My Journeys Through Life . . . Herding Cats In New Mexico!

My kids and I did a thing this week!

“the Batman,” ” the Artist” and I shopped for all of the ingredients after I chose the menu recipes, and then “The Artist” and I put everything together for the freezer.

This is the twenty meals we loaded our freezer with!

You too, can do this! Just go and check it out here!

With everything going on the last couple of months, we pretty much ate all the meals we did the last time, and the freezer was empty! Here is what whe fixed and put in the freezer today, four of each recipe, making a total of 40 meals!

And here they are befor my boys took them to the big freezer in the garage . . .

If you’d like to try doing this, then myfreezeasy might be the thing for you. Go here and check it out! There is even a free “Try it” menu, so you can see if it would work for you! After joining, youu can use the pre=set menus, or you can swap out recipes in them that don’t appeal to you, or like me, you can build your own menu from the database f very good recipes. Give it a try! It’s been the best money I’ve ever spent for feeding my family!

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As always, I would just love it if you would join me in all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email information. After that, you will always know when there is something new happening. I hope to see you here very soon! -)

I waited until now to post tghe cards I made to give out at church, because I didn’t want them seen before people got them. This is what I made this year!

I used leftover paper for the backgrounds, then stamped, cut and colored the gnomes. Finished up with assembly!

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As always, I would just love it if you would join me in all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email information. After that, you will always know when there is something new happening. I hope to see you here very soon! -)

Disclosure: I received this complementary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

I Know It has been a great way to make math practice fun for my son “The Batman!” This is the kind of site which makes him feel like he loves math!

I Know It is an online math program, which you can use to supplement any K-5 math curriculum. Within the I Know It site you will find over 600 math lessons/topics.

Here is a short video to tell you a bit more about I Know It:

It was extremely easy to set my son up as a user on I Know It! I simply set up my account, then set him up as the student. With the family membership, with which we were blessed in order to do this review, you can use it for up to four children. I am only using it for one.

This is what I see when I have logged in, and then my son can click on the picture he chose for himself. There is only the one password. After that, each of your children can click on their own icon when it is their turn to do some math.

As the parent, you have the ability to either assign lessons or to allow your children to explore the lessons on their own. I chose to let “The Batman” explore on his own through the K level, and he completed the entire thing! He was thrilled that he got Awards Certificates to pprint out, and as a result he also learned how to print them from our printer. Here are just a few of his certificates. Before printing the first one out, he asked if I had changed the ink cartridges, becaus he wanted the certificates to look just the same as they did on the screen. 🙂

This is what he sees when he does well on a lesson.

The picture below is a partial chart of everything “The Batman” has been doing:

Below is a more detailed student report:

The picture below is a partial list of Awards “The Batman” has accumulated so far.

Because “The Batman” has significant developmental delays which affect his ability to learn math, this has been a fun program for him! He does not complain about doing it, in fact, he asks if I will log in to it so that he can “do math!” He is having so much fun!

You can also keep up with I Know It at the following social media links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iknowitcom/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/iknowit_com

A number of other Homeschool Review families have also been checking out I Know It, and I invite you to pop over here and see what they think of this supplemental program!

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As always, I would just love it if you would join me in all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email information. After that, you will always know when there is something new happening. I hope to see you here very soon! -)

Disclosure: I received this complementary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

I would like to share with you a new tradition, found in The Giving Manger, book written by Allison Hottinger and illustrated by Emily King. We were blessed with a beautiful set which includes the book, a bound package of straw, a wooden manger to (easily!) assemble, and a carved wooden baby Jesus.

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This book has a wonderful story about Anne and Ben, who wait all year for their father to make them a hand carved toy for Christmas. But this year, he tells them they are beginning a brand bnew tradition at the beginning of December! Imagine their disappointment when their father, on December 1st, presents them with a little wooden manger and says this will be their gift this year! He teaches them from the Bible about Jesus spending his entire life on Earth serving others, and tells them they will spend this month doing acts of service to others. That each time they do something kind for someone else, they may place a pice of the straw into the manger. He uses the scripture “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” This is Mathew 25:40b. They feel anger and frustration, until kind things begin happening to them.

This is a beautiful book! It is a large, hard cover book, with a matching paper jacket. The illustrations are gorgeous, cut pieces of paper laid out to form the picture. It reminds me a lot of paper piecing from my scrapbooking days.

One of the things that I always like to point out to my readers is when a resource uses scripture from the King James Version of The Bible. This is the only version my family uses in faith and practice, so this is very important to us.

You saw above how this set is packaged, making it a beautiful pre-Christmas gift! The only thing I have not yet showed you everything, though. Here is the babny Jesus, in the straw filled manger!

Isn’t it beautiful? Imagine how good your family will feel when they see this by Christmas, and know that it means they have performed acts of kindness all month for others!

At the end of the book is a two page section entitled “Manger Moments,” listing a good number of ides for acts of kindness, followed by a page called “Manger Memories,” where your family can record acts of kindness year by year.

This is a wonderful set, and I truly recommend it to you and your family.

Please look to the following social media links for more information about Worthy Kids:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorthyKidsBooks
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthykidsbooks/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegivingmanger/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/worthykids/

Several other Homeschool Review Crew families have been spending time with The Giving Manger. I invite you to go and read what they they thought of it here.

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As always, I would just love it if you would join me in all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email information. After that, you will always know when there is something new happening. I hope to see you here very soon! -)

Disclosure: I received this complementary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

BUCK Making Cents along with Quick Cents to a Buck from Buck Academy are adorable books to teach money lessons to children.

One of the issues “The Batman” has always had is trouble learning about money, so I thought maybe this book would be helpful for him. It is actually written toward ages 5 – 10, but for him, a book about money needs to be geared to the very young.

The book teaches about the dollar bill and how many of each coin is needed to be a dollar. The coin illustrations are foiled, and textured so that he can actually feel the coins. I hope you can see the shiny foil in the picture below:

“The Batman” thought is was funny that it said on the above page “prewash the coins & bill so they are clean for use over and over again.” He said “Mom, wouldn’t that be money laundering?!” We all got a laugh over that one!

On each page, the book teaches about a different coin, and how many of that coin you need to make a buck.

He did have trouble with all but the penny, but we worked on counting by fives for thr nickels and by tens for the dimes. For the quarters, I ended up reminding him that the buck is a piece of paper. If we tore into four pieces, each one would be? He said a quarter. That helped him.

Some of the things he liked the best were details about the coins, like the fact that a dime has 118 ridges around the edge, and a quarter has 119. Those were his favorite facts, and he has been asking other people if they know them.

Written by Dustin Goss and illustrated by Febyolla Goss, this is an excellent book to help children learn some basics about money. At the very end, it says ” Value Knowledge. Gift it forward.” Once the child has read the book over and over again until they really understand the “cents within a Buck,” they should gift the book away to pass on that knowledge!

Keep up with Buck Academy with the following social media links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BUCKacademy.org
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BUCK_academy
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buckacademy/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/BUCKAcademy/_saved/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrwVZl0j3v5OeKI_h2JXLhQ

Several other Homeschool Review Crew Families also have been checking out BUCK Making Cents and/or Baby BUCK, How Much Am I. I invite you to please go here and find out whaat they think!

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As always, I would just love it if you would join me in all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email information. After that, you will always know when there is something new happening. I hope to see you here very soon! -)