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

March 4, 2014 · 12:28 pm

Motivated Moms . . . T. O. S. Review

We moms are all super organized, right? Especially those of us who are homeschooling, stay-at-home moms (why DO they call it that, anyway, we are hardly EVER home!), right? Well, maybe YOU are, but me? Not so much. So, when I was given the chance to review the Motivated Moms chore planner, I jumped at it.

There are a variety of Motivated Moms Ebooks and I chose the 2014 Motivated Moms Chore Planner with Scheduled Bible Reading {Color}

Right off the bat I will let you know that I am a definite list maker, so I thought this might just be perfect for me. I mean, the list is already made for me, and even has those handy-dandy little check off boxes, right?

However, there are a LOT of things listed that are just not now (or ever will be) part of my routine on the specified days, and for some things, just never, at any time, like watering indoor (or outdoor, for that matter) plants. Plants don’t even try at my house, they know coming in that they are on death row, lol!

There ARE a lot of things that are part of our family’s routine, they are just not listed when we actually do them, so I am still trying to work out the best way to use this planner in our home. During this review period, I actually was dealing with some unexpected medical issues, so we really didn’t manage to make this planner work as well as I think it can for us.

I really like that I can simply print out one page at a time and it gives us the whole week at a glance, including daily Bible reading. I like that in the left column, we have a list of daily chores, even though some of them I have to cross right off, as they do not fit our family, for example, “feed pets”, because we do not have (nor do I want to have) pets.

I like that in the column on the right is a day by day list of chores that you can do in small amounts of time. If you don’t get it done, it will be there again during a future week.

I don’t like that it is not more customizable. For example, we don’t do chores on Sunday. Not ANY chores. Even dinner for after morning church service is done in the slow cooker, and I (generally) try to get that set up the night before if possible, so the crock can just come out of the fridge, be put into the base, and plugged in. Sundays are very busy for us, so my husband and I really like to try to get in a short nap before needing to be back to our church in the afternoon.

I like to make my shopping list as we notice we are low on something, adding it to the list right then. If I wait to make the list until a scheduled day, I WILL forget something. My husband takes care of paying/filing bills every other week, so having it scheduled on Tuesday, for example, just doesn’t work for us.

There ARE a lot of upsides to this though, in that there are things listed that we rarely think about. I mean, I honestly do not know when the last time the bathroom light fixtures were cleaned, for example, but it’s listed in my planner, and then it will come around again in a few weeks.

I like that there are spots on the list called “pamper yourself”, and “spend time on craft or hobby”.

I think with some “tweaking”, I could probably make this work for my family, but I am not sure if I can wean myself from my current system of writing a list of tasks and crossing them off as they get done. I am the type of person who, if I see (and do) a task that isn’t on the list, I write it down after doing it just so I can cross it off!

Bottom line, if you need or want the accountability of a chore planner, this may be the one for you. I do like it, I just need to tweak it some to make it fit with our family’s schedule.

The ebooks are available in a large variety of choices for $8.00. As I said above, the one I chose allows me to just print one page at a time, each week, and put it on the fridge, however, you may also choose to print the entire planner and put it into a book, and there are some versions which work with smaller binders, as well.

One 100 crew members reviewed various forms of the Motivated Moms planner, including a version available as an iOS App. To read about what they all thought of their time with this planner, please click the graphic below!

As always, I would just love it if you joined me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just go and enter your email into the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and never miss an update again! Also, if you DO enjoy “My Journeys Through Life”, please, do go to our Facebook page and “like” it. I’d sure appreciate it if you did! 🙂

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Filed under encouragement, family, Motivated Moms, Schoolhouse Review Crew Post, TOS Post, TOS Review

Tagged as Chore Planner, Motivated Moms, Schoolhouse Review Crew, TOS Review

February 28, 2014 · 10:38 am

Weekly Wrap-Up . . . Another Birthday!

So, Tuesday was “The Artist’s” Birthday, and I had spent several weeks seeking out things that went along with his request for drawing materials. REAL drawing materials, artist quality. He noticed that I had bought for myself a set of black sketching pencils complete with one of those kneaded erasers (because I am attempting to learn Zentangle, which I’ll write about in a future post), so I got him a set too, at Michael’s.

Here are a few photos of “The Artist” opening his gift . . .

