baby – Trailing the blonde

my favorite season

September 13, 2021September 12, 2021 by Ariana Peters, posted in baby, kids, mini-farm

Yes, my favorite season in Fall for its beautiful colors and crisp weather.

However, as I now have a baby and and am growing food and raising chickens I find myself looking more and more forward to the end of fall and the beginning of winter.

Don’t get me wrong, I know I am so lucky to be able to grow food and raise chickens and feed my family good, whole food…..but from spring planting through to fall harvesting there aren’t many days where I don’t give up a minimum of 30 minutes to the yard. 30 minutes doesn’t seem like much but when you have a little one 30 minutes out of your day can be a lot.

That 30 minutes doesn’t include the days that I am actually preparing beds, planting, harvesting and preserving; that is just daily maintenance. That takes up a lot more time.

Again, I love pulling out homemade and homegrown food in the middle of winter and early spring when everything in the grocery store is shipped from who knows where and harvested who knows when; so, I am most definitely not complaining, but the slow season of winter is absolutely calling me.

I love watching the rain fall while I drink a cup of coffee before everyone else wakes up. Make it snowfall and I love it even more.

Reality vs. fantasy: Fantasy (or should I say my pre-baby reality) in the slow winter months I read more, slept in more, relaxed more and sort of hibernated. My new reality: I am guessing winter will also have its challenges such as where do I put the baby when it is raining out and I need to change the chickens food and water? What do I do when the baby is grumpy and its raining and this is when we normally go for a walk to settle him down? We live in the Pacific Northwest so rain is a big factor for us in the winter hahahahaha.

We will see how reality and fantasy hammer out this winter.

Home school prep

August 29, 2021 by Ariana Peters, posted in baby, kids, school/studying

Ok first off, yes, my baby is only 8.5 months old. I fully understand I am not REALLY starting homeschooling him. However, I am lucky enough to be a stay at home mom right now so I want to make the most of it. I simply want to make sure that I am giving him opportunities to learn as much as possible. Most of it will all be through play and exploration.

I have done a very rough layout of the next 3 years. Basically I picked a theme each week of the year, with a few no theme more relaxed ‘off weeks’ thrown in. I had a weekly calendar page that i spilt each day into 3 parts. The first section is year 1, its a lot of reading (me to him hahahaha) ABCs, sensory bins, fun on topic movie nights, learning to color things like that. Year 2 builds on that by adding in tracing and more emphasis on counting and matching small adjustments like that. And year 3 we add in more counting/math a few fun basic age appropriate science experiments etc. Here is a basic example

I also purchased ‘Exploring Nature with Children‘ which I am very excited about. Again the first year or two will just be me pointing things out and talking a little more and each year we can build on it. There is also a weekly poem and art piece to look at and study.

I love the BrainQuest workbooks and other items so as he advances we will add some of that in.

I am also looking at The Good and Beautiful curriculum and will slowly order some of that and as he advances ncorporate that. I also want to slowly incorporate lots of farm study material. Those kind of things will be very relevant as he is feeding our chickens and gathering eggs one day. And asking how plants make a lot of the food we eat and things like that.

Tomorrow we start our first week of ‘official’ not official homeschooling hahahah. Our theme is the ocean as well as totally different theme of seeds from the exploring nature curriculum. I am going to document this week and I will update you next weekend with how it went!!

A day in the life on an 8 month old

August 18, 2021August 18, 2021 by Ariana Peters, posted in baby, kids

My baby boy turned 8 months yesterday!!! So crazy!

This is how are days generally go currently.

Woke up at 6am, diaper change.

Today is…. we do the month, date, year, day of the week, season and weather…I made this so it is not perfect ahahahah but it gets the job done.

Bottle time!!!!

Play time with some reading basics….and coffee for me

Breakfast!!! Or if you are a hobbit, 2nd breakfast……did i get that reference right? Hahaha

Little man hangs out on a blanket while I water the backyard and take care of the chicken coop. During this time he loves watching the dog and the chickens as they waddle all over the yard. It usually takes about 20-25 min to get it all done and he usually lasts that long just watching the dog and chickens but not always.

She is getting more and more used to him

After yard work he runs around in his walker while I try and clean as much as possible. Sometimes he chases the dog, sometimes he chases the robot vacuum hahahahaah how long he lasts varies some days its 15 min and some days its 30+ min.

Once he gets sick of his walker we head into his room to play before his first nap.

Last 30 min before nap is a struggle to keep him happy and entertained hahahah

if he isnt too grumpy we will read a few pages from the chapter book we are reading. currently it is The Hobbit.

I am slowly introducing him to trying to hold writing intraments

Nap time is about 3 hours after he wakes up. We do a diaper change, put him in his sleep sack, drink a bottle and into the crib he goes. Today he was asleep by 8:55ish

During this time I clean or food prep or workout or shower or anything on my list that I need to do that day.

When he wakes up its another diaper change. Activity for a few minutes then lunch.

It was nice and cool out today so we went for a walk

Lunch was chicken nuggets, broccoli, tomato, pesto pasta and some cheese

A little independent play time while I hung some pictures

Then more walker time to tire him out before his nap. this kid just wants to be moving around all the time

Another walk because it was sooo nice out

Then daddy does bedtime. He was asleep by 7pm. I relaxed for about 20 min then I head back outside to check the chickens food and water before bed. Currently i do a little bit of homeschool research at night as well and I prep his bottles for the next day before i head to bed. My goal is to be in bed before 10.

To show you the full 24 hours I woke up today at 610 to him chatting to himself. he was content so i got up, warmed his bottle and started my coffee. he was still content so i sat down to enjoy my coffee for a few minutes and he fell back asleep! i will let him sleep until about 730 if he doesn’t wake up on his own. Any later than that and we would have to move his bedtime later.

August Garden Update

August 15, 2021August 14, 2021 by Ariana Peters, posted in baby, food, healthy lifestyle, mini-farm

	Nanette Woodall on Our first week homeschool…
	swosei12blog on Home school prep
	Ariana Peters on A name for our “farm…
	Lynsey Lilyquist on A name for our “farm…
	Ariana Peters on How is it the end of Apri…