First Day of Family Co-op

Our first day of family co-op was today! I can't even begin to tell you how much planning & preparation has gone into this co-op. And how much is still to come. It is worth it & then some. My kids & I had such fun.

One thing I love about our family co-op is that all ages are together.

After some learning time Jen led us in a game to get to know each other.

Princess took a little ride in her stroller & took a water break. =0)

Waiting their turn....

Some play time for Princess.

My lefty.
I'm so happy to finally have a south paw! =0)

Boo coloring her binder cover.

Jen teaching the first lesson in World Geography.

Princess found her sissy & climbed right into her lap.

Since it was the first day we planned for a fun field trip. We all drove out to this wonderful, free park. First we had a picnic lunch & then the kids cooled off. A couple of the mommies did too - fully clothed! Lol!

Sweet Pea playing with Princess.

We had a fantastic first day! I love watching the kids all learning together & looking out for one another. The mommies are pretty cool too! =0) This year is going to be great!

First Day ~ Well, Kind Of...

We were going to start school this week but I am simply not ready. I postponed the younger ones for a week. Since Sweet Pea is starting high school I thought it was important for her to at least start 2 of her heaviest subjects. She started her World History & Pre-Algebra. Her Pre-Algebra she will be able to skip ahead in since Singapore prepared her very well. She is taking the tests in Teaching Textbooks to see where she needs to start & what she can skip.

Working hard on her first day.

Bugs LOVES the Wii.

He's been spending more time on it with it being dangerously hot out.

She got a kick out of me taking pics of her. Lol!

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Need I say more?

Bathtime!

Good ol' splashing fun!

HELP ME!!!!!

Now WHY did I think a yard sale was a good idea?
And right before school starts?

Sniff, Sniff....

The girls & I have been prepping for a yard sale. This week I went through Princess' clothes. I have to say it was a sad couple of hours. So many memories are tied into those precious little outfits. I did keep some extra special ones. I can't bear to part with all of them. But I put a good bit into our yard sale corner. So very hard....

All ready to go!

The folded ones, little things like socks & bibs and a sack of my clothes.

Successful Treasure Hunt

I've been looking for a square coffee table for a couple of years. The last few months I've been looking frequently on Craig's List. The only one I found without glass & was pure wood I never got a return call from the seller. Today Dave & I stopped in at a used furniture store I had seen advertised in the garage sale category. They had some nice furniture and very reasonable prices. While we were looking the owner greeted us & told us there were more in his buddy's store next door. I'm glad he told us b/c we didn't know it was there & would have missed our find. Yes, under some other furniture was a wooden coffee table! And to boot the price was $15! Winner! As Dave hauled it out to the van I was excited to see the stamp on the bottom. I'm very happy with our find.

Here it is!

The top.

Princess loved rubbing her hands on the smooth surface.

The stamp on the bottom. =0)


Princess enjoyed polishing it up for Mommy.

I've never seen the kids so excited to clean a piece of furniture! Lol!

It is now happy in our family room. I love it!

We will definitely be visiting that shop again!

AWARD

I received a new award today. Thank you, Jolene! If you want to see some super cute kiddos & some fun homeschooling posts pop on over and visit. I adore their accents too!

In accepting this prize one must do the following:

A. Thank the giver!

I thanked her on her blog but will thank her again here. Thank you so much, Jolene! =0)

B. Tell 7 things about yourself:

1. I adore yard sales & consignment sales! I LOVE a good bargain & the thrill of the hunt. I am also one of those nuts that get up at the crack of dawn on Black Friday and fight the crowds.

2. One of my favorite hobbies is photography. I am not an expert or even close but I enjoy taking lots of pics of my kids and anything that catches my eye. I hope to take a class some day.

3. I find humor in almost everything. People often wonder what I am laughing at as the silliest things tickle my funny bone.

4. I am big on justice. I can't stand seeing someone being cruel or rude to someone else. It bugs me to no end when others think they are above the rules. My family knows I will jump in if I think someone needs help or defending. I will also stand my ground especially if you mess with my kids.

