Can We Just Wrap This Week Up Already?

What more do I need to say, right? 

Ok, Ok, I wouldn’t leave you hangin’ like that.

Then, where to begin? 

Let’s start with last week, yeah, that sounds good. 

Last week we took a family trip up to Jackson Hole, WY, and Yellowstone. It was a trip on a very tight budget. It was cold.

 

 

Mesa Falls, ID

We went to Hebgen Lake, MT and Quake Lake.  We saw all the damage that the 1959 earthquake did.  It was really neat to see this since we know how much Yellowstone changed that day!

Here they are standing on the old highway, then they realized they actually weren’t so they jumped back and forth from the old highway to the “new” highway. 

Tyler kept saying “Mom, take picture of me here.” Emily almost got caught dancing on the hike.  

Yea, we still love each other. 

We had tons of fun and picnics. Oh, and did I mention how cold it was?  Our water line to our 5th wheel froze at night.  We woke up to 7 degrees F.   Enough complaining, back to the pictures.

Katey accidentally left some trail mix on the picnic table and a Clarks Nutcracker got to it.  Neat bird identifying opp. Don’t worry, I picked up the fruit snack wrapper before we left.

We joked around as a family a lot.  Actually we always do.  Better to laugh, right? 

Emily is taunting Paul and he chases her.  Then as we are cleaning up our picnic and getting ready to leave. Paul says, “Take my picture.” Right as I snap it, he threw his soda can at me.  All in fun, all in fun.

I took the non-lazy’s on a hike where there are various lookouts of lower falls. 

I offered the kids to take some school work, and they all chose to.  In fact they actually did some of it.  That kinda thing make me fist pump! YEAH!!

We went to the top of Sawtell Peak, where it was even colder. You can see 3 states, ID, MT, & WY as well as part of Yellowstone up there.   Don’t ask me which is which in these pictures.

On the way down we saw a  m-o-o-s-e.

Oh my word, and then the trip got really exciting.  We saw an RV that was featured on World’s Extreme RV.

 My kids really don’t watch to much TV. Really.

The boys had to get their picture taken by it. 

That started a whole new thing for Tyler.  Now he thought he had to get his picture taken next to every cool car he saw.  At first I humored him, but today at the grocery store, as I pretended to take his picture next to a plain blue truck, as I glanced around me to make sure no one noticed, I realized I have to put a stop to this. LOL.

Stay with me here, we are almost home.  Just a few more pictures and stories. 

 

For the rest of the trip (and ever since), Tyler’s all take my picture here, take my picture there.

Emily wanted to send a postcard to her dad, so we purchase one and she writes it, I give her the stamp and she drops it in the mail box.  I ask her where did she get the address for it and she said, “I didn’t”  What!  We go purchase another one and do it properly.  Postcard sent and received! 

That was just a blond moment for her.  She really knew you needed an address. 

You still with me?  GOOD!  This is just getting juicy!

We come home and run all of our we’re home errands, ya know like the grocery store, the butcher, to the RV store (you don’t want to know why), to dump the trailer (now you know why), to take my car in to get the windshield replaced, etc, etc, etc. 

What?  You don’t have to do all those things the day after you get home?  Hmm, well then. 

Oh and I had this great plan that we would be doing school that day as well. Laundry done or not. I definitely over planned that day.  Katey read a book, Shanna’s Bear Hunt, and pretended to go on a bear hunt.

Emily did a science lab on blood in a jar.  Which is now displayed as one of our Halloween decorations.  Everyone did a little math, read a little, and we did a lesson in history- A Pilgrim Story.  Not much else really got done that day.  Oh and did I mention I was in a terrible mood that day, terrible.  Maybe it was the over-planning. 

I declared the next day Family Fun School!  I let the kids sleep way in.  Me too, but that’s beside the point.  We decided to clean up the house and finish unpacking, work on the laundry (I am still not caught up) and have fun together.

We worked on a pumpkin craft which I saw on The Usual Mayhem from Deep Space Sparkle. (This is my neat way of drying art work)

Ahh, we, well at least I felt better after that day. 

Then Thursday rolls around.

Let me copy my Facebook Status from Thursday.

