NotYourAverageHomeschoolMom

Don't Faint...I am posting two days in a row!!

2011-12-09T16:35:00.001-08:00

Seriously, I know it's like an eclipse during a meteor shower and a rainbow all at the same time. I can hardly believe it myself...sheesh.

But ok, moving on. I decided to show you my home made not so spectacular cards. They really aren't the cat's meow or anything...I was just using up stash.
The wreath is probably a little better, but again, not anything you haven't seen before, and not as good either. But without further adieu...

2011-12-08T15:36:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I have lots of pictures to take. First off, I have been busy.... when am I not busy??? But I have been making my own Christmas cards. I will put a 4x6 picture of the kids in each one. I have 3 different ones to put in. I also have several gifts to make. Once I finish them all I will post pictures of those. I also made a very cute wreath. I am sorry that I'm so lazy..haha. I will try to get them up this weekend.
The kids will be spending Sunday afternoon with some friends so I can get some stuff done. Tim has some things to do as well so he won't be here. A whole afternoon to actually get things done!! Can you imagine? I will get so much accomplished. I'm hoping that I can get EVERYTHING done, but if I can at least put a dent in my punch list I will be ecstatic!! How are you all spending your Christmas?? I can't share our plans yet, but they are very exciting :)
Here is one picture from our cards. Be back soon :)

Still here...

2011-11-28T18:16:00.000-08:00

AAAhHH! Yes, I'm alive...
Mom came in the week before Thanksgiving and we have been busy with all the preparations for turkey day. 3 days of cooking and Black Friday shopping and Christmas decorating.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. I did, but now I have some reality to deal with. Amber's birthday. Her 11th birthday. Does anyone else have a hard time dealing with birthdays??? I can't believe that 11 years ago right now I was miserably pregnant with my girl. She got up from bed a little while ago to tell me that her and her sister were still awake because they digested too much glucose... nuts.
When do they do that?? Grow up I mean. It's like one day you're changing diapers and the next day they know physics. Sigh...
So this will wrap up our birthday run for the year and I have 8 months before I go through this all again. I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the week. My mom has 1 more week here so I won't have time to blog again for a while. I will try and get a few more in before Christmas.
Blessings :)

Catch up

2011-11-09T17:24:00.000-08:00

Ok so I am posting a catch up here. 1st up, Claire's bday: She made the cake, it's an artist's palette. She loves art. She did a great job too. And she is totally loving her art supplies.

Here is our science project that we worked on today...Digestion Land!! So here we enter into...Digestion Land through the mouth, of course!

Here is Claire's Esophagus Drop Zone and Noah's Stomach Bounce Around

Nate and I worked on the small intestine roller coaster and Amber did the (mouth entrance above and the) Large intestine water slide.

And Claire decided to wrap up digestion with Basket "bowl" with toilet seats for baskets. I suggested Feces Foul Shots, but the kids weren't into that surprisingly enough. So I am leaving tomorrow for my weekend with some mommies. I am so looking forward to this!! I will be back for a few days and then my mom will be in for a few weeks so I may not be the best at posting...how unusual right??? So prayers for my hubs and the kiddos to have a blast while I'm away.

Oh, I almost forgot I finally downloaded pics of my window chalkboard... and the wall where it takes it's residence. The paint job is kinda cruddy, but I love it and use it continuously. Well, I am going to hit the hay, so I hope you all have a wonderfully amazing weekend and I will be back soon :)

ello

2011-11-04T18:06:00.000-07:00

Well, hello!! Tomorrow we are having Claire's 9th birthday. I have been dying to give her the birthday gifts that have been sitting in my closet for over 2 weeks...so yay for that!! I went loco at Hobby Lobby (I LOVE that store!) and bought her beaucoup art supplies! I mean canvas', watercolor pencils, notebooks, pastels, how to sketch books, drawing pencils, a wooden human model, brushes, and other things I can't remember. Her Nana bought her a table easel that came with all new color pencils in the best colors. Even metallics and flourescents. She will be so excited!!
So, I made my chalkboard window that I have been putting off for ever. I was going to go with a magnet board, but I decided chalk was easier and I use my metal door for a magnet board. I'll take a picture tomorrow when I get my camera out for the birthday party.
I am already planning some cool Christmas crafts. I will start my crafting when my mom comes in on the 16th. We are going to spend our time around the house doing crafts and such. The kids love doing that stuff and making cookies all together.
Any Christmas plans? We have some but I can't talk about that yet. You'll have to wait till after Grammy leaves before I can spill those beans ;)
We will also be doing some Saturday school to make up for how much history and science we will be missing while she's here. yay for that. Well, I'm going to go watch Captain America so have a great night!!
Blessings!

Update

2011-10-30T12:29:00.000-07:00

Hi there! It's been a while, and I'm happy to say it's not because I have been uber busy. I actually have had a pretty nice week. I made several attempts to blog, but realized I would bore some poor folks to death and I couldn't bear the thought of that responsibility.
Tim has actually had most of Wednesday (I helped him unload and reload the truck), almost all of Thursday off, and all of Friday off...thank goodness for salary right!!
We've just been hanging out as a family. Had to go do some shopping for warm clothes for Noah. Poor kid. I consign for all of my kids fall and spring. Let me just tell you though...the hardest one to get clothes for is Noah. He just turned 7, and 7 year old boys are not super easy on their clothes. If you don't believe me come and check out his drawers. Noah is a funny boy. When he gets this one certain pair of pants he wears them until he completely.wears.them.out. And I don't mean, oh these pants are starting to get a worn look, I mean if the last 1 inch holding the pants together just under the knee tears the kids going to be wearing shorts worn out. And apparently other moms think that I (or moms of other 7 year old boys) actually want to buy their sons jeans that are in the same condition. For $10. I don't even want to pay $10 for brand new pants, never mind someone's worn out wholly, falling apart pants. I don't care if they are polo, or gucci, or Ghandi's. No way. Wow. Sorry about that. Anyway, we had to take that boy shopping.Clothes are expensive too. He needed pants, shirts, and a coat. We went to every thrift store and found almost nothing for him. I had to take him to Target, Kohl's, and Walmart to finally get him a few pairs of pants and shirts. The kid is a stick and can't wear pants unless they have the adjustable waist in them, so that pretty much rules out the cheaper pants that I would like to buy. Also, the big kids clothes (Noah wears a 7 now) are as much as adult clothes!! I saw pants in the boys section that were more than the pants I bought! His coat was more than Tim's was!! It's nearly unbearable to spend that kind of money on stuff. I miss teh days when I could buy everything for everyone at consignment sales. Ah. Memories. My kids are growing up :(

And let me just tell you...I'm not feeling Goodwill anymore. I bought a sweater there and a few other items. I really love this sweater. Its American Eagle. I can't afford to even walk in to AE anymore. Maybe 2 kids ago, but now mommy shops clearance and off season and yard sales. So when I pay the cashier tells me that all name brand clothes are $7. Why you ask??? They are trying to compete with our local high end consignment stores. Which means this: The consignment store (which PAYS for the clothes they get from people) charges about $7-$10 for a sweater like the one I bought. So they only make about $4-$6 for the sweater and then they have to pay their bills, workers, ect...Now Goodwill receives their items for FREE. They aren't a consignment store. I donate clothes to them regularly. So people donate items to them and they in turn hike up their prices for people to pay who can't afford to shop at other places. I know that Goodwill does a lot with the money that they receive, but I am not pleased with the amount they are charging. Do all Goodwill's do this? I saw a watch there for $20! That's crazy. In my opinion. I am cheap. that may be what the problem is. Does anyone else have a problem with this??

Well, I'm going to go watch the rest of the games and cry. I can't believe the Saints are losing to the Rams. Really people? It's bittersweet to have NFL Sunday Ticket sometimes. If the Panthers win and the Saints lose how can I show my face at Bible study tonight?? Just kidding...but not...
Blessings :)

This and That

2011-10-15T18:55:00.000-07:00

I still haven't taken any pics of our projects yet...I know, I know. But I did have a wonderful week. We didn't have a lot of activities this week. Noah didn't have speech Thursday either (teacher workshop or something) so that was an unexpected surprise too. He only has 2 more sessions and then we're done for the quarter. That usually gives us about 2-3 weeks off for testing and rescheduling.
It was a great school week this week. The girls FINALLY got caught up on their Latin. We have been reviewing since school started. And when I say we I mean WE. I totally forgot how to conjugate verbs and decline nouns. How many endings should a noun have?? Really. Feminine, masculine, Neuter...ahhh!
Also, the girls were featured on the Charity:Water blog http://www.charitywater.org/blog/category/updates/campaigns-to-watch/ if you'd like to check it out. The girls were very excited to do the interview. I hadn't checked the website until tonight to see if it was published though. They will like reading it. They took out everything we put in about Jesus though. I was pretty upset. We know why we did it.

Matthew 25:34-36

³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

I better get going. I will take pictures soon of the science and history stuff we have been doing and I know I still have our new poetry posting to do. I'll get to it as soon as I can.

Thought this was funny

2011-10-10T09:04:00.001-07:00

I read this on Living on a Dime this morning and thought it was funny (and true!)

Definition of:

WEB MD

(proper noun)

Something that takes a mild cold and turns it into a deadly disease which will kill you within the next 24 hours.

Our Family Milestones-In Chronological Order

2011-10-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if this year was a big year as far as milestones go for you. This was a big year for us. I am going to add in the smaller ones along with the bigger ones for you. Enjoy!
*I am using the laptop so pics of Tim and Nate's bdays aren't on here. They turned 34 and 4.

First one is a bit sad. Our dog Daisy had to be put down because of brain tumors :( Not a great milestone, but a big loss to our family.

