Wednesday, January 28, 2009

A Special Visit...

This past weekend I was surprised by a phone call from my good friend Mylinda from Miami. She and her girls were going to be in my town and they wanted to see us! What a wonderful surprise! We all had such a great time. It makes me miss our old home so much!

Here we are, Sophia, Mylinda, and I at the end of our visit. Doesn't Mylinda and Sophia look related? We thought that was pretty neat!
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Here are the older kids together...they were such good friends down in Miami and they sure had a good time hanging out together again. We sure miss them!

Ashton, Jon, Allison, and Savannah...
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Mylinda and I have so much in common. We both had older kids close in age and then we both were blessed with little ones after having such a large break. Evie and Isaac grew up with her little boys Indy and Levi. What a blessing that we can still keep in contact with each other! I'm hoping to visit sometime this spring/summer and we'll get those little ones back together again. Thank you for such a wonderful surprise Mylinda!

Blessings,


The Sophia Chronicles...

My little one is growing up too fast. Just look at her! I know that photos are hard to judge but this little one is almost 40 pounds and just a few inches shy of Isaac's height. Here she is solving the Rubic's cube....
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Wow, she's fast!LOL
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When Sophia was brand new, I used to wrap her up in my brand new bathrobe to keep her warm. The year she was born, we were soooo cold and my robe was the only thing that would warm her up. After a few short weeks, she couldn't sleep without it. Now, it's her very best friend. We keep trying to replace it, but no such luck.lol
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Here she is squashing her brother. Poor guy...lol
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Luckily, her Daddy knows how to wrangle this little critter...
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My little one will be 2 next month. I just can't believe how fast this time has gone. I'm thankful for all of God's blessings in my life. Especially, the little ones.



Sunday, January 18, 2009

Another sewing project...

I've figured out how to make Peasant Blouses and they are sooo cute! I think I'll be making them in every color I have.LOL

Here's Sophia's....
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So, the little stinker wouldn't pose...lol
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Awww, here she's petting Allison...
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Here's Evie's
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She's always willing to pose for me.LOL

I got the pattern from here...
http://indietutes.blogspot.com/2007/07/peasant-blouse.html
This lady has GREAT tutorials! I've gotten really good results with each one I've tried. Now that I know what I'm doing, I'm going to use the good fabric.LOL

Blessings,

The Sophia Chronicles...

How?! How can this little girl do this?
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She's not even two yet!
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She wears these ALL DAY LONG...
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Here's a big sister looking after her...
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So cute!
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Here are the goofy siblings, hamming it up...
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Strike a pose you two...
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Sophia is a delight and joy to have around. She makes us so happy! She's is so confident and strong. I don't think I've ever had a child so coordinated!

Blessings,

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Our Plans for Next Year...

Tis the time of year to begin thinking about next year's curriculum. I'm working on our budget for this year and knowing what we'll need helps me keep the spending in check. Here's my list for now, although it may change depending on the kids' interests and apptitude.

Allison 12th Grade

MUS PreCalculus
Notgrass American History
Notgrass World History
Powerglide Spanish 2
IEW Advanced Communication
IEW Essay Writing Prep


Jonathan 10th Grade

MUS PreCalculus
Apologia Advanced Chemistry
Apologia Physics
Notgrass American History
(Language Arts from Notgrass)
Tell Me More Japanese 2
IEW Essay Prep


Genevieve

MUS Alpha
I Can Do All Things Art
Hooked on Phonics 1st grade
Various Readers
Copywork and Memorization

I'm considering Los Banos for history and doing unit studies for Science. I may just use Beautiful Feet American History since I already own it. I'll definitely use what science books we have on hand since I have soooo many. I'll also keep my Enchanted Learning subscription and I'll use Homeschool Share for our projects.

Isaac

Rod and Staff Preschool
Preschool rotation

Sophia

Activity boxes and preschool rotation.

Well, I think that's it. If anyone has these items, except for the MUS Alpha and the I Can Do All Things Art, I'd be interested in purchasing them. What an exciting year this will be!

Blessings,



The Epic of Isaac...

So, here's Isaac's new cast. I was REALLY hoping for a splint.LOL Allison went along and decided that he needed to support the Gator's football team, so he's now decked out in a cast that will not match anything that he wears for the next 4 weeks. lol

Come on Isaac, show me that cast...
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Ha! I caught you unaware...
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GO GATORS!lol

Blessings,

Cranium Fun...

We bought a neat new toy for Christmas and then added to it for Isaac's birthday...

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They had such a great time building! I'm glad that I was able to find these sets on clearance at Toy's R Us. Pretty neat and definitely an outside toy.lol


Blessings,



Monday, January 12, 2009

Happy Birthday Isaac!

We celebrated Isaac's birthday on Saturday with a nice party. I think this is his first party with friends and he was so excited. I always let the birthday child to decide on the food and dessert for the party and Isaac chose pizza and decorate your own cupcakes. I made some fabulous homemade icing and then colored it different colors and set it out on the table for the kids to choose from. They all had fun!

Let the decorating begin!
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Here's Evie's...
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Isaac ate his too fast for a photo...lol
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Here's Evie's again...
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Here's Isaac blowing out the candles...
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He had such a great time...
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So did Sophia...
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While picking out party favors for the guests, I realized that if we were to pick out one NICE gift instead of a bunch of those plastic party favors for each guest, it'd cost about the same if not less and it wouldn't be a piece of junk. So before Isaac opened his gifts, I had him hand out the wrapped gifts to his friends. They were so surprised! Isaac had such joy giving the gifts to each of his friends and they really seemed to like what we picked out. We bought small Transformers for the boys and Littlest Petshop for the girls and one baby board book.

