Summer, Paint and Rest

Well hello there.  Has it really been a month since we last chatted?  My, my.  Besides sleeping, eating, feeling nauseous, and sleeping some more, here's what's happened in our neck of the woods since we last spoke:

Summer.

Honestly, I am only a fan when I have a vegetable garden, something missing from our lives this year.  I feel it's absence oh so much.  Around here, August is the hottest month of the year.  We're talkin' many, many triple-digit days.  I am most certainly not a hot weather person.  It's a dry heat, mind you.  But it's difficult to console one's self when you see so many digits in the daily forecast.  So we visited our local mountain top.  There was lots of glorious snow.  Even a frozen lake with brilliant blue tones.

Oh, how it felt good to feel the cold, icy ground this time of year!  I decided we need to live there every July and August until I get my veggie garden.

As the summer ended (at least the vacation part; the air is hotter than ever), I joined my fellow homeschooling mamas, endulged in curriculum resource websites, and chizled out our school year from the myriad of choices.  More on that later, but I had to share a new favorite schooltime motto discovered on Pinterest (also a great recourse for fun homeschool ideas):

An update on the home front:  Our little blue cabin, not painted since 1960, has been transformed into what we are endearingly calling the Christmas Cabin, thanks to Jeremy's hard, sweaty work.  The barns are next, which will be painted the color of the shutters (appropriately called "barn red").  Then we will be all sealed and painted, ready for the much-anticipated rainy season.

And me?  Well, when I'm not making snow angels in August, building a school year for three grades, sleeping, sleeping, and sleeping some more, I work hard on my physique.  No, I'm not 28 weeks pregnant.  I was 11 weeks when I took this (note to self: when taking a self-portrait using a mirror, look at the phone/camera, not my eyes, unless I want to go for the distant, what-is-she-staring-at look).  Folks. This is real life baby number five.  Your body is all too familiar with the process and allows you to enjoy the baby bump pretty much from day one.  There will most likely not be any 40 week belly shots shared.  I don't want to traumatize the children with my orca likeness.

Have a lovely week, folks.  The second trimester is just around the corner and I look forward to being more blog-concistent.  Also, there is an herbal giveaway coming ASAP.  It's going to be a good one, I tell you!