Family Friday

I've always struggled with the challenge of balance in blogging; I want this to be a space about writing and myself as a writer, but I also don't want it to be dull and impersonal. As an introvert, I'm never going to be able to spout facts and photos of my family every post, but as my family grows and matures, I do find that I'd like to say a little about this most prominent part of my life.

So, for now, Fridays are family day. I'll be posting about raising my family, homeschooling, and life in our home. If you're here for the writing blog, feel free to pass on by.

For today, why don't I catch you up on what's going on in the Hough household?



Big girls fishing at the river across the street

We're finishing up a really fun and productive year of homeschooling grades 3, 1 and preschool. A lot of people think that you have to be really smart to homeschool your children. In reality, while you should have a good dose of common sense, the most important attribute is that you should love learning. Because you will never be limited by what you know already. I've learned so much this year along with my girls, but I think the biggest surprise for me was discovering that, as I struggled to clarify the names of generals and battles, my husband Mark was already totally an expert on the Civil War. He took over a lot of history lessons, and I marveled that I still have so much to learn about him after being married for 9 years. Not that I didn't love him completely before, but I have to admit I love him even more now. He knows how historical tidbits and good grammar go straight to my heart. :)

I'm currently 26 weeks pregnant with Little Hough #5, and getting really excited about (fairly) soon giving birth and meeting the baby. We don't know if it's a boy or a girl, so while we've had a boy's name picked out since my first pregnancy, girls' names are getting hard to choose. We've sort of got a French name theme going--unfortunately, lots of their cousins have French names, too, so some of our favorites already belong to lovely young ladies who are bearing them beautifully. Any  ideas?



Lu stole the camera to take this one.
That troublemaker expression is on Maddie's face a LOT.

 

Our old, old house is full of almost-finished and waiting-to-be-started projects; our garden is full of carrots and peas and lettuce, and soon we'll put in the tomato and pepper plants that my dad started for us. Mint and comfrey are hanging to dry from our kitchen beams. The chickens are each giving us an egg a day, and I'm making lots of quiche and custard and angel food cake. My sister-in-law shared a "quick" sourdough bread recipe with me that takes about 1/10 of the effort of my standard recipe, so I'm once again relaxing by mixing together a loaf in the evening and baking it in the morning.

Ginny's first haircut!

Not to give you the impression that I'm not napping during the day and collapsing into bed at night and shaking my fist at the chickens when they break free of the fence and banging my head against the table when someone just can't understand the math lesson and occasionally messing up a batch of bread so badly that we have to either feed it to the chickens or watch our 3 1/2-year-old practice her face contortions while she tries to chew. But, hey, sometimes the faces she makes are totally worth it.


Oh, and I almost forgot: Mark's newest painting is on display until May 30 at the Scranton Memorial Library as part of the annual Madison Art Society's Juried Show. It won a prize. :)

She's pretty proud of her Papa. :)