I turned 30. This is my impression of Biebs because my hubby thought it would be hilarious to buy me a Justin Bieber cake. It was hilarious. But I couldn't eat his head. I had this strange fear it would change who I am forever...Happy 30th Birthday mom. Eat Justin Bieber's face.

This isn't an actual picture of our anniversary, it's one we took at the beach. But Tim and I celebrated 10 years of marriage yesterday. LOVE<3
How sweet right? He gave me a bottle with a note in it. It quoted Proverbs 31 and some thoughts about me. Romantic :)

Noah turned 7. And on his 7th birthday he got 1. a pocket knife, and 2. his gold belt in martial arts!! What a day! Well, technically he didn't GET his belt...the ceremony is Monday, but he passed his test!! Yay for Noah!!
I know birthdays are every year, but 7 is a big birthday. At least in my mind. So, we still have 2 more birthdays. Claire will be 9 and Amber will be 11. I can't even think about 11 yet.
Well, I am in the middle of cutting down a tree, so I need to go. Have a great weekend and I will be back soon. I have a few more pics of some projects we have done in A&P and a post about poetry to put on here, but I've been a busy momma, so stay with me. I will be better, promise :)
Blessings :)

Terrible......4's???

2011-10-04T18:27:00.000-07:00

Why is it that people call them terrible twos? I never had a terrible two. Ever. Not that I even consider my kids "terrible" at all. At least not in their entirety. Maybe in a certain moment I could consider their actions Terrible.
Take today for instance. I could call today an instance of terrbility. Ya, it's a word...now. In my world it is. Why you ask??? (if you didn't too bad. I'm answering why anyway.) Well, maybe because I had to spend about 15 minutes sitting with (on) Nathanael while my kids recited their poems and sang our folk song at Poetry today while he cried to run around yelling with his friend. Ya. Bad Momma. I know. I took away playing on the playground while all the other kids played. And he is now taking a nap every.single.day. And I may have taken away his next 3 birthdays. It's all a blur.
I remember Noah's first temper tantrum was at 4 too. It was during a field trip to an old school house. He never had any attitude problems until that day. It was amazing.
Nate never gives me a hard time here. Almost never. But when we have poetry or small groups on Sunday night it seems like it's his time to go all out. Hmm. Let's see how livid I can make mommy. Well, if that is his goal he really succeeds. 10 fold. I think my blood pressure was 289/217. Really.
On a more positive note, my little man Noah turned 7 yesterday!! He is growing up so much. He had 2 milestones in one day...he passed his test for his gold belt yesterday too!! In two months he passed 2 martial arts tests and has his second belt. Well, I had a long day: Cleaned out the boys room and closet, school, speech, consigned clothes, poetry in the park, home dinner, laundry, dishes. BED. Goodnight :)

2011-09-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. Ok so Amber's tooth is great. They bonded it and you can't even tell it was broken! Amazing :)
Our new puppy is doing great. The kids love her so much. She's a sweetie.
School has been going well. The kids are adjusting to the new schedule well. We haven't had to make any big adjustments to the day yet. Nate is enjoying what he's been doing too, so that's been helpful. It's a big change from last year. And the year before. Where he would sit in the middle of the school table and hold my face while I was trying to give a history lesson. Fun. I made it through two years of toddler mayhem to make it here...and I like it a lot.
Noah started back to speech and enjoys it. We sit in the library again this year and do some school work. The kids still are afraid of the librarian (so am I honestly). They were impressed by the substitute last week. They said she didn't seem as mean. I guess that's a positive thing.
Poetry in the park was also great this week. It was our first week back and we switched the schedule, where we meet, and how we do it. It went pretty smoothly and we all had a great time. I will do a post on exactly what we changed soon. I've just had a lot going on this week. I will also be posting pictures of our fair projects next week. So, gotta go get ready for the DMV. yay.
Blessings!

life's going ons

2011-09-18T18:22:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let you all know I am not dead. I have been super busy and it doesn't look like I'll be having any spare time in the next few days. amber chipped her front tooth, permanent tooth, a nice chunk is missing. I will probably be spending part of a day in the dentist this week, I have to do groceries, renew my license, we have poetry in the park, and 4 nights of martial arts. That's what I remember. Don't forget, I'm supposed to school sometime in there too. So pray for Amber that her tooth is still good, and it doesn't need to be pulled out. Hopefully they can just bond it or cap it...I'll update when I have some news :)
Blessings

Charity Water update

2011-09-13T16:49:00.000-07:00

Well, we have 7 days left and after a deposit tomorrow, we will be (hopefully) over $800. That's the good news. The bad news is we only have 7 days left and we are $200 under our goal!!! So if you were waiting for an opportune time to donate or know someone else who would love to donate to a good cause for goodness sake send them to our my charity:water page!!!!! www.mycharitywater.org/readathon
Charity:Water actually emailed us today and interviewed the girls about the readathon and how we did it. It was pretty cool. They got to share why and how we did it. Once it's up on their blog I will post the link. They are super excited and we are praying to meet goal, so help us reach it, pretty please :) What you will do for your kids, even grovel on the web for them;)
Blessings,
Angela

Little Orphan Annie

2011-09-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

Well, not anymore!! She is now part of our family. Tim and I couldn't take everyone crying every.single.night. "We miss Daisy, Daisy used to sleep in our room, I can't sleep without Daisy."

Apparently none of us could. Mostly because of the crying.

But we have been scouring Petfinder.com since we were at the beach looking for potential doggies. Not too young, not too old, not too big, not too small. Not a pit bull, not a pit bull. Did I say that already?? You would not believe the amount of pit bulls on there!

We emailed a woman about an hour away who was fostering a beagle/terrier mix. She was 6 months old and adorable. I fell in love <3

The woman emailed us back and said that Annie was available. So I filled out an application and we picked her up at 11 this morning :) She has the features of a Jack Russell and a Beagle, and she is stinkin cute! She only weighs 14 pounds, and she probably won't get much bigger. It's a huge difference from 100 pounds to 14!! The kids are in absolute love with her. She follows them around everywhere, and viceversa! She won't replace Daisy, but she is a member of our family and we will love her, and play with her, and call her George...er...Annie.

We interrupt your sadness with a beach vacation...

2011-08-31T04:59:00.000-07:00

Ok, so technically we weren't supposed to get here until tonight. But we got here about 4ish Monday. We couldn't take being home when Tim brought Daisy in and came home alone. So we said our very sad goodbye's to our loving pet and got in the van and drove to the beach. Tim joins us tonight and we are very excited. We really miss him. We are getting ready to go sit on the porch and check out our 25 lbs of shells we got on our approximate 4 mile walk last night. I am seriously aching right now. My poor hubby has been working like crazy and is really ready to get here and start vacation.
We are staying in a very nice beach house, so thank you Jeanie and Bill!! It's nice to be here early too because the beach is nearly empty! It's really cool. We are gonna go check out the pier tonight and walk around down near the bridge. We are hanging at the beach every day except Friday, we are going to head to the aquarium. The kids are excited because besides the fact that they love the aquarium, we get to ride the ferry. I know you probably think my kids are some deprived youngens, but it's pretty cool. Continue to pray for the kids. Amber couldn't sleep last night thinking about Daisy, and it's going to be really hard going back home and she's gone. Tim and I are debating if we should get a dog before winter or after. The kids really want one now, but we aren't sure. Anyway, my kids are going crazy to look at their shells and I'm holding them up...so blogging time's up. Have a great rest of the week and I will resume some time next week. We come back Monday and have poetry Tuesday, so it will probably be the end of the week before I get on here again. Happy Labor Day!!
Blessings!

3 more days...

2011-08-25T17:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess I should throw in a disclaimer here. If you love our dog, or any dog you may want to stop reading.
Our dog Daisy is only 4. (28 if you're like my kids and have to count her in dog years.ya.) So technically, she is still younger than I am. Anyway, last year before Thanksgiving she had a seizure. I took her to the vet and they checked her out and said that they didn't want to medicate her with her only having the one. If they became more frequent, we would have to reassess the situation.
That was the only one for about 4 months. Then she had another. About a month later another. Another in June. We took her to the vet and they put her on meds and we brought her back for bloodwork. They checked for stuff like parvo, heartworms, stuff I didn't really hear anything after they said that her blood looked good!! YAY for Daisy. The medicine was working, no seizures for a month.
Then she had one two weeks ago. Then another. Then Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and today;Thursday. Tim brought her to the vet again for MORE bloodwork Tuesday and we got the diagnosis. It can only be brain tumors. Our poor little (enourmous) baby has brain tumors. It has been a very hard week for us. Tim has to bring her in on Monday. So we have 3 more days with our dog. The kids and I leave for the beach at 12 Monday. That will be the last time we see her. It's depressing, but we don't have to watch her be in agonizing pain while she has the seizures anymore. Pray for my kids. This was our first real pet. I don't really count cats (we had one for a few months. We gave it away so I wouldn't go insane) and we had psycho hamsters. One killed the other and then the living one...well, it died. Anyway, they are super upset, at least the older 3 are. Nate fake cries. Then asks for a snack. But just pray that they will be ok. I think the beach will take their minds off of it, but when we come back home :(
Blessings
Claire and Daisy (who looks very thrilled to be woken from her nap for amateur photography time)

The Open!

