Category Archives: Farm Family

All things farm kids, marriage, motherhood, faith and church, grieving and growing, traveling, and other fun activities for busy families; including how to make time for family activities, keeping things simple for busy families, and being active in the outdoors as a family. , camping, hiking, and fun!

Key topics: Farm kids; motherhood and the daily grind; faith and family: family time; farm kids; grieving and growing; marriage; family travel; and camping and hiking.

Visiting Fort Boonesborough State Park in Kentucky

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 2

About 2 weeks before leaving for our road trip, the boys and I watched the premiere of the new Men Who Built America–Frontiersmen series. Episode 1 was about Daniel Boone leading the first group of permanent settlers through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. The settlement was called Fort Boonesborough, and it played an interesting role in the Revolutionary War. Since we were getting ready to leave for our trip, and Kentucky was already on our route, we Googled “Fort Boonesborough.” Turns out there’s a state park (with camping!) at the … Continue Reading…

How to UnPlan Your Next Family Road Trip

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 2

Our recent spring break road trip adventure was 10 days and 4,000 miles together. We had a great time and are already plotting our next trip! I say “plotting” and not “planning” because this was a very (very, very!) loosely “planned” trip and I’m sure the next one will be too. Our family likes to call our NOT-AT-ALL-PLANNING style of planning “being flexible.” {smile} Everyone keeps asking me how in the world I planned our awesome trip…well, in my mind, I didn’t. We laid out a very basic route with a few … Continue Reading…

DIY 50 State Passports…with FREE Printable

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by  

One of the special projects I did when planning our spring break trip was making fun 50 States passports for the kiddos to get “stamped” as we traveled. It wasn’t that hard, and I’ve got a free printable for you if you’d like to try it yourself. I found a lot of ideas and a few awesome templates on Pinterest, but I didn’t want to mimic a real international passport too much. The Ladybug just got back from a mission trip and we spent a lot of time emphasizing (and re-emphasizing!) … Continue Reading…

10 Road Trip Car Activities for the Whole Family

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by  

At the beginning of our series of Road Trip posts, I mentioned that we are really looking forward to a fun, relaxed, vacation-feel to our travels. So most of our planning focused on two points… #1. Fun, simple activities while we’re IN the car! #2. Not being IN the car the whole time! I already shared about the individual road trip travel activity cases that we made each kiddo for some of our car time. But in our family, we have a couple of reluctant readers, who just also happen … Continue Reading…

Family Road Trip Journal Using Smashbooks…Free Printable Travel Journal Page

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by  

Did you read that we’re going on a family road trip? Yep, and we’re excited about all kinds of great family moments. (And probably a few squabbles that we’ll live through just fine as well.) My normal operating mode would be to make each of the kiddos their own travel journal to fill out along the way and fact sheets and worksheets for them to do while we go along. There are tons of great free travel journal printable ones on Pinterest like this one, this one, and this one. And … Continue Reading…

DIY Personalized Travel Sticker for Family Road Trips

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by  

Have you seen those cute, vintage luggage and travel stickers? I don’t mean luggage tags (we have those already!) I mean the tourist-y collectible stickers with bright images and place names on them. You slap them on your suitcase, or your laptop or notebook, and share your adventures with the world! They’re also a great little souvenir or memento from your travels. It seemed like a fun idea to add to our spring break family road trip plan. I like the way it takes the idea of a “family vacation” to a … Continue Reading…

Family Road Trip Travel Activity Cases for Kids

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by  

So…we’ll be spending the week of Spring Break traveling in the truck…with the kiddos…for 3,000 miles…YEAH! We actually ARE really excited about our family road trip vacation–in case that first sentence came across sorta sarcastic. I wrote it like that on purpose, though, because a lot of folks really do react like that to the idea of 10 days of travel, in a car, with 3 kids, basically going nowhere. But we’ve put a lot of thought into making this a fun adventure since we came up with the idea … Continue Reading…

