Mar. 22, 2007 - More additions to my "library",,,lol

Yes, I could not resist!  I went to another thrift store and only bought five  books this time though...pretty good for me.  I found this HUGE book on the works of Norman Rockwell...great pictures....Grims Fairy Tales, a book on the Surrendered Wife...a small travel book on Egypt (blessing #1 is fascinated with Egypt right now) and ......Little Women......Marmey will be so proud! lol  I also found a globe and a dress for Blessing #2.....girls are so hard to find for these days with the "fashion" of today!

We are right on track this week with school and having so much fun....at least I know I am....hopefully the blessings are too!

Must go....blessing  #4 is about ready to nap and wants some play time first!

Have a great day
!

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Mar. 20, 2007 - spring fever...again!

Sorry I have missed a few days of blogging....I had a 'teacher sick day" last week and it seems like since then we have been working pretty hard to get some things done.   This week has been fun...we are doing favorite tales....yesterday, we read The Little Red Hen....and talked about the importance of hard work. So, later we made bread...ha...I should say the bread machine made it!  I did demonstrate to the blessings how hard it used to be to make home made bread (we will do that later on) but they each got to put the ingredients into the bread machine and wait for our bread to be done.   Later that evening, we put on The Little Red Hen play for DH...it was so fun and FUNNY!  Today, was the Gingerbread man....tomorrow the Three Little Pigs...so of course, we must eat Pigs in a blanket for lunch. This has been a good week to have Blessing #3 more at the table with us...since she is just 3...she enjoys the stories and c'rafts more.

  We started our nature journal and are enjoying being outdoors again.  This week should be in  the 60s and we will do more playing outside! 

I have met some great neighbors recently....one who I find most interesting is from Romania....she also homeschools and we have felt like kindred spirits from the start!  Isn't it wonderful how the Lord can bring folks from ALL over together!    Being a military wife it can be easy at times to make many "aquaintances" but I have longed for true friendships where we can share our faith with each other and enocurage one another in the Lord.  Thankfully, I have MANY friends like  that but who are not always in the same place as we are!!  You all are treasures to me!

Time to get some laundry folded, a bit of excercise in, and put away things from lunch while the blessings take a short nap!

Have a great day!

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Mar. 13, 2007 -

Well, another gorgeous day here...in the 70's with lots of sunshine!  We already have been outside playing this morning...it was warm enough to give baby blessing her bottle outside! 

In phonics, we just added the short vowel "a" and now I think we can finally read, The Cat in the Hat!  I don't know why I have looked forward to that ...I guess I want them to see the words they have learned in a book they already know.  Anyway, math is also coming along...I don't put as much work into that as I do phonics and reading right now, but we do try.

Thanks for those of you who post comments...that keeps me going!  

On the menu for tonight....something easy as we have had ham and veggies the last two days (my big Sunday lunch that was left over!)....so, what shall it be?  SLOPPY JOES OR TACOS????  Any votes?

Have a great day! 

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Mar. 12, 2007 - Sunny and nice!

Enjoying the weather today if you cannot tell by my title....another nice day brings such happiness to my soul!  We also had a great day on Sat and the blessings were outside playing ALL day long...it was great!  I even set aside my "chores" to go out and play a bit and do a few things in the yard.  We all needed a good break from being indoors.  This week should be warm...nearly 70 degrees tomorrow...but, the weekend will go back down to the 40's.  So, it  will be alot of short lessons this week so we can get some of our Spring fever out!!

  We had a great church day yesterday....two visitors came.  I had prepared a big meal in hopes that they could join us...but, it didn't work out.  M and O...had you all been here I would have called you to come eat with us....you are the only ones who would not have felt like "second Choice"! HA!  We all know better than to refuse a free meal right?  lol

Time for naps here....I am going to work on the laundry, call a friend, and then read my book that I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE from Jan Karon's Mitford series!

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Mar. 9, 2007 - another fun Friday!

So far we have completed learning a new word family and doing some workbook pages.  The blessings are upstairs playing school right now, while baby blessing gets her morning nap in!  Baby blessing almost has four teeth now and still is not interested in learning to crawl at all! It cracks me up!  She despises being on her belly!

  Anyway, dh will be off early today so we will do more fun things with him instead of working on school.  I have an appt this afternoon, so I am going to let them do a quick math game with dad after their naps.  I am going to hide 15 easter eggs with pieces of numbered paper inside....they have to find the eggs and then put all 15 numbers in order.  Very simple, yet I think they will like it and dh can handle that while I am away! 

