Strobel's Happenings

Oil Cleansing Method

2012-01-27T15:59:00.000-05:00

The other day a friend on facebook had commented how her skin was like an adolescent's skin. I have had this problem off and on (mostly on) for years and years.

My face is like an oil slick with some nasty, dry, and flaky patches. The dry and flaky never made much sense to me with all the oil, but that's the way it is with my skin. Always gross, anyway. I've tried so many things on my face through the years. Proactive was good for a while, then started hurting my skin. Other brands of face soaps, skin medications, etc. all left my face a mess. Everything started hurting my face. Pretty much resorted to water and very mild soaps (if any). My face is still a mess. I hate wearing makeup because you can see how awful my face really is with it on.

So anyway, a friend of my one friend mentioned the Oil Cleansing Method and how it has really helped her face. Well, I decided to google it and check it out. What could it hurt, right? Everything else hasn't worked. I also read about it at Simple Mom and at Simple Organized Living and Crunchy Betty and Life As A Plate. I like to see what others are saying! :) You can also google review of OCM. It's fun to read if you have time.

You can use different oils, but I just went with the basics mentioned in all the posts. I figure I will try these ones and see how it goes after a couple weeks.

Last night I did my first try at OCM and I have to say I really, really liked it! Even today my skin is only a little oily - not nearly the oil slick is usually is. Very interesting! My skin was so soft and CLEAN feeling after using oils on it! Such a strange and neat surprise.

I used a little more castor oil than olive oil (just a little of each in a cap). Massaged it into my entire face for a couple minutes, then I used a hot washcloth a couple times and the oils came off. No funky, slippery residue. Some people splash water on their faces in the morning, but I didn't do that this morning. I'm sure there will be mornings when I will do that! :) It's something I do already, no soaps to start my days.

I should take a picture of my face today and then see how my face is in a week from now, etc. I'll add a picture of my face to this post later! :) The "before" picture and we'll see how it goes. I guess you have to get the right mixture for your skin, so I will just see if what I did last night will continue working of if I have to switch it up.

Another thing I've been reading about is the No Shampoo hair cleansing. I am not brave enough to try it at this point, but I am considering it. I've read lots of rave reviews on it. Google it and see what you think. If there are any brave souls out there that might want to try this, let me know and we can try it together. :)

One other hair thing . . . I'm considering going to my natural hair color. Letting the blonde locks grow out. I hate that funky, growing out stage though. :( My hair was originally light brown, but has now become a grayish brown color (heavy on the grayish). My husband thinks some gray hair can be attractive. I think my hair can do without all the abuse of making it blonde - it's very dry, spilt and feeling like straw. Once upon a time I loved my hair. . . vain, I know, but I really did.

Update on Eric

2012-01-26T14:13:00.000-05:00

Eric was originally scheduled to have his cpap sleep study in February, but I called Tuesday and got him in Wednesday night. Woo Hoo!

He texted me this morning and said that he slept well with a much lower air pressure last night, so that means he'll be getting his machine changed and then we'll see how his lungs feel.

Thanks for the continued prayers!

My Memories DRAWING!!!!!!

2012-01-26T14:02:00.000-05:00

**I tried to be all fancy and use this randomizer that I had seen other bloggers use, but I'm frankly too cheap for it, especially since I wouldn't use it very often. Sooooo, we did it the old fashioned way.

There were 8 entries on the Original Post.

I wrote the names down.

Then I folded them in half again and placed them in this lovely bowl.

This cutie volunteered for the job of drawing a name.

Here he is taking a piece of paper out of the bowl!

Well, who is the winner??

Woo Hoo! We have a winner and it's

Rapchef 2!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Rapchef 2 (Renea)!

Just send me your email address:

emilystrobel@zoominternet.net

Enjoy your My Memories Digital Scrapbook Software!

Monthly Menu Plan/Dinner Ideas

2012-01-25T11:56:00.001-05:00

January/February Dinner Ideas

1. turkey dinner

2. turkey dinner leftovers

3. Greek/Chicken Quesidillas (pinterest)

4. Crockpot Lasagna

5. crockpot Lasagna leftovers

6. tacos

7. Leftovers

8. pot roast w/ pototoes and carrots onions

9. Chili and baked potatoes

10. chicken pot pie (or turkey pot pie)

11. Homemade pizza (with spinach) & veggies on the side

12. Swamp Soup (pinterest) and grilled cheese

13. Spicy Pop Pulled Pork (Pioneer Woman Recipe)

14. Leftovers (pulled pork)

15. hamburgers and zucchini cakes (pinterest)

16. oven baked chicken fajitas (pinterest) with homemade tortillas

17. cashew chicken stir fry (pinterest)

18. Breakfast dinner (eggs, omelets, bacon)

19. pizza and veggies

20. Roast beef (from the can) over egg noodles or rice or mashed potatoes.

21. Leftovers

22. Ham and Egg Crepe Squares

23. Chicken Potpie Empanda

24. dinner out somewhere

25. Potato Soup (light, loaded - pinterest)

26. chicken gyros

27. Swamp Soup Leftovers

28. leftovers or something :)

29. Shepherd's Pie

30. Spaghetti and meatballs

This is what we'll be eating for the next month - mostly. I'm sure I'll look at the list and nothing will appeal to me at some point, but I am trying a lot of new recipes this month.

Eric and I are watching our calories and I figure we can try some of these new, lower calorie/healthier dinners. Of course, some are not SO healthy, but they will work. :)

I might throw in THIS or THIS as a side dish here and there. Yummy! Pinterest is super awesome, just had to share that. lol

PS. Don't forget about the GIVEAWAY!! Tomorrow is the drawing!!

Weekend In Review

2012-01-23T12:29:00.001-05:00

1. It was a very nice and cozy weekend at home! Friday we had a snowstorm come through and got quite a few inches of snow - I'm thinking about 5". Though I didn't really measure it, so I could be wrong.

2. I made a delicious ham dinner. It's a shame my kids are so picky, but they had to eat some anyway. Eric and I enjoyed it! In the evening I made chocolate chip cookies for the kids and enjoyed

3. Saturday wasn't very eventful. We had breakfast, watched tv, played video games. By we, I mean the hubby and kids. I planned school for this week. It was nice to have it done on Saturday!

4. We went to church yesterday morning. Great service/sermon! It was so good to see Bob Barley and he shared a very touching story about his father in law's passing. So sad and so very neat that they were there to see him pass into heaven. Pastor had a great message from Luke 7 about the woman that washed Jesus' feet with her tears and hair. Very insightful!

5. Sunday afternoon we had to go to the store (Sam's) because I had some printer paper, some art paper for the kids and then I got some new Rubbermaid Containers! I got the "Premier" set! I haven't had any new container sets since we got married, so it was about time! I'm just going to burn my old stuff! I love how the new containers are so neatly stack-able!

6. Eric was going to plow the driveway, but realized he could not because mice got in and chewed the plastic of the battery wires. The battery could not work the plow because it is pretty much dead. What a mess those rotten little rodents cause! So our driveway is not plowed and I'm a little afraid to go down that thing (more than usual, lol). I'm hoping the 50* temps today help melt it off quick, but I doubt it.

7. Cleaned the chicken coop out yesterday and was going to burn a huge pile of stuff in the basement, but the burning didn't happen. I figured out that Patch is now the bully rooster in the coop. He doesn't let Shoe come down from the roost for very long. Shoe has been a meanie in the past, but I feel bad for him if he can't eat or drink. It's quite interesting to see the dynamics in the chicken coop change. I think they are going a little stir crazy, too.

Today we have a case of the Mondays. I have been banging my head on the table and crying right along with the kids today. I feel like such a failure in the homeschool department. Many reasons for it, too. We're taking a lunch break and a much needed break from our schoolwork. It has been a LONG morning (though now it's afternoon).

I'm to visit Rose today, but I am not sure if I'm brave enough to slide down the driveway. I'll have to check it out before I decide. The post office is holding some books for me there (they don't even try our driveway in the winter and hardly try it in the summer). Yay for winter in the woods on the "mountain."

Eric pointed out to me that this is a grocery week, so I should probably sit down and make a menu/grocery list some time soon. Now on to lunch and the rest of the day!

Emphysema . . . How My Husband Almost Had It

2012-01-21T21:47:00.000-05:00

It all started in December . . . well . . . actually it started in July. Eric was in the chicken coop working out there and was overcome with some dizziness and heart palpitations (chicken coops are very dusty, dirty places). He contracted a cold after that and had a couple other colds from July - December. He usually never gets colds that often.

From that point he had chest discomfort, but put it aside until he couldn't take it any longer. That lasted until November when he had me schedule a doctor appointment for him. He doesn't go to the doctor usually, but this chest discomfort was getting to him.

His doctor ran several different tests on him to make sure it wasn't his heart (heart problems are on both sides of Eric's family) and those tests were negative. His doctor likes to cover all the bases, so he had him get a spirometry test done, then an x-ray. Well, the doctor office called and said "You have early Emphysema."

Having heard of the disease, we never really knew what all it involved, so we started surfing the internet. We learned a lot, but probably learned too much, too. AAAHHHHH! Sometimes it's good not to read all that's out there. Trust me.

I never understood, truly, what it was like to have your loved one (the love of my life) diagnosed with such a serious illness/disease. My heart is heavy for those that go through this and/or other diagnosis's. I truly can relate.

The tears that were shed filled buckets.

The panic that sets in is almost overwhelming.

Horrible thoughts overtake you.

The actual pain in the chest for that one you love so much.

And yet there was nothing I could do about it.

Not really.

Of course, there's prayer.

There's the Holy Spirit interceding for my groanings.

He prayed the words I could not even utter.

How thankful I am for this.

We decided not to tell anyone we knew. No nearby family knew and this will probably come as a surprise to those that haven't heard this story yet. Of course, I couldn't bear this pain without sharing with some friends far and wide. Friends that I knew could and would pray for us and for the doctor's wisdom. We are ever so grateful for those that prayed for us. You can't know the comfort of those prayers. You know who you are and we thank you!

Christmas came after the diagnosis. It was hard to be in the Christmas mood this past year. I tried super hard, even shoving the scary thoughts of this disease aside for a few days. It was always lurking in the back of my mind though.

It was very much in the forefront of my husband's mind. I still don't know how he kept going without breaking down, but he is strong like that. I love him so very much for his strength and courage - he actually comforted me during this time - when I was crying every day for him and for us.

Sleep for Eric and I was hard to come by. We really were tormented by this. We couldn't even wrap our heads around this diagnosis. It didn't make any sense at all. From what we saw, mostly everyone that has it is a smoker OR they are genetically prone to it. Eric's doctor ordered a blood test for him called Alpha 1 - antitrypsin deficiency and it was negative. So we were still scratching our heads.

Thankfully Eric got in to see a specialist on Monday, January 16th, 3pm. We were both very nervous about the appointment. Who wouldn't be, right? We saw a Nurse Practitioner after the nurse left the room. She asked TONS of questions, going over Eric's medical history. Eric and I asked her questions - maybe it wasn't emphysema, but maybe he had contracted some lung infection from the chicken coop (we asked). She said since he hadn't had a CT Scan we wouldn't know for sure, but did mention that his x-ray and everything looked good. Both she and the doctor (can't remember his name now, but he had a bit of an Irish sounding accent) came back in after a while - they were discussing Eric's information and test results. Both the NP and Doctor made Eric breath in, and breathe out, and then as hard as he could exhale.

The doctor was talking to Eric for a bit and then tells him that both he and the NP reviewed his spirometry results and that he DID NOT have emphysema. We were like - What? He said that he read the test results and the hospital was wrong with their conclusion. Eric does not have emphysema. It was very hard to wrap our heads around this because we were so stuck thinking of emphysema and the death sentence that was to come with it. It didn't take me long to get excited about this idea - after recovering from the glorious delightful shock. They said Eric has perfectly healthy lungs and heart.

We still were puzzled by the discomfort in Eric's chest. Eric asked about this and if could it be related to his c-pap machine (he has sleep apnea). The doctor thinks the pressure in Eric's machine is too high and is making his chest stretch a little farther than normal causing the discomfort, so he is going next month for an overnight test to see about lowering the pressure on his machine.

What lessons did we learn?

Life is so valuable.

Don't waste the time you do have.

All of it is precious.

Live each day for God - even in the midst of the storm.

Hold onto Him and to the ones you love.

God IS in control.

Always.

Even if you don't understand what is going on

and why it's going on.

Sometimes Eric still struggles with doubts over the doctor's declaration of no emphysema, as he still has disturbing chest discomfort. I'm praying the overnight test next month proves to be the problem. If it doesn't help him, then we'll probably go back to the doctor and figure it out. Please pray for him as we get this figured out!

It has been quite a ride!

Weekly Wrap-Up

2012-01-21T13:40:00.003-05:00

Week 20

What a rough week this past week of school was for us! Ok, mainly it was rough for Nathan and Ryan and I. Grace had a great week of school. I almost feel like I need to get her something more to work on, but I'm just not sure what right now.

Nathan had a rough week with his math lesson 24, so next week he'll be doing some practice pages and we'll work things out that way. He just doesn't seem to pay attention to adding/multiplying. He often adds or multiplies when it should be the opposite. It's frustrating, so I'm hoping next week will be a better week for him. Maybe we'll move some math problems to the whiteboard and see how he does with them.

He got an 82% on his adverb test and a 95% on his science test and an 85% on his spelling test yesterday. He did quote Exodus 20:12 and this past week we talked about obedience and Jonah and also how we are to be obedient to God. It was a great week in the Bible study department.

