Scheduling

  I am obsessed with reading all about schedules.  I have been ever since I was a teenager.  The best day of the year was when I would receive my new schedule for the upcoming school year.  I have this fetish with being organized.  However, most of the time, I am not, but I am very in awe of people who are.  My best friend from school, Ashley, was the only one that seemed to acknowledge this love of mine by buying me an organizer for my hair things one year for my birthday.  I loved it!!!  Actually, I still have it!!!  I have a weakness for buying any magazine that has organizational tools inside or pictures with new organizational ideas.  I am also a big fan of www.flylady.net  If you don't know anything about her, you must check out the website!!
  Well anyway, I've been reading up on all of the Maxwell's books on Managers of their Homes and Chores. These books were very biblical and very encouraging in the area of raising your child to "work".  Today's society is so against "child labor".  However, that is not the way, God created the world.  Children should be taught at a young age to do their own share and do it joyfully.  My girls love to be given wet wipes and to work hard making something sparkle!  Derek also enjoys collecting aluminum cans and crushing them to take to the junk yard to make some extra cash.  I won't lie there are a few complaints here and there, however, once all the work is finished, we can all sit down and enjoy each other.  
  So, after much thought and concentration, I have finally finalized our new schedule and chore charts for this upcoming school year.  I am sooooo excited!!!  So here they are.  I hope this is a help to anyone looking for scheduling and chore ideas.  And please, don't be afraid to ask questions.  I'm open to suggestions and comments!!!

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Daily Schedule

Derek’s Free Time / Mom’s Shower

Breakfast / Devotion Time

Morning Chores

School

~Math

~Reading

~Writing

~Science/Social Studies/Bible

~Spelling

~Typing

Free Time

Lunch

Quiet Time

Piano Practice

Afternoon Chores

Free Time

Clean up – Get ready for Daddy!!

