Homeschool Supplies

Today I am excited to share with you my homeschooling clean up at Target.  I was able to pick up all 22 of these items for $1 per item.  As you can see I picked up 4 workbooks 3 dry erase writing boards 2 set of dry erase sentence strips 10 box of flash cards and 2 games and 1 clock.

I saw another homeschooler had mentioned Target dollar items in their blog but did not really think I would find this many useful things.  A great blessing indeed.  These are all early elementary items.

I proceeded to Walmart where I picked up 17 cent notebooks, 20 count pencil packs for 97 cents. Markers for 97 cents , Elmer's glue for 50 cents, 24 pack crayons for 50 cents and composition notebooks for 50 cents.

I save extra money out of my budget all year to hit these deals when they come up before school.  This is the earliest I have ever seen them out.  They go fast so if you live near any of these stores you may want to act fast.

Need help with inexpensive grade school curriculum?  Check out this website: http://allinonehomeschool.com/
Easy Peasy All in one home-school curriculum.  The outlines are free to access and have lots of great links to videos and worksheets to reinforce taught concepts.  You will just need your basic supplies.

I hope you have a super year teaching at home.

Moving? My De-junking adventure.

Yep we are moving.

This is both an exciting and scary time for us to say the least.
Excitement over a grand new adventure and opportunities that have been given to us.
Scary over the unknown of what we are stepping into.

This is a huge process for me.  I save stuff. LOTS OF IT.... so needless to say in order to make this move so much smother I need to purge stuff....and Lots of it.  I have resolved after today never to save that much stuff ever again.  Yes you heard it here.  Cleaning all this stuff and pitching it is a stressful event for me.  Today I cleaned the closet under the stairs.  My kids throw every toy imaginable in there.  MY FAULT for not making them take care of it to begin with.  This little closet that is 5 x 4 feet was crammed to the gills.  Not anymore though.  It took a good 2 hours to sort stuff out.  We kept legos, lincoln logs, and metal cars/trucks/tractors.  Every thing else literally went into a garbage bag....

Pencils, pens, marbles, magz, cards, puzzles, and numerous other items gone to the garbage.  Why so ruthless you say. Well because my inability to effectively deal with this stuff caused the problem in the first place.  Most of the pieces to these things are missing or somewhere else.  I am chronicling my de-cluttering adventure in hopes that it will help someone else. I will tell you that I have ruthlessly been throwing out old clothes with rips or stains as well. I listed a couple items online for free and the people actually want me to bring the free items to them and not pick them up......garbage can as well.  Goodwill you say....hahahaha ..... nice in theory but I have several boxes in my garage that have never made it there.

So you say .... what remains in the closet under the stairs..... Some stuffed animals ( they boys were told once they are all gathered they may each pick out 5) 2 vacuums , some blankets and a toy box full of little people toys that a girl is coming to pick up when I get back from Illinois next Tuesday.

So I invite you to laugh with me, cry with me and go on this grand adventure of moving and de-junking.  I hope you can find humor in it.  I hope one day I will also.

Where are the men?

Where are the men.

This is a post I read I cannot remember which blogger posted it.  It said many young women are being raised to be Godly wives in the future but it seems to be hard for them to find that Godly young man. So they sit and wait.

I felt like this really resonated with me. I have a college aged daughter and then I have 3 boys,  11, 7 and 5.  I have been married for 22 years to a man who has been nothing short of an excellent provider and hard worker.  If I believe I deserve this why would I not want this for my future daughter in laws? I have an obligation to raise them to be good providers.  I am becoming more aware of things that are not helpful in this venture to raise them to that point.  Video games are one.  We have pretty much put the kibosh on them and have seen improved attitude.  Television is another.  The more they watch the more of a stinky attitude we have...hmmmm... seems to be a correlation there.

We have started to study Proverbs with our boys.  Not at the beginning and not in a particular order.  What we are doing is taking a few verses at a time, breaking them apart and discussing the meaning. It is 31 power packed chapters about character good and bad and what they lead to in life.  Great for boys and girls but a must do.

I have seen people we know allow the boys in there home to spend hours and hours a day on the computer. As adults these young men still are not on their own and they spend all their time on the computer or gaming. It is sad and these same mothers make excuses for the lack of training they gave their sons.  What lady wants that for a husband.  I love my young men and I am resolved to make them better by encouraging them to learn skills, practice them and even try some small business ventures to learn about how money works.  I want them to be the kind of husband I have and it is my obligation to raise them in such a manner.