Ryan's math wasn't near as frustrating as Nathan's, but he really, really needs to learn his multiplication tables and that's my fault for not going over them with him as much as he needs. He did good with a 90% on his test. He is continueing with his Explode the Code book and does pretty good with it, most of the time. I can tell when he's not paying much attention to the work in there, but that doesn't happen too often. He also quoted Exodus 20:12 and did a great job!

Spelling was another story this week for him. Where he had a pretty good week last week, this week way totally hard for him. It's not that the words are hard even - neck and pick are a couple he missed on his test. I am not sure how else to help him on this - we do fingergrams and break the words down when we do dictation on Mon/Tues and talk them over and spell them over and over. We just press on and keep working through. It's just frustrating for both of us - a lot sometimes. Explode the Code even reinforces some of these rules and words. Please pray for wisdom and how to best help Ryan out! I do ask this from time to time and I do appreciate those that do pray!

Grace did fantastic in her Math this week. She took her 3rd unit test and then finished a whole lesson and was done with math for the week on Wednesday. She got a 100% on her unit test and 90% on her lesson 24 test. She also missed 5 out of her 20 words on her spelling test yesterday. She's doing very good with the subject - usually. She's improved a lot in her reading and loves to figure out words. Her Explode the Code and Cursive Writing are also coming along well. She will just write different words in cursive from time to time in any of her subjects (except Math, of course) and you can read what she wrote! :) She also quoted her Exodus 20:12 verse and colored some beautiful purple horse pictures. She loves horses! Maybe I'll have her work on a lapbook for horses . . . there's an idea!

This week we finished reading through The Founding of the United States Experience 1776-1815 book, so we will do some work sheet pages I have found from some internet sites and watch some other history related documentaries for reinforcement!

We have not been hitting science much at all lately. I need to fix that soon!

All of them are doing pretty good in their cursive handrwriting books! Ryan finished his book, Nathan is nearly finished with his book and Grace has to go through and write her sentences now and is doing a great job with those, too! Nathan can write in cursive neatly, if he wants to. Ryan is very meticulous with his cursive and Grace is in between, but I think it's because she's getting the hang of connecting her letters together as words.

Friday, January 20th also was our 96th day of school!!

***If you haven't entered my GIVEAWAY for My Memories Digital Scrapbook software, just do it! The giveaway is going to happen January 26th!! Just go HERE and leave a comment!***

My Memories Review and a GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!!

2012-01-19T00:56:00.004-05:00

My Memories gave me the opportunity to review their digital scrapbooking software the last couple weeks and I have been trying to find the time to play, play play!

There is SOO much you can do with My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Software that I haven't even got to try, but I did make a few scrapbooks. I'm still learning what all can be done with My Memories software.

You can make digital scrapbooks that can be printed and shared, but you can also make calenders, slideshows, greeting cards! All kinds of exciting, fun stuff!

Digital scrapbooking with My Memories is new to me, but I LOVE it! It's so easy and fun!

Here are some samples from an album I'm working on. I intend to add more pages once I take more photos of other antiques.

These are the pages that I've worked on

and there is so much that you can do using My Memories Suite!

Now for the GIVEAWAY!!!

All you have to do is visit

www.Mymemories.com

and then post in the comment section below what

you like on their site!

For more entries into the giveaway tell me that you

1."LIKE" them on facebook

AND/OR

2. Now Follow their Blog

This contest will run from now and the drawing for a winner will take place next Thursday, January 26, 2012.

Enter and share with your friends, too!

Can't wait to see who the winner will be!

This is my first giveaway and I am so thrilled that

My Memories asked me to do this!

Would be helpful to actually GIVE the code!! :)

Here is the CODE: STMMMS77324

Just copy and paste the code when you check out to get the discount!!

Weekly Wrap-Up

2012-01-15T20:07:00.000-05:00

Week 19

Last week was just another typical, sort of productive week of school at our place. We're definitely in school mode and have recovered from vacation.

Bible - Last week we talked about modesty and how we need to dress so we honor God and the kid's learned Proverbs 11:22 "As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion." We talked about how silly it is to put a jewel or gold ring in a snout's nose and how silly is is for us to not dress to honor God. Dressing decently - boys and girls. This coming week we'll be talking about obedience!

Math - most weeks are so redundant, I've noticed. The kids do a Math lesson each week and test on Friday. Last week they did pretty good on their tests. All 3 passed!

Grammar - Nathan is the only one with Grammar and he learned about Adverbs last week. He was learning about degrees of comparison and how you can figure out comparative or superlative. We walked through it verbally on Thursday and it finally clicked - he struggled Mon - Wed with it. Yay!

Explode the Code - Grace and Ryan did rather well working through their assigned pages last week. Nothing overly exciting to report on here, but this subject helps them both with their reading and writing skills. It also reinforces some of their spelling rules.

Spell to Write and Read - last week was a good week for Nathan. He was bummed because he missed one word on his spelling test on Friday. I encourage him that missing one word - while not perfect - is really good! He finished section T-4 and those words aren't all easy. Ryan and Grace finished L-1. Grace missed 2 words and Ryan missed 3. Ryan was so upset by this. : / I told him he is doing so much better this year, because he really is! He used to miss 5 or more words per test and has been missing under 5 a lot of times this year. It's not totally clicking with him, but he's getting there. I'm praying the connection happens soon and he just takes off with it. If not, we'll just continue working through and practice, practice, practice!

Science - Nathan finished up to page 75a in his Creation or Evolution book last week. This week he'll be taking a unit test. Ryan and Grace didn't do anything for science last week. This week they're going to work on snap circuits and have fun with those.

History - Last week we read through a couple pages (52- 53) of The Founding of the United States Experience and watched Lewis and Clark (National Geographic Channel version) on Netflix. We tried watching the PBS Lewis and Clark video, but it was 3 1/2 hours and I'd lose the kids on it, lol. Saw that Nat. Geo. one was shorter, so we watched that instead. :)

Art and Music - Nothing much happened in these subjects last week. Some coloring was done and Ryan drew a picture. Music wasn't really much of anything last week, but Grace did download a neat program to her Nintendo DSi and she can play classic music pieces. She really enjoys that!

The one evening we were sitting around the table and watching the news and they were talking about the National Debt. The kids didn't really understand it, so Eric simplified it some without going into how interest works and all that. He said "Say you have $10 each month, but you have a credit card and spend $30 each month. Do you have enough money to pay that credit card bill each month?" Eric's discussion was more in-depth, but I can't remember it all now. The lights came on in Nathan and Ryan and you could tell they started to understand (a little) what the news was talking about. Nathan pretty much figured out that his future is kinda bleak looking with that kind of debt hanging over our heads. It's sad when you really think about it and they aren't changing their ways in Washington either. But anyway, that's another post for another time.

On to a new week of school! :)

A Post About Dinner

2012-01-14T20:48:00.002-05:00

Earlier this evening we went out for dinner, among other running around today. I was glad to get out for the day, let me tell you! You just go stir crazy after being home for a week straight. It was a nice family day out! :)

We were given a Christmas gift of some gift cards to Chili's. Figured we'd use them while we're out and about today. We're sitting there eating and Eric was like, "Check out that guy's jacket." This little family of 3 came in and the man of the family was wearing an Iraqi War Vets jacket. I told Eric we should pay for their dinner. So we were there waiting for our food and Eric suggested we pass along the gift cards to the Vet, so while taking my daughter to the restroom I put the cards on their table and thanked him for serving our country.

Of course, they were surprised and very thankful. Then I walked away and was very face twitchy, trying not to cry. After Grace and I finished our trip to the restroom, I decided to stop by the table and thank the Mrs. for her sacrifice, too (I had walked away kind of quickly after I put the cards on the table, thanking the Vet the first time through).

It was such a blessing to share a gift with someone that has shared his/their life with our country.

~ ~ It is more blessed to give than to receive. Acts 20:35b

Deep Dark Chocolate Cookies - Found on Pinterest

2012-01-11T18:56:00.001-05:00

Source: divine-baking.com via Emily on Pinterest

Ok, the above is a link (from pinterest) to the blog where I got the recipe for the delicious pictures

and the delicious cookies. Let me tell you, if you're having a chocolate craving, this will hit the spot!

The delicious marshmallow like creme.

The dry ingredients all mixed together.

Melted chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet since it's all I have).

Gotta have some whole chocolate chips for the mix!

All mixed together in a stiff, sticky dough that tasted divine!

Here they are rolled into balls and dipped into powdered sugar.

Here is the finished product! Sooo good! I promise you'll love them!

Here is the recipe from Divine Baking:

Deep Dark Chocolate Cookies

Nonstick vegetable oil spray
1 1/2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips (about 9 ounces), divided
3 large egg whites, room temperature
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar, divided (I used 2 cups)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray 2 large baking sheets with nonstick spray. Melt 1 cup chocolate chips in glass bowl in microwave, stirring twice, about 2 minutes. Cool slightly.
Using electric mixer, beat whites in large bowl to soft peaks. Gradually beat in 1 (I halved the sugar here) cup sugar. Continue beating until mixture resembles soft marshmallow creme. Whisk 1 cup sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, and salt in medium bowl to blend. On low speed, beat dry ingredients into meringue. Stir in lukewarm chocolate and 1/2 cup chocolate chips (dough will become very stiff).
Place 1/2 cup sugar in bowl. Roll 1 rounded tablespoon dough into ball; roll in sugar, coating thickly. Place on prepared sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake until puffed and tops crack, about 10 minutes. Cool on sheets on rack 10 minutes. Transfer to rack; cool.

Yield: Makes about 18
divine-baking.com

Can't Upload Pictures

2012-01-10T23:13:00.001-05:00

I was going to write a blog post and post pictures and show what I made this evening, BUT for some reason I can't upload any photos to blogger. What is up with that? Anyone else having problems with it?

Anyway, here is the recipe I used this evening:

Source: divine-baking.com via Emily on Pinterest

They turned out soooo good and I had to share the recipe link!

Grace also made a couple little cakes in her Easy Bake Oven this evening and they turned out great - for a change! Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to upload pictures.
Night all!

Weekly Wrap-Up

2012-01-08T23:00:00.000-05:00

Week 18

This past week of school was mostly a review week AND it was fun!

It was a 4 day school week. Monday and Tuesday the kids did some Math drill pages from the www.mathusee.com site. Thursday and Friday we read and worked our way through a book called Math Curse . Math problems applied to every day life in a fun way was so fun! The kids just loved it!

We read about Lewis and Clark in our history books and started watching a documentary about it. We'll finish the documentary this coming week.

Spelling was review of phonograms last week. We had review days and quiz days. Amazing how much some remember and some forget. Whew! :) They also did testing to see how they are doing. Nathan and Grace are doing fine and are on target. Ryan is still struggling, but we'll press on anyway!

Nathan continued his studies in Grammar (adverbs - to what extent) and Creation or Evolution.

Our daily Bible studies consisted of reviewing previously learned Bible character studies and Scripture verses.

Ryan and Grace are working through their Explode the Code books and doing pretty good. They both have their days, then again, we all have our days!

This week is back to our regular school work schedule! Praying it's a good one! :)

Lego Wars

2012-01-07T14:49:00.000-05:00

It was a brutal war from what I heard.

The kids enjoyed playing for about 2 hours yesterday morning.

Nice way to end the school week.

Oh, and the legos are still all over the living room floor. :)

Closing This Down

2012-01-06T11:04:00.001-05:00

I'm trying to run 3 blogs and it's getting to be a circus, lol. I'm going to import this blog to my Strobel's Happenings blog and just do our homeschool updates there. Much easier that way! If you don't follow me over there please join!

Thanks for reading/commenting!
I'll be closing this site down after this weekend.

Strobel's Happenings
See you there! :)

**This IS an imported post. I AM NOT closing this blog down. However, I AM closing down our homeschool site after the weekend. **

The Best 300 Calorie Oatmeal

2012-01-06T09:48:00.000-05:00

Source: canyoustayfordinner.com via Emily on Pinterest

I made this for my breakfast today and it was so good I had to share it! Just click on the above picture and you'll find the recipe! It's very light and fluffy - definitely a different texture than your average oatmeal.

Here's what my bowl looks like, before honey and before eating it.

Have a great day!

My Fitness Pal

2012-01-05T13:12:00.000-05:00

One site I'm glad I signed up for the other day is www.myfitnesspal.com. I highly recommend it if you are wanting to get into shape and want to be accountable. If you do it, friend me on there - emily3314!

I love how easy it is to use, to calculate calories and keep track of exercise! Today is day 3 into it. Even Eric is getting in on this and so far, so good! Hopefully I can still be this excited about it a few months form now. :)

Now I must get going and get something else accomplished today - eat, exercise and other chores that go along with life.

Organizing My Life in 2012

2012-01-02T16:25:00.003-05:00

I honestly don't even know where to start on organizing my life this year. There's a lengthy list I need to work on starting off with:

1. walk with God. More prayer time and reading/learning His Word and walking closer to Him than I ever have. I've been working on memorizing Colossians, but am currently taking a break from it. Thank you for understanding, Cindy! Your encouragement and friendship is such a blessing.

2. to be here for my children and husband more than ever. That'll mean a lot less time on the internet. Seriously, I waste way too much time. Funny how if I'm not wasting time with one thing, it's with other things.

