Seven Years

The past seven years have gone by quickly for me.

Why seven years?

That is how long I was graciously allowed to stay home with my children 24/7.

Tomorrow, I officially start my new part-time job.

I'm excited for the opportunity to work again and make extra money for our household.

However, I can't help but think about the past seven years. They have literally flown by. I often say, "Where has the time gone?" But, seriously, it has went by so quickly.

I want to mention that we are going to continue to homeschool our three youngest children. We still believe that homeschooling is the best educational choice for our children. I will still do most of the homeschooling and my husband will help out about one day a week.

Weekly Wrap-Up: The S'mores & Taffy Week

We had a pretty decent week. We completed all that I had planned. That's always good, right? Yeah, and unusual! LOL
I give that credit completely to our workboxes.

A friend of mine on Facebook said that he was, "Too blessed to be stressed."
I've taken on that motto this week. So here's what I feel blessed about.

We are still reading, "Charlotte's Web".

I've seen the movie, but never read the book. Oh, I love homeschooling and learning along side my children! I'm enjoying the book much more than I thought I would. And, of course, I think the book is way better than the movie!

Savanah is really coming along with her multiplication tables. She's doing really well with them considering we did not review them this summer. She's into double digit multiplication and is doing great! It does take her a little bit longer to get her math finished, but at least she's getting most of the problems right instead of dawdling over them. (Oh yes, we've had lots of these issues in the past!) I'm praying this is a maturity and turning point for her.

Alexis had speech on Monday. They reviewed the 'sh' sound. Often she'll say 's' instead of 'sh' when talking. I'm doing my best to incorporate that around the house, too. Wednesday, she started music lessons. I asked her why she was so excited, thinking I'd get the answer, "I get a new recorder" or "I get to learn new songs" but instead it was "I get to see Megan!!" After music class, we met some other friends at the park for a play date. I haven't been able to attend many of these, but since the park was practically on the way home and was right after music, I decided to go. I'm so glad I did. I chatted with a few of the moms I've known for awhile, but also met some of the new moms that have joined our homeschool group. My girls played with a new girl in our group and had a blast.

Savanah is learning about Ancient Greece in history. Since she loves clay, we made an ancient bowl. Of course, it needed clay noodles, too!


Alexis made a small bowl and spoon.

Douglas wanted in on the action and made an ice cream cone!

Love that imagination!

Alexis studied two states this week. Since we are going in the order of them being admitted to the union, we learned about Pennsylvania (2nd) and New Jersey (3rd). We all know that Hershey is in Pennsylvania and it was a no brainer on what we eat for that state! S'mores!!



I learned a few things about Pennsylvania that I didn't know before. Such as, I didn't know that the Liberty Bell had cracked once, was repaired and then cracked again so badly it wasn't repairable.
Here's our lapbook:





New Jersey is a state I really don't know much about even though we have extended family that lives there. I guess that's when we utilize the library and internet. I didn't know that Thomas Edison had a home there and created a lot of inventions in that home.



Something else I learned about history that I did not know before was about a lady named, Molly Pitcher. Pitcher wasn't her last name. Her husband was in George Washington's army. She took pitchers of water to the tired and thirsty soliders. She even helped them fire a cannon. I love learning with my children! I'm also learning that I slept a lot through history class!

I could go into more detail with each state when we are learning about them. But, the truth is, the reason for the whole 50 state study with Alexis is for her to know:
1. Each state & capital
2. Be able to locate the state on a map
I keep having to remind myself of these goals every time I want to do something a bit more in depth. Of course if she wants to learn more about a particular topic, we will study it. But at this point, we'll just lightly touch on each state.
In New Jersey, blueberries & cranberries are the two big agricultural products.
Well, she doesn't like either one! So, I didn't know what to do about food. Then I remembered that my mom went to New Jersey about three weeks ago for my cousin's wedding. She brought this back from Atlantic City.

Thanks, Mom!!
We were able to have salt water taffy directly from NJ.

We ended our week with a trip to our local zoo. It wasn't crowded considering it was Labor Day weekend and the temperature outside was perfect. Douglas told me, "I like the animal zoo!" Too bad I forgot my camera. :(

I'm trying to do a bit more of preschool with Douglas (4). I have a few file folder games that are perfect for his age.

I'm trying to read more books to him that have won awards or are classics.
For instance, several times this week we read, "Goodnight Moon".


