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My, oh my, how the time does fly!!

Since my last post I have done much soul searching trying to figure out why I even started this darn thing. Well, in all honesty it was to be a "scrapbook" of sorts since I no longer have time for the "paper pushing" kind of scrappin' that I love (sorry, Babe, I know you want me to go digital but there's just something about the feel of the paper and embellishments in my hands that I can't leave behind). I now know that I would like for my blogging to be a record of us; who we are, and why we are raising our family the way that we are.

We are a family of 5: Hip(pie) Mama,my wonderful Go-With-The-Flow Husband , and our 3 amazing sons:  The Seeker, The Risk-Taker, and The Explorer.

I promise, we don't usually color-coordinate!

One of our missions in this life is to give our boys all of the tools that they will need in order to become amazing men.  We do this through various routes and you will find many of them explored through this blog. 

We live as much of a holistic lifestyle as possible, and I must say that my Go-With-The-Flow Husband  has been amazing in this aspect and listening to my ideas and research and helping me implement them, or giving me the tools I need in order to see my ideas to fruition.  He had NO IDEA what he was getting into when our hearts connected.

I've always been a bit of a hip(pie), my Mom and Grandmother like to say that I was born in the wrong generation.  In high-school I really started to embrace the type of lifestyle that I now live.  Of course, I was de-railed here and there, but the ideals have always stayed with me.   Once I had my own children it became very apparent to me that I needed to follow the path that had been set for me when I first fell on it all of those years before.

So, hear we are.  A happy, holistic-minded, organic eating, raw-milk drinking, homeschooling, gardening/preserving, all around "crunchy" family.  Now, that doesn't mean that I can't sport my beloved 17 year-old Birkenstocks and sport a fancy pedicure to boot...after all, I am a Hip(pie) Mama!!

An update

I must admit that it is due to an addiction that supplies immediate satisfaction that I have not updated my blog. This addiction is called "Facebook". Ok, I guess it's not really an addiction since I can go a day or two without logging in. But the immediate satisfaction is not a lie. I can post my thoughts at a moments notice for all of my friends to see and they can respond to me if they wish. It took me awhile to jump on that bandwagon, but once I did I was hooked.

Anyway, since I have been lax in my updates, the month of June shall take the form of several haiku (thanks for the idea, Sarah!)...quick and to the point. Here we go:

Baby boy breaks free
Four years old no training wheels
Growing up too fast



Middle one turns eight
Day at the zoo was his plan
Animal lover

Oldest son jumps in

Open water half a mile

Finishes sixth of twenty-four

Garden is growing

Lots of work in store for me

Rain makes weeds grow fast

Busy month for us

Hopefully we can slow down

Unlikely forecast

Garden gratification

After the rain stopped today, I took a much needed trip to the compost bin to empty our overflowing bucket. As I made my way out towards the bin and adjacent garden there was a guilty looking rabbit scurrying away. Looking over his shoulder as he paused from his flee, he decided that yes, I definitely was staying in the garden and continued on his way. Upon examination of my garden, I noticed that either my radishes had pushed their way out or my intruder had been grazing on them. My guess is the latter. I was able to harvest quite a few of them and my mouth is watering as I type this in anticipation of slicing them up and sprinkling them with my Real Salt sea salt...my very favorite way to eat radishes, YUM!



Now, I know that readishes are an early crop, but this just gives me a wonderful anticpation of things to come!

Just 2 of the reasons that we homeschool...

One of the joys of homeschooling is being able to be together as a family throughout the day. Granted, this can take a toll on all of us and I often have people telling me that they think I am crazy for NOT sending my kids away for 8 hours everyday. However, even amid the ups and downs, the arguments, always having a kid underfoot and not having too much time for myself, it is moments like the the one below that make every second of it worth it!


On this particular day, C1 completed his work early. Instead of begging for computer time or causing arguments, he took it upon himself to get out one of our math manipulative boxes and call C2 out to the living room. He proceeded to work with C2 on patterns, simple additon and subtraction, and his counting skills. I cannot even express how wonderful it is to see this love in action...like I said before, this moment makes it worth it!

The day after this occurred, my love was beuilding a sundeck addition to our deck and took the two older boys out to help him. Not only did they get to put their math skills to the test, they were able to really help out!

C1 helping to stabilize a post.

C1 carrying a heavy post while L lets him...heck, if you don't need to exert yourself, why bother?!?

L learning how to use the level. What you don't see is that he then carried the level to mulitple places to make sure that EVERYTHING was level, it was quite funny to watch!

This project is a perfect examply of the "extracurriculars" that the boys are able to participate in on a regular basis...they had wonderful bonding time with their dad, and they learned some life skills along the way.

YIKES...I have been bad about this blog!

Okay, so a blog seemed like a good thing to do at the time. It seemed reasonable that I would be able to find the time to journal about our lives once or twice a week. Well, although I do have the best of intentions with regularly updating, reality set in. The reality is that although we do have many things going on that I want to share, I find it hard to put it into words at times. I also find it difficult to get on and update everything...perhaps this is also due to the fact that I am horrible at organizing my digital pictures so that I can find them. Now, give me pictures that are printed off and I am a whiz at keeping them organized. You would think it would be easier to keep the digital images organized...

Anyway, a few quick pics are posted below.


The boys were thrilled when the weather started getting sunny and our yard was covered with a wonderful purple blanket. They love to pick the violets and bring them to me. It was a particularly nice surprise on this day as our schoolwork had not gone well that morning and I was grumpy.

Violets are hard to find a vase for, but a Colts shotglass works quite nicely!

L made his First Communion on April 25th and this shot that Tod captured was beautiful!

Finally, on a gorgeous spring day in the Hoosier Heartland, we were able to get a decent pic of the kids and the dog without any of them looking like they're being tortured (usually the dog) or making goofy faces (usually the boys).

A loss...

Arabella, Caleb's 9th birthday present, passed away yesterday afternoon. We're not quite sure what happened. She was eating, playing, and going to the bathroom that morning., just like usual. We left for food co-op around 2:30pm and when we came home around 4pm, she had passed. Needless to say, Caleb is upset but he knows that it was no fault of his. You see, one of the requirements for him to have this Bearded Dragon was to learn absolutely all he could about them and how to take care of them, and he was a champ at it. He made sure that her crickets were healthy, that she had plenty of superworms, and that she had fresh salad every day. He checked the temperatures to make sure that they were in the right range, and he let her ride around on him and crawl on him. Again, we are baffled by this happening so suddenly...

He spent the evening last night building a coffin for her with Tod and they will bury her either today or tomorrow.