I'm the first to admit I'm a big fan of the show.  I love to hear all the kid noise and chaos coming from someplace other than my own home.  Makes me feel sane somehow.  But, last night I just had enough of Kate and her husband-bashing.  (Tune into Jon & Kate Plus 8 if you don't know what I'm talking about.)  I mean, I get Kate.  I get the whole control-freak thing.  I should - People say I'm just like her.  I just NEED her to be nice to the father of her children once in a while.  Is that so hard?

OK, enough venting.  Today was fantastic!  We spent a long time on Math.  I know I saw lightbulbs turning on for the first time ever regarding long division.  I finally pulled the plug on Math-U-See and I'm teaching it mommy-style.  The kids were so relieved to do it my way, they were actually glad to do their math.  Finally.  That Steve Demme really beats a dead horse when it comes to explaining long division.  I'd rather have a frontal labotomy.

Alrighty, then onto the other subjects...whatever I had assigned....oh yeah...They got to finish up their science experiment on osmosis.  We had two cups of baking soda water with a string connecting them.  After 3 days, the water soaked the string, then evaporated, leaving crystals.  Cool.  I'm a geek.

OK, the kids did that and other workbooky things, etc.  Then lunch, then silent reading.  Ahhhh....I love silent reading.  Mainly because of the word "silent."

Afterwards, we headed out to run errands and grocery shop.  We dropped off overdue library books in town, and overdue movies at Blockbuster, then headed out of town to drop off more overdue library books and then onto the grocery store.  Now, WHY do I shop at a distant grocery store, you may ask?  Remember last time when I talked about my cheapness?  My cheaposity?  OK, here's the prize.  My local gas stations are $3.59 per gallon.  Which is great, right?  But, my out of town Kroger gas station is $3.26 and when I use my Kroger plus card that brings it down to $3.16/gallon.  OH NO I DI-INT!!  So, I signed up for the Grocery Game using this zip code in a different county and I can print their list, shop there & fill up supacheap!

So, back to the narrative.  At the store, I run into my long lost friend "MADDIE ROSE!"  Names have been changed...because my children have mispronounced her name as long as we known her.  We had fun catching up.  The loudest two housewives you've heard seen in the grocery store.  Ever.  I ran into another friend from church too.  It was like a big reunion.

Survived the grocery store and come home in time to hand over the little ones to Jonathan and take the big ones to orientation at their tutorial.  I wish I could go there too.  I would totally love it!  So artsy fartsy.  Just a really great group of people and an awesome program.

Oh lordy, I am soooo tired.  I'm outta here.

Later.

I am notoriously cheap.  Sing it loud and sing it proud!  Here's my latest spectacular cheapfest:

1.  For our fall schedule, the following extracurricular activities for my kids are absolutely FREE:  Tap, Creative Child class, Acrylic Painting, Dance, Choir, AWANA, Boyscouts.  Nashville rocks!

2.  Golf lessons: I pay $20 for 8 weeks and they give you the clubs.  Say, whut?

3.  The Grocery Game (check it out online): I subscribe for about $7.50/month for the Kroger list and the Walgreens list and I save over 50% off the shelf price.  I know I've said this before, but my pantry and storage are looking like a 1950's bomb shelter. : )  If you join, tell them I sent you and I can earn some free weeks.

4.  I recently joined MyPoints.com and click on emails and fill out surveys to earn points for $10/$25/$50 gift cards.  One of the offers today was for Vista Prints. They have tons of items you can personalize and pay only shipping.  So today, I ordered several stationary items for the girls; notepads, notecards, address labels etc with their names on it.  Then I personalized a T-Shirt for my son with the name of his movie production company on it.  I paid $11 for shipping for all of it and that was it.  Normally, it would have cost $50+.  Vista Prints also does free business cards with tons of designs to choose from.  I ordered a set for my jewelry design business.  Anyway, that was a little early Christmas shopping.  You know, just cute little things to put in the stockings.

5.  I usually get 2 Sunday papers so I can clip double the coupons.  I am SUCH an old lady. : )

Oh, there's probably plenty more where that came from but I better quit for now.  We've got our evening routine to conquer in time for the kids' favorite show.

Later.

Hope you haven't been holding your breath for the last eight months!  I'm feeding this blog to my new facebook account so I seem to have found my mojo.

We have schooled all Summer.  That's just how we roll...my poor kids.  Good news is they don't seem to mind.  We keep it fun. 

Our Fall '08 schedule is cranking up and I'm really excited.  Now, even little Ava is on the board for extracurricular activities and I practically need a spreadsheet to keep up with all our comings and goings.  As usual, we will live in our minivan:

Mondays:  Acrylic-on-Canvas classes (Bailey/Olivia/Ella)

Tuesdays: Creative Child (Ella/Ava), Tap (Ella), Boyscouts (Bailey)

Wednesdays: Homeschool Tutorial covering History, Music, Art & Drama (Bailey/Olivia)

Thursdays: Golf (Bailey/Olivia), Dance/Hip-Hop (Olivia/Bailey), Choir (Bailey/Olivia/Ella)

Fridays: I MAY be teaching Acrylic-on-canvas classes and jewelry design classes at my home in the afternoons.  TBD

Sunday afternoons: AWANA (Bailey/Olivia/Ella and possibly Ava)

Once we get going with this (September) I will figure out when to schedule our library days.  Now we have a 2nd library in a nearby county we love to go to.  May have to alternate weeks or something. 

