Posts

Showing posts from July, 2010

Bible Challenge Week 4

Image
  I have not been blogging about this Bible Day Challenge and tonight I was ready to give up.  Though I started on July 5th with everyone else, I quickly slipped behind.  I am so far behind by now that I just didn’t think it would be possible to continue.  I’m not sure why but I decided to head over to Mom’s Tool’s Box and I read tonight’s check in.  Wow!  I feel very encouraged to keep on trying.  Maybe, just maybe I’ll actually finish the challenge!   Are you participating in the 90 Day Bible Challenge?  Perhaps you are doing a different reading challenge?  I’d love to hear what you are doing and you don’t even have to share if you are right on track or, like me, seemingly hopelessly behind.

Blog Walk Tour Week 5

Image
    (Thanks to Debbie at Debbie’s Digest for the Blog Walk graphic.) 1.  Cheryl blogs at Buckaroo Days .  Her son is adorable.  In addition to TOS Reviews, she says about what they are learning.  Check out the post about the rain gauge. 2. Christine is the mother of one daughter.  She blogs her reviews and blogs about her curriculum over at Our Homeschool Reviews . 3. I just love the title of this blog: Reed, Party of 6 .  Maybe it appeals to me because my family is also a “party of 6”.   Her family certainly looks like they enjoy being together. 4. Training Hearts at Home   What a great blog title.  She has a beautiful family as well as a beautiful blog!  I’ve enjoyed the ;pictures she has posted. 5. Cindy at  Along The Way has a well established blog.  What is it about blog title this week.  I am just really enjoying these titles.  The Full title of Cindy’s blog is Along the Way Our Journey as We Laugh, Learn and Play.  She has a zucchini pizza recipe that would go well wit

Five Favorite Friday July 23rd

Image
On Fridays, Susanne over at Living to tell the Story hosts a Friday Five Favorite Meme .   Today I have decided to participate. So I’m going to list my 5 favorite things from this week. 1. Visiting 3 Waterfalls  After picking up 2 girls from the Girls’ Retreat we took a slight detour on our way home to visit the Columbia River Gorge.   Here’s some pictures:   2.  Being Stuck in Traffic   I know that is an unusual item to list as a favorite thing.  How does becoming stuck in traffic become a favorite thing?  When it leads to being, silly, creative and having fun with the family!   Coming back home from the waterfalls, we ran into horrendous traffic.  What should have been a 3 1/2 hour drive ended up taking over 5 hours!  For a two hour period the traffic was stop and go.  During that time we stayed sane by making up silly license plate and I spy type games.  Not only did it make the horrible traffic bearable, we made a great family memory. 3. Hearing My Children Laugh   Earlier

TOS Review: Travel Kits

Image
As a member of the The Schoolhouse Review crew , I received the e-book Travel Kits: A Simple Way to Bless Others by Donna Rees. This e-book retails for $12.45. Containing 14 chapters plus an introduction and a bonus section, Ms. Rees walks you through a definition of a travel kit and gives a variety of suggestions for items to put into a travel kit. She has included lots of pictures so you can see examples of travel kits or types of containers.  Included in this 93 page e-book are photos, tips, suggestions, instructions for making games, and web site links for some suggested items. So what is a Travel Kit? Ms. Rees says, “a travel kit is a collection of items that will entertain and/or delight the passengers (especially the younger passengers), thus making the trip more pleasant for everyone.” p.7 When I first started looking through the e-book, I thought, is this just for younger kids?  What about the other passengers?  Can I use this to make kits for my family? No, the suggesti

Blog Under Construction

I received a notification from Cutest Blog on the Block that my design was not going to be available after Friday!  I am quite bummed as I had finally tweaked the colors, background and layout to suit me. So here I am tonight playing with the new Design tab of Blogger.  I think I’ve found something that I can live with for now. Someday I’d love to completely design my own background and upload it to my blog but for now, I’ll just keep searching and playing and experimenting. Do you like the new colors?  Do you have any suggestions? 

I don’t have time.

