I realized that I may have followers on this blog that maybe do not follow my other blog. I wrote a post about doing a 30 money fast in September. Thought there might be some people who would find it interesting. And I would love feedback, of course!!!
Here is it:
http://happyhearthomemaking.blogspot.com/2012/08/thirty-days-of-not-spending-money.html
Sunday, August 26, 2012
One More Week!
Yes, one more week till we start school! This afternoon I finished up our lesson plans. I was waiting on some school work for our 6th grader. We are all excited to get started. Could probably start tomorrow, but like I stated in my last post, there is something in the tradition we have of starting the day after Labor Day. And let's face it, once school starts, there is not a whole lot I can get done around the house. So I need every last bit of summer break to get it all in!
We are all really looking forward to this Fall. I am not sure why we are all so excited this year, but we are. Our family thrives on school. We like the short breaks, but after too long of a break we start getting bored and ready for school.
We are all really looking forward to this Fall. I am not sure why we are all so excited this year, but we are. Our family thrives on school. We like the short breaks, but after too long of a break we start getting bored and ready for school.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
We Are Ready!
Ok, all the curriculum is in and we are ready to go! My crazy kiddos have been begging to start school this week. However, much to their dismay, I am holding out till September 4th. I have several projects around the house that I need or rather "want" to get finished before school starts. Once school starts I don't have time to do any deep cleaning or purging of possessions till our next break. Plus we have a tradition of spending Labor Day with family having a BBQ at the river. It's like the last hurrah of summer. And there is something so special about driving home in the cool evening after a long hard day of playing in the river and eating yummy food, just knowing that the next day you get to start in on school!
One of our Back To School Traditions is taking First Day photos. I have something new to add to our pics this year, can't wait to show you! Two other traditions, buying a new shirt for the first day and walking down to the local old time pharmacy for $.25 phosphates!
For those of you who read my blog, I would love to know what day you start school and what your favorite Back To School Traditions are!
One of our Back To School Traditions is taking First Day photos. I have something new to add to our pics this year, can't wait to show you! Two other traditions, buying a new shirt for the first day and walking down to the local old time pharmacy for $.25 phosphates!
For those of you who read my blog, I would love to know what day you start school and what your favorite Back To School Traditions are!
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Couple Different Dried Apple Recipes
I wanted to post a fun way to do something different when you dry apples. A friend of mine introduced me to this last summer. I made some today and took a couple pics.
You core/slice/peel like normal. Then you dip the apple slices in a jello mixture. I usually bring the water to a boil, add the jello (used a large box of jello) and then just add a little bit of cool water to cool it down. Not a whole lot. Then just put them on your trays as normal. Something I forgot to take a pic of is that you want to use those plastic inserts that go on your trays. That way you won't have the mess dripping all through your trays. I only have two dryers, so it is going to take me a couple days to get all my apples done, but this is a fun treat!
Another yummy thing to do is dip your apples in a sugar/cinnamon mixture. Again, you will want to use your plastic inserts for your trays!
Hope you are having a fantastic summer!
Squirmy Jelly Worms
Just to let you know, I did not come up with this on my own. I found it on the internet. It was such a cool idea, I had to share!
Ingredients:
2 packs (3 oz) Raspberry jello
1 pkg unflavored gelatin (for extra firmness)
3/4 cup whipping cream
3 cups boiling water
2 packs (3 oz) Raspberry jello
1 pkg unflavored gelatin (for extra firmness)
3/4 cup whipping cream
3 cups boiling water
15 drops green food coloring
100 flexible straws (or enough to fill your container)
Tall container (1 quart or 1 liter carton of milk)
Directions::
Combine gelatin in bowl and add boiling water.
Let it cool to lukewarm and then add the whipping cream and 15 drops green food coloring.
Gather your straws (don’t forget to flex them out) and put them in the container. It’s important that the straws have a tight fit so the jello stays in the straws. For this reason, a 1 liter carton may be better; you will probably get longer worms since there is a tighter fit. If you have a bigger container, a rubber band around the straws is helpful. Or you could just add more straws to fill the container.
Add the gelatin mixture to the straw-filled container and let it set until firm.
There are multiple ways you can remove the worms from the straws. You can roll a rolling pin over the straws and squeeze them out or you can hold the straws over warm water. The worms will slip right out.
100 flexible straws (or enough to fill your container)
Tall container (1 quart or 1 liter carton of milk)
Directions::
Combine gelatin in bowl and add boiling water.
Let it cool to lukewarm and then add the whipping cream and 15 drops green food coloring.
Gather your straws (don’t forget to flex them out) and put them in the container. It’s important that the straws have a tight fit so the jello stays in the straws. For this reason, a 1 liter carton may be better; you will probably get longer worms since there is a tighter fit. If you have a bigger container, a rubber band around the straws is helpful. Or you could just add more straws to fill the container.
Add the gelatin mixture to the straw-filled container and let it set until firm.
There are multiple ways you can remove the worms from the straws. You can roll a rolling pin over the straws and squeeze them out or you can hold the straws over warm water. The worms will slip right out.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Update and Good News!
It's been a few months and I am so in need of a update! Now that school is about to start in a couple weeks, I figured it was a good time to say what's new in our lives!
First of all, the grades I will be teaching this fall are 8th grade, 6th grade, 3rd grade, 1st grade and Pre-K. Can they really be this old??? A little about each of my kiddos:
My 8th grader amazes me! She was sick for about 6 months of last year's school year. There were times we thought she would be schooling well into summer. However, she worked hard when she felt good and it made up for the times she wasn't well. As an update on her health, after MRI's, EEG's and more blood tests than we care to remember, the doctors have NO answers. However, a couple months ago, the Lord really touched her body and she has not had any symptoms of seizures, vertigo or anything else that went along with our rough year of illness. God is so good!