5. I love my Jesus! I do my best to be like Christ but know I fail in some way every day. I'm grateful He loves me & always picks me up, understands, and blesses me over & over.

6. I love being a Southern chick. Though I miss the North East and left a piece of my heart there(I was born in N.H. & lived in New England most of my life.) I love the weather, the people, the homeschoolers, the opportunities & being in the Bible belt. Tennessee is amazing!

7. My favorite thing in the whole wide world is being a mama & wife. I dreamed of having a big family since I was a little girl. I am blessed to be living my dream.

C. Send the prize to 15 bloggers you recently discovered & think are fantastic!

(Some of them are private so I'm not going to list them here but WILL send a personal invitation to them letting them know their award is waiting. Yay!)

A Very Special Day

This is what greeted me soon after I woke up this morning. Breakfast in bed served to me by my loving husband & 5 precious children! Today is our 16th wedding anniversary & Dave took the day off as a surprise. How wonderful to have him home! We spent some time at home and then splurged on a movie & a late lunch. It was a great day & so nice spending time with my husband.

I'm feeling nostalgic today and thought I'd share a couple of photos. These aren't the best quality as they are a photo of a photo. But I wanted to share them anyway.

Walking down the aisle...........
After we cut the cake we shared a special kiss.
This is one of my very favorite photos of us together.

I feel extremely blessed. God gave me my husband & best friend all wrapped into one. We have gone through so much together and have only grown stronger for it all. I love him with all my heart & pray we have many, many more years together.

Learning Schedules

Last night & this morning I have been working hard on our Learning Schedules for this coming school year. I've been trying to decide between doing big chunks of learning/subjects once or twice a week or doing little bits of almost every subject every day. After asking some fellow homeschool mamas, (Thank you, ladies!), and thinking on it I have decided to do a little of both. Lol! How's that for a decision? Really, what made me come to that decision was the fact that my kids all have different learning styles and are at different learning levels. Sweet Pea is starting high school and as one wise h.s. mama pointed out her studies will be more in depth. Therefore she may need to take "small bites" each day in order to be able to "digest" her studies. With the younger ones, such as Elvis who will be in 3rd grade he might get more out of studying in bigger chunks. We'll be able to do more things if we take a big bite of time for specific subjects rather than little bits every day. It may be easier too in that he might not feel as overwhelmed if he doesn't have a dozen subjects/books to work in every day.

I sat down with each child except for Bugs because he will be in Kindergarten. He won't really understand how to choose so I'll still do most of the choosing for him. I will give him other things to choose from. The older 3 helped decide how they wanted to set up their daily & weekly learning. They seemed to enjoy the one-on-one time & having a say in their days. I was proud of their wise choices. I'm hoping they will stick to this & it will help them to become more responsible.

For Elvis, (3rd grade), he decided to choose daily from his subjects.

The blue cards are subjects that must be done daily. The red cards are ones he will choose from. The green cards are co-op subjects. For now they will be included in his "get to choose" pile but that may change to being assigned every Wednesday.
I will choose about 5-6 cards from the red & green cards every day. Then I will allow Elvis to choose 3 or 4 from these. This way I am certain that he will be getting enough every week. We will also keep a log.

This is the Course of Study for this year for both Bugsy (K) & Elvis (3rd).
I wrote in pencil how many times a week each subject needs to be done. This is all subject to tweaking as needed. =)
* = Daily


This is the Course of Study for both Boo Bear & Sweet Pea.
Since they are older & I want them to take more personal responsibility I allowed them to have the choice of me assigning days to their subjects, them assigning days to their subjects, or having them choose daily/weekly as Elvis is doing. I was relieved that both chose to have them assign days. I don't mind doing it but I think it's a great 1st step to responsibility. We decided together how many times a week each subject needed to be done. Then they wrote in what days they wanted to do what.
* = Daily

I took pics of the schedules we wrote out but they are in pencil & the pics came out very light. I'll try to post them if you'd like. I'm going to type them up for myself & the kids later.

BTW, you can click on the photo if you want to see a larger image.

Can You Believe It?!?!?!?

I WON!!!!!!!!

