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Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
Small and happy prayer request
Would you pray for Rebecca and I? We have been invited to speak to a group of 150 student athletes at Duke tomorrow night on the topic of community service. They love the idea that one person can make a difference and Rebecca's story starting when she was just 11yo is a sweet one.
(Those new to my blog - Rebecca started making and selling bracelets shortly after Eliana was born to raise money for other babies with heart problems so that they could get help like Eliana did. She has to date raised over $8000 for Duke Children's Hospital.)We will be sharing our story (with pictures). Would you pray for us and for what we will say. And for my sweet girl who is very nervous about speaking to a crowd that size.
After sharing, we will be leading/teaching them to make some jewelry. They will be helping to make some things to build up her inventory. The idea of trying to lead this many is a little daunting too. I'm not going to worry about it - but am trying to plan and prepare as much as possible.
We are working on wrapping up details and really need to practice a little on what we will be sharing. Any prayers you want to offer for us would be appreciated. I'll post more details either tomorrow night or the following day.
I'm sorry I haven't been around to post much. I am reading and praying for y'all.
Love
The other night my daughter came to me with her Awana book and said "It says in here that in the 60's the Astronauts read from the book of Genesis on Christmas Eve from the Moon. Is that true or something Awana just made up?" I happened to be sitting at the computer so I played this for her...
http://www.archive.org/details/Genesis-ApolloEight-24Dec1968
Pretty cool!
I am assuming I don't remember this from the original airing since I was only 3 in 1968! But I do remember hearing it before. It is quite touching to listen to and somewhat sad to think about how much our world has changed in the last 40 years. I can't imagine something like this happening today and obviously neither could my daughter since she thought they had made it up for Awana.
I am praying for a revival for America! How awesome it would be to NOT be surprised to hear prayer in this country! How wonderful it would be for my children and grandchildren to live in an America that honored the one true God! Please join me in praying for our country.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people he chose for his inheritance.
Psalms 33:12
Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
Tomorrow, Nov 7th, our family will be participating in the Walk to Cure Diabetes. This is sponsored by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Joshua has been looking forward to this walk for many months. We started talking about it when he was in the hospital. He is familiar with "walks" because we go to the local Buddy Walk (supporting Down syndrome) each year.
Here is a note from Joshua.
I think the walk is going to be fun. I hope that the JDRF gets more money so that they can find a cure for diabetes. I hate diabetes. I don't like getting shots and pokes. I want to be able to have food whenever I want it.
I know that money is tight and that there are many worthy causes. I do feel the need to share this one though as it is important to us and many other families as well. If you are interested in sponsoring Joshua, please go to this link.
You can type in his name Joshua Nelsen and state and his page should come up for you. Our team name is "Joshua's Fan Club" which should also show on the site.
Blessings
Leslie
Our church hosted a Harvest Party. The kids had a lot of fun, playing games & winning candy. :)
After we left (I had to bring Steve home--he had to work that night), I brought the girls to my friend Val's house to go trick or treating. This was the first time my girls had ever been trick or treating. And now I know why. I was exhausted by the time we were done & so were all of the kids! LOL
Here are some pics of the party:
The cookie that Patience decorated for me
Patience getting her face painted by Miss Heidi. I thought she would get a rainbow on her cheek or something...NOT.
The finished product!
Eli helped the little kids play games. He is growing up so fast!
Next!
Patience doing spin art
Maddie, getting her face painted. Quite frankly, seeing her made up like this was disturbing to me, so I didn't take a picture of the end result.
I didn't bring the camera Trick or Treating--it got dark pretty quickly. The girls had a great time (and for those of you wondering, Eli said he didn't want to come. Steve said he changed his mind 2 minutes after we left--oh well!).
We had another great co-op day last week. I just haven't gotten around to posting about it. It is always such a treat to spend time with friends and have fun learning in the process. We had a beautiful day and spent it all outside.
So what did we learn about today? Well, pumpkins of course.
We had a few more experiments on density and learned that all pumpkins float no matter the size or weight.
One thing that I thought was really interesting was watching them turn in the water so that the stem was facing down. I'm not sure why they did that, but all of ours from small to large turned in the water like that. (Can you see that the large one is in the process of turning?)