2011-08-25T17:42:00.000-07:00

Well, we have been busy adjusting to mommy's new schedule for school. Tomorrow will be day5 at Grace and Truth Academy. The kids are doing a great job adjusting to the changes. We didn't really change much in ways of WHAT we are using as much as the ORDER of things. I have to say though that they are really showing me they can adjust to change pretty easily. I do have amazing kids (though I am somewhat partial :)
We started school last Friday to make room in the week for the OPEN!! That's right it came to town in all of it's fuzzy yellow glory and we were there!! My friend and I were invited by our tennis coach to come down for kids day and stay for the actual Open! So after playing tennis and tennis activities for about 2 hours we (after eating our FREE chicfila lunch) proceeded to the open itself. It was cool to see it live. The announcer had a very cool European accent. I couldn't understand anything she said really. Thank goodness for a very large screen. What was the kids favorite part of seeing live tennis pros you ask??? The speed of the serves. YEP. Every serve was on radar and the kids loved keeping track of which player had the faster serve. Homeschoolers.

First Day!!

2011-08-19T19:23:00.000-07:00

Ok, so we were supposed to start school this coming Monday, but we were invited to go to the children's activities Monday for the US Open (I don't exactly know what that consists of, but I will certainly blog about it when I have time), so I wanted to get our work for Monday done to keep the rest of the week in order. So the only thing we didn't get to was music and typing. eh, no biggie.
Once we get the routine down and everyone (me) knows what we need to be doing, we will have the time for those too.
We did our math, language, writing, and some trampoline time. Just a few minutes helps with wiggles! ( I used to make them run laps around the yard). Then science and science activities. Today we made a body book. We read after. The girls do their independent reading while Noah does his on the computer and I do phonics with Nate, alternating with read aloud days for them. So Monday Noah works on the computer and Nate doing phonics and Tuesday I will read out loud to them.
Then we did our history and acted out the scene when Peter heals the beggar at the Beautiful Gate. We did art, carving styrofoam blocks and painting them for making prints. (studying Rembrandt). Tues and Thurs are poetry (robert louis stevenson). The girls reviewed their latin and Noah started English from the roots up. They all did some Explode the Code books. Anyway, it was a great first day. The best part is that Nate REALLY loves school this year. He is blowing me away. Today he memorized the brain, lungs, heart, stomach, liver, and intestines. The funniest thing though...he calls the intestines...antennas!! How cute is that??? awww.
Blessings :)

Last deal at Staples

2011-08-14T17:56:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I'm 99% sure that the last of the penny deals started today, so if you are needing loose leaf paper run (don't walk) to Staples to get your hands on some for a penny people! I (since I have my Staple's teachers rewards card on me every where I go) decided to swing by today on my way (or out of my way) home to get my hands on some before they were out. So, because I am a teachy teacher I got 25 packs for 25 cents. You do have to spend $5 to get the deal. But that's always easy for me. I bought some glue sticks, a very good quality pack of colored pencils (I bought 2 of the same pack last week for a dollar each, but the limit was 2 so I realized I wanted one more pack and the price went up to $4. they are very nice pencils though.) and some construction paper. Then my 25 packs of paper. The bad thing is finding a place to put it all. In the last 3 weeks I bought 25 composition books, 25 spiral notebooks, and 25 packs of paper. Not to mention all of the index cards, highlighters, pencils, glue bottles, pens, and erasers. And all of the other stuff that wasn't a penny that I got in order to get the penny deals. Anywho, the penny sale ends Wednesday, so if you need some grab your state teachers card and go get a teacher's reward card at Staples!!
Blessings:)

Busy and Charity Water Update

2011-08-13T17:18:00.000-07:00

I know I've been terrible lately. I have been busy though. We have been enjoying our summer. Swimming and playdates mostly, but even just hanging out in the backyard and going for walks have made our summer relaxing and enjoyable. We have one more week left to our summer and then back to the grindstone. Until Labor Day weekend. We are taking a very long weekend trip to the beach for free. It's nice to work for designers who own beach houses :)
Noah also started martial arts. He can go anytime they have a class so we have been checking out as many times as possible to see which ones we like best. He really likes it. Nate should be starting baseball soon and with tennis starting soon I'm sure to be MIA and maybe develop an eye twitch trying to get from tennis to baseball in time to see the game.
So like I said we start school the 22nd. I'm trying to get some work done before we leave the 31st. I got our schedule completely finished, which, for 4 kids, is quite the feat. Especially since Amber is in 6th grade this year!!! I know right!! It completely blows my mind that she is a "middle school-er". Of course I use that loosely since she is homeschooled. We went to a funeral today at our old, old, old church. It was the church we attended when we got saved. Of course Amber was only 7 months old when we started attending this church and was 6 1/2 when we left. She got lots of accolades, that's for sure. She is growing up :(
Here's an update on Charity Water/Readathon: We broke $500!! That is just donations too! We still have to collect for the readathon, and we still are selling our spoon pendant necklaces that we have made. We can't participate in the Indie Market so I have plenty of stock to sell. I have filled orders for 9 so far. If you would like to purchase one to help us out let me know! We would love to reach our goal. We have about 35 more days and $227 left to go!! This is after we add in our money from the readathon. The girls read like crazy. Amber read 34 hours and Claire read 23 hours. That's $57 Just from us! I can't believe how close we are! We raised $128.50 just in our penny jar! Thank goodness it wasn't all pennies, but a lot of it was!! If you would like to see our progress or donate to our campaign feel free to check out our campaign page www.mycharitywater.org/readathon
Anyway, that's a pretty good update for what's been going on in our lives since I posted last. Sorry it's been so long. I hope to post again before school and maybe once after to let you know how our first week is going. After that I probably won't post again until after we get home from the beach.
Blessings :)

Another Deposit!

2011-07-19T06:52:00.000-07:00

Hey there! I just wanted to let you know I just rolled another $37 in pennies!! In case you don't know how long it takes, it takes a really, really long time to do that. Hours. We also had another $12 in cash too. So another $49 down. So exciting!! If you'd like to join us in our efforts or see how we're doing swing by our site:
www.mycharitywater.org/readathon

More Deals at Staples

2011-07-19T06:09:00.001-07:00

I'm not entirely sure if it was intentional or not, but Staples internet ad this week did not show it's penny deals. You have through tomorrow to save on index cards, highlighters, and pencils. You may want to call ahead and make sure they have some inventory left. Remember, if you're a teacher you can get 25 of each item. Just bring in your state teachers card and they will give you a Staples Teacher Rewards Card. If you use this throughout the year you can earn money back on ink, toner, and paper. I bring back my empty cartridges and get $2 in rewards. I just print it out and bring it in. I got everything in these pictures PLUS an ink cartridge for FREE because I used my ink rewards!! How cool is that??!!
So here's the list of everything:
Index cards:25 packs-$0.25-(I gave a few packs to our neighbor, that's why some are missing)
8 pk Staples wood pencils: 25 pks-$0.25
Sharpie 2 pk accent highlighter-25 pks-$0.25
Avery Insertable Dividers-2 for $.50/ea (limit 2)
Omnitech Battery Operated Pencil Sharpener $5
My First Ticonderoga 4pk w/Sharpener $3
Kodak Black Ink Cartridge (not pictured)$9.99
Total (with tax): $19.94
Amount of rewards certificate:$20.00
Out of Pocket: $0!!!
That's a deal!

Spoon necklaces

2011-07-15T10:18:00.000-07:00

Here are the 4 spoon necklaces I made yesterday. The pictures aren't that great. They reflect a lot of light. Here is the link again for the tutorial on these :
busilyspinningmomma

And just so you know: I have tried to get this post to look right and blogger just is NOT cooperating with me in any way. But, that's just life. Enjoy!

Progress

2011-07-14T16:58:00.000-07:00

I'm getting ready to go fold a mountain of laundry and make oodles of headbands for the Indie Market (to make $$ for Charity:Water) in a couple of weeks, but I thought I'd hop on quick and say hello. So..."hello :)"
I also wanted to give you guys a sneak peak at our new project for the Indie market. http://busilyspinningmomma.blogspot.com/2011/06/rustic-spoon-pendent-tutorial.html You have to check these out. And I did contact busily spinning to make sure if I gave her credit could we use her idea?? She is very lovely and said yes and is going to advertise our commitment for clean water on her blog!! How cool is she?
So we made 4 of these today, but I have more to do. I will definitely get some pics up when I get more of everything done.
Don't forget to check us out at www.mycharitywater.org/readathon .
Blessings :)

Staples penny sales

2011-07-13T07:32:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that time again. Staples is having their penny sales! Although the sale for this week continues until Saturday, the penny sale finishes up today.You can get two of each of the following: 8 pack of BIC Roundstic pens, Staples White School Glue, and Staples cap erasers. If you are a teacher with a teachers rewards card though, you can really rack up. I got 25 packs of each. I have 200 pens. If I ever hear my husband ask me to find him a pen we may have some unforeseen medical bills in our future. They are also having 25 cent deals too, but the limit is 2 whether or not you are a teacher. I got two packs of mechanical pencils and some cool poly folders. For 77 cents I got some composition notebooks too. This isn't the best price on these, but some had graph paper in them. I got a few of these. I always need graph paper and I never want to pay what they ask for it halfway through the school year.
Here are some guidelines to help you shop:
1. You must spend $5 to get the penny deals. I got some cool binder clips and things that I needed that were on sale for $1 in our town.
2. Go on Sunday. They don't open until 12 in some areas, so check first. I went on a Tuesday and I had to go to 2 stores to get everything I wanted. This sounds like a pain, but I got some things at the second store that they were completely out of when I tried the first store. I also got 2 more poly folders.
They should have the ad out for next week in the next few days, which should include more penny deals. Usually, they have 2 or 3 per week for a few weeks. My favorite one is the two pocket folders. We use these for lapbooking mostly.
Check out Staples over the next few weeks, you won't be disappointed!
Blessings!