Today the kids and I discussed the upcoming Science Fair.  We were talking about theories they could test etc.  My son wants to do something with water and capsized boats.  He's really into moviemaking and has recently seen Jaws and The Poseidon Adventure.  Boys seem to process that intense stuff better than girls.  I never, ever got used to watching any type of disaster movie.  I was definitely born in the wrong era.  So anyway, little Steven Spielberg is wanting to either capsize something or blow it up.  And, of course my Olivia Jane wants to grow things and make the world a pretty place.  It will be interesting to see this evolve.

The kids worked hard today.  They memorized Eph. 4:29 which is our school verse for the year.  Got a lot of "unwholesome" words flying around these days and I'm determined to nip this thing in the bud.  Bailey and Olivia played a math game using flashcards and quizzed each other for a bit.  Then went onto math worksheets, grammar workbook, spelling words, cursive practice etc. 

For lunch, they helped me put it all together and we ate like pigs.  I don't know why some days we have too much food and somedays there's not enough.  You can never predict their appetites.  Or mine.

After lunch they went onto silent reading.  After they finished up all their work for the day, I had a nervous breakdown when I hurt my foot on one of the 15 million toys lying around on the floor.  It was like a giant storm cloud rolled in and all four kids braced themselves for the worst.  They got to work quickly cleaning up the mess; living room, hall, playroom and stairs - yes stairs!  When it was all done they were FREE -- oh, except for the laundry.  The never ending laundry.

Ok, but after THAT they were free.

More later. No, really.  I mean it.

If that chick in Proverbs 31 had the internet back in her day, my-oh-my what feats she could have accomplished!  In her honor, I've decided to start listing one item per day on ebay.  That is TOTALLY do-able.

Check out my husband's awesome bowl he turned over the weekend.

Silver Maple Hand Turned Prayer Bowl

He calls them prayer bowls because when he makes them as gifts he prays for the recipient, thus "filling the bowl" with prayers.  Nothing spooky or new agey.  Anyway...

Take a look at my bead-work.  I've gone ahead and named my business "Caviar" because of the black seed beads that I love to use so much.  Spread it on a cracka!

Hand-beaded Silver Starfish Freshwater Pearls Necklace

Just a few more items for you to snoop look at:

Victoria Magazine 5 Lot 1996 May June Oct Nov Dec

Shabby Single Switch Wall Plate White Wash Finish

So, the sudden push for additional income is because I just redid the budget for 2008.    Help.  Anyway, I would like to purchase some curriculum items for the 08-09 school year and MAYBE, just maybe even join the homeschool co-op and hang out with other kids and Mommies.  Dare I dream?

Lots more stuff to come.  Stay tuned.

Seems like I lost a week of my life during Thanksgiving.  Maybe more if you factor in the psycological aspect.  My greys are really showing.  I really need to make more of an effort this week to post.  It's good for me!  Anyway, yesterday was a great day with my kids.  During our last run to the library, we had checked out two audio books.  One was By The Shores Of Silver Lake and the other was The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis.  We listened to The Silver Chair in the kitchen while Bailey, Livy and Ella worked on their art.  It freed me up to get the laundry back under control.  The "mountain of shame" was working it's way back up and I needed to wrangle it down to a managable pile.  Done.

I liked the big kids' autonomy so much that I assigned many of their other subjects on computer.  When they get on the computer, I expect them to work as a team taking turns at the "controls."  I set the timer and they work until it beeps.  They did really well yesterday taking turns and cheering each other on.  They practiced their math facts at this website:

Math Game - Multiplication

If you like that one, here's a few more:

Math Game - Addition

Math Game - Subtraction

And they worked on a DK Interactive Spelling CD Rom for awhile.  And then their favorite, USA Explorer.  Oh, and I had them review their verses for AWANA and recite them to each other.  Then they wrote them out.  They liked the computer aspect of their studies so much that it's got me thinking about using Switched On Schoolhouse or something similar next school year.  I just need one of my geese to lay a golden egg or something so I can finance it.

We had to take Ava back to the doctor just to check her ears, now that she's finished her meds.  All is well...I'm so grateful.  All the kids were terrific during the appointment.  Everyone was so quiet that even the doctor commented.  Every once in a while I look like such a great mom. 

By the time we were done with our appointment, it was 3:00.  We needed to be at the church at 6pm for the Christmas Choir Dress Rehearsal.  I decided to head back home but then realized that since we were already out and about we should just run errands, drop off groceries at home, potty, run through drive-thru and then head out to choir.  Which is what we did. 

My hunny met us down there and decided to take the little ones back home while I sat and watched the rehearsal.  Actually, before he left, we made a quick run over to Joann's craft store so I could pick up some blank canvas totes for the kids to decorate today.  We need much bigger bags to fit all their library books.  So today, they will work on those.

Well, that wraps it up.  I'm hearing alot of breakfast noise down there and I need another JAVA so I'm off!

Have a great one!