Sunday, December 7, 2008

My family :)

I saw this on a friend's blog and decided to make one myself. I want to put something like this on our van! I didn't want to make one with our pets because there are not a lot to choose from on this particular site, and we have 2 dogs, 3 cats and a turtle! Try it out. It's fun! :)

Pyzam Family Sticker Toy

Get your own Family Sticker Maker & MySpace Layouts.




Friday, December 5, 2008

Cleaning for nothing?

Okay, in a previous post I bragged on how well my kids are cleaning these days. Well, I assure you they do not always clean so well.

Yesterday we were going to have some friends over for a late birthday party for Jacob. After calling around, I decided to postpone the party because everyone was either sick or had a sick kid or two. Only one family was healthy, and her kids are 8 and 12!

So I told the kids that they could go ahead and watch cartoons because we were postponing the party. Jayla got a little upset and said, "You mean we did all this cleaning for NOTHING?"

I took this picture just moments after she asked me this question.


Now I ask you, does this.....



look clean to you?

(sigh)

Deck the Halls

Since we were home all of Thanksgiving weekend, we went ahead and deorated for Christmas! Well, when I say we decorated, I mean we put up and decorated our tree. We have a wreath for the front door but haven't put it on yet, but other than the tree and the wreath, we don't do any other decorating. It just isn't practical for this phase of our lives or this small house we are in!

But regardless of the size of the house, the tree we have this year is the biggest I have ever had in my whole life! It is mearely inches from our ceiling, and it is sitting on the floor, not on a table or desk like trees from previous Christmases! I bought it at Wal-Mart for $78, one of the cheapest 7.5 foot trees I've seen, and it was worth every penny!

We still have not finished those popcorn strings yet, so I'll have to post another picture when those are done, but for now, there are lights, candy canes and tons of Hallmark ornaments (a family tradition) on our tree. We actually had plenty of room for all our ornaments this year, with lots of room to spare! Wow!

So here are a few pictures of our decorating time together. :)






The tree is straight! I have no idea why the kids are all leaning the same direction! LOL!

We took a break after setting the tree up. It took a while to spread out ALLLLLL those branches! There is no way that it will ever fit back into that box either!

On to the lights and ornaments....









A fun moment in our day

Jonathan and Jayla were cleaning a bit ago. Jonathan came up with a game to make it more fun. I have absolutely no problem with them playing a game as long as they are getting something done (because I simply cannot do it all by myself), so if it works and does not take them away from helping out, then I am happy that they find things to make it more fun for them.

So they took their jump ropes that we recently made and started jumping. They do hot pepper jumps for as many times as they can. Whatever number they reach, that is how many items they pick up and put away. So Jonathan jumped 9 times then picked up 9 toys. Jayla jumped 12 times and picked up 12 toys. Sometimes they only jumped 3 and other times they got as high as 20, or close to it.

I have to admit that I thought they would get distracted, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had almost the entire room cleaned in about 3 or 4 minutes! I am proud of them. :) I never had to go help them and they actually enjoyed cleaning!

Jonathan has even volunteered to do the dishes twice this week! I think he was actually trying to get out of cleaning his room, but hey, I'll trade him any day! LOL!

They are getting very good about helping me out more, and the house reflects it! It is not completely clean (the entire house) very often, but it is very close at some point every day, and it honestly would not happen without their help. Jacob is a good helper too! He loves to vacuum. Jayla loves to dust and help with laundry. Our house is far from "pretty", but at least it's getting and staying somewhat clean these days! :)

The "S" word!

We were out today, visiting with some ladies from a local church, and one lady we were talking with heard that we homeschool. She was very nice, but she was concerned about "socialization". I just had to laugh because my kids were all there talking to these ladies right along with me, and she was concerned that they may not be getting enough socialization? LOL!

I'm sorry, I know this topic is tiring at times, but I just had to give that perfect example of how uneducated (pardon the pun) people are about homeschooling!

My kids go everywhere with me, for the most part. The exceptions are when my husband is home and I want to just run a quick errand or want time by myself, but otherwise I always seem to have them with me. I don't mind at all. That is how I prefer it. They are learning right along beside me. I'm living a "real life", so they are learning what "real life" is. It is not sitting at a desk for 6 (or more!) hours a day,

Now, I'm not putting down our education system, well, maybe a little, but I just feel so strongly that homeschooling for most people is so much better than our culture's education system! I'll stop there. I've said all this before, and I think I've made my point. LOL!
Here are a few other blogs about socialization among homeschoolers. Enjoy!
Heart of Wisdom
Homeschooling is Life
Eclectic Parent
Great article by Lisa Russell
HSLDA
There are MANY more!