3. better health - a friend posted this link to a Free Calorie Counter, etc at www.myfitnesspal.com and I'm going to look into that for Eric and I this year. I have to sign up and get started, but it couldn't hurt. If you want to be my friend on there, I'm Emily3314. :)

4. Work on my Mommytography 101 Homework Assignments. Gotta get better at using my camera! :) I am going for the daily photographs on my Photography Adventure blog. If you don't see many posts here, do know there is going to be a photo each day on my photo blog. (that is my goal)

Other things that aren't so important to name right now and are just little things I'd like to do if I don't have time or if I use my time more wisely. These aren't exactly resolutions, just goals that I truly need to work on in the days, weeks and months ahead.

I'm also going to merge my homeschool blog with this blog once I figure out how that works. If anyone has any pointers, please do share!! Thanks! It's just too crazy trying to run 3 different blogs. :) Imagine that, huh?

Have a Happy New Year growing in the Lord!

Top 10

2011-12-31T01:13:00.000-05:00

Bee Attitudes Lapbook/Scrapbook

2011-12-30T11:26:00.000-05:00

Robin @ www.heartofwisdom.com is having a giveaway and I wanted to enter it because I think her work is wonderful and what a fun way to teach the kids the Beatitudes!

Check out her GIVEAWAY!

She has so many wonderful things on her website, too!

Christmas Happenings

2011-12-28T19:26:00.000-05:00

A little Christmas photo fun before we left for church on Christmas Eve.

I love my church's Christmas Eve service.

So much good music, poems and the Christmas story from Luke.

I loved this and had to take a photo of it.

Our church has this display and the manger beneath the cross

just struck me this year.

(wish I would've turned my camera for a better shot of the cross)

Our finished Jesse Tree.
I'm leaving it set out until January some time.

Probably my favorite photo. :)

My kids crack me up and I love them like crazy!

What I Made Today - Cinnamon Roll Pulls

2011-12-28T18:49:00.001-05:00

Source: plainchicken.com via Emily on Pinterest

Today I thought I would make this since it's my hubby's last day of vacation and this looked so delicious.
It was quite easy to make and, for the record, I LOVE the Vanilla Honey Butter and will probably make that for other things. Yum!

Anyway, I took photos of this food project.

Slicing the bread. Not too difficult.

A little more tricky cutting across these rows, but not bad.

The delicious Vanilla Honey Butter.

YUMMY! (in case I didn't mention it)

All cut, buttered, cinnamon sugared and ready for the oven.

Wrap it in foil and cook for about 25 minutes.

The entire recipe is on the link above (under the first picture).

The finished product. So good.

It was a big loaf, so we didn't eat it all today.

I'm thinking we can reheat it in the oven when we want it tomorrow.

This wraps up my adventure in the kitchen for today.

Two-Bite Peanut Butter S'mores - Our Version

2011-12-28T16:45:00.000-05:00

My very crumbly graham cracker crust.

The Chocolate Ganache was SO good!

I didn't have big marshmallows, but figured the little ones would work.

They did.

Ready to go in the oven.

I love the smell of toasting marshmallows.

Deliciousness!

They ended up very runny, but SOO good.

Very rich, too.

After spending the night in the fridge they did hold together better.

The kids really enjoyed this tasty snack!

Two-Bite Peanut Butter S'mores

2011-12-22T19:57:00.000-05:00

Source: half-bakedbaker.blogspot.com via Emily on Pinterest

Grace and I are making these tonight. I'm hoping the chocolate ganache turns out. Right now - after 15 minutes in the fridge - it is still more runny than it should be.

My other gripe is my graham cracker crust doesn't look anything like the one in the pictures. I've tried making graham cracker crust before and it's very crumbly and not holding together. If anyone has any recommendations or fixes, do tell! :)

Never mind about the fixes, my mom told me more butter.

If only I would have thought of that sooner.

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of our s'mores delicious disasters.

They are really, really good otherwise.

Christmas Ornaments #2

2011-12-20T12:12:00.000-05:00

One of Nathan's favorites. A John Deere ornament.

It's a little dark here.

Me in the bulb. :)

We made these heart ornaments in 2003.

We also made snowmen, Christmas trees and stars out of

applesauce and cinnamon. They still smell after all these years.

We (the boys and I) enjoyed making/painting these.

Ryan "bought these for free" at a big flea market the one year. :)

I love these glittery glass Christmas decorations.

I put these on our tree every year, too.

My nephew and niece made these for Eric and I for

our first Christmas together. Aren't they cute? :)

Now my niece and nephew are all grown up.

How time flies!

Christmas Ornaments

2011-12-20T11:42:00.001-05:00

Grace's first Christmas ornament - 2004.

I LOVE this photo of my kids, so we put it in this ornament.

I joked about Ryan being my angry elf. :)

One of the kids made this precious baby Jesus ornament.

My Grandma Miller gave us girls these as a present long ago.

I hang it on the tree every year.

An ornament a friend gave us for Nathan's first Christmas.

I love this ornament!

My favorite wedding picture of Eric and I.

Weekly Wrap-Up

2011-12-20T11:27:00.000-05:00

Last week was week 17 and we finished up our official school work for the year. The end of last week was awful for me since I had a migraine for 3 days in a row (2 of those being school days). I was just glad to be done with tests and the school work! Everyone did pretty good with their tests and are so glad to have time off!

This week was to be a week of fun stuff, but I seem to have come down with a sore throat that is going around in the family. We're having our Advent devotions each day. Yesterday the kids did some Christmas copywork. We haven't started our Christmas lapbook yet, but maybe we'll work on it later today when the kids are kinda bored and don't have anything going on.

They really love the days where nothing is planned at all. Kind of goes against my "I have a plan" thing. I always have ideas and things I would love to do, but they aren't always so thrilled about it. Guess they aren't so crafty - except for Grace. :) Of course, I think artsy is a little different than crafty. Ryan is definitely artsy and does ok with crafts. He'd much rather draw. Nathan would rather animate things on his nintendo DSi. He's good at working with those sprites. I didn't know what a sprite was until he told me and showed me. This is where you can learn more about a SPRITE if you're like me and only thought it was a drink. ;)

Have a Merry Christmas!

What's Goin' On?

2011-12-17T16:08:00.000-05:00

This time of year finds me both busy and in a funk. We've been doing our schooling and Advent devotions each day and then I'm doing some extra running around. We've been enjoying our Advent devotions and doing projects a couple times a week. The last couple days have been rather difficult since I've been dealing with a migraine that won't stop. I take Excedrin migraine in the afternoon once it starts working I am ok for the day, but by the middle of the night the headache is back and I can't sleep very well. Laying down seems to hurt even more. Pretty much sitting still is the only thing that works best. It's been fun. . . . or something.

Last Friday saw Ryan and I in the emergency room. He was crying with chest pains and that's so unusual for him - the chest pains. We're not typically emergency room users, but thought this was a good time to go. Thankfully he wasn't having heart issues. They said it was related to growing pains in his rib area and it gets enflamed and just plain hurts. I never heard of having growing pains in the ribs, but it's possible. He was rather grossed out by the girl throwing up in the waiting room. I am not thrilled with hospitals and all the germs floating around there, but I'm thankful for them anyway.

This past week was a rather busy week. Tuesday I took this lady I visit each week to the doctor to have this lump on her leg looked at. They biopsied it and we are waiting on test results. Please pray for her and her family while we wait. It's the waiting that is the worst part. Thursday I changed cleaned up her leg and rebandaged it. It looks like it's healing. Once the results are in we'll learn what they want to do with the rest of the lump. I'm sure it'll have to be removed one way or the other.

Yesterday we got a new chicken. Her name is Pearl. She was my nephew's chicken and he didn't want to get her processed with his other ones. She's a sweet little hen and Grace and Ryan are both enjoying looking after her. I'd hate to be a new hen in the coop. I'm not kidding, but our coop is divided by color. Our rooster, Patch, is white and all the white hens stay with him (except for Spot). Shoe is leader of the black or darker colored hens. It's unclear at this point which group Pearl will be accepted into - her being black and white like she is (she's a Barred Rock, I believe). I don't have a picture of her yet, but when I do I will post it.

In other chicken news, Shoe will be getting his spurs dremel tooled down, fancy way for filing them. He actually spurred Eric yesterday! Thankfully Eric was wearing his work pants - they are rip stop material - and the spurs only put dot marks in them and didn't rip his pants or his skin. I only heard it happening and saw the end of it. Eric is not happy with his former favorite rooster. We are still a little shocked. Well, I am not really shocked, the rooster has been getting meaner and meaner lately. He's been on my naughty list after he's ran toward me like he was going to hurt me a few times. He met my shoe, so he didn't actually spur me.

Here are some pictures from the past week or so:

2 of the 3 kids singing "Come on Ring Those Bells."

You can see the pure joy on their faces, lol.

My sweet little girl all dolled up in her soldier outfit.

We FINALLY put up our tree this week.

By we, I mean Ryan and Grace put up the tree.

I figured out the light situation.

Pre-lit trees are sometimes tricky when a section of lights burn out.

I had to sub in a string of colored lights.

I added some beads for some bling.

I love beads, until I have to put them away. :)

My snowglobe that I totally enjoy.

I love how the snow swirls around the snowman.

My accidental, yet cool (at least to me), swirly

tree picture. I took it by accident.

Grace was adding some finishing touches to the tree.

The angel STILL needs put on top, but it turned out rather nicely.

Last year our house was totally decked out, but this year

I haven't been decking our halls so much.

Personally, I'm focusing more on the birth of Christ.

It's such a wonderful, amazing thing to think about.

He came to earth as a tiny, human baby.

To grow up and live as we all do.

To know our struggles and, yet, remain so perfect.

The Perfect sacrifice for our sins, for my sins.

For this, I am very thankful.

Philly Cheesesteak Sloppy Joes

2011-12-12T22:24:00.000-05:00

Source: tasteofhomecooking.blogspot.com via Emily on Pinterest

This meal was ok for the most part. I would probably use mozzarella cheese next time. The provolone cheese mixture was rather bland. Everyone ate it though. Not even one complaint!
Another thing I didn't do was add the green peppers.

So I consider the meal a success since there were no grumbles or ewwws. :)

Weekly Wrap-Up And A Field Trip!

2011-12-12T09:00:00.000-05:00

Week 16

Last week was a busy and productive week of school, Advent devotions and a field trip.

Everyone just did their schoolwork for the week and did ok for the most part. It was a rough week for spelling lists for all 3 of them. Sometimes weeks are rough. I think we are getting burned out and ready for our Christmas break!

We have this coming week of school to do most of our regular school work, then we'll do fun stuff all next week. At least that's my plan. I'm not good at planning fun stuff, so I should probably start planning today.

We hung out in the gift shop before our tour of
Old Economy Village.

This is one of the school rooms the Harmonists used.

The kids got to make crafts while we were there.

I think they had a good time.

These 2 pictures above are the kids waiting for Belsnickel and of him answering the door.
It was a fun time and I have a ton more pictures of our field trip.
Maybe I'll add more in another post this week.

Grace and Nathan saying/reading their parts yesterday during the children's Christmas play.
Ryan didn't go because he was sick Saturday night with a fever.
Thankfully he is back to normal today!
Ryan did do some hunting on Saturday, but didn't see anything.
Plus he came home fevered.

You can see how thrilled my kids are singing

"Come on Ring Those Bells," especially Nathan. :)

Coffee Love

2011-12-07T18:56:00.001-05:00

We FINALLY got our coffee pot replaced!!

It came in the mail yesterday and Eric had to pick

it up at his parents after work today.

Of course, we set it up and immediately brewed a pot of coffee.

Soooo delicious!

Freshly ground beans.

Freshly brewed coffee.

I'll probably not sleep well tonight, but it'll be worth it!

I've missed having real coffee in the house.

Instant coffee and those single serve coffees just don't cut it.

Thank You, God, for fresh, hot coffee!

Christmas Wreath

2011-12-06T14:41:00.000-05:00

This is my wreath that I made from an idea from Pinterest.

Here it is from a side view.

I had used glue dots, but they kept coming undone.

My son says, "Why don't you use staples?"

Sometimes I don't think of the simple things like that.

Anyway, the staples worked out much better!

An Ode to My Husband

2011-12-05T21:28:00.000-05:00

Dear Husband of Mine, for 13 years now.

Who had a mustache, but is clean shaven , wow!

(the power of a woman)

Here we are, when we weren't really dating.

But we were really good friends and it was worth the waiting.

One of my favorite wedding pictures of that

fine December 3rd day (13 years ago).

It's a smoochy, smoochy photo

Hip Hip Hooray!

This was taken on our honeymoon,

In Gettysburg, PA.

My husband looks handsome and we'll

just not comment on my hat.

It doesn't rhyme, I can't help it. :)

This is us earlier this year (I think).

My husband is silly, but I sure will keep him.

He's kind and sweet and honest and is truly my best friend.

The key to a good marriage is keeping Christ first.

Then being kind to each other and respecting each other.

Honoring each other and loving each other.

Allowing each other to be who you are is important, too.

Having fun and playing games

and being competitive and being cooperative.

There are hard times.

Stressful times.

Cranky times.

These are important, too.

They keep us humble and looking inward

and seeing if Christ is still center.

I'm so thankful for this man that God gave to me and

look forward to spending the rest of my life with him.

It has been such a joy so far!