I hope to start a few preschool activities with him soon.

On the home front, I finally have my Georgia medical license. Next week, I'll contact my new boss and set up my hospital orientation. I was recertified in CPR last weekend and I think all my shots & tests have already been completed. I hope to start work in the next week or so. I'm excited!

More great news is that my cousin's wife had a baby Thursday night and about three weeks ago, another cousin of mine had a baby. We now have two more baby girls in our family! I can't wait to see them.

Tomorrow, Labor Day, is Alexis' birthday. We plan to spend the day at White Water.
I'm so glad it's a new week!

For more Weekly Wrap-Ups, visit Kris at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Weekly Wrap-Up: The First Week

We've had a very successful, first week in our homeschool! I can not take credit for it though. I give all the credit to the workbox system. I had heard or read that mom's knew this system worked almost immediately. Yes, I am jumping on that bandwagon. It didn't take me long to realize that this easy to use system, works! I am completely sold on the entire idea.

I'm not here to convince you to implement this idea in your home. I just want to say that it works for us. Would you like one example of how I knew it was working? The second morning I woke up and was walking through the kitchen to go hop into the shower before the kids got up. At the dining room table (where we do our school work) my 10 year old was sitting there already doing her math workbook. Let me just mention that that has NEVER happened! She is my moaner and groaner about school work and she is my child that I have to d-r-a-g out of bed every day to get up!

Want another example? Thursday and Friday I was sick. The kids were still able to complete their work because I had already put their workboxes together for those days. Friday morning I went to the doctor and was told I had bronchitis. ICK. I'm so glad we didn't get behind! Normally, we would have. In the evenings, when I organize their boxes for the next day, it normally takes me about 15 minutes for both kids. I expect this to go faster the more I do it.

Ok, enough about how great I think the workbox system is. Here's our weekly wrap-up.

Savanah is using Wordsmith for Writing. She was introduced to the newspaper. Ok, not really, as she had read the newspaper lots of times before. But, with this program, she'll be writing for the "newspaper". So far, she likes it. Remember, she's my moaner and groaner about school work. ;o)


She is learning about birds in Zoology 1. One experiment this week was to see how certain feathers don't get wet. I found a wild turkey feather in our yard. They frequent our yard and our corn! Anyways, I cut the feather in half and she dipped one in water and covered one in oil and dipped it in water.




Can you see how the water beaded up on the feather with oil? I thought it was a pretty good hands on activity.

Alexis began her lapbook of the 50 states. So far, she loves it!
We started with Delaware and we going in order of states admitted to the union.


Her lapbook turned out nicely.





I won't go into a lot of detail about the states with her. The main objective of this project is for her to know the entire 50 states, capitals and be able to locate them on a map at the end of the year. We have begun our Pennsylvania lapbook already.

Of course, we had to make something yummy.
How about a chocolate chip map of Delaware?



And, since the peach blossom is the state flower, how about a peach dump cake?


Dump cakes are so easy. You dump a large can of your choice of fruit. Dump a dry cake mix on top. Then, add a stick of butter. Bake until brown at 350 degrees. It's so delicious, too!!


Those are the highlights of our week.

Next week, we begin music classes and Pathfinders (our church scouting organization). Another busy week, but I'm so glad we have our workboxes!

For more weekly wrap-ups, visit Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

A New School Year & The Workbox System

I knew once I learned about this whole Workbox system that I'd fall for it.

I wasn't quite sure if I would give it a try though. It looks very organized. It looks very neat. But, would I use it? I went around and around with this question at our local curriculum fair. Then, I got the call I'd been waiting for. I got a job. Once I had this job, I knew my homeschool needed to be more organized, no questions asked. So, I jumped on the bandwagon.

I think this will work very well when either my husband or my mom is homeschooling the kiddos.

Time will tell. BTW, I have yet to start working because GA isn't quick about handing out medical licenses, so as soon as they decide to accept mine, I'll be working ASAP.