I plan on starting the FIAR this summer and can't wait! Thanks M for getting me interested in that again!  Right now, I found a book at Michael's of all places that the kids want to start...Daniel Boone!  The LOVE this old show on TV and are addicted to that, Gunsmoke and Daniel Boone!  So is DH by the way! HA!  Michael's had quite a few of these books so I need to go back and get more...they are only $3 if you can find them!

Until next week!

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Mar. 8, 2007 - quote for the day

"Faith is the bucket of power lowered by the rope of prayer into the well of God's abundance.  What we bring up depends upon what we let down."    Virginia Whiman

Just enjoying another day with my blessings and hoping that I can make learning fun for them!

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Mar. 2, 2007 - Back to routines

Well, we packed quite a bit and then the Lord just showed us that we were NOT to move.  It is a long story but I am so at peace with this decison.  I really feel that we have work to do here yet for the Lord. 

  As for homeschooling, we didn't get alot done until Wednesday of this week....I was still unpacking and getting our house organized.  The children are doing great although I still worry at times that I am moving to slowly....but, with a baby in tow and a preschooler to keep busy...I just remind  myself that I must "do my best, and hang the rest"!  (My old high school Algebra teacher's motto for us!)

  Tonight our homeschool group at church is doing a Fine Arts night...I might get the children to sing and say a few Bible verses, but since they are not in the written program I will see if they want to do it or not.  Anyway, we are still going as it will be good for them to see what it is all about.

Finally, just want to publicly write about how grateful I am that the Lord takes time to care about all the little details in our lives.  He DOES care where we live, who we are around, where we go, etc...isn't that thought amazing! That HE would even take thought of us?  Truly....makes my heart sing, "Isn't HE wonderful, wonderful...isn't JESUS my LORD wonderful?".......Think on HIM today....and may your hearts sing out with praises to our GOD!

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Feb. 19, 2007 - Will be gone for a bit!

I probably won't blog much the next two weeks...if I can stand it!  We are packing and moving this week...so, until life settles back down a bit!  Happy Homeschooling!

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Feb. 13, 2007 - A good day!

We have had a great morning...I love days like this!  First of all, I woke up feeling better than I have in  a while...it actually did NOT hurt to just hold my head up! Thank the Lord for that!  Then, we  read books during breakfast and did a bit of Math.  The kids had fun learning about weight and comparing lengths.  After that, we took a 15 minute "sanity" break outside in the falling snow! I wish it was coming down in big flakes....but, it is still very pretty. I think we are due to get mostly ice...uggh...!  The rest of the afternoon we will do a bit more on Phonics and then work on our Valentine's day cards...I borrowed an idea from lindafay....we decorated manilla folders with stickers and cut out pictures....and hung them all up on the wall....so each day we make a bunch of cards for each other and stash them inside....the children seem to have enjoyed this and it will be something we will do every year.  I also want to make sure I talk with them daily about God's love for us....since Valentine's is a day we express love to one another...I don't want us to forget to show love to our Father and talk of His wondrous love to us! 

  Happy Homeschooling!

Oh...we did do take out the other day...or actually we went out I should say...to a place called Moe's Southwestern restaruant...it was okay...nothing to rave about...but, I didn't have dishes to do nonetheless! yipppee!!   Tonight, we are grabbing Mc Donald's....the kids will be thrilled as I have a dr appt right at 5:30.......this could get me spoiled rotten! HA!

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Feb. 9, 2007 - interruptions...

As I have stated before...Fridays are for fun, but this one hasn't started off too fun yet...lol....first off, I woke up feeling awful with congestion yet again...this is wearing on me!  But, I did have time to spend with the Lord this morning and get prepared for our day (usually when I go downstairs early it never fails that blessing #1 hears me and follows along...not bad, but makes my quiet time a bit more challenging!).  Then, blessing #4 decides to sing and squeal at the top of her lungs while playing in her swing...normally this is a quite pleasant experience, but today it posed a problem in just trying to hear the school lesson over her!  Then, of course something broke and we had quite a clean up with lots of glass.....so, lots of minor interruptions today and I tried to remind myself that I am teaching my children  HOW to handle their own problems by the way I respond when "things don't go my way!".  Hard lessons sometimes for us all I think.

  Hopefully, we can take a little break now and tackle some math later and do some FUN after all!!! 

No idea what is on tonight's menu.....any ideas from anyone???  Take out maybe?  ha ha!!

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Feb. 7, 2007 - let's try this one more time!

I posted two times yesterday, both of which got knocked out before I was finished...uggh!  So...I will make one more try today....let's see how this goes!

