Yesterday I had the radio on in the afternoon and there was newsbreak that came on about a country intersection in our area being closed because there was a motorcyle fatality.  This morning, I was utterly and completely saddened to find out that it was a friend of ours.  The father of a local, wonderful homeschool family.

Please pray for the Times family.  The dear wife, LaNelle, is now left 3 fantastic kids and, they just found out a few weeks ago, another sweet baby on the way. 

Forrest was such a great guy - wonderful man of God, loving husband and daddy and ALWAYS smiling.  He will be missed by everyone who knew him.  If you are a local homeschooler to my area, I will be posting service information on the McCHEO blog as soon as I know anything.

Blessings from Ohio, Kim Wolf<><

PLEASE PRAY FOR THE TIMES FAMILY!!

Yesterday, Forrest Times, husband of LaNelle Times - McCHEO members - was killed instantly when a car pulled out in front of Forrest on his motorcyle. 

http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/07/24/ddn072408fatalweb.html

PLEASE keep this wonderful family in your prayers...LaNelle, their 3 children and one on the way.  Many of you know LaNelle and the kids from gym at the YMCA.  I will post service details as I get them.

Blessings, Kim Wolf<><

Oh, I just got an email from Nancy over at Homeschooling Is Life. She's posted  pictures up of what she and the kids entered at the fair this year. I insist you stop reading this blog RIGHT NOW and go read this entry:

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/ByHisGraceInColorado/565218/?#c1108936

Way to go, you guys!

"Nesting" doesn't quite cover the urge to completely re-organize around here before the baby comes. It's not just me--even hubby has caught this fever.  While he's working on finishing the garage, shed, planning to re-do the kitchen and bathroom floors and painting the inside of the house before the big day, I'm sewing, crocheting, and having a "TOTAL PAPER MAKEOVER."  A total physical makeover wouldn't hurt, either.  Yikes, it's time to renew my driver's license photo and I just realized looking at the old one---I'VE HAD THE SAME HAIRDO FOR TEN YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Regarding my last post on homeschool organization. I certainly didn't want everyone to think I had detailed lesson plans done for the year, or even the next few weeks. NOT SO!  Real life creeps in too easily and can upset overly detailed plans.  We have orderly textbooks for some subjects [ admittedly I may play fast and loose with the teacher's guides/lesson plans with those] and general goals for everything else. I just try to have a notebook to keep plans, grades, attendance, and lists together for school. 

Our  weekly goals include books to read and lessons to cover in various subjects.  I purposely leave time at the end of the school year with no plans at all in case we need to play catch up.  Our textbooks have very detailed plans, but the subjects I plan out myself don't. For example, we have a very relaxed and informal approach to reading. However, both children love to read, we have  flexibility in this subject, reading isn't turned into a chore, and the older student has consistently tested very well in reading skills. 

On another front in my never-ending battle against clutter and disorganization, I've added a new section to my planning notebook.  Sewing patterns! Why I didn't I think of this before? I've often trusted my memory too much when I find a good sale on material. I've tried making a list on notebook paper with the pattern number, a brief description of the pattern, yardage, notions and such.  but would look up the pattern at the store to view the picture anyway. I needed the pictures.  So,  my  six year old daughter was given the job of copying the front  and back of my sewing patterns using our printer/copier.  Now I have a picture and all the details for each to carry in my planning notebook.

My planning notebook is simply a three ring binder with paper and tab dividers--but no calendars. After years of trying to keep everything in one notebook,  I  have found a small purse size calendar to work the best for me. The big planning notebook is where I put prayer requests, household information [clothing sizes, what type battery the cordless phone uses, printer cartridge numbers, etc. ],  running to-do lists, book lists, sewing patterns, grocery shopping/meal planning forms, our church's prayer chain list & address directory, and lots of blank paper to write, doodle, and plan. It stays at the house or comes with me on shopping trips only.

Since hubby has the home improvements well in hand, the school plans are good to go, and the house is being decluttered, all that's left is to get baby-ready again.   One side of my daughter's dresser has been cleaned out to make room for baby clothes. It's time to set up the baby bed and get the linens out of storage.  The baby  stroller and car seat need cleaned.  Whew--I'm glad I kept eveything from the last time. A friend is bringing by a changing table next week.  Now that will be oo-lah-lah, considering I just changed the other babies  on a towel on the bed!

Besides diapers, wipes, and rash cream, the only new purchase I'm planning on is one of those dirty diaper storage thingys.  I know I'm not being environmentally friendly here, but I have NO desire to put dirty diapers in my washing machine, bath tub, or even Great-Granny's cast iron wash kettle. Yes, I've read all the "dangers" of disposable diapers, but I'm a decent enough mother to not let my child sit in a dirty or wet diaper forever!

I have great respect for folks that do the cloth diaper thing and are back-to-nature kinds of people, but I'm not one of them anymore.  We were "back to nature" when it wasn't "in"  for financial reasons. I like modern advances in technology that allow us to have indoor toilets [didn't have that where I lived when I was younger], washing machines [Mom didn't have one until I was in middle school], dryers [didn't get that until I was nearly out of high school], central heat [ carrying wood and emptying the ash bin were not my favorite after-school activities], and reliable electricity.   It's kind of like the story a tour guide in Charleston once told me. She drove a horse and buggy giving tours of the city and upon telling her Grandmother of her new job, heard , "But honey, our family has worked for years trying to get out from behind a horse's rear!"

So there you have it----Doehill this week in a nutshell or nutcase as the situation warrants. Speaking of nuts, I just made the best cake.  It tastes like a peanut butter cookie.  Here's the recipe:

Nut cake:

Don't preheat the oven, but do grease a 12 cup bundt pan and set aside.

