Five on the 5th - Favorite Blog Posts for January

So today is the 6th, but it's still the week of the 5th.  It's all good!  This past month was a bit more intense than I had anticipated.    Illness seems to still be lingering in our household.  Guess who's sick now?  Of course!  Mom is always the last one to get it, right?  Nothing like trying to catch up on sleep after caring for three sick kids over the course of nearly three months just to come down with a cold yourself.  It's the icing on the cake!

Speaking of icing, my first blog post that I would like to share with you is a recipe for The Best Cream Cheese Frosting Ever by Gluten Free Gigi.  This is a wonderful site that was referred to me by the Facebook Page Manager at Bob's Red Mill.  For Christmas morning I used the recipe on the Bob's Red Mill Pizza Crust mix bag for Cinnamon Rolls.  I had a few questions, so I visited their Facebook Page and asked away.  They were super helpful and even provided me with this wonderful, gluten free resource.  The frosting pretty much is the best ever, and the blog is quite amazing, too!

As a mother of 10 children in a combined, adoptive, legal guardianship family our family makeup is a little different than the typical, nuclear family.  Sometimes it is confusing to others, and sometimes it is confusing to myself.  Loving that many children and nurturing them into adulthood is something I never saw coming when I was 20 years younger.  It wasn't part of my plan, but it was my calling nonetheless.  Just like the author at Five in Tow, I wouldn't have it any other way.  This is life.  It is mess, and I am absolutely tired.  This post spoke deep into my heart.  (why) I Don't Want More Kids is a worthwhile read for anyone that has ever loved a child.

Lately, I find myself being called back to an older, more simple approach to education.  My focus is more tuned to natural learning and more of the live and learn philosophy.  I find myself reading books about unschooling again and searching deeper into my soul while I examine the hearts of my children a little more closely.  What do they love?  How do they approach life?  What brings them joy?  Durenda at Simple Nourishing Home is a mom to eight children, and her post on The Unhurried Homeschooler pulled me back to my roots as a young homeschooling mom.  She reminded me of what I've known all along and encouraged me to honor my authentic self by reminding me to trust my instincts, and my children.  No matter the style of your homeschool, there are things to be gained here as well as some wonderful resources for further exploration.

I love free books, and I have quite grown to love free Kindle books.  You can own thousands of them for free, and they don't take up ANY space on the bookshelf.  Bonus!  Every Saturday, Homeschooling Library shares a list of free Kindle books on their blog.  They're listed by age and grade level, which I find very helpful.

Even though I am not in love with the idea of living grain free, I am warming up to it, and I do love my friends that share blogs with me that focus on good for you food that is fun to make.  One of my homeschooling buddies stumbled upon this recipe for Grain-Free Sugar Cookies at Danielle Walker's Against All Grain and thought of me.  This means two new gluten-free blogs to add to my list of resources for this month.  Yippee!  Now, I just need to learn how to make Coconut Cream, because that stuff is expensive!

You can visit the rest of the posts here.