The New School Year - 1st Day Pictures

I love taking first day of school pictures. I always take them in the same corner of the kitchen so I can see how they've grown.

Brenna - 2nd grade

Levi - 3rd grade

Jack - Pre-school

A Wise Manager

Reading, c.1865 by Jerry Barrett

For my Cornerstones project this week I decided to work on the chapter A Wise Manager. The first project in every chapter is to study and memorize scripture so I thought I would share a few of the scriptures.

Proverbs 12:24

Diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in slave labor.

(in my own words....Excellence in your work leads to influence, but laziness leads to dependence on others.)

Ecclesiastes 4:9

Two are better than one, because the have a good return for their work.

(in other words...many hands make light work!)

Another project was to list all of a mother's (my) jobs and highlight the ones that could be delegated (or partially delegated) to children. That was eye opening. With a little training, the kids could be contributing so much more than they are. And not only would our home run more smoothly, it would also keep them out from in front of the TV. Always a plus:)

The New School Year - Our Morning Board

I wanted to try this out for awhile before I bragged on it, just to make sure it worked as well as I thought it would. But now that we've been back to school for a month, I can say it's definitely a hit!

I know I saw the idea somewhere and I wish I could remember exactly where to give credit...

We call it our morning board and it's just one of those wonderful foam project boards that I turned into a calendar with plenty of clear pockets to hold various things we're working on. Everything that isn't in a plastic pocket is laminated with shipping tape.

The pockets are sheet protectors cut to fit or, for the smaller ones, mini photo album pages. They hold cards with our name and address (mostly for Jack to memorize), catechism questions we're memorizing, our Bible card for the week (from Veritas Press - I love these cards and wanted to be able to see them through out the day), the kids' Bible verse for Sunday School, and President flash cards. As we go through the year I'll change things out to reflect new things we want to memorize or read about.

It's so helpful to have the little things that didn't exactly fit in a subject all in one place. And memorizing is so easy when you go over it every day - I'm even remembering things!

My baby girl turned 6!

I'm working my way back from my (unannounced) summer blog hiatus. While I was "gone," Brenna turned six year old. I'm amazed at how grown-up she seems lately and reminded of how fast this time with her is flying by. She's truly lovely and so sweet. I'm so grateful to be her mommy.

A New Project...for me

I stumbled upon this book, Polished Cornerstones, at the homeschool booksale in May. I had seen it online before, but it seemed like something we might use when she's older and it was $48 so I didn't consider buying it right now. For $5 (in NEW condition) at the sale, though, I picked it up just to browse through. After all, I did commit to focusing on raising my young lady this year.
Well, I'm just now getting to really look it over and I love it! It's easily worth the original price. There are literally years of projects in this book for girls from preschool on up. Each chapter (and I think I counted 52) deals with a character trait or skill set and has between 25 and 50 projects to choose from. Everything from "A Patient Woman" or "A Woman Who Handles Money Wisely" to "A Modest Woman" and "A Teaching Woman." Some of the projects will be do-able even for non-readers and some are better suited for young women. All of them are adaptable and it's easy to pick and choose. Brenna and I could easily go through the book over and over again as she grows and, if she were to ever have a little sister (maybe, one day), she could use the book, too.
Actually, reading through it, I was wishing I'd had a book like this growing up. But it's never too late! SO I'm going through and picking out projects for myself as well. I'm hoping to get a project done every week between now and Thanksgiving...and maybe I'll get some batteries for my camera so I can share some pictures!

Brenna's dollhouse

For Brenna's birthday she asked for a bike and a Barbie guitar (thank you, Grandma!), but I had lots of other ideas. She had lots of dollhouse furniture that she loves to play with, but she had long since outgrown her toddler-sized dollhouse. I'm hoping to get her a collectible dollhouse kit when she gets a bit older, but she needed something to play with now. So in my internet research I ran across this. Adorable and just what I wanted, but did you catch that price tag? So I kept browsing. And browsing. Until I came up with this. I started cutting out pictures to hang on the walls, but I only did a few because I knew Brenna would have definite ideas about what she wanted so she is adding to it (already she's had me cut some fabric to make tableclothes and rug, make a couch, draw a fireplace and make a tv (but she drew the show). I kind of want to make one for myself now, but Brenna says she'll share.

Time to catch up...

