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. 

Simple tricks to get little ones to help you with laundry.

Laundry is not my favorite activity. 
I just had to find a way to pawn it off on my kids. 
No, I am only joking. (sort of)

Here is how I taught my 8 year old to do laundry.  Really, if I would have thought of this sooner I could have taught her sooner.  Stay tuned below to see some laundry tips from me.

I used a Sharpie marker to show the line where she should fill the laundry soap up to.

I used the same Sharpie to mark a star on the washer where she would put it for regular loads.









She is able to turn the water on this way.  She is not aloud to wash from the Whites/Specials bin or from Daddy’s Work Clothes bin.  I can’t tell you how much having her simply switch the laundry helps me out each day.

I have came up with a few tips that will get your little ones helping with the laundry. 

Let’s start with the wearing of the clothes.

• I make them wear their pajamas two nights in a row. (unless of course some catastrophic event causes otherwise)
• I do not over buy clothes.  My children have about 7 everyday outfits each.  The more clothes your family has the more the laundry can pile up.
• I do not let them change clothes unless required – like to dirty to go somewhere or to clean to do something.
• We have dirty clothes hampers throughout the house.  One in each bathroom (except the guest) and one in each of the kids rooms. 

Okay how I wash the clothes.

• I do a batch or two a day.  I do not have my older kids wash just their own clothes.  They are all required to help switch the laundry when it needs it. 
• I set a morning alarm to start the laundry. I set an alarm in the afternoon to switch it over.  I set a final alarm in the early evening to do the final switch to the dryer.  If the alarm goes off and I am not home, I text someone who is to switch it. 
• I taught even my 8 year old how to do the laundry. (My older kids too!)
• We have simple laundry sorters.  Darks, Lights, Towels and Sheets, Daddy’s Work Clothes, and Whites/ Special
• If something needs special washing you are required to put it in the Whites/Special bin yourself. 
• Every day I assign someone to be in charge of laundry. They have to collect the dirty clothes, sort them and start the first batch. As well as switching out subsequent batches. I am the only one who can do the whites/specials. We do a rotation for laundry and dishes jobs.

The hardest part.  How we take care of laundry.

• I have a “clean clothes area” in my bedroom.  That is where the designated laundry person must take the clothes to after they are dry.
• Every 2 or sometimes 3 days we all get together in my room and someone sorts the clothes into piles of who’s they are. Someone folds towels. Someone helps Tyler (3 years old) with his clothes. Everyone is responsible for taking care of their own clothes.
• Doing it this way only takes about 10 minutes every night and we all just work quickly and usually listen to some music while working.

Do you have any more laundry tips?

The Homemakers Mentor

 

What is it?

The Homemakers Mentor is just that- a collaborative collection of over 110 PDF files on a single CD that will inspire and encourage homemakers of all ages and types. 

How did this all start?

Back in 2008, two women, Martha Greene and Rebekah Wilson, both of whom have been longtime homemakers, wives, mothers, small business owners and more, began encouraging other homemakers. Together they began a subscription only website to help and encourage other homemakers out there.  Many of the files shared on that website are now available all in one great limited edition collection, The Homemakers Mentor, at a price less then that of subscribing to the website.

Let’s talk more about it.

The plethora of items on this cd can be overwhelming.  Don’t worry though, it is very well organized into folders and subfolders, you can just click into what you are looking for- this is also proven handy for me as I was just surfing the collection.  I wasn’t sure where to start and by browsing through I was able to come across plans that struck my fancy.

The wide range of topics include, cleaning, cooking, baking, party planning, organizing, sewing, emergency preparedness, crafts and so much more.

See the complete list of what is included here.

I often want to go back to the “olden days” when the pace of life was just slower and people just enjoyed things.  My mom was a single working mom when I was growing up.  Much of her time was spent making money just to support our family.  She did her best to teach us kids how to cook and clean and organize, there just wasn’t always time for that.  So I am grateful for the opportunity to have a mentor right here in The Homemakers Mentor.

Some things that caught my eye:

The recipe for homemade oatmeal crème pies!  My son and I decided to make these together. We doubled the recipe batch because man- I love those things and so do my kids.  This made the mixer overflow and I had to run to the store halfway through for more ingredients. That was a lesson about planning ahead all in itself. 