Rain

2011-07-08T19:07:00.000-07:00

There are not many things I hate. I used to hate when the radio people talked forever. I'm (mostly) over that now. I used to hate the news, now I watch it all the time. Two things I have come to hate in life: septic tanks and rain. Now don't get me wrong; I don't hate rain. Only rain associated with my septic tank. There is a difference; allow me to explain.
See, we have a septic tank. Yep, I bet you see where I'm going with this. It's not just any septic tank either. It's situated about 12 feet from our house, lovely. Apparently the geniuses who built our house in 73, and every other house in our neighborhood, decided to not do what should have been done, and only put in two lines and did not perk the ground when doing so. When we get a significant amount of rain here, thanks to red clay and poor workmanship, our septic tank, instead of draining water, fills with water. That's right folks.
We bought this great product called Aero Stream. It helps tremendously. Really, no sarcasm. Until last week. When we realized our tank was full and that it hadn't rained in over a week. So, we had it pumped and realized something was leaking into our tank. So, naturally, we call a plumber. Apparently, no one can figure out what is causing this. Even with water shut off to the house...still dripping. It ended up being our air conditioner unit saturating the ground with water and dripping into our tank. It's totally fixed now. Ran some piping and its draining on the other side of the yard now. yay. Which means that everything is back to normal. yay.
This whole thing also made me realize: I know way more than I ever wanted to about septic tanks. And toilets, and phalanges, and anything else I may have picked up along the way.
So the rain is growing my garden, and keeping my grass green. It also keeps me from having to water my flowers every single morning, and the garden, and all the other things that may need watering. But while I'm sitting here and typing this, listening to the rain, I still can't help hoping that my septic tank is not filling with water :)
As a garden side note: The squash is doing amazing, the cucumbers are coming in great, as are the green beans. Tonight I saw a few cherry tomatoes that are almost red enough to pick and I cut my first two okra tonight! I can't cut basil fast enough. At least this has been a learning experience for how much to plant next year. Only a few basil plants, 3 cherry tomato plants, and I'm definitely planting my cucumbers separately from the rest of the garden. Anyway, I will write again soon about how we are coming along in our charity water fundraiser.
Blessings!

fixed link

2011-06-22T16:38:00.000-07:00

Sorry about yesterday's link. I forgot the my in the web name. it's www.mycharitywater.org/readathon Really sorry about that all :(

Charity Water

2011-06-21T11:39:00.000-07:00

We have our web page for Charity Water up now.
www.mycharitywater.org/readathon
The kids are very excited. We (in the12 hours up) have raised $70! Almost a tenth of our goal!!
They were floored (as was I) with the fact that 4,500 kids die every day from water related diseases. Can you imagine that? If you would like to help click on the link and you will be taken to our page. Here are a few things you can do: Make a direct donation on our page. That's a no brainer. Do your kids want to get involved?? Have them join us in our efforts with a penny drive. We all have pennies everywhere; in our purses, drawers, sofa cushions, cars, the list is endless. They can ask friends and family to donate pennies. Then just roll them up (or visit a wonderful Coinstar) and cash em in and donate that to our page. We named our page Readathon because that's the other way we are raising money. If you wish to join us just comment here with your email address. I will give you more information and get you a pledge form. We are going to ask for pledges/hour. If your child reads for 20 hours over the next 65 days (that way we have time to collect and get everything in on time:91 days left to meet our goal) and someone sponsored them for say $.50/ hour, they would earn $10. How cool? Plus, they're reading mom's!! Anywho, thanks for considering it and remember: EVERY PENNY COUNTS!!!

Charity 1 in 8

2011-06-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

DUH

2011-06-20T14:54:00.000-07:00

Ok, that may not be the cool word anymore, but who said that I was still cool?? I am about two blocks past cool, 5 blocks past "bad" when "bad" meant good. I am about 3 blocks beyond phat and about a subdivision away from just about anything that resembles awesome. Yep. I'm dealing with it. But back to my DUH. I have joked about it before, but seriously folks. I forgot I had this blog. Yup. I have had a gazillion things on my mind lately.
Not to mention our crawfish day. Oh yeah baby. We bought 13 pounds of crawfish, which, by the way, had to be shelled. Anyone want to see my cut up bloody fingers? Ya. I'm typing this with my toes people. ha. I actually HAD to stop eating crawfish after #130 because I could NOT shell any more of those dang critters. That was our Father's day hoedown. We did enjoy though. I have enough to make myself some etouffe tomorrow. That'll be it.
Also, I had my inner protest of Father's Day. I have a wonderful husband who is superly amazing to our kids. He is a great dad so I can't really protest Father's day out loud. But inside I get SOO mad and angry and hurt about it. On the Christian radio station they were having callers tell them favorite memories and I protested the radio station for the 2 weeks before Father's Day. I just do better not dealing with the emotions that come with the whole holiday. Tim has 2 dads!! I mean really?? er.
Well, while I deal with my jealousy and type with my toes I'm sure you can understand why I have slightly forgotten about this mess of a blog.
I do have some exciting news though. I have been brainstorming for sometime now, and I have come up with several ideas to raise money for a well for Africa through Charity Water!! So exciting!! I'm going to organize a penny drive and a read-a-thon. I'm pretty excited. I'm going to get the paperwork going this week so whoot!!

Our Camping recap

2011-06-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, so our camping trip was gazillion times better than our last one. For a few reasons I will neglect to mention and a few I will. # 1. No torrential downpours. #2. No flash flooding. #3. I didn't have to cook every meal for every person. #4. I didn't have to worry someone we were camping with was going to kill someone. (that last one is only half serious)

Here's the details for our more recent and fun camping trip:
Friday: So we got to our site and set up our tent and got some of our stuff unpacked. Our friends showed up and did the same. Then we took the kids down the trail from their site and went fishing and swimming for a few hours. We went back to hang out for a few more hours and headed back to our site. We slept pretty good. Once the family in the site near us decided to stop screaming. Of course we were up with the sun and after an amazing breakfast we were back in the lake. For the whole day. It was very relaxing. We ate dinner and fished a little. Made some smores and went back to the tent for some UNO and then hit the...ground. We had a super time and loved being in nature. The most memorable thing for me: laying there the first night and all of the kids freaking out because they could see the stars through the roof of the tent. We decided, since the chance of rain was 0% to leave the cover off the top. That was pretty cool. Great trip. Can't wait to do it again :)

More on homeschooling

2011-06-02T12:47:00.000-07:00

OOH! I got to go to the book fair at our conference this year. I really love the book fair. It's funny how I think about my first time walking into that book fair. My jaw dropped down and I might have peed a little. I remember walking around aimlessly grabbing information from just about every booth I walked past. That was 7 years ago. I can't believe that 7 years and 3 different curriculum's have gone by.
That was probably the biggest, scariest thing I dealt with after deciding to homeschool. There was just so many things to choose from and we didn't have the money to mess it up. How would we replace the curriculum if I hated it??? Whatever I bought was what we were going to use for the year. Minimum.
I went home with all of my brochures and laid them out for Tim and I to weed through. After we took out the ones that were obviously not for us (either too old or to $$) we prayed over what exactly God wanted for our family. He led us straight to Five In A Row. It was an amazing curriculum and fit our lives and what we wanted perfectly. For Amber. I bought Before FIAR for Claire to use as a preschool curriculum and it was totally not her thing. I used it here and there with her and she joined in with Amber with a lot, but I knew we would need a change for the next year. Mostly because I wanted a year of practice with it before Claire officially started her year of kindergarten.
I looked and prayed and looked some more. I knew Claire needed hands on and activity. I tried searching for homeschool curriculums that were geared towards ADD or raved about by parents of children with ADD. I found KONOS. It was a great Godly curriculum that was very hands on. We prayed and felt it was the right way to go. I used it for 3 years. We got nearly through volume 2. I felt trapped in it by the end of our 3rd year. I don't want anyone to be discouraged by this, it is just my personal opinion, mostly of volume 2. We loved volume 1. It was more than great. We learned about indians, cowboys, medieval times. We had so much fun. We had whole nights of fun as a family celebrating as Egyptians and many other things. When we got to volume 2 I'm not sure if I got burnt out on it, or if I just was frustrated with the second volume in general. But using that curriculum did do several things. It was kind of harder to understand. I spent an entire summer learning the curriculum and was actually able to help others to understand it and use it more effectively. I wouldn't trade that for anything. It also made me realize that I could be very competent at schooling the children differently (as did 5inarow). A friend invited me to the poetry in the park group that i have posted about not too long ago. This group was based on the teachings of Charlotte Mason. I had only heard about her name as a title at our homeschool convention called "Who or what is Charlotte Mason". It was done by Sonya Schafer (I think). I didn't attend that talk and that was the only time I had ever heard her name. The more I attended the group the more I liked the idea of using the methods of Charlotte Mason. I talked with Tim and prayed again. We decided to go for it! Method #3, CM. We have been using it for 3 years now and I have no intentions of changing...ever.

So, back to the convention this weekend. I will be ordering the mp3's to the talks I wanted since I didn't get to attend the whole conference. But I did get some things that I really wanted for a good price. Here's the rundown of what I got the other day... I still have things to get, but I didn't want to bust my budget. Most things were a % off since it was at the conference plus I didn't have to pay shipping. I bought the 2nd volume of Mystery of History for $38 instead of $48. Deal. I bought the 3 notebooks for the Apologia Anatomy elementary edition. $18 instead of 24. I got 2 regular journals and a jr. journal for Noah. These are really great. If you use the notebooks and can afford to get the notebooks, do it. They are amazing and give your children something to look back on for years. I looked at my friend's son's astronomy journal and I was totally sold on it. They are beautifully done and durable. Nice. I bought Nate the Get Ready, and Get Set for the Code. I was going to buy the Go for the Code, but I wasn't sure if he liked them before I spent more $$. They were like $6 each. That was a pretty good deal. I also saved some money on Mind Benders from The Critical Thinking Company. I got a few odds and ends at Miller Pads and Paper. If you've never checked this company out, do it. They have amazing prices and usually have deals on shipping too. If you can go in on an order with a friend and spend over $50 you can usually get free shipping. I get a lot of art supplies from them. I love that they have Prang water colors for $2.50!! They are over $5 or $6 in art stores.