Supper

Enjoy Daddy / Evening Activity

Snack / Storytime

Bedtime

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Morning Chores

Derek –

1. Get Dressed

2. Make Bed

3. Pick up PJ’s, Cup, and Turn off Night Light

4. Eat Breakfast / Pick up Breakfast Mess

5. Brush Teeth

6. Take out Trash / Pop Cans

7. Feed & Water Cats

8. Sweep Dining Room Floor

9. Do School Work

Lindsay –

1. Get Dressed

2. Make Bed

3. Pick up PJ’s, Cup, and Turn off Night Light

4. Eat Breakfast / Pick up Breakfast Mess

5. Brush Teeth

6. Wipe off the Table

7. Clean the Bathroom

8. Do School Work

Afternoon Chores

Monday – Wipe off Doors, Trash Can, Refrigerator, Washer, and Dryer

Tuesday – Clean all the Light Switch Plates and the Base Boards

Wednesday – Do Laundry, Clean Bedrooms, Fresh Sheets

Thursday – Clean out the Van

Friday – Dusting and Windows

2011-2012 Curriculum Overview

So, we back to hitting the books!!!  And this year, I am so excited to get at it, because I have found a curriculum I have fallen in love with!!!  At least for this year anyway (I kinda have a weakness for curriculum).  Before I go into detail of what we will be using, let me give you our background.  When Derek was 4, I withdrew him from preschool and we tentatively made the decision to homeschool.  We started attending our local homeschool co-op and we all fell in love!!!  Now, at the time I had just recently ended my college career of majoring in Elementary Education and had stopped working at the local Elementary school.  We were still on the edge of whether or not we would be taking this leap full blown or if we would be doing this year by year.  So I decided to purchase Saxon Phonics and Math, mainly because that's what I was familiar teaching and if we ever did decide to send Derek to school, I definately wanted him to be able to slip right in without any major changes.  My best friend, Melisa, was using Abeka with her children in addition to the Saxon Phonics and Math, so I would spend hours pouring over her books and she gave me a lot of resources too.  So for the first year and half (we started halfway through the year when Derek was 4)  I used the Saxon, the Abeka for science, health, and social studies, and kinda just did bible on my own ideas.  
  Then this spring we went to the convention in Cincinnati......oh did that ever change my view!!!!!  Now, mind you, Melisa had taken me to Evansville and it was definately a good thing for my first convention, it was smaller and alot less to take in at one time.  We walked in at Cincinnati and I literally got weak in the knees!!!!  I almost cried, I just wanted to run in and tear the place apart and just soak it all in!!!  Our homeschool co-op has monthly Mom's Night Outs and we had just had a night where we all shared what we were using.  So I had written down lots of ideas to look for while in Cincy.  So with lots of prayer and lots of good speakers, I finally made some great choices for this year!!!!  I decided I really liked the idea of Heart of Dakota at least for the ages of my kids.  Now, I'm not saying I'll stick with it all the way through highschool.  But for now, it's a perfect fit for us!!!  It gives soo many choices, so I can pick and choos what I want to use.  And then to make it even better.  I didn't even have to buy it!!!  Another wonderful mom, Angela, from our co-op just finished the exact one I was looking at for my kids, so she's letting us use it this year!!!  How awesome is that?!?!?  And does God not provide the desires of our hearts when we hand it over to him?!?   
  So here goes.....

(Sorry for the indecency, we like to do school in our pj's!  And no, I don't keep a crib in our living room all the time, we've been redoing the girls' room:)

Derek: Age - 6  1st grade

Heart of Dakota ~ Bible, History, Science

Saxon ~ Math

(We also do lots of Math Workbooks from School Zone, the kids love them!!)

Finishing up - 100 Easy Lessons ~ Reading

Explode the Code Book 3 & Beyond the Code Book 1 ~ Reading & Spelling

A book I picked up at Goodwill for $.50 on grammar that is awesome!!!

(Silver Burdett &Ginn - World of Language 2)

A Reason for Handwriting Book A

A free typing tutor online to teach typing

Bastien ~ Piano

Lindsay:  Age - 4  Pre-K/K

Heart of Dakota ~ Bible, History, Science

School Zone workbooks ~ Math

100 Easy Lessons ~ Reading

(She actually learned all of her sounds and letters from Leap Frog's Letter Factory!!!)

Explode the Code Book 1

A Reason for Handwriting Book K

Bastien ~ Piano

Leah:  Thinks she's bigger than she is

(Because you know, she has to been included!!)

Lot of coloring books

bowls, spoons, cups, and rice or beans

egg carton and pennies

blocks

board books

learning to play the piano "gently"

  So, why do I love Heart of Dakota sooooo much!!!  Well because it ties the three subjects into one!!!  You have a weekly memory verse, so the kids are hitting the scripture hard!  And it starts them out in creation and ends with today and hits on the end times.  It goes all through out history and weaves in science.  And it doesn't just hit the biblical characters for history you also talk about great christian men like St. Valentine.  I am just absolutely in love with it!  (Can you tell?)  Well, if anyone is in doubt of what to use or thinking about using, I hope this is to some comfort to someone.  Otherwise, I hope you have a great school year this year!!!!  Praise God, we live in a country we can openly homeschool!!!! 



Homemade Laundry Soap

  I've had several people ask me for my recipe for making laundry soap, so here it is!!!  I actually got it from the Duggar's first book and you can pull it off of their website too.  By the way, they have an awesome new wesite!!!  Just had to throw that in there ;) 

Ingredients:
1 bar of Fels-Naptha soap (you can actually use ivory too, but the measurments are different)
4 cups of hot water
1/2 cup of borax
1 cup of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (It has to be the Super Washing Soda, baking soda or just Arm & Hammer will NOT work!)
5 Gallon Bucket
Empty laundry containters or any kind of pour container
 *optional* essiential oil, such as lavender, for scent

                  Grate your bar of soap into a sauce pan with the 4 cups of hot water.

                    Stir continually on low-medium heat until all the little flakes of soap melt. 

Fill your 5 Gallon bucket halfway full of hot water and pour in the borax, the arm & hammer, and the melted soap mixture and stir until all the ingredients are competely melted.  Then fill the remainder of the bucket full with hot water. 