Holy smokes what a day! Busy busy busy!
Teach my kids- check
Teach my debate class - check
Help in Emily's sewing class - check
Check out library books for next week - check Straighten house - check
Laundry - check
Take Katey to Cheerleading - check
Take Tommy to Karate - check
Stop by grocery store for milk - check
Stop by home and start dinner - check
Pick up Emily from book club - check
Pick up Katey and Tommy - check
Eat dinner & load dishwasher - check
Go to 4H achievement night - check
See my hubs for 10 min at 4H - check
Come home, get kids ready for bed - partly done
Get kids in bed - partly done
Take some ibprofin for my headache and decompress- that's next!!
Catch up on RHO- Miami -
Oh and it looks like read another book to Tyler just got added :)

Tommy was selected to be a Jr. Team council member for 4H.  He is very proud of himself as are we.  He is excited for the opportunities that await him with this.  On a side note, the 4H Mint Clover ice cream is AMAZING!!!

Linking to:

Weekly Wrap Up

Changing around a few things can make a huge difference.

To start with, I think you need to know a few things about me.

The way it used to be (for the summer, last school year was bad, but not this bad!)
I would get up every morning between 10 and 11am.  Yes, I am not exaggerating.
I would then make breakfast for my children, who were also getting up about then.  Nothing fancy, cereal usually.
Next I would shower.  I would tell the kids to get ready for the day.  I would get out of the shower and get ready for the day.  I would get downstairs and they would all either be playing with toys, watching TV, be using the computer (not for educational things), or just laying around being lazy.  I would then start to get angry.   They would know this.  They would then go upstairs and get ready, showering, etc.
By 1:00pm (I am not kidding you), we would all finally be ready for the day.  Then we would begin schoolwork.  For the summer they just need to do 3 things a day.  It was (WAS-YAY) a huge to do to get them to do their work.  They would whine, make every excuse under the sun to not have to do it.  Excuses like, well none of my friends have to do schoolwork, and it’s summer (can’t you just hear that whiney tone). 

By 2 or 3 pm they would finally be finishing up their 3 simple things.  I would prepare lunch.  We would then do a family “quick clean”.  Which meant everybody picked up the main living areas of our house together.  This generally took between 15 and 30 minutes.

Finally the kids would have some free time to go and play or whatever.  Often times I would need to run errands, or run my kids around to various activities, karate, swimming, etc.  I live in a small town and most things close by 5 or 6pm.  Oh, yea, and I would have to pick up said kids as well, that is if I didn’t have to stay for their activity. 
Around 7ish I would start dinner.  Half the time I wouldn’t have anything planned ahead.  The other half, I wouldn’t have all the ingredients- it’s okay though, I am good at improvising. Haha. 
We would eat dinner and hang out as a family until I was done and worn out.  Which usually happened anywhere from 8pm to 11pm.  Those that didn’t shower in the morning would shower at night.  I would send them all to bed while I sat on the couch being grumpy that they weren’t listening and doing what I asked. 
I would stay up until between 1 and sometimes 4 in the morning.
It would start all over again the next day….

Ahhhh,  those days are gone!!  (Hopefully, they don’t come back!)

Here is how it works now along with some notes of what I did

First off I thought about what I wanted to change. 

I wanted:

• an earlier bedtime for all of us
• an earlier wake time for all of us
• some type of schedule that we all agreed upon
• not to feel so stressed out and grumpy over the way things were going
• to be able to keep up on household, mother and wife duties.

What we did first, is I told the kids I was unhappy about our days and we would be having a family meeting the next day to discuss a new family schedule that we would all be required to follow.  I told them to bring their ideas and thoughts.
The meeting went incredibly well, and you know what.  They wanted the same things I wanted.  YAY!
Our agreed upon schedule is this:
8 am wake up
9am start school work until 11:30 on individual studies
11:30 –12:30 lunch break, cook, eat, clean up, free time
12:30-1:00 mom reads aloud
1:00-2:30 mom teach group lessons and we use items we are currently reviewing.  I try to fit game time, art, etc. in this time occasionally too.
2:30 clean up for the day.
6:00 eat dinner
8:00 all kids in for the night/ start showers.
9:00 all kids in bed/ can read until 9:30ish.
11-midnight.  Mom in bed.


