The Kavanaugh Report

The third week in August will always mark a weird time for me. One of the hardest days -- August 22 -- of my life followed by one of the happiest -- August 23. August 22, 2014 marked the two year anniversary of our first loss, Baby Elsie. I can't believe its been two years. I'm still surprised by how difficult the day is for me, how sad it still makes me -- even with Nora here. I have a post about the losses and Nora's birth -- but I haven't had the emotional strength to finish it. This year we did our best to distract ourselves -- at the Minnesota State Fair. We did have a wonderful time. We got there around 7:15 a.m. and left around noon. There was food, animals, rides, smiles, a sleeping baby, and fun. Henry enjoyed all the food. And went on the river raft ride -- he was exactly 36" talk the exact minimum height required to go on the ride. And he ate that entire giant cotton candy! August 23, 2014 was our 6th wedding anniversary. Our wed...

Friends, how are we here? I will never stop being amazed at how fast life with a baby goes. I just want to bottle time up and come back to these days. Some are really hard, but so many beautiful moments are also happening. Nora at 2-months-old is great. This girl, my goodness, is taking it easy on us. She coos, she smiles, she really wants to laugh. She sleeps -- at night! She has consistently been sleeping 5-7 hours in a row at night for the last 3 or so weeks (knock on wood it continues)! After the long stretch she is less predictable -- sometimes she will wake every hour after or sometimes sleep for 2-3-4 more hours. During the day, she cat naps -- 20 minutes here, 40 minutes there. If I babywear, then she will sleep for a lot longer during the day -- usually a couple hours. Nora is still nursing continuously during the day. Like pretty much every hour. I'm convinced she does it so she'll sleep at night, she just eats everything she needs all day. We did...

As many homeschoolers know, a homeschool classroom is really a living breathing entity in your home. It grows and changes as the children's needs change and as your own homeschooling rhythm hits its stride. Our Montessori homeschool classroom has gone through many changes over the years to meet our needs and to match my understanding of the Montessori educational philosophy.  This post contains affiliate links at no cost to you. However, we're done moving spaces, and I'm so happy with this room. It gives us much more space than we've ever had before. The natural light floods the space.  You'll see the same shelves we had in our last room. The open shelves on the left are for our weekly trays that match our theme of the week. The shelves in the middle (with the bins) is where I keep work that I keep out for a month or two at a time. It's mostly just practical life trays. The bins beneath are filled with my supplies and are not meant for use by H...

One day. Every hour. 7:00 a.m. -- Early Wakeup 8:00 a.m. -- Breakfast and Laundry 9:00 a.m. -- Morning cuddles 10:00 a.m. -- Morning Nap 11:00 a.m. -- Pet Store 12:00 p.m. -- Lunch 1:00 p.m. -- Nursing 2:00 p.m. -- Afternoon Nap 3:00 p.m. -- Snacks and Crafts 4:00 p.m. -- Outside time 5:00 p.m. -- Working, nursing, cuddling 6:00 p.m. -- Pizza Night 7:00 p.m. -- Baseball 8:00 p.m. -- Mowing 9:00 p.m. -- Witching Hour 10:00 p.m. -- Goodnight

Morgan and I have officially stuck with once a month cooking for eight months now! Honestly, when we started I didn't expect to stick with it for as long as we have. But it really works well for our family, and I can now see us eating this way for a long time. Over the past right months, I've learned a lot about the process and we've fallen into a good groove. However, when I tell people we do once a month cooking, a lot of the same questions and misconceptions are brought up. So I wanted to bust some of those today!  1. You eat the same meal a lot. For us, this isn't true at all! We usually don't eat the same meal more than twice -- or occasionally three times -- per month. When we cook we make sure to split them into meal sized portions, so leftovers are minimal. Then, when planning, I spread the meal types all over the month so we have variety. I also switch some of the meals I'm using each month depending on what we're doing, the weather and wha...