an update

I just wanted to give you all an update on us. Lastweek, we maintained our school routine {sorta} and I did lots of planning, printing and cutting for the next 2 weeks. Now I have to laminate and cut again :) After drooling over several cute thanksgiving packs at a few of my favorite 1st grade blogs, I decided to buy 2 packs from teachers pay teachers.

I bought this thanksgiving math and literacy pack from Doodle Bugs Teaching -

and this thanksgiving words writing pack from Teacher Bits and Bobs -


We were supposed to start using these adorable learning materails today, but my 4 year old son decided to turn cartwheels like his sisters. Only it didn't end so well... now he has a broken clavical and has to wear a sling for 2 weeks. Things are about to get interesting around here to say the least! AND to top it all off, Ella started running a fever tonight ~ she has a terrible head cold and is miserable. Here's to hoping for a better day tomorrow!

tic-tac-toe!

Lately I've been thinking about being intentional with my time. More specifically, being intentional with my time with my kids. Sure I'm home with them alot, but I don't always take the time to be intentional with them. So I brought out a classic game and added a valentine's twist to it! It was a really fun way to end the day together! The kids have been calling out love when one of them gets three in a row!

non-traditional sledding

This may be the only kind of sledding my kids get to do in South Alabama! And yes, this picture was taken today!

christmas card spoiler!

merry christmas to you and yours from me and mine!

we made it!

The move is behind us and now we have the huge task of getting settled in, getting familiar with our new town, making friends, and adjusting to life in Alabama. We arrived last Sunday evening to about 20-30 helpers ready to unload the moving truck. Lunch and dinner was provided for us all last week and it was so nice not to have to worry about cooking on top of unpacking boxes. This past Sunday night, the church hosted a "pounding" on our behalf. I had never heard of a pounding before and was pleasantly surprised to find out that it is like a pantry shower. Originally a pounding was for the congregation to bring a pound of something like flour and sugar, but now it has grown to include any kind of pantry items. So, now I have a pantry full of dried goods, canned goods, suar, flour, corn meal, and lots of paper goods!


food from the "pounding"!

For most of my life I have lived in the same town where I grew up and was always surrounded by family and friends. It has been so nice and comforting to know that we left our family and friends to come to such a generous and loving church family. They have went over and beyond making us feel welcomed and meeting our needs. It doesn't get any better than that!

oh. my. wow!

Can you guess what we are doing this weekend?

bittersweet!

This weekend was a whirl wind of events for us. My husband, Matt, felt the call to full-time ministry about 2 years ago. For the past 2 years, God's answer was to wait. A couple of different times during the course of those 2 years, he sent out his resume to a few different churches. We never heard back from any of those churches. So, we kept waiting.

A couple of months ago, he felt it was time to persue the ministry again. And this time, God started openning doors for us! He was contacted by a church in Alabama. This weekend, the church invited us down for a face-to-face interview and for him to lead worship on Sunday morning. After the service ended, the church voted to "call" him to a full time ministry position! We are so excited for this opportunity and it seems that the church is equally excited too! We will be packing up this week and moving to Alabama! We are happy and sad all at the same time. Happy for this new journey and sad to be leaving our family and friends.

Here is a clip of Matt leading worship at our current church.

homeschool village - kitchen helpers!

This week we have been sharing tips and ideas on cooking with children. My girls love to help me cook, but I'm guilty of not always remembering to slow down and let them help me. Although, when I make homemade biscuits, one of the girls always helps me. They love to cut the biscuits out with the cutter and lay them on the baking sheet. This week Ella was my bicsuit cutter!










buttermilk biscuit recipe:
2 cups of self rising White Lilly flour
4 tablespoons of Crisco
buttermilk - start with 1 cup slowly add mix all the ingredients together (keep adding buttermilk until the dough is a little sticky)

1. preheat oven to 475 degrees
2. after mixing the dough, place a tea towel or paper towel on your counter
3. sprinkle flour onto the towel
4. you can use a rolling pin to roll out the dough, but I just use my hands because I like the imperfections in the biscuits!
5. have your best little helper cut out the biscuits and transfer to a baking sheet
6. bake for about 8 minutes until slightly golden on top

*While the biscuits are baking, have your other best little hepers set the table and get out the butter, jelly, and honey!

One of Gracelyn's chores is to put away the silverware.


Be sure to visit the Homeschool Village to see how other homeschooling families cook together!

sweet pea

This is the new addition to our family! She is so fun and all of the kids are smitten with her.

this is how we homeschool

This is how we are doing homeschool right now. Each week, we focus on an alphabet letter and do other activities to along with that letter. Gracelyn is learning to write her lowercase letters and Ella is learning to write her capital letters. This works out kind of nicly! Since I only use 5 workboxes for each girl, I break my lesson plans down into 5 categories: handwriting, phonics, math, art/crafts, other.


We mostly do school 3 days a week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday for about an hour. I feel that pretend play, dress-up, and unstructured play is very important for little ones. But, I also believe that children learn very quickly at a young age and are eager to learn new things and need to be exposed to new things.


One advantage of homeschooling is that you can broaden learning to other times and places. Learning can take place in the car, on a nature walk, helping with the garden or at the grocery store. Teaching and learning doesn't have to be a structured sit-down kind of lesson. That's my two cents anyway!

this is why I homeschool

We've decided to homeschool or 3 children! I'm excited and overwhelmed all at the same time. We've been doing school work 3 days a week for the past 8 or 9 weeks now. I really enjoy planning and teaching my kids. I graduated from college with a degree in early childhood education and loving getting to pour what I learned in school into my children. I haven't decided on a curriculm yet, so for now I'm focusing on pre-school skills and pulling material and activities from different places.

Each week we focus on an alphabet letter and do other activities that go along with that letter. We are using the Workbox system designed by Sue Patrick and I love it! I have one 10 drawer cart that I got from Jo-Anns's that I use for my 2 girls. Gracelyn uses the top 5 boxes and Ella uses the bottom 5 boxes. Each school day I fill their boxes with different activites. The girls really like the workboxes and I love how organized and easy it is to use.

I'm by no means an expert on homeschooling, but I would like to share with other homeschooling moms what we do each week. In fact, I'm learning a lot as I go along! Like what works and what doesn't work! I hope this blog will help in your planning!