The cookies ended up perfect.  They were amazing.  Once I asked my husband what kind of cookie he was eating and he said, “The good ones.” 

Such a fun way to spend some quality time one on one with my son and the whole family benefited by getting an awesome treat.  Plus we had plenty to share!

The Small Steps to Machine Sewing was a great file as well.  I do already know how to sew- my mom taught me that, but this had some tips in it that even I didn’t know.

The Mom and Me Aprons made out of towels are definitely a future project for my 8 year old daughter and I.

With the Master Bedroom Detailing File, I was able to get the encouragement and motivation to clean up my dump all bedroom and make it a more relaxing place for my husband and I.

Don’t just take my opinion on this, check out what others had to say here.

How to get all this for yourself:

You can purchase it now for $37 until Oct 18, 2013 with free shipping – after that it will be $47. 

You can also win a copy for yourself. I have two to giveaway. Just enter using the Rafflecopter below. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

There is also a grand giveaway for all that is pictured above.

Enter to win that here!

 

“Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Summer Schedule

 

 

While our town does have many homeschool families, even some that live on our street, my kids still want that “schools out, it’s summer” feeling. 

Here is how I give them that without taking the summer off learning.

About a month before Memorial Day, I begin looking at where we are in all our books and projects. 

Then I decide how far I think we can get in that month. 

If they are close to finishing a math book, and I think they can do it.  Then I say when you are done with that math book you can be done with math for the year.  

If they had just started a new curriculum, then I plan out about 4 weeks worth of work and say when they get that far they can be done with that subject. 

After I give them there end of year schedules, with everything written out on it, I am always amazed at how quickly they get through it.  Usually in about 3 weeks they are completely done with everything. 

They all must read every day for those final 4 weeks.  - There is no exception to the reading. 

From Memorial Weekend until about June 15th I let them be.  No schoolwork, not even reading has to be done.   They can still do it if they would like, but I do not require it.

Other things change at our house at this time too.

Mostly the chore schedule. 

During the school year we rotate who does dishes and who does laundry and then everyone helps with all general cleaning twice a day, usually right before lunch and again at about 3 pm.  These each only take about 15 minutes.  We also do one heavy cleaning day usually on Fridays With all of us working we can get it done in about one hour.

Our Summer Chore Schedule gets completely assigned out. I do this because our schedules in the summer don’t always match each others, whereas during the school year, I can assign times for family cleaning, I cannot do that in the summer. 

Check out this post to see the details on our Summer Chore Schedule.

 

Sometime around the middle of June we slowly start back up schooling.  We begin the first week by just adding in 20 minutes of reading (their choice) each day. The second week we add in two subjects, one is their choice, one is my choice.   I usually have them do a every other day type of schedule for my choice.

  For Example, Katey gets reading with me every day and her subject choice is space camp (I will share that in a later post).  She does that every day.  My subject choice for her is writing and math.  So every other day she does writing and the opposite day she does math. 

We spend an hour to two hours a day on these 3 subjects combined.  Then about 30 minutes on chores each day.  That still leaves many many hours to just play and explore.

 

This definitely does not mean this is all the learning she gets in during the day.  She is still a little budding entomologist and often times through out the day has questions about bugs that we look up or talk about.  I even got this DVD, The Fascinating World of Insects for review, that she can watch if it’s really hot outside, or just for some down time.

She also has shown some natural interest in reading things at the grocery store, so I take her with me and let her read the grocery list.  Her grandparents have been writing her letters, so I have been encouraging her to write them back.  

I have also been using the summer to have some good one on one time with each of my children. 

 

What do you do to make your summer special?

Our Summer Chore Schedule

 

I use the summer months to take advantage of activities my community has made available.  The kids to various things from swimming lessons, to volleyball camp, piano lessons, cooking classes, book clubs at the library, movie nights at the park, camping with friends and family and just general playing with friends. 

 

This makes it hard to keep everyone together majority of the day like I can during the school year. 

This means that our Chore Schedule must change.

 

 

Our Summer Schedule looks like this:

 

I make a table on the computer and assign out boxes. 

My boxes going across are the days of the week Sunday to Saturday.