Today Boo & I stopped in at Kroger's to pick up a few groceries for our special dinner tonight. We saw they had a little tent set up right inside. They had Titan paraphernalia all over. We looked around but there was a big crowd so we went shopping. Later we heard over the loudspeaker that they were giving away Titan's tickets. They announced the first giveaway and then the 2nd. I started thinking I would kick myself later if I didn't' at least check it out. First I went up to see if it cost anything to enter. I finally made my way through the crowd and found out no purchase was necessary. Yay! Then the guy saw me & gave me a ticket. I made my way back to Boo & less than a minute later they were reading off the winning numbers. I couldn't believe it! They were calling out MY numbers!!!!!!! I thought I was misreading it at first and the lady started reading the numbers again. By then people were looking all around for someone to claim the tickets. I squealed, " I think that's ME!!!!" and went running up through the crowd with Boo right behind me. They gave me the envelope with the tickets, had me open it up & took our picture. We were ecstatic!!!! I could hardly wait to get home & tell Dave! We quickly finished our shopping bubbling over with excitement. I drove the 5 minutes home with the tickets clutched in my hand. We burst out of the van once we reached our driveway & I told Dave. He couldn't believe it! I told him they were his. An early anniversary gift.

I can see God's hand all over this. I know God timed this entire blessing from start to finish. I am deeply thankful that He gave me these tickets so I in turn could give them to my sweet husband. Dave even asked me to go with him. It will be so neat to see an NFL game in the stadium. We can hardly wait!

And THANK YOU, Kroger for this giveaway!

Family Room

Today was the toughest day yet. Not only were we tackling one of the hardest rooms but we were low on energy. I'm proud to say we set a goal & pushed through. The girls & Elvis even made some headway on the boys' room. Here's some more pictures!

The boys' room before.

I'll post after pics when it's done.

Hopefully this weekend!

The Family Room

(See my previous post for 'Before' pics)

Dusted, vacuumed under & behind, purged & organized.

These shelves are cleaned & organized from top to bottom. Even the tippy top has been sorted through & dusted. To top it off I shelved all the books by subject or theme.

Progress in the boys' room.

Nice & neat!

The stuff on the table is going back to their homes in the office. =)

Such a great feeling!

(The tub is stuff that is going.)

I'm proud of my Clean Team!

Day #4 ~ Clean Team Hits the Family Room

Today was Day #4. I overslept. I am feeling the wear & tear of this week on my body. The kids were tired today too but we plugged on.

First we moved all of the sectional couch. The kids picked up all the junk that had accumulated both under & in the couch while I vacuumed. We then shoved it all back in place & worked on cleaning up the rest of the floor.

Chaos!

I worked on the bookshelves over by the television, put all the videos away & then came over to work on these shelves. We now have a tub of books for the yard sale. I think this is pretty good considering I purged before we moved.

Elvis helped to sort the books into 3 categories - science, history & fun reading.


Bugs helped pick up trash & a few toys. Then it was time for a movie break.

Boo worked with Elvis sorting. She then shelved the books acccording to those categories.

Tonight we worked on sorting out the various bins & tubs. They have all sorts of stuff in them that doesn't belong so this took some time. About 3 hours to be exact. We even dragged out the big tubs from the boys closet. Several months ago I worked really hard sorting everything, cleaning out & labeling in their room. It is helping during this clean up. I also vacuumed under all the white shelves and found a lot under there, washed up toys, and tossed lots of garbage. Dave helped sort some stuff too.

I finished sorting out the books, organizing them & stacked them on the freshly cleaned shelves. You can also see some of the newly sorted toys snug in their bins.

The shelves, desk & T.V. have all been cleaned & dusted. I even have an empty shelf! Well, for now anyway. Lol!

Now all the videos fit in here with room to spare!

Sweet Pea worked hard too. She took all the pictures today which is why you don't see her in them. =0)

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We hope to finish this room tomorrow. I still need to organize the books on the other shelves, clean off the tops of the shelves and go through the toys. We may try to squeeze in the dreaded boy's room. It's a jungle in there!