First, the big box!

Here are the aforementioned pencils . . .

And a set of artist quality color pencils he had specifically requested . . .

“The Artist” also received a variety of sketch books and sketch pads to put his artwork into . . .

And a book called Cartooning For The Beginner . . .

Last, but certainly not least, “The Artist” received his much requested Nintendo Eshop card.
, which is now burning a hole in his pocket, lol!

We went out to dinner at a local Chinese place called Tao’s Chinese Bistro, which was quite good, and left enough extra that everyone had more for lunch on Wednesday!

As far as homeschool stuff this week, we were kind of laid back, as I’ve not been feeling well lately. We worked on a couple of review products that I posted about here and here, we did our piano practice (one of these days, I WILL remember to video either the practice or lesson time, or both, and post that), and we went to both Homeschool Park Day and Piano Lesson yesterday. Yes, we are able to go to Park Days in February, and we LOVE that! 🙂

So, how was YOUR week? Why don’t you blog about it, and then link up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers, like I’m doing? It’s really easy, just click the graphic below for the guidelines . . .

Write your post, then go here and link up at the bottom of the post. That’s all there is to it! While you’re there, check out all of the other bloggers writing about THEIR weeks! 🙂

As always, I’d love it if you joined me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just enter your email into the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and never miss another update! And, if you do enjoy “My Journeys”, please go to our Facebook page and “like” it. I’d sure appreciate it if you would! 🙂

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Filed under Birthdays, education, home education, Kids, Weekly Wrap-Up

Tagged as Birthdays, children, family, home education, Homeschool Park Day, homeschooling, kids, Weekly Wrap-Up

February 28, 2014 · 9:47 am

Book Launch & Review . . . Asia: Its People and History

I am very excited to be a part of the book launch team for “Asia: Its People And History“, for a variety of reasons.

The author, Bonnie Rose, is part of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine family, serving as a member of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s Star Contributors Team, creating material for SchoolhouseTeachers.com, and working as an editorial assistant for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine®. You all know how much I love being part of The Old Schoolhouse Family as a Review Crew member, so it’s very special to me, being included as part of the launch team for a book written by one of our own! 🙂

So . . . you may be wondering, just what is this book, anyway? Well, it’s a curriculum, but I find it to be more than that, personally.

Book Description:

Welcome to Asia: Its People and History! Is the land of Asia a mystery to your kids? Do they know who lives there? Do they know how to pray for them? Asia is home to more than fifty countries and territories and roughly three-fifths of the world’s population. Could you use some help introducing your family to this vast land? This sixteen-week course presents a brief picture of six nations. It is by no means all encompassing. Its purpose is to introduce your students to the people of Asia, share their stories, and spark curiosity.

I pray that the course does much more than that, however. I pray that through meeting just a few of our brothers and sisters who live in cities and villages with names that are hard to pronounce that your children feel more connected with those who are suffering for their faith in Christ. Through stories and activities, we’ll meet the people of Laos, Bangladesh, Nepal, China, Iran, and Vietnam. We’ll get to know the children of these lands and hear about their experiences. Most of all, we’ll pray for them and their families. Won’t you join us?

Here is a lovely video trailer that you can watch about this book:

Asia: Its People And History covers these six countries in 16 weeks . . . Laos, Bangladesh, Nepal, China, Iran and Viet Nam. I most especially wanted to go through this book because I happen to have family who are missionaries to one of these countries, so my children (and I!) wanted to learn more about it.

Each country in the book covers weeks. We begin with week one: Story with discussion questions. Then, in week two, we have Let’s Talk About (that week’s country), Part One, week three: Story with discussion questions, wrapping up in week four with Story with discussion questions. This format is used for each of the six countries in the book.

I am happy to tell you that the author, Bonnie Rose, has provided bonus content absolutely free, that you can download here. This includes the following:

History and Geography-themed copy work (three handwriting styles)

Facts about Bangladesh

Facts about China

Facts about Iran

Facts about Laos

Facts about Nepal

Facts about Vietnam

Word Puzzles

Asia Nations and Capitals Word Puzzle-enjoy a fun decoding activity to decipher the six nations we are studying.