       Stir the mixture once more, just to ensure everything is mixed well. Then you need to cover the bucket (if you have the lid to the bucket, let it have a little bit of breathing room, because it will expand since it's full of hot water) and let it sit overnight to gel.  Then take your dispenser and fill half with your laundry soap and half full of water and shake well each time you use. 

    This recipe makes 10 gallon of laundry detergent.  I made this batch today, and the last batch I made was in January, and I even gave my grandmother some, so you can see how long it lasts!!!  I also read somewhere that it comes to about .01 cent a load.  It's around $5.00 for the 10 gallons!!!!!  You can barely buy a small bottle of laundry detergent for $5.00 without a coupon!!!

   Use about 1/4 cup of detergent for front loaders and about 1/3 cup for top loaders.  I think the Duggars say something else, but I found I wasn't using quite enough soap to get my clothes clean.  My husband and kids must get dirtier than Michelle's ;)  Now, when it says let it gel, it will definately gel!!!  It looks really funny, just remember to shake before each use.  When you shake it up, it will make it very liquidy (is that a word? ;), this is ok, it isn't going to be very thick like store brand detergent.  Also, this soap isn't very sudsy, but this is ok too, it's not supposed to be!  I hope this is clear enough  :)     Happy Washing!!!!

Summer Update

What's been going on lately?????


  The garden is coming along quite nicely!!!  I did however, have to replant onions (they rotted..too much rain!!!), cucumbers, watermelons, mushmelons, and pumpkins.  And we won't even talk about my tomato trouble!!!  But it's all growing beautifully now!!!  I've had lots of help from my Papaw Busick, he's been amazing!  My lettuce is ready to harvest any day.  I froze some jalapenos yesterday for the salsa we'll be canning this fall. I also dried a bunch of cilantro and basil yesterday too.  I plan on canning tomato sauce for all our pasta and pizzas that we make. 

  We are now proud owners of 19 meat chickens, 2 layers, a Rhode Island Red rooster, and two baby chicks.  So it looks like we'll be butchering chickens before long to fill up the freezer!! 
 
  I've been working my way through Maxwell's book "Managers of their Chores" and trying to come up with a master list and chore packs for the kids that will work for us.  It's very stressful, seeing as I'm not quite the "scheduled" person.  I'm more a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl.  But I do enjoy lists and orderliness, so I'm hoping this will bring more peace to our lives.  I'll have to update you more on this as we go along.

  I'm very excited to announce we will be using Heart of Dakota this year for school!!!   A dear friend of mine, Angela, is letting me borrow her curriculum, and I will definately be purchasing more of it for myself!!!  I am so excited to get started.  However, I truly am enjoying summer with my children and husband this year.  I don't really know how to explain it, but summer has been very hard for me, since Hannah.  She was born in May and passed away in Sept, so that year my entire summer seemed to have passed me by in a hospital room.  Then the next year, I just couldn't quite figure out life without her and the yearning I had to have another baby.  Then 2010 seemed to be blur, having Leah, moving, and Derek's first official year of school.  So this summer has been the first "real" summer I've had and got to enjoy in a long time!   We've been enjoying swim lessons, gardening, church camp, 4-H, we had lots of kittens, playing baseball with our homeschool group, catching fireflies, and spending lots of time with Daddy now that he's home every evening!!!  

  I sat in the garden tonight weeding, and just looked around at the kids playing and the baby sitting next to me playing in the dirt and just soaked it all in.  Because just as quick as Hannah was born, she was taken away, and I know that just as quick as these three are young and wild, they will soon be grown and gone.  I thank the Lord for every precious moment I have with them and my husband.  And I praise him for such wonderful summer memories.

Quiet Time

  Today the 4 Moms, 35 Kids are talking Naps and Quiet Time!!!  So I'm linking up to Kimberly at Raising Olives and Connie at Smockity Frocks, some of my favorite blogs!!!

