Zoo

Why do I love this word? Because it is the first one that Jayden officially spelled on his own just because he could. This morning I was cleaning the kitchen and he was playing with the letters on the refrigerator. He smiled and said - "Look mom I spelled a word! Zoo!" I looked and sure enough he had spelled it. It is a little word to some but a big word for Jayden who is 3. He then went on to spell Cat, hat,rat, tap, and pat out perfectly for me with his magnet letters. We have been working on learning to read and he is reading a few small Hooked on Phonics books ,but this was totally on his own. So it is a big moment for my little guy and I of course am the proudest mommy around today! Yeah!! We are on the track to becoming a successful ( and a joyful ) reader!

Great snack!

So I am always on the look out for great healthy ( and cheap) snacks and meals for my family. Well I found one that i wanted to share with everyone. It is super cheap to make and even my picky eater likes it. You can add whatever your family likes to it. I add 1/4 cup of ground flaxseed , a 1/4 cup wheat germ, and 1 tablespoon of peanut butter to mine for added nutrition. You can add raisins, coconut, Peanut butter, whatever you can think of with in reason.

Easy Granola


1 stick of butter
1/2 cup of honey
4 cups rolled oats

Melt butter and honey ( I melted my PB too at this stage). Pour over oats and stir well. This is when I mixed in my flaxseed ( which is a great heart healthy addition- you can usually find it in your baking aisle and it is cheap!) and my wheat germ ( this adds fiber- I found in the cereal aisle on one of the top shelves). Put on a cookie sheat ( I added 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips over the top and squashed it all down at this point, but you don't have to) and bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees. You can stir it and bake for another 5 minutes. If you boil the butter and honey for 1 minute and do not stir after baking, when cooled these will stick together more like the granola bars.

We put ours in a Tupperware when it was cooled and we have eaten it like cold cereal, you can eat it alone, or you can sprinkle some over low fat vanilla yogurt and it is really good. All of my kids eat this. We call it crumbly candy bars. ( we don't do the candy bar thing in my house so to them this is candy!) I love this recipe because it made so much and it smelled great cooking to! Plus it is high in fiber so it feels the kids up ( my kids seem like bottomless pits sometimes) ! You can send this in Ziploc bags for snacks for school or picnics. Just thought I would share! Have a great day everyone!

Great news!

God has blessed my family very much. I now have two sisters that are pregnant. Brandy (Scott's soon to be wife) is having twins and Drew's wife Kristen just found out she is pregnant. Brandy is due around March 14th and Kristen is due around June 2nd. I am super excited that we will have a houseful of children at holidays. Please keep both of them in your prayers!Thanks everyone!

Jayden and the slide

Jayden and me got a day to ourselves today. My daughter is is on her visitation with herdad in NC. I decided we would do something special for mommy and Jayden day so we went to the park to play.Jayden is pretty fearless about things so he loves the big slides at one local park. Plus it is all shaded so no sunburn or third degree burns from equipment. Well he has discovered climbing walls which he loves (and which make me scared to death to watch him shimmy up). So he happily climbed up the wall with me trying my best to stay right behind him just in case he falls I can catch him or we will both fall and he will land on my nice soft squishy body (see there is a reason why I don't have six pack abs). Well anyway he gets to the top and decided to go down the biggest scariest slides they have. This slide even scares me because it twists and turns and you go fast on it. Well the first two times down went fine.But the third time he got turned the wrong way and it scared him. It scared me so I am sure it was pretty scary to him. He cried a little and decided he wanted to go on a little walk.so we walked out into this huge field and he ran around and then we collected rocks to paint later today. We where walking back to the car to go home and he put down his armload of rocks and very matter of factually said- I would like to go back to the playground. I said OK we have some time and it isn't really hot.Lets go. Well he headed straight for the climbing wall and he told me the slide was scary and it hurt him. I said that's OK just go down the other slide ( a lot less scary). He said OK and climbed up the climbing wall to the top of the platform. I thought he was going to go across the little bridge thing and go down the other safer slide but to my amazement he did not. He looked at the scary slide and told it- I am going to go down you now! And preceded to slide down it with a very confident look on his face. When he got to the bottom I of course swooped him up and told him I love him and I was proud of him. He was so funny. When I put him down he turned around and looked at the slide and said- Goodbye slide , I will see you again. And then told me we could go home now.and we got in the car and left. I was so impressed by my little guy. It is funny how God gives you these cool little kids in life and you think it is your job to teach them everything and sometimes it is the opposite.I think I have something to learn from this cute little crazy guy. Sometimes the best way to fight fear and hurt is to face it and tell it you aren't going to be held back anymore, you aren't going to take the easy less scary way , you are just going to conquer it!