Weekly Wrap-Up

2011-12-05T09:49:00.000-05:00

Week 15

Last week was a 4 day school week, but we managed to do 5 days worth of work in that time frame, at least with Math. It was a much better week than I imagined it was going to be, especially after a week of no school! We are keeping school pretty simple - working on the basics - Math, Grammar, Spelling, Explode the Code, Cursive Writing.

Nathan had a pretty good week last week. He passed his Math Unit Test with a 96%. He did pretty good in his Easy Grammar work - he's learning about adverbs right now. I love his Easy Grammar because it's helping me with my own grammar. :) Last week he got a 95% on his spelling test.

Ryan got a 100% on his Math test. Sometimes it amazes me because he struggles so much during the week. He also got a 100% on his Spelling test and THAT is amazing! I'm so proud of him. Spelling/Reading is his worst subject. Explode the Code 3 and 3 1/2 is almost done. He'll be finishing up book 3 this week.

Grace got a 90% on her Math test and a 95% on her Spelling test. She's working through her new Explode the Code books 3 and 3 1/2. She seems to enjoy them so far! It was a little hard at first for her, but she has caught on!

We are all enjoying our Jesse Tree/Advent readings and projects and crafts. We had a great discussion on Friday about being a witness of Jesus to those around us. They make me proud!

My children are going to be in our church's Christmas program (one of several this time of year) next Sunday and are nervous about it right now. They only have a week to prepare. Ryan is pretty sure he'll never learn his lines and has already cried about it. Nathan is almost as bad about his lines. Grace is already memorizing her lines. Should be fun. I'm totally taking my camera to church next week. :) They also have to sing a couple songs and play handbells. My children do not like singing (except for Grace) or music. I don't know how they got like that. I've always loved music and singing, but not them. Eric also likes singing and music, so we don't know where our children got their attitudes about music. It's so bizarre.

We had a great week last week and we're looking forward to the rest of December's schooling!

Pinterest Projects I/We Have Done Pt.2

2011-12-02T12:10:00.000-05:00

Source: squidoo.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: mattersofgrey.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: thehybridchick.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: weight-watchers-recipes.net via Emily on Pinterest

Source: eclecticrecipes.com via Emily on Pinterest

These are all the things I have tried. I still have lots of projects and recipes that I want to try, eventually. It's fun to see all the things I have done so far!

Pinterest Projects I/We Have Done Pt.1

2011-12-02T12:00:00.001-05:00

Source: ministry-to-children.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: marthastewart.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: jellybeanjunkyard.wordpress.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: alydosdall.blogspot.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: marthastewart.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: loveveggiesandyoga.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: scrambledhenfruit.blogspot.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: ohdeedoh.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: dinnerwiththedonnells.blogspot.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: kokokokids.ru via Emily on Pinterest

Source: thehappyhousewife.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: jimmiescollage.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: doityourselfdivas.blogspot.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: karaspartyideas.blogspot.com via Emily on Pinterest

Nathan's Mad Lib

2011-11-30T11:44:00.000-05:00

Check It Out!

2011-11-30T10:55:00.000-05:00

Since I took that photography class yesterday, I set up a new blog account with wordpress so I can do my homework assignments and post them over there.

My new site is: http://emsphotographyadventure.wordpress.com/ and I am going to try keeping that one a strictly photography site.

I am finding that I like wordpress. . . . There may be changes ahead. I'm still undecided right now.

Photography Class

2011-11-29T21:42:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I mentioned that I'd be looking forward to today and I had such a fun time with my first photography class - online! I learned a few things about taking pictures and will be working on the new found knowledge in the weeks and months to come!

There is another class - Mommytography 101-B that I will be taking some time early next year. If you're interested in these classes click on this link: Mommytography
Pricing and Classes are listed on the page.
Tracy is a great teacher and I appreciate what she had in the class for today!
I'm also looking forward to 101-B where you get into the camera and how to use it.
My camera is a big girl camera and I have a lot to learn, so the money is well spent!

That's what I'm thankful for this next-to-the-last-day-of- November!

PS. If you decide to take the class because of this post about it, do put me down as a referral! :)

Hunting and Such

2011-11-28T21:35:00.000-05:00

This first day of rifle season in PA wasn't as loud as usual. It normally sounds like a battle is raging around here. It must have been the weather. While warm, it was rather rainy this morning. Eric and Ryan didn't go hunting until this afternoon. Eric's not a fan of sitting in the rain, even if it is in the 50's.

The most buck we saw today was around our house this morning. I heard a shot fired pretty close, so I look out the back to the neighbor's field and see my buck friend from THIS POST (first picture) running for his life. He took off through the neighbor's property to the left of our house (this would be left while looking out our back window).

After a little while I heard another gun shot and figured someone must have got the fella. While all this was going on a doe and her young'un were bedded down about 10 feet into the neighbor's woods (also to the left). They were wise and stayed until the fellas that shot at the buck came through trying to find him. Don't know if anyone actually shot him dead or if he got away injured.

My boys didn't see anything at their hunting spot in the woods behind Eric's parents. Nothing, just deer ticks. Lots of deer ticks. They are just plain gross. I only found 1 on Ryan and it hadn't found a place to latch on him. Whew!

Maybe there will be another successful day in the next week or so. Guess we'll find out!

The Such part of my title is that I got school planned for the week - this morning! Yay! Of course, it's only a 4 day week, but I'm hoping it's a good one after so much time off! I'm looking forward to our modified school schedule this time of the year. It's always refreshing for myself and I'm praying it's that way for my kiddos, too!

Today I think I melted my mother in laws ears off her head. She was probably glad I left after all the blabbing I did! :)

I didn't get chased by my rooster today - he just plain hates me now. The feeling is mutual though. He shouldn't try to attack the one that feeds him! Anyway, not being chased by my rooster is a plus, but that's also because the chickens stayed in the coop today. They were rather freaked out by the gunfire this morning and were just clucking up a storm for the longest time while in their coop. We figured for their safety they should stay in today. They like to roam to the neighbor's field and that wouldn't be good on a hunting day.

I'm so looking forward to tomorrow!
Of course, I'll post about it tomorrow.
Night, night!

Thinking Ahead

2011-11-27T19:28:00.000-05:00

I've been giving school some thought for the next several weeks. We're celebrating Advent this year, as I posted on Strobel's Happenings . It's something I know I enjoyed last year and am looking forward to doing it again this year.

Since we're going to be focusing on Christ and the reason He came to earth in these next 4 weeks, we're going to continue doing our main school subjects (Math, Grammar, Spelling, Explode the Code and Cursive) and just hold off in our regular Bible Character Studies until after Christmas, as well as History and Science.

We'll work on memorizing the Christmas story in Luke 2 this coming month and do art/crafts related to the Christmas season. I'm rather excited about this plan and will sit and figure out the details some time tomorrow!

Of course, I'll post our weekly wrap-up on Friday and see how week 1 until Christmas goes! :)

Advent

2011-11-27T19:10:00.000-05:00

We are celebrating Advent again this year and today is the first Sunday of it.

One of my blog friends has a great post about it at

Tomato Soup Cake.

This youtube video is very helpful and explains what Advent is all about.

Growing up in Bible/Baptist churches we never celebrated it, but

last year I decided to give it a try with my children and I find it

such a peaceful and wonderful way to remember that Jesus

is the Reason we celebrate Christmas.

During Advent we are also doing a Jesse Tree devotional I got from

Ann Voskamp's site - A Holy Experience.

Yesterday I prepared the ornaments that are hung on the tree each day

when we have our devotional time.

Also yesterday I got out tree ready and it is now sitting on our buffet.

These devotions start on November 29th and are daily up to Christmas.

One Turkey of a Story

2011-11-26T19:11:00.000-05:00

This story starts on Tuesday, November 22, 2011. I was busy baking apple pies for Thanksgiving Day. My oven has never given me problems, so I didn't really think anything of it this day - except that I was having a bad cooking day. My first apple pie crust was starting to burn within the first 10 minutes of cooking, so I covered the pie for the rest of the baking time and it turned out ok. A little later in the afternoon I cooked my 2nd apple pie. I just started baking it covered in foil. Then after a half hour or so I thought I would cook it the final 15 minutes to brown the crust and finish cooking the apples. This pie ended up being a burnt offering to the Lord. :) It wasn't totally ruined and I'm thankful my crusts turn out nice and flaky so I could flake off some of the burned stuff. It was edible and I was thankful for that.

Meanwhile, the Thanksgiving turkey was taken out of the fridge to thaw out. It was a solid rock on Tuesday, so I just had to get it out to thaw. Just so you know, this turkey was important because it was one for Eric's family's Thanksgiving get together. I was looking forward to baking this bird, too!

Wednesday comes along and I'm baking some Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies and Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip cookies. The first batch of cookies I made was the Cider Cookies and they turned out pretty good. The next batch of cookies I had no idea what was happening with them. The first dozen burned on the top. I had no idea what was going on with my oven, really. I figured out how to make the oven work correctly by making some adjustments and managed to cook the rest of the cookies made without burning them. Whew.

Eric came home that evening and figured out what the problem with the oven was and told me it was the temperature sensor. Uh oh, this complicated the entire turkey baking process. I went to the store and bought an oven thermometer, so I could know how hot it was in there. Figured I would stay up and baby sit the oven.

My alarm was set for 2:30am and I got up and finished prepping the turkey while the oven was warming up. It was in by 2:45, center rack of the oven and seemingly not that hot. After about 10 minutes, I noticed smoke coming out from under the roaster lid. The turkey was in an oven bag, but I was curious about the smoke, so I pulled it out of the oven.

To my horror the oven bag was starting to melt to the lid of the roasting pan! I started going into hysterics and went to get Eric up so he could help me figure it out. I was crying and nauseous. What a mess! We, well Eric actually, worked on keeping the oven at a normal temperature. It was ok around 350* for a bit, but the temperature started rising to 400* and I just couldn't have that happen and it wasn't going to regulate at all.

I am ever so thankful for my niece and her cell phone addiction. She has had friends call her in the middle of the night, so I thought maybe I could call her and see if I could borrow her parent's oven. God bless her, she answered her cell phone at 3am!! Told me to come on over and she set her oven so it was ready when I got there around 3:30am. I love you, Kari!! You did save Thanksgiving! :)

We worked quickly and put the turkey in another oven bag and had it in the oven and it cooked until 8:30 or so Thanksgiving morning. My brother in law put it in the cooler and loaded it up for our ride up north. We left our home around 9am and made it up to Eric's uncle's some time after 10am. It was still hot when we got there. Turned out delicious!

It's a Thanksgiving I'll always remember.
Never forget.
Always be thankful for!

Thanksgiving day itself was a gorgeous day! It's always wonderful to see family! The weather was perfectly warm for November! The kids always enjoy seeing their cousins and playing the afternoon away. In the evening we visit my parent's and my brother and sister, their spouses and families!

Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T22:29:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving is always so much fun! In the morning we leave and head up north to Eric's aunt and uncle's for our yearly Thanksgiving family get together. We have our noon time turkey dinner in Bill's workshop. Of course, before lunch everyone is nibbling at the delicious food sitting around. You just can't help it. :)

At noon, the food is ready and the prayer is said and we all dig in! We eat and eat and eat some more. You just have to make a couple trips to sample everything. Of course, there is always a lot of chatting going on! It's always great to see family we haven't seen for a while. Definitely my favorite part of Thanksgiving!

After the mean is scarfed and cleaned up we break up and do any number of things. Napping. Football. Games. Crafts for the kids and adults. More food later in the afternoon.

We go to my parent's house in the late afternoon, early evening. It's always a little crowded, but it's nice to see the family! More talking and more eating. Yes, we have another turkey dinner . . . and yes, I am always stuffed just like a turkey! It's always great to hang out with my family for the evening.

Then after we have overeaten, we roll out to our vehicle and head home for a night of rest/indigestion! :)

I'm very thankful we get to have such a full day with our families!

And to you, my blog readers, however many of you actually read this drivel,

Have a

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Enjoy the day with your families!
God bless!

Weekly Wrap-Up

2011-11-23T11:00:00.000-05:00

Oh wait, we didn't have school this week!

Happy Thanksgiving! :)

If Only . . .

2011-11-21T20:27:00.001-05:00

If only yesterday morning was buck season and I could just

have a shot out our front door or any window.

I think this guy was legal with 8 points.

He wasn't alone.

There are 2 more buck (or is it plural "bucks'?) in the woods there.

One was a 4 point and the other in this photo on the right has only
one antler. I was just looking at the photo on photoshop.

"Spike"

Ryan told me this is the 4th one. At first I didn't believe him, but

my above observation on photoshop revealed Ryan to be correct.

Way to go Ryan! :)

These are not very good shots since they were taken through

the windows on my door, but they are ok.

Lookie What I Found!

2011-11-20T23:39:00.000-05:00

Today I was shopping at our local Farmer's Market

(along with everyone and their brother)

and saw this on a display where all the items were

grown locally and obviously sold locally. They've

probably been there for a while now, but I never noticed until today.

It was a neat find and I'm going to add Buckwheat next

month and then whatever else they have at different times.

It was exciting for me to find this and I just had to share it!

The other thing I found, grown locally, was white potatoes.

So, I grabbed a 10 pound bag of those, too!

They are in my basment, so I didn't get a photo of them.

Circus Town

2011-11-19T21:29:00.000-05:00

My husband had a great idea to go see this old place called

Circus Town.

If you click on the link above you'll see what

we were hoping to see.

If you read comments, you'll learn what it was.

Below is what we actually did see.

Everything in the link above was gone.

The big buildings, the sign and entryway.

