This one looks like it is crocheted. It is really cute!

http://www.beansproutcreations.com/2009/11/03/week-9-christmas-stocking-ornament/

Here's a link to a cute knitted teddy bear that I might try sometime:

http://ax174.blogspot.com/2006/02/my-own-pattern-ii-one-seam-teddy-bear.html

Hubby and I went to the same high school. He graduated the year before I did, so going to his reunions is kind of fun, because I usually see people I also know!

One friend, Debbie D., took a photo of us together at the reunion, and I think it turned out nicely so I'm posting it here:

I was wondering if you've heard of the relatively new company called Teacher's Book Bag?  They sell items on CurrClick, and I also get emails from them periodically.

Today's email was telling of a Labor Day Sale, and five new freebies on their website.  The freebies are hyperlinked, and below is the content of the sale, for those of you who might be interested. 

Each month's "Book Bag" is actually three books to pick and choose from, at three different learning levels.  The sale items in the brochure below are for the August Book Bag, the Preschool File Folder Game Kits Collection One, and  the Kindergarten through First Game Kit Collection One.

I already purchased one of the August "Book Bag"s myself, and it is absolutely amazing!  It is called "The Sun, Seasons, and our Solar System", and it came available at just the perfect time because it came out right when my son was expressing an interest in the solar system.  If you follow the hyperlink, there is even a FULL PREVIEW of the product, which really sold me and helped me know I wanted it. The preview, for me, is smaller than my full screen, therefore hard to read, is not printable, and I can't find a way to hyperlink it (which are all great product security features for a preview...), so just go there and take a look.  [The other two sale items don't persoanally interest me, because at this point I am homeschooling one, and my student is 4th grade.]

So, here's the sale info:

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It is unbelieveable how quickly time flies sometimes!  I can't believe how long ago my last entry already is!

Anyway, we aren't starting our school year until the day after Labor Day. You would think I would use this time to be preparing for start day, but..... Nah.....  I am actually catching up on some housework (which we know, actually, IS preparing for the first day of school), and have been trying to finish some last UFOs (crafting term for (U)n(F)inished (O)bjects).  I finished knitting a baby sweater (need to sew on buttons), matching booties (need to finish sewing the 2nd one), and want to make a matching hat (a set for a charity).  I also made a nice tote, and hope to get a pair of pajamas and a pair of pants made for my ds.

We have a little local fair that I am planning to add these to; entry day is next week, so that's what I've actually been preparing for!

I'll try to post some photos to show these items, but not today. I need to go get going with my day!

Summer is coming to a close, and some of my responsibilities that have been distriacting me outside of my home as well.  My (deceased) mom's house is finally fixed, cleaned, and on the market. Renovations to my own house are (almost) finished. Time to et back into the swing of things.

Trying to work towards a more normal working schedule for my home and homeschool.

Flylady Mondays include:

• dust all surfaces
• sweep/mop/vacuum
• empty all trashes;
• change sheets
• clean mirrors, sliding door, major windows,
• declutter weekly periodicals

...need to check and see if that is all.  Then there are the Flylady "daily"s. 

Morning routine:

• make bed(s)
• morning shower and such; swish and swipe bathroom;
• feed the critturs;
• start the coffee; make the breakfast;
• unload dishwasher, breakfast, vitamins. Check calendar;
• eat the breakfast; quiet time; then rouse, feed, and do Bible time with my boy;
• a load of laundry started;
• make sure dinner plans have been re-booted.

Later in the day routine:

• Look at or create "To Do" list;
• homeschool;
• hit the hot spots (load the breakfast dishes; clear "hot spot" surfaces;
• lunch and recess break/ email, phone calls;
• homeschool in afternoon/ any appointments for the day

After homeschool:

• Clean up school area;
• make sure everything's on hand for dinner;
• some mom "craft time"
• start dinner

Bedtime routine:

• Leave kitchen clean with dishes loaded, dwasher running, coffee set up, counters wiped, sink shined;
• brush teeth, get dressed for bed;
• snuggle in and read, or do computer or watch movie while knitting or crocheting.

So, anyway, I got the sheets changed. I had to major clean my bathroom, because it had been ages... I pretty much have to dry mop the hardwood every day because of the dogs. I've been able to keep up with the dishwasher and coffee every night, but still need to remember to wipe down surfaces.

Majorly, I have boxes to unpack and declutter.  We had hardwood put in last week, and everthing was boxed and removed from the rooms. Now the boxes need to be unpacked. Realistically, a lot of the stuff that got packed needs to be thrown away, given away, or put away. In other words, when we packed up there were piles that should have been dealt with that were just packed. Now they need to be dealt with.

Anyway, time to get on with my day. I got the breakfast/coffee part done, but not the bed made part, nor the shower, nor the quiet time, nor the dishwasher, etc. Gotta get moving.

~D

Time for me to get back to legit bloging here. Sorry I've been so neglectful to anyone who is still subscribed here... I'll try to make reading my blog worth your while.

To start, today there was an excellent blog entry over at Heart of the Matter -- gave wonderful learning game ideas that I wanted to post here so I won't lose them:

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Looking for some fresh ideas to teach geography to your kids? Try one of these activities and sneak a little learning fun into your day:

• Bingo ~ Put together a list of 9-12 geography terms {land features, continents and oceans, countries within a continents, etc}. Provide your kids with 3×3 bingo boards and have them fill the squares with the different geography terms that you are learning. To play, read the definition of the term, specifics about the continent {largest continent, this continent is an island}, or name the capitals of the countries. They have to mark off the matching answer ~ you can make it as easy or difficult as you like!
• ABC’s of the World ~ Our kids love to play this game. We take turns pointing to places on our world map that start with the letters of the alphabet. A ~ Albania, B ~ Belize, C ~ Canada, D ~ Denmark, until we work our way through the alphabet.
• Destination Jar ~ Fill an old jar with strips of paper listing different destinations. We use famous landmarks we’ve studied, latitude/longitude coordinates or just country names. You can also list famous people: kings, queens, explorers or missionaries. Have your child pick a slip from the jar and find the place that matches on a map or a globe.
• Geography Sleuth ~ Give your child a few hints about a location and then let them discover where it is. For example 1) four of the first five presidents were born in this state; 2) the state bird is the cardinal; 3) the Potomac River runs through this state…Virginia!
• Toss the Globe ~ We recently bought an inflatable globe and play a game of catch with it. Whoever catches it has to name where either of their thumbs have landed. Depending on the kid’s ages, they have to tell me capitals, a famous landmark in the area, important features of that country, etc. This is great for learning map features such as mountain ranges, rivers, and borders as well as identifying the continents and oceans for younger children.

Try out a few of the games and have fun together with your kids. You’ll be surprised at how much they {and you} learn through fun and simple games!

Today's entry will be a review of a fantastic product created by the makers of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine (TOS). 

The Schoolhouse Planner is a digital planning book of 247 pages, chock-full of helpful, useful information, forms, and inspiration.  It is such a large document, and so full of so many wonderful things, that I will have a hard time telling you about all of them... Your eyes will start to gloss over dreamily...  And best of all, it is a PDF document, but you can type in it and SAVE the changes you have typed into it!  You will see why this is so wonderful as I tell you about it.

• Articles:  So far I have read inspirational articles on teaching math, the importance of teaching foreign languages, and how to use unit studies.  Articles I am still looking forward to reading on teaching Geography, Solving Science Struggles, communication, "Hands-on" History, Chore Training Tips, how art enriches our lives, and Homeschooling through High School.
• Recipes:  The Planner is divided into months of the school year, with a two-page-spread calendar for each month which can be printed (pages back-to-back) and put into your 3-ring Planning Notebook.  Between each month there are, among other things, yummy recipes for you to try out.
• There are information pages on famous composers and artists, countries and capitals, the Periodic Table, United States and state capitals, U.S. Presidents and their wives, a history timeline, 7 Wonders of the Ancient World and of the Modern World, important U.S. documents (such as the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, etc.). 
•  Forms:  This is where the type and save feature is really wonderful!  The Planner has in it so many, many wonderful forms.  There are forms for annual plans, yearly goals, curriculum planning, courses of study, a twelve-year planning page, recording sheets for curriculum recording, yearly grades, daily grades, progress reports, crafts completed, and on and on.  For the 12 year planning pages, you can add to it/adjust it each year.  The other forms can be filled in and saved, and reused each year, enterring the changed information for each new year.
• There are pages for descipleship records, Bible reading and memorization records, audio/video re and book reading logs, field trip planning, nature journal pages, Science lab sheet pages, and website and vendor information pages.  There are actually also resource recommendation pages in each month's section throughtout the entire Planner.
• There are pages to comple important personal information such as phone number and addresses of contacts, information for babysitters, family health records, schedules and reminders of homekeeping chores for mom and for kids, daily and family chore charts, many different formats for chore charts. There are pages for budgeting, financial inventory, gift budget, prayer journal, Bible reading, important dates to remember, garden plans and checklist, inventory of major appliances and electronics.  There are pages for keeping track of things borrowed or loaned, vacation plans, pet health visits, agift wish lists, and on and on. 
  

Improvements I would suggest for the creators to make to The Schoolhouse Planner:

• Table of Contents:  I would like to see the Table of Contents linked to the rest of the document so that when the reader points the cursor to an item in the TOC, one point and click would take the person immediately to the desired page.
• Table of Contents, again: The contents is listed by order, but page numbers are not given, so I have to scroll through the entire document to find out where something is and I can't just enter the page number into the top of the form where there is a nice little feature to do just that to get to the page you want...
• Two-page calendar spread: It would be very helpful if page two of each spread said somewhere, even in very faint print, what month it went to.  Repeatedly I am second guessing if my printer has messed me up, as I try to make sure that page one of November is on the back of page two of October, etc.
• Calendar (again): I would like to see the calendar pages presented in a changeable format, so that this resource can truly be used year after year. In other words, the place where it indicates on a calendar that August 14th, for instance, is a Thursday, should be typeable so that next year it could be changed and used to have the dates for August of 2009.

Overall, while this was a long, yet brief, overview, I just want to say what an awesome resource this is.  For it's price, I personally would have appreciated having a hard copy given to me with a compact disk included, which would have the pdf document on it.  I'm not a super computer whiz, so I don't know if a document that size would fit on a disk in pdf format, but it was just a thought.

So, everyone, go to The Schoolhouse E-Store and download the free sample pages to peruse, and think about investing in the wonderful resource for your homeschool (link below):

http://www.theoldschoolhousestore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=145&products_id=2629

Diana

Today Mama's cookin Bison Chili.  Okay, okay, you can make this with your meat of choice, but Mama's makin it with ground bison.  Mama's makin this to go in the freezer for two meals sometime in the future, but Daddy's gettin home late tonight, and it looks like Mama might just serve the first dinner from this chili tonight, since Mama doesn't much like to cook dinner twice in the same evening.

Here's the recipe.  This is a CORE recipe on the Weight Watcher's plan:

2 pounds ground bison

1 onion, finely chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

3/4 tsp. chili powder

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

salt and pepper to taste

1 15-ounce can dark red kidney beans

1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes

1 6-ounce can tomato paste

1 15- ounce can tomato sauce

non-CORE optional ingredient: brown sugar

Brown meat with onion and green pepper in large Dutch oven; add remaining ingredients.  Bring to a boil; reduce heat.  Cover and simmer over low heat for 2 hours, or in a crockpot for 6 hours, stirring occasionally.  Serve hot with fat-free sour cream, and for non-core eaters, shredded cheddar cheese. 

Serve with salad.  For 2 Weight Watcher points, cook up some hot muffins (in paper baking cups) and crumble into your bowl of chili.

Also a great meal in the following ways:

• Stuffed Baked Potatoes:  Bake potatoes and serve covered with steamed broccoli, Mama's chili, fat free shredded cheddar cheese,  and fat free cheddar cheese.
• Chili Dogs:  (not CORE) Cook up some Hebrew National all-beef hot dogs and serve in hot dog roll, smothered with Mama's chili and more chopped onions and cheddar cheese, with baked beans and saurkraut on the side.

So, as a way to do this, you can

1. Eat chili for dinner, and place the left overs in a heavy-duty freezer zip-lock-bag, mark it either "Stuffed Baked Potatoes" or "Chili Dogs", and plan to serve it for dinner two weeks later (so the family doesn't feel like they are eating "leftovers".
2. Using a Once-a-Month-Cooking mentality, make up the whole thing and freeze 6-cups-worth in a gallon-size freezer bag marked "Mama's Chili", and the rest of it bag in a 1-quart freezer bag and mark it either for dogs or stuffed potatoes.

Hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my madness today. I love to serve this with a Hot Muffin recipe I will have to post later.  While I was posting this Daddy called, and he plans to swing by a Vie de France store and pick up some salad and French bread to go with tonight! He spoils me so!

D