Gravy- why are you sooo hard?

Have you ever had those mornings where nothing seems to be going right? That was the way mine was starting out. I slept through my alarm to get up and walk the dogs,my coffee pot turned off to early, the biscuits didn't cook all the way through and the gravy was not even fit to eat. I think that is why God gives us a sense of humor. Because even though the morning didn't go as planned at least I got a couple of really good laughs this morning to start my day with. And I got to see what a wonderful husband I have who smiled the whole way through breakfast and claimed the biscuits where wonderful. If anyone would like to pass on a recipe for biscuits and gravy I would take it. Gravy is my arch nemesis of cooking.No matter how hard I try to make it - it always comes out uneatable. Oh well- there is always next time!! Or I could just make waffles!

cookies!

So today we start on the letter S. I have thought of a few ways to teach the letter S and my favorite so far has to be making S shaped sugar cookies. I think we will start doing this for every letter now. I am on the look out for different recipes for sugar cookies so if anyone has one feel free to send it my way! On the sad side of things my daughter is with her dad for his visitation time. I hate that she is gone on my S week. It is her favorite letter but she will be back soon. If anyone has a creative way to teach letters send it my way. I have one 3 year old who is having a hard time remembering his letters so any ideas would be great! I hope everyone is doing good!

those looks

Well I got another one of those looks. It is a mix between confusion and disbelief.I was out walking with 2 toddlers in a double stroller, my 9 year old , and two dogs in my neighborhood. (We just needed some air and some exercise!) As I am huffing and puffing up a rather large hill a woman walks by me and says- It looks like you have your hands full. I smile and say - yeah but that is what makes it fun! I thought this was the end of the conversation till she looks over all my kids and says- Yeah but think , in a couple of years it will all get better.They will be in school! Of course she starts to laugh and walk away. I then looked at her and said- you are right , it does get better as they get older because we homeschool. That is when I got the look. She said -Oh and walked away back into her home. I am sadden by this thought by the world. That just get them old enough for school and then ship them off because you don't want to deal with them during the day anymore. I know not everyone is like this. I have several friends whose kids go to public school and they don't feel this way but do know people who are and I don't get it. I like my kids. I am not crazy about the way they act sometimes but I like to be around them. Anyway that is my rant on the what is wrong with the world today! Have a great day!

what we learned this week

What we are learning this week-preschool-
Letter- R
Number - 3
Shape- heart
Theme- Rats
Animal- Rat
We colored some worksheets and played some games this week.We made giant rats and painted with some foam letters. Isaiah and Jayden have been working on Starfall.com and Jayden has been working on clicknkids.com to help him learn to read.We have been working on rhyming words like Cat and Rat.