My 6th grader is SO excited to be in Middle School! She is ready for school to start and excited for what the year brings. She is growing up fast and we are so proud of the young lady she is becoming!
My Second Grader is taking off with her schoolwork. We were noticing that she hesitated with her reading and realized that she was afraid to read better/faster than her older sister. After talking to her about how everyone learns differently and it was okay to go at her speed, she went with it and is reading like a pro!
My Pre-Kindergarten kiddo is actually going to a preschool this year three days a week. For those of you who don't know, my son has Dandy Walker Variant and has had some physical/emotional delays. So for the past 2 1/2 years, he has been in therapy for Sensory Processing Disorder as well as speech and PT. This year is his last year at preschool before we bring him home to homeschool! His teachers feel that at the end of this school year, he will be more than ready to come home and we agree. He has no learning disabilities, although he requires a lot of repetition. However, once he gets something, it's as if he has always known it. This fall, he will be going to the preschool three days a week, and on the other two days, he will be doing some work at home.
I think that is about all for my update! I have all our school work ordered and I am part way through getting lesson plans made out for the first couple months of school. We will be year round homeschooling again. This is our third year of it. Despite what some people said when we mentioned we were going to do this a couple years ago, we have NOT become burnt out. We enjoy having more frequent breaks throughout the year. It's been a blessing!
Praying blessing on your school year this fall!
Heidi
First of all, the grades I will be teaching this fall are 8th grade, 6th grade, 3rd grade, 1st grade and Pre-K. Can they really be this old??? A little about each of my kiddos:
My 8th grader amazes me! She was sick for about 6 months of last year's school year. There were times we thought she would be schooling well into summer. However, she worked hard when she felt good and it made up for the times she wasn't well. As an update on her health, after MRI's, EEG's and more blood tests than we care to remember, the doctors have NO answers. However, a couple months ago, the Lord really touched her body and she has not had any symptoms of seizures, vertigo or anything else that went along with our rough year of illness. God is so good!
My 6th grader is SO excited to be in Middle School! She is ready for school to start and excited for what the year brings. She is growing up fast and we are so proud of the young lady she is becoming!
My 3rd grader is excited for Math this year, can you believe it? We started using Teaching Textbooks last year and all my kids fell in love with it. However, my third grader was disappointed last year when she learned that you had to be in Third Grade to start using it! LOL Silly girl! On another note: I have suspected for the past year or so that my middle child had a slight dyslexia problem. In first grade, I figured she was just slower to read, her older sister was slower to read but then took off in Second Grade. But last year, it just got more frustrating for Sis and I started to notice some signs. I have been researching different things to do, but everything I found wanted you to invest in a program that cost several hundred dollars. This past weekend, I had the privilege to spend an afternoon with a woman who was a school teacher for 29 years and was TRULY interested in talking to me. I asked her what I could do for a child who was slightly dyslexic. She gave me a couple ideas that I implemented today and you would NOT believe the difference! So my friend told me that blue is a very relaxing color for their eyes. So she suggested taking a piece of card-stock and cutting a slit in it big enough to let just a sentence show at a time. So it blocks everything above and below that one line. Then cut a piece of blue see through plastic and tape it across the hole so that when they read that sentence it is in blue. I took it a step further and put another piece of card-stock on the other side so that the plastic wouldn't stick on things.For the blue plastic, I went to the party aisle at Walmart and bought a pack of those blue plastic party gift bags.I went a step further and bought blue paper for her to write on and that seemed to help as well. I only bought one package, so I need to go back and get more. It is more expensive than regular notepad paper by about $.50 Someone said that they went to Dollartree and got a pack of those clear multi-colored see through seperaters for binders. They had their kids try reading through the different colors, some liked it in blue, some in green and some in red but said that yellow and orange hurt their eyes. Kinda interesting! I picked up some of those and I am going to try those tomorrow. When my daughter sat down with her new bookmarks, I almost started crying! She took off reading and read seven short chapters of a book! She still struggled with some of the harder words, but the frustration was gone and she just wanted to read and read! I even did an test where she didn't use the bookmark. She about had a meltdown and couldn't keep her eyes where they needed to be. Her eyes hopped all over. As soon as we started using the bookmark again, she read several pages and had a big grin on her face as she read. Even giggling at the story! God is SO good!
My Second Grader is taking off with her schoolwork. We were noticing that she hesitated with her reading and realized that she was afraid to read better/faster than her older sister. After talking to her about how everyone learns differently and it was okay to go at her speed, she went with it and is reading like a pro!
My Pre-Kindergarten kiddo is actually going to a preschool this year three days a week. For those of you who don't know, my son has Dandy Walker Variant and has had some physical/emotional delays. So for the past 2 1/2 years, he has been in therapy for Sensory Processing Disorder as well as speech and PT. This year is his last year at preschool before we bring him home to homeschool! His teachers feel that at the end of this school year, he will be more than ready to come home and we agree. He has no learning disabilities, although he requires a lot of repetition. However, once he gets something, it's as if he has always known it. This fall, he will be going to the preschool three days a week, and on the other two days, he will be doing some work at home.
I think that is about all for my update! I have all our school work ordered and I am part way through getting lesson plans made out for the first couple months of school. We will be year round homeschooling again. This is our third year of it. Despite what some people said when we mentioned we were going to do this a couple years ago, we have NOT become burnt out. We enjoy having more frequent breaks throughout the year. It's been a blessing!
Praying blessing on your school year this fall!
Heidi
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