Homeschool February

This month was a little simpler, which is one of the things that I love about these winter months - we can pull back and snuggle in. Read more books and just slow down. Granted, I took a whole week off to spend on a once in a lifetime trip to Hawaii- and because of the severe covid outbread we were staying inside significantly more. But we still managed to have a great homeschool month. The older girls have been continuing their Science/Utah History/Cooking rotation with me on T/TH with a PE rotation with Andrea Wardell on TH. The boys have been doing Science/PE with Brooke and Andrea with a Cooking rotation with me on TH. I love this little community of kids we have developed and am grateful for each one of them. 

Austin has been doing great with his homeschool. He loves Math and is working hard on his reading/writing. He also LOVES science, especially science experiments. We worked a lot on the science fair this month, but I'll write more about that in March. Austin is also doing a rec-league basketball team and I'm grateful for his great coach who makes it such a good experience for him. 

Lydia is also doing great and each day I'm so grateful to be able to spend this time with her and that she has the space to grow into such a kind, caring, funny girl. Having her three friends as part of a homeschool group has been such a highlight of this year. 



We did manage to get out on some field trips this year, even with all the other things going on. We went on a tour of the Heber Valley Dairy Farm, which was fun and SO interesting! (Basically, their entire milking process is done by robots and it was so cool.) Plus, we squeezed in a ride on the frontrunner train at the very very end of Free Fare February. The kids love watching the frontrunner drive by past our house and they love any change they get to ride it. It was a cold day, but we managed to ride the train to the North station in SLC, walk to the Planetarium for a couple of hours, take a trax train back to the Central station, and ride the train home without losing any of the 12 kids we had between us three adults. Ha.  The kids loved it. 

Train Watching

Before we moved into our house we did extensive research on what it would be like to live with a train running through our backyard. We even went to a similar neighborhood in North Salt Lake and knocked on people's doors to ask them what it was like to live there (when we bought our house the FrontRunner wasn't actually running yet). We got some great advice "There are two kinds of people, those who can live by a train and those who can't." We decided that we are the kind of people who can (totally an upgrade from living right next to I-15 and having constant noise) and - except for a brief moment in time about two months after moving in when I was up at 2:00 a.m. nursing Lydia and I thought "We've made a terrible mistake!" - we've fully enjoyed living here. 

Hello, not having neighbors in our backyard? TOTALLY worth it. 

Also, this: 

Our kids love watching the train go by. Caleb can hear it coming before anyone else (those two year olds seem more attuned to the train, they haven't been as desensitised and are genuinely more excited about it). Whenever he (or anyone else) hears the train coming, they all yell "TRAIN" and run to the window and watch the train go past. They love it.

And I love this view. My kids, in their pajamas, hopping out of my bed (where they've been snuggling together on a weekday morning) to watch the train go past. Life doesn't get much better than this.

Free Fare Day

This week was UTA's free fare day, so the kids and I decided to go on a little adventure and ride the train the SLC and back. David was working at a client so we couldn't visit him at his Salt Lake Office, but we had a nice time riding the train and exploring temple square! 

I thought that all of the kids would love it, but unfortunately, as soon as we started moving Caleb started crying - loud. I thought he'd calm down a little after he got used to it - but he stayed snuggled against my chest the entire time and each time the train stopped at a station and then started moving again he'd start whimpering. It wasn't exactly what I had pictured the train ride would be, but Lydia and Austin did great. Lydia pulled out several readers and read them to us and they both loved looking out the window - and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy the extra snuggles with my Caleb. 

We made it to Salt Lake and took Trax to Temple Square. We walked around the temple and spent a decent amount of time in the visitors center. 

Then it was time to head back to the frontrunner so we could be sure not to miss our connection!

I thought that Caleb would be happier on the train ride home, but he wasn't. He cried and snuggled me and eventually fell asleep. The kids ate some granola bars, read some more books, looked out the window and enjoyed the ride! 

It's really fun to have the Frontrunner in our backyard, and although we don't use it very often we had a great time fieldtripping on the train. This is one of the reasons that I love Homeschool - we have the flexibility to do these fun things (even though it's not directly related to a unit study). We spend time together as a family, we adventure, we explore, we read, we observe, we learn. And we do it together. 

It's a really good life. 

The Train

When we first talked about moving to our house, we discussed at length the ramifications that living by the train tracks would have on our life. However, one thing that we did not anticipate at all was how much Lydia would love watching the trains go by. Before she could even speak, she would hear the train coming and make the baby sign for train with a giant grin on her face. She can hear the train coming long before I can, and she still runs to the window to watch the train whenever she can. David rides the frontrunner into work occasionally and Lydia often calls the train "Daddy's Train." 

Given how much time we have spent talking about the train and watching the train go by, it comes as a bit of a surprise that we haven't ever actually taken Lydia to ride on the train. I have a lovely friend, who always has amazing pictures on her blog and after expressing to her how much I wish that I had similar pictures of myself with my kids - she volunteered to go on an outing with us and snap some photos for me. When she suggested going on a train ride, I knew that nothing could be more perfect than documenting that with Lydia. I'm seriously in love with these photos. I love Lydia and I love Austin and I love how such sweet little snippets of our life were captured in these photos. They are a treasure to me. (Shout out to you, Ali! You are wonderful.)

Also, Lydia loves Henry. I might just want them to get married when they grow up. 

Melt my heart. 

Now every time the train goes by she gets super excited (even more than usual) and says "That's the train we rode on! With Henry." She occasionally adds "We rode on a train that was blue and white and red." or "And we ate nunch (lunch) on it." When she was first telling David all about the train ride she excitedly told him "And it has tables!" I think that we've learned that when a child loves something, it's so important to just jump in with them and love it with them because they may not love it as much at a later time. We have been talking about going on the train with Lydia this summer, but I'm so glad that we just went right now. It was perfect. 

I love this girl as much even more than she loves trains. (Which is a lot.)