Camping

2011-06-01T18:29:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long lapse in posts, we had company for the long weekend. My hubby's brother and his wife and son visited for about 4 days. We had a great time and my kids miss them already. But now I must prepare for a weekend camping trip. Camping is fun. Packing for camping with 4 kids. Not so fun. Having to count skivy's for 6: not fun. Making sure everyone has both of their shoes: not so fun. How many towels? Bathing suits. Bug spray. Food. I mean holy cow. That's a lot of stuff for one person to remember. And when we get there and Amber doesn't have pj's or Claire has one shoe...Who is the person to blame??? Momma. That's right. yep.

Anyway, I have been pretty excited that my garden has been coming in. I picked some basil today!!! That is so amazing compared to last year when my lovely dog ate about the only 2 veggies that grew. A tomato and a green pepper. I did have a few cayenne's come in and they were great, but that was all. This year we are trying cherry tomatoes, basil, okra, cucumbers, green peppers, cayenne peppers, squash, carrots, radishes, and green beans. Everything is coming in great. I'm only 2 weeks in and it's looking promising :)
I hope that you all have a super relaxing weekend and I'll be back next week with lots of pictures!!
Blessings!

Drumroll please, the results are in!!

2011-05-25T10:26:00.001-07:00

Well, the results are in. I have been stressed out and I developed a twitch in my left eye waiting, but I finally got them! I got the email yesterday morning...test results. The girls tested two weeks ago and I've been "patiently" awaiting the arrival of the results. And they're in.

They both tested a few grade levels above what they are actually in. Amber tested for the 5th grade and her lowest rank was in study skills at 7.8. I don't give study skills a lot of credit since the card catalog is nearly obsolete now though. Her next lowest was 8.1 (math) and her highest (science) was 12.9. I am no idiot so I know that doesn't mean that she could do 12th grade science, but she did score higher than 99% of 5th graders in science. I can deal with that. She had 3 other 9's (which means in the top 90%) and a the rest were 8's (top 80%).
Claire scored higher than 99% of 3rd graders in 9 of the 12 categories tested. That scares me. After 7th grade I may not be able to even teach her anymore!! The rest were 8's and one 5th grade level, which was math and that is right on for her since she took 4th grade math this year. Regardless of how they did, they tried their hardest and I'm very proud of them. I know we did alot this year and worked very hard. Even in the years their tests were not at grade level in every area, we used it as a guide to know what needed work and what their strengths were. Great job girls!!

Last day of school

2011-05-23T17:56:00.000-07:00

Last Monday we tilled our garden and planted. I already have stuff sprouting!! It's very exciting. I can't wait to have fresh veggies growing.
Last week we went to the Celtic festival. We had a great time. They dress the kids up and we walked around for a while. The kids got to hold a giant sword, watch a dog herd ducks, see a bag pipe parade, and some very cool artifacts. We did leave earlier than anticipated because of rain, but it was a fun day.
We've been busy getting the house ready for company this weekend. Getting all of our yard work and a few things around the house. I repainted our kitchen chairs and our kitchen. I repainted all of our white trim. It's crazy how banged up stuff can get in such a short period of time. I'm really wanting to paint our kitchen orange, but that will have to wait until fall or winter. Right now I'm done with painting.
Ok, now about school. We have officially had our last day. Claire has a few more days left of math and Amber has a few more days of Jr. Analytical Grammar. We will work on our Latin and math over the summer, but I have no big plans as far as what we'll get done over our vacation. Every year I make these huge plans for our summer education, and then when it's time to start school I'm all like "Oh, we were supposed to get this done over summer. Man." I have some stuff that we might do or that we can do, but I'm not saying "WE ARE DOING THIS" at all. I guess I'm finally at a place where I'm being realistic about how things really go down around here! Honestly, summer is my vacation too. I'm tired after a school year. All the planning, teaching, planning, dealing with nonsense. I'm ready for some time off. I have lots of cool things planned for our summer time fun. It'll be great. I love summer.
Well, I'm tired from our day of errands. with 4 kids. Goodnight
blessings :)

Great Post from Childlight USA

2011-05-16T05:25:00.000-07:00

I just read a great post over at Childlight USA. It is a Charlotte Mason blog that I follow. This post is about becoming a Charlotte Mason teacher. The author tells us how to shift ourselves from how we were taught (which, at least for me, was pretty unsuccessful; for the most part), and to use Mason's methods (which have been proven time and again to really work) in our homeschools. I loved it and will probably be reading and re-reading it several more times over the summer!

Giveaway from My Organized Chaos

2011-05-15T15:42:00.000-07:00

Check out My Organized Chaos for a chance to win a $100 Old Navy gift card.

~ "May 13th and lasting until May 26th, Old Navy is having their Let’s Play Summer Event. This event marks baby and toddler summer clothing at 30% off! You can visit a store near you, or shop online {both US & Canada}. Not only can you save 30% on all your kids’ summer play clothes, you can also use this coupon to receive an additional 15% off one additional item."

So head over and enter!!

Our very restful weekend

2011-05-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day! We did. I finally got my wheelbarrow (no, I'm not a total weirdo) that I have been wanting forever! The kids all bought me geraniums and we went out to eat. It was a great day. We just came home and had a fun day together (and no one else came over). It was amazing.

My hubby's camping with his brother this weekend and the kids and I are just hanging out. Having a restful, peaceful weekend. I've been working very late getting some painting done, mostly because I don't sleep well when I'm the only person responsible for the safety of the children. So I crash on the sofa around 2ish with my baseball bat, only to be woken around 6:30 by someone who has to use the bathroom. Because mom really needs to know every bodily function you have. even if the sun is not up yet. And I've only had about 4 hours of sleep. Yay. Pee. Back to bed please. thank you.

We had some new people move in down the street who allow their 3 year old to play outside. alone. Sometimes the 5 year old is babysitting. I think I figured out what's going on. When we bought our house, the agent neglected to tell us that it is highly recommended that you be as slack in your parenting as possible to live here. That must be it. I really can't think of any other possible explanation. At least another nice explanation. The alternative is just sad.

Ya, there it is. I also don't recommend going to bluntcard.com if your are faint-hearted. There are a lot of very blunt cards there.

Well, I hope that you all have a great weekend. I will try to sleep after I repaint my kitchen and watch hours of Criminal Minds and America's Most Wanted. At least I'll be prepared. haha.

Blessings!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

2011-05-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

Hope you have a very happy and blessed Mother's Day!!

Proverbs 31:28-31
Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
“Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.”
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Honor her for all that her hands have done,
and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

Blessings! :)

Things a 3 year old might say...

2011-05-01T13:54:00.000-07:00

So today Nate made the cutest craft in church. It was from Oriental Trading so you can order some if you want. It was a cup with a string and Jesus hanging from the string. When you pull the cloud up it Jesus ascends into heaven. It was the coolest craft ever. So on the way home Nate is in the back of the van using his big man voice saying things like " Come up here to heaven with me you guys". Tim asked Nate if he was pretending to be Jesus and Nathanael said "Dad, I can't fit into this cup!" Then he told Noah what was going on and he repeated Tim's question in his big man voice again. It was so funny.
He also got another sweat band wrist thing from the prize box at church, he's up to 3 now. He said that he needs to have that many because that's how old he is. Where on Earth do kids learn to say these things?!
I'm probably the only one who thinks it's funny, but I'm the mommy, so that's my job!
Anyway, prayers would be lovely for our testing this week. Tomorrow we start our week of testing. We are breaking it up to do over the week so they don't have to sit for hours and try to get it all done in two days. It could be done, but I prefer to only spend about 2 hours per day testing.
I hope you all have a super wonderful week and I will be back Friday or Saturday!!
Blessings!!!

The official book list for Grace and Truth Academy!!

2011-04-28T16:15:00.000-07:00

Here is my list for school next year.
Science: All 4: Apologia Science Elementary Series Anatomy and Physiology and notebooks.
History: All 4: Mystery of History volume 2 The Middle Ages
Latin: Amber, Claire:Latina Christiana II, Noah: English from the Roots Up
Language: Amber: Junior Analytical Grammar Mechanics, Claire: Junior Analytical Grammar, Noah: English for the Thoughtful Child, Nathanael: Language Lessons for the Very Young
Math: Amber: Teaching Textbooks 6, Claire: Teaching Textbooks 5, Noah: Teaching Textbooks 3, Nathanael: Singapore Math K
Spelling: Amber: Building Spelling Skills, Claire: natural Speller, Noah: Spellwell or Explode the Code, Nate: Get Ready, Get Set, Go for the Code A,B,C
Art: All 4: Taken from the Home Educator's Tutor, plus our Poetry in the Park art studies.
Poetry: Amber:Robert Browning, Claire/Noah:Robert Louis Stevenson
Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
Reading: Amber: Little Men; Jo’s Boys; Tom Sawyer; Huckleberry Finn; Call of the Wild Claire: Swiss Family Robinson; Rascal; Misty of Chincoteague; Stormy, Misty’s Foal; Sea Star, Orphan of Chincoteague; Pinocchio; Just So Stories Noah: Stuart Little; Trumpet of the Swan; Mr. Popper’s Penguins; Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh; Peter Pan
I can't think of anything else, but I'm sure I forgot something. We will continue with our Poetry in the Park group and go back to Homeschool PE. Amber and I may do a second year of band. Not sure yet. Well, that's it for tonight!
Blessings!

