When an all day time out is just necessary

When my sweet rooster just wants to start off in a daydream, dragging his feet at any idea to put paper to pencil, what is there to do?

I am going to bore it out of him. I love what Art Robinson said about letting a reluctant child sit in their seat for as long as it takes each day. It renews me, when my son just refuses. If it gets too bad, I send him to bed. I hope he goes to sleep, but mostly he forces himself to stay awake.

Reasoning? I tried telling him that his attitude is his only obstacle.

Punish it out of him.

Motivate him?

There will be a week here and there, that nothing is going right with him.  He just looses it.  Most of the time it is just exhaustion.  We might spend a few days of him going back and forth to bed and then we are done for a few weeks.  And then we start again.

It mostly goes he is stubbornly defiant and reluctant.  I send him to bed.

About 20 minutes goes by, he will ask to come out.  I let him out and he is told to do his work.  he will stare blankly at it.  I wait about 15 minutes and send him back.

about an hour will go by and he will ask again.  We will go through the same drama and he will be sent back.

Now this is when we begin the cycle of coming and going.  Usually after the third time, I make him stay until dad gets home.  sometimes I tell him 2 hours, I am always just in the hope that he will fall a sleep.

Once he gets about an hour of some afternoon ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzs.  He will usually come in sit down and do some work. Usually.

He is easy to pick out when he is tired.  The entire house will be screaming. He has those kind of magic powers.

This is what I can sometimes find him doing during his I will sit in bed days.

On days that it will be no use to sleep, I will typically bring his work to the room and I will work with him 20 minutes at a time through out the day.  Doing this, works out very well.

Digi – Tic Tac TOe!

So I am still testing myself to think outside the scrapbook pages for my digi work.  I seen some cool printables and decided to make my own.  So I made a tic tac toe board for this month.

Just print it on regular letter size paper, cut out the pieces and play.  I think I am going to put mine on the fridge for the kids to play and do magnets for the pieces.  I again used Cheerful Halloween Digital Kit.  I hope you like it, because it is here for you to have.

 

Enjoy!

~trish

Party time! #1 is turning 6

So what do I love most about being mom!  Birthdays!  They were a miserably difficult experience to birth these wonderful children.  I never thought I could ever go through that much pain and live through it, much less be so happy.  I must say, God has a great since of humor.  It is horrible to go through it once, but then to repeat the process.  Hmm, must be a bit crazy.  So I love each birthday, because I am having another year with my child and I can celebrate that I went through the worst pain I can imagine and survived!  Wow!  My body is amazing for its strength!

So this week is #1’s storybook character parade and it works perfect with our costumes anyways.  So here is my little pig (1 of 3).

I still have 2 more pigs to make.  The overalls were a pair I had made for #2.  I added pink to the straps and the cuffs and was so thankful they fit here.  My husband and I had it out trying to put the snaps on them (this goes back to having 2 engineers that live and breath together).  I made the ears and tail out of felt and I used a good gauged wire left over from my wedding stuff.  I did pick up the nose at the party store.

So to celebrate at school, we brought in cupcakes.  To help make it special they had to be cute.

Here cake for her party is just finished. 

and my kitchen looks about like this.

Plenty of candy, another cake for just the family tonight.  What a mess!  I am so thankful for the Dollar Tree when it is birthday time!  I got her a balloon for each year!

 

I made custom bag toppers for her goodie bags. 

I am really trying to challenge myself to do more everyday stuff with my digital program.  I look forward to sharing some more of my ideas!

~trish

Ketchup!

I really hate that I need to give you a ketchup post!  Or catch up!  I can not figure out where the days go!  They fly by and I am whooped after wards and the day is not even over!

So the kids!  Kids are good!

#1 is loving school!  She is learning her sight words and loves the social of school. I make her lunch every bento style.  I have taken a few pictures. But not like I was.  I am still picking up cool containers, between the dollar Tree and Marshalls.

#2 is speaking a lot better with his speech class 2 times a week.  He seems to have really calmed down and his tantrums have almost ceased.  I am almost astonished by it.  He gets to be in a class with mostly boys.  Since he is surrounded by girls at home, this is great!