My boxes going down are:

• Alyson (me)
• Tyler (3)
• Katey School
• Katey Chores
• Emily School
• Emily Chores
• Tommy School
• Tommy Chores

I fill out the boxes once a week.  My goal is to have them filled out by Thursday of the previous week.  That gives me leeway in case I don’t get it done.   - Can we say “procrastinator!’ 

I take notes on the edge of the pages of jobs that I see that need to be done, such as wash the sliding door, or wipe the light switches, basically jobs that aren’t on my rotation- you know the as needed jobs. 

I use those notes as I am assigning out the next weeks chores. 

We rotate 3 different things amongst us.

• Kitchen/Dishes
• Frontroom/Laundry
• Bathrooms/Stairs and Hall

If you are not on a rotation chore, you get a different assigned chore, such as the ones I take notes from on my previous weeks, or other things I have on a rotation schedule, such as yard work, mopping all floors, cleaning out the car, etc. 

The rotation chores also get an additional job, along with general cleaning.  The kitchen person may have to help with dinner, the bathroom person usually has to deep clean something, and The laundry person may have to vacuum or dust a room.

We still do the occasional quick clean, where everyone helps with everything.  They just don’t happen at a prescheduled time.  They happen when I can’t stand the mess anymore.  LOL.

I am able to x out exemption days, if you have a pre-scheduled, pre-approved all day activity, then you can be exempt from an assigned chore.  If you happen to be home when I get overwhelmed with the house, you are still expected to help do a quick clean. 

I love the independence this gives the kids.  They have to have them done before they leave to do anything else, unless of course it is pre-approved.

I also do not let them play or neighbors over before noon.  That gives us time to wake up leisurely,  eat breakfast, do our daily work, and eat lunch. 

This gives everyone plenty of time to do all their daily’s and have a relaxing morning. 

 

Do you change around your families chore schedule with the seasons?

Real life in my house.

 

We have really had quite the busy start to our year. 

We are still adjusting to me working part time.  We have good days and bad days.  We have good weeks and bad weeks.  I am not sure we are finding the swing of things yet.  We are still looking for our groove. 

The kids are getting their school work done.  Not always as quickly as I would like them to.  I just feel like I should be home with them.  Hopefully this season of my life will be over soon.  As much as I enjoy working, I feel as if home is where I should be.  I do notice some behavioral problems arising in my 3 year old.  I need to fix those. 

I only work part time about 20 hours per week, usually over 3 days.  They have certain schoolwork that they need to do while I am at work.  Other things we do while I am home, even if it means late at night, or on the weekends.

My house has been staying clean enough by using this chore system.  We do “quick cleans” a few times throughout the day.  Mainly one before lunch and one before dinner.  We do a deep clean on the first weekend of the month.  This has really been working out for us. 

We also rotate who has to do the dishes each day, along with a menu plan. I created this one.  On the top blank line I write in my work schedule.

The blank line below the day I write who is in charge of dishes that day.  Then it is divided up into breakfast, lunch and dinner each day.  I write in a colored pencil if someone else is in charge of preparing that meal. (You can only switch out meals that you prepare).  Then I have the grocery list in order of the grocery store I most commonly shop at.  I have a small section for Walmart and the blank spot in that column is my divider for stuff I need to pick up at another store.  At the bottom I have a place for wants and other random stuff I may need from like the hardware store or other specialty stores.  I plan this out every Friday for the following week.  (I don’t know how to share this as a printable file, but I am willing to share it, so if you would like a copy, just leave your email and I will send you one. ) 

Sometimes we just need to take a break and go fishing! 

Emily and  I made chocolate covered strawberries.  They were…… DELISH!

If you have a weak stomach, then this blog posts ends for you right now. 

So thanks for reading and see ya next time.

Okay and here is a warning. Just so we are clear, if you go any further you will see a sad mangled toe with stitches in it. 

I am serious.

You have been warned.

 

 

There is no turning back after this.

 

It can’t be unseen. 

 

 

There, there it is, my poor 3 year old fell off the bench to our table and he had to get 7 stitches in that one toe.  We have went back for a checkup and they want to leave the stitches in even longer. 

 

There goes his toe modeling career I had all planned out for him. 