It's rather sad and we thought it would be great to have

photos of this old place.

The above blog has some really awesome Butler County History.

We'll probably be using the site to find places to visit in the

new year!

Yay for field trip ideas!

Frame Project

2011-11-18T20:56:00.000-05:00

My husband had a spur that's been hanging around in our bedroom for years. Well, last Saturday his mom gave us those cool looking medallions (I have no idea what they are really called). They hang on the bridle or something. I'm not sure about that exactly either. Anyone with horses care to help me out??

We've had this barn board frame hanging in our basement for a LONG time and I thought that all this stuff together would make a great wall-hanging. I have no idea how to put a back on such a frame, but I am going to look into it and make it happen. I'll play around with the arrangement in the frame and it'll become a neat thing to hang on the wall somewhere in the house!

We are officially on vacation for the next week and maybe an extra day if the Monday after Thanksgiving isn't too terribly cold for hunting. A few bucks would be great for the freezer! I'll keep you posted on that if anything develops. :)

Weekly Wrap Up

2011-11-18T20:38:00.000-05:00

WEEK 14

Ryan worked on this the other day.

Star Wars "snowflakes."

The one on the right isn't quite right, but that's ok.

Cutting those things aren't easy!

The kids did a lot of work this week! They all completed their usual Math lesson, all doing well on their tests today.

Nathan reviewed his Adjective End of the Unit section and tested today. He got a 90% on his test. Yay!

Grace and Ryan worked on their Explode the Code books and did pretty good with the pages completed in their books.

Spelling: Nathan missed one word on his test today, but he really enjoyed his lesson this week. He finished section S (6 lessons in that section) and will start Section T (5 lessons) after our week of vacation. Ryan and Grace finished section K-4 this week. Ryan always struggles some. I think he sometimes confuses himself when it comes to taking a spelling test. He did rather well the other day on a phonogram quiz. He missed 4 out of 30 phonograms - that is a good thing for him! We obviously spend a lot of time on this subject.

Wednesday they always go play at their cousin's for the afternoon and they keep quite busy there. I consider that some of their "phys. ed." My nephew is in the Civil Patrol, so I think he has the boys do some drills, lol. Grace helps entertain my sister-in-law's mom (she has dementia, I do believe). She just LOVES Grace and looks forward to spending time with her. It's really very sweet.

Nathan is continuing working through his Creation vs. Evolution Science book and seems to be enjoying the study.

I've been focusing on Spell to Write and Read so much with Ryan (mostly) and Grace that science has been shelved for a bit. I'm thinking after the new year we'll pick up the subject again.

History is something we are continuing to read through. I think we're close to finishing page 50 in our book. Mostly we read the history and sometimes we re-enforce our readings with some pages from the Internet or a video.

Bible: We learned about being humble this week and the kids learned James 4:6: "But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble."

We are taking our "fall break" next week! Woo Hoo! I am so excited about it!!!!!!! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Exercise

2011-11-16T22:15:00.000-05:00

Well, I managed to exercise 2 days in a row. Woo Hoo! I haven't done that in a LONG time sad to say! It is a little exhausting, but once I get used to doing it it'll be much better. Today's time was 20 minutes on the elliptical and then did some extra exercises afterwards. So maybe 30-40 minutes total.

I hate sore muscles, but it's nice to know they are getting used.

Nothing overly exciting happened today. I did get a little time alone, as I do most Wednesdays. The kids get to play at their cousin's Wednesday afternoons and all of them look forward to it. Before they left, I baked them cookies and made them a home made pizza. Then I threw a chicken in the oven and let it bake in an oven bag for several hours. It's my favorite way to cook chicken! It's also not one of our own. Eric and I are doing good with our points, so far. I am a little hungry this evening and even ate just a little extra considering I exercised. Also had green beans with garlic and pecans. Yum!

I am off to dreamland now!

Ahhhh, Life Happens

2011-11-15T12:05:00.001-05:00

Where have I been? I've not posted the last couple days because I've been spending my evenings away from the computer. I really should try that during the day a little more. I didn't even get on the computer on Sunday and that is good for me!

Sunday my husband FINALLY got a taste of what the rest of us have been dealing with, and that is a cranky rooster. Shoe has been nothing but a meanie head lately. He chases us aggressively and I don't like that, especially with the kids. I don't care if he chases me, but I keep my eye on him because those spurs are big and if he uses them, they will hurt! I've punted him once when he charged me and I'm not afraid to do it again. He will get his spurs dremel tooled to nubs if he keeps this up. I realize he is just guarding his girls or something like that, but we do nothing around him. Anyway, it was just funny to see my husband get chased down by him.

Yesterday started our point counting quest. I was feeling frumpulous and most of the weight I lost last year slowly crept back on me. It's amazing how much I was grazing on junk and didn't realize it until yesterday! I felt better with the extra 10 pounds off, so that is my quest. My wonderful niece loaned me all of her Weight Watchers books/information, so I'm the food police now, at least with my husband. We'll see how it goes. I am going to exercise today and try to daily. I figure that if nothing else, at least 20 minutes or more on the elliptical is a great way to start. Plus I got this workout plan that's quick - you start at 10 and do 10 jumping jacks, 10 crunches, 10 squats, 10 push-ups. Then you do 9 of each of those and you continue to do one less until you've completed one of each and then you're done. I figure that's not a very long workout, but it is good. I did it a couple times and do have that great muscle pain, my problem is just sticking to it. Once upon a time I was very good about exercising every day. I'm going to try doing this again. I honestly felt better. And that's all I have to say about that . . . :)

Yesterday was a really nice day of school around here. Today was a late start to school, so it's going, but I would really prefer to be done by now since it's our "easy day." For our art today, the kids are going to cut out some fun snowflakes that I found on pinterest:

Source: mattersofgrey.com via Emily on Pinterest

They are excited about this and I will post some pictures on our homeschool blog after they are done.

So that's about all that has been going on around here lately.

Moon and Snow

2011-11-12T19:42:00.000-05:00

This was taken Thursday evening. The moon was so bright

and beautiful!

I was trying to get the star in this one, too.

Not sure which star, but Venus comes to mind?

I'm clueless really.

Yesterday morning we woke to snow everywhere.

It was pretty, fluffy and quiet.

Our front yard.

Snow piled up on one of our decorative trees by the house.

Thankfully it melted off by early afternoon!

Today we just hung around home for a bit, then had to

go to the bank since it was closed yesterday.

After the bank we stopped at Eric's parent's to

fix his mom's printer. My hubby is awesome like that. :)

The rest of the day has been spent hanging out in the house.

My tiredness is getting to me.

I should probably start exercising.

I say this every once in a while, like when I'm feeling fat.

Like I do right now.

So I eat a brownie and hope the feeling passes. ;)

Seriously, I need to start exercising again.

Right now though, I need to get off here and do something

with my very bored daughter.

We're having a tough time coming up with an idea though.

I must browse pinterest. :)

Weekly Wrap-Up

2011-11-12T00:31:00.000-05:00

Week 13

This week started with 2 days of no school. I honestly needed the break. The rest of the week we sort of unschooled. I say sort of because we didn't really do any book work.

Math was on the computer - my hubby loaded Captain Jax Math Facts on the new computer, so the kids started on that and seem to enjoy it!

I had Nathan work on a small project for English - the parts of speech. He had to write each one and what it is and some examples of each one. I found the idea on pinterest and made it easier for us to do.

They all read for 20 minutes each day, I think. :)

Spelling was review for all 3 of them. Nathan mostly just reviewed his word lists. Ryan and Grace worked on phonograms, especially Ryan. We were hitting them hard this week. Ryan did a phonogram quiz today and only missed 5 out of 30 and that is a record for him. He usually misses A LOT of them, but he's starting to make an effort.

Each day this month we're writing something we're thankful for on a piece of paper - it goes in our Give Thanks board.

The book work they did do was their cursive writing page each day and Ryan and Grace are working through their Explode the Code books.

Each day we did have school the kids picked a subject they were interested in and we learned what we could about it. Also, a lot of drawing happened around here this week. They love sitting around and drawing and talking. It's cute and you just never know what the conversation will be. Today was silly stuff and I enjoyed hearing them laugh as they drew.

It was a good, short week of school. We'll have school next week, then take the whole next week off for Thanksgiving! I am considering doing week of Thanksgiving activities or a Thanksgiving Lapbook, just to help keep our focus right.

On to next week! :) Just after the weekend . . .

Friday

2011-11-11T23:58:00.000-05:00

Friday is almost over now. I haven't done much with this Friday, really. This morning I took photos of the snow we had, but it did melt. Before it melted, it was funny to watch a chicken look at the snow that was everywhere. It was one hen, Rusty (that is over her broodiness, thankfully) and she just stood in the yard not really knowing what was all over the place. Have I mentioned that I like to watch chickens? I do. They are such funny creatures.

The kids enjoyed an easy week of school and so did I. Math drills and learning about topics that interested them. One of my new favorites sites is www.squidoo.com . Love it! So many great study ideas all laid out there! More of this week on the homeschool blog! :)

I've had to quit watching the news and listening to the radio lately. I get too mad about the things going on around us. The main thing right now is the whole Penn State situation and the reaction of the students there. Seriously, the moral compass of this country is so far gone. Rioting because a coach was fired? What about all the lives of all those children that were abused by the monster that worked there? How sad is it that football is so important that those students can't even stop and think about the lives of those kids and the horrors they went through? Such a terrible tragedy and it makes me sick. Pray for those that were abused and pray for the abuser. God is just.

That is my rant as far as that goes. I had to get it out of my system.

Lanterns

2011-11-09T16:25:00.000-05:00

I'm in love with these old lanterns on that 1906 Model-N Ford.

I ran these through photoshop to touch them up just a bit and wow!

Imagine driving with lanterns lighting the way!

Of course, you'd be going slowly, but if the wind was blowing or it was

storming they would definitely blow out.

I'm definitely thankful for modern conveniences, but I love the

rustic oldness of this vehicle.

Navajo Tacos

2011-11-09T13:15:00.000-05:00

Here's my fry bread. It turned out pretty good, I think.

Navajo taco mix that turned out delicious!

I have SO much of it in my freezer right now.

Oh how I love these things!

It looks so good I might have to go make one right now. :)

The family enjoyed these a lot - especially the kids.

Ryan ate 2 of them and the others cleaned their plates.

Eric and I ate 2 each, too.

It took me back to my days at BABR (Broken Arrow Bible Ranch).

Those were such fun, summer days!

I will write about those in a future post.

Thank you, Christy, for sharing the recipe with me/us.

Old Ford Photos

2011-11-07T22:07:00.000-05:00

1906 Model-N Ford.

Saw this old car the day we got our Escape.

I would have loved to spend more time with it, but was pressed for time.

Once I know what I'm doing in photoshop I want to really do

great things for these photos - like remove all the extra junk from the photo.

This was done inside my camera.

The lantern looks neat like this.

At least I think so. :)

The sketch one looks really cool, too!

Lanterns in black and white and different angle.

I used the miniature effect on my camera for this one.

I miniaturized the lantern area. Looks interesting.

Photoshop is so awesome and overwhelming and I can't wait

to really get into it. What I really need is a good long time period of

nothing but quiet and concentration. That doesn't happen often though.

Sunday Adventure

2011-11-06T19:30:00.001-05:00

This morning we went to church and I am always blessed by Pastor Charles' messages. We're studying Matthew 5&6 right now and he has this really neat visual map, from a computer program, that really brings the Scriptures to life. It's neat to see the places Jesus visited and ministered and to think about Him walking in these places. I do have to say that I'm glad He's in Heaven now!

After church we went to town to pick up a couple things we needed. Nathan desperately needed shoes. It's amazing how fast boys go through shoes!

The shoe store is near a new Fortune Star Restaurant in town. We decided to eat there for lunch. I've never eaten several things I tried today. Never had sushi today and will probably never have it again. I ate 2 different kinds and I can't even tell you what they were called. If I had to choose one, I liked the less fishy tasting one. I couldn't even finish the 2nd one I tried. Strong scent and taste of fish makes me gag. There was also seaweed salad. It had a good taste, but I didn't like the texture. Now I loved Coconut Shrimp - yummy! Also liked seafood bake. The seafood biscuit I didn't like so much - a little too fishy. My bravery ended with the above items and I had my seafood/fish intake for the day.

Eric ate a clam and mussel and a bunch of other little things that I wouldn't even dare try. He didn't like most of the things, but just had to try them to say he has tried them. :) Ryan tried a couple things that Eric made him try - kept bringing up the cricket he ate last summer. Friendly father/son competiton is always fun to watch. :)

I always enjoy Sundays because they are great family days! It's good to be in the house of the Lord and it's good to be with the family the Lord saw fit to bless me with!

Right now the family is watching a video on netflix about The Tabernacle. Ryan wonders . . . Where did they get ALL the gold to build All that stuff? It is a good question. Anyone have ideas?

Ps. Please excuse all my mis-spellings in here. The big computer doesn't have what my netbook has on it (google chrome has some type of auto-spell check which I love, though I have my issues with google chrome).

Saturday

2011-11-06T00:32:00.000-04:00

Officially it's not Saturday anymore, unless you go my my kitchen clocks which are turned back an hour. Today was just one of those days that I loved so much and didn't sit at any computer until a little bit ago! My morning started with waking before 8am and getting ready to go out to breakfast with my friend, Lisa. We haven't seen each other in forever, so it's always great to catch up with a good friend!