Cream two sitcks butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar. Be sure you use real butter not margarine.

Chop in the blender [ on low or you'll have peanut butter] 2 1/2 cups mixed nuts. [about 1 small can].  Add 1/2 cup flour to the nuts and set aside.

Alternately add 6 eggs and 2 1/2 c. self rising flour to the butter/sugar mixture. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla, then fold in nuts.

Spoon batter into the pan, bake at 300 degrees for an hour and half. Cool and unmold. YUM!

Have a great weekend y'all!

This is my first time doing Friday Show and Tell and I am excited about joining in.  I am going to show how I control the toys in our home.  This new system is only a month old in my home and it is working great.  We don't have a play room or family room so toys were stored wherever I could find a spot. We used to keep toys all over the place.  You had to walk all over to put things away.  It really wasn't working.  So I started exploring how others did it and discovered some people use a toy closet. We have a strange little area in our kitchen that really isn't big enough for a table and always seemed like wasted space.  I decided to turn it into our toy "closet". 

The new toy "closet".  We used our old computer cabinet and old tubs from the basement.

The inside of the old computer cabinet.  I managed to squeeze in all the toy tools, legos, play food, technics, brio track and trains, marbles and tubes, doll house furniture, playmobile, army men, puppets, and bey blades (spinning tops game).  I still need to finish labeling everything.

Along the floor is tubs of blocks, Lincoln Logs, musical instruments, figurines and the kids matchbox car mountain.   When they want something, they get the tub out and then bring it all back in the same tub when they are done.  So far they are doing a great job returning everything.

This is our table time cabinet (old china cabinet).  The kids can get anything our of here and play with it at the dining room table.  This part of the system has been around for a long time.  In here we have; Mr. Potato head, light bright, playdough, money play, puzzles, coloring books and sticker books, crayons, markers, pencils, and lots of small games or games one can play by oneself.

There are still some toys in the kids rooms.  However, those toys are supposed to stay in their rooms.  In their rooms are dolls, our rather large Fisher Price village, dress up and the My Little Pony collection.  We also have alot of games, family puzzles, and art supplies in two closets that the kids can not get into by themselves.  I am so pleased with how this new system is working.  It is about time my home does not look like a toy store all the time. 

To see more show and tell Friday entries, go to Canadagirl .

Blessings,

Dawn

and, boy, am I tired!!!   LOL 

Getting up every day at 6am and not going to bed until after 11pm makes for a very tired me!   The good part is the kids made it through camp without any serious injuries and they had LOTS of FUN!!!  They got to be 'crazy scientists' and mix whatever they wanted,  watched a really cool chemistry show, made periscopes and water bugs.   And to top it all off, they are ready to do it again next year!  I am just happy they had a good time, made new friends, learned some really cool science stuff and were safe while having fun!!!

Now, all the work I was planning on doing while the kids were at camp still needs to be done.  I am not used to so much free time each day, so instead of cleaning and organizing my house, I had some fun!  I went to some garage sales, out to lunch with friends and visited the library several times (one of my favorite places in the whole world.  I know, I am such a nerd  LOL)

Tomorrow is the day camp field trip to Splash Moraine but there was no way I was letting my kids do that so we are going to the Troy Aquatic Park with friends instead.  The kids are really looking forward to it since they have been practicing their swimming here at home.  (we had a 13' x 30" pool given to use a few weeks ago).  Now I just have to convince Brandon that just because he can float underwater doesn't mean he is an olympic swimmer!  He gets a little over confident when it comes to some things like that so we will have the water safety talk several times tomorrow before we enter the water park gates!!

Well that is all for now as I need to get everyone ready for a nice quiet night at home and an early bed time! 

www.homeschoolblogger.com/earthenvessel/

I am so excited and honored to be able to report that Tristain asked Jesus into his heart today!!!  Our focus for today was on salvation and how we can have eternal life if we know Jesus. He was asking Ms. Carol about this living forever thing and wanted to know if he would still be a kid, "'cause I'd like to be a few years older." he told her.  She told him that he will have a brand new body, which really excited him. Then he was telling her that he is always getting into fights at school and she told him that if he keeps Jesus in his heart then he could ask Him to help him and he would get into fewer fights. Tristain said, "I need that!!!"

At the end of the day he came behind the table at registration to give me a hug and very proudly informed me, "I got Jesus in my heart!!!"  This just makes my whole week!! This is the whole reason we do VBS!!

We are expecting the next puddle in the Lakes' family to join us the first of February.  We are blessed to be expecting.  I know that word "blessed" is so over-used it sounds almost fake, as in "How are you?" ... "I'm blessed."  So, I think I'll clarify what I mean by the word.  By "blessed" I mean...excited at times, scared silly at others; completely at peace that this is God's plan, yet wondering what the heck He's thinking; confident in pursuing His plan, worrying about all those who think we're nuts; happy to add another to the mix, anxious about short-changing the others; physically feeling better than ever, wondering if everything's ok.  You get the idea.

I did have an ultrasound yesterday that dismissed my fear of twins.  Love only seeing one bambino in there!  What a relief!

DO NOT MISS the annual Staples Teacher Appreciation Day!! 

YES! Homeschoolers CAN get the Staples Teacher Rewards card/key tag!!

So, take advantage of it!  I try to go every year.  Go early because the gifts only go to the 1st 200 teachers! 

This year's Teacher Apprection Day will be at the TROY STAPLES on AUGUST 16th, 2008!!!

DON'T MISS IT!

Blessings, Kim Wolf<><