 

  Quiet Time is definately a must around our house in order to keep things sane!!!  I have tried a couple of different routines, but the one we are using right now, seems to fit us best.  I have used the timer before, but here recently the rule has been when the baby wakes up, the rest of the house may "be loud" again.  We eat lunch around noon everyday, so as soon as we're finished eatting, we try to clean off the table and wash up.  (The baby can make a huge mess out of bread!!!  Anyone else's kid like that?) 

   We try to lay the baby (that's 17 months old now) down by 12:30 and she normally sleeps until 3:00-3:30

Leah at 2 months during naptime

  For the first hour, the older two are aloud to play outside or quietly in Derek's room or finish up any school work they still may have.  Then at around 1:30 - 2:00, Lindsay lays down for her nap.  While both girls are napping, Derek has to read to me for 15  minutes.  And then he's allowed to play quietly in his room for the remainder of quiet time.  Derek is very good about playing quietly, so it has never been an issue for us to just let him play.  He plays really well all day with his sisters, so he definately enjoys some time to himself to play with his tractors and cars.  Lately he has been into building things, so he goes out to the barn to build with his Daddy's scrap lumber during nap time, and the the girls are always excited to see what he's made when they wake up!
    Lindsay has been my "problem" child lately on taking naps.  She was having trouble going to sleep the same time Leah was and would lay in her bed and toss and turn and whine and cry.  And it was just really miserable for all of us.  However, if I let her stay up the whole day like Derek, by 5:00 we were all ready to kill each other!!!  So, I finally decided one day to let her stay up and see at what point she started to get crabby.  2:00 is about her breaking point, so wa-la!!!  Derek was about 5 when he gave up his nap, but I still made him lay on his bed quietly until just recently. 
  Now this is what works for us, and I'm not saying that some day if we ever have more children that I won't make Derek lay quietly on his bed longer, but for right now, this seems to fit us just fine!!!

Skirt Wearing

 So I've been following Amy at Raising Arrows and Caroline at The Modest Mom in their series called She Wears Skirts. 

 

And this week they have a link up of skirts in pictures!  And I want to thank my 6 year-old, Derek, for taking the pictures...hehehe ;)  So here goes...

These are some of my very first skirts I actually have sewn myself!!!  I used the Homestead Blessings Sewing DVD's as a guide for meausrements and my dear friend Melisa came over and gave me lessons on how to use the sewing machine and cut and so on......Needless to say, I'm very proud of these, because I'm what you would call a sewing dummy!!!  ;)  Lindsay has been wearing skirts and dresses alot longer than me.  She loves to be in a dress and almost never wears pants or shorts anymore.  It's extremely difficult to find skirts that are decent enough for little girls anymore, so I thought, hey!  why not just start sewing them for her!  And she absolutely loves them!!!  I've sewn 2 now and have more to go!  She especially enjoys matching mama.

This is one of my favorite outfits!!!  I bought two denim skrits at a yard sale the other day, this being one of them.  They came from Catos and I found out afterwards, that Catos is about the only place left that sales denim skirts all the time.  Anyway, I love just wearing this outfit out grocery shopping or Friday nights when we all go out as a family.  You can always dress down or dress up a denim skirt.

And this is one of my favorite Sunday skirts!!!  I wear this year round.  I have a black turtle neck that I put with it in the winter.  I found it at a thrift store here in town for about $6!!!!  It's 97% cotton and 3% spandex so it's very stretchy!!!  I love this skirt!!  I wish I could find more just like it or at least material like it so I could sew my own.

So, I hope you've enjoyed, and I hope you also link up!!!!

 

What I'm feeling??????

  I'm just going to apologize for how this post may turn out in the beginning.  I have so many thoughts welled up that I wish I could share, but I'm just not sure how to put it all into words.  So first off, I'm going to put in this link to a wonderful blogging friend of mine, Kimberly at Raising Olives, who amazingly touched on this subject yesterday!  So here, go read this first and then come back and maybe it will put into perspective what I'm feeling.