Just a little something

2011-04-27T15:54:00.000-07:00

Hi! Thought I'd write a few more times this week to compensate for testing next week. I just have a few different random topics to put on here.

We went to our environmental center Monday for our poetry in the park gathering. It was very cool. We are studying small mammals and we were going to investigate a beaver lodge. That was a nice change to our normal schedule.
Ok, my girls are totally excited about this Royal wedding. I have never been into the whole royalty thing, but my girls are loving all the hype about it. I will have to record it. There is no way I'll be up at 6 to watch someone I don't know get married to someone else I don't know :) I'll watch it after I've had a Mt. Dew. or two.
Noah totally loves speech therapy. Side note we wait in the library. I was always under the impression that the library was supposed to be a quiet place to get work done. We take some of our school work there and sit quietly in the "Oh, you homeschool" corner. But unfortunately it is very difficult to concentrate on our work. Mostly because our librarian spends the entire time screaming at the kids who are in her media center class. These kids aren't even being bad. She is screaming at them to be quiet. ok. And my kids spend the whole half-hour thanking me for homeschooling them.
I am super excited about our used curriculum sales coming up. I've made my list for what exactly we need for school next year. I'll post a detailed list. I know I did a "what we might use" but I know for sure now.

So that's my weird list for the day :) Hope that someone out there enjoyed it
Blessings!

Our Easter Day

2011-04-25T18:40:00.000-07:00

Testin Time

2011-04-25T17:33:00.000-07:00

Yes, I spelled it wrong on purpose. I just received our email that our testing materials will arrive tomorrow or Wednesday.
In the first few years we tested with the Woodcock-Johnson III. I really liked it for the first two years. The third year we tested later in the day and it made a big difference in results. We also had to use a different testing facility than we had previously. The tester let Amber give up a little too easily so she didn't try quite so hard when she realized that the tester let her move on. I started researching different testing options and wasn't really sure which route to take.
I found the CAT 5 test and researched it pretty thoroughly. We tried it out last year and Amber loved it. Well, I mean it's testing. Love may be a strong word, but she really liked it in comparison to the Woodcock-Johnson III. She tested very high in several areas. She was timed, but she had the option to read the questions, and re read them if necessary. The WJ was an oral test. Amber is a visual learner, which means that she does better when she can read the questions herself and think about it.
The test is fill in the bubble, which I was also kind of worried about. We had never taken a test like that before. We just talked about it before hand and after each smaller section we went over her answers to make sure they matched up. That she didn't skip any or mismatch them. That if there are 20 questions we make sure she answered 20 and that she doesn't have any missing ones.
The WJ test is great for auditory learners. Children who do better with having the questions read aloud will do wonderfully with this test. The math is a worksheet, but there are questions that are read aloud for math as well. The moderator writes each answer and scores the test right there. It is very nice to have instant results. The CAT 5 takes about a week or two to come in. They can email or send you a hard copy (usually) depending on your preference.
To administer the CAT 5 you do not have to have a degree of any kind which makes it parent/homeschool friendly. A lot of other tests require a degree in order to use them in your homeschools.
I, obviously, am not a testing consultant of any kind, this is just my opinion of the two tests. They both are very competent tests for your child, it just is dependent on your child's individual learning style. I hope that this was helpful to you if you are unsure about what to use to test.
Blessings!

Good Friday

2011-04-22T08:50:00.000-07:00

Isaiah 53:4-6

Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

During all of our fun this weekend let's remember why we celebrate the most wonderful day in history. That Christ died and defeated death so we may live with Him forever! The battle has been won already!!

Even mom's get sick

2011-04-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

Ok. It happened. Mommy got sick. Why is it that when we get sick we get SICK? Can't I just get the sniffles?? Why do I have to get wiped-out, stay in bed, head's exploding sick?? I don't have time to get sick. There is toooo much to do. I wanted to paint my bedroom. I wanted to plant flowers. I wanted to play with the kids. But I had to get sick. I spent half the day laying around. Then while Tim was finishing the fence I kept my eyes on the kids. But I was too cruddy to do anything else. I did have a productive weekend though.

Friday night and Saturday morning I totally redid the girls room. I primed and painted the irritating stripes that were in there. I took all the junk everywhere, organized, and made it pretty pretty. I also called the folks at Hoarders and asked them to come help my beautiful daughters. They are hoarders. I threw away almost 3 trash bags full of junk. 30 gallon trash bags. Not those cute little kitchen bags. These girls are the real deal.
Amber had more paper under her bed than Staples. As crazy as that is, I found 9 pairs of her new socks were hiding under there. That wasn't all though. Every place that could house drawings or pencils or bent up paper clips or fabric scraps, was completely filled to the brim with such things!! When my girls came home from their sleep over and found a beautiful new room waiting for them, they also received a rude awakening. Mama don't play no mo. (Ya, that's right. I said mo. )
I better not find ANYTHING ANYWHERE EVER!!
So I cleaned out their room, and my room. And my closet. And now I'm sick. But that's ok. I'm sitting in bed blogging, watching the Red Sox beat the yankees. That's a good night here. Beckett has struck out five of those sox haters already. Tim's brother is actually at Fenway right now the lucky jerk. Hope you all have a great night and I'm hoping to blog and add pictures soon. I'm also hoping that the Sox win this game so they aren't 0-7 anymore.
Blessings and Go Sox!

Almost forgot to title this one....

2011-04-06T16:34:00.000-07:00

My blog friends! I am writing this from my new laptop. My amazingly wonderful husband purchased it for me and I love it. My friends very amazing (today's word of the day amazing) husband got us a sweet sweet deal. So even though I no longer facebook, I don't have a phone with internet, and I have to ask my 10 year old how to play the Wii, I have joined the century and now own a laptop. It' beautimous. I love it. Did I say that already? ok.
We have been very fortunate the last few weeks. Not only did I get this fantastic treat, but I also got another in my backyard. That's right folks. I am currently looking out my kitchen window at my nearly completed fence. We decided that it financially wise to put up one side for two reasons. A. We couldn't afford to fence in the whole thing without going into debt (that we just paid off totally. For the last time) and B. to keep from getting a lawsuit if the 2 year old next door gets hurt while we're gone since he loves our fence like Jack loves beanstalks. I thought it was a wise decision.
We did some boring stuff like getting Tim's car fixed. yay. But it was nice to be able to afford to get it fixed up.
Ooh! I got my hall recarpeted. The forest green carpet that showed every molecule of oxygen or anything else is gone. we go and lay on our nice new carpet and Nate makes carpet angels. My strange homeschool children.
I still need to post pictures of my new living room. Befores and afters. I promise I will. The girls are supposed to go to a sleepover Friday night and I'm hoping to get their room done. I am doing a Paris theme in there with black and pink and ditching the stripes. I'm also going to be doing some "mommy organizing". Which means I'm probably going to be hearing alot of "Hey where's my ....." in my future. Tough. You had it shoved under your bed for 4 months. I don't care if your super special silly band that glows in the dark got thrown away. Or sucked up in my vacuum. -eh that's another post I guess. Ranting from under a ten year old's bed. By-me.
I'm hoping to get our room done too so I can rest till Tim's brother and his family come down. I'm sure I'll find a gazillion more things to do before then though. I'm cursed with over active brain cells.
Next time I'm gonna talk about our testing choices since the blog is supposed to be about homeschooling. I guess.
Also, just a side note: As I'm typing this Blogger has been kind enough to point out my mispellings. Why is it that homeschool, facebook, and mispellings are spelled wrong; but gazillion isn't??? Just curious. Ok, have a great night.
blessings :)

I have a blog?? I totally forgot!!

2011-03-31T05:50:00.000-07:00

I know I'm super pathetic. I haven't been very faithful in the blogging department lately. Tim has been working till 9 every night which means I'm solo for bedtime nonsense, I mean duty. Every time one of the children gets up I have to go up there and put them back (and duct tape them in bed-haha) Which means if I'm down here in the computer room I have to hoof in up both flights of stairs to deal with their "problem". I don't think so. It's easier to sit on the sofa and watch for their doors to open and tell them to go back to bed. No movement required. Why is it that just the extra 1-2 hours of him not being here and the whole pajama, teethbrushing, pottying, stay in your bed, no in your bed, no you can't sleep on the floor, get into your bed, under your blankets, no you can't sleep in your underwear it's 30 degrees outside, put your clothes back on, no more water girls, no you can't have water, because you'll pee in your bed, because then I'll have to wash every blanket and sheet you can find to sleep with, no you can't sew in bed tonight, because I vacuumed up a needle in here this morning, yes you can read for 15 mins, because it's getting late, because I'm tired, because I dealt with all of this nonsense all day, and now I'm tired, yes you can go to the bathroom AGAIN, put your pants back on, oh man I need a valium or something. GET BACK IN BED!!! tires me out so much??? I don't get it.
I spent last Thursday painting my living room. It now matches my sectional that Tim bought for me. I no longer have a dark gray sectional and green walls with Christmas Green carpet going up the stairs. (The carpet used to be in the living room too, but I ripped that up the day we got the keys!) We are having the stairs and upstairs hall re-carpeted next week. We will just have to wait on the bedrooms (which have red carpet for some strange reason. Maybe the Clauses used to live here or something.)
I also (when we had spring for like a week) planted tons of stuff in the yard. Lilies, hollies, a tulip tree, tulips, dianthum, something else, sunflowers, honeysuckle, another flower I forgot, strawberries, and jasmine. I found out that my sycamore tree is trying to get into my house too. I was planting flowers and hit a root. Right next to my foundation. So I had to get the axe and deal with that. I also have several other roots above the ground getting ready to demolish my concrete path. That's my next project. yay.
Oh, we are now debt free too! It has been an exciting week around here. The only thing we have is the house which we are now starting to chip away at.
Regarding School: Has anyone been trying to figure out what to use for school next year? I keep going back and forth. I need to figure out what I need so I can make a budget for the convention book fair. I still have a little time and I'm hoping that I'll even be able to go to the book fair. That's the weekend my husband's brother and his wife and their son are coming down. It may be an in and out kinda thing, but I LOVE the book fair. When I nail down everything I wasn't to use I will post a list. And when I put my pictures into the computer I will post some of the new living room too. And my nice new privacy fence. Which is going to be started this weekend. We did the front part a few weeks ago. Now we are going to start the side fence. So the neighbor's 2 year old won't climb into my yard. when we aren't home. and try to swim in our pool (when we put it up). My friend Lisa uses me and my neighborhood as an example to her husband of how good they have it. They have a neighbor who steals their animals. I wish I had one of those neighbors. I offered for her to take my dog home. Maybe we'll get lucky. ya right. Anyway, sorry about my laziness. I don't know what I was thinking :)
Blessings!

