Happy Mother's Day 2019

I originally posted this January 23, 2009, and rather decided that Mother's Day was a great day for it to repost this year! 

I am blessed to have had a "mean" mom! Back in 2009, my hope was to be just like her and as my girls have sweetly (literally) let me know, I was able to accomplish that. In fact, they hope to be a "mean" mom just like their mom and Nana! 

Just silly writing by an unknown author, but I hope you enjoy it. Better yet, I hope that you had a mother that loved you enough to be a "mean mom".

Happy Mother's Day, Marme!

Throwback Thursday: Sewing Projects Part One

In January 2009, I was happily sewing up a storm for my girls and as well as for my friend's girls. Since I originally posted in two posts, I thought I would keep it that way when reposting. So here is Part One, Part Two will come out next Thursday:

Blast From The Crazy Past: Silly Girls

Welcome to memories...my memories....welcome to a Blast from my Crazy Past!

I found these two short blog posts on my old blog and decided to combine them in one. Let's just feature Jordyn and McKenzie real quick:

Blast From The Crazy Past- Happy Thanksgiving

This was originally posted 10 years ago in 2006. Reading through it, there are things I completely forgot happened to our family that year.

Blast From The Crazy Past- So Many Updates (Part Two)

As promised, here is Part Two of my Thanksgiving Trilogy of Answered Prayer From The Past: 
If you missed Part One, you can find it here.

Someone Dear To My Heart....

I met this person 20 years ago......no....no....the VERY first memory I have of him was when I was 13 years old.

Where To Go From Here....

I'll be honest...I really haven't known where to go with this blog. I had numerous family members and friends let me know over the past couple years that they missed my blog and wanted me to write again...

So I did. On October 9, 2016, I got back on the band wagon and was really excited to do it!

However...

Growing Up...

When my girls hit about 8, I have a talk with them about what is coming up in their future as they grow up into young ladies as well as a little about the "birds and the bees".


  I make it into a girly time full of little presents to make things fun.







 I also include a neat book I found that talks about everything a girl needs to know about taking care of herself as she grows into a woman.


With my older two, a friend and I took our same age daughters together so they could share this growing up moment with a friend. When my next daughter came of age last year to have our little talk, she plugged her ears and said, "No, I don't want to hear about it! LALALA!" Pretty typical for this kiddo! However, a couple months ago, the older girls and I were talking in "girl code" about "stuff". Fred looked at us and said, "What are you talking about?". Her oldest sister looked at her and said, "You know, if you would go on your talk with mom, you would know what we are talking about." Fred looked from her to me and said, "Ok. When can we go?" It was decided that Fred and Bob would go together to make it "more fun and less embarrassing". (LOL)


Today was the day for their talk. They chose to go to a local Mexican restaurant where they decided it would be nice and loud so "no one would hear"!

We had a lot of fun, the girls enjoyed their lunch and presents. They surprisingly were not shy and asked lots of questions about stuff they had heard their sisters talking about. We really enjoyed ourselves and had a nice bonding moment, one of many to come with growing up and becoming young ladies!

I feel so blessed to see my little girls turning into beautiful young ladies!

I LOVE MONDAYS! Really!!!

Mondays are different around here: We do not give our girls school work on Mondays as they volunteer with their grandparents at a local rest home and Lil Mr goes to preschool. So it is perfect for catching up on the little things that build up over the weekend or finishing up projects from Saturday.

Today was no exception. I dropped Lil Mr off at preschool then ran to the post office to get some stamps and also get hollered at by some random stranger who was not having a great day. That was pleasant. Then it was homeward bound with the vision of the two projects I wanted to finish dancing in my head.

The first was to reclaim my son's room. He is very good about putting things away, he likes everything in it's spot or he starts twitching. ( Reminds me of his dad.... :P ) However, if he has a friend over, things don't always get put away before said friend leaves. Then I see this glazed look come over him and he just dumps everything. Probably part of the Sensory Processing Disorder. So...to make it easier on him, I gave away a big sack full of toys that he really doesn't play with as well as a stack of books. Then I put up some of the toys like his blocks, Legos and Little People. This left his cars and trains to play with. The others can be pulled out when he wants to play with them, but  are out of the reach of  friends. Looks MUCH neater in there. We also moved out his big dresser he wasn't using and put in a smaller one. I have to say that it warmed my heart when he came home and saw his room. I pointed out where his shoes go and he said, "Wow, thanks, mom! Where do my socks go?" Too cute!