Raising Olives ~ By Whose Standard


So, here goes......My family and I have made several changes in the past year and by some, I'm sure we look like hypocrites, because yes we are still human and flesh and we sin and mess up, however, we have decided to live differently.  I still struggle everyday with the idea that people think we are just "sheltering" our children.  And I guess in reality I should just not worry about what other people think, and that is probably just Satan attacking me, because he knows good and well I'm a people pleaser!  However, the bible tells us again and again, that the children of God were to be set apart.  And how can we truly be set apart if we just partake in every little thing that society deems acceptable.  How can I send my child to a school that teaches "not to discriminate against others, including homosexuality", when in reality that means be ok with it.  
    A family member of mine and I had conversation the other day about the idea behind homosexuality. They said, if it's their choice, what does it really matter?  And do you really think homosexuals are not going to heaven?  OF COURSE IT'S WRONG, the bible teaches this again and again!!!  God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, because of this very thing, The bible tells us that God or the king of the time rid the land of this time and time again.  And God makes it very clear in the old testament that "his people" are NOT to partake in this.  I'm not saying anything bad about this person, because they grew up in church next to me and spent their entire school career in public school just like I did, however, I will say, that I was much more strong-willed than this person and completely turned my head anytime anything was said like this is in school. 
  But this is my point, this is exactly what we are teaching our children in public school.  And yes, I said "we", because it is "we" that are putting them on the school bus and sending them.  For over 7 hours a day they are being taught by someone else than you.  And Deuteronomy is very clear that we are to teach our children the commandments of the Lord "when we sit at home, walk along the road, when we lie down, and when we get up".  Not does God say this once, but TWICE, in Deuteronomy ( 6:7 and again in 11:19)  Go ahead and argue with me, and tell me that you can do exactly what this passage says and send them to school too, but think about this.  You going to mention his name in the morning on the way to school, when you have maybe an hour together, then you're going to mention his name again when you pick them up, and two more times, at dinner, and before bed.  Now put that up against all the time they were with "the worldly views" at school. 
  I'm not going to even go into deep conversation on our sex-ed classes at school and that we no longer teach abstinense at all!!!  We tell them go ahead and sin, just be safe doing it!!!  I'm appalled!  And then someone argues, well we have to separate church and state we don't want to push our religion on anyone, ok that's fine, but why are we as christians still participating in this "public school" thing if we are to truly be set apart? 
  So you ask, why do I even care, because we have already made the decision to homeschool?  Well because I have several friends and their children, whom I LOVE dearly, that are affected by this.  And I'm constantly bombarded with the question, why we are doing what we do?  So I guess I'm just clarifying that this is not part of a cult, this is just trying to truly lead this life that I believe God wants us to lead. 

  However, Love should be #1 in my life, as Kimberly wrote in her post, and I don't, for one second, want any of my friends to think my life-style is any better than theirs.  Sin is sin, the new testament states that again and again.  And what I stuggle with daily is no different than what anyone else struggles with daily. 
  I think the one important thing that I have learned lately, that today's christians have gotten sooooo far away from, is the ultimate goal is to strive to be holy, not happy.  (Chip Ingram's parenting class taught to teach our children to be holy, not happy, and when they learn to be obedient and holy, they will be truly happy.)  And if you follow God's will for your life, then he will give you that more abundant life and in return you will be very happy.  But the sad thing about today's christian society is that we have gotten so used to the WWJD idea, let's just think what "good thing" Jesus would do, not the whole mindset behind and actually how holy he was.
   I don't think I've even realized a part of the whole idea behind holiness until just recently.  Society has warped us into thinking that christians are just "nice", and this is sooo wrong!!!!  Holiness is sooo much more!!!  God is not just "nice", is is just!!!  I've read time and time again, when he is not "nice" to people who sin against him.  However, he is LOVE and he will forgive, but we have to accept him and want him in our lives and OBEY his commands.  Good deeds will NOT get us into heaven alone, no matter what the world tells you! 
  I'm really sorry, it seems as if I've preached a long sermon today, and that was not my intent, and I really hope that you have read this with an open heart, and not for one second think I'm judging anyone!  I'm more on the defense, than anything, I just want people to understand this whole "homeschool" thing a little bit more, than just those people are weird or they had a bad experience in school.