Letter Scramble-Central and South Asia

Letter Scramble-East and Southeast Asia

Letter Scramble-Middle East

I think my family is going to really enjoy going through this book more fully, now that this short review/launch period is completed!

Paperback available from Amazon.com coming soon in
full color and black-and-white versions.

Kindle version available from Amazon.com.

Ebook available from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.

Kindle, Nook, iBookstore, and Sony eReader versions available from Smashwords.com.

As always, I would love it if you join me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just enter your email into the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and never miss an update again! And, if you enjoy, “My Journeys”, please go to out Facebook page and “like” it. I’d sure aPPRECIATE IT IF YOU DID! 🙂

Science4Us.com . . . a T.O.S. Review

Many of you are aware that our boys really, really enjoy things that are, in their words, “science-y”. You may NOT be aware though, that I am NOT a “science-y” type person, so this topic has always been sort of a “learn it as it comes up” kind of thing. Well, being given the chance to review an online science curriculum called Science4Us.com Online Subscription turned out to be something of a God-send!

Science4Us.com offers a FULL online science curriculum for your K-2 students. However, don’t let that grade range limit you at all. It can also be used as review for older students. MY kids are having a great time with it!

Here is a video of “Mr. Loquacious”, talking just a little bit about the program . . .

As you can see, he tends to lose his “Mr. Loquacious” title when being put on a video, LOL!

I feel that this curriculum is very good for either the homeschool parent who wants to set up lessons for their children (or is required to do so by their state), or for the homeschool parent like me, who is more of a “fly by the seat of your pants” type. I do not use a lesson planner, I have never lived in a state which required me to keep records of any kind, which is the way I, personally, feel homeschooling ought to be. We do a lot of “interest led” homeschooling, and believe me, the Science4Us.com Online Subscription works BEAUTIFULLY for our homeschooling method!

Lest you think it won’t be for you though, because you prefer (or are required) to keep records, have lesson plans, etc, this curriculum works for you, too! The Science4Us.com Online Subscription gives you, the parent and/or teacher, well done lesson plans, already prepared for you! The program is set up to allow you to check on your child’s progress, and see what and how they are doing. You have the capability to set specific assignments for your children, and can even set it up with start dates and end dates, or just set the assignment up to end when they have completed it.

MY kids like that when they log in, everything they have already completed now has a gold star on it, and they know to go to the next thing. They also enjoy the animated lessons, the games, and surprisingly, they like taking the “evaluates”, or quizzes at the end of each topic they do. 🙂

The Science4Us.com Online Subscription is EXTREMELY easy to navigate! Even my boys, once I showed them how to log on with their individual memberships, were able to move around with great ease, needing only to ask for help the very first time they were on. That says a lot to a homeschool mom like me who has special needs kids, and almost always has to tweak whatever we are using to work with my children. 🙂

Here is an example of what your child will see after he or she logs in . . .

At that point, they may either choose one of the books at the top right, which my kids did to begin, and then thereafter, they chose from the “recent activity” box, going to the next circle without a star.

Here is “The Puzzler”, who, by the way, asks multiple times a day if he can “do the science thing” . . .

And here is a shot of “Mr. Loquacious, also working on his own . . .

Your subscription will include a good overview of the following main topics: Science Inquiry, Earth/Space Science, Life Science, and Physical Science, as well as numerous subtopics. I do feel it’s important for me to mention that the Earth History topic does come from an evolutionary viewpoint, and because of that, it was the one limit I put on my kids. We did not use that portion of the curriculum. I allowed them each to choose their main overview topic, and required that they stick with that one until finishing the unit, but other than that, they were free to work on their own, at their own pace.

If it is important to you to use a “standards based” curriculum, Science4Us.com Online Subscription states that it falls within that. This is not something that matters to me, but I know that some of my readers do feel it is important.

I feel that the price for what you will be receiving is excellent! There are Over 350 Online Lessons, Hands-On Activities and Worksheets, it is web-based, and there will be availability to use it on the iPad in 2014. For those to whom it matters, this curriculum does correlate to state and national standards. In addition to science, Science4Us.com Online Subscription also helps build math and language skills. Here is a picture I took while “Mr. Puzzler” was working on something that added in language arts . . .

Finally, if you need or want it, there is automated Reporting for Homeschool Portfolios.

All of this comes to you for the very reasonable price of $7.95 per month, per child.

