The New School Room

We are about a month into our third year of home schooling. We decided that we needed a school area for many different reasons. Last Monday, we moved stuff around. Today is week number two using it. It seems to be going pretty well! All of us were excited that there weren't any school books to be cleaned up before dinner last week. We don't have to travel as far to get our things out and put them away now. We even have maps on the wall to refer to instead of being stashed under the guest bed! If you come and visit you'll get to see more of our projects displayed downstairs!

We definitely wouldn't have done this without the windows that we installed two years ago!

the current project

So I had this great idea to make banners to put my kiddos various "awards", pins, patches, etc. that they earn. Then I had this great idea that they would actually make them...they bought into the idea they are really loving it.

Step one was creating their own design: (This was going out on a limb for me to not be in control of the design, but I only suggested a few modifications to their original design...like making some detail larger and using straight lines!)

Next was to cut out our patterns using Mommy's fabric only scissors for the very first time:

Then cut the interfacing which cost more than the fabric, but who's counting. They were OK with going to the fabric and knitting shop though that I have been wanting to go to...I was dragging THEM out of the place.

The interfacing has been cut out...Next, we actually get to the sewing. I'm sure that you'll be kept a breast of our progress!

(I'm still working on all of the Cub Scout credit that we can fit into this and there's a county fair entry for non-clothing sewing project next summer we can enter. Of course, this can count towards school hours for home ec. We're going to milk everything out of this that we can.) The biggest plus is that they are loving it and begging me to get to the next step. Neither one of them have sewed with the pedal on the sewing machine so we have a learning curve there to get to!

September 2nd

Just the happenings of the day!

Another beautiful day around here...seems more like October 2nd, instead of September 2nd. Happy Birthday to my Dad today!

School this morning, we were up too late last night to get up to exercise this morning. We are on week 2 of Sonlight Core 1. Week 5 of Language Arts and Week 1 of Science...we are definitely getting in the groove. The little guy has decided that we should read a Psalm between each subject today...we've heard through Psalm 7 today...the big guy read us Charlotte's Web to and from piano lessons! I love cooperation - does that count as school time at our "home" location?

First day of piano lessons for my little guy! He's doing great and his teacher is so very very sweet. A nice treat is that I got to see a friend for awhile before lessons, her daughter is before us!

Stopped at I-44 Grocery on the way home from piano lessons. Found some vegan, gluten free, no sugar added instant soup mixes that I thought would be great for my friend who is going on a trip this weekend. Her diet is inspiring me though I haven't completely conformed...we did serve, cauliflower, carrots, celery, tomatoes and purple pepper for lunch! At I-44 they didn't have the bakers chocolate that I was looking for...but they had some other chocolate that I will try for my next chocolate pie. Got a great deal on organic balsamic vinegar too and some organic spaghetti sauce.

When we got home, I picked enough green beans from my few plants in the garden for dinner tonight. Picked quite a few grape tomatoes and a few volunteer roma's from the garden. I definitely need to plant more roma's next year. Romas have tons less water content in them and are more appropriate for canning. Oh, I forgot to spray the cheddar cauliflower with NEEM oil because it's getting eaten a little - it's finally making a head from being planted in early June.

Afternoon is trying to get Math and Language Arts done. I thought the big guy would do LA while piano lessons were happening, but he wanted to listen in. I'm really glad that I bought the MCP Phonics program for him to add to the Sonlight LA. He's S-L-O-W in getting it done, but the exercises are good for him to do. (I'm such a horrible speller...I'm learning lots about hard and soft c's and g's and when to use them and how to appropriately pronounce words.) We have done so much better when we do LA in the morning...note to self about next week!

I've promised some cartoons this afternoon when school work is done. I'm going to play with the admin of the CHESS website and see what some of our options are there. (I'm going to pray for CHESS, our home school group which is taking a lot of mental time right now.)

AWANA starts tonight and my boys are very very excited about it! I hope the little guy doesn't bug his teacher to say half of the book! He's so ready for more of a challenge and he's a great memorizer. I may need to get a bigger vest for the big guy...once we get past t-shirt season, I doubt that it will fit!

For dinner we are having a frozen meal for two from Tyson - had a $1 off coupon AND a rebate form so it will be free (the boys will split that)...and actually making about .50 off of the deal - and a veggie bean chili mix from Fantastic that I picked up for a buck today. We'll see how it tastes. I haven't decided how many of the suggestions that I'm going to add to the basic recipe...I think that I'll use some of my tomato juice that I have been canning/freezing instead of water to give it some more flavor and maybe some corn.

I have lots of tomato juice...when I've been making salsa, I have been getting about 5 pints of juice for the 5 pints of salsa that I make and it's still pretty thin. That's why I will plant roma's next year!

I just had some Shaklee Energizing Tea to energize me for the afternoon and we are off!

Cleaning out the frig

The other day we had quite a bit of "stuff" in the frig so to use up those containers out came this:

Fried Rice from the frig:

Sauteed Onions

Stir-fry left overs

half a block of tofu

roasted cabbage

two different days of rice

some green peppers that were sitting on the counter

Pretty yummy and colorful - and not too weird!

Mr. Phelps County 2009 Pageant

Well, we did it...he entered the pageant and finished with 2nd runner-up. He's ready to do it again next year. We'll see if Mom is willing to do it. I spent $0 beyond entrance to the fair on this. It would have been a lot more fun if we wouldn't have had to wait three hours for his part of the competition but that's how it goes. He sang "Open the Eyes My Heart" as his talent.

Waiting patiently with my number and Julie.

The Queen is reading about me and then I'll sing.

Now we are enjoying the rest of the fair!

Whee!

Some cute pictures

With Scooby at Six Flags!

Trying on the tux for a wedding in September.

The frequent family game of Monolpoly.

Some questions...

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I have no idea. A scientist, maybe...there are so many jobs, I just don't know.

If you could go on a trip, where would you like to go?

To Grandma and Grandpa's house. To the St. Louis City Museum, I just love that place!

If you could choose how you would travel for a trip, what would it be?

On an airplane, since I get car sick!

He'll be six at the end of the month...and just so sweet!