I've decided to move on. The new blog will be more than about my homeschooling, but mainly homeschooling because that's the season my life is in right now. Please keep in touch. New site is not totally set up, but I'm taking my time. Hope to see you soon!
Pages Of Me

Since I don't usually win anything, what a great surprise to hear I had won the Mother's Day Giveaway at Tip Junkie.  This beautiful little charm and necklace came from Charming Gifts. 


While looking around Charming Gifts, I saw so many beautiful things I wanted for myself and for gifts, but one item in particular had me oohing and ahhing.  You can find it here:  Destiny Necklace. These charms make such meaningful and personalized gifts. 

Colette, the owner is super sweet.  If you visit and buy from her, please tell her I said hi, and thanks again!
I LOVE my Mom charm. 

Well...we had Spring Break last week, and it was a great one.  We left the "classroom" and picked some sea shells, surfed some waves (the kids and my husband, not me.)  Now, we are back on track.

I don't have much to write at the moment, but of course, I couldn't leave without a picture or two.  We went to a Mad Science show tonight.  It was F.U.N for me, and the kids too.  :) 


How excited did this Mad Scientist look? 

Posted in Cooking with the Children

I found this recipe on a blog a couple years ago and this recipe has since become a favorite here.  It is so easy, yet it tastes so fancy.  I remember seeing pictures of the cookies on the original blog, they looked much nicer than mine, but it's all in the taste, no?

Emma helped me as her brother was too busy playing.  E loves to bake and taste, she definitely prefers the latter.

Before I start with the recipe, here is a picture of Emma with her favorite fruit.  Chinese plums.  These grow wildly in my Dad's yard,  he picks them and we eat them up!  **oh and yes, E has a boo boo by her nose, she fell on a toy today.**


Okay...cookies.

Split-Second Cookies  (We call them jam cookies)
From The Taste of Home Cookbook


3/4 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup raspberry jam  (I use strawberry jam-it has to be jam, can't be jelly)



1) In large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt;  gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well.





2) Divide dough into four equal portions; shape each into a 12-in. x ¾-in. log. Place 4 in. apart on tow greased baking sheets. Make a ½-in. depression down center of logs fill with jam.





3) Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool 2 minutes; cut diagonally into ¾-in. slices. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.



Yield: about 5 dozen

Enjoy.

I love the idea of Sketch Tuesday.  If you want to learn more or view more sketches click HERE.

This weeks assignment was to sketch something that's alive.

Noah's:  and
Emma's:

Daddy thought Emma drew 2 ducks in a canoe.  Goes to show you, each person interprets art differently- HAHAHA ...it's two birds in a nest. 

I know it's been a little while since I've written.  We've been very busy.   My husband was away on a business trip, which is not a usual thing, and we just had my Brother in Law visiting us from NY.  In between there was Easter, and yet another small cold for Noah and I.  Or maybe it was allergies since it only lasted a couple days for each one of us.  Anyhow, we are all well.

Last night, Noah and I went to see The Step Crew.  We recognized a couple of the violinists/fiddlers from another show we attended recently.  We enjoyed the show, great lighting, Celtic music, and fun dancing.  It's neat for Noah to see that violins are used in much more than Classical music.  Heck, his teacher toured with the Rolling Stones.  :)

On the homeschooling front, I was shocked today when I realized we only have about 6 weeks worth of work to complete.  I believe we can do it less than that.  This year just flew.  I'm already making a list of 3rd grade curriculum.  We will likely stay with what we've been using, just go up a grade.  :)  You know the saying,  "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".  Ain't- what a horrendous word.  Which reminds me, did you ever hear the song "I'm just a girl who CAIN'T say no", from the musical Oklahoma?  We had a girl in high school sing it once, and I used to cringe when she would say cain't and ain't.  Sorry- that's just took me back 12 years. 

I'm off to bed now, but before I go, I want to post just a couple pictures from this past week.  Can you believe that of all people, I, forgot to take pictures of the children on Easter?!...Can you tell I had a stressful week?

Here are the kids on Easter at Grandma's house waiting to go out to eat. 

and N, who seems to be daydreaming. 

Posted in Cooking with the Children

Here is a quick and hearty breakfast/snack/lunch and sometimes if you are rushed, why not dinner?

First you collect your ingredients and tools.  A griddle or skillet, a cup, touch of butter, eggs, and a spatula.

Here are our first ingredients....displayed by our children with bed head.  :)

Then you use the cup to make a circle inside the bread.



We then put the bread onto the griddle with a tiny dab of butter.  I used Smart Balance Spread with all those Omega goodies.


Gets warmed up and in goes one egg...do yourself a favor and buy Organic or just really good eggs.  Eggs are such nutritious  little things.