#3 is showing her true 2 yr old colors.  I am realizing there is a lot she does just to aggravate the other 2.  She is quiet, until they are in the car, and then she will sing and chatter nonsense just to talk over them.  Trouble!  She is calmer though.

#4 is growing!

This is #3 and #4!

Me.  Hmm, the dreaded 4 letter word, BUSY!  I run all day long and drop of exhaustion.  I started selling stamps again and love the fact that I am getting out and about because of it.  I am also cooking at church for Awanas. I am barely sewing.  I am planning a birthday party.  I am planning a scrapbook crop to benefit the children camp this summer.  I am raising money for another youth group this weekend and then a relay for life and Susan G Anthony.  So I am busy. Yuk!  I feel like all I do is drive around and hardly have a moment to sit.

I am a bit bewildered by it all.  I knew that this would happen, if they went to school.  I do not want to rush the days by, but I look forward to only making a trip to one school instead of 2.

I am also studying to get licensed for my professional engineering license.  Yuk! 

I am ready for fall!  Fall will be beautiful and fast.  It will be filled with a party!  A Festival!  Costumes! The Woods!  Hunting!  Mud!  A Turkey to cook!  And the breeze that makes everything calm.  A Garden!  Oh I love Fall!

I know it is right at the door and we will be in the thick of fall!  I have so much to do before then, so I can really enjoy it!

Costumes: I am thinkin the 3 little pigs and the big bad wolf!  You guess who the wolf will be!  The BOY of course!

See you soon!
~trish

The last 2 weeks of blur!

Well friends, the last 2 weeks have been rough in so many ways.  As a mom that wants to succeed at the task, I had to take inventory or my strengths and weaknesses and had to come to reality about my personal limits.  Like I said, it has been rough, a few personal meltdowns and finally coming to grips with the decisions we made.

I can imagine the “dun, dun, dun” loud eerie music playing.

Okay, no one died! But, my husband has been working some crazy hours with his second job. I feel so blessed that he is willing to work so hard.  These crazy hours are about15-17 hours each day on the weekend and 2-3 nights during the week, him working until 9 pm.  I had no idea how fragile our home is without him.  Let’s just say in no way, can this momma go it alone.  We were getting the kids fed, educated, and dressed, but this momma wasn’t getting to be the momma I want to be.

Now this side job will last like this for about 2 months.  I know we could put our school aside for that time and just focus on being mom, but then there is always another side job that will put the same schedule on him.  On top of this, I have a little test I have to study for that is a major deal. (This goes back to that professional degree I have.) 

So momma is off having day in and out with all 4, with pure exhaustion making me just want to cry when the voices are echoing off the walls to sound like I have an entire herd of hyenas in here.  So I was getting snappy with my precious babies and losing all joy in every moment and realized something needed to change.

I heard a while back on a podcast, that it is the attributes of the stay at home mom that will change the world.  It lingered in my mind as I was facing the stresses in my life at the moment.  What echoed is that it was not the homeschool mom that is changing the world, it is the stay at home mom.  SO it shook me that it is more important for me to be mom, than it is for me to school teacher.  I never thought that I would have to choose between the 2, but this is where my world is fragile without my husband being readily available in my day.

So I made the decision painfully and heartbreakingly.  And once I mourned at the loss this year of being able to school my own children, I put my big girl panties on and got to the business of enrolling my kids.  I made the decision Tuesday, enrolled them on Wednesday, and they started on Thursday!

Here they are on their first day.  Now #1 started kindergarten. #2 is going to VPK.  #3 just wants to go to school, so she totes a backpack with her all day long.  Every time we stop somewhere, she ask if this is her school.  I am using this opportunity to tell her she needs to go pee pee in a potty, so she can go to school one day.

Now we are on day 3 of them going to school and wow!  I feel like I am coming back to my old self again.  So I am embracing the change. I am also changing things with the baby! 

She has been evicted from my bed. She is thrashing around through the night and I am not getting any sleep.  I am almost dried up and have lost all desire to nurse.  SO now I am trying to get her on a schedule to take her bottle and sleep through the night.  I had to get on the phone today and find a crib that would fit in our bedroom, because she has outgrown the bassinet.  Thankfully a friend came through with the coolest port-a-crib.