We have been at it for over a few weeks now and things have been moving so much more smoothly and I am not such a crank all the time now.  It feels like I have added insane amounts of time to our day. 

Bitty Ball

Tyler took a fun little Bitty Ball class from our local rec center.  It was a parent involvement class.

He learned basketball, tennis, volleyball, soccer, and t-ball.  The only sport he didn’t enjoy was tennis.  I ma so grateful that I signed him us up for this class.  I just love exposing my kids to new experiences.

Zoo Whiz ~ A Review

 

 

Zoo Whiz is an online learning environment for animal lovers everywhere.

 

You play educational games in order to earn coins to spend on animals.  The choice of animals range from quite common to very rare.  Each time you purchase an animal for your collection you get information about it, ranging from it’s habitat to what it eats and more.

The educational games on Zoo Whiz covers subjects such as basic math facts, phonics, reading, grammar, vocabulary, and other word skills, as well as the science you learn about the animals you collect.

Zoo Whiz is quite customizable.  You are able to choose your zoologist avatar and you can save your coins for animals in you zoo collection.

The way you earn coins is by playing games in the Earn and Learn.  You can then purchase your animals at the Biodome, check on your progress at Milestones and just hang out and play around in the arcade.  The arcade games also take coins. I often heard how they had to save coins up to purchase an animal or play a certain game.

The Earn and Learn has over 17,000 games over 10 age floors.  The age floor automatically set to one year below the child’s age, however that is easily adjusted.  A big plus for me is that each subject could be adjusted.  My 7 year old is at her age level in math, but not in words or reading, I was able to adjust her down to a better level.

In Milestones, where you check your progress, there is a very simple version of a progress chart.  It is smiley face based.  You can see their progress based on which smiley they get.

Zoo Whiz was created for children ages 5-15. 

Let me tell you.  I wasn’t so sure my 13 year old would go for this.  I thought it might be to juvenile for him.  Boy, was I wrong.  He did enjoy it.  In fact he asked to get on Zoo Whiz more often than I was requiring him.   My 7 year old also used Zoo Whiz.  She did really enjoy collecting the animals and accessories for them, however her reading isn’t up to that of an average 7 year old. She struggled with having to read the directions and questions in order to earn more coins to spend, like I mentioned above, I was able to go in and adjust her age floor for reading and words.  This made it easier for her.  She did sometimes still need help reading what she was supposed to do. 

We did have a few technical difficulties, as in it was very slow to load on one of our computers (actually our newest one).  However, it works great on my husbands laptop.  I am still not sure what the problem is.  My kids were usually still willing to sit through the slowness of my computer if they had to.

Zoo Whiz has a free version. Which is a scaled down version of the Premium version (which I received).  The premium version is a price of $14.95 per year, right now. Normally $59.  I can see this being a great treat to use for your animal loving children throughout the winter.

I mean, if they are going to have more screen time it may as well be educational, right? 

Oh yea, and Zoo Whiz is still adding new content! 

 

To see what others though of Zoo Whiz check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

Disclosure: As a member of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew I review products like this, which I receive for free in order to be able to share my honest opinion. 

 

Our New Art Wall

I finally have an art wall.   Whoo Hoo!  I live in a smaller home without much wall space and we do NOT have a specific school room.  We school in our main living areas.  Having an art wall became very important to me this year.  I knew exactly what I wanted:

• Easily changeable
• Displayed where we can enjoy it each day

Deciding the where was hard.  I thought about many places, sure there are many low hanging places around my house, but that would just not work with my little guy. 

After much back and forth in my mind, I finally decided on a spot along my kitchen ceiling.

Presenting…………………

It is our tradition on the first day of school every year we draw self-portraits and compare them to the previous years.  Here are their self-portraits from this year. 

It is really neat to see how they all get better each year. I also have them sign them, so they can see how their signatures change too.

 

 

Busy Bag-A-Thon ~Week 1~

 

Welcome to my Busy Bag-A-Thon!

It seems like this time of year we are needing to find more things to keep our toddlers and preschoolers busy.   I have recently participated in a busy bag swap and have acquired quite a few ideas.  Some are my own, but many are from the swap. 

Each Sunday for a total of 4 weeks I will be posting a variety of busy bag ideas.