Turn it over a time or two, depending on whether you like the yolk runny or not.  I do, I like to dip the missing circle in it.  :)

We poured a little bit of maple syrup on it...but you can also add honey. 

And the results are in:


This is our first of many posts about cooking with children.  :)

Hope we gave someone a good idea on a new breakfast.  Serve with a big cup of Orange Juice- YUMMY.

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And it's not bad at all.  :)  I'm in very good company.

We went out for lunch today and I am stuuuuuuuuffed.  I had blackened Mahi Mahi.  (yummy).  We got back and in my email was a sweepstake application from Fossil.  I love my Fossil watch but I'd love to have one with a green or orange face so I filled out the sweepstake.  Well...today I was in a brand new age bracket!  Look closely- you can see I'm now in the 31-40 age group, no longer in the 21-30 age group.  I am thankful for being 31, it means God was gracious enough to give me yet another year.  So... Happy Birthday to me, and cheers to all the 30 somethings out there.

For the past 4 weeks at least one member of the family has been sick with one thing or another.  Wow, do we ever need a break.  My husband and I went to bed early on Saturday night and didn't get out until this morning (Monday) with some kinda stomach virus.
I'm going to take a short little blog break.  Hope everyone stays well.

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Yesterday, Emma hurt her elbow somehow in the car.  As she was saying, Ouch, ouch, ouch...I looked at her and while rubbing her arm, she said she hurt her KNEEBOW.  Cute or what? 

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I'm almost a weekly reporter drop out, it's gets too intense having to take pictures of all the work.  However, I thought I'd update and just add a few pictures from last week.  Kids were sick and Noah was on nebulizer treatments.  We weren't able to do too much, but what they did do, they did well.

Math:  Horizons...we are on lesson 110.  I am thinking of slowing down big time to solidify the times tables.  He has the  2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10's...but he stumbles on the 7,8,...I don't think we spent enough time on them in the beginning of the year, so we'll take a little break from the actual lessons, and just work on the times tables and drills.

Vocabulary:  Wordly Wise 3000 is DONE.  I now use the vocabulary words for spelling words.  I am waiting on a new ETC workbook to come in.

Grammar:  We are making lots of headway here.  We are on lesson 134 out of 192.  This is a 3 day a week curriculum, we do 1 a day, sometimes even more.  It's pretty painless.  I plan on finishing up and then using what we've learned in our everyday writing.

History:  Still absolutely loving Story of the World.  Moving on to Chapter 20:Greece and the story of Homer.  History really comes alive for us with this curriculum.  I'd be lost without it.  We do our Copywork mainly in this subject.

Bible:  working through Gotta Have God.  I'm not overly thrilled with this curriculum.  Looking for something else.  We are memorizing scripture and learning the books of the Bible in order.

Misc.  We use living books for Science.  I bought a book at Sam's Clulb, it's called World of Science.  We are using this as a guide.
We are enjoying our Weekly Readers, N's reading as many Magic Treehouse books as he can get his hands on.  He reads one in no time flat.


Emma (preschool).  We are using Starfall.com and she is reading 3 and 4 letter words.   We aren't on a schedule yet, we don't "do school" every day, but when we do, she loves it.  We are using online resources,  before five in a row, and a Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills.  I'm contemplating Horizons and Abeka preschool, but haven't taken the leap yet.

Here are some pictures.

Kids working together.

Working out of the Complete Book of Animals. 

Emma all proud of her alphabet dot to dot butterfly.

Abeka Number flash cards.

And last but not least, Emma's drawing of something blue...which happened to be the ocean of course.

For more weekly reporter updates go HERE.

Noah had this second concert last week.  He was asthmatic due to a cold/allergy from all the pollen.  He pulled through and did wonderfully.  I'm always so proud of him.  I will try to update with some clips of his actual playing, but for now, here is one picture of their warmups.


This year he is part of the Discovery Consort.  They performed:

Shaker Hymn   Traditional
O, Mio Bambino  Giacomo Puccini
Meet the Flintstones  Barberea, Hanna and Curtin
and they came back on stage with the advanced Stradivariations for
Irish Party in 3rd Class from Titanic   Gaelic Storm

Also...I forgot to post that last month we went to see a show called BOWFIRE.  Please, if it comes near you, consider going- it was out of this world.  Check out their opening piece on their site, you'll be in love.

I've been really slacking on these weekly reports.  Here is one from this past week.  Pretty light in the writing department, but we've made up for it with our reading.

If ever two were one than surely we.

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;

If every wife were happy in a man,

Compare with me, ye women, if you can.

I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold

Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is sure that rivers cannot quench,

Nor aught but love from thee give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay,

The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.

Then while we live, in love so persevere

That when we live no more, we may live ever.

~ Anne Bradstreet

I was tagged by Tina at Jetihoja Academy.  Thanks for thinking of me.  This was a cute Meme.

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