Free Range Family

I apologize about not posting yesterday like I had originally planned to, I was so looking forward to sharing with everyone our wonderful Family Sunday at the pumpkin patch. But something quite traumatic happened Monday night and though I still am not fully sure if I am ready to share this, I need to for my daughter and my family. It happened how it happened and though I am not happy with the way it all went, there is nothing more I can do about what happened that night. I have made peace with that night and all of its scary events, and I hope that you can too. Please no hurtful comments, they will be removed immediately! Please realize that we are all still recovering from this, I will not tolerate hate towards anyone, including the dog.  It was no one's fault, just an unfortunate event for everyone involved, especially sweet Miss Anna. Disclaimer: This post is quite graphic and traumatic. I do not want to leave any details out, everyone should know exactly what happened. If yo...

I don't have much to post about today, just a bunch of random clustered together thoughts lol.  I will try to organize it all as best as I can, but be prepared for a crazy post! I want to give a big shout out to my sister's boyfriend, he is such an amazing father to my nephew and has been still going to college this year too. He is a very hard worker! Well, all of his hard work has finally paid off! The other day Aunt Natalie posted on her Facebook that Uncle Jake was offered a paid internship! We are so proud of him! Most internships you apply for these days are unpaid, but to find a paid one is quite lucky! He will now be able to keep following his dream, while making money for his family. :) Congratulations Uncle Jake! We are so happy for you, Aunt Natalie and Baby Benton! We love and miss you guys so much! Uncle Jake with Benton For my hip hop classes, I always encourage solos with my students. We usually perform them at the end of class, just for the other studen...

This morning, I woke up early (as usual lol) with morning sickness. The rest of my house was quiet because Lon and Alan were still sound asleep, so I channel surfed for something good to watch. I started watching this really interesting documentary on TLC about abandoned children who turn to animals for their care taking. It is called Wild Child: The Story of Feral Children. It really got me thinking about the ever old philosophy debate about nature v.s. nurture. First we should go over what qualifies a child as feral. As sometimes referred to as children with the "Mowgli Syndrome," feral children are human children who have lived away from any human contact from a very young age, generally around two or three. Feral children often are abandoned by their parents and turn to animals, usually canines but there have been  other animals reported like horses or primates. In other cases, children are isolated by their parents on purpose, or treated like animals. These children no...

Our Earth Day this year was lots of fun! After speaking with my mother, my plans changed slightly but that only made it easier for us to spend more time at each place rather than rush through everything. We woke up relatively early and had a small breakfast of waffles, donuts and fruit. Then Lon and I packed my tiny little car full of all of our recyclables and we headed to the recycling center. If you remember, I had called ahead to see if someone would do a little impromptu tour for us so that Alan could learn some as well. Well the tour was pretty cool, they showed us the whole recycling process that they do on a daily basis. They asked that I didn't take any pictures but we had a great learning experience! Alan's favorite part was dumping all the recyclables on the moving track to be weighed and processed. We recycled so much too! If I remember right, we recycled over four pounds of plastic materials, ten pounds of glass materials and seven pounds of aluminum cans. That...

Thursday, I watched a documentary on PBS called Nature's Child. It was about nature and how it affects and benefits childhood development. Of course being the hippie that I am, I already knew this lol. But it was still a very interesting show to watch and I learned quite a bit from it. In this day and age, most children spend their time indoors either on the computer or at the television. Gradually, less and less children are spending quality time outside. If they do get outside, it is either at school during recess or for an organized sport. While these are also good development teachers, they are not enough. Children need to play outside in their neighborhoods, like we all did as kids. But this is happening less and less. Why is this, you ask? Well there is one theory that I have found to be pretty feasible. Some believe that modern day parents are being conditioned by the media to be afraid to let their children play outside in the neighbor, whether by themselves or with other...

Happy Monday everyone! As of today, it has been a year since I stopped nursing Alan. Unfortunately, someone has forgotten to inform my body and wardrobe of this, as I still seem to wear nursing bras! :D Lol one of these days I'll be able to throw them out, but right now I would have almost no bras. So they will have to work for the time being. I started my Summer Art Classes today with my first Kindergarten class at 10. I had two sisters and a little boy in the class, and boy were they a talkative bunch! :) We were only able to get through two projects lol, The Summer Self Portrait and The Graphic Design Summer Project. But both turned out great! All the kids did so well! I was one proud teacher. Please enjoy today's Meet me on Monday! Its short, but sweet today. :) What is was the last piece of candy that you ate? A Green Apple Jolly Rancher that Korbin (Alan's BFF) didn't want to eat at daycare. Don't worry, he hadn't opened it lol!  Do you "r...

So I still do not know what is up with The Undomestic Mama, but am at least grateful she posted again six days ago. For this week, we will be linking up with Oh Amanda at Top Ten Tuesday. Similar to Top Two Tuesday lol. :) Only with this blog hop, you choose your own Top Ten... Hmmmmm what to do.... Top Ten Favorite Zoo Animals I love going to the zoo, especially our zoo in Montana. :) So I thought that this would be a fun Top Ten to do today. We are hoping to go back to Zoo Montana asap, because Alan also enjoys it and they have the grizzly cubs now! Can't wait to see them! #10 Peacocks... Because they're obnoxious and ruin zoo garden weddings lol. :P My cousin had her wedding in the zoo gardens and during the ceremony, one of the male peacocks got really confrontational with the priest and was "ca-awing" at the bride and groom lol. It was really annoying but made for some really beautiful wedding photos. :) #9 Hippopotamuses... Because they are just we...