Here's what we are doing this year:
Alexis (8 years old)
She'll continue with her music lessons
Math U See Beta
Cantering the Country (she'll be learning about two states a week, if that's too much, then we'll tone it down to one)
Science - I plan to incorporate things from our states study for this and use some of our Janice VanCleave collections we have on our shelf.
Reading & Spelling - Rod & Staff
Handwriting - on our own until she starts cursive
Grammar - Easy Grammar

Savanah (10 years old)
She isn't sure what music instrument she wants to learn next. She'd like to learn all of them!!! I'm thinking about taking her to a music store and letting her see all the instruments and then talking to someone about them. That should spark her interest in one of them more than the others.
Math U See - Delta
Story of the World
Science - Apologia
Spelling - A Reason for Spelling
Handwriting - A Reason for Handwriting
Grammar - Easy Grammar & Daily Grams
Writing - Wordsmith

We'll start a new read aloud tomorrow, "Charlotte's Web." We are watching the movie at our local library in a few weeks for our annual Homeschool Hour kickoff. I thought I'd go ahead and read the book. After we are finished with that, I think we'll do the Little House series and maybe have some fun with that.

Here's our workbox system tonight.


I'll definitely be giving my reviews on this whole system.

I did not make a workbox for Douglas, yet. I think I'll wait a while.
Now, I'm heading to bed to get some much needed sleep!

Vacation - Week 2

The second week was really amazing.

God was lifted up! My favorite was the night time programs.
They had great praise & worship music as well as talented performers.
Of course, the play of Esther and her "Courage To Stand" was definitely top notch!

I enjoyed meeting people from all around the globe.
I even met people from Latvia, a country I know nothing about.
This was a true culture experience for me and I can't wait to do this again.

A lot of the kids really got into pin trading. It was a great way to collect unique pins from all over the world and a great way to get the kids to talk to each other.

Jamaica, mon?


I was able to get one pin from South Africa and Savanah has one from Austraila.
A lot of the Pathfinder Club made some really cool entry ways into their campsites.
I couldn't help but take pictures!









Here was the official logo counting down the time until the program started:

Huge crowds every night.

The stage were all the programs happened.

I was just amazed how much work was put into this program for the kids. They really wanted the kids to hear the gospel and were so dedicated to it. Over 500 kids were baptized.

This is one of my favorite pictures. Every country that attended this camporee had a flag and one person on stage.

A special treat was to hear them pray in many different languages. Oh, it was so beautiful!

The Pathfinder Plane. This plane was built by Pathfinders and is used in third world countries where traveling and getting supplies is difficult.


Tony the tiger is a huge supporter of Pathfinders!



One day we took the kids offsite to the beach area on Osh Kosh lake, zoo and a water park. My oldest, Alyssia, went to the YMCA and went ice skating and then went sailing on the lake. I think she had lots of fun!
Here's Savanah at the beach area.


I just loved all the flags!


Our campsite



The last night at camporee we all witnessed an amazing cloud in the sky.

After that evening show, my oldest hopped onto a bus and headed to her new school.
We miss her like crazy! I do get to talk to her every day.
My husband met her at the school and took these few pictures just before she stepped foot into her new classes.




A couple pictures of her dorm



My husband couldn't resist taking pictures of the Weiner Mobile on his way home!






Of course, we couldn't possibly make it home without another flat tire!!!!!
UGH!



23 hours later and was SO ready to be off that bus!
My bed has never felt so good.


A few pictures of other clubs from around the globe.









This whole vacation and the fact that my daughter is away at school is just a few of the reasons of why I've been so busy lately. I'm just glad to be home!
Monday we start school. WHEW. I need a vacation from vacation.

For more weekly wrap ups, visit Kris @ Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Getting Back to it All & Vacation Pictures

Whew.

I feel like I've been through some sort of whirlwind. I really don't know how else to describe it.

I left with my two oldests dd's on Aug. 4th, early in the morning for a two week vacation with our church youth group. My husband decided to take some time off and go to visit his mom with our two youngest children. Trust me, it was so hard to be away from him for two weeks. We have both agreed that it will never happen again.

I knew that at the end of this two week trip, my daughter would be catching another bus back to her new school. That was hard. I was having a great time on the trip, didn't want it to end because she would be leaving, but I was missing my dh and other children terribly. Talk about mixed emotions.

The trip was fantastic. We had our bumps along the way trust me.

Aug. 4th, we left early for St. Louis. We were on the road for only 15 minutes before our first breakdown. (yes, first!) The bus lost a fan belt.

A very nice man fixed our bus and FOUR hours later, we were back on the road.

After we were settled and an hour a passed, we blew a tire on the trailer.
Seriously, I can't make this stuff up!