After eating a good meal we went out and did some shopping. Target, Goodwill and Ollie's were our stops today. I bought some clothes for Grace and I at Goodwill. I'm happy with Goodwill prices! Buying boys clothes is not easy - I have been learning this. They can come along next time and pick what they like. Grace is easy - purple or some kind of shiny, sparkly stuff on a shirt makes her happy. :)

Then coming home and cleaning up the messes somewhat I began dinner preparations. Made a very tasty beef stew and dumplin's. It was so good everyone liked it! :)

Beauty and the Beast was on this evening and Grace and I enjoyed watching it together before bedtime. It was fun to watch it with my daughter. It's one of my favorite Disney movies.

Now, I'm off to bed.

Today's Happenings (NaBloPoMo)

2011-11-04T22:35:00.000-04:00

Nothing like waking up with a migraine! If you read our Homeschool Blog, then sorry for the re-run about the headache stuff. I'm pretty sure I had it from all the hacking away at weeds that were growing along our driveway. My neck, back and arms are so sore today. 2 hours of lots of work - which I consider exercise. :) Anyway, the tight muscles in my neck and back must have made my triggered the migraine. The morning wasn't fun at all and I finally did get to take some Excedrin Migraine after I ate some crackers and hot tea.

We had our easy day of school today because I had to go to the Ford garage to get our new key made. I got there just before 11:30 this morning. Figured I would be there for maybe an hour tops. Hahahahahahaha - if only! 2 and a half hours later I finally left with another key that didn't work. The key thingy wouldn't hold the code. It's due to them not having a key (is it called a Fob?) that is the same year as the Escape. So when it's time for an oil change they said they'll have it and we'll be good to go. Thankfully my migraine started leaving about an hour or so in to my stay at the Ford garage this afternoon. Totally not my plan for today, but I did meet a nice older couple and we chatted it up for a while.

While sitting/dozing/zoning at the Ford garage I decided that we're just not having school Monday or Tuesday. I got to watch the weather and the next chance of rain is next Wednesday, so they say. Monday and Tuesday are to be in the 60's and I just don't want to be stuck inside both of those days. Maybe we'll go on some type of field trip or just go to the park or hike at Moraine for some fun!

Now the kids are in bed and I'm soon to follow, but I'm trying to get a post in every day!

Since the kids and I are doing our Give Thanks board, I have been writing mine down on paper each day.
1. Thankful for my dear husband and 3 kiddos
2. So glad to have beautiful, sunny weather
3. Safety from an almost accident!
4. Thankful for hard work, exhaustion from that work and great sleep and a warm soft bed to enjoy the sleep!

Weekly Wrap-Up

2011-11-04T21:39:00.000-04:00

My weekly wrap-up logo isn't uploading for some reason this evening, but that's what this is! :)

We had a typically productive week, but I think we are lacking something and I'm just not sure what it is at this time.

The kids did their Math lessons, Spelling, Explode the Code, Grammar, learned about Honesty and Proverbs 12:22 and recited it today, History and Science. I'm obviously not in the mood to write it all out this week. Today was an "easy day" of school. We only took necessary tests and Bible verse reciting today.

Mom (me) waking with a migraine didn't help matters. Today I was quite a mess. Started the day with that headache, nausea and just wanted to crawl back into bed, but I didn't. After downing some saltines and some hot tea I was able to stomach some Excedrin Migraine (I am ever so thankful for that).

I've decided that since we're to have weather in the 60's on Monday and Tuesday with no rain (this is November in western, PA) that we are not having school those days. I am looking forward to this 4 day weekend! Really looking forward to it!

That's a wrap-up here. Thanks for stopping by!

NaBloPoMo Day #3

2011-11-03T23:13:00.000-04:00

Today was such a busy day. Started out with school in the morning, as always. Homeschooling takes up most mornings and sometimes an afternoon, but not too often. We did our usual Thursday work load and enjoyed time on our recorders! Ryan has showed interest in my guitar in the past. I might get that out next week and see how that goes.

Right now I'm sitting here hardly able to type because my arms and hands and back are so sore. Since we got a new vehicle last Saturday I was worried about all the overgrowth on our driveway scratching up the black paint, so I took the hedge trimmers (the ones like gigantic scissors) and hacked away at that thing. 2 hours later and I almost finished it. We have a very long, steep driveway. Photographs are very deceiving.

As I mentioned on my facebook page, I am so thankful for God's protection! Yesterday I was nearly rear-ended by another vehicle as I sat in a line of vehicles at a stop light. It was scary to see the car not slowing down and then seeing the other driver's face and hear the squeal of tire tread on the road just behind me. I'm thanking God the other driver skidded off the road behind me or it would have been ugly!

Now I must get to bed!

Going Through the Motions

2011-11-03T12:50:00.000-04:00

The school days are going by just fine, but I am sure the kids and I are all experiencing burn-out. What we need is a field trip. I'm just not sure where to go at this time. I'm considering going to Old Economy Village OR going to the Old Stone House on Friday, December 9th from 6-9pm. It seems like it would be something fun and Christmasy. :) Here's a link to their upcoming special events: Old Stone House.

I was just thinking how bland we've been in the field trip department this year. I have great ideas, just haven't had the energy to get them going. Now that we have a new to us vehicle that uses a lot less gas and is more trustworthy I will do better at planning. The long winter months just do me in and we'll need to venture out to break the monotony!

Just a random post about the blah days of school.
Have a great day!

NaBloPoMo

2011-11-02T23:11:00.000-04:00

Today I'm using NaBloPoMo writing prompt because my net book has all my pictures on it and I am no where near it at the moment and today is almost over. Yikes!

The prompt is "If you knew that whatever you ate next would be your last meal, what would you want it to be? "

I would love to eat a huge T-bone steak (20oz), cooked medium rare, a pile of delicious french fries - lightly seasoned, but not overly salty, and a huge dessert of ice cream - chunky cookies n cream. Nothing healthy, I mean who would care, it's the last meal? :)

Not having to worry about calories, of course.

Once Upon a Time

2011-11-01T21:58:00.001-04:00

Having never done so, I thought I might write about my life and even include some pretty sweet pictures. A lot of them are from a mini scrapbook I had made a few years ago.

It started for me on a July evening, though I guess it started more for my parents at that point. :)
God bless them!
Sleepless nights, up with a screaming, colicky baby.

My hair was said to be light brown with frosted looking tips. I have no recollection of this point in my life. It's probably a good thing we can't remember when we were babies. Throwing up on our selves, messing in our diapers, drooling all over ourselves and all that other wonderful baby stuff. It's probably good we don't remember it or we'd probably never have our own kids.

Obviously time moved on some and I am 5 in the photo on the left. That was my kindergarten picture. I have a few memories before I was 5, but not many. One time my parents took us to the circus and I only remember sitting up high and it was kind of smokey.

The photo on the right was Christmas, but I don't know what year that was. Dolls were one of my favorite things to play with and I was apparently enjoying this bottle. I was always the mom and always the boss. My poor brother and sister! Always stuck with me bossing them around. I was not always a nice kid, believe it or not, especially when you consider how nice I am now. . . Just kidding!

One thing I remember about being 4/5 is how excited I was to go to kindergarten where my older cousin, who's now my best friend, went to school! Plus my neighbor friend, Lynn, was going to the same school, too. Prospect Elementary looked so cool and we had done a tour of the place, but right before the school year began we moved to Portersville and a new school district Tears were shed when I learned I couldn't go to Prospect Elementary.

I had to go to a school called Muddy Creek Elementary. What a name . . . Muddy Creek. There was no creek near the school that was muddy, but it turned out being a fun school for the amount of time I went there. K-2nd grade and that ended my public school career.

Favorite things about kindergarten: Pudding painting, tying my shoes, lots of educational play time, new friends, half days of school.

During these early years of my life, my dad became a Christian (Christ-follower), then mom followed and we started attending church when I was probably 4. Those details are hazy to me, too. All I know is when we went to church I always had a baby doll with me. I couldn't leave my child at home! Whichever was my favorite doll at the time would surely cry if I didn't have her along. I just knew it!

To be continued . . .

I've decided to join up with:

Encouraged by my bloggy friend Deanne @ Fragile Flower to join NaBloMoPo.

Weekend In Review!

2011-10-30T17:33:00.000-04:00

Here is the computer my husband built. It's really like a filing

cabinet glowing with kryptonite. It is super fast and a dream to use!

My Christmas present is already loaded on and I've been playing

with Photoshop CS5. I have no idea what I'm doing on there at this point in time,

but it seems pretty sweet!

Yesterday we woke up to this.

Eric was up really early for work and was hoping it was

the moonlight on his truck, but it wasn't.

It was snow, obviously.

The plus side is we didn't get what the east coast got.

Whew! :)

Here is our front yard yesterday morning.

Thankfully it melted away, but it's still cold.

These 30 degree temperatures must be awful when you're

molting in October. Poor Bucka Bucka. I feel SO bad for her!

She totally needs a jacket or snuggie or something.

Eric said I should come up with a chicken snuggie, lol!

Then yesterday we decided we needed a new vehicle.

Our durango was pretty much becoming a money pit

and was in need for more repairs. We dumped a lot into the durango this summer

just to have it pass inspection. Eric was quite bummed about

it needing still more repairs, so he visited the Ford Garage Friday after work.

This little number caught his eye, so he had to take me yesterday.

We were only going to look.

Just. look. at. what. they. had.

Only looking.

hahahahaha

Well, Mr. Pete had us go for a ride and I can't tell you how much

I fell in love with this Ford Escape!

We haggled and got a decent price and now I feel really cool

riding around in my "less of a gas hog" vehicle.

It's so little and cute.

Did I mention I love it?

Weekly Wrap-Up

2011-10-28T14:14:00.000-04:00

Week 11

Pretty much a repeat of last week's accomplishments - a lesson ahead, of course.

Then again, there are some differences. Grace did a lesson in her math and got a 100% on her test today.

Also, Grace didn't do any Explode the Code because we're still waiting for it to arrive. Her spelling wasn't so good today and she was upset about it, but I am taking into consideration that she hasn't been feeling well for the past week or so. Her big crocodile tears do break my heart though!

Nathan had a 95% on his math test. He also tested in Grammar, Spelling and Science. Spelling and Science were good, but Grammar is definitely a retake. Punctuation can be so challenging sometimes.

Ryan had a 95% on his math test, too. Different test than Nathan. :) He did well on spelling - only missing 3 words this week.

Today we watched a couple videos for Science and History because I was that lazy. The kids enjoy the videos and seem to really learn from them, so I don't feel so guilty about it.

We learned about being Generous this week. I Corinthians 13:3 was our memory verse. It's one of those verses we will be reviewing in the weeks to come, so while they didn't do well with it the review will be good.

The kids have been reading 20 minutes (at least) each day.

Phys. Ed - does dismantling the garden count? I think it could. They had to drag plants to the woods after we picked them all.

Art - the kids have been drawing. They draw and color almost every day, so that's good!

We're also going to check out Mark Kistler's Imagination Station and see what is on that site - related to drawing, etc.

That's about all from here for now.

Is it Thanksgiving week yet? I am SO ready for a vacation!

'Tis A Frosty Morning

2011-10-28T10:05:00.000-04:00

Eric's frosted truck window.

I don't know what this is, but it was frosted on Eric's truck

Looks like abstract art to me.

Frosty plant.

I love the crunchy sound of frosted leaves, but they are a little slippery

More frosted leaves and even frozen water droplets on the grass.

Frozen water droplets on these cherry looking thingys.

I found this frosted web and had to get a picture of it, too.

I'm not a fan of cold mornings or cold/winter weather, but the

frost sure is beautiful.

Give Thanks

2011-10-27T14:35:00.004-04:00

Source: jellybeanjunkyard.wordpress.com via Emily on Pinterest

This is the before . . . just cut the envelopes and

was measuring them on the tri-fold display board.

I figured the display board is easier to store.

I also found some fall looking paper and glued it on the envelopes.

Grace and I painted it a tan color.

Not as bright as the white or dark as the brown would have been.

And ta-da, here is the finished product!

I'm so excited how it turned out.

The only thing I have left to do is cut the 150 pieces of

paper to put in all of the envelopes. :)

In November we'll be writing down something

we're thankful for each day!
I'm so excited!

Right Now

2011-10-26T21:24:00.000-04:00

Is there a real purpose to this post?
Nope.

Just figured I would write exactly what was happening right now at 9:10pm.

Right now I'm sitting on the lounge part of our living room couch.
I'm sitting on a pillow because, while I love this couch it's not always comfortable.

Right now I'm watching The Shunning on the Hallmark Channel.
I realized how sad it is that I've read the book and can't remember exactly what happened.
I only realized this because Eric was asking me questions about the movie/book and I can't remember.
How sad is that?

All this while sitting in the living room. Have I mentioned that I don't sit in the living room very often. I don't know what it is or why that is.

Right now I'm suffering a small headache and sore throat.
Right now I blame that on everyone else in the family. They've all been sick.

Right now I feel like a failure where my children are concerned.
I sometimes say things that aren't becoming of a loving mother.
And follower of Christ.

Right now it's 9:23pm and it's taken me this long just to write these few lines.
Right now I'm going to close up this post and stop this madness.

Have a good night, all!

Forgot One Thing from the Weekend

2011-10-25T21:46:00.003-04:00

We heard a dog bark on our back porch Saturday night.

We don't have a dog for one thing, so it was shocking.

We wondered what on earth was going on, so we flipped on the switch.

And we saw this big old coon hiding from the dog.

