2.5 months

Wow, has it really been two and a half months since I updated here? Time flies when you're having fun. :)

We got our first foster care placement in December. An adorable 23 month old boy who was only with us for nine days. We knew from the beginning that he would probably go to a family placement and with Christmas coming we knew the judge would likely push for their paperwork to be rushed so the child could be with them for Christmas. It did indeed work out that way. I'm glad we knew the placement would be short because that made us prepared for when he left. We enjoyed caring for him. Hopefully we will have another placement soon.

Since then I've done some babysitting for the 11 month old foster son of a good friend. He is a precious child too and it is a pleasure to care for him. In the near future we may be doing some respite care for a sibling group of three that is currently placed with another local foster family.

I have so many thoughts about foster care that I would like to blog about. The emotions involved with it are so complex. It's late though, so I will save those posts to blog another day.

I've made soap several times this winter. It is my new hobby. Soaping is addictive! I have a notebook full of different soaping ideas I want to try. I set up a store on ETSY but haven't listed anything yet. That is one of my projects for February.

Our does are looking pregnant and we are looking forward to having goat kids in March. I'm so excited about these bloodlines---I can't wait to see what the kids look like. Plus once the does freshen I will have more milk to make into soap. lol

We are taking a new approach with school this semester. We're using a unit study method called "lapbooking" which is something I've never tried before. We've done some unit study work in the past (years ago) but never lapbooking. I'm finding it to be really enjoyable. Currently we are working on a "Sled Dogs" lapbook. In a few weeks we will follow the Iditarod sled dog race in Alaska as the final part of our unit study.

I also changed up our math curriculum. We set aside the Saxon math in favor of a worksheet generator. C (age 11)and I are both liking this much better. Saxon (in spite of being one of the most popular homeschool math curriculums) is rather boring. I find their review method confusing also because so many different types of problems are included in each lesson. It's nice to shake things up for a change of pace once in a while. :)

M & C are getting ready for an ice-fishing trip with M's grandfather. I know they will have a great time. T has a list of 12 "girl things" she wants us to do together while they are gone. The list includes 1) Go out to eat at Red Lobster (She asked if I could wear my wedding dress for that occasion! lol ) 2) Take R to have her ears pierced among other things. M & C will only be gone 4 days but I think it would take us 2 weeks to do everything on T's list. She likes to dream big!