerfully consider adding my college classes back in. Honestly though I miss being "just a mom" and "just a housewife".  Don't get me wrong I ADORED the short lived college experience, and am not QUITTING. I am once again postponing and that is a good thing :) 

I hope to blog more soon. I have a lot of pics to share, stories to tell and HOMESCHOOLING ADVENTURES to embark upon!

xoxo melzie