This week's assignment is to visit our classmates, and there's over 200 hundred of them, leave a comment to let them know we are praying for them.  You can find the list of classmates here.

My assignment: I'll visit 15 blogs a day and leave comments. Hopefully, some days I'll be able to visit more, but right now that is better than what I have been doing.  

So, waiting until the last day again to post my assignment, and trust me, I'm still not prepared. Ooops, gotta take out dinner....what a combo tonight ~ two pieces of fish and a bag of I think chili - not sure on that chili, but it's for me anyway.

Let's talk about COOKIES COOKIES and more COOKIES!!!!

And here's the assignment for this week. Come on~sign up and join us!

Part A:  Share at least 3 "Bountiful Blessings" that the Lord has abundantly provided. 

My first blessing would be my hubby!!! Isn't he a great writer!!!  My second blessing would be Joshua and third would be Caleb. They started and completed our family via adoption. Did you know that November is National Adoption Month? If you are interested in learning more about adoption, doing a search on Google will provide a number of links. [Edit: I just knew there was more I wanted to say. LOL  My hubby definitely puts up a good bit from me. Remember I was born a Yankee, 'nuff said, right? And as frustrating as some days are with "the boys", I simply can't imagine not being their Mom. ]

Part B:  Share your Thanksgiving Feast (past or present). You may use photos, menus, recipes, activities, traditions...Be creative! "Who carves the turkey?", "Do you save the wishbone?", "What do you serve for dessert?", "Who hosts the Thanksgiving dinner in your family?"...my favorite "What do you do with all those leftovers?"

When I was growing up in New York (not the City, the State), Thanksgiving usually happened at my grandparents. They lived maybe five minutes from us and their house/kitchen was simply bigger than our single-wide trailer. After my grandmother passed, grandpa usually came to our house for Thanksgiving dinner. The feast always happened around 2pm. Mom still had to be up early to have the turkey properly cooked. Normally breaksfast didn't happen. We ALWAYS had turkey on Thanksgiving. I don't remember having turkey any other time of the year, so to me Thanksgiving just isn't Thanksgiving unless there is turkey.

Our feast would include: cheese, sweet and dill pickles, black olives, turkey, stuffing (bread, not cornbread) cranberry sauce (jellied, not the other kind), mashed potatoes and gravy (no instant or premade gravy), sometimes coleslaw (again, homemade), fruit salad (fruit cocktail with cool whip mixed together), rolls (these were the brown and serve kind from the store). After feasting on this delicious meal, dessert would be homemade apple pie with either cool whip or vanilla ice cream, pumpkin, sometimes chocolate pie or cherry would also make an appearance.

Activities? Um, SLEEPING off the feast. Is there suppose to be another Thanksgiving Day activity other than sleeping?

Part A: Share about your family’s laundry. Where is it kept? Who does it? How does your family sort it? Do you wash by hand? Hang clothes on the clothesline? Make your own laundry saop? How often do you do laundry? How many loads each day/week? Indoor laundry room, in the garage, or Laundromat? Share a picture?

Here's a before picture:

And here's an after picture:

So there may not be much difference when you look at these two pictures, but trust me it's better. At least now I also know how many working flashlights we have available. The only two items left to do are make my homemade laundry soap and label the bins so that hubby knows which bin has the extra lightbulbs.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Michele’s clothes Dixie’s blankets	Non-white towels	All Whites Bath rugs Joshua’s Clothes Joshua’s sheets Joshua’s Blankets	Caleb’s Clothes Caleb’s sheets Caleb’s Blankets	Master sheets Master comforter Martin’s clothes

My family's laundry ~~ ugh, can you hear the groaning yet? The above is the "schedule" that I created and have yet to really, really implement. Do I think the schedule is reasonable? Yes. So why doesn't it work for me? Um, this might require more brain cells than I have functioning at any given moment!!

In our current house the laundry is in the office which is right next to the kitchen. So if we are in the midst of "climbing Mt. Washmore", then one might not be able to walk from the backdoor to the kitchen. Oh well. We looked at houses that had the laundry in the carport -- NO WAY!!!! I would never remember the laundry if I had to actually go outside to do it.  And we won't even mention the spiders, the crickets, the other flying insects, the snakes ~~ oh the snakes that I am sure would inhabit the laundry if it was in the carport.

When the boys were little, I did it all and sometimes hubby would help fold. Finally in the last two years they have been able to take over the majority of their laundry, but our problem is in consistency. We fail miserably because we, okay I, the mom of the house, isn't consistence in any area of the home.