St. Patrick's hymn

2011-03-17T17:59:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot I wanted to post this earlier and I apparently got too busy being out doors. We read about St. Patrick today and what this day is really about. So here is St. Patrick's hymn:

"Christ with me, Christ before me,

Christ behind me, Christ within me,

Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ at my right, Christ at my left,

Christ in the fort,

Christ in the chariot-seat,

Christ in the ship."

So runs part of the beautiful old hymn of Saint Patrick, and we do not wonder that he who was so truly a follower of Christ came to be called a saint.

The Sun, The Sun!!!

2011-03-17T17:17:00.000-07:00

Today was a beautiful day. I love warmness. It was around 70 today. Tomorrow...80!! I'm so excited. Summer is close. While most hate the heat and humidity of a summer in our location, I LOVE it. You will never hear "I'm hot" out of my mouth. Unless I'm trying to get out of jumping on the scalding hot trampoline at 2 pm when it's about 100. Other than that though...nope.
Love Summer!!

Winter on the other hand is my nemesis. It's my kryptonite. (That may be spelled incorrectly, but it's not really real, so I never had it on any spelling tests :) I come as close to hibernation as a person can. Except I never get to sleep. Ok, it's more like hermitation. Where I stay in as much as possible, to the point where all of my crazy neighbors think I've taken the kids (because they hate the cold too) and run off somewhere. Then the sun comes back with all of it's wonderfulness and here we all come out of our house with our squinty eyes and pale skin. Only to become the tannest family ever because we stay outside from April till September/October. Yes, then it all comes to an end. Sure we get a day here and there, but it's only a tease until spring and then we celebrate.
Anyway, so we raced through school today so we could do our art. Outside. In the sun. We oil painted for the first time today. When I buy batteries for my camera and the canvas' actually dry, I will take pictures to post. Oil paint is not my favorite medium. I prefer acrylic. I may not be an artist by any means, obviously when you see my painting, but it's too pasty for me. I guess it would be good at certain times, for certain effects, but it was fun to try something new. Then we jumped on the trampoline, I planted some seeds in some pots, I started to sand down my cocktail table and I cooked some dinner on the grill. Pretty productive day. I will be scouring the internet for some ideas to revamp my giant, square, beat up cocktail table to look nice in front of my new sectional. We changed around the living room and I'll be painting that NEXT weekend. Once I get it painted I'll post pics of that too. Maybe, seems like I say that a lot and then forget. I have no idea why I do that....right.

John 3:16 day

2011-03-16T14:48:00.001-07:00

HI. I know I have been very slack lately and I do apologize. I really don't have much of an excuse this week. I have been consumed with the news of the tragedy in Japan. I find myself trying to watch the news constantly. Even in the midst of all the tragedy, there is news of a baby being found alive and reunited with her father. Praise God for the miracles!
I wish we lived in a perfect world where these things didn't happen. I know we don't and that it is completely unrealistic. I can't wait for Heaven. Living in this fallen world can wear us all down. We have to be Christ to this broken place. A friend of mine emailed me and asked for prayer for many friends suffering right now. On KLove's website I read about a woman who was celebrating 20 years of marriage with her husband. They would spend their anniversary together in the hospital because he is dying and this would be their last anniversary together on this side of Heaven.
Even though their is so much pain in the world, their is more reason to hope! When we feel like we are so heavily burdened with pain and hopelessness we need to remember one who suffered for us. We need to remember why He did what He did and that He changed everything. JESUS CHRIST: who was born with the sole purpose to suffer death on the Cross, to bear our sins and and on the 3rd day rise again to defeat death that we might live with Him eternally...FOREVER!! There is pain here, but even while enduring pain we can live in the hope and peace that Christ gives us! Today is 3/16. John 3:16 says "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." That is hope my friends. And it's better than anything!!

It's that time again, what to choose, what to choose

2011-03-09T05:52:00.000-08:00

Sorry it's been a while since my last post. We have had more appointments to run to. Plus we had band last night. And I've been selling stuff on Ebay which can be time consuming with the shipping ect. So I hope you have all been well.
I have been trying to figure out what we will be using for the next school year as far as curriculum goes. I know I'm still going to use Apologia science, I'm just not sure if I'm going to try Amber in General Science a year early, or use the new Young Explorers Anatomy series with all 4 of them.

I also know that I'm going to use Mystery of History vol 2 with everyone. We finished vol. 1 a few weeks ago and instead of buying the next one I decided to try to learn the locations of as many countries as possible. We are working on Europe right now. It's amazing how much I don't remember the countries. I'm hoping the kids remember them much longer than I did! We will probably review them regularly. I also have a curriculum that we will use for each continent when we finish with the countries. It's called Geography Songs. They split it up differently than I am. I am doing all of Europe starting with Iceland, around Scandinavia and down Eastern Europe to Greece and back up. This way they can see where the countries are in regards to each other. I like the way Geography Songs works, but you can't see where each section meets each other.

I have not decided on a Spelling Curriculum yet. I have looked at Calvert Spelling for Amber, but haven't decided yet. For Claire I will probably use Spelling Wisdom. Noah just started his Eclectic Speller (which I have no idea how to really use I'm just picking out words for him), so he will probably use that for at least half of next year.
I am also undecided on whether to use Latina Christiana 2 or Getting started with Latin. I am still confused about the conjugations, so I am pretty certain they don't get it either. When they read the Latin they can translate, but when they have to translate English to Latin, they struggle. I may switch to GSWL.
Amber will for sure go into Analytical Grammar, and Claire will start Junior Analytical Grammar. I really enjoyed this program. It works on one area at a time and continues. She started with nouns, and as she continued adding new parts of speech like adjectives, prepositions, verbs, adverbs... she would continue to have to mark every noun and each other part of speech learned as she continued. It was very good at making things concrete. It has helped tremendously! I highly recommend it.
We will also be sticking with Teaching Textbooks for the girls and I have no clue what to put Noah in for next year. I'm thinking either Singapore Math again, or Math Mammoth. We use Singapore Math right now. Noah is very good with numbers and this math is kind of challenging. It doesn't really get into a lot of introduction though. It's like: Do this. I will have to look at the next books and see if we can manage with them.
I have been thinking of doing some Rod and Staff books with Nate. They have such a great selection of workbooks. My kids have all done them and love them. They don't have a website, but you can google them and call for a brochure. Great Godly materials. He really excels quickly so I hate to buy something and him not get a lot of use out of it. Just in the past few weeks he has learned to spell not only his name but most of ours in the house. Of course mom and dad, not our full names. He started phonics and surprises us by reading random words. I guess he is just around during school so much that he absorbs alot. He has been talking about bat thumbs for a while, and megabats. Guess who is learning about bats in school right now! But tomorrow we start flying reptiles...how cool is that?
Anyway, just thought I'd let you into my homeschool mind so you can see what buzzes around in there while I'm going crazy trying to get to a hundred appointments and keep my house clean, and fold mountains of laundry, and make sure everyone has clean underwear on, and keep the neighbors toddlers from climbing over our fence, and practicing instruments, and making sure the dog doesn't consume all of our toilet paper, and actually doing school (forgot that one), and running to UPS every other day, and doing the errands that people who work can't do and ask me to do because I don't work (apparently). Yikes. If you have any suggestions about any of the curriculum needs I have please feel free to comment. I'd love to know what you use and how it works for you :)
peace out!

Teach Me Joy Giveaway

2011-03-07T05:18:00.000-08:00

I wanted to let you know that there is a great giveaway going on right now. Click on over to the Crafty Classroom for a chance to win one of three programs. Go to the site to try to win and then head over to Teach Me Joy and create an account (which is required to enter anyway) and you can receive their newsletters. So remember, first go to the Crafty Classroom to sign up, then click the button to go to Teach Me Joy. Good luck to all!

