O is for OOPS!

 

I was on such a good standing with my blogging.  Then… well, I have no excuse.  I really wanted to be able to complete the alphabet in one month.  It’s okay.  We all struggle with goals every once in a while.  I will just pick up and move on.   It will just take me more than a month to get through the alphabet.

In the meanwhile, let me share some things that have been going on in my life. 

I am very active in both my homeschool group and my moms group.  I also still work part time and we do a laid back summer homeschool schedule. 

In my homeschool group, I am not teaching throughout the summer, but my girls are still in classes.  They also do weekly get togethers that we occasionally participate in.

In my moms group, I am active in the book club, freezer meal swaps, craft days, moms night outs, park days and much more.  I am also one of 3 moderators in this group, so I have to make sure everyone is following the rules and passes our screening to be approved.  (Our moms group is no joke, with by laws and a code of conduct and an application process).

Our summer school schedule is still up in the air.  The month of June is crazy with Emily having girls camp, a vacation trip to Missouri, then a 4H camp all right in a row.  The little kids have two weeks at their grandparents houses in June. Tommy has a fishing trip planned and a big backpacking trip planned for Havasupai. Both in June.  As well as keeping his part time job. 

I have been getting my bearings back and I am feeling really good about things! 

N is for New

 

Spring is often a time when things are considered new.  The new babies being born on farms or in families.  The new buds on plants.  The hustle and bustle of the bees getting ready for the season. I love it all!

In the homeschool world it often means old.  The curriculum is almost done. Your kids have been working in many of the same books all year. 

Not here. 

We have some new math in the house!

I have recently purchased a variety of new curriculum.  I switched out Katey’s math.  We are going completely back to Math U See with her.  I used it with her, with all my kids actually, I just didn’t have the level she needed, so I put it off, not wanting to shell out the money.  But I ended up doing it anyways.  I bought it new from the company.

One struggle that I have with Katey’s math is that I have had a hard time teaching her the times tables.  Well, teaching them in itself has actually been easy.  She gets the concept amazingly well.  She just can’t memorize them.  It has been like this with addition and subtraction as well.  I have been drilling her, playing games with her and she plays Timez Attack often.  We just have to keep at it and she will get them. Right?

I also have finally got my hands on a few levels of Teaching Textbooks, something that I have always wanted to use for Emily.  She has been working at it, and I have been letting her “test out” of the first few quizzes of level 7, while I gauge where she is at with this math. 

Even though Summer is almost here I decided I didn’t want to hold off on starting these math programs until the Fall. 

Both girls will most likely be doing math all Summer, and since it is new math, they are actually both excited about it!

I am also back to my real normal life.  So I am resuming with my duties on The Homeschool Crew. So we have also had some new curriculum with them. 

Emily is very excited to be learning about Poetry from Moving Beyond the Page and I am excited to do a quick WWII study with the older kids.  I am hoping to peak their interest enough that we can continue it into a Summer study.

 

M is for Momma

 

I know, I know, I fell behind. 

Here is my excuse, for what it’s worth.

I had totally planned to write about how great and wonderful my Mother’s Day was.

The thing is, it wasn’t.

So it took my feelings some time to get over it and here we are.

My husband was at work, which is fine, which is very normal, which the kids and I all knew in advance.

I woke up to smelling a delicious breakfast cooking.  So I stayed in bed, waiting for the kids to bring me breakfast.  About 30 minutes later my son comes upstairs and asks me for a ride somewhere.  I said, “Okay.  Is breakfast ready?” 

“Huh?  I just cooked me some eggs and toast.  I already ate.”

“Oh, I see, sure, let me get up and take a shower then I will drive you.”

Then my other kids remind me that we are out of milk, and eggs and cheese and a whole grocery list of items.  Fine, I’ll go grocery shopping.

They all wanted to go with me.

I dislike grocery shopping. Dislike. It.

The whole time they were all can we have this, can we have that? 

Perfect!

My brother had offered to cook a nice dinner.  He needed London Broil.  The grocery store I went to didn’t have any.  So I had to go to another one.

And home, unload the car, put away the groceries. By then, Tommy needed a ride home.

No one had even told me Happy Mother’s Day.  I called my mom and told her, “Happy Mother’s Day.”  We talked for a while and I talked to my Grandma. 

My husband came home and reminded the kids that it was Mother’s Day.  He could tell I was disappointed with my day and did everything to make it better. 

I’m not writing out this story to complain, really, I’m not. 

The thing is, I feel responsible.  I feel like I didn’t raise my kids with enough…respect…consideration…gratefulness…whatever. 

I actually feel guilty that my kids didn’t feel the need to celebrate Mother’s Day.

Since then, I have, taken the challenge.  I want to raise children that will care. 

I hope all your Mother’s Day whether you are a mother or not, was Amazing!