The boys each have a laundry basket they put all of their clothes in. At one time there was a white basket for the whites, as I was trying to do all whites on Wednesday. Again, failing miserably at consistency. Maybe I should hunt down that white basket again. And maybe I'll have more coffee while I'm hunting. LOL Hubby and I each have our own basket with a lid.  Absolutely no washing clothes by hand if I can help it and no clothesline to hang them on. I am sure the clothesline would save money, but again, it's the whole gotta go outside and do something that would make me forget about the laundry.  Yes I do make my own soap. Click here for the homemade laundry soap recipe that I use.

Part B:  Do you have an area in your life that you know that the Lord is tugging at some heart strings that needs to be cleaned up? Have a testimony of your past struggles(s) that might help another homeschooling mom? Share a piece of your heart (dirty laundry) that you are seeking a good washing or how it got cleaned up. Sharing with one another is a great way to have your post feel human and real.

As for the "dirty laundry" of my life, all I can say again is ugh. I don't think there is an area that is clean right now. I feel like the performer that has been trying to keep all the plates spinning and is failing miserably. The plates are all falling to the ground and breaking into millions and millions of pieces. And yet if I would stop being stubborn and start being humble (so easy to type and so difficult to do) and simply get back into the Bible, my life would probably begin to run much more smoothly. The boys were singing a song on the way back from church tonight - "Behold, behold, I stand at the door and knock, knock, knock." Unfortunately I think the meaning of the song was lost on them, but um, do you think Someone was trying to knock some sense into my ultra thick skull? I think I got it.

Part C:  FIND a scripture this week that pertains to this assignment to help you with your laundry and share it this week.

This assignment is open for creativity! Share anything in your assignment post related to Pumpkins….recipes, favorite books, children’s drawings, Lapbooks and more! Easy and fun!

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Last year the boys worked on the "5 Little Pumpkins" lapbook from Hands of a Child. They had fun and I can't find any pictures of their lapbooks. Maybe later I'll snap some. However, as part of the lapbook, I thought it would be cool to dredge up something from my childhood. One year, my mother (bless her heart) make a pumpkin costume out of orange posterboard for my younger brother (10 years my junior) and me. Now try to imagine a young teenager in a heavy winter coat (parka I'm thinking) wearing red plaid pants (I think) and an orange posterboard pumpkin. Oh did I mention there was also the "stem" part on top of my head. Groovy doesn't even begin to describe the scene. I think I've already cropped the picture into an album. If possible, I'll try to scan it for your LAUGHING ENJOYMENT  . Back to 2006 and my boys. So at W-Mart, I found some orange and green posterboard. Imagine my delight as a mom when I brought it home that I could relive my childhood with my boys. So here are some pictures of my boys creating their pumpkins. I didn't make them wear their pumpkins when they went out begging for candy, nor did we do the stem for their head. Now aren't I a nice mama? I thought you'd agree with me.

Caleb's pumpkin is almost done.

And doesn't he look too cute in his pumpkin?

 And here's Joshua' concentrating about where exactly to place that eye, nose, mouth...

Hey at least Joshua doesn't have to wear a parka with his pumpkin!!!! And ever since birth, he's always been our little pumpkin!!!!

 Here's a picture from when we went to a local church's pumpkin patch to help raise money for the missionary team from this church.

 And one day in early November the boys decided to take their decorated pumpkins and "carve" them. Or rather totally destroy them with hammers, screwdrivers until there was nothing left but a mess for me, the mama, to clean up. Silly little pumpkins!!!!

And here they are coming back from begging for candy from the neighbors last year. They were a policeman and some other type of rescue person..maybe a fireman?

This weeks assignment is to share our Internet Gold: those sites  that we find useful or inspirational.

 ~*~Favorite Blogging site: Homeschool Blogger

~*~ First place you look to buy a book:  Amazon

~*~ Favorite Homeschool Support Area: Homeschool Blogger 

~*~Site you buy NEW curriculum from: I always check out Rainbow Resource first since their prices almost always beat everyone including Amazon. And a local homeschool bookstore in the area.

~*~Site you buy USED curriculum from: Ebay; our local Homeschool group; and good books from our Friends of the Library sale.

~*~ Sites offering frugal tips: Dollar Stretcher, HillBilly Housewife and Money Saving Mom

~*~A Site offering good wholesome recipes: Recently I found What A Crock! which is full of recipes I have to try. I also like Sue Gregg Cookbooks. Also the Urban Homemaker. And my friend Stephanie at Inspired has been gracious in sharing the recipes that she has "converted" to whole grain and no refined sugar. Thank you friend!!

~*~Site Offering Homeschool Freebies: Homeschool E Store has a free product every week.  Hands of A Child offers a free ebook lapbook every 3 months.

~*~Blogs you visit for various reasons. Because I am already late in posting this assignment, let's suffice to say that there are simply too many for me to come up with now.

~*~A site that you allow your children to visit. So far we  haven't let our kids use the Internet much. We've let them visit Playhouse Disney, but because the computer is right next to my work computer, Disney definitely drives me CRAZY.