I haven't published a single thing in so long that I about forgot I even had a blog. Hope all are doing well and had a great start to their New Year. It is as busy as ever here. We started doing foster care about 2 years ago and it has been quite the ride. Come to think of it, that may have something to do with no posts:)!
The kids went to school last year and did well but all elected to come back home this year. Emily and Travis are doing school on their own and Lindsay is doing Classical Conversations at a a co-op not far from our house. She loves it and has learned so much. We will see what happens next year. I am planning on her doing it again.
We have a 2 year old right now. She came to us 4 months ago. She is a lot of work but a lot of fun, too. We are enjoying fostering children, atleast most of the time.:)
Emily has a part-time job and gets her full license at the end of this month. She is very happy about that.
Other than that, I have been working at a coffee shop 1 day a week and house cleaning a couple of houses, plus homeschooling and dealing with a 2 year old, but hey, who wants to be bored??:0
Well, I am headed off to bed, but wishing you all a good night. May even try and post some pictures...we'll see...Trisha

Raegin with my dog in the background. I watch her and her sister and couple of days each week. She is adorable and growing so fast.

Here is some of the fun we have had this year in co-op. We have been very busy and it has challenged me quiet a bit to learn!!--and make it fun. We are now on navigation, sailing and explorers. I am learning more about the stars and navigation then I ever really wanted to:) Ah well, it has been fun.

Here is Emily's new bedroom. She is so happy not to be sharing with LIndsay right now and loves her own space!!

Here is my favorite part of the basement remodel job!! My office behind closed doors! What a genius my husband is!! I have dreamed of this for so long and now I Finally have it and it is wonderful!!It holds my school stuff, my computer, my bills, my kids finished crafts and art stuff, my stuff for our co-op and lots of other stuff:) It is AWSOME!!

Other than that, we have had a great spring minus the week the flu visited our house and we washed mounds of clothes, blankets and sheets...ugh!!

It is starting to warm up here finally and we are excited for tulips popping out of the ground, hostas peeking green and shrubs and grass turning green. I am horrible at taking pictures, but will try to get it done soon.

Trisha

Co-op fun

We have been having a lot of fun in our co-op. We have been learning things about the USA divided into states and regions. We are trying to experience some of our coutry's history and culture.
In some of these pics, we are making tin can decorations, in others, we are making amish dishes and desserts... we have done all kinds of things and half of the time, I forget my camera...sigh...
Oh well, here is a small taste in the life of our family!

Growing up

LIndsay and Alissa having cousin time

Linsay and Alissa have such a good time together

Lindsay had a good time at fair and enjoyed wearing her sister's 4-H shirt:)

Emily, at the mutton busting contest:)

Lindsay



The kids are really growing up! Life is so different than when they were small. So take heart those who think they will never get sleep again, you will:) --atleast most nights:) It takes a lot more energy to keep up with them at these ages than when they were small. They are always busy now!! Life is good and we are enjoying watching the kids grow.

Our school room is getting close to being done and we are very happy about that. We have been working on it pretty steadily for the last 2 weeks and it is very close!! It is so exciting to think of having a school room and a place for all the papers in my life:)

Trust you are all having a good fall. Will catch up to you later.)

Here is our chrysalis just before it emerged into a butterfly

Here is the beautiful butterfly. He crawled all over our hands and flexed his wings many times before he decided he could fly farther than the back porch:)

Here he is on the back porch. We really did have a lot of fun with this whole experiment!!

We are also having a lot of fun at our co-op so I'll have to post pics of that soon. When I'm there, I forget to take pictures because I am so busy:) I'll try harder.:) Trust you are all having a wonderful fall.

Here is one of our butterflies emerging from his chrysalis. It was so exciting I had a hard time taking pictures since I wanted to just watch. It was amazing! His wings were so tiny and fragile when he slid out and only half the size of his body. But within twenty minutes his wings were full size and he sat and dried out for about 2 hours and then started flexing his wings and flew off. WOW talk about fearfully and wonderfully made!!

I will post more of him, but ran out of space on my uploader.

Lindsay at our 4-H bake sale. It was fun and we sold all the pies we made. 72 pies sold by the slice. Yum! The 2 older enjoyed serving and selling them.

Here is Lindsay with a basket that was handmade, and a bunch of corn from the grist mill. That was amazing to watch. Lindsay ground all her corn into fine powder and loved every minute

Here are Jeff and Travis learning to work together in the logging industry:) It was a fun day of 4-H and Heritage Days!! We had a blast and learned a lot.

Here are some pictures from our last field trip on things in the Midwest. We did it with our co-op group in Muscatine. The egg factory was amazing! It was mostly Amish people that were operating it. It was very neat and informative.

This is the Dairy creamery we went to and toured. It was crazy how many people regulate milk!!

Here is our little group posing. :)