So far, we are really enjoying our time with the Science4Us.com Online Subscription, and I feel confident in recommending it to you!

To find Science4Us.com on various social media, check out the following:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Science4UsSays
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/science4us/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Science4Us
G+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/112259351657747584252/

To find out what my crewmates thought of the Science4Us.com Online Subscription, please click the graphic below!

As always, I’d love it if you joined me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just enter your email into the “sign me up” button at the top of this blog, and you’ll never miss an update again. And, if you DO enjoy “My Journeys Through Life”, please go to our Facebook page and “like” it. I’d sure appreciate it if you did! 🙂

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Filed under education, home education, homeschool products, Homeschool Science Curriculum, homeschooling, Science4Us.com, Special Needs Children, TOS Post, TOS Review

Tagged as children, first grade science lesson plans, first grade science projects, first grade science standards, first grade science worksheets, home education, homeschool product review, homeschool products, Homeschool Science Curriculum, homeschooling, kids, kindergarten science activities, kindergarten science lesson plans, kindergarten science standards, Schoolhouse Review Crew, Science4Us.com, second grade science curriculum, second grade science experiments, second grade science lesson plans, second grade science standards, special needs, TOS Review

February 25, 2014 · 12:28 pm

KinderBach Online Piano Lessons For The Very Young . . . A T.O.S. Review

The KinderBach Online Membership with Teacher Corner was not something I initially was planning to review, but ended up doing so anyway, as I thought my two younger boys, “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” would get some fun out of it, and add to their beginning music education. My older boys and myself take actual piano lessons, where we go to our piano teacher’s home, but the younger two are simply not ready for that as yet.

KinderBach says that the best time to introduce your children to making music, and the fun that will come from doing so, is between the ages of 3 and 7. As most of you already are aware, “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” are actually age 12, but they do have some developmental delays, so this program has been fun for them. They especially like the coloring pages that come with the program! 🙂

There are pages to use for most of the lessons, and you can print them out from within the lesson, such as this one here . . .

There are also activity books available to print out all at once, if you like.

You can even take KinderBach on the go with you, by using the KinderBach app for Iphone or Ipad!

Even if you don’t yet have a piano or keyboard, KinderBach has printable keyboard sheets which will get your students started for the first few weeks.

KinderBach Online Piano Lessons With Teacher Corner yearly membership will give you access to 6 levels of fun and worthwhile musical education for the 3 – 7-year-old, which also includes (to my delight!) a physical component, as you can see in the photos below . . .
Here we see Frisco doing both “up” and “down” motions for the students to follow

And here are “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” following along!

KinderBach is “Child Paced“, making it a very good program for the special needs child or the child with a short attention span, but still is advanced enough for the child in the suggested age range.

To read the curriculum syllabus by level, please look here.

You will receive all web lessons, via your computer, iPad, Android Tablet, Kindle Fire or Nook. You will also have the availability of all of the Teacher Corner materials, plus the ability to download all of the story books, song books, and coloring pages.

At this time, there are over $400 worth of books in the Teacher’s Corner and more will be added soon. With your membership, you never have to pay more for a new edition. Your membership permits you the to download all updates.

The cost for KinderBach Piano Lessons Online With Teacher Corner is very reasonable, for everything you’ll be getting . . .

To check Kinderbach out via various social media, here are some places they can be found:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kinderbach
Facebook for Teachers: http://www.facebook.com/classroomkinderbach
Twitter: @KinderBach
Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/KinderBach/
YouTube: KinderBach Preschool Piano

To sum things up, “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” have been enjoying their first Crew Review of this new year, and so have I!

To read what other crew members thought of KinderBach, please click the graphic below:

As always, I would love it if you joined me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just go and enter your email into the “sign Me Up” button at the top of the page and never miss an update again! Also, if you enjoy “My Journeys”, please go to our Facebook Page and “like” it. I’d sure appreciate it if you did! 🙂

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Filed under home education, homeschool products, homeschooling, Kids, Piano for early education, Special Needs Children

Tagged as Beginning Piano, children, home education, homeschool product review, homeschool products, homeschooling, kids, Piano Basic, Schoolhouse Review Crew, special needs, TOS Review

February 22, 2014 · 7:47 pm

Weekly Wrap-up . . . A Week Late!