Isaac was so happy with the wonderful and thoughtful gifts that his friends and family chose for him. He received Legos, Matchbox car tracks, A shake and Go Nascar Racer, A remote control racecar, a Cranium Mega Fort and Carnival, and some really nice clothes.

Then we did the traditional pull-string Pinata. His was a dinosaur, even though the party theme was Cars. I used treatbags for the candy and also gave out some Car-themed tatoos and some bubbles. Everyone was well sugared.lol

Right after his party ended, Isaac was playing out front with one of his friends and managed to break his elbow. So the day ended with a trip to the Children's hospital. A true "Guy Day" if there ever was one.LOL

Happy Birthday my little big boy! We love you and can't believe you are 4 years old on the 15th! Why must you grow so fast? Take your time little one. We're in no hurry.

Blessings,


Just another day in paradise...

We had a string of warm weather last week and we took these photos...

Making mudpies...
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Making mudsisters...
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I wonder who did it?
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Silly sisters!
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Blessings,

Friday, January 02, 2009

Can I tell you a secret?

I have found the secret to consistantly lowering your grocery bill. I know that there are many who would sell you this secret and well, I've bought many of them over the years, BUT none really saved me much on a consistant basis. Most involved clipping coupons or shopping at different stores for different deals or even worse, buying things that aren't good for you or that your family won't eat. In the long run, I'd end up running to the store for things that we actually wanted to eat or getting REALLY tired of clipping coupons, then not even using them.

So, what am I getting at? For the past 18 weeks, we've been using my 5 Week Menu List and have consistantly lowered our grocery bill by over $250 a month. Amazing! We've been using it 5 weeks on and 1 week off, then repeating it again. Not only has it consistantly saved us money, but it's made sure that each of our favorites gets eaten every 5 weeks no matter what.

Here's how it works...

1.Make a Master Grocery List. This is your list of every favorite meal that you have as a family. Start with your dinner list and work your way through lunch, breakfasts, snacks, and desserts. Yes, it's going to take a while but IT'S worth it! I promise! Go through your favorite recipe books, favorite food websites, ask your husband and kids what they'd like to see on the list. The bigger the list, the better at this point.

2.Print out or make some sort of menu planner. Assign a catagory for Breakfast, Lunch, Snack, Dinner, and Dessert for every day of the week. You'll need around 5-6 weeks of them. I bought one from Cindy Rushton but you can make your own just as easy. I think Donnayoung.org has them for free.

3. Start filling in your menu plans.

Now, I do a rotation on Breakfast meals. Every Monday is Pancake day, Tuesday is toast, bagel, english muffin day, Wed is oat day (oatmeal, granola, bars, breakfast cookies, etc.) Thursday is cereal (we leave early that day), Friday is muffin day, Saturday is eggs and bacon, Sunday is smoothie day.

Skip lunch until dinner is planned. I like to incorporate leftovers into this meal.

Dinners, look at the different meals that you've written down. Try to separate them into catagories. Maybe mexican on Mondays and Pasta on Tuesdays. Or chicken on Weds and Hamburger on Thursdays. YOU PICK the theme. I incorporated some nationality themes and some around our favorite meats. I have a "homestyle" Sunday on my list that has things like meatloaf and mashed potatoes or fried chicken and fried squash.

Once you have dinner planned, go back and do lunch. If you have a Ham planned one day that week, try adding a soup with ham for lunch the next day. If you have roasted chicken one day, try chicken quesadillas or chicken salad sometime in that week.

Don't forget to plan your snacks and desserts! You know that you eat them, you might as well plan for them. They don't have to be fancy. Sometimes just carrots and ranch dressing will hold off the hungries while dinner is being cooked just as well as rice crispie treats or homemade cookies.LOL I try to incorporate easy snacks and some harder ones throughout the week depending on our schedule that day. Desserts can be an easy brownie recipe or some icecream or it can be something like popsicles or fudgesicles. I mix it up and only allow the more expensive dessert once a week and make easy/cheap desserts the rest of the time.

4.Now, you have your meal plans, what's next? Easy, now to list EVERYTHING needed to make each day's recipes. You will want a separate list for each week. LIST EVERYTHING EVEN IF YOU ALREADY HAVE IT RIGHT NOW! If you make your pancakes from scratch, list flour, salt, baking powder, eggs, oil, milk, etc...You want to make sure that it's in your pantry when you need it, even if it's 18 weeks from now. It's going to be a long list but here's the secret, you won't need all of it each time.

Now, you're done! Take your Week 1 list and Menu out. Put the Menu on your fridge and the list in your hand. Go through your pantry and fridge and cross off everything that you already have. What's left is what you need to buy for that week.

This week, when I crossed off everything that I had in my pantry and fridge, I had less than 20 items to buy for the week. I bought some of those in bulk so that I wouldn't need to buy them for the next few weeks and my total grocery bill today was $81.00. I still need to buy bread from the bread outlet and honey at the farmer's market but after that I'll have everything for the week. Pretty neat!

The beauty of this method is that no meal ever gets old. You only see it once every 5-6 weeks! Another great thing about this, is that it eliminates impulse buying. When will you use it? You know that every meal is covered, so if you buy it, it'll go to waste.

This program is awesome and completely free. Feel free to copy my menu plan listed under "5 week menu" on my sidebar if you need inspiration, I don't mind.LOL

All I can say is that this works.

Blessings,