The coon held on for quite a while, so I took as many pictures as could.

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong with my Nikon, but I can't

get it to take night photos very often.

I need to study up on that. :)
These are taken with my point and shoot.

Anyway, Mr. Coon was trying to eat the chicken feed I had

on the back porch, but the neighbor's dog disrupted the coon's dinner.

Weekend In Review

2011-10-24T16:55:00.000-04:00

Here is a picture of a molting chicken.

This is one of the gimpy twins (they have funky toes, same color legs).

They look ridiculous without tail feathers and it's even worse

when they stand under the roost and get bombarded from above.

At least they are molting before the winter weather sets in. I can't imagine

how cold it would be to be molting in the freezing, snowy weather.

I'm also glad I'm not a chicken.

Grace and Henny Penny.

They are so cute!

Henny does look a little rumpled here though.

I was practicing with my new tripod on Saturday.

It was a great deal at Sam's Club for a Manfrotto tripod and backpack!

Manfrotto reminds me of Lord of the Rings.

Eric and I were out shopping Saturday.

We had a date day really. The kids were playing at their cousin's

and we were looking for a tv stand (which we didn't find) and

had to get cables and other fun things for Eric to work with to move our

living room around. We really moved a lot of stuff.

Eric is planking the old tv.

He is sad to give up this old tv.

I, on the other hand, am not so sad.

This, to me, is a hilarious picture and had to share it.

I emptied my bookcase that was in the living-room.

It now resides in the kitchen and is the school bookcase.

The old, black piece of junk is now out in the fire pit.

Books for sale: Do email me for details if you're interested.

This is what my kitchen looked like yesterday.

Here's the other side.

It pretty much looks the same today, just a few things

are moved back to their places.

We re-arranged the living room.

See the old tv. It's still sitting there today.

My hubby LOVES that old thing.

I may have mentioned that before.

I'm looking forward to it going away.

I would love more space in my living room.

Here is our new tv.

It's sitting on an end table until we can get a new stand for it.

It is a wonderful tv! A Samsung Smart TV.

It is kinda smart, for a tv.

I love it. . .if only I can have some time to watch it!

The other 4 people in the family do tend to hog these things.

Ok, really the other 3 people.

The kids love putting it into 3D and watching everything.

3D makes me a little barfy feeling if I watch it too long.

I love getting old.

Here's the living room from the tv side.

My house is still a disaster.

It's a good thing we don't get much unexpected company!

This is Bucka Bucka hanging out on the front porch.

It's chilly and rainy out today. :(

She's much happier now that she has joined the land of the living.

Now I'm trying to break Rusty from her broodiness. Silly hens.

I'm hoping for a broody springtime. We'll need to hatch some babies.

Gotta keep the family growing, especially since some of them will be old.

We did not go to church yesterday as all 3 of my children

are secreting some kind of mucus. I thought it better to

keep them all home. Eric disclosed that he had a tickle in his throat

and a little nasal dripping happening last night.

I hope they don't share this glorious head-cold thing with me.

There is no time for that!

I just realized that I forgot to take a picture of the computer

and the desk we moved downstairs from our bedroom.

My bedroom is a mess, too.

Way too much stuff.

That has made me think about all the stuff we need to get rid of.

We have a lot of stuff.

Too much stuff!

Anyone else with me on the too much stuff thing?

In other news, I started reciting Colossians 2 on Saturday.

That means I finished chapter one! Woo Hoo!

Thanks again to Cindy for keeping me accountable!

Have a great week!

Thanks for stopping by!

Weekly Wrap Up

2011-10-24T11:09:00.000-04:00

Week 10

Last week was one of those weeks where the kids completed their school work, but it was still a crazy week. The kids have all come down with colds and are in different stages of it. We did take Thursday off as a sick day and I did some fun crafting stuff. It was a nice day off - I needed it as much as they did!

MATH: The boys each completed a lesson in their books and Grace did a unit test and some review the rest of the week.

GRAMMAR: Nathan completed his adjective review and did an adjective test. He had to retake his test because I wasn't happy with his first score. He did ok the 2nd time.

SPELLING: Nathan did section S-3 and missed only one word on his test. Ryan and Grace worked on their word list (K-1) from the previous week and took the test on Friday. They did much better the 2nd time. We did a lot of fun review on their word list and that definitely helped!

EXPLODE THE CODE: Grace finished up her books 2 and 2 1/2 and is waiting on her new ones. Ryan is working through his books and doing ok. I definitely need to have him read more outloud to me, but he's doing ok. Working with Ryan is ever so slow, but we want to be thorough.

HISTORY: We read a couple lessons last week, but didn't have anything extra or exciting to go along with them.

SCIENCE: Pretty much a bust last week. Nathan was the only one that accomplished anything in his Creation or Evolution book. Ryan and Grace did a craft with leaves - making animals. Grace actually didn't finish hers, but Ryan made a dinosaur. I made a cute little owl. :)

ART: The kids had some drawing sessions on their own last week. They are such good doodlers.

MUSIC: We didn't do anything in music last week. With headcolds I thought it wise not to get out the recorders.

PHYS. ED.: Monday night the kids roller skated for 2 hours. They had a great time! The kids also went to their cousin's house Tues., Wed., and Sat. and had hours of nerf enjoyment. They love running around playing for hours and hours.

BIBLE: Last week the kids learned about Forgiveness and memorized Ephesians 4:32. I've also been reading them more stories about Solomon Lapp. That is their new favorite devotional/story book.

It was a good week, for the most part. This week has started off with a bang - hahahaha. Yeah, it's been a rough morning so far. I'm hoping the rest of the week goes better than today.

Happy Monday!

Fall Decor

2011-10-20T10:03:00.000-04:00

Decorating is something I don't do much around here.

Usually I'm just happy if I can get the place clean! :)

Well, I decided that since I love fall so much, why not decorate?!

And that's what I did.

It's not a lot of decorations.

This first picture is above my sink.

I bought the little scare crow girl and then filled a vase with

acorns and other nuts the kids gathered outside.

The top of the buffet is looking nice for the picture.

It's cluttered again, but it looked nice for a few minutes. :)

My front door is a rusty mess, but I did buy a new welcome mat.

Since we're having a sick day today, I'm going to start working on this:

Source: jellybeanjunkyard.wordpress.com via Emily on Pinterest

Chicken News

2011-10-18T11:05:00.003-04:00

Remember Bucka Bucka?

She's my broody hen.

Can you believe she's still sitting on an egg?

The first egg did not hatch, so I put another one under her

because she just can't seem to break out of the broodiness.

So she sat on her 2nd egg for another 21+ days.
(hatch date was to have been Saturday)

That makes over 42 days of sitting on an egg.

There are several reasons this 2nd egg didn't hatch:

1. She would go out to dust and eat or whatever and then

come back in the coop and sit in an empty nest box.

Meanwhile her egg is sitting there getting cold in her caged in area.

2. She did #1 several times, but the most recent stupid thing she did was

not sitting on her egg because it rolled out of the nest.

It was sitting in front of the cage door and she was sitting on the empty nest.

The goofy chicken started pecking me when I tried putting

the egg back under her. She hadn't realized the egg wasn't under her.

3. She's just not that smart. Honestly, what a scatter-brained hen!

I think lack of warmth for long periods just killed the egg.

In a way I'm glad, because when the mamma hen is that dumb

the chick's life would be pretty much in danger anyway.

Probably should take the egg out and see what happened in there.

Science class for sure!

UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I went *tap* on the edge of the rock.
It went *POP* and there was laughter and gross-outs everywhere!
Stinky smells and my pants did get a little spray of rotten egg on them.
It's a good thing I have lots of sweats. :)

After this, I've decided I'm going to just ignore the hen and her craziness
and not put any more eggs under her for now.
She's started molting and she kinda needs the feathers to keep the
eggs warm and colder weather will be happening soon.
Maybe she'll get all broody in the spring
and we can stick a bunch under her and see what happens then.

Weekly Wrap-Up

2011-10-17T12:17:00.000-04:00

Week 9

Ahh, last week. It was definitely a week that was full of all kinds of things, including school! Here's our school week, in a nutshell:

MATH: Last week Nathan finished lesson 16 in his book. Ryan did Unit test 2 and then worked on multiplication tables for the rest of the week. Grace finished lesson 15 and they all did well on their tests.

GRAMMAR: Nathan is finishing up the adjective section of his Easy Grammar book and also the punctuation section at the back. I'm not sure he totally understands adjectives, but we'll get there. He really needs to practice his writing skills and see how adjectives work.

EXPLODE THE CODE: Ryan and Grace are doing pretty good in their books. Grace will be finishing up 2 and 2 1/2 this week. Ryan still does miss some words in his books. I think partly because he doesn't pay attention and sometimes he just has difficulty distinguishing sounds.

SPELL TO WRITE AND READ: Nathan finished his section S-2 and got a 90% on his test. Ryan and Grace started K-1 last week and it was just an ugly test. They'll both be going over the same word list this week using different activities. They gotta get better than half the words right this time around! :)

HISTORY & SCIENCE: We did do a reading or two in our Founding of the United States Experience last week and Nathan worked on some pages in his Creation or Evolution book. We had some beautiful days last week so we were out observing the trees and their colorful leaves and picking up what we could so we can do projects on them.

BIBLE: The kids worked on memory verses last week and we read stories from the book The Wisdom of Solomon Lapp. All 3 of the kids really love the Solomon Lapp stories! They needed to work on a couple verses from the previous weeks during our Character Study. This week is a new verse and new character study (forgiveness).

We celebrated Ryan's 10th birthday last week!

He had a great couple days.

Grandparents on Friday for pumpkin pie and ice cream.

Friends over to play the afternoon away on Saturday.

They ran around playing Nerf all afternoon and had a wonderful time!

We also drove around and enjoyed the beautiful leaves

before they were mostly blown away in the windy, rainy weather

we had the last couple days!

Electric Woes

2011-10-15T21:06:00.000-04:00

My hubby figured he would just cut the tree down so it wouldn't

cause any problems in the winter with ice and snow.

Umm, yeah, it didn't work out that way.

We had removed the trees from the wire (very carefully)

and were waiting on the electric company to come fix it at this point.

It made for a very interesting week around here.

I think I actually hate our telephone right now.

Yes, the downed power line did bad things to the inside of the house.

We lost several things due to the power surge, until Eric threw the breaker.

Thankfully home owners insurance will help getting things back.

Most importantly we lost our water softener and need to get a new one quick.

We have very rusty water otherwise.

Also lost: living room tv, xbox 360, coffee pot, one surge protector,

wireless router for internet and it blew the compressor fan in the fridge.

We found a great guy that installed our compressor fan motor, thankfully!

Eric felt terrible about it.

It made for an adventurous week!

I learned about how home owners insurance works.

Also learned about refrigerators a little bit.
Well, I guess if a tree is going to fall down on your wires
it's better that it does it while there is no snow on the ground, especially
if you have a driveway like ours!

Fall Photos

2011-10-15T18:44:00.002-04:00

Leaf rainbow.

Having fun with my camera.

Looking down our driveway the other day,

On a country back road.

Mushrooms growing on a fallen log.

My name in leaves.

We had a visitor last week.

Isn't it cute?! :)

Looking into the trees.

Love these colors.

Porch of a little shack along a back road.

Corn field with some beautiful colors in the trees.

The Birthday Boy's Parties

2011-10-15T18:17:00.002-04:00

Grace set the table for Ryan's birthday breakfast.

Oatmeal was served, along with hot chocolate.

Ryan had birthday pumpkin pie.

It was good, I have to say. :)

After he blew out the candles.

I just like how they were glowing here.

Today Ryan had a couple friends and his cousin over to play.

They are outside still playing with their nerf guns.

Nice and sunny day, though very windy today.

The pizza and cookies and chips and iced tea were all good.

That's what they said anyway. :)

Today was Ryan's dream birthday party - friends to play Nerf with.

I'm so glad he's had a great day!

Happy Birthday!

2011-10-14T09:33:00.000-04:00

I love to remember this day, looking this HUGE.

9lbs 1oz baby is a lot of baby for a 5'1" momma.

Much happier with him in my arms here!

He's always been my snuggler.

Still is.

Aww, snuggling and drinking his milk

Here is Linus.

Such a cutie!

I can't believe how fast the time goes.

This one is a family favorite.

Look at those bubba cheeks!

Last summer at the drive-in theater.

This was on Tuesday, Oct. 11th, 2011.

He was ready to go play, hunt, kill with his silver painted nerf gun.

I especially love the bandanna and sunglasses.

Sometimes God gives you the unexpected in life.

Ryan was the surprise baby in our family. :)

My boys are 14 months apart and those early days were

difficult, crazy, wonderful, but I wouldn't trade them for anything!

Some times I would like those days back just for a little while.

Just to remember completely.

I'm so thankful for the children God has blessed us with!

I pray they grow up to become what God wants them to be,

and that their desires in life are His desires.

Happy Birthday, Ryan!

I. Love. You!

Women of Faith Weekend (Oct 7-8) (Pt.2)

2011-10-12T17:04:00.001-04:00

The Women of Faith weekend was like nothing I've ever experienced. I've been to conventions of different kinds and I guess all of them are unique in their own ways. This one was just what I needed at this point in my life. It's always amazing how God works things out to give you what you need and when you need it.

I'm not even sure exactly where to begin. There was so much to take in this past weekend. My favorite speakers were the first day speakers, though I did enjoy them all.