I didn’t manage a weekly wrap-up last week. I’ve been ill off and on for the past couple of weeks, and then last week, I broke my glasses!!! All is well on that front though, this week I got a replacement pair, though I’m still waiting on my prescription sunglasses (a needful thing in a state with at least 300 sunny days per year).

Anyway, back on February 7, we had another co-op day with our church homeschool group. This time, it was all about nutrition, manners, and physical activity.

My friend Aimee, one of our fabulous homeschool moms, was in charge of putting this one together, and she really made it fun! Here, she is teaching the kids what would NOT be good table manners, LOL!

Aimee discussed with the kids the importance of good nutrition, and of drinking enough water every day, especially living here in the desert.

The kids learned about the importance of good posture, and in this video, you can see some of them attempting to practice USING good posture!

After all of this, we moved to another room, where we worked on stretching . . .

Exercises . . .

And a game to work on good sportsmanship!

This is one of MY favorite photos of the day, two of our toddler friends! 🙂

So, this was a good homeschool day, in the midst of my not feeling well off and on. My kids really enjoy our co-op!

This post is being linked up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers. To get the guidelines for the weekly wrap up link-up, click the graphic below:

As always, I’d love it if you joined me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”. Just go and enter your email into the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and never miss an update! And, if you enjoy “My Journeys”, please, go to our Facebook Page and “like” it. I’d sure appreciate it if you did! 🙂

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Filed under Church, education, exercise, family, home education, Home-school Group, Homeschool Group Monthly Activity, Kids, Mesa Baptist Church, Weekly Wrap-Up

Tagged as children, Christian Faith, Church, family, health, home education, homeschooling, kids, Mesa Baptist Church, Weekly Wrap-Up

February 14, 2014 · 1:08 pm

Valentine’s Day!

Well, it takes a lot of years to train a husband, but I think he did WAY GOOD this year, without even any “PLEASE do something for Valentine’s Day” stuff from me!

Here is a beautiful vase of roses, with a sweet note . . .

and a closer view of the Silpada ring I wanted, to go with a necklace I’d gotten from hosting a party last month!

As always, if you click on the pictures, you can make them bigger to see all of the beautiful detail!

23 years into this marriage, he’s coming along, wouldn’t you say? 🙂

As always, I’d love it if you’d join me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”. Just enter your email into the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and never miss an update! And, if you enjoy “My Journeys”, please go to our Facebook Page and “like” it. I’d sure appreciate it if you did!

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Tagged as Valentine's Day

January 31, 2014 · 4:47 pm

Christmas With Strategic Shopping . . . Review & Book Launch!

You’re probably thinking “What?! She’s writing about CHRISTMAS?! Didn’t I just finish up with all the frenzy of the holidays???”

Well, yes, I am, because I was given the opportunity to review the e-book “Christmas With Strategic Shopping, The 12 Months of Christmas”, as part of the book launch team for this book, along with another book by the author Candy Foote, entitled “Strategic Shopping”.

Truthfully, I thought there was no way this book would really help me. I am on of those who realizes all of a sudden in about, oh, October or November, that “Oh, no, Christmas is coming, and I’m so not ready!”, followed by frenzied planning and attempts to get everything done, every gift purchased. Of course, you KNOW that doesn’t work out very well, by then, I can’t afford to get what we want for gifts, and have to stress over the cost of holiday food buying, etc. This leads to TONS of stress on my part!

About The Book:

Christmas with Strategic Shopping – The Twelve Months of Christmas

Christmas is said to be the most wonderful time of the year. It’s also the most stressful time of the year! Decorating, baking, parties, and gift buying all stuffed into the month of December can burden down the best of us!

Candy Foote is a mother of 12 who loves to overdo at the holidays! She loves to go all out on all of it, especially the gift giving! So, how does she manage to do it without having to spend the next five months of the new year paying for all of it? Sadly, many Americans actually do spend January through May trying to pay off Christmas debt!

Candy’s newest book — Christmas with Strategic Shopping: The Twelve Months of Christmas — shows you month-by-month how you can prepare for the holidays, taking the stress out of Christmas and making room for you to actually enjoy the holidays with your family.

Christmas with Strategic Shopping lists exactly what you should be buying each month. It teaches that stores have a specific time where they mark just about everything in the store down to a rock-bottom price.