 

L is for Love and Marriage

 

I absolutely love my husband.  Some things that have kept our love for each other strong, therefor giving us a strong marriage is:

• We are very attracted to each other.  I don’t do my hair everyday, and sometimes I wear sweats, I hardly ever wear makeup, but I make sure to make myself presentable.  I try more often then I don’t.  I also do little things, like wear his favorite style of underwear, put on his favorite pair of my pants.
• We flirt with each other all the time.  ALL THE TIME!
• We show affection.  We don’t make out at stop lights (all the time), but we do sit next to each other at dinner.  We hold hands often.  We are never afraid to kiss.  We snuggle when watching a movie or TV. 
• We help each other meet goals.  If I have a dream of rearranging furniture, he helps me.  He may not be happy about it, but he helps.  If he wants to build something. I help him. 
• We do things together.  Some weeks it’s just grocery shopping or driving somewhere. Some weeks it’s date nights. Some weeks it’s just a lot of texting or talking on the phone.
• We try to make each other happy.  If I don’t want to cook dinner, he will.  If he doesn’t want to mow the lawn, I will. (or I will get one of the kids to do it.)
• We do special things for each other.  Maybe a gift or a note. Maybe just a favorite snack or drink when we are out and about. 

 

K is for Katey

 

 

Katey,

You are so cute.  I love your blonde hair.  Every time I look at your cute face I see your freckles and smile.  You are very friendly and make friends where ever you go.  You work amazingly hard at your schoolwork, sometimes you even keep me on better track than I keep us.  Your fashion sense in unique and you always surprise me with the clothes you choose out. You are a natural leader. You are very good at math.  Science and History are your favorite subjects.  You build really neat things in Minecraft. You always play well with your little brother.  You show your feelings and let us know what you really think about things.

I love you and I am so glad you are my daughter.

Love Mom.

J is for Just Great!

So I am not going to lie.  I had pre-written a bunch of posts for this challenge.  I knew I had to blog in bulk to get many of them done.  That has been working just great! 

Then…. I took to long of a break and it caught up with me.  Then I got behind.  Just Great!

Anyways, life has still been treating me well.  I am still feeling good about everything.

We have been wrapping up our end of the year stuff just great!

I have made quite a few decisions about our learning next year.  I have even already purchased some of our curriculum, just great!!! 

I have read and book that is simply just great.
It is Creating Homeschool Balance by Lee Binz. 


This book really has changed my outlook and help me to take the pressure off myself, or put the proper amount of pressure on. Just Great!

I is for me.

 

 

 

I is for me.  Yep, that’s right my friend.  I am going to talk about muah. (me in my fabulous French accent, just picture it now.  I did in fact kiss my fingers as I said that.)

I want to share a little bit about me with you. 

I have always been real in my blog, but maybe not as real as I could be. 

I am a crazy sarcastic person. I have a sense of humor.  I love practical jokes. Well, I love to play them on people.  April Fools day is one of my favorite holidays.  I am a cheapskate.  I hardly ever buy myself new clothes.  I have curly/frizzy hair, depending on the day. I always have my toenails painted.  I love my husband.  I definitely lean on him often. 

I am writing you to share with you that I am going to try to be even more real on my blog then I have ever been.  I am going to try and let more of my actual personality shine though my blog.

I hope I don’t offend anyone.  I am excited and nervous.

Here we go!

H is for Help

I have realized that sometimes helping someone out doesn’t always mean you have to help them with a physical task.

Sometimes it means just listening to someone.  Just being there for someone.

Sometimes people don’t need anything more than for someone to care.  To care about what they are going through.  To be able to lean on someone.  To have a person to vent to. 

Sometimes people need you to reach out to them and be able to share that you are there for them. 

I challenge you to all take time to care about and help someone new. Either by listening to them, by just being there for someone new.

G is for Gardening {mishaps}

 

Let me just start off by saying that I live in Zone 4 which is a cold climate.  We have cold winters, very cold, and dry warm summers.

There is a standard rule to NOT plant outdoors before Mother’s Day EVER!  No matter how warm it gets in Feb, or March, even April.  DON’T PLANT BEFORE MOTHER’S DAY!

I knew this rule.  I have known this rule my entire life since I was a child.  We never planted before Mother’s Day.  Now I live in an even colder climate.

It all started one March day.  I had been taking some gardening classes at the library.  I got all gung ho and came home and planted some seeds in these self watering pots I made out of 2 liter bottles.  I kept them inside on my window ledges. 

They got very big, very quickly.  In just a few weeks many of the plants had out grown the pots.  So my husband talked me into planting them outside.  YES, I am totally blaming him, and he knows it!

I have a raised bed with a green house screen that fits over the top of it. 

The very next day after we planted our plants out there the winds were fierce!  I mean fierce!  55-80 mile and hour wind gusts and the temperature was around 40 F.  We did our best to protect the plants.

NONE of them survived! NONE of them.

I was so sad! I am so sad. 

I do have a small 2sqft box that I plant my cold weather seeds in.  Peas, Radishes and Lettuce.  They all survived, although, I think the lettuce, just barely.