Even for me, it's been awhile since I posted. We've been busy, busy, busy over the last month and a half. We wrapped up school for the year and we're taking the whole month of June off to catch our breath. Since summer is so miserably hot, I'm planning to start next year in July, right after the 4th, and take a few weeks off in August/September. The weather then should be perfect for some little trips and lots of playing outside. Almost accidentally, I managed to work out our calendar for next year so that we have some time off around every child's birthday (except Jack who still will get his big day off).


While we've been off, we've been busy relaxing:) Casey had some time off to go with us to Dauset Trails and Indian Springs! It was so good to get away even just for a little bit all together. We will definitely have to plan another trip!

The kids and I took another short trip with my family to the beach. We had a wonderful time with my parents and grandparents and favorite sister. As a kid, I was blessed to get to spend a lot of time with my grandparents and I'm always so thankful for my kids to get to do that, too. We attempted to take some family pictures on the beach, but some of us were less than cooperative...

We did get some good pictures, though, and we had a great time. Watching the kids see the ocean for the first time was so good for me. I was surprised at how refreshing even a short trip could be - we may have to squeeze in another quick trip before too long! And I'll definitely have to post some more pictures later.

And now I'm ready to jump back into life at home. I have so much planning still to do for next school year. I'm so excited about everything we're going to study! And I'm debating about squeezing in a yard sale. I would love to haul everything to the Salvation Army and be done with it, but our thrift stores are terribly disorganized - tons of good clothes get sold for rags because they simply don't have the manpower to sort it all. So I would rather have a yardsale with extremely good prices and just donate some of the money. I'm just trying to decide if I have a free Saturday and if the kids will need to be relocated:)
We still have fun stuff planned. Father's Day, Brenna's birthday, VBS and the fourth of July are coming right up, after all. I'm already looking forward to the relative slowness of our school schedule!

Neccessary Shelving

We needed some storage for the toy/school room...badly. Too many toys and not enough room for school! I browsed for ages online, looking for something that could contain the toys and make them easy to play with AND easy to put away. I finally settled on these great plans at Knock Off Wood. Unfortunately, neither of us had the time for even a quick project and I was out of patience with that room. You can see why...

Luckily, these $15 cheapo shelves from Walmart came to the rescue. This is the day we put them together and loaded them up...they'll look much better when I get a few more matching containers. But for $45 bucks total, it's a decent sized shelving unit and it's pretty sturdy, too.
I wish I'd taken a better picture of it all styled up, but remember the part of this post where I mentioned running low on time...?

Easter 2010

What a beautiful Easter morning. Levi picked 2 dogwood branches for me and Brenna - he can be so sweet:) It reminded me of the legend of the dogwood tree so we talked about that for bit before we left for my sister-in-law's annual Egg Hunt.
My parents and sister were here for the weekend, too - they're such a blessing!

Spring Cleaning

I've been trying to do a little spring fixing up this week and finish a few projects. These shelves have been curtain-less for ages since I realized my original velcro tabs were not going to work. Finally I got them "mistreated" although I'm still planning on a little trim to go along the bottom edges (to hide the fact that I didn't hem). In the meantime, I'm happy with the sunny yellow and with the hidden storage!

Grit, Spit and Sticktoitiveness

Well, it hasn't been quite as bad as this, but what a couple of weeks. I'm starting to feel the way this woman looks. And frankly my ponytail probably isn't doing any more for me than her kerchief is for her.

Between stomach viruses, Casey's crazy hours, and the, oh, two dozen or so other things I've had going on lately -well, some times you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I know things will settle down soon. Until then, what was the end of that nursery rhyme.......?

Caring for the sick

From the 1896 Original Fannie Farmer Cookbook...

Take special care in setting an invalid's tray.
Cover with a spotless tray-cloth or dinner napkin, folding the same, if it
is larger than tray, that it may just come over the edge. Avoid a fringed
cloth, as the fringe is apt to prove annoying.

I certainly haven't had much time to consider whether or not a fringed napkin would prove annoying to my paitients, but I have been so very thankful that I'm able to be at home caring for them.

Making Our Home a Haven - the fresh start

I surprised myself last week by being able to accomplish more than I thought I would. It was a busy week and I'm proud of myself for getting it all done, even adding a few things in. But I'm really feeling it now...that worn-thin feeling. And with more busyness ahead - there's already too much ink on my calendar! - I know I need to spend some time focused on Home. So, even though I usually preach babysteps, this week I have several good-sized goals.

• early to bed, early to rise...