It is low to the grown, so it is not overwhelming in a small room.  Against better judgement, I will show you what my room looks like.  We do not have anything fancy, it is just the nuts and bolts of real life.

 

And I didn’t clean up from my sewing project.  I even sew in my little bedroom.  Here is my $20 Janome machine I picked up at Goodwill.

I dream of grander things, but today is not the day for them and that is that.  I will make due with what I have got, because I know one day I WILL have them the way I want, so I will practice patience.  None the less, I get a lot of sewing done at this spot.

So all this craziness and meltdowns is the reason I have been lacking any real thought to my postings and why I was late on my give-away.

I do want to share my excitement for the plans to my new family order.  I am giving myself this week to catch back up on my house.  But hopefully next week, we will start back up on the unit study side of the MFW kindergarten program.  I want to continue to show them God in everything around us and the one week unit studies are perfect for that.  The nice part is, the unit studies have so many activities, I doubt they will feel like “work”.

I am also excited to have more time to devote to making my home more stream lined.  Yeah!  I hope that by the end of the school year, I will be more at a maintenance level than a purge and organize level. SO I plan to keep FLYING with the flylady!

I better post my next giveaway, toodles!

~trish

2010 Summer Giveaway #1

We are finishing up the summer and I am de-cluttering.  To celebrate!  I am going to have 4 weeks of give-aways.

My giveaway item will be announced on Mondays and selected after Saturday at Midnight. 

How to play!

You must do 2 things! 

1. Comment on this post.

2. Become a follower!

Want to add your name in for another chance, Facebook this post and leave me a comment that you did it!

So, there you go, 2 chances to win.

 

So I am super excited with this give-away!  This is an 8.5 x 8.5 album for your school memories and in addition, a set of alpha stamps!  This is to celebrate our start of school and yours!

~trish

A New Blog

Well, I am starting my next blog.  I am not sure if it is crazy to operate more than one blog, but I am hoping to meet a specific need with this particular blog.  There are a lot of moms in this town and there are a lot of things to do and opportunities to do, but there is not one place to find it.  So I am hoping to bring the connection between the parents in the area and the cool things to do.

hmmm, lets see how this goes.  I have no plan to slow these blogs down, just focused.  If you are not aware, this blog is my daily musings that go on in my head.  Diapers and backpacks is more impersonal and more informative of the local opportunities.

www.diapersandbackpacks.blogspot.com

~trish

TV ruins a good education

I am in the beginning of reading The Educated Child  by William Bennett, et al. and he states that TV ruins a good education.  He list all the background  to which he determined that statement.  all made sense to me, so I am emplimenting no TV from Sunday to Friday.

Here is the result, some good fashion playing is taking place.

MUD!  Not shown are the muddy children.  Not stated this is what and where I discovered them as we were to be walking out of the house and into the van. Obviously, my morning is going long than expected.

~trish

Have poop, will travel.

 

Me sitting on the bench watching the kids play on our our little trip!  I glance up and ponder to myself

“Hmm, I wonder why #3 took her bathsuit off in the park. Oh, no, not here! Are you kidding me! #3 what are you doing?”

#3 says, “pooop, mooommmyy, pooop”

‘ahh, this is why I do not have dogs! Really? I hope I have a garbage bag.  I haven’t had to do this since college, when I had my little dog.  Aha, the is why I do not have dog! Really?  Please, baby, we do not poop on the grass, we go to the potty.”

#3 – “#3, poooop in gasss”

[side note: #3 loves to speak in the third person.  She is the only one that has done this.  Also, the kids is an amazing squatter when it comes to going potty outside.  When I was her age, my dad would have us sit on a log with our butts over the side or make us lean against a try.  The later once resulted with me getting redbugs all over my butt and my underwear sapped to my _ss, oh sorry it just kind off rhymed.]

“Well, I guess it wouldn’t feel right, if there wasn’t any crap to my day” (I say this with my hand in the air with defeat)

 

Adding to my pissy vacation. My children managed to whiz their way through the state of Florida, quit literally.  In fact, as we stopped to eat at a Cracker Barrel, my son hoped out of the van to pee on the first tree he could see.  Unfortunately, to me it was the one directly in front of the porch about 20 feet away.  There was a chorus of chuckling and pointing as I walked up.  I looked to discover, OF COURSE MY SON IS SHOWING OFF AGAIN WITH THE DISTANCE HE CAN PROJECT.