This book will bring you into the life of a mega family’s celebration of Christmas. You can apply these principles into your own holiday celebration.

Don’t panic – it doesn’t require you to have twelve children in order to apply these techniques!

(I, however, have a family of six, so this will be a very helpful e-book for me!)

I missed out on doing the January ideas, due to life getting in the way, but I intend to do my best to follow her ideas throughout the remainder of the year. I have four boys, and it’s really hard sometimes to make a nice Christmas for them. I like the way she has scoped out the best months to buy certain things, how to set up a “gift closet” or “box”, so that you’ll always have things for other gifting times as well! I LOVE the idea to buy up Easter baskets really cheap after Easter and then spray paint them in Christmas colors to build basket gifts, or to even use them painted up for basket gifts for other occasions (think bridal showers, for instance).

I also really, really love all of Candy’s ideas for teaching one’s children to see giving as the more important thing, and would like to implement them, as well.

About the author:

Candy Foote is a Christian, wife to one, momma to 12, and grandmother to 4, so far (Number 5 is due in May!) She is a homeschool veteran of 21 years. As a homeschooling mother of a mega family, Candy has learned many Strategic Shopping tips that have allowed her to stay at home while her husband, Jud, was the only breadwinner of the family.

Candy runs a website filled with free information on how you can become a Strategic Shopper. She also enjoys going into people’s homes and teaching them through her Strategic Shopping workshops.

Candy considers it her ministry to help other families learn how to live a quality life, while keeping money in their pockets.

I appreciate all of the work Candy has put into getting all of this information together in one place for us! She has even added into her e-book a set of planner pages to use throughout the year in your effort to spread the Christmas over all those months, so that you don’t HAVE to stress at the last moment! I’ll be printing it out and using it for sure!

In Candy’s other book, Strategic Shopping, Candy gives us tons more information on how to save all year just in our normal, everyday shopping. I highly recommend both books, which you can now get as a bundle deal, and at a discount, to boot! Just click the graphic below, and use the discount code shown on it!

As always, I’d love it if you join me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just enter your email into the “sign me up” space at the top of the blog, and never miss an update! And, if you enjoy “My journeys”, please, go to our Facebook page and “like” it. I’d sure appreciate it if you did! 🙂

Weekly Wrap-up . . . Revival Meetings and Some Silliness!

Well! This has been a very busy week! Our church had special meetings this week for our Family and Friends Revival, from Sunday through Wednesday. It was so good, too! Our guest speaker was Brother David Hetzer, and he was just wonderful! He has also been a speaker for our youth camps in years past.

We also were treated to The Epleys coming to sing for us! My family had last seen them many, many years ago, back during the early years we spent in Port Huron, MI. They came with their children and sang at the church we attended at that time, and we just loved them! We still listen to their music in the car! Well, now, We are in New Mexico, and they came to the church we are members of here! These days, their kids are grown and raising families of their own, so it’s just mom and dad singing now. I did not get a good video of them during the meetings, but here is one from youtube of them singing one of the songs they did for us. I hope you enjoy it!

It was a busy but good week! Monday and Tuesday, our church provided a meal at 6:00 for everyone who came before the meeting at 7:00, and then Wednesday we did potluck at the same time. Our pastor says we’re “the eatin’-est church in town”, lol!

Before all the business, we had a bit of silliness at our house one evening after supper, when my husband and some of the boys started fooling around with one of “The Puzzler’s” Christmas gifts, as you’ll see in the video below. They were sure having fun!

All in all, it was a pretty good week! 🙂

This post is being linked up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers. If you’d like to write about your week and link up, please click the graphic below for the guidelines.

As always, I’d love it if you’d join me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just enter your email into the “sign me up” space at the top of the blog, and never miss an update! And, if you enjoy “My Journeys”, please go to our Facebook page and “Like” it. I’d sure appreciate it if you did! 🙂

Weekly Wrap-Up . . . Blessings And a Little Fun!

It’s been kind of a tough time around here lately, and by Monday I(!) was pretty much falling apart already. No, I’m not going into any details, suffice to say that my anxiety was hitting a pretty high level. By Wednesday evening I was basically falling apart.

