I can't believe it's Thanksgiving week.  We bought a 25lb bird this year, so I had to put it in our fridge Saturday , which is way early for me.  But it just made me realize how close Thanksgiving really is.  I'm going to make a list today of all the things I want to get done this week.  I usually bake my pies on Wednesday, still have to practice cookies with Sarah, that will probably be Tuesday.  It's things like that I need to make a list for, otherwise I'll forget the things I need to get done, and only do the things I want to do. 

I will be finishing up our Christmas cards today.  Well, the cards are done, pictures developed and yearly letter printed out.  I just need to sign the letter, put the kids ages on the back of the pictures, then put it all in the envelopes.  Maybe I'm a little optimistic on getting that all done today, but it's my goal.  We also have a bible study tonight, so we'll see how much I get done.  I just made a mental list of all the things I need to bake this week, I'm tired all ready. 

We finished school already.  We have this whole week off, makes things easier for me.  But the kids doubled up on their school work on Thursday, and had Friday off too.  Which was nice.  I helped out decorating our church last Thursday, it was lots of fun.  The kids were so good, and finished all their school work while I was gone.  (Proud mama here). 

Friday was a great day.  I went to a new woman's bible study I'm going to on Friday mornings, and it was such a blessing.  Then in the evening the kids both had homeschool outings to go to, so Paul and I had a date night.    We went to the Olive Garden, and had such a nice time.  We haven't had a date in a couple of weeks, it was very nice.

Saturday we decided to brave the stores and do our grocery shopping on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.    It was a bit of a mad house, but it was fun.  The hardest part was the cold, blowing wind.  We all just wanted to get home.  I thought I had gotten everything I needed and wouldn't have to go back out to the store before Thanksgiving, I was wrong.    I forgot to get a big thing of cool whip for a fruit salad I'm making.  Can't make it without it, so I guess I'll be running back to the store real quick on Monday.  Then I won't enter a store again until after the weekend sometime.  I stay clear of them all during this time of the year.    We don't do the black Friday shopping, and I just read today how they limit those 'specials' anyway.  Like those tvs or something big on sale.  Only 4 can be sold from the whole store!    Only four people will get that big deal.  Ugh, so not worth it to me.

What we do the day after Thanksgiving is put up all our Christmas decorations.  As most of my regular readers know, we put up our decorations the day after Thanksgiving, and take them down the day after Christmas.  But we really enjoy setting them up.  We eat Thanksgiving leftovers, drink eggnog, and watch It's A Wonderful Life.  My kids really enjoy that movie.  And it really is a fun, relaxing day.  We are pretty mellow with our decorations, so it only takes a few hours.  Hanging the Christmas lights in the kids bedroom takes the longest, but it's what they love the most.  Falling to sleep with their Christmas lights on.

Well I should get going and work on the Christmas cards.  It's snowing pretty heavy out right now.  We need to go out tonight, I hope it lets up soon.  But it is so pretty.

     Well, it's down to the last few days before Thanksgiving & we are trying to get in our last few things before we start up our December studies. We are  almost finished. Just a bit more reading. Shouldn't have a problem with that Monday & Tuesday of next week.

     Today we went to our local baseball park & met our HS group & we played baseball with them. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it. I think there are some great prospects for future baseball players in the group. They all hit good, & some of them have a good arm on them for throwing the ball.

     Tonight we are all kind of doing our own thing, playing, watching a bit of TV, washing clothes, & on the computer. That about sums us up. Until next time, Traci

     Well, we haven't been getting to much schooling this week. My sister is expecting a baby & she has been having contractions, already started dialating, & she'ss not due until DEc. 9. She has been having to go to the Dr. a lot & being put on monitors to monitor the baby so I have had her other children. My nephew is only 23 months old. Sometimes he gets to be a hand full.

     I told my DC we'd get back on course when Aunt Amanda had the baby. Until then we'd just do what we could & the rest would come later. That's the beauty of homeschooling.

     Better go, just wanted to update. Have to get off here to check on my nephew. Don't want to leave him unattended too long. Until next time, Traci

What's Buzzzzing......

Visited my Grandmother in Lake City a few weeks ago, My dad just sent the pics, I thought I would share them w/ you...

All of us around Grandmother S. (My mom was there but she took the picture)
This is my fathers mother.