I've been a little MIA

2011-02-28T16:35:00.000-08:00

Ok, so yes. I've been MIA for a while. I'm truly sorry. You see I had one of those weeks that was filled with appointments and business and fear. Yes, I said fear. Here is the recap of my Thursday morning phone call of fear.
Phone ringing.
Me trying to find phone.
HA, there it is!
Me: Hello
Tim: (Speaking to co-worker) Dude, we're ok, that's all that matters right? It's alright we're ok. Can you believe we're ok???
Me: What?? What's going on?? Tim, hello!!
Tim: Oh, hey, we're ok, I just wanted to let you know that we got in an accident. It's really bad, but we're ok.
Me: WHAT???WHERE ARE YOU, WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S BAD?? ARE YOU HURT?? IS JIM HURT??SHOULD I COME, WHERE ARE YOU?? I'M COMING NOW!
Tim: No, there is no where to park, the interstate is closed down. A guy hit us and flipped our truck.
Me: WHAT?? WHAT Happened??
Tim: I gotta go, I'll call you back.

Yes, that was a nice call wasn't it. It actually took two hours for me to get the whole story folks. I spent the next hour and a half pacing. After the adrenaline wore off he was in some pain so they took him in the ambulance to the hospital to check him out. Both the guys were ok and they were released. So, here's what happened. Tim and his business partner Jim were travelling south down the interstate and minding their own business. A drunk guy in the Northbound lanes sideswiped a car and over corrected. all the way into the south bound lanes. He hit the back of Tim's 24 foot delivery truck and spun them around and flipped it onto the passenger side door. My husband, being the Chuck Norris kinda guy that he is, decided that he should jump out of the (busted out) windshield while the truck is sliding down the interstate. At this point the truck is on the ground, but he thought it would be better than crush his co worker since he was the driver and the truck was on it's side. Praise God they were only bruised and scraped!! I had to wait for them to get to the hospital and thankfully my friend was able to come and be with the kids while I went to get them.
Before I left the house I was able to catch the news to see the guy on the news who did it. When I got to the hospital I saw them arrest him. He was drunk. At 10 in the morning. Really? Drunk Driving is the single most stupid thing any person could do. Really? What makes you think it would be smart to drink or do drugs and then drive?? Don't you do that stuff to get messed up? If you're trying to get messed up doesn't that mean you shouldn't do certain things when you're messed up?? LIKE DRIVE A CAR??? or using firearms?? or anything that requires you to get up off of a sofa?? It's 10 am!!! Why are you messed up at 10am??? Some people may need a hobby. His hobby kills people. This guys hobby just cost him out the wazoo. And thank God that was all. He hit a Land Rover first. Ok. Yikes. Then he hit a delivery truck. Then he wrecked into a tree. $$$$$$$$$$ Not to mention 3 ambulance rides. 2 for Tim and Jim and then the girl he was with hit her head and had to be taken in too. Hospital bills, missed days of work... I'm telling you this guy needs to start collecting stamps or something. Open a Facebook. That used up alot of my free time when I had one. My kids could have lost their daddy because someone has no sense. This guys rap sheet reads like he has no sense, robbery, kidnapping, drugs, paraphenilia, resisting arrest, kidnapping, assault on a female.
More Seriously though : Pray for this guy, he needs Jesus. Really, pray for him. I have been. This guy seems like he has alot of pain in his life to live a life like this. I'm praying that his is his wake up call. We all had one. Maybe not like this, but I know I had one. Tim had one. At one point we all look at our lives and see who is missing and why. Jesus is missing in this guy's life. He keeps calling, just like he did to us. I'm sure in hindsight this guy could count several times where he made a decision to turn in the opposite direction of Jesus. I did. Sometimes it takes a situation where the only place to look is up. That was our story. I'm praying that this was what this guy needed to come to Christ. I hope that I get to talk to him about it someday. For now, I'll just pray and let God work out the rest!
Blessings~

Kid's say the darndest things....or throw a 20 minute fit in the grocery store.

2011-02-21T16:13:00.000-08:00

So my kids are great. I am totally partial of course, but they are great kids. Last night we are putting them to bed and during prayer Nate prays " I love Jesus and God and ...." We tell Nate that Jesus is God and what does he reply??? "Do they have the same hair?" WHAT?? Tonight he asked me if Jesus and God are brothers. This is my child who tells everyone that Batman and Batwoman are his parents and that we are his "fake" parents. Nice. He really lives in the Batcave but only goes there at night when we're asleep. All sorts of things happen there too. He tells us all of the strange things that go on at the batcave. I'm not sure at what point I should be concerned.

So yesterday this same creative little guy decides he wants a slim jim at the checkout counter at Aldi. We had already gotten a few snacks and some St. Patrick's day cookies. Apparently that wasn't enough for this little guy. The world ended when Mommy said "NO".
I do say no. Often. And usually he starts to cry a little and I tell him that we don't throw fits when we can't have our way, and that if he can't stop then he will have to have a discipline. That normally works. Not yesterday. He pitched a fit like I told him our dog was dead and someone stole his bike.
Of course it was grammy day in there too, because every elderly woman in a 5 mile radius was in there staring at me like I had retard tatooed on my face. Thanks ladies. Just doing the right thing here. Of course Aldi is the grocery store where you bag your own stuff. So even after we check out screaming child in tow, we have to stand around in there to bag my stuff. While he tries to get out of the cart. It's hard to bag groceries with one hand and hold a child down with the other.
Let's just say a 3 hour nap is just what the doctor ordered. He also had to go to bed early, and no cookie for screams a lot either. I have to go to the store today for more crack, I mean Mt. Dew, so I'm hoping I don't have an instant replay of this incident. Being a mom definitely is a pride killer. Once in Walmart, Noah threw a fit over some toy (this was my 3rd child and 1st temper tantrum) and I said no. While I'm making my way to the register being followed by said screaming child; everyone is shaking their heads at me and a few people said "Aw, just give the poor thing what he wants" At least we know why society is the way it is.

Update on the coming week

2011-02-13T12:29:00.001-08:00

Just wanted to add a quick post before my week begins. It's kind of a little of everything. I'll probably post again this week, but probably not next. This week won't be too bad, but next week I am thinking of skipping town till Friday! We have more appointments than any mom should have, especially when, to all but one appointment, we will be rolling 5 deep. 4 kids in the orthopedic's office. 4 kids at the dentist's office (2 this week, 2 next week). Thankfully I have a sitter for Noah's speech screening.
I actually get to go on a date Friday night. With my husband. We have not been out since October. We made arrangements to switch off with my friend who also has 4 children. Works out great, every few weeks we will just trade off!

In case some of you don't know this Friday is the first day of the Annual Great Backyard Bird Count. So fill up your bird feeders and check out the website for details.
We started identifying some new birds in our birdfeeders this week. The tufted titmouse and the lesser goldfinch female. We also always have cardinals; male and female, morning doves, purple finches; male and female, jays, and black-capped chickadees. We love birds. We are also enjoying watching the Eagle Camera from Norfolk Botannical Gardens. They have one set up at in a bald eagles nest. Well above it. They had two eggs, and Friday there was talk that there may be a third. There is also a great feature on the site to ask questions in a live chat while you're watching. We asked a few about the nest and about how to tell the male and female apart. An eagle will normally return to it's nest year after year. They can weigh up to a ton. This was a new nest to some young love eagles, so not quite as big. The female head is also rounder and her beak ends right below the edge of her eye. The males ends in the middle of his eye and his head looks flatter. Anyway, check out the website for that too if your interested. Great way to see a bald eagle up close.
Our Valentines plans: Tim has to work until dinner time so I am making some steaks I got on sale yesterday. NY Strip steak, topped with red potatoes, sauteed garlic and panko, and for dessert some chocolate cupcakes with truffles inside. So much for all that working out baby! Sorry :) Since we get to go out on Friday it's like having two Valentine's days!

Giveaway!!!

2011-02-13T07:09:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to direct you to a blog with a great giveaway! Mommies on Vacation is going to give away an ipad and a Kodak Playsport Video Camera. Check it out and enter to win!!

How we came to homeschool

2011-02-09T16:37:00.001-08:00

I have had a busy day, but I wanted to post something. I now have more laundry to fold than one should be legally allowed. I don't think it will be in the Spring issue, but the Old Schoolhouse Magazine asked for stories of how God led us to homeschool. I did and this is our story:

When my husband and I were first saved we had a 9 month old. The more I got involved in our youth group the more I remembered about school. I was only 20 then, but it seemed like I had forgotten all about what school was like. I kept hearing stories from the teens and began recalling my own memories of school, all the way through. Just before my oldest daughter turned 2 we had our second daughter. I knew in my heart that God wanted me to homeschool. My husband thought I was crazy at first. They were so young he never really even thought about school. I researched quite a bit and found out that more people homeschooled than I thought. Our 3rd child, a son, was born 23 months after our 2nd. I had kind of put my ideas of homeschooling on the backburner since I was a little busy with 3 children -all 4 and under. In the spring I began to have anxiety about the whole thing. I called my husband and told him we should enroll our 1st child in school. There was no way I could homeschool now. Surprisingly, my husband told me "God is calling us to homeschool Angela. He is going to give you the strength to do it. He didn't change His mind. You did."

That was a huge thing to me. He was right, but also, he was behind homeschooling! I went to the state conference and walked around alot. I heard speakers, and even though they were great, in the book fair is where I regained faith. I randomly talked to moms at different curriculum booths. I would just start a conversation and ask questions. They were all so good to take time to answer my questions. By the end of the weekend I had a curriculum picked out, thanks to some overtime in the prayer department, and we have homeschooled ever since! Our curriculum has changed, we've moved twice, had another baby, but one thing has stayed the same. The vision God gave us for our family! We are in the second half of our 6th year now. We have a 5th grader, 3rd grader, 1st grader, and a preschooler. 2 girls 2 boys. It isn't always easy, but God has given me the strength and the courage to do this everyday. My kids love it and we wouldn't trade it for anything!

Proverbs 4:1 Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding.

Blessings :)