I am sure to make mistakes but God has pressed upon me that this is a most important thing. Moms of boys this is your duty to carry out. Teach them to be diligent, hard working, lovers of God. Do not let them waste idle hours pursuing things that are not of value to them in adult life.  They need to know how to support themselves and not be spending hours in front of video games living in your basement.

Fun games for kids!

This post is about some fun games our family really enjoy and also help me get through my homeschooling day!

Feed the Kitty:  This is a fun fast cute game that runs right around $10 and is well worth the investment. It has 20 wooden mice, a food dish and 2 custom dice.  It is fast and takes about 15 minutes to play.  It says 4+ on the box I have had children as young as 3 play this. In this game your littlest one will most likely get to play first which is great excitement for them.  The directions say the person with the shortest pinky goes first.  You roll your dice and either pass mice to the player on the left , put them in the cat dish , take them out or keep them.  If you have a child just dying for your attention this is great because it does not take long and they are satisfied because you played with them.  The last person with mice left wins the game.  Beware just because you lose all your mice doesn't mean you are done playing.  Your opponent could roll a pass to the left and give you more mice!  Also an older child can take a younger one to a corner of a room and play this with them to help appease them.  Great fun.  Feed the Kitty ranks an A++ in our home.  A must have.

Hisss:  Hisss is a simple card game that is all about building a snake with your cards.  A snake must have a head a tail and a body.  If you are the lucky one to place the final piece (either a head or tail) you get the cards that make up that snake.  The colors move and blend from one to the next so you have matching skills involved. When you are all done the winner is the person with the most cards.  It is fun and simple for little kids but does need a little space for you to lay the cards out as you build the snakes.  This is also a great fast game that you can play or assign an older child to do with a younger one.  Not quite as fast moving as Feed the Kitty but fun!  '

Granny Apples:  Oh my granny has an apple orchard and you want to get the apples!  This is a fast moving game but I have modified it in the past so I could have younger children play it.  The lowest I have been able to go with this is 6-7 yrs.  The game has 8 wooden apple dice that you roll.  In the original game the person who counts up the apple total rolled first is the winner and gets that many cardboard apples to keep. Several rounds later when all the apples are passed out the winner is determined by who has the most.  I have modified this by letting each person roll a turn and then counting up the apple count and getting that many.  You have whole and half apples and worms and birds that take away apples and pics of granny which means she gets apples in her basket.  Fun fun fun but not for a preschooler.

Zeus on the loose:  This is an adorable fast moving card game and your child needs to be able to add and subtract in their head up to 100 with no problems. The box recommends 10+ I have had kids as young as 8 play without problems.  Zeus is a little plastic statue holding a lightening bolt (of course).  You want to have Zeus.  As you play Zeus moves from player to player.  If you play a card and your score come out at and even 10,20,30 etc.... you get Zeus.  Play a minor greek god card that says steal Zeus and you get Zeus....the score on Mt. Olympus ( discard pile) goes up and down until you hit 100 and the person who makes the pile an even 100 gets Zeus.  You win you get a letter to spell Zeus.  The first person to spell Zeus wins. This is a fun fast action card game for sure.

All of these are available on Amazon and a specialty toy stores.  All are well worth the money you pay for them. Check them out today.

Food food food :)

So this is my all about food blog.  I will start by saying this is not your ordinary food blog!

My family loves food.  They love great food even better. They love many restaurant dishes best!

I am a stay at home homeschooling mom who does work within a food budget.  It is not skimpy but not extravagant either. It is probably lower than some for a family of 6 people.  I have found that with internet there is not one single dish you cannot duplicate from your favorite restaurant.

We regularly enjoy some of the following dishes:
Chicken Marsala
Chicken Gnocchi Soup
Olive Gardens Bruchetta recipe
Awesome pork tenderloins with marinades.
Beef Wellington
and much more.

All of my recipes I have found online and the majority through allrecipes.com  I have found very few items that make a total flop.  I will share one and that was chocolate flavored waffles.  We thought that would be tons of fun but it was just horrid tasting.  We decided to just add chocolate syrup to our waffles if that is a taste we desire.