Next trip, I am logging all of our pit stops.  My husband had a deflecting moment, when my son chose to stand in the van and take aim at a guardrail.  To my poor husbands dismay was that he standing outside the van as the pee splash off the guard rail and showering him.  See, I need to have that camera ready!

~trish

Family bento style

 

I found this little bad boy in Target being clearance off.  It is a cute bento box and it is big enough for the family to have an outing. So I had to try it out. the blue bowls are open and the green bowls are separated into 3 compartments.

I served tropical fruit cocktail, ritz crackers with cream cheese and a salmon spread. Cookies, raisins, and fruit snack.  I included the fork picks to eat the fruit with and a spoon for the spreads.  I also had a towelette for each of us.

 

The kids loved it.  I had a few impressed onlookers.  I packed the container in a insulated grocery cooler with a jug of cold water and container of lemon aid with the towels packed around it (we went to the fountains).  The water and lemonaid kept the food cold while we did our errands in the morning.

~trish

Sunrise to a daydreaming weekend.

This is just before 7 am going over the bridge leaving home for the weekend, almost alone.  Almost, because my shadow #4 goes with me everywhere.  Got food in the boob and will travel.  so I loaded up for a 3 hour drive to attend a bridal shower and came back the following afternoon.

It was so amazing and refreshing to be on the move so early in the morning and to drive in almost silence that i had to take a picture of the sun coming up to share.  The part I loved the most about this adventure was the quietness of driving.  And I mean quiet.  Even with the radio blaring, it was still quiet in comparison with the ciaos I live.

The time was a saturation of my thoughts that allowed them to move and grow without interruption.  My thoughts slowly covered and engulfed my dreams and desires for my family, children, and husband.  My goals were noted for the long term and the short term needs were viewed in a more  critical light, versus just in the motion.  For once in a longtime, I was not having to go through the motions.  I could think about the motions I do everyday and consider what I could change for the better.

I spent the next 48 hours moving slow and with a smile. Grueling was the realization that I am so caught up in the task and effort that my day takes, I often forget to smile, (note to self is to start smiling).  I evaluated me as mom, wife, daughter, and child of God.  Took inventory on what needed to changes and smiled at what I was getting right.  Took the time to emotionally let go of any recent baggage I have emotionally acquired and dusted off the trunks in long term storage.  Emptied a few bags and smiled.

I thought and dreamed about this coming year and the next 10, then the 5 years after that and then the lifetime that I will have when my children will be adults.  I prayed. Prayed for their success, their love, their spouse, their children.

I talked to God. I called a friend. Had a chat with me.  I had no idea how a long quiet car ride can set the soul at ease. I hope not to wait to long for the next.

~trish

Kicking off the homes-cool year

So today was the first day of school in our area. So today would have been the huge time honored mom and child bonding crying your eyes out event of leaving your sweet child at some desk with their name on it and trying to figure out what to do for the next 5-6 hours.

Well not for this family, we went to a play.  Not just any play, a dinner theater show.  How nice a buffet lunch and a desert bar all before the show. All of the kids went, even #4 sat in for the show. The children loved it.

I am glad that we went though.  I always knew I wanted to homeschool, even before having children.  I might have started selling it to my husband once we got home from the honeymoon.  even still, I get nervous.  No one in my family has ever homeschooled before.  SO I am walking on new ground for me.  Thankfully my mom, which is funny because it was never a consideration for her, is 100% behind me.  I think she is loving the lack schedule and the ability to talk me into an adventure with the kids.  (She is already planning a weekend “fieldtrip” to a huge museum)

so apart of me was sad not to have the whole shopping and consuming adventure of clothes, lunchboxes, school supplies.  Or the nerves and the excitement of somewhere new.  The pretty desk with the name at the top.  The colorful room. And yet I am thankful not to have those experiences too.  I know being home with my kids and getting the blessing of homeschooling them is gift.  I know if I was working, my heart would be mourning over the missed opportunity to be homeschooling them.  If I had them in school, I would be wishing I could be teaching them my way, and would probably be a teachers worst nightmare of a parent.  I love being involved with their learning and given half the chance I will end up engrossed in someone else's’ kid’s learning.  So I know I am on the right path, but it doesn’t mean I am not nervous.