We were able to find a Goodwrench shop, they fixed our tire, replaced THREE others on the the trailer and we fed the kids lunch in the waiting room.
The kids were great. No complaining! I think they were so excited about the entire trip that they really didn't care. We couldn't have asked for a better bunch of kids.

Finally, we were back on the road. The St. Louis Arch people told us that they would take us at 8:50 p.m. if we could make it and that was the last elevator that went up for the day. We all prayed and arrived at 8:45!



Going underground into the arch base.

The egg elevator.
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My girls waiting for me to get in. I'm a bit claustrophic, but this didn't bother me at all. It was an interesting ride though.

I had a hard time getting a good shot with my camera. I guess I should have read the manual.

I loved seeing the Mississippi!!


The following day, we took the kids to Six Flags in St. Louis.
They have one ride called, "Mr. Freeze."
I loved it. If you haven't heard of this ride, google it. It was just awesome!! Honestly, that was the best ride I've ever been on in an amusement park.

The next day we woke up early and headed to Hannibal, MO.

I won't pretend that I know a lot about Mark Twain or Samuel Clemens, so I'll just share some pictures that I liked. Again, I loved the Mississippi River!






This picture just disturbed me.
Obviously not enough to keep from taking a picture of it!



I love this quote! It says that he, Mark Twain, did not permit schooling to interfere with his education!



We ate lunch then headed to Springfield, IL, to see the Abe Lincoln home. This was his actual home, just perserved. You won't find any replicas here!

I won't go into great detail, but I just found it really interesting.
I didn't get a lot of really good pictures either, except of the outhouse.
Go figure.

The following day was a travel day for us.
Yeah!
We didn't break down!
However, it still didn't go as planned.
The place we planned to stay out didn't work out.
And?
We weren't aware of this problem until we reached our destination.
Nice.
Nineteen people (3 were from Cuba, btw)on a small church bus and we are homeless.
We are in the middle of nothing but corn fields for miles and miles.
So, we made a few phone calls and again, the good Lord took care of us.
We were able to stay at Wisconsin Academy for $1/per person/per night.
God is good!

We were already prepared for tent camping, so I had my air mattress.
School gym or tent camping in the rain? I'll take a school gym any day.
The next day, about 60 other Pathfinders showed up. Of course, they had reservations and were also on their way to the International Camporee.

One afternoon, we went for a short hike and found a beaver's dam and lodge. It was so cool! Of course, being the graceful girl I am, I tripped and stepped right through the top of the beaver's lodge.
*sigh*


Our next stop was the House on the Rock. I had never heard of this place and I'm always willing to take on new adventures. he he he

You can't really describe this place.
It's so unique and intriguing. The glass room was, um, the room I spent least time in.




This man collected everything imaginable. EVERYTHING.
This house also holds the WORLD's largest carousel. It was four stories high and did not have one horse on it.

The next day we took the kids to a water park in the Dells called, Kalahari. It was fun and the kids had a blast. They had one ride called the, "Toilet Bowl."
I can say that I've been flushed now. ;o)

It was Monday when we went to the water park. We left that afternoon, drove about two hours and finally arrived at our final destination.
Camporee!



Look for more posts about this amazing week, in the next few days.......
Vacation - Week 2

New Look & Tubing

So, do you like it?
I love the new look here on my blog.

Just another item marked off my to do list!
I've been trying for a while to get this done and was just too busy, but the past two weeks, I finally decided to do it and get it finished. Ali did this for me and I'll post soon all about her and her beautiful work!

I am slowly going to start blogging again. I say slowly because over the next two weeks, I'll be super busy.

We will be starting school in three weeks. I have so enjoyed my summer off!! We spent a lot of time at the pool and with friends. My husband and I bought a pool membership for the first time and it was one of the best investments we have made in a long time. It was so relaxing and the kids loved being at the pool. The pool had an enclosed slide and the kids finally talked me into going down it. Here's Alexis during swim lessons going down the slide.



This weekend we went tubing down the Ocoee River. I've never been tubing and wasn't sure what to expect. It was a blast!
Here are the kiddos after the first tubing experience.

All four of them definitely give it a thumbs up.
They liked it so much, the three girls went for a second ride.
Here they are, loading up again.




They had lots of fun.





Another milestone that happened last week was that my 15 yo dd received her learner's permit. She'll soon be taking driver's ed, too. Where does the time go? I seem to be asking myself that question A LOT lately.

Be back in two weeks for another update.