But all is well and he is healing well. 

 

Let’s go ahead and be honest, shall we?

 

 

 

 

I realized after writing a few posts, that I am extremely comfortable with myself and the fact that I homeschool, and you know what comes with comfort? Honesty. So while I may be judged for choosing to homeschool or the way I do it, or even the way I live my life,

I AM HAPPY

MY HUSBAND IS HAPPY

MY KIDS ARE HAPPY

Go ahead and judge me if you must. Here, let me give you some stuff.

You want to know some truths?

My 2nd grader does not read as well as the average 2nd grader.  I’m okay with that. We are working on it, but it is no reason for me to give up. 

My 3 year old can work the PS3 and Netflix and has been able to for quite some time now. 

My 6th grader and my 8th grader are almost at the same level in math. 

My 6th grader is a book worm.

The rest of my kids, not so much.

My kids fight.  My kids get along too.

My husband and I fight.  We get along too.

We sometimes make decisions we regret.  But, we learn from them.

My kids misbehave, heck, sometimes I misbehave.

We are Mormon, but not active.  And, we don’t really live the Mormon lifestyle.  But we are still Mormon.

I have a few guilty pleasures.  I love the Real Housewives of Anywhere.  I hide candy from everyone else and sneak it.

I was mostly soda free for 8 months.  I am now back on the sauce. (Pepsi)

Sometimes we have cereal for dinner, and Ramen noodles for breakfast.  (not very often, but it has happened.  Not on the same day, that I can remember.)

My house is never spotless, well except for that once every couple of months when I throw down the gauntlet and demand complete cleanliness.  That usually doesn’t come out of my mouth very nice, but I get my way.  Then I feel better. 

I am not perfect, and there are times when I don’t try my hardest to be. 

There you have it!  That’s who I am. 

 

 

Cleaning out and starting fresh!

 

 

For the past two weeks I have been on a real deep clean around my house. 

I have gone through cupboards, drawers, closets, under beds.  The whole shebang.  We even deep cleaned out the garage and our cars.  I got rid of quite a bit, I also reorganized things around how I was actually using them.  Storing a thing of floss in the silverware drawer and the toaster near the bread, that sort of thing. 

I feel like I have a fresh start.   For the next week or two I am going to be in MEGA Planning Mode.  I have purchased some of our next years curriculum and am going to be more organized this year than ever before.  I am really hoping that this will allow us for some more hands on experiences.

So this blog is definitely taking a backseat while I get through all this.  I can’t wait to come back and share all that we get done. 

 

Homeschool Encouragement!

I have 2 sick kids :'(  So I called the doctors office and made them appointments for tonight.  We go to a practice with about 4 doctors.  I knew that one had recently quit/moved.  I ended up seeing the new doctor tonight and she asked me if Katey got sick at school.  Katey said, "No, I'm homeschooled!"  Then the doctor told me SHE WAS HOMESCHOOLED too. 
I seriously think that is the coolest thing.  I proceeded to ask her what curriculum and how she made it into medical school.  It was so neat.  She was homeschooled using Abeka.  She then went to ?A Christian University?  I can't remember which one.  And she scored really well on her MCAT. 
She was homeschooled clear through Highschool, with some dual enrollment for higher physics and chemistry.  She graduated homeschool.  So think about it.  We could be homeschooling the next doctors. I just feel so encouraged now.  And I needed it.

Tips and Tricks for Minimizing Distractions.

We have a smaller house, and not a dedicated school room.  We learn right in our living room/kitchen area.  Sometimes the children do schoolwork in their rooms, but that is not always where they want to be they want to be able to be with the family while working, plus it sure does make answering questions easier than having each child yell for me to come to various rooms.

Schoolwork obviously has to get done while other things around the house do too.  It can be the other children distracting them from doing their work, or even just what others are doing. 

I have came up with a few tricks I would like to share.

When the child on the computer is the one getting distracted, we create a “fort” for them.  I still check in on what they are doing often and they usually wear headphones, just to minimize the outside noise. 

We also have a “privacy folder” which helps with laptop time, or even worksheet time.  It has a very basic Alphabet and 100’s chart to help Katey when she needs it.