4th grade- Sydney has read some great planets book this week. We are switching around some of her curriculum this week. We are getting ready to start her 3 week break from school so we are just finishing up the loose odds and ends. We are trying to finish up our study of Columbus. We will be taking a break from history and will be concentrating on elections and a short government study when she starts school again. I figure it is a good time because of the election!As you all know Sydney has been writing each state requesting information on the state. One of the states she wrote was Alaska. And guess who sent her back a letter and information? Sara Palin. Thats right the vice president nominee. Neat, I think!

enchantedlearning.com

Today I took the plunge!I have used the enchantedlearning.com site for about three years now. They have lots of great worksheets and printables for free. You can also join for a year for $20 and get lots more great printables. So I did it! I joined and got the coolest state information worksheets for Sydney to use. Even she thought it was cool and she actually wanted to fill out her information for her state project we have been working on. I am excited to use this site more. If you haven't looked at it- go have a see! It has made homeschooling easier for me! I have included the link below-

EnchantedLearning.com

changing

So I am changing around Sydney's curriculum again. We are getting ready for her 3 week break from school. We do school year round. We actively "do" school for 9 weeks and then Sydney gets a 3 week break. All she has to do is read during the break. It gives us all a break and keeps us from getting burned out. Plus it lets me relook at what we have been doing and see if it really worked and where I need to change some things and what can stay the same. Sometimes that is hard for me because I feel like if I have spent money on it I should use it. That is also why I have only spent money on things I have really liked this year.I figure every year is a learning experience and every year I spend less and less money on school books and curriculum. This also means I spend more time online looking and lots more time at the library.I have found some great new resources I am going to be trying to use. I know there are ways to home school for almost free and in my quest for frugalness I am trying to find them. I have found a few so far. I have some them listed on my website but I need to add more.If anyone has any great sites you use please feel free to send them my way!

Today

So today is my anniversary and my sons birthday. It has just been one of those great days that make you happy to be alive. I have not cleaned alot today or gotten a lot of anything done.But I did have a water balloon toss game and I did get soaked with a sprinkler by a smiling kid. I have played all day and enjoyed the chatter about what someone was making with play dough. I am not cooking a big fancy meal tonight, we are having pizza. So all in all it has been a wonderful day and I am blessed to be me! Thank you God for this day! I love days like this!It is one of he many reasons I love homeschooling. If my kids went to public school or day care we would have missed this day.

So a lot of people have contacted me about cooking and freezer meal cooking. Here is what I have found so far and what I use -
I have not gone full fledge once a month freezer cooking yet. I am working my way up to it. What I do is every night when I cook, I will double or triple the recipe. I then freeze the other servings and have them in the freezer for when I need them. I did that for a couple of weeks and my freezer was stuffed. I would suggest going to your local library and looking up some of the titles I listed below and find a couple great cook books you think you would like to try out too. Look up on the internet for the recipes you would like as well. It takes alot time to start with but once you get in your patterns of cooking and planning. What helped me was planning out my meals. I have listed a couple of books below that helped me plan and get myself together. check them out and let me know what you think.
Try some of these titles-
*The everything meals for a month cookbook : smart recipes to help you plan ahead, save time, and stay on a budget / Linda Larsen..
*The freezer cooking manual from 30 Day Gourmet : a month of meals made easy / [Tara Wohlenhaus and Nanci Slagle].
*Fresh from the freezer / Michael Roberts with Janet Spiegel
One of my favorite books is called Miserly Moms and also Miserly Meals. Both books are great and have helped me out alot. check out my website from time to time as well. I am trying to load more sites on there for just this kind of thing.

birthday thoughts

my birthdaySo my birthday is coming up and I am trying to figure out what have I learned in this short life so far. I know that walking with God is better than walking by myself. I know that I am still crazy but not as crazy as I just to be. The peace God brings me beats anything I have ever taken in pursuit of peace. I am never really alone. Life is not always easy or a bowl of peaches but I am blessed and I love my life. I used to think being out partying my head off was the way to be. Now I realize that the most fun thing is to play with two of the coolest little kids I know on a beach with the cellphone turned off or to curl up next to my husband and watch Its me or the Dog or Tori and Dean-home sweet home. I realize that what defines me is not what I do or what I look like but whose I am. I am Gods and , He is mine. And after all that - I am Jeremys wife, Jayden and Sydneys mom, and Isaiahs buddy. Nothing beats your family. So on this birthday coming up I am going to celebrate getting better with age. Life is sweet.