This is my sister and I w/ my Grandmother (prior to my hair cut)



Biggun and Grandmother S.


Honey Bear and Grandmother S. Honey Bear had Aunt T's lip gloss, her favorite thing to get from Aunt T.


Moose was tired of sitting still he wanted to get down and check everything out.

A few weeks ago I wet to get my hair cut but was not expecting it to be as short as it ended up.  We are a family who likes LONG hair.  My long hair had been getting in the way so I figured I would cut off 10 " and give it to Locks of Love and then I would have hair to my shoulders.  Still long but not as long. Well the girl cut it at an angle and by the time it was over she had cut about 12 inches total.  and I ended up w/ a Bob hair cut.


Not to bad, but still not long hair I am tring to get used to it. So is my husband.

My dear friend Mrs. D made me my Christmas Present early. :^) She gave it to me so I can have it for thanksgiving dinner preperations.  I love my new apron! It covers every thing, this is hard to find when you have a nursing chest like I have....

(Sorry not a good pic, but my son took it)

Here is the material, I love the BEE's I got to pick out the material myself!!



Moose has been growing like a weed, his birthday is FRIDAY!!!! I can not believe he will be 1 year old!!!!!


He always has a smile on his face, but you will notice he is surrounded by pink, He is getting BOY toys for his birthday!!! :^)

He is finally interested in real food, we found some perfect size for his little hands.



We have pasta w/ parmesan cheese often for lunch.

Lastly a Mother/Daughter pic of us waiting for the horse and buggy ride at a fall harvest party.


Picture was taken w/ my phone sorry so blurry.

Things are a little different at the Woon house lately.  Ever since hubby got back from Destination X, we have not been able to get into a routine.  But it's a good thing.  We have been praying about what God wants us to do about Destination X.  And we have an answer.  We announced it in church Sunday morning.  Within 2 to 3 years, we will be moving to Destination X.

 

So now what?  Now we prepare to be on the road a lot as we share our burden with churches around the country.  Homeschooling on the road is not the easiest thing to do... unless you see it as a great opportunity to learn HANDS-ON!  We are hoping to get memberships to the WNC Nature Center.  When you get a membership there, it gives you free access not only to the Nature Center, but hundreds of museums and zoos all across the country!

 

So... if our travels take us within "spitting" distance of one of these free sites, we can stop in to visit.  (I hope our travels will take us close to the Asheburo Zoo soon.)

 

We are also BIG geography lovers.  So travelling around should be fun if it takes us to interesting places.  Have you seen the movie "Up?"  We loved it!  I think I will make the kids their own adventure books so they can keep track of our travels.

 

I am not sure when our travels will start, but I am getting excited!  I spent this morning reorganizing our homeschool materials to make them more portable.  My next goal will be to start planning what curricula we want to use overseas.  We will be in a placed that does not have a lot of resources, and the books we use will have to fly with us on the plane... so they cannot be too heavy.  Considering going back to textbook method and adapting it to meet our needs, but I really had hoped to go to Mystery of History and Apologia Sciences.

 

If you have used either of these, I would love your opinion.  How "portable" are these?  Would they work well from a van or a hotel room?  What about when we get overseas?  Would they work in a country that has few resources (as in a limited library, not a lot of school supplies, etc.)?

 

Hope you all have the greatest homeschooling week!!!

I just wanted to let you all know about a a neat project some of my friends are doing on eHow.  Several of them are going to be sending a doll around the country and taking the doll to different landmarks and places in their community.  They will be taking pictures and writing about the adventures.  The project can be followed at this link: http://www.squidoo.com/ehowdollysgrandadventure  This would make a really good geography project.  I will say, though, a couple of the people sometimes have a uhm... colorful sense of humor, so I would preview it before showing it to your kids. lol!!!  Just in case.  Dolly is about to arrive at her first destination which is Maine.  This project will be going on through the winter and possibly into the spring.  Each person will be adding their adventures as they do them. 

     We had a great weekend. We have been working on our house all weekend, except yesterday, we went to church. We are almost done with our decluttering. It's amazing how much joy can come over you just seeing your house all neat & tidy. I'm happy!