One of the things I noticed is that they all spoke TO the audience, not AT the audience. These were women and a gentleman that knows we are all fallible, messy people and were not acting like they were super special because of what God did in their lives. It's because what He did in their lives that they were able to share their stories with us. Share the amazing power of God in their lives and how we can all be open to that power of God though His Word.

Sheila Walsh has such a neat story and that woman can sing! I had no idea she sang so beautifully! My limited knowledge of her was from wayyy back in her 700 Club days. So much has changed in her and in her life since those days. She dug in to God's Word and opened my own eyes to very familiar passages that I hadn't even thought about!
For Example:
The one passage that is familiar is the woman in Mark that had the issue for 12 years. I never thought about the Jewish law at that time. When someone was unclean, they were not to be touched or to use anything of anyone else's because it or they would be considered unclean. The person that would so much as touch her would be unclean for a week afterwards. So this woman was alone, completely. I can't imagine a life where no one could even give you a hug or a handshake or anything. How completely and utterly alone. That's when she touched the hem of Jesus' garment and was healed by her faith. Jesus knew what had happened and told her to "Go in peace." I'm pretty sure I can't even imagine how that woman felt after that.

Then Sheila Walk sang such a beautiful rendition of Amazing Grace. I just LOVED it!

"Peace is not the absence of trouble, it's the presence of Christ that changes everything." --Sheila Walsh

Dr. Henry Cloud was the 2nd speaker Friday morning/afternoon. I had never heard of him before, but I totally enjoyed his speaking and how he uses God's Word in his work as a psychologist. He had so many neat illustrations and you just can't take notes of illustrations. :) His talks revolved around Happiness and he wrote a book about it. I'm thinking of getting this for my kindle at some point in time.

Since this WoF tour was called Imagine Dr. Cloud explained the differences between imagination and fantasy. I found this very interesting and thought I would share it.
Imagine - to see something or to create a reality.
**When I was a kid I was quite the imaginative child, so I totally see this!**
Fantasy, on the other hand, is something that cannot truly be.

On being happy, there are a few reasons for it and how it is accomplished.
Dr. Cloud gave 3 facts from happiness research:
1. only 10% can come from anything circumstantial.
2. biology- genetics
3. it comes from a set of life practices - and these practices are found in God's Word.

Two points (out of many that were not given during these sessions) about happy people:
1. Happy people are givers. When you give willingly, it's good for your health.
Givers learn the joy of stop giving - when there's no fruit or joy. People sometimes abuse those that are givers by taking and taking and that does take away the joy of giving.
**In my notes I also have Romans written and something about learning to receive, but I didn't complete that thought.
2. Happy people are connected people. There is no such thing as happiness out of yourself.

Dr. Cloud also spoke about the pruning we need to do in our lives. We have to get rid of the old things and have those "necessary endings" taken care of so we can move on and get something new.
There are 3 reasons to prune a rose bush:
1. You have to prune when there are too many blooms. We have to let go of stuff in our lives so we can focus on the things we really need to work on. If we have too much stuff around, we can't focus on the things we truly need to.
2. Some areas are sick and need to be removed. That way it doesn't spread to the rest of the plant.
3. The dead stuff that is taking up space needs to be removed so it can grow unhindered.

At this point in my life, I have some pruning I need to do - lots of clutter and some sick areas I need to remove and dead stuff that needs to be taken care of. I'm at the "search me o God and know my heart" stage right now. I have my little compartments that I've closed off and just don't want to look at, but I know I need to.

All of the other speakers I enjoyed and learned from. Lisa Harper, Nicole Johnson, Angie Smith and Luci Swindoll (whom I learned is Charles Swindoll's sister, not wife like I had thought).

The over-riding theme that I personally picked up on was "tell the truth." Each speaker had mentioned this at some point and truthfully, honestly and openly shared their lives and the journey each of them are on. God wants me to be honest and I know this. Honest about what I believe, why I believe it, what kind of life I've had and how this life of mine either does or doesn't honor Him.

This was such a neat experience and I'm so thankful for pen and paper so I could record as much as possible with it.

I'm SO thankful for booksneeze.com that gave me the opportunity to attend Women of Faith this year! I'm thankful for Renea and am glad she was able to go with me this year! We had a great time and it was nice to get to know each other better. We've been related (through marriage) for almost 13 years now, but she has only been in our area the last couple years. We totally enjoyed our "mini-vacation."

A few more quotes:
"There's always peace to be found at Christ's feet." -Sheila Walsh

"All God ever calls us to do is offer our hearts and He will do the work." -Nicole Johnson

"God takes us, garbage and broken pieces, and makes us beautiful." -Nicole Johnson

"We have a choice every day, follow God or follow the world." -Angie Smith

‎"Enjoy life simply because you have the gift of living." "Live for now, this moment. don't let your life pass by

always wishing for something else." Luci Swindoll.

Women of Faith Weekend (Oct 7-8) (Pt. 1 - photos)

2011-10-10T15:58:00.004-04:00

This was the worst traffic I was in the entire weekend, believe it or not!

This was outside of Mars, PA on 228 around school time Friday morning.

Crazy long wait on this road, but the rest of the trip was a breeze!

For that I am thankful!

I walked inside the arena and this was my first sight! So pretty!

This is Renea and I. We had a wonderful weekend at WOF!

We both needed a "vacation" and this was it for us!

The WOF worship team.

Sheila Walsh - I totally enjoyed hearing her story.

I cried and laughed.

I think I didn't cry when Dr. Cloud spoke, but I did laugh some and learned

some interesting things, too.

*I'm writing another post about some of the things I learned from the speakers.

Totally enjoyed the Q & A session

with Sheila Walsh and Dr. Henry Cloud.

Nicole Johnson.

She made me laugh and cry several times!

She's rather witty and has a touching story.

Mary Mary.

I never heard of them or their music until this weekend.

While I might not be a fan of their music, their obvious

love for what they do and their love for the Lord was definitely coming through!

I totally enjoyed watching them - they make me smile!
And I bet they are a blast to hang out with!

Natalie Grant.

Honestly, I never heard of her either, until this weekend.

Not my kind of music either, but I enjoyed her love for the Lord and

her testimony of Him in her life.

"The Porch"

Lisa Harper.

This woman also made me laugh and cry!

I cried a lot this past weekend!

Angie Smith.

She also made me laugh and cry!

An amazing story that I read online before and I was so excited she was there!

Luci Swindoll.

Sister of Charles Swindoll.

She had some good points that I will definitely be writing about.

I have much to say, but have no time right now!

I will try writing later this evening with so many things I learned!

Weekly Wrap-Up (two weeks)

2011-10-06T13:07:00.000-04:00

Weeks 7 & 8

I'm breaking it down by kids this time around. It's been a busy couple weeks, let me tell ya!

NATHAN: Math: In week 7 he did a Unit Test and reviewed multiplication tables and skip counting the rest of the week. He also did some online math drills on the MathUSee.com site. This week he did lesson 15 and was concentrating on the 4's. He's done most of them by now and does ok. It's amazing how he can forget the simple ones! :)

Easy Grammar: He's currently working on Adjectives and how you can find and use them in a sentence. He did pages 139-147 and in the punctuation pages he completed pages 282 - 290. I'm glad practice makes better here! He does well once he understands what's going on. It's the punctuation and capitalization that he always forgets when writing! I'm thinking when he's done with Easy Grammar that we're going to find some other grammar program.

SWR: He completed section J-6 last week and got a 90% on the test. He completed spelling section S-1 this week. He missed 3 words on his test today 85%. This is his favorite subject and he hates when he misses anything.

Science: Last week he took Unit Test 2 and got a 90% on that and this week he started Unit 3. He learned of God's Plan, The Ark, and The Flood this week.

Cursive Writing: He's practicing words and sentences in his book now. He does ok. Some days he writes much nicer than others, so at least I know he can do it neatly. He's done pages 1-9 in the two weeks.

RYAN: Math: Ryan completed 2 lessons in the 2 weeks getting 100% on both tests (lessons 13-14). He sometimes does so terrible on his lessons that I am sure he'll not do well on his test, but he always surprises me!

SWR: He completed sections J-5 and J-6 and missed a couple words on J-5 and 1 word on J-6 today getting a 95%. He's doing ok with this and reading. We'll keep pressing on!

ETC(explode the code): He's doing pretty good in here, but there are times he forgets his rules and the practice in these books are good for him! He's about halfway through his books 3 and 3 1/2.

Cursive: completed practice pages up to 13. He likes practicing cursive!

Science: hmm, the past couple weeks have been kinda crazy, so this has been set aside. We'll be learning about spider webs next week! :)

GRACE: Math: she completed lessons 13 and 14 in the last 2 weeks and got a 100% last week and a 95% this week. She LOVES math - she wrote me a note and said "math is osom" :)

SWR: Same lessons as Ryan and I think she missed 2 words on her test last week and one word today. She does well with her spelling and it's helping her with her reading.

ETC: Grace is nearly finished with her books 2 and 2 1/2. I honestly have to order her some books soon - next week! She likes ETC.

Cursive: She wrote her capital letters B to J the last two weeks. She's doing well with this subject, at least with the practice pages. We'll see how it goes once she has to put them together in words!

Science: See Ryan. :)

OTHER SUBJECTS WE DO TOGETHER:

Bible: This week's character study was Diligent and last week was Courage. Diligent verse is John 4:9 and Courage verse is Deuteronomy 31:6. Both these verses aren't sticking so well, so next week we're going to review all the Character Traits and their meanings and review all the verses we've learned up to date.

Art/Music: Yeah, we didn't get around to these subjects this week and last week we did have some art time. Plus the kids were doing their own drawings/projects. That's always good! :)

History: Last week we read about the British and Continental Soldiers (pgs 22-25), then last Friday did a worksheet on the Soldiers in Colonial Times. This week we read about "British Returning to the Colonies" pgs 26-27 and and "From New York to the Jersery Woods - Washington Retreats" pages 28-29 in our Founding of the United States Experience book.

Looks like we've had a busy couple weeks. I know it has felt that way. Now for a 3 day weekend! I'm going to Women of Faith for a spiritual refreshing that is much needed and the kids get some quality time with their Mimi and their Dad these days I'm out for a bit!

HAPPY FALL!

Check It Out!

2011-10-04T23:50:00.000-04:00

I love Pinterest for many reason and here are a few reasons why:

Jimmie's Collage

Freebies and great ideas.

I'm not naturally good at coming up with

cool ideas myself and I SO LOVE the internet for

that very reason! :)

A great idea for all those leaves on the ground:

KO- KO-KO KIDS

the site is in Russian, but the pics are so cool!

Found another site to help the kids with boredom:

MOM, I'M BORED ACTIVITY CARDS

Printed these fun ideas yesterday!

A free download!

ENJOY!

Emily

This and That

2011-10-03T22:54:00.002-04:00

Those red berry thingys with water drops.

So pretty!

Another one of those red berry thingys.

I love how the background looks on this one.

It's such a pretty color this time of year.

This was right beside my head as I was taking some pictures.

The leaf is a leaf, but the dead caterpillar is gross!

So of course I had to get a picture.

Very pretty red leaf on the ground.

A pretty orange leaf.

I made Shepherd's Pie tonight for dinner

and 3 out of 5 liked it.

This was the first time I've ever made this.

Yum!

Grace felt like painting a hardboiled egg.

And she was proud of it! :)

She ended up painting 2 of them, but dropped one and it cracked.

Since she painted with acrylics, she had to throw the egg away.

They both ended up being brown in the end.

Grace's Butterfly Feet painting.

She decided she wanted to fill hers in and make it wonderful.

I made her do one for me the way I wanted it.

I think it's so cute.

She decided to frame hers. I'll have to buy another

frame for the other one. :)

(this was an idea from Pinterest-

I am not naturally very creative, so this site helps me)

Just had to throw in a chicken picture.

They're hanging out in the field behind our property.

This was the corn field a couple weeks ago, but they mowed it.

The chickens enjoy scratching around back there, but I try

to discourage it as much as possible!

It was quite a nice Monday.

School went well,

kids were well behaved,

it was warmer than yesterday,

I saw the sun shine a few times today,

(and almost didn't know what it was)

God is certainly good!

Plugging on with the encouragement of Cindy to learn

Colossians 1:27-29

27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: 28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: 29Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.

My mind isn't as good as retaining as it used to be, but

I'm thankful for Cindy's persistence and determination.

We CAN memorize the book of Colossians in a year and

we're almost a quarter of the way done! :)

One other thing I am super excited about and looking forward to

is Women of Faith this weekend!! Woo Hoo!

I've never gone to one of these events and I am looking forward

to the time of spiritual refreshment and nourishment.

It'll be a nice break from the normal and

the kids are thrilled to have a 3 day weekend.

Thank the Lord!

Yard Visitor

2011-10-03T09:58:00.000-04:00

My overexposed photo of the bear - this was after adjusting it some

inside my camera.

(I'll try adjusting it more on picnik)

Much better.

Thankfully the chickens aren't outside yet.

I opened the upstairs window to get a better photo and it

was a squeaky window and it ran away quickly.

Blog Template

2011-10-01T14:44:00.003-04:00

I changed my blog template today - Liz inspired me. :)

She and her husband did a real nice job on her blog!

Check it out - click on Liz's name!

(they are neighbors to us)

So today I shopped around for a nice,

freebie template and found this one.

I LOVE it!

What do you think?

I need to do something with the header, but I'm not sure what.
Or HOW to change stuff up there! :)