Preparing for the Fall

 I have decided as we get closer to fall and this new homeschooling adventure begins, I want to start blogging more, maybe aim for at least once a week if not more. I will occasionally blog about the store and goings-on there, but I am mostly going to be lifestyle blogging. What I expect you will be reading will pertain to mom life, homeschooling, adventures with our family, my love of physical fitness,my relationship with God and sometimes I might even share some of my recipes, as I love to cook for my family and to create healthy; low carb, high nutrition substitutes to some traditional meals. I just want to talk about all the things that I love, that bring me joy and share some of those blessing with everyone and hopefully we can create an open forum community where we can all relate and inspire each other.

 As I write this Tuesday morning August 31st, I have already cleaned the whole house (still got to vacuum 🙃) and I am just putting together our last minute preparations for our first day of homeschooling tomorrow, so I wanted to really start considering our academic and personal expectations for the Fall season (my favorite season!). So I am going to break down some of my plans and expectations for the Fall while I continue my ongoing journey to be the best me possible for my family. 

 Homeschooling

 Well let's just dive right in.... I know this is the subject on a lot of people's minds, and as far as the logistics goes when planning for homeschooling, I covered that with resources in my 'Let's Homeschool!' blog post (so check that out!), but I also want to consider the social and more fun aspects of homeschooling. Going into this I was and still am nervous about socialization. One of my daughters is already involved in sports and has friendships through that, but my other two (youngest and oldest) haven't shown a lot of interest yet, and maybe some parents disagree with me here, but kids don't always know what's best for them and can miss out on a lot when they don't want to put the effort into the unknown. So part of our homeschooling and socializtion plan is to have them pick a sport and sign them up. My youngest is excited as she just hasn't had the opportunity yet, but has been looking forward to making new friends, and my oldest has been pretty reluctant as he has not embraced athletics in past attempts, but has over the past few days been a little more open. Our daughter who is already involved in sports; played on a seasonal softball team, but was recently accepted into a year long program, which we are all really excited about and should cover a good part of her socialization, and my Son (oldest) is deciding between cross country and BJJ. Our youngest hasn't really considered what she wants to do as she just can't wait to play with some other kids, though she does really love tennis. So we have some athletics picked out and some decisions to make, but I feel like it is a great start and also covers some of our phys ed curriculum...win, win 🙌 now I just need to find us a good group of local homeschoolers to connect and enjoy some adventures with. I am hoping and feeling pretty confident that we can make some of these connections via social media. I have been reaching out as well as sharing my last blog post to try and help anyone feeling overwhelmed and the feed back was great. So many nice and proactive people in this community of homeschoolers, I feel pretty confident that there are some great future friends out there for us. If anyone has any other advice on socialization or is in the Plymouth County area, please comment below!

Adventures

 We have our academic and some of our socializtion plans in place for homeschooling, but part of the fun of homeschooling is having the freedom to make your own schedule and embrace life a bit more, so we have planned for that as well. As I know I mentioned right off; Fall is my favorite season, and that is leaving out all the necessary exaggerations to truly express how much I love the Fall season; but I do want to clear one thing up now, before moving forward on this subject.... Apple cinnamon.... We all must choose between apple cinnamon and pumpkin spice. For me it is apple, but when it comes to scent, pumpkin spice.... I'm a complex person, I like to enjoy my warm apple cider, while enjoying a pumpkin spice candle and a good book... How's that for Fall aesthetic Pinterest? 🤣 So now that I spent way to much time on that, let's talk fall adventures! A bucket list if you will (that's right, I see you Pinterest) and for some reason, when I think Fall I think farms. We live in a farming community, which might help explain that 🤣 but there are so many farms that offer different activities and amenities. We have a farm in our town that raises alpaca's.... Alpaca's and their cute little fro's, and not only that, but they call them the boys! I don't know, I just think that; that is the absolute best. If you live in Plymouth County I highly recommend you book a free tour at the Ponderosa Alpaca farm in Middleboro MA.