     We have finished our schooling for the day & are on our way out the door to the library to meet our HS group for our children to give their monthly book report. This month their book reports had to be on the origens of holidays. My DD chose Thanksgiving & my DS chose Independence Day.

     Well, they just informed me that they are all ready so until next time, Traci

OK Jeannie here is my entry.    I have been meaning to put an entry out here, but I am doing a complete overhaul on my website, Watered Garden Web Creations (no changes are out there yet ), and it's been taking a lot of my time.  I have prayed, talked with my husband, and prayed some more about what direction to go with my website.  I just haven't felt the desire to make it a 'business' anymore.  I really enjoy web site design, I truly do.  But I don't like having to put together the templates, colors, layout etc...  I guess I'll always be a computer tech at heart.  That's what I did when I worked outside the home, and I like the technical aspect of putting websites together, just not the artistic.  So with that, and much prayer, I have decided to turn my website more into a hobby website than a business website.  One of my issues is that I'm always looking for ways to bring money in the home, but that's not what the Lord wants or my husband.  My husband constantly tells me, even if I get any money it won't go toward the bills or anything like that, it would be mine.  The Lord provides through his job, and that's the way Paul wants it.  I submit to that, and I truly am ok with it, but there is always a part of of me that thinks that I should help bring in more finances.  But see, that's all selfish on my part.  Because all our needs are met, when I want more money, it's because I just want more things.  So the Lord and my husband are totally right, I'm completely wrong.  Anyway, sorry, I digress.

Paul really encouraged me in my discouragement, and so now my site is going to be a big blog type site, similar to this site.  I'll have a craft page, homeschool page, photography page and some other pages.  I've been working on it, but my biggest stumbling point is I just can't find a template I like.  I'll work on it more today, and hopefully I'll be announcing it soon.  But don't worry, even when I do have my website set up, I'll still be blogging here.  This is my first blog home, and you are my dear friends.  My website will be things I'm working on, crafts I'm doing, and normal life things.  This blog will continue to be my more intimate thoughts.  This is where I open up more than anywhere else.  So don't worry, I won't be leaving. 

I've also been very busy making our Christmas cards.  I'm just about done with them.  Actually after I post this entry, I'll finish them up.  I'm still working on our yearly family letter, and our pictures won't be developed until Tuesday, so they won't be ready to mail until Thanksgiving week.  But printing and stamping the cards has taken the most about of time, and I'm glad I got them finished this weekend.

I've been kind of putting off finishing our yearly letter because I'm praying that I can add an update there soon.  My twitter friends know, but I'll put it here too for all my other friends, my hubby is looking for a new job.  We always knew working at our church was not going to be a permanant thing.  Long story, so I won't go into it all, but during the summer we started praying about things.  See Paul's employment background is mainly in production/manufacturing.  In Illinois, that is huge, out here, not at all.  So we had to come to some decisions.  Do we move back to Illinois, do we move to another part of Idaho, does Paul go back to school, or does he change his area of employment?  After much prayer, we knew we wanted to stay here, and truly, though he's been in production for years, his strong point is customer service.  He is such a people person, and he loves helping others.  Any job he had that was customer service oriented, he has just loved.  So he is going to change his area of employment and go for a more customer service oriented job, trying to find work at Wal-mart type stores, or the big grocery stores out here.  There is one he really wants to work at, and it's a great company to work for.  The general manager of the store goes to our church, and though we never knew him, his wife is a teacher at our churches school, where Paul works.    Yep, the Lord works everything together.  So Paul has talked with him, filled out the application, took an on the phone interview type thing.  He'll be going in Monday or Tuesday and see what next step he needs to take.  We are still not sure if he will get hired or not, and if he does what position he'll get, but we leaving it all in the Lord's hands.  If it's not this store, then another store.  But I do ask for your prayers that if this is the place for him, he'll get hired, and soon.  I also pray, more of a selfish prayer, that he will not get the night shift.  The store is open 24 hours, and I know we homeschool, and can change around our schedule if he works different days.  But I am truly praying that he doesn't get a night shift.  This post is already long enough, so I won't go into all the details why I don't want a night shift, but I really don't.  So prayer he doesn't get a night shift, and if he does, if that's the Lord's will, then the strength to deal with it.

Ok, well now that I have written a book, I really need to finish our Christmas cards.    Hope you all have a blessed day.