We also learned about the human body. We talked about joints (and had a neat visual) of how the joints can break down (ouch that one was a little close to home!). They also learned about the bones in the body.
They came home with a neat project to label the bones as well as a skeleton to put together. (The black dots are velcro to which the names of the bones can be attached. There is a copy of the same sheet with the answers behind it so that they can check their work.)
After learning about the body, we talked about the style of running done by the man in the book who "shuffled along" and won the race! The children had several rounds of running a course. What a fun course too! It was through the woods and the path had pumpkins all throughout as well as pictures of various Australian animals.
Lastly, the children learned about hot air balloons and why they float. They made their own hot air balloons from a trashbag.
They used hair dryers to fill them with hot air and then watched them rise!
We had a yummy snack of pumpkin muffins and granola. While they were snacking the children watched the "dancing raisins" experiment. More on the experiment here.
While the other children were learning about pumpkins and such, Daniel again had his private nature study class with his sweet friend Miss Lynn. He so looks forward to these days!
Thank you friends for another wonderful day! I'm blessed to be a part of such a creative and sweet group of friends!
Love
Leslie
On Oct. 1st the kids and I were in the car headed to the pumpkin patch! They were all dressed in fall t-shirts and I was ready to take some great pictures! Then it started raining...I pulled over and made a few quick calls to the homeschool friends we were suppose to meet. We all decided to go another day. Little did we know it was going to rain for 30 days straight! (I am exaggerating a little here, but honestly this is the wettest Oct. I have seen in my life!) Meanwhile we were in the middle of moving. The rain meant we were moving in the mud and the last thing I wanted to do was trek out into a pumpkin patch and collect even more mud. As the month headed to a close I started to realize a trip to the pumpkin patch was not going to happen. So I did the next logical thing...I decided to have a Pumpkin Party! LOL
What is a Pumpkin Party??? Honestly it's something I made up. But, we had our first one on Nov. 2nd with 97 people in attendance! Thankfully the rain finally stopped and we found a park with lots of concrete to keep us out of the mud. The party was a huge success and a LOT of fun! Here are the highlights....
We started out with the kids each decorating a pumpkin cookie.
Then they ate their cookies while waiting for the pumpkin story to start.
Next we listened to the Pumpkin Gospel
You can read all about the story at the link below
http://ginaconroy.
Then we played pumpkin games!
Pumpkin Parachute Game.
I got a package of Fun Foam Pumpkin and made a smiley face on one with a marker. Then they would put all the pumpkins in the parachute, throw them up in the air and the person who found the smiley face got a piece of candy. Repeat until everyone wins!
Pumpkin Bowling was a favorite!
We also had Pumpkin Golf! My husband cut the bottom off the pumpkin and made 3 holes for us to golf into!
The kids loved this! I got the idea here:
http://familycrafts
We also had Pumpkin Hot Potato.
And we had Pumpkin Relay Races!
We finished off the party with lots and lots of pumpkin food! Everyone brought a pumpkin dish to share. We had pies, breads, cakes, cookies, pumpkin dip. The food was amazing!
It was a great day and I am sure we will have many more pumpkin parties in the future.
Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
It feels like it's been a long week! I taught Sunday School this past week--I enjoy it, but it's a lot of work. Then I had a show Sunday afternoon in Swansea, MA. A bit of a drive, especially if you're a native RI'er. :)
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Monday, Patience started to cough. She's been coughing ever since. No fever, though, thank God. Steve had school Monday evening. We ended up cancelling Patience's piano lesson on Tuesday, and she stayed home from art lessons. I ran to the bank while Eli & Maddie were in art. Steve had school Tuesday night. Eli had writing class on Wednesday, and then I had a show in North Kingstown Wednesday evening (fun bunch of girls--we laughed a lot!). Yesterday, Maddie and I had our first knitting lesson with my friend, Ruth. Then we went to Stop & Shop and Wal-Mart.
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Today I need to go to the bank. And tonight my friend, Val, is having a Lia Sophia party. Tomorrow I have an appointment with one of my new consultants, and Steve is working his overnight shift & Wal-Mart.
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I cannot wait for Sunday--just church, nothing else. We can put football on and just relax!
Oh, I've been meaning to post some more pics of our cats, Moses & Selden. It's been weeks since Selden has been allowed outside, and he seems to be adjusting to having Moses around.
Here's Moses, playing in an empty Frosted Flakes box that someone was helpful enough to leave on the floor.
Sleeping together on the window seat
What? Was this seat already taken?
On the table together
Welcome to Freebie Friday!
It just so happens that all five of the people in our family have birthdays in a six-month period. So from mid-August to mid-February it feels we are constantly in birthday mode. Tomorrow is my husband's birthday, so that got me thinking about what birthday freebies are out there. I found some great ones, including a list of restaurants that give free food on your birthday! There are also free printable cards, cake ideas, and much more!
I hope you enjoy this week's birthday freebies!
Family Fun has a wonderful selection of birthday cake ideas you can easily make at home. I have made many of these for my family, and they are always a big hit!
Greetings Island has free, printable birthday cards.
Dayspring has a lovely collection of free E-Cards.
Need to be reminded of upcoming birthdays? Here is a free birthday reminder service.
You can print your own free happy birthday banner HERE.
How about some free food? This website has a huge list of restaurants that give freebies on your birthday.
Want to know what happened in history on your birthday? Click HERE to see a short video of what has happened on your special day.
Find out how many days old you are HERE.
This is a neat website. You can see a time capsule of the day you were born. Find out what bread cost, or how much you would have paid for a car. Learn what the minimum wage was and lots of other fun information!
I hope you enjoy this week’s birthday freebies!
Happy homeschooling!
Jamin
It's been absolutely ages since I've shopped at CVS and used Extra Care Bucks with any kind of regularity. All of the shopping I did there over last winter really helped. I think we just recently ran out of toothpaste. 
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Since Patience is sick, and I had to make a CVS run anyway, I got out the flyer and my coupons. Now, keep in mind that in order to get ECB's to use in the future, you have to spend some $ to start off. At least I've always found that to be the case. There were things on sale this week that I don't know that I would normally buy (i.e., name brand), but they were items that we use, and I could get ECB's back, so I went for it.
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This is what I bought:
2-Dawn Ultra I saved $1.02 each with the sale, and had 2-20 cent coupons
2-2 liter bottles of Coke saved 49 cents each, and earned $1 ECB
2- 42 count boxes of Prilosec saved $4.22 each with the sale, had a $7 coupon, and earned $10 ECB
2- 5.8 oz Colgate Total saved $1.40 each with the sale, has 2- $1 coupons, and earned $2 ECB
1 package of Neti Pot premixed solution packets saved $2.49 with sale
2-12 count boxes of Nyquil & Dayquil (one box of each) hmmm, I'm just realizing I didn't get the sale price on these....I was supposed to save $.99 each, and I had $2.50 in coupons. Those plus the solution packets earned me $10 ECB. Although I had to go back into the store to get the $10 ECB's because for whatever reason, they didn't print out on their own--probably for the same reason that I wasn't given the sale price on the Dayquil and Nyquil. Not sure if I'll go back to get that $1.98.
2-8.5 oz Soft Soap handpumps BOGO saved $3.29
4-boxes of Kleenex They were BOGO (saved $4.78), and I had a $1 off 4 coupon
A SoftSoap handpump with a base refill I had a coupon for a FREE refill ($3.99 value), and I'm just noticing that that coupon wasn't redeemed. Did I drop it? Did the cashier drop it? Is it still in my coupon box? Grrrr. It's not here. He must have dropped it. Do I go back? I have a $3 coupon I could apply to this purchase. I earned $4 ECB by buying both.
I also bought a package of gummy vitamins for the kids and a bottle of CVS hand sanitizer.
Once I got home from CVS, I found an online coupon for $5 off a $30 purchase. I went back to the store yesterday evening (hence my hesitation to go back AGAIN), and they allowed me to apply it to my transaction.
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SO.
Before sales & coupons, my total would have been $146.36.
I had $4 ECB's to apply to the order. I used $17.90 in coupons.
I paid $92.78, and I now have $27 ECB's to use next week.
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I have to admit, it's a little frustrating to see where the cashier messed up and I didn't catch it. I need to pay more attention! If I had caught the mix up on the Nyquil/Dayquil price, and realized that he didn't use the Softsoap coupon, I could have saved an extra $6. I did save $54, though, and that's nothing to sneeze at.