We also have wireless TV headphones, (you know kinda like many dentist offices have).  These really help out when I have one that is watching a video. Tyler did not want to try them on for this photo.


A chair that does not face the rest of the room.  This chair is actually near our front door and is often used for friends and neighbors coats and such.  We also sit in it to put our shoes on and off when using the front door. Anyway, it faces the front door and stairs, while still in our main living area.  This makes a great reading chair.  We can read in the chair, still being in the same room.  While not having so many visual distractions. It does NOT feel like you are staring into a corner or anything like that.  As you can see it is also right next to a window.

One other thing I recently began doing is letting them go outside and play while keeping one inside for a 10 minute lesson.  Then when one is done, we rotate.  I keep this special for the lessons I really need one on one concentration with and it doesn’t happen very often.

Often times we are all learning together, however, there are those times when we need to minimize distractions. 

I really hope some of these ideas can help you out.

Do you have any great ideas about minimizing distractions while all learning together?

This is linked to Works for Me Wednesday!

Teaching your children to be self sufficient.

 

I want my girls to learn how to sew.  I do not want it to become a lost art.  I would also like my boys to know how to at least mend their own clothes. 

Here is Katey with her first sewing project.  We just did a simple purse with no pattern to teach her speed, backstitching, forward stitching, and some other simple explanations of sewing terms.  She loves her bag!  She is very proud of it.

Emily had taken sewing classes for over a year before we moved. I know it’s been almost a year, but it often feels like just yesterday. We haven’t found a teacher where we live yet. So I am having to take this on myself. Luckily she knows the basics. We finally set up a small sewing area, and I got a great light for it. We have been enjoying the time together creating.

I want all my children to know how to cook, which means following a recipe, using the appliances and cleaning up after words. 

I teach this by having them help me to prepare things for various meals and snacks.  I often let my oldest two cook on their own while I am in the vicinity.  We started with Macaroni and Cheese (from a box).  Now they can both make cookies, breads, cakes, breakfast foods and casseroles by themselves.  We will work on cooking pieces of meat soon as well. 

I would like them to be able to handle their own finances. 

While right now they don’t have a lot of opportunity to earn money.  They have some.  Emily has done lemonade stands and babysitting.  Tommy has done yard work and helped with extra chores.  Whenever Emily gets paid she puts most of the money she makes into a paper-mâché bank she made when we first began homeschooling.  Tommy also puts his into a bank.  They also each have bank accounts that they maintain.  Tommy has an account with Banzai also to help him with budgeting. 

There are more things I would like my children to learn before going out into the world. Good thing I have a few more years.    I will teach them those things as we move through the others. 

Cleaning Playlist

Remember a few weeks ago when I cleaned out my storage closet?  I mentioned my cleaning playlist and had a question about it.  So here is the explanation. 

Whenever I am going to do a deep clean, (about 1 hour or so of straight cleaning) I crank up my cleaning playlist on the iPod and I dance around cleaning. 

It really motivates me and makes the time go faster.

What type of songs are on my playlist? 

They are mostly upbeat songs that I know the words to.

I have a guilty confession.

I LOVE THE BLACK EYED PEAS!

I know most of their songs. 

When they were the half-time show at this years Super Bowl, I almost died!

Anyways, enough about them.  Obviously my playlist consists of most of their songs, I have others thrown in.  I love Country Music too, so there is much of that.  Tons of Faith Hill, and Luke Brian!

If it’s upbeat and I know the words, it motivates me. 

I have had the playlist so long that it just works, I feel like cleaning when I play it.

This Works for Me, and will be linked up to Works For Me Wednesday over at We are THAT Family.

 

I have conquered a closet. Storage Organized!

I just moved into this house 8 months ago and already our homeschool threw up all over in this closet. 


   
So I decided to put my iPod on my cleaning playlist, pour me a Pepsi and have at it!  Let me warn you, it’s gonna get messier before it gets cleaner. 

I pulled most everything out in order to see it all and organize it.

Those shelves sure do look nice with everything all over the floor. 



Only 1/2 way through the playlist and TA DA!

     
I even took the time to write down all the curriculum and resources I have in a notebook, inventory style.  WOW!  It feels so good to be organized!!! And I have a lot more than I thought I did.