  What I wanted to share was that last week we were gone for the week to visit family.  When we came home, I shared with a friend at church (she used to homeschool, but now teaches at a Christian school) that I don't know why I get so ambitious and pack along our school things...we did nothing!  She promptly told me NOT to feel guilty that our children were learning....heritage studies!  She reminded me that that was so important....and that I am not on anyone else's schedule (i.e. the public shool system)!  I needed that!  It is hard for me to de-program myself from thinking things must be done the way "man" has determined....instead of realizing I am doing the best I can for God's glory!  The character training is vital.....and I must focus on that more than anything I believe. 

 Secondly, I was going to share my excitement at finding more gems at the Thrift Store....a complete Unifix cube set with idea books....GREAT books for the kids like...A Child's Garden of Verses (I have been looking for that one for a while!) and it was only 50 cents!  A Read Aloud Handbook FULL of excerpts from great stories....Heidi, a set of the Boxcar Children books, some poetry books, and a few great Science books.  I was so thrilled!  Needless to say, the BOOKS in our house are about to TAKE OVER! HA!  But, I personally love books and hope this love carries over to my children.  I found the third book in the MITFORD series by Jan Karon a month ago and love it....It is such a sweet and charming little read!  If you have not read her series yet...I think most of you would enjoy it greatly for a leisure read!

  Okay...I am pushing my luck I am sure so I will close for now and TRY to post this one!

Blessings!

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Jan. 17, 2007 - field trip day!

Yesterday, dh decided we would take a field trip since he had the day off for MLK.  So, we drove, literally right down the road to Mt. Vernon, George Washington's Home.  It is gorgeous...what a view he had....the mansion sits right on the Potomac river.  It was really neat....of course, our little blessings are a bit too young to absorb the history of it all...but, we had a great family day!  The Mt. Vernon Inn  there serves colonial food in dining rooms decorated from that time period and the servers all wear Colonoial outifts.  That was fun and delicious!

  Today, we did one lesson in Phonics and might do more this afternoon....I am struggling with sore throat and aches and pains....so, we might not get as much done as I would like to!

LAM

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Jan. 12, 2007 - project day

I have a few little projects lined up for today...mostly involve cutting and pasting which they all enjoy and Blessing #3 is still learning to manuever her scissors.  DH gets off early today to take baby blessing to the dr and he has another appt after that...so I figured we would just do some fun things today.  After naps, I will pull out my big garbage bag of dress up clothes and let them dress up for a while. 

  Yesterday, I only did one math lesson in the morning as I was battling a bad headache...I have learned that when I am not feeling good to NOT push myself....makes for a much more pleasant day!  Then, that afternoon we just had a tea party...they were thrilled!!  It is surprising what joy it brings me just to see them so happy over something so seemingly "small".

My goal for the weekend:....get Baby Blessings baby food made!!!  I have green beans,  peas, and peachess to prepare for her. 

God Bless!

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Jan. 10, 2007 - Making progress

I do feel like we are finally making some progress.  After those three weeks of essentially no schooling due to the holidays and sickness....we are finally getting in a good routine.  Yesterday, we got our phonics lesson, Bible, and math done.  This morning after breakfast the oldest two blessings took turns reading their book and earned their certificates (they were so proud) while blessing #3 colored and blessing #4 napped!  Then they played and ABC game while  I cleaned up the dishes!  It is a great feeling to know that we can get alot done and have fun at the same time!  I am so thankful they are all home with me...even though it is a challenge to get everything done....it is a challenge I am grateful for and hope that we will bring glory to the Lord!

  We will do some more work this morning on "germs" and how they spread!  Should be fun! 

Leigh Ann

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Jan. 8, 2007 - I hit the JACKPOT!

No, I don't gamble...this was way better!!!  I went to the thrift store on post (I am a military wife) and hit the jackpot on educational items......it was awesome!  I found an etch a sketch for a buck....something I wanted to get blessing #3 for Christmas but didnt'....she loves it.....a telescope, microscope, a learning to tell time set, tons of  GOOD books, one flannelgraph set, a home planetarium set, some big file box called Wildlife Discovery full of index cards from A-Z on wildlife (will be a great resource and great for busy work  when they get a bit older and can write more)......and then some magazines called The Mailbox...and idea magazine for teachers for 75 cents each....they are all for preschool and I wish I could find some for the higher grades, but they have already sparked ideas for me to use with all of our little blessings! 

Whew....sorry to bore you all with such details, but I figured only fellow homeschooling moms would "get" the excitement of finding such things for our little ones.    Thanks for listening!