So we skipped the first day jitters and went to a play.  What is cool, is that I will scrapbook this as a fieldtrip!  Eat your heart out!  This family does supercool stuff and calls it schooling!

~trish

Organizing the MFW-K day

     

We are into our official homeschool year.  We started somewhere in May, right after #4 birth and took until the end of June to finish the first week.  Oh, I was feeling some fear that maybe I was in over my head.  My thought was that even though I have this great passion and desire to homeschool my children, what happens if I never get to it in our day.  well, we are getting better and of course, we still have no real set routine yet.  I hope by Christmas, we will find it or maybe Santa will bring me one. 

As we are moving forth in the lessons, I am excited that I am coming together mentally with the planning and physically with keeping it together.  I will say, right now we are homeschooling either on the living room floor or at the coffee table.  I do not have some awesome cool, eat your heart out classroom.  I am going to make a makeshift display area over our tiny dinner table to help us review and gloat over our hard work.  I had hoped to use the bulletin board squares that you tape up, BUT the darn things keep falling down.  SO I am patiently waiting for my husband to make a board to put them on.

Here is our stuff!

Calendar. Part of our morning routine is to put the date on the calendar.  I originally bought a calendar set from the Dollar Tree and had it all together on a poster board.  Having only a few places to hang it and having guest knocking it down, I opted to get rid of it.  I found this little gem at Staples for $3. 

A small hiccup it that #3 likes to erase the numbers when no one is looking.

I don’t actually mind, because now #1 is getting a lot of practice writing the numbers. Bad mommy?

 

I took the example by Melanie at www.treasuresunseen.blogspot.com and set up all my unit lessons like she did.

I love being part of the My Fathers World Kindergarten – Yahoo group.  Group members share files and ideas and help with keeping the mommy’s chin up.  In that group, there is a weekly summary of each unit study.  So I print mine and put the week we are working on attached to a clipboard.  I also clip the pages we will work on behind the summary.

  The generous mom who made this, created a somewhat standardized form that she added weekly details.  One thing to note about MFW-K is that it operates like a letter of a week program that is combined into a unit study and submerged into the bible.  For that, I am in bliss to teach my children this program.

Now I never meant to do this but my daily workbox just came to be and is working fine for now. In it I have:

• tactile numbers
• teacher manual
• bible
• box of crayons
• box with scissors, glue, pencils
• letter box (this is the envelope box, plan to make it pretty later)
• 3-hole punch
• paper items for the next craft project
• books from the library that go along with the study
• a game (cooties mini version from wal-mart) to celebrate the end of our lesson for the day. [I am finding that ending with a game helps motivate us to stay on task and helps me to remember to have fun]

 

 

Now I can not forget that I have to keep a portfolio of #1 work.  So here is a 3-ring binder from one of my college courses.

We are moving along.  And I am already amazed at what I am seeing.  #1 is very good at knowing the sounds of letters, so we should be moving into blends rather soon.  #2 is really pleasing me.  We are using this year as his Pre-k, so I plan for him to do a lot of just sitting in.  Well he is very determined to do things perfect.  He is more than happy to do what ever #1 is doing and I believe he would try to take over her work.  I think the most important task for him right now is to just sit back and listen and mimic her. I hope #1 gets just as excited.  She is doing it to please me, she is a pleaser.  But I also know given the chance, she would much rather be doing something else.  I hope as the routine gets more in place, she will come around.

~trish

wearing a baby!

 

#3 was wanting to be a little mommy.  She was “wearing” her babies by throwing them into a pillowcase and throwing them over her shoulder.  At first, I thought she was wanting to be a hobo.  But after watching her for a little bit, I realized she was wanting to wear them.  So I grabbed some fabric and put together a little baby sling for her.

she is so cute, but not to be confused, oh my, this child here is a rascal! She will earn me every white hair I have.

