Another Stolen Idea!

Since starting on our homeschooling journey I have found the Confessions of a Homeschooler blog, along with a few others very helpful. Giving me a ton of ideas, lots of insight and just generally helping me feel like I am heading in the right direction.

I have been trying to find lots of crafts and activities to do for December so that we can go with a sort of abbreviated schedule for the month (keeping up with our math, writing and reading). So when I saw this idea I was so excited! Super fun, super easy and easily adaptable for different ages.

*picture from Confessions

Edible Christmas Trees! All you need is the sugar type ice cream cone, green frosting (a little bit of food coloring in some white frosting), and ornaments, such as sprinkles and small candies.

This will hit the 3 big things that make my kids happy.

1. messy

2. fun

3. sugar

Can't wait to make them!

'til next time

me

Running.....Running.....Running

It seems like everywhere I look (read) now people are talking about running and how much they love it. I bought some good (meaning expensive) shoes a while ago with the thought in mind that I was going to also become a runner. Didn't happen. I tried the Couch25K program and was BORED! I know that tons of people like it but it really wasn't for me.

Instead I joined the insanely expensive Athletic Club near me, which I LOVE, and signed up for a 12 week program thinking I would jump start some weight loss. Nope. I lost a grand total of 7 pounds in 12 weeks, which in turn started me on 3 months of blood work, girlie visits and a bunch of other crazy crap.

The outcome at the end of the 3 months is that I am fine, and that I just need to keep working out. Which, while awesome, is still somehow annoying.

And that brings us to now. Brian has decided that he wants to start running, Mr. I Am Too Good To Work Out and so mad dashed ran us out to join our local 24 hour gym (i.e. cheap). With the bright idea that we should get up at 4:30 and go work out together. Which has happened exactly 2x now, because the kids have banded together and figured out a way for one or more of them to be awake @ 4:30 (by the way that's 4:30 A.M. people!).

The two times that we did make it out there together I kinda wanted to kill him anyway. Because it's totally not fair that someone who has never worked out a day in his life jumps on a treadmill and does a 2 mile run at just over an 8 minute pace first thing. I can run a minute at a time at this point. Who wants to help me hide the body?

Also, in the spirit of competition a friend and I who have vastly different ideas on times a day we should work out and so no longer try to go together, have started up a competition. We are going to see who can be the first of us to do 3 miles on the tread in under 30 mins.

I figure this will take me somewhere in the range of 6 months to accomplish. I printed out a plan that said is should have me doing about 2 miles, in 30 minutes, in 8 weeks or so. I realize that I will have to repeat a lot of weeks, being that my physical fitness may not be at it's peak at the moment. Then from there I will just have to get faster.

I tend to stray away from the cardio workouts when I am in the gym and veer more towards the weights, but as my fav. Jillian Michaels says "Let's face it, running makes you skinny." So high ho, high ho, off to the treadmill I go!

Today will be my first day with the new program. I am hoping that I can stick to it! 'Cause I want to win!!! Not sure yet what the winner (me) is going to win but we have time to figure it out.

'til next time

me

I Drank the Kool-aid

Hmmmm......maybe that's not the best way to phrase it. The thing is when I decided to take on home-schooling it was a little late in the game, as in it was about 3 weeks until the start of the public school year, and I had to do a TON of research very fast!

It was quite crazy around here and I don't think that I even spoke to my family unless it related to curriculum choices! While I was doing my mad dash research the spelling program that kept coming up, over and over and over and over was the All About Spelling Program.

I confess that I gave it a quick look and thought that it would be too labor intensive (for me). I really just wanted a nice easy worksheet type curriculum for the kids. Easy!!

I found what I still believe is a good choice spelling for some kids (as in Ki). But it just wasn't working for my Lainie. Yes should could route memorize the words for the week but she wasn't really LEARNING if you know what I mean.

We needed something were we could start with the basics and really learn the sounds and the rules etc. And something with the option with moving on quickly once mastered.