So . . . the first blessing . . . my husband took yesterday off and declared he was giving ME a day off! Really, all I had to do was get myself, “The Batman” and “The Artist” to piano lesson. He kept “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” at home with him. I spent most of my time before going to piano working on the book launch/review which I posted yesterday. This did help somewhat, but he was nice enough to plan ahead and put in for a vacation day so he could take TODAY off, as well! I did need to take all of the boys to our monthly homeschool co-op at church this morning, which you’ll see and read about later, but once we got home, my husband told the kids that now it’s “Mom” time, and they have to come to him for everything for the rest of the day. He even got supper started for me in the roaster after I told him how to season it (an extra turkey I got on sale at Christmas), since it needed to be started while we were gone. 🙂

Our piano instruction book that our new teacher is putting us into has not yet come in at the music store, so she is kind of just maintaining us with some practice from our old books. It’s been over a year and a half since we had lessons (before we moved here to NM), so this is fine, because I for one, have forgotten a LOT! As they were before, though, both “The Batman” and “The Artist” are WORLDS ahead of me, however our teacher says she believes I will do well. She seems to think she can train me to be a church pianist! We will see. 🙂 Here is a short video of “The Batman” entertaining our teacher’s younger son during “The Artist’s” lesson . . .

There is just no way not to feel happy watching that! 🙂

Last night, since we knew my husband would not be going to work today, we let the boys stay up just a bit later than usual, and watched Iron Man 3. I had not seen it, so that was pretty good. The kids kept almost slipping up and referring to stuff from the Avengers movie (which I’ve not yet seen), things that had a bearing on what was happening. So, now I’m wanting to see the Avengers movie as soon as we can borrow a copy, lol!

This morning, we had co-op with our church homeschool group. We’re doing something a little different this semester, in that we’re trying to do some more educational things as opposed to just social things. For the next few months, we are having what we are calling the A&W group, for Art and Writing. We began with some beginning art lessons . . .

First, making sure the kids know what will be happening, and what is expected!

here’s the agenda . . .

If you can’t quite read the sign in the middle of the board (the one where each line begins with the letters R O C K S),

it reads like this:

Raise hand, silent mouth
Obey right away, all the way
Concentrate and stay focused
Keep your stuff to yourself
Show consideration

All good things, I’m thinking!

Miss Erica, beginning some easy lessons . . .

Here are some shots of the group, paying close attention to Miss Erica . . .

And some close-ups of my kids, hard at work!

“The Artist”

“The Batman”

“Mr. Loquacious”

“The Puzzler”

Here is a picture of the pre-schoolers, they had their own activity going in another room!

One of the things they worked on was the basics of drawing a lego mini-figure, and they’ll be working on their own personal one, which is to show something about their own personality, to bring back to co-op in February.

After art time, we made root beer floats, then watched a video segment from the “How It’s Made” program (shown below) about a factory where they make pop.

After the video, our group split into two sections, early readers/writers, and more advanced. The younger group worked on a little art/writing project on how to make a root beer float.

The rest of the kids worked on brainstorming their own stories about “A Crazy Day In A Soda Factory”, and began working on their stories. They’ll write them over the next month to bring back to co-op in February.

Working on their stories . . .

They all seem to have had a good time, so I’m glad we’re taking the co-op in this direction! We plan to have a “Creativity Fair” in April, where they may display any creative projects they have worked on during this time, either things from the co-op time or something creative they did on their own. I think it’ll be fun, and my kids are happy, since they totally missed the literature fair last year, because I had surgery the day before.

So, I’m going to go now and finish my “me” day, designing and working on some cards.

How was YOUR week? Why don’t you write about it, and share it by linking up over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers?

Click the picture below for the guidelines

As always, I’d love it if you joined me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just enter your email address into the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and never miss an update! And, if you enjoy “My Journeys”, please, go to our Facebook page and “like” it. I’d sure appreciate it if you did! 🙂

4 Comments

Filed under Church, home education, Home-school Group, Homeschool Group Monthly Activity, homeschooling, Kids, Ultimate Blog Challenge January 2014, Weekly Wrap-Up

Tagged as children, Christian Faith, Church, home education, home school co-op, homeschooling, kids, Mesa Baptist Church, Ultimate Blog Challenge January 2014, Weekly Wrap-Up

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