I so often hear myself saying “I don’t have time for this (or that)”  or I will say to the children “We don’t have time.” Hate is a particularly strong word, that I don’t encourage my children to use, but I have found myself growing to hate that phrase.  It sucks the life out of me.  Just what am I doing that is so important that I don’t have time to do the things I want to do? What is keeping me so busy that I don’t have time to enjoy spending time doing “nothing” with my children? Some of the life (time) suckers for me include computer time.  I enjoy spending time on the computer looking blogs, or reading a couple of forums or  some emails.  But…. sometimes I find that I use the computer as a distraction to keep me from doing something that needs to be done.  Then all of a sudden it is time to leave the house and I start shouting “I don’t have time.” But I can’t blame it all on the computer.  I think a good chunk of my “don’t have time” issues are a lack of good routines or habi

Free Movies for Families during the Summer

I just got home with TailorBear and Supergirl.   We went to see The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything at a local Regal Entertainment Group Cinema.   On Tuesday and Wednesday mornings at 10am they offer two choices for FREE.  Yes that’s correct; the price of the ticket is ZERO dollars.   According the website each week you have a choice of a G rated movie and a PG rated movie.   Both movies are available on both days. Turtlegirl (the daughter formerly known as RosieBear not to be confused with Prince who was Prince and then he was the artist formerly known as Prince and is now again Prince) and her older sister BooBear are away this week and I wanted to do something special with the girls left behind.   A movie to start the day followed by some errands and playing in the sun sounded perfect.   Next week, I think I’ll take all four of them to a FREE movie. You may want to visit Regal Entertainment Group’s  Family Film Festival to see if there are any participating theaters in your area. 

Blog Walk Tour Week 4

Image
  (Thanks to Debbie at Dbbie’s Digest for the Blog Walk graphic.) 1.  Brittney at King Alfred Academy has been blogging for a few years now.  She’s inspired me to work on my morning routine.  2. Bethany has some great home schooling posts over at Confessions of An Organized Homeschool Mom.   I saw several posts about portfolios that look very helpful.  I enjoyed her post about changing her blog. 3. I can’t decide what I like best about I Can't Decide . <grin>   Briana has some great photos on her side bar.  4. Mrs. Taffy blogs at My Life on A Taffy Pull .  I especially appreciated her two posts showing her creative ways of dealing with homemade bread that didn’t turn out quite right. 5. Check out the My Story tab at Losing My Tale . What a blessing to read! 6.  Cassie blogs over at Made in His Image .  Cassie and I are FB fans and I’ve been following Cassie’s blog since the end of May but I didn’t recognize it today because she’s given it a whole new look.  Check ou

Boy Did We (He) Work Hard

Image
Just wanted to take a moment to publicly applaud my Honeybear for all the work he accomplished on the Honey DO List this past long holiday weekend. First he left work early on Thursday so that I could go play with some of my Sonlight friends.   It was a much needed time away laughing with some wonderful homeschool moms.  Then on Friday morning he started clearing out the garage.  We had been putting things in the garage to take to bulk trash or recycling or even to give away.  Got all the bulk trash items out to the dump on Friday. On Saturday he loaded up the recycling (big boxes that needed to be broken down. We do recycle bi-weekly for the items that fit in the recycle bin) and took it to the public recycling site.   On both of those days, we sorted through the give away stuff for donations for our church for the rummage sale.  Some items were really not worth giving away so we threw them and we found MORE items that we could donate! Sunday we took a break from the garage.   We

A Blog Walking Tour Week 3

Image
It’s time to take a walking tour through another group of TOS Crew member blogs.   (Thanks to Debbie at Debbie’s Digest for the Blog Walk graphic.) 1. All American Family ---a background to match the name! What a fun idea. I found a variety of types of posts here by this homeschooling mom including a variety of reviews.  I especially enjoyed her post about purpose.  2. Wow! I was just incredibly blessed by Amy over at Growing Fruit .  She shares her heart, her struggles and her triumphs as she blogs about her son.  Amy and I share having a special needs child in common. 3. Angela is starting to blog at Learning to Teach .  I like her background and her subtitle spoke me: A journey in learning the Lord’s will for our children.   I look forward to reading what she has to say. 4. Stairsteps Homeschool Academy is Little Farm Mama’s journal of her homeschool.  She also has the cute back ground that Angela has.   Little Farm Mama uses workboxes and has a post with a picture of her wor

Five Question Friday

Image
Here it is the 2nd of July and I’ve still yet to really see summer.  We’ve had a few nice days but today is cold, dark, dreary and rainy.  These questions from Mama M at My Little Life look like fun.  Check out her blog to see how others have answered these questions.   Questions for Friday, July 2nd : 1. What is one thing you miss the most about childhood? Long, lazy days of endless summer where I rode my bike all over and read books sitting in the tree.  Summer doesn’t seem so lazy and ends far too soon now that I am an adult. 2. Are you still friends with your friends from high school? No.  There are one or two that I do wonder what they’ve been doing all these years. 3. Is there a catch phrase, cliche, or word that just drives you bonkers every time you hear it? YES.  It really drives me insane when people say “anywho”.    It’s anyway people.  Not a who. 4. What is one thing that you think symbolizes America...besides "Old Glory"? I don’t know if it is a thing