I was back to researching and once again All About Spelling was EVERYWHERE. Finally, I grudgingly bought the program (grudgingly= whining and complaining the whole time I was putting in my credit card info).

The program came very quickly and really only took Bri and I about 30 min. while watching t.v. to get organized. And I have to say I am LOVING this program.

All About Spelling is super engaging, very user friendly, well written, well thought out and I am kinda kicking myself that I didn't just go for it before. Lainie is really going strong and I am confident that this will really help improve her spelling and over-all understanding of words.

So.......I drank the Kool-aid, and I liked it!

'til next time

me

Oh and for what it's worth, I was not compensated in ANY way for this post, unless you count the fact that I now need to go get blue Gatorade out of my carpet (note to self, don't ignore the 3 year old), because no one reads this blog at the moment!

Our Version

Sometimes because we have a larger than average family we have to adapt things to fit us. Even a $5 footlong @ Sub*way can be expensive if you multiply it by 8.

Yesterday Kieran came up with this idea that I thought was pretty genius and now we have our version.... which we have named Ki's Pizza Subs.

The ingredients:

12 hotdog buns

pizza sauce

pepperoni

salami

mozzarella cheese

(Alainna added banana peppers to hers)

I pulled open the buns slathered on some pizza sauce, topped that with the salami and pepperoni and then some good old mozzarella. I stuck them in the oven @ 450 for 4 mins. and served them up with some cucumbers and carrots!

Outcome:

A big win all around!! The kids loved it and so did I, especially with our schedule, having something fun and easy to throw together on those crazy days will definitely come in handy!

'til next time

me

Holidays

With the holidays just around the corner I am trying to start getting organized for all that I want to do this year. While I used to think that I was an organized person, 6 kids later, I am lucky if I remember my name at the end of the day, so this might be quite a stretch for me.

Here are some things that I want to get do this year especially because I have Kieran and Alainna home with me,

~make "brownie jars" as gifts for our friends and family

~make "bath salts jars" for friends and family

~homemade nametags for gifts

~teach the kids to address envelopes with Holiday cards (this one might be a little bit self serving, just saying)

~cookies (of course)

~make ornaments for our class tree (I sort of need to buy one of these still)

and a few dozen other things I have yet to come up with.

I have started my lists, and put together a folder to save all the ads and coupons that I am accumulating. I am counting down the minutes until Black Friday, yup I am one of those!

I know that at some point I will fail, my motivation will fall off, I will lose my folder, my computer will crash that holds everyone's wish list or my head will explode. But for right now, in my head I am going to ROCK this holiday season!

I did stumble across this site today, looks very cool, so I thought I would share. Organized Christmas. If everyone already knows all about this site, just let me have my moment and don't share!

They have lots of neat gift-in-a-jar ideas. And tons of other fun little tips, tricks and ideas.

Ummmmm........I should mention if you are someone I know reading this let's just forget about the brownies in the jar and the bath salts in a jar I was talking about earlier. No reason, I'm just sayin'.

'til next time

NaBloPoMo

National Blog Posting Month is BACCKKKKKK!!!!! I am getting to this very late tonight, but I am planning on taking part this year again. Not sure if I am going to go with a theme or just wing it.

I know it's lame but I am counting this as my first post! With a bonus Halloween picture.

'til next time

Books

I read, I read kind of a lot. On top of that we have 3 others in the family that read kind of a lot too. I am withholding names in an effort to not to embarrass my non-readers. Losers.

I tend to like reading things by series I can get totally immersed in them. Hence the reason I just finished the first 10 Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris (I am still waiting on number 11).

Plus, hello, it's a vampire series.....what's not to like.

Basically the books revolve around Sookie (who is human) and the crazy amount of crap she gets herself into. Quite a few characters feature in all the books. You have your vampires and werewolves. Your shapeshifters and fairies. All in all the books are a good read and don't require to much brain power. Pure entertainment. Just the way I like it.

The show True Blood is also based off these books, I haven't seen it yet (no HBO here) but I do have the first season in my Netflix queue if I could get the kids to stop moving their crap to the top, it would get here.

'til next time