 

I have yet to plant more seeds in my house.  I think I am just going to wait until after Mother’s Day to go buy some already started plants. 

The garden will go on!

F is for Family Fun

 

My family is so important to me.  I want to make some amazing memories with them. I want our bond to be strong and unbreakable. 

I enjoy having fun with my family. 

We have some traditions that I know will be lifelong memories for my children.  Here are just a few of them.

• We have campfires all the time.
• We go for drives and take the scenic way often.
• We play card games a lot.
• We get loud and be proud at any event our children participate in.
• We make it a priority to be at said events.
• We get interested in what our children are interested in.
• We have fun sleepovers in the living room.
• We build big awesome forts for our kids.
• We plan surprises for them.  Simple things like going bowling, or to the go cart track.
• We are spontaneous.
• We give this parenting thing our all.
• We let them know that we value them being a part of our family.

E is for Emily!

 

My Emily. 

She is so sweet,

she is so caring,

she is so beautiful,

she is so sassy,

she is so funny,

she is so accepting,

she is so brave,

she is so athletic,

she is so talented.

She is so amazing!

I am lucky I get to be her mom.

D is for Dinner time.

 

Another overwhelming thing in my life is dinner.  In particular the prepping and serving of said dinner.  I am good cooking dinner most nights, but there was so much weighing on me that I often struggled with it, the planning, the shopping, the prepping, the cooking, the serving, the cleaning up after.  

My husband had this genius idea to delegate it out.  I have 3 completely abled chefs in the house besides me and my husband.  They could each take a day each week and plan, prep, serve and cook a meal.

I grocery shop on Tuesdays so they have to have their grocery list to me by Monday mornings. 

This has been working out incredibly well and may have very well been the bird that ate the straw off the camels back. 

C is for Cleaning

 

A couple things in my simplification process included me being overwhelmed with the upkeep of my home.  I decided to do a giant clean out.  I made a list of 40 areas to clean and began April 1st.  I committed to a yard sale on May 10th.  Exactly 40 days away. 

I have been doing really great.  I have gotten rid of so much unnecessary clutter and my house really does stay cleaner.  I can have the whole thing clean in 2 hours, top to bottom, scrubbed and everything.  It is always company ready, there is not clutter everywhere.  There is room in the cupboards to put away the clean dishes, the kids’ dressers have room for their clothes.  The bookshelves are no longer overflowing.  I have been keeping up on laundry, doing one batch a day, and on the days I can’t get it done, I have been assigning it out.  I have sold a few hundred dollars worth of stuff already and my yard sale is still a week away.  I can’t wait!  Especially since it is all piled up in my garage. 

What doesn’t sale I will haul off to the thrift shop.  I am really loving having a clean house and not feeling so overwhelmed. 

I have began reading and researching Feng Shui.  This type of space clearing is shown to uplift moods and create welcoming opportunities.  I definitely see that happening in my household. 

B is for: Homemade Vacuum Bug Catchers

 

I teach a science class at my local co-op using the book Considering God’s Creation.  We recently got to the section on insects.  I decided to do a hands on project with this and we made our own vacuum bug catchers.

Supplies Needed:

• Clear plastic container with lid. (I got mine from the deli at a grocery store)
• Straw
• Gauze
• Play Dough (I just used some from my homemade stash)
• Rubberband
• Hole Punch

First you punch a hole in the container, then another one directly across from it. 

Cut the straw in half. 

Put a small section of gauze on one end of the straw, using the rubber band to attach it.   Thread the straws through each hole.  One straw per hole. Make sure that the end with the gauze is inside the container. Use the play dough to seal up any holes. 

 

Now go out side and suck a bug into the container by sucking on the straw with the gauze end in the container.  Put the other straw by the bug you want to suck up and start sucking.  The gauze stops you from sucking up the bug into your mouth.  YUCK!  

 

A is for Archaeology and Apples

Katey got this really neat Archaeology Set.  She had to decipher a code to unlock the pyramid and then excavate 5 artifacts from the pyramid.  This kit came with all the tools she needed. 
The booklet also taught us much about Egypt and how to mummify an apple. 


We cut an apple in half and placed half of it in a glass jar.
We took 1/2 cup salt and mixed it with 1/2 cup baking soda and covered the apple.
We waited and waited and waited.  A whole week we waited.
Then we took the apple out and ewe….

It was mummified!

We learned that the salt and baking soda mixture took out all the moisture from the apple. 

ABC’s of Blogging

 

I have kept it no secret that my life was so crazy I had to let a few things go. 

However, now I am ready to get back on track.  I feel a fresh spring start. 

I have been struggling with what to blog about.  I don’t want my blog to turn into one of complaint so I have decided to go with the ABC’s.  Each day for the may I will blog about something that starts with letter of the alphabet in order.

Yea, I know there is not 31 letters in the alphabet, but do you worry your pretty little head, I’ve got this!  You see, an entry post, and grand finale post and some letters I am doubling up on.

I hope you are looking forward to me being back as much as I’m looking forward to it.