Better get started homeschooling instead of just emailing about it! HA!

Have a great day to anyone who passes by this blog and happy homeschooling!!!!

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Jan. 5, 2007 - great news

We had a dr appt today for our baby blessing and the great news is the test she was being tested for showed no preliminary signs of problems.  Thank the Lord!  We left our house at 7am to be at the dr by 9:30....here in DC traffic is unreal to say the least!  My precious DH took the baby to her test while I occupied our other three.  We were able to get three review pages done and I was quite pleased at how well both of them did in their work.  Blessing #3 still in preschool did a page of shapes and coloring.  Then, we studied our sign language cards and played games for an hour.   

  We might do some math work this afternoon or just snuggle a while!  Fridays are for fun after all!  Have a great weekend!

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Jan. 3, 2007 - getting back to "normal"!

Greetings!  It has been awhile.  We spent two wonderful  weeks with family in NC.  The children had such a blast.  There is so much running and exploring to do at Granny and Papa's house!  We only had school about three times and then when we returned home everyone got some awful virus that lasted a week.  So, today has been our first day of school again...just a review as I feel like I am starting from square one again!

  My two oldest seem to be doing well in phonics and math...our two areas we concentrate the most on.  We do Bible and a few Science experiements maybe two times during the week.  I feel that between our Bible time at night and Awana's they have a good deal of exposure to the Scriptures.  And we do Science purely for the fact that Blessing #1 claims to be a "scientist" and I want to keep his interest going!   Along with Phonics our lessons are about Community Helpers and this week is the dentist!  It was good timing as Blessing #1 lost his first tooth over the holidays....and Blessing #4 gained her first tooth! 

Time to prepare lunch for my little hungry ones!  If anyone happens upon this and has any good sites for finding modest, long, little girl dresses...pass it on please!  I  know my only option is learning to sew them myself.....yikes!  But, if I must learn...then I will!!!  Thanks!!!!!

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Dec. 5, 2006 - BRRR....

Okay, as I thought that one of my pals on here who lives where it REALLY is COLD that I should re-think titling this blog, "BRRR"!  Sorry for being so wimpy!! lol

  Not much was accomplished today, due to a DR appt, but I am aiming to do some math this afternoon.  I feel like blessing #1 is catching on really good with his Phonics, but Blessing #2 is going a bit slower...which is fine...but, I am trying to figure out at what "pace" I should be going.  Blessing #2 does however, love math...so, I try to focus more on that for her.  And Blessing #1 is a bona fida, self-proclaimed "Scientist" so I do try to incorporate plenty of experiments and discoveries into his day. 

  We did take a break from sitting at the table and working and did a Dora ABC game....I do recommend this one for your little ones.  My 3 year old...to whom the game belongs was able to do this with us.  It reinforces letter recognition, color matching, and letter sounds...and it was fun too!  A good break for mom and babies too!

  That is all for now....off  to heat up some Chicken and Dumplings and get a bit of housework done!

  Hey, Angela....glad I can still surprise ya!! lol  

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Dec. 1, 2006 - Fridays are for fun!

Today is Friday...and I get so excited that DH has the weekend off to spend with us, that I hardly get any work done! lol...We did get one good lesson in this morning and am hoping to do two more by the time DH comes home.  Plus, we MUST have some fun, so we are going to paint some sun catchers and maybe play a game or two.  All that of course,depends on Baby Blessing who is still teething and not feeling too good today!

  I just got a Pressure cooker from my parents and am eager to try that out!!!  If anyone has any great recipes to try in a pressure cooker, please pass them this way!

Thanks!

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Nov. 30, 2006 - Enjoying the simple things today

Today, we did get a math lesson in,but the weather is so warm and sunny here that it demands outside play time!  I enjoyed watching the children play today...even though they have been at each other and I am constantly reminding them to be "peacemakers"...sigh....but, last night some new friends of ours lost their newborn son....kinda puts all things in perspective.....minor irritations of the day strangely become welcomed blessings don't they?  The simple sight of seeing the sun highlight your little blessings' hair and face as they run and play is something I hope I never take for granted......the joy of hearing the words I thought I would never hear..."mama"....(even if it is in a non-acceptable form of a yell while tattling on a sibling!lol)......the fulfillment of providing physical, emotional, and spiritual nourishment daily for the ones I love.....sure, we all know our days can become drudgery at times....but, thank God for that!  I just wanted to take time today and thank the Lord for my blessings....and may I raise them for His Glory!

  PS...thanks to all who posted a comment!  You made me feel very welcome!!! 

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