Road Trips to Nowhere Just for Family Fun

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by  

So, in just a week or two we’re loading the crew up in the truck and heading out on a 3,000-mile journey to nowhere. Sound crazy? Which part? The 3 kids in a truck for 3,000 miles in 8 days, or the journey to nowhere? {smile} We’re excited. It’s been a long time since we took a family vacation. Ok, we pretty much never have. We travel to visit family and call it a vacation. We go to parties, family reunions, the beach, all that family stuff–which we totally love, … Continue Reading…

Great Football Movies for the Family

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 12

Well, we registered the boys for football this Fall. Practice doesn’t start until August, but we’ve started accumulating their gear. And they are so excited that they’ve started wearing it around the house and to do their chores, especially walking the dogs. You know, just to get used to it. {smile} Speedracer is particularly excited about it and has been filling all his extra summer minutes with football movies–which then inspire him to throw his gear on and run around the backyard like a gridiron superstar. When it comes to sports … Continue Reading…

How to Make a Great Outdoor Space for Summer Family Time

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 2

I’ve written before about how hard it can be to leave the farm for a vacation in the summer time. So we staycation a lot. And honestly, that’s probably more liberal than it deserves. We “staycation” a lot in the summer. On Friday and Saturday evenings. On our own back porch. After working all day. {smile} We’re blessed that the farm provides everything one could need to get a little rest and relaxation without having to go anywhere at all! It can truly feel like a “family vacation” with very little … Continue Reading…

Farm Life Makes Vacations Hard

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 2

We just got back from a short family vacation over the 3-day weekend and I’m reminded why we don’t all go anywhere overnight very often! {smile} The farm is hard to leave. And the work is hard to come back to! We spent some refreshing time with family at the lake and the crew got to do all-things-water-sports for a couple days. Kayaking, canoeing, boating, some fishing, swimming, even paddle boarding. They got to stay up late and sleep in (a little bit!) and not have to do any chores. … Continue Reading…

How to Plan a Family Unit Study for Fun Summer Learning

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by  

A book, a movie, and a field trip about the same topic equal an easy summer family unit study!  Summer brain drain–ugh! For 3 months the kids run around from camp to craft to sleepover wanting fun and games and play time all day, every day because SCHOOL’S OUT so we don’t have to do any more of “that learning stuff.” Um…not around here! So what’s a busy, working mom to do besides frantically shuffle the kids from one STEM camp to another and continue to spend her nights tracking … Continue Reading…

Spring Break with Simple and Frugal Family Fun

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by  

The crew has been on Spring Break lately, so I’ve been hashing together a schedule between work and home to spend time with them–even if it occasionally means I’m working while they’re playing. It’s a joy to be able to hear them laughing (and squealing!) in the background! What are some of the simple and frugal (actually, mostly FREE) family fun we’ve been enjoying this week? Well, scrubbing water troughs for one! The kiddos had to empty, scrub and refill all the water troughs. Since we just recently rotated the … Continue Reading…

Redirecting Anger with Healthy Activity

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 5

We’re in a parenting stage where we deal with a lot of anger in our munchkins. We tend to think of that as something you deal with during the “terrible twos” and with toddlers, but it doesn’t magically go away when they become more verbal. I wonder if it doesn’t actually increase as your child’s mental and emotional capacity grows, but we start giving it different names. That sounds so negative! But the whole time they’re growing up, kids have to learn to deal with things like anxiety, disappointment, and … Continue Reading…

Helping Kids LOVE the Outdoors

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 6

It’s no secret that we spend a lot of time outside and love the outdoors. Peruse our Facebook page, Instagram account, or even here at the blog, and almost all our pictures are outside. In the fields, in the woods, at the tree farm…even without structured activities our days are split about 60/40 outside time to inside time, other than school hours. Maybe even 70/30…if the weather is nice on the weekends even 90/10! (Yes, my housework suffers for it!) Here are some of the ways we lever the kiddos … Continue Reading…