You can eat well, you can eat well on a reasonable budget. You can find all this online.  My family has gotten so picky about the chicken gnocchi soup that when we go to the Olive Garden it does not taste as good to them.  That is what cooking great food for your family is all about.  Food is a gift from God.  It is like many of his other gifts in its ability to bring great pleasure to someone.  It can be good, great or bad.

I had no clue how to cook when at 17 I found myself on my own due to both my parents having passed away.  I ruined a lot of food.  I burnt a lot of food.  My husband suffered through much of this bless his soul.  If you can follow directions I promise you can follow a recipe and make great food.  Check them out online you may find some great new ones to jazz up your week.  

Helping others/witnessing

So this will surely bring some negative feedback.  However God has told me this is a topic of concern.

We all know that as mom's that the first mission field is at home. We also have an obligation to help and be there for others.  A huge trend among Christian moms seems to be that we are really selective about our willingness to help others or witnessing to them.

Example :  That mom down the road is nice, her daughter is nice and sweet as pie and it is easy to entertain her for awhile and give her mom a break.  However that little monster boy who lives down the road also whose mom is single and every time he drives by he runs over my toes with his bike and sneers at me... I would never offer to take him or invite his mom to coffee.   OUCH!  The problem is that I did not see Christ spending a lot of time with the nice, perfect, easy, pleasant, good looking people in the bible.  What I see time and time again is that he actively sought out those people we would turn our backs on and chose not to associate with.

Maybe the single mom down the road is in desperate need of a break so she can build her resolve to go at it one more day.  Maybe the man at the beach with his little boy just needs someone to pray with him or over him.  Maybe that little girl with the dirty clothes and the head lice YES I said that.  Just needs someone to show her a few minutes of love so she feels worthwhile and not like she is a reject.  Maybe all these people who don't fit into our world view of people we want to witness to need it the most.  The nice people, nice looking people who are not Christians certainly are not less worthy of our time but it seems to be that we spend too much time focusing on them.

When we see these less then desirable people ..... the mean little boy, the dirty little girl, the single mom or the pregnant teen I think we need to command our thoughts.  I think we need to take them captive and try just once to see them the way Christ did.

I was that little girl with a single mom.  A mother who was widowed,  A mother left with and 11 yr old son and a 1 year old daughter.  I was kept clean however growing up in the 70's without a dad lead many to assume my mom was divorced.  They did not take the time to find out that her husband had been a brilliant engineer with Bell Labs making cutting edge strides in his job.  They looked and saw......"Single Mom".  The most wonderful nonjudgmental people I had consistent contact with were the Mennonites.  Caring, kind, compassionate and filling Christ's great commission.  Let us strive to be those people.   Search your heart, control your thoughts and try to view people with the value Christ saw in them not the world.  

Blessings.

Peace of God be with you all!  I love it when Paul says things like this in the New Testament.

Today I wanted to Praise and Thank God for some blessings in our lives.

Children!  Amanda turned 19 yesterday and is on her path in college to try to become a nurse.  I will be an exciting time to watch how God works her path in his plan.

Noah turns 11 today.  Our focus has shifted in our home to really raising up Godly young men since we have 3 of them and they are all still in the home.  Noah has grown by leaps and bounds in the past year and I do believe he will be baptized soon as he has started to talk more about it.  Understand I had all my children baptized as infants when we were within the Lutheran Church.  I now have a more complete understanding of this and the meaning and look forward to a new baptism made by choice and knowledge and growth on his part.  How exciting!

Joshua will be 7 in 2 months.  School has not been easy with him.  Some days it is all I can do to get him to sit for 5 minutes.  He is starting to take more initiative and has shown fabulous progress.  I have prayed over this a lot and even though I don't mind delaying learning for a child who is not quite ready the Lord has had to work on my heart knowing that I want him to do it all now.  He is always smiling and brings such laughter and energy to our home.

Micah will be 5 in 2 months.  We are still struggling with potty issues with him and ask for prayer.  Micah is such a smart young boy and even though we have tough days he is such a cuddle bug.  He loves to sit up with you and snuggle and what could be better than that.

Twila has been gone almost 8 years now.  Having her here for such a short time is a reminder of how fragile life is and that we must accept God's calling when it is time for us to go home.

I have so much more I want to say about provisions and blessings but I will leave that for another day.