The staff are so nice and genuinely love their boys 🥰. We also have a Farm in East Bridgewater; C.N Smith Farm which offers seasonal picking (apple picking starts after labor day!!!), as well as having some beautiful animals to visit.

What a great opportunity to get the kids out to see some animals and pick something that you can then bake/cook with them later, never want to miss a chance to teach them something new. Another place that I think is pretty well known in our areas is Sauchuk Farm Corn Maze! It is located in Plympton MA (all of these farms are located within about 15 minutes of each other), and has more to do than I could possibly remember.

They have a corn maze (new design every year), a wagon ride to a pick your own pumpkin,

 a cow train, these giant bouncy (bounce house like) inflatable pillows; half buried (seriously, these things are insanely fun),

rubber duck racing, pig runs, and a so many more things that I could attempt to describe while butchering there actual names... It is hours of fun and activities and when you are done, you can go home, carve up those pumpkins, watch a little Charlie brown while the seeds bake, and enjoy some pumpkin spice candles while you sip your apple cider (full circle baby 😉), so a full Fall family day and most importantly a traditional to look forward to every season and warm memories for a lifetime. 

Home Sweet Home 

 Before moving onto the subject of enjoying the Fall season at home, I just want to acknowledge that I successfully and seemlessly slipped a "crüe" song title in there, now we can move on.... A major part of the Fall season that I really enjoy with my family is our down time at home. Things can get redundant as the weather cools and we find ourselves embracing more indoor activities, but it doesn't have to be that way. I love to create themed parties for our little family and the kids love it too! Last year when everything basically stopped, and there was very little to actually go do, we started finding new ways to entertain ourselves while filling in some of the missing pieces that we weren't prepared to lose when the pandemic hit. My youngest daughter got in about 6 months of kindergarten before it was cut short and something that she and my husband were really looking forward to was the father daughter dance that they hold every spring, so we improvised! I put together a charcuterie board of delicious snacks to put on our over the top decorated table and pushed it to the side of the kitchen to make room for the dance floor. We all dressed up, danced to a killer playlist put together by yours truly and created a special memory that has left us forgetting about missing out on the things we were looking forward to.... But I didn't stop there. Turns out, there are excuses to throw little family parties all year!

We had a really fun costume party on Halloween with so much candy, it makes my stomach hurt to think about it, we followed suit for all holidays and had so much fun planning, preparing and cooking/baking together. We may have not had company for most of those parties, but the kids learned how to entertain, nonetheless, learned how to prepare many different meals and desserts and most importantly, learned that we can make something out of anything....plans don't have to be ruined, we can just adjust and makes new plans, they are sometimes better than the original. We will be doing a lot of parties this year and hopefully enjoying it with more loved ones this year. Beyond our parties we also really like to plan down time and something that the kids and us all enjoy are movies and books. We read every night before prayers,vitamins and bed, that is one of our consistent routines, but we also like to (much like with our parties) have themed movie nights. This is one of my favorite things to do, and we have done it with many different themes, but one that we have repeated several times is our "Hobbit Hole Movie Night". I started this when my youngest was an infant and my husband was away for work. The kids were missing him and needed a distraction, so I built a fort, put on Lord of the Rings and put out snacks.... It has evolved since then, the fort is usually really elaborate with lighting and seating, plus we have themed food! I try to serve what a hobbit might eat, meats, cheeses, and comfort foods. It is pretty perfect, I get to watch my favorite movies and when the kids get bored; they can retreat to there hobbit Hole 😉 It is just one of the endless themes that can be done, we have also done a Disney princess them, Stranger Things and an 80's theme that involved Back to the Future. We love to read together, watch movies and do crafts as well as making sure we have the space and resources to take in some much needed alone time. If anyone else wants some indoor activities ideas or has any of their own that they would like to share, please comment below!

 So many different options to embrace this beautiful season and I have so many different ideas to share, but that will have to be in the next post as I have dragged on quite a bit.

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God Bless 

-Mary

P.S As I go back and poorly edit this blog post, I realize the title makes it sound like I am a doomsday prepper.... "Preparing for the Fall..... Of Society! 🔥🔥🔥" 🤣