Claire's study buddy

Claire was working on some writing today and look who was her study buddy...this is our old pal Dillon.  He loves hanging with his kids. I love this part of homeschooling.  Warms my heart.  

Dillon loves to hang with the kids while they do schoolwork and the kids love it too.

Time for smooches

BB from 2/16/13

Just sharing some pics from Claire's BB game this past Saturday.  I got some pics of Ty's game, but he played at a different gym and they did NOT come out..they were all scratchy and blurry...grrrr... I think I may have to look for a new camera...but at any rate enjoy these.  The kids had great games Saturday.  Tyler got to play his best friend-which was so much fun to watch and I was so happy for him, especially when he and his friend got to guard each other!

Claire had a great game, she was the queen of steals...wow! This girl loves her game I tell ya!

Claire is in grey with the ball-she is fast!

Claire is in grey on defense, not to many balls get past this young lady I tell ya!

So anyways...great games this past Saturday!

Short Order Cook in training...

We follow a chart of sorts here with chores and each night a different kid helps with the dinner prep.  Tyler loves cooking and so Monday night he helped make individual pizzas.  That meant prepping the pizza crusts and then finding out what everyone wanted on theirs and then making them to order.  He did awesome and as you can tell he was quite happy doing this.   (Oh and the pizzas were awesome!)

He was being goofy cause he knew I had my camera out..

He did not complain when his sisters told him what they wanted on theirs, as they prefer cheddar on theirs instead of mozzarella...and veggies...where as Ty is just a plain cheese sort of kiddo. 

 

I think its important to teach kids to cook for themselves, how to properly use the oven, and how to use food wisely and make good healthy choices.  What kind of fun do you have in the ktichen with your kids? Let me know!

 

Eat and be merry!  That's life!

Jack Frost was busy Saturday morning...

It was a chilly -2 degrees here on Saturday morning..everything was frost covered and sparkly..

Mice??

This is my favorite tree in the backyard. I love it.

wow...where does the yard end and the farmer's field begin heh?

 

Winter happened....That's Life!

Basketball is good for life lessons....

My kids play Upwards Basketball and I cannot say enough good things about this program.  Yesterday's games were sweeeeet to watch! I am learning that my kids each play basketball very differently.  Tyler is the social bug and just enjoys the game and what happens happens, no biggie.  Claire is a serious basketball player and a very good team mate, but has an aggressive playing side.  Claire also learned a very important life lesson yesterday which I will explain below....

Tyler (in red) in the opening jump shot-look at that height!  The team they played Saturday is the same team they scrimmage at practice on Monday nights..so this guy he is jumping against is actually a "friend" now and like Ty said that just makes it more fun, playing BB with friends."  I love that attitude.

Tyler making a shot...this one did not go in, it hit the rim and bounced off, but he did make 4 shots during the game! WooHoo!

Ty with the ball, waiting for the screen so he can go to the hoop.

Miss Claire...my little dynamite.  She was all over the court yesterday, from shooting baskets, stealing the ball, rebounds, catching loose balls...wow, she earned herself a good nights rest.

Claire with the ball, she learned patience yesterday, waiting for her teammate to set the screen so she could shoot the ball, it didn't always go as planned, but that is okay.

Claire getting ready to shoot the ball...it actually went in, although I did not get a pic of that. I need a faster camera.

Claire on defense-she can be an aggressive opponent when she wants to be.

 

So what was the life lesson?  Well....a ref made a call on Claire saying she had double dribbled, she hadn't, she knew it, I knew it, the other parents knew it...Claire was mad.  She chucked the ball at the ref, he did not call her on that, but she looked at me because she realized her attitude was out of line and I mouthed the words "walk it off" to her...she did.  But she was not happy.  Later on she and I were talking and she said "that was not a fair call, I did not do any double dribbling." I told her "I know it, but sometimes refs make the wrong calls, they are human.  You played an awesome game and you need to remember that, but if you throw that attitude like that again, I will make you sit out, got it?  There is no place in the game for bad attitude.  Life is not going to be fair. But you can still be positive about it and focus on how well the game went."  Good lessons to learn young.

 

That's Life!   

A new recipe "Roley Joes"

Tried a new recipe with the Trio tonight.  (The Trio are my children).  Claire loves to cook and so she was helping tonight as we made Roley Joes.  A new take on Sloppy Joes.

We used Pillsbury Grands Flaky Layