Tammie's Homeschool Blog - Homeschool Blogger

Movie Night

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 00:44:00 -0600

We went to see "Night at the Museum" at the base theater tonight. What a great movie! If you have not seen it, go see it now! I have not had so much fun at a kids movie in ages...we laughed hysterically. From here on out, when The Man wants to talk, I will let the girls know that "My Dum Dum wants to speak."

The coolest thing? One entire row was taken up by homeschool kids from here on base...and it was not a planned field trip!

In other news...we got 5 packages in the mail today, including our Ancient timeline from Knowledge Quest. I have also decided I am in love with older books! Today, we got "Hero's Every Child Should Know. I am so excited about this book as well as "Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare," I can't wait to start reading them to the girls. They are both in very good condition (especially for their age), but show the marks of well loved books.

We also got Teaching Textbooks. I am a little nervous about that one. Since the sixth grade will not come out for a few more months, and Chaney placed in the 7th grade on the placement test, The TT lady said we should try 7th out. We have 30 days to send it back if it does not work out. By that time we would be closer to the 6th grade coming out. David and I talked after looking it over this evening, and he thinks I should just let her finish the Abeka (she has about 25 lessons we were just going to leave), and then try the 7th grade TT. By time we gave it a good shot, it would be to late to send it back, but we could just buy the 6th anyway and save the 7th for next year. I made sure and reminded him how much we paid for it...but, he is sure, so I am going to be sure as well :)

Mail's Here, Mail's Here...

Tue, 6 Feb 2007 23:25:00 -0600

Yesterday and today we saw our first shipments of homeschool supplies come in. Yesterday we received all of our IEW supplies. I am very impressed with the quality of the binders and CD cases. The information looks fabulous, but I am very glad for the DVD's.

Today we received our science curriculum from Creation Sensation. We ordered the Aplologia Elementary Astronomy and the science kit from CS. The text book is amazing! I can see the girls using this as a resource for years to come...not just use it this year then be done with it. The kit is wonderful as well! There is NO way I would bother to hunt all that stuff down on my own. They even included the tootsie rolls for one experiment !

We also received Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare by E. Nesbit. It is an older book, but in wonderful condition...and I am so happy to have it. I am also looking forward to getting Tales From Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb. I think Chaney will love both of these books. I plan on going through these two books with all the girls this year, then study actual plays with Chaney next year.

I can't wait for the mail tomorrow :)

Finally, back before Christmas in this post I mentioned Homeschool Radio Shows. My girls enjoy listening to these each week and can not wait for the next weeks radio show to be sent out. Last the HRS email had a link to a brand new resource, You Need a Story. Each week the Greens will send out a link to download a new story read by Mr. Green. Mr. Green has a wonderful reading voice and in the first story we received (Rikki-Tikki-Tavi), my girls were totally drawn in. The stories will come out every week on Tuesday. I have already downloaded Rikki-Tikki-Tavi to Riley and Kennedy's FP3 player, and they have listened to it about everyday. If the future stories are even close to being as thrilling as the first one, I think your family will be as happy with these as mine!

Colts WIN!

Tue, 6 Feb 2007 01:15:00 -0600

Well, it didn't start out pretty, but in the end the Colts pulled it off. The Man is thrilled beyond belief! Our Superbowl Party was a blast! We had a house full...including 15 kids! Here are the highlights with pictures...

The food

Mingling. Notice the tasteful decorations...remember that...

David (The Man) and Gary

The back of Jon's head. Jon has a phobia of having his picture taken...

Michelle and Terri. We will talk about the shirt hanging from the lamp later...

Emily and Nadeen

The Man can *taste the victory...

Long suffering no longer!

Remember the tasteful decorations from above? Emily and I put those up Saturday night, along with a few balloons in the living room...well, I guess The Man did not think our decorations were "Redneck" enough for a Hoosier...so he added his own little touch...

Yes, my husband decorated our living room room with a t-shirt! I don't even have words...

One last picture showing the girls and David wearing their Conference Championship shirts sent by Davids sister.

Superbowl Party

Sun, 4 Feb 2007 02:59:00 -0600

GO INDIANAPOLIS COLTS!

The man has been a long suffering Colts fan since they first came to Indy. So, as you can imagine, he is over the moon about his team being in the Superbowl. There are a couple of other families in our cul de sac who are Colts fans as well, so we are throwing our first ever Superbowl party! It is going to be so much fun! We have the house all decorated and everyone is pitching in on food. I am making:

Buffalo Chicken Dip (found it on the WTM board)

4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves, boiled and shredded

12 oz. bottle Frank s red hot buffalo wing sauce
2 8oz. packages real cream cheese
1 16oz. bottle ranch dressing
½ cup chopped celery
8 oz. shredded cheese (combination Monterrey Jack and cheddar)

In a 13×9 pan, combine chicken and bottle of Frank s sauce. Spread to cover bottom of pan. In a saucepan, heat cream cheese and ranch dressing on medium heat unil smooth. Pour over chicken. Sprinke celery on top of sauce. Sprinkle cheese on top. Bake uncovered in 350 degree oven for 30 40 minutes. Watch top to make sure it doesn t burn. Let stand for 10 min. Serve hot or warm with a sturdy scoop-able chip Fritos scoops tasted GREAT! Second would be a tortilla scoop or celery sticks (if the chicken was thinly shredded.)

Hawaiian Chicken Wings

Large bag Chicken Wings
Hawaiian Salt (could use sea salt in a pinch)
Add salt to frozen chicken wings to taste. I use about a 1/4 cup or more. Let sit in bag for about 1 hour all the while periodically swishing the bag around to re-coat the chicken. Cook wings on grill till crispy.

It sounds kind of boring, but there is something about the salt that makes the chicken SO good.

BBQ Lil Smokies

I will post pictures tomorrow...hopefully happy pictures :)

BTW...I have NO idea why the font and alignment is different...I made no changes once I went back to align left after the "Go Indianapolis Colts." I can't get it to change either....strange.

Sniff :(

Sat, 3 Feb 2007 03:57:00 -0600

Kennedy lost her tooth tonight. She has been waiting for this tooth to come out for weeks! I can not believe how fast she is growing up :(

Burning Plastic...

Fri, 2 Feb 2007 12:17:00 -0600

If you noticed the distinct smell of melting plastic…that was my debit card going up in flames! We ordered *all of our curriculum today. We are expecting shipments from 16 different venders! The grumpy mail lady is going to love us the next couple of weeks.

It was so nice to be able to order everything after planning for months. I made a couple of changes. I decided to hold off on Rosetta Stone. I have been hearing a lot of good things about the Elementary Spanish program from United Streaming. Dish Network also offers the Elementary Spanish for only the price of the workbooks…so we are going to give it a try when they start their new schedule this fall. If it does not work, then we will go with RS.

I also decided to go ahead and order Phonetic Zoo from IEW. Spelling has had me pulling out my hair for the past couple of years. I thought Abeka was ridiculously hard, but nothing else jumped out at me as being any better. I decided to take a chance and try PZ because it sounds like the kids really get the words down by time they finish the list. I also like that she (Chaney) can do it mostly on her own, freeing up my time to do other things with them instead of trolling the internet looking for spelling words every week. I really hope it is worth the money…because if The Man ever figures out that I spent $99 on a spelling program, he may start to pay a bit more attention to what I am buying.

I had originally planned on getting most of the reference books for Biblioplan from the library, however, I ended up going nuts at Alibris and Amazon buying all of them. Most are coming from used booksellers. We will still get the readers/read alouds from the library, but I wanted the girls to be able to go back to the reference books anytime they wanted…not just while we were studying that particular subject.

Now I have to figure out where I am going to put over 60 new reference, text and literature books!

Me as an M&M?

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 21:16:00 -0600

I think it could work!

Rainbows...

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:42:00 -0600

Well, sickness has hit the Wagle house...specifically me. I wrote an update the other day about why I have been AWOL so long, but HSB ate my post, and I just did not have the energy to re-type everything again. That was my first clue that my stuffiness was not merely a small sinus problem.

I have a confession Internet, I am a HUGE baby when I am sick. Luckily, I have The Man, who will bring sushi home to make me feel better. On day two of my sickness, however, I was not singing about his wonderfulness... when he POURED MY PEPSI DOWN THE DRAIN! It was like he was staging some kind of intervention!

OK, Internet...so I got a little dehydrated. I.don't. like. water...really, who needs water when Pepsi meets *my definition of "fluids?" Who knew that copious amounts of Pepsi not only would *not keep you hydrated when paired with cold medicine...but could contribute to you being flat on the bathroom floor at 3 a.m?

I did manage to drag myself off the couch yesterday, to take pictures of the amazing (double) rainbow over our house. The Nyquil is starting to kick in, so I will leave you with these pictures. You can see the rest of them if you click on my Flikr badge in the side bar.

A Day in the Life of The Man...

Sat, 13 Jan 2007 01:25:00 -0600

I am sure, having the television remote in his possession, makes him feel like he is in charge.

More of what I do...ramble.

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:23:00 -0600

YAY! Chaney is playing basketball again! The angst of a 10 year old is over...for now anyway.

Her first game back after the "Worst Mother in the World," episode, was last night. She was so excited to be out there and help out her team. It was so hard for her to sit out on games, and to not fully participate in practices...but, through it all she learned a lot about character and sportsmanship. Her coach (and some of the other players on the team) could not believe she showed up for every practice...even though, per doctors orders, she was not allowed to handle the ball.

What did she do at practice? She ran...even though she hates running!

She was on cloud nine last night. It was so exciting to watch her. To make yesterday even better...she regained all her previous knowledge of basic math...therefore cancelling fractions? A piece of cake!

Our homeschool group had P.E. today...I *love Thursdays. I get to sit back while someone else entertains the kids, eat sushi for lunch, and talk to real. live. adults. Because of the Christmas break we had not had P.E. for a couple of weeks ...so I was *really looking forward to this week. I felt way more relaxed when we came home and took on school. I am looking forward to starting our new school year and our new curriculum plan. I honestly feel that part of our problems lately are because my heart isn't in this school year anymore. I want to move on...but we *can't stop yet...we have not done near enough...and now I am irritable because I am impatient Of course it does not help that lesson plans are kicking my rear end!!!

In other news meet the new (temporary)

member of our family...our foster cat Peyton. Both of Peyton's parents will be deploying to Iraq next month. They are away to training right now, and they have asked us to keep Peyton as a test run. If everything goes well, we will keep him until they return from Iraq. Lets just say The Man is *thrilled (sarcasm) about having a cat in the house.

The Wagle's have not had good luck when it comes to animals...other than dogs. We have managed to keep a yorkie alive and well for almost 15 years. We also have three children who are well adjusted...and we have done it (so far) with very few trips to the ER. However, genocide is committed whenever a fish comes near this house. No LIE...the harder we try to keep the things alive...the faster they DIE! We finally had to tell our Pastor, that the girls could not participate in the yearly "Goldfish Sunday" promotion anymore...because quite frankly, the therapy bills would suck through our entire retirement, if we had to dig one more mass grave in our backyard!

We have also had a guinea pig for a few months. I am sure you noticed the "had" in that sentence. The Man was not here for that one. Of course not...pneumonia?, LICE?, baseball?, termites?...nope...not enough! I *needed the experience of digging a grave (during the rainy season of Central California.) In the rain. In our swampy backyard. With three. hysterical. children. FUN times, Internet, fun times.

So Peyton, as long as you do not harass the 15 year old deaf/blind dog, do not try to bite the six year old, try not to get cat litter all over my floor, and stay off my kitchen counters...you will be welcome to stay for the next 6-9 months. In turn, we will work diligently to keep you alive...however, *please don't ask the fish how well that worked for them...