 

1. Simply a nut can with shape holes cut in the lid and pom poms to stick through.  So simple, yet so fun. 
2. A bean bag and a piece of string.  Be creative here, make a shape to through the bean bag in.  Have your child walk the string line with the bean bag on their head.
3. Paint chip matching with clothespins.
4. Shape pictures.  Cut out colorful shapes and create designs with them.  Take pictures of each design for your child to recreate.
5. Homemade I Spy book.  Take pictures of groups of your child’s toys, then take individual pictures a few toys for them to find.
6. Button Shape Matching.  Cut out or trace shapes of buttons and  have your child match buttons to them.
7. Bug matching game. Use simple clipart to create a matching game for your child.
8. Sticker matching game. Put fun sticker shapes on one side of the paper, have your child match it on the other side.
9. Popsicle stick puzzle.  Use white glue or Modge Podge to glue a picture on the sticks and then cut apart.  Have a second picture so your child can know what they are building.
10. String pony beads on pipe cleaners.
11. Homemade marble maze.  Take two pieces of felt and sew together, with a marble inside and sew lines partway across.

This is linked up to:

Works for me Wednesday at We Are That Family

BeeYOUtiful

 

 

BeeYouTiful is the type of company that genuinely cares about their products. They care that they are safe for humans and nothing is ever tested on or derived from animals.

They offer a variety of health, wellness and beauty products.

I was sent some things from their skincare line. I received a smaller version of their foundation (full size $25.00), a smaller version of their eye shadow (full size $10.00), a sample packet of their eye shadow in a color for my lips. (yes, their eye colors can be used on you lips!) a foundation brush $11.00,  and a combo brush $6.50

I have been using there mineral makeup for the past few weeks.  Now, I have used cheap (as in cheap in price, therefore made cheaply with cheap materials) mineral makeup in the past.  I had no idea all the fillers that they use in it.  BeeYouTiful uses absolutely no fillers, they get their color by heating the different minerals to different temperatures.  Having no fillers means a few things to me. 

• no allergens are used, like gluten, or artificial colors, scents, flavors and more.
• No dyes.  
• a little goes a long way.  You use very little makeup and it covers a lot.  Let me show you what I mean by very little going a long way.

Here I am before makeup.

Here is the amount of makeup I plan to use.  The black lid is the foundation, the clear lid is the eye shadow.

Here is how much makeup is left when I am done applying it.  Notice, I used all the foundation, but not nearly all of the  eye shadow. Also notice the amount of foundation I did use. Not very much.

Here I am after makeup.  I timed myself and did not rush myself.  Less than 5 minutes total time and I used my own eye liner and mascara.

  Now, I am just a mom and I go for a more natural look.  I like the coverage this foundation gives me.  It really evens out my skin tone. It lasts all day too!  I don’t even feel like I have makeup on. 

Check out these side by sides.

Before BeeYouTiful Makeup               After BeeYouTiful Makeup

They help you choose a shade to match your skin and even have sample sizes for you to be sure and get the best shade for you. 

Choosing the correct shade is the hardest part.  Once you have done that.  Ordering and using this makeup is a breeze.  Their shipping time is very quick. 

Their foundation brush is so nice. It is so soft on my skin and I have yet to have a hair fall out on my face.  (Which was a problem with my previous brush.) 

Their combo brush has two sides, a thick one and a thin one.  The two sides make it great to apply their eye shadow exactly where you want it on your eyes, or even lips. Yes, you can use all of their eye colors on your lips as well.  I tried this and noticed they do look great.  However, sometimes I lick my lips and it tasted gross.   

Their eye colors come in 45 shades, all shades can be used on the eyes or the lips.  The foundation colors come in 24 colors with blushes and bronzers coming in 7 different colors.

One thing that really helped me is to watch their application video.

I learned how they get different colors without using dyes or fillers in their Knowledge Base. 

 

The Crew tried out a variety of items from BeeYouTiful from makeup, to skincare, to wellness products.  Check out the different reviews here.

I have reviewed for BeeYouTiful in the past and was very impressed with those items as well.  In fact, the longer I have had their items, the more I like them. 

To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

Disclosure: As a member of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew I review products like this, which I receive for free in order to be able to share my honest opinion.