~trish

Should there be instructions for glue?

I thought, hmm, I bet my kids would love to do a craft.  How about some foam pirates and hula dancers, this should be easy enough.  I can help out in the beginning and get some stuff done in the kitchen.  I will be mom of the year!

Well, reality hit about an hour later with the glue bottle now empty.  My sweet, but almost always misunderstood 4 year old son took this project on, ambitiously!  My always initial reaction is why did you have the intent on destroying everything? But I just sent him in to clean up.  As I surveyed the damage and tried not to cry at the obvious misery I would have to work at to clean, I soon started seeing little people.?

 

If you look carefully, you can see a few of them on the table.  A since of relief hit me, that he was really trying here, I just had to be willing to look beyond the glue.  As the head house maid in the family, it is hard to look past the glue.

I did get it all cleaned up, relatively easily.  I put the people aside to dry and scraped all the extra foam pieces.  From there I left it alone for a few hours.  My wonderful husband came home to tell me “You didn’t want to clean that up before the table got ruined?” Ahh, men!  Well, that evening I just pealed the dried glue off the table and the table was fine.

 

I do have to say, having now 3 girls and 1 boy, my attitude and demeanor is often frustrated with the wild ways of a boy.  sometimes it feels like it is smooth sailing running through the day with the girls and the entire time I am fighting with my son to stop making waves.  ( My best analogy would be a day with girls is like a yoga class and the day with a boy is like hip hop aerobics, one relaxed and one high energy) Add on this being insanely tired from having a newborn that I am nursing, it is easy to say I can get snappy at the wave maker. 

I was so thankful, that I sent him inside initially when I was shocked at seeing the mess.  Having him in another room allowed me to completely take in the picture with out him continuing to make more wakes.  This allowed me to see his accomplishment and praise him for it.  I wish I had a stop button for time, so I can do more taking in the whole picture during all the ciaos, so I could easily see and praise the effort , instead of reacting to the mess.

~trish

Individual Cups

 

A friend read my facebook post about monogramming cups for each kids.  Well, she did it better.

 

What you see are Tervis Tumblers that are made in the USA!! I am so excited about my cup and I have been drinking a lot of water since.

Here is what I love about Tervis!

1. I can leave a drink with ice in the car for over an hour in 97 degree summer day and still have ice left.

2. It has my name on it!

3. Freezer, microwave, and dishwasher safe.

4. It has a lid.

5. It has a lifetime guarantee and it will be replaced if it breaks.

6. Made in the USA, BABY!

 

You can order them online at www.tervis.com and the prices are extremely reasonable.  I am now embarrassed to say, this is my first tervis and because of the guarantee, it can be my only one, well unless I lose it.

I am loving too that each kids has their own cup.  Thank you Heather, totally awesome baby gift for the entire family.

~trish

Potty Chair on the go.

This is our beloved potty chair.  I got it for under $5 at ikea.  I thought when putting a potty chair in my van that it is a common thing to ride with.  I was shocked that, no, not very many mommys are riding around with a potty chair.

I put our potty chair in a couple of years ago.  A small inconvenience about potty trained children is their tiny bladders at the most inconvenient times.  So I put a chair in the van and away we went.  I keep wipes in the van and water to give it a good clean after each use.  I can not tell you how many times and where it has been used.

My favorite it my son.  He does not like the auto flushing toilets at walmart.  One time, he refused.  So once we got to the van, he pulled the potty chair out, set it in the parking lot on the yellow parking line and relaxed for his 15 minute movement.  Ahh, I realized this is just mommy-hood.  I sat at the edge of the van  with the door open watching my son on the potty having a movement and watching people coming and going.  Thankfully, we had a car parked next to us, so noone really could see him. UNTIL!  A car pulled in to park across from us.  I thought she was going to need the chair, she almost peed herself, laughing so hard.

So our green potty is always in the van.  And I am excited to have #3 using it on our trips to the lake.  She is still wearing a diaper, but her daddy invited her to use it after her sister was done with it.  Of course, sitting under a nice oak, is a nice place to relax.

 

~trish

When the day just doesn’t start off right.

Enough said!

