One of the nice things about hanging out at the local consignment shop is finding great stuff. Not just cute stuff but the kind of clothes that make you smile and feel all warm inside.

That’s how I felt when I saw this dress! I couldn’t help myself. I HAD to buy it and I HAD to take pictures.

The homeschool community activities are officially over! I’m torn between being excited about this sign of summer coming or being sad that I didn’t get as involved as I would have liked. I am definitely going to get the kids signed up for more stuff next year. The Sports Day was help at a community hall in the woods which was so much fun! All of the kids had something to do. David’s age played rally games. Jocelyn’s age played kick ball and Jason’s age group played Capture the Flag in the trees. Laurelyn spent the majority of the time in an Ergo carrier on my back.

I love being able to strap her on my body when things get busy!

Three cheers for hands free movement!

I’ve been looking forward to the end of school for weeks now and having it coming so quickly is making me rethink my stance on the subject. It will be nice to have more time to relax and less time working on getting the kids motivated but I know that they are going to be spending a lot of time outside. I’m all for having kids out playing but that means less one on one time with my big kids! That’s terrible!

I’m sure I’ll get over it though!

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the Sports Day. The first picture might need a bit of explanation. Laurelyn likes to pull her hood down over her eyes and pretend to be a zombie. Can you tell she has brothers?

We woke up last Saturday to see this on our sidewalk. It took a moment for me to realize what it meant but eventually I figured it out. Do you know what it is?

Here’s a closeup to make it easier.

That’s right!

It’s GRASS!!!

MY GRASS!!!

A group of guys showed up, pulled their shirts off and laid sod in my backyard. I couldn’t have been happier. I spent the next two days standing outside watering my lawn by hand. I didn’t realize what a huge yard I have until I was out there watering every square inch by hand!

I wish I could write how I felt when I saw this. I’ve always loved the color of green. The trees when winter finally goes away. The cut grass that sticks to my kids’ sweaters, evidence that spring has come.  Although my backyard isn’t a beautiful shade of green everywhere it still made me misty eyed every time I looked out the windows. I took the opportunity to breath in the smell of grass while I was dutifully watering.

When I was younger I loved the sight of a cute guy, a fast car or beautiful outfit through shop glass windows. Now I love the sight of green grass and my children playing. I don’t miss a thing. Who knew that getting a lawn could make me feel like a true blue grown-up?

A long time ago I posted a video of Sir Ken Robinson speaking at the TED conference about schools and creativity. Robinson came back to TED this year and spoke about an education revolution as opposed to education reform.

It is a great talk and even though the talk is not embedded into this post I really hope you click on this link and watch the video.

Years ago a woman was upset at my mom because she had so many kids and the world was suffering from over population.

At the time I remember thinking that over population seemed unlikely since I knew that the world population was so spread out and the Earth is so large that we were in no danger of running out of space for more people or places to grow food.

Recently Chuck and I have been talking about how the birth rates for some countries all over the world are not high enough to replace the people getting old which means that there are countries who are literally dying away.

There is a 3 part series about over population and it does a great job of making the facts easy to understand and the visuals help illustrate the true situation.

Instead of worrying about over population we should be busy creating, educating and supporting more life.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

There is a wikipedia entry that lists the birth rate of all the recognized countries in the world. It’s pretty wild to see it written out like this. Remember that this list is the birth rate for every one thousand people.