On hubby's lunch break we ran to Home Depot to get a few little things and off to Joann's to get another panel of muslin for my dining room curtains. When we got home, hubby put up my curtain rod, fixed the doors on my corner cabinet and changed out the hardware on the doors. The result was amazing! (Pics below.) While he did that, I scurried to my craft room and got my curtains sewn up. Was pretty simple to do but did take a couple hours.

All in all, I am really happy with how the dining room is turning out. It's taken a couple months, slowly but surely. It started with being wild and crazy by painting the dining room table and chairs. I moved some furniture around in the dining room. Hubby also moved the piano out of the dining room and into the living room. Then Saturday, hubby painted my dining room a beautiful creamy white color while I finished painting the corner cabinet. I have just two more things I want to do to finish it: I want to get a  cool "vintage" window and make a chalkboard out of it. I am also looking for a nice English or French countryside picture to hang on one wall.   I am pretty picky about what I will spend. I don't like spending more than I have to, as I would rather make things myself! However, a painter I am NOT. My poor parents tried giving me classes in middle school and let's just say...I am not talented in that area!

Anyway, there are some pics below. I hope you enjoy them and have a great night!

New hardware for a lovely old piece. Found out that this corner cabinet has been in our family for over 45 years.

Doors are secure and it is finished!

To save money, I waited till the outside panels of material went on sale for 60% off!
Then I only bought 3 yards, cut it in half and added muslin panels in the middle.

That long dresser was in my son's room. We brought it in here and turned it into a buffet.
Then I was going to put that little dresser out in the shed and hubby had the
great suggestion to put my cookbooks on it and walah! (Also known as "voila"! I just like my non-words!)

Blast From The Crazy Past- Praise!

The blog I am going to highlight tonight was so scary at the time, I thought I would lose it! My little girls were not yet 6 and 4 when they tried to save their 19 month old sister from an uncertain fate...

What happens when climbing, a very heavy dresser and three little girls connect? Find out below!

So thankful for my Father's protecting Hand...

Pumpkin Patch

Today was a BLAST! A friend of mine organized a pumpkin patch field trip to a local farm that does it up great every year. We had about 30-40 kids varying in age from tiny babies to middle school. And all the parents to go with it. It was a great group! I met a couple people that I had seen on FB on the different homeschool groups I am in and also got to chit-chat with other moms I know. Here are some pics from our totally fantastic day:

All in all, a great day! I was really excited to see how far our little guy has come with sensory processing today...the cannon was pretty loud, but he didn't freak out, he just covered his ears! Go Lil Mr!

First Day of School!

The first day of school got off without a hitch! The kids were so excited to start this morning that we started before 8am! I didn't figure we would start till around 9am, but they got dressed, ate breakfast and got chores out of the way by about 7:45 this morning.

We are doing some things the same this year and some things different. We are still year round schooling. We had our trial year of it last year and wow, our whole family just loved the freedom in doing it that way. I know there were several people that expressed their concerns to me, but it just seems to be what works for our family right now. I have no doubts that it could change next year or the year after, but that is the joy of homeschooling!

Our curriculum is switched up this year, that is a whole other post in itself. Might write about that tomorrow. At any rate, the kids are enjoying changing up some of their curriculum and my oldest daughter is completely in love with her math which is a first. So glad we found this other program!

Our schedule is flexible but has a flow. In other words, we don't have a set time we do things, but an order in which we do them. We start with Devotions, move onto Literature and Science as a family, then separate to work on Math and Language Arts on their own. When they are done, they are free to work on Extracurricular work. (Extra work with a reward, right now we are doing Scholastic and Kumon's Learn and Earn Program to earn some free books.) Then it's free time and piano practice.

Here are some pictures from our first day:

Lil Mr is in Preschool at home and Therapy School.

George is in Fifth Grade.

Mac is in Seventh Grade.

Bob is in First Grade.

Fred is in Second Grade.

 All my kidlets!

 My oldest was so excited to get 100% on her math that she had me take a pic of it! To understand why she is so excited: she has always struggled in math and this program just makes it so easy for her to understand. What a blessing to find what works for your child!