• clean out the storage room to sort kids' clothes in preparation for the consignment sale coming up


• clean all the windows to let in the sunshine!


• eating breakfast as a family


• keeping the kitchen sparkly and shiny all week

How funny, before I had kids this would've been a good daily list!

Monica has a really good assignment this week - I hope to do a little work outside, too!

Making my home...a haven?

My home has been anything but a haven these last few weeks. With Casey working overtime, he needs the haven more than ever. Meanwhile, I'm thinking cloning doesn't sound so bad after all.

I plan to be back on track by Friday.

Hope everyone had a happy Valentine's Day

Casey bought me these beautiful tulips...my beautiful girl helped pick them out.

Why I can't get anything done...

He's smiling at me like this all day long:)

Making Our Home a Haven, week 3

I didn't do nearly the planning I wanted to do. I plan my day every morning, but this week was just too crazy to get beyond that. I did plan Brenna's tea party (sort of at the last minute, but still) and we're planning one for this Sunday, too.
Monica's challenge for this week is chores and that's definitely something I need to work on. Now that the kids have a working schedule for getting theirs done, it's time for me to get a schedule for mine.
In the morning before school...

• start laundry - load #1
• put folded clothes away if I didn't get to it the night before
• clean kitchen after breakfast
• check the kids chores

After morning school...

• switch laundry, start load #2
• fix lunch
• clean kitchen after lunch, sweep (teach Levi to sweep!)
• start supper

After afternoon school...

• laundry! - bring load #1 upstairs and fold (Brenna helps), put load #2 in the dryer
• finish supper

After supper...

• clean kitchen
• bring up load #2 to fold, then put away

I usually do a big cleanup on Friday morning, but all too often it gets pushed back until Saturday when there are lots of better things to do with our weekend. I think I'll move it to Thursday afternoons and see if that helps.

Now I'm off to catch up on the planning from last week...and the laundry.

Tea Party

I was so excited when Brenna asked to have a tea party - dressing up, making little snacks together, shopping for the perfect tea, doing a craft together, decorating a hat, beautiful invitations... I had soooo may lovely ideas. This was going to be the ultimate mommy-daughter tea party. Only it was never going to happen - when would I find time? But my little girl is growing up and I was tired of saying "maybe tomorrow, baby."
So now we're committed to a tea party every Sunday. This week I made the quickie snacks...on another week Brenna can help. One week we'll make the invitations...another we'll do a craft. For this week we drank some peach/mango tea I still had samples of. Some weeks we may heat up some lipton or have lemonade. The pickiness has got to go!

The important things are the time together and the tradition. My mother made the special little tea set for me in 1983. My granny gave Brenna the pink dishes. My grandmother and I had tea parties all the time when I was little. Funny, those were a highlight of my childhood, but I don't remember them being very fussy. Just a special little bit of girl time.

My boy is four! Squinting into the too bright sun, he still manages to look adorable.

He loves "gorilla" bars, they make his heart "beep" faster.

Making My Home a Haven, week 2

Last week went much better. The kids are picking up their chores and the kitchen is clean. And I've been able to keep up with my daily Bible reading and prayer time. Our morning routine is really working even when I have to adjust for nightowl babies.

Last Saturday's plans were changed for me - that happens some times! - so I'll try again this week to have everything done for dinner and for church by Saturday afternoon.

Monica's challenge this week is about planning. My favorite! Stopping to think things through is an absolute necessity. The things that really start to grate on my nerves are usually the same things that I haven't taken the time to plan (or maybe I had them all out but something changed...these kids are always growing and changing on me). Several things around here could stand to have a little thought applied...

• Meals...I do usually plan suppers, but I don't always stick to the plan. And lunches and breakfast need more planning, too.
• Luke's nap...he's been napping in the school room with us, but he's beginning to wake a little too easily for that so we need to find him a new spot.
• School...the basics of school are planned out for the rest of this year, but I do need to make copies, reserve books, and plan projects. The fun stuff. And I want to start thinking about next year and plan a planning day like last year.
• Tea time...Brenna's asked me to have a tea party with her so we're going to make this a regular girls only time on Sunday afternoons (although the boys will still be able to snack on any goodies we might have). I think I'm looking forward to this as much as she is!

That should provide a nice, full week. I don't usually have any free time to sit and think, but since Casey's going to work earlier, I'm planning to use that time. I'll just have to write myself a list of things to plan!

Thanks to Monica for hosting this lovely series!