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Finger weaving with nylon loops!

The kids and I have been finger weaving a lot lately. They don't know it yet, but I had actually bought one of these looms (metal with a metal hook and nylon loops) for them for Christmas. Well, someone recently gave us a LOT more of them, and not all nylon, so we've been using them up. I made them each a jump rope, and they LOVE them, especially Jayla. The older two could have made the ropes themselves, but they are not fast at it yet and it takes a long time when you are just beginning. You can make all kinds of things like this, such as headbands, bracelets, etc. Jonathan likes to make "snakes"!

Just by the colors you can probably guess which is Jayla's. :) The rainbow one is Jonathan's and the darker colors with the white is Jacob's.

I was showing a friend how to do this today at homeschool PE. Jayla had brought one of the jump ropes along, so my friend was curious how it worked. So, since I had simply tied off the end, I untied it and showed her how. Then I told her that there surely had to be a Youtube video of it or something. Well, I didn't find a video on it, but this is a great instructional page with pictures of exactly what I was showing her!
http://www.makingfriends.com/jump_rope.htm


On this page it says that the age recommendation is 8 and up, but my 6-year-old caught on a lot quicker than her 8-year-old brother, but it didn't take him long to learn it either. I bet my 4-year-old could do it too with a little extra help! Give it a try! It's fun! :)

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Our first Thanksgiving at our house!

Frolicky Friday Meme

I'm going to count this as our Frolicky Friday, since this post is about our entire day. :)

We had our very first Thanksgiving at our own house this year, the day after Thanksgiving. We started off cooking and cleaning, of course!

Jayla helped with the pumpkin pie filling. Jonathan had already helped make the crusts.

Jacob made the "Peach Stuff" all by himself!

Jonathan made the cranberry fruit salad. Yummy!

My mom was feeding Jack a little early. Little guys just can't wait for all of it to be ready! I thought this picture Jonathan took was funny. Maybe it's the angle or their expressions?

We only have a small table at the moment and no chairs! We have freecycled so many things lately, so we're sort of in-between table & chairs right now. So, the kids ate on a sheet on the floor. They thought it was fun to have an indoor picnic!

Jack has an, um, interesting look on his face!



Grandma brought us a hot air popcorn popper. The kids loved watching it! We weren't sure what happened to the lid, so we improvised. :)


At the same time, Grandma was having Jayla "help" with the peanut brittle.

There was too much going on, I guess. Grandma has made this probably a thousand times, but.....

something went wrong. She was completely dumbfounded! What could it possibly be? Hmmm.......

Corn syrup! She forgot to add it in! But here is proof that it was sitting right there on the counter! You can even see it in the picture above! It's alright, Mom. It still tastes good! LOL!
Seriously though, she makes the most amazing peanut brittle every year. I requested that she make this because it is SO GOOD! I've never seen this happen before! LOL! At least the holiday season is just beginning so there is plenty of time to make up for it. :) :) :)

Jacob helped serve the pie. Jonathan and Jayla wanted her to try both of their pumpkin pies, so she got a small sliver of each. Jacob couldn't wait for his, so he just drug his finger through for a sampling.

I have come to realize that dirty faces to little boys is an art! They are very proud, especially this one.

The rest of the day was just relaxing and playing. We were going to go watch a river parade, but since Jack was sick, we thought it best not to get him out in the cool air.

I like this picture of Jacob and Daddy looking at a magazine together. Right after I took this, Myles flipped him over his shoulder and they started tickling and giggling. There is so much of that around here!

This is the boys' room. It works best like this for now (we only have 2 bedrooms), but their "bedroom" is in the middle of the house, so we have to step over toys all the time. At least it helps to keep it clean (out of necessity). In this case though, we had to weave through the yarn "laser beams" as the kids were playing spy games.

Myles really got into spying with them. He even insisted on changing his code name when I overheard his first one. They were all running around the house, using code names, coming up with secret spy plans. They were even using our cell phones for communicating!

Next we started making popcorn strings to hang on the tree. We still have not finished these (as of Monday), but we will get them added to the tree this week.

We had also discussed the persectued Chritians in other countries, specifically India, and about how thankful we are to have the freedom in this country to worship God anytime we want. (See previous post for details.) Finally by midnight everyone was asleep. Jayla had said she had the best Thanksgiving ever. :) She wanted to sleep on the couch, so she brought what appeared to be her entire room in with her!


They're always so cute when they're asleep!


Oh, look who is still awake! This little guy has his hours backwards. At least he is feeling better. :) I think he went to sleep just a few minutes after I snapped this picture.

It was a great day of food, family and fun, with new and old traditions. What more can you ask for? We had a great day!