Yah right, like that is all I would say.  Well, I just might be a little hormonal.  Not too bad, pretty mild for me, but I am FREAKING OUT HERE PEOPLE!  Well, no not that bad.  Lets see, I have already public apologized for being me, see earlier post on Miss Bossy pants.  I have thrown myself to the Homeschool moms forum that I might be inadequate, because I can’t get myself into a routine with my children, even though I have a 4 week old attached.  Miss Type A is trying to take over again, I must STOP her!

 

Well, the blessing in homeschooling year round is that you can take time off.  So seeing that I have a newborn, I am attempting no curriculum progress for another 2 months.  So I believe that would make our unit study start date august 10th. Hmm, that is my wedding anniversary.  Well, I better keep the poppa happy, no rice dinner for him, we might start the following week.  I do want to keep them learning, almost unconstructively, so here is what I plan to mildly work with them on:

1. Monthly Calendar (got all the pieces from the Dollar Tree)
2. Numbers
3. Alphabet
4. Weather
5. Lots of reading (We will be exceeding our limit at the Library this summer)

I plan to do all this with games and nothing too structured.  I might even throw in some file folder games that I already have made up.  I did find a neat blog Confessions of a homeschooler, she has a ton of ideas that I might have to copy from.  I love the use of her workboxes and it makes me want to try them.  But then again it goes into me trying to do too much.  For this summer, I am trying to keep it simple.

Oh, so what better way to keep it simple than to make a few goals for the summer.  I am trying to keep it to a minimum here folks, but I am a task master and if I do not have a list I will never get it done, the traits of a reformed/rehabilitated procrastinator. So here are my plans/goals.

1. Potty Train #3 (I really should say, coheirs my darling husband into training her, like he did for the last one)
2. rebuild my wardrobe by making, thrift, or refashioning.
3. Recover my nasty ashtray chair, so it will be useable.
4. Take the kids to see my sisters
5. See a play with the kids
6. Take the kids to a Museum
7. Start making my Christmas gifts (also meaning I have a list made on the who and what)
8. Work on building a routine (maybe that we just play school between 10-noon), engrain the rules, distribute chores.

I think 8 items for the next 2-3 months is reasonable.  I am so excited, I will have to make a list on sidebar to show them and cross them off as I go.  Sounds like a reasonable, I am not letting the “Type A missy have a mile, but I will give her an inch” thing to do.  I will even try not to add to it, but I can not make any promises.

I am excited, I wrote this last night.  I just found out that you can go to www.kidsbowlfree.com and sign up to 6 kids to bowl 2 free games this summer until the end of August.  For $25 you sign up 4 adults to join in on those free games.  How awesome is that!  So I am happy to be adding a little fun to our summer at little cost to us.

~trish

House Rules

I finally got motivated to post the rules in our home.  Now, I feel a bit bad as a parent to finally post them, but well, if you can’t read what does it matter?  Well, I am realizing that I need them to keep me consistent. This is not really my great idea for the saying our rules or a cute way to post them.  A while back I seen something similar and saved the pic for later.  Now I have no idea where I found it, but I loved it enough to copy it.  I hope this will keep us on the right track and being able to follow through. 

I posted a couple of copies around the house.  My colorful one, I used scrapbook paper to jazz it up.  I hope to get a piece of wood to modge podge it to and make it something cute for my house.  here is the original that I wish I could give credit to its creator.

If you know who created, let me know, so I can give them credit.

~trish

Bean bag numbers!

Traveling through a new blog last night, I found the coolest little project.  So I had to make it.

 

I found Sarah at Create Studio where she has a ton of great ideas.  She made similar bean bag numbers, using rice.  She has the templates for you to print off to make your own.

Now I found her somewhere after midnight, between all night blog crawling and a nursing session.  I had to quietly search the porch for extra scraps of fabric.  I had that cut before I went to sleep and spent a little time here and there to stitch them.  They are raveled edges, which made them very easy to put together.  Now, as I filled them with rice, I knew why you need to use rice.  Beans will not fit.

So hopefully, my children will enjoy them and learn their numbers. Just in case you ever wondered how I get things done.   Well, this is what my computer sees when I am blogging.  I took this picture using my webcam.

~trish