Ellie is Three

We are still busy here in the middle of birthday seaseon. :) I am taking a little time off this month just to catch up and rest. This week Kaden's birthday was Monday. We were supposed to have a party on that day but he has been a little under the weather. I am hoping he will be ok soon and we will try again next Monday. We are now going to focus on Easter until then.


Today I am going to post pictures from Ellie's birthday. We decided to go to the Renaissance Festival for her birthday. The kids had a lot of fun and it was Ellie's first time there.

Top Ten Tuesday- Homeschool Resources

I am joining in with Many Little Blessings for her Top Ten Tuesday. Why? Because I can and I am random and weird. ;) I love doing these and don't organize them really well so I forget more than not. I should make a list or something. You can check it out and see what others top ten lists are about too. You can even join in if you have a blog.

I thought I would share my top ten homeschool resources and/or sites. These are the places I read all the time. I use the resources they offer and I enjoy them a lot.

In no particular order....


#1. Homeschool Share- This is by far my favorite site. All the unit studies and extra are free, created by other homeschool moms. They are updated as they get new units and it is run by a Christian family that I have gotten to know over the years. Looooove it!


#2. Amanda Bennett Unit Studies- Another great source for unit studies. They are inexpensive, and even then they do lots of deals and sales making them even less expensive. Depending on the unit they are able to cover a week up to a month or longer. I have found that they are so inclusive that you really can stretch them out even longer if there is a subject you really just want to stick with. I have many of these units. Again this one is owned by a Christian woman.


#3. 1+1+1=1- Carisa is a wonderful Christian woman as well. I believe it started as a blog but as she has grown she added a site with more ideas and printables. I used lots of her printables for my little ones. She has awesome ideas on how to organize as well as fun themes for learning. I am going to be making her calendar notebooks for the kids soon.



#4. Preschool Alphabet - This is a blog I found recently. I have been looking for more for the younger two and she has some great alphabet pages and themes.



#5. Google - This is a given right? I search Google for everything! We look for all kinds if information to supplement whatever we are working on.



#6. You Tube - Another no brainer. If we ever want to see anything done or look up how something is done this is where we look. Did I tell you about Meghan wanting to know how taxidermy is done? Well she looked up video's about it. (yuck right?) There are also documentaries on all kinds of things. She has watched history and science video's there.



#7. Pinterest - This one is fairly new right? There are pins on all kinds of subjects including homeschooling. Many of my homeschool friends have homeschool boards there. We can save anything and everything homeschool. You can search and find just about anything you may or may not need. You can get lost in Pinterest. It's awesome!



#8. Khanacademy - I have not had a whole lot of time to look through this one yet but I have been told a lot about it and as Meghan is getting older I believe we will use it more. There are tons of videos on math, science and history and even some test prep if you need that.



#9. AAAspell.com - I have found several spelling list sites actually. These are great. There really is no need to buy a spelling curriculum at all. You can find lists for the grade your kid is in, or you can find where they fit best and just go. There are also lots of site for spelling games and practice.



#10. Facebook - Yes I am going to put Facebook on here. I have so many homeschool groups on there, both local and not. I can plan a field trip, get a recommendation for a history lesson and learn about new homeschool sites all in the same spot. I love that! I also find lots on homeschool blogs and my favorites are the ones that have a Facebook page as well. I can like the page on Facebook and keep up that way rather than using a reader or having all the updated posts go to my email.



I hope you enjoyed my top ten homeschool resources. I always appreciate seeing what others use and love. It really helped when I was first getting started and even now, I always find something I love.

A Quick Note

On Friday we had a field trip to Estrella Wars. It's the Renaissance era, kind of like the Renaissance festival but more historically accurate, they say. Anyway, it was 91 that day and so hot! We only went to a few vendor tents after our tour and then we had to leave. One of the last ones we looked at had all sorts of precious stones and metals. Kaden loves rocks! When we were leaving the lady gave each of the kids a small rock. I guess you can call it a rock. It was smooth and clear looking, they were green, blue, yellow or clear. They looked like decorative marbles you can buy only not round, more oblong. On Saturday Kaden found his and put it in his mouth. I am guessing because it is smooth, and then he accidentally swallowed it. Thankfully he didn't choke. He came to tell us about it a while after he did it. Now we are hoping and praying he doesn't have any issues though. He threw up twice last night which seems to be a fluke but it caused a little concern. We postponed his birthday party just to make sure he isn't spreading a germ around.

He's had a good day though. He slept in and has been relaxing today.

Birthday Season

I have been calling this period of the year Birthday Season, you know like the holiday season, only for birthdays. My family has birthdays once a month from February until May... then there is this big break of 4 months and I have my birthday. Anyway, so we started with Meghan. Hers is in February and she turned 10. I really can not believe I have a 10 year old but that's another story.

For her birthday breakfast I made chocolate gravy.... Ok so she made her own but she really wanted to! I swear! Really.... she loves to cook and will cook anything I allow her. The only thing is that she forgets to turn on the vent and several times our very sensitive smoke alarms have gone off. That's not fun, they stay on for 15 minutes and its not just one. They are all wired together somehow so once one goes off they all go.... for 15 minutes!

Ok I am over it. Here she is making her chocolate gravy. Kaden helped with the biscuits which are not scratch. oh well.

This is Lily, she is my niece, she was here for Meghan's birthday. She was shocked and told her mom we were having dessert for breakfast. It was awesome!

Kaden needed his picture taken too. I guess he wanted to show off his bed head.

After breakfast she asked me to braid her hair. We are trying to perfect the waterfall braid.

For her birthday dinner she chose Olive Garden. She was trying to pick a place that would sing to her. :) She is the only one I know that wants them to sing. Our waitress teased her saying they didn't do it anymore. She was so disappointed. Then our waitress came back with a few other coworkers and sang so she was surprised. It was fun.

We picked another day for her birthday party. We kept it small and used her birthday as an excuse to make a super cute dessert table. She invited two friends and they had a blast running around and playing at My Vintage Venue. I have a few pictures I took with my phone but we had a professional photographer friend take lots of awesome pictures. As soon as I get the CD in the mail I will post lots. Here are a few to get started though. :)

Meghan, Ellie and Miqa

The dessert table

The turquoise, ruffled cake.

One of the tiered cookies.

She had a great birthday!

February

Yep, I missed all of February. We had a lot going on too. I probably won't mention it all.

At the beginning of the month we had my brother and his family come and stay with us. Shortly after that Meghan started having this amazing rash, every day, at random times and places on her body. We started trying to figure it out and finally decided it was the switch in laundry detergent we had made. It was a soap we had used before so it was weird. Since then she has had reactions to a scented lotion we had as well. We will have to be careful with her. Ellie has had reactions to lotions too.

Here are all the kiddo's having a movie night.

A few of them with their hand print hearts craft.

Meghan learned to finger knit and it was all she did for a while. :)

Ellie finally let me start putting pig tails in her hair... sometimes.

Everyone was wanting to take pictures and be silly, see that one behind the chair? Pure silliness!

For Valentine's Day we had a skating party. The kids had a blast!

Well that's the highlight! We started birthday season in this household so I will have more on that soon. :)

A Sad Blogger

That is what I am... I just can't keep it up all the time. I will do well for a bit and then I get busy and something has to go.  I am sure you understand... unless you can keep up. Hmm

Anyway, we've been extremely busy. Lots going on and I hope to post some photos and catch up on some things you have missed.

Right now I just want to tell you that I do not like bugs. Ok that wasn't it. My kids are outside playing and they keep finding different kinds of bugs. They then bring them inside, in a sand toy for me to see and tell them what they have found. Then Meghan will ask me to look it up to see what it eats and if it bites. :)

So far they have found a black bug, Aphids, Pill Bugs and a snail. I love the learning but I hope they don't bring me anymore bugs. ;)

Kaden did pick and bring me some purple flowers too. That was sweet.

No More Girl Scouts

You know that thing when God starts bringing things to your attention, over and over... Until you figure out you need to research and pay attention? Yea, that.

It's happened for a couple of big things in our lives. Things like vaccinations and homeschooling. Things that you just have to listen to, you know you have to do it, it's not going away. I know that I am called to homeschool and if I put my kids into school it just wouldn't go well. So even on those days I am slightly jealous of other mom's,(who have lots of daytime, alone time, to clean their homes and run errands and plan meals....), I know I am doing what I am supposed to be doing.

It seems that I keep seeing posts about the Girl Scouts and what they stand for, who they are supporting with their income. There are video's about lifetime Girl Scouts who have started speaking out about what they are doing. After a lot of reading and searching and discussion with the hubby, I decided that we were probably not to be there any longer. I explained to Meghan some of what they are doing. That was not super fun. It's hard to imagine my little girl is getting to the age where we have to talk about these types of things. She was shocked and appalled, of course.

So we decided together to leave the troop. Not that our troop is teaching anything bad at all. We were in a Christian, Homeschool troop. It's just the fact that the money we spend on uniforms, badges and t-shirts and the money made from cookie sales is going to support things completely ungodly and not really supporting girls at all.

Meghan is sad that she won't get to go to regular meetings and have fun activities with the girls but we are looking into Keepers of the Faith clubs. We may try and start our own group. There is also Contenders for the Faith with is for boys. I think they might be able to work together somewhat but I need to research more.

I am still going with it's not always fun to be an adult. Sometimes I want to throw a tantrum myself and ask why I have to do things no one else has to do, but I know better. ;) I have always been a good girl, no matter what anyone says.

If you are interested in more information on what the Girl Scouts are doing, here are some links to get you started.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnRiM84MWUI
http://www.lifenews.com/2012/01/17/no-girl-scout-cookies-group-has-ties-to-planned-parenthood/
http://www.100questionsforthegirlscouts.org/100/