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Exploring Countries and Cultures MFW

MFW ECC: Getting Ready!

MFW ECC: Intro Week 1

MFW ECC: Intro Week 2

MFW ECC: United States Part 1

MFW ECC: United States Part 2

MFW ECC: Mexico

MFW ECC: Canada

MFW ECC Brazil

MFW ECC: Norway 

MFW ECC: France

MFW ECC: Germany

MFW ECC: Kenya

MFW ECC: Middle East

MFW ECC: India

MFW ECC: China

MFW ECC: Japan

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@Farmhouse_Schoolhouse

6 years ago we headed into the woods near our house for some family photos. My mom was busy snapping photos of my three eldest children. They were four, three and two years old at the time. I remember feeling the edges of PTSD squeezing tight around me that day. Postpartum hormones, insomnia, exhaustion, and frustration with difficulties finding a house and a job and well, a hundred other things, added to the weight. I was holding my last newly born babe and listening to the fall of the leaves, the intermittent ear-splitting shrieks of the children and my mom’s familiar laughter echoing around the woods. I remember taking in the scene and feeling like my kids deserved better than me. I remember feeling like my husband deserved a better, healthier wife and my mom deserved an unbroken daughter. At some point my mom turned and snapped this photo of me, a colorful moment in a very dark time of life for me. Our family leaned into this hard time and it taught us so much. I learned how to beat back poisonous lies with truth and beauty. I learned to give grace grace and more grace to my kids, my husband and myself. I look back now at this photo and I can only think, “Thank you God for taking us out of the mire and for teaching us along the way.” I showed my eldest this picture today and he said, “I remember sitting with you when you were sad.” I asked him if that was a hard memory for him. He shrugged, “Not exactly. I mean, I’m sorry you were sad, but it’s good to sit with someone when they are sad and I’m glad I could be with you.” ❤️❤️ I thought about how beautiful his heart is and how he is always so in tune to the people around him. How thoughtful he is. How thoughtful his brothers are. I’m glad we were together in sadness. I’m glad God revealed what we needed to learn. I’m glad the young mother sitting on that leaf littered rock found out that a broken girl was exactly what those boys needed.
In the weeks leading up to the #wildandfreeconf, Jeff came home every day and asked what he could do to help me write, plan and get ready. He did so much to help me get ready. We had a brutal month leading up to this Franklin trip, it was painful and exhausting. Right before I went onstage Saturday night, Jeff prayed with me and held me and we both cried. We were overwhelmed by feelings of thanksgiving and relief. A wonderful backstage hand (@tracylynnshea) snapped a photo of Jeff watching me speak. Guys, this man right here is not perfect, but he loves well and that is such a gift. I don’t talk about him often on here. I like to protect the stories of my individual family members and so I usually just stick to sharing about homeschooling. But this is one time I can’t hold back. The reason I am able to write and speak and do a hundred other things is because I am not in this by myself. We are a team. He looks at all my broken pieces and sees what God can do with them and encourages me to go for it. He covers me with his love and time and support and laughter. You may not catch many visible glimpses of him on my feed, but be assured his fingerprints are everywhere. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you. I am so grateful for you.
Franklin- what a gift you were!!! I love the honesty and love behind the wild and free community. What a sisterhood! I am so thankful for every hug given, tear shed and encouraging word given. I’m carrying words from @leahvboden @cindyordoamoris @jenniferpepito and more in my heart and finding ways to put them into action! Ladies, thank you for sharing your gifts! 🙌🏼 I loved this conference, but for as wonderful as it all was... I was so thankful when I saw my kids running towards me this morning. It was the crowning joy of the weekend when I finally got them back in my arms. Back home we go. Back to the ins and outs of every day. Back to dishes and laundry and stories and grace and laughter and mistakes and adventures. I am so eager to keep learning with my kids. Dear hearts @wildandfree.co, I’ll see you in TEXAS!!!!
It’s time for #fridayintroductions for the upcoming #wildandfreeconf 🙌🏼 I’ll run through a Top 10 just like last time only without all that Kiera Knightly/ Jennifer Ehle controversy. Nope. Won’t do that again! #teamehle #teamfirth #teamleopardflats 1. I love cooking for big groups of people. In our home: Food = shared love and connection and stories. Also, my chimichurri sauce is bomb. 💣 2. The Incredibles’ short film “Jack Jack Attack” makes me laugh till I cry because I felt like that babysitter for the first two years of parenting 😂 my second born loved to climb the tallest thing in the room and jump towards the sharpest object in the room. My only goal in life was keeping him alive. 3. In college I spent a summer in England, Scotland and Wales and it was magical (my buds @annswindell and @shalicenoel were there too!) I still think about that trip every day, mostly when boys are screaming. 😍 4. I’m currently reading Brideshead Revisited (Waugh) The Two Towers (Tolkien) and Cloud of Witness (Sayers) 5. I can almost always catch a frog on the first try and I have exceptional aim with a sling shot. 6. I love doing voices and making home movies. As a kid I remade a half dozen films using my mom’s video camera and her chihuahua was my most reliable extra. 7. Ben & Jerry’s Toffee Coffee Crunch is basically coauthoring my book. I may need to share the by line 😂 8. My kids are suddenly at an age where they can nerd out about Lord of the Rings alongside me and gosh, it’s the best! 🧝🏻‍♂️🧝🏾‍♀️ 9. I once won an electric slide competition. In spandex. Matching my sister. On a cruise ship. In the 90s. 🔥🔥 10. We announced we were adopting and were immediately bludgeoned by crazy hard circumstances all at once. Frankly, it’s been brutal. But God > circumstances. Also, the wonderful encouragement in the midst of all the delays, burdens and heartache is that we see God’s hand slowing us down so we can meet up with our girl at the perfect time. Friends bringing meals and helping fundraise and a hundred one other things I’m writing down for the day I get to sit down with her and lay it all out before her and say “Look at what God did. We were meant to be.” What a gift.
Boy no.3: “Listen to the music of the whispering pine trees!” Acquaintance: “wow! That’s fancy wording for a little kid. You’re very poetic!” Boy no.3: “That’s not me! That’s Henry Wadsome Longfellow and he wrote a poem that taught me to read. It’s called Hiawatha.” Acquaintance: “Oh, so you are copying a poet? You need to be more original!” Boy no.3: “Copying poets is what I need to do right now, I think. At least, I really think it’s a good idea for me to copy them.” ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ I love the way he loves language, the way he relishes great wording and good writing. From a tiny age he wanted to hear about whatever I was reading. He would toddle up and demand “read me loud!” A few weeks ago we were walking in the backyard and we both stopped to watch a cardinal for a few minutes. When the bird flew away we walked on and he shared this with me: “I’m glad I have poems in my head. They jump out at the best times. Usually when I’m outside. It gives me all kinds of ideas and it gives me another way of seeing everything, plus all the words sound like the same kind of music nature has.” Read poetry. Read poetry. Read poetry. Read some more poetry.
Another year of Friday exams with the boys has begun! We roll out the Kraft paper and they color in all the things they learned that week. I love hearing them narrate stories and tell jokes and banter back and forth together. I can’t believe how much they’ve grown. Our paper is suddenly filled with Latin declensions and Greek myths and drawings of the Mausoleum in Halicarnassus and a rather frightening illustration of Eurydice and Orpheus. I’m thankful for the lone letters of the alphabet and squiggly drawings of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle still floating around. As we start a new quarter I’m reminding myself that the purpose of this exercise is not for my children to perform. It’s not the moment when they prove they know something. I already know that they know it. This is a time for them to see the tapestry unfolding, to see the fruit of their labor and the delights of their learning come to life before their eyes. It’s a time for more conversation, more connection, more relationship. ❤️❤️❤️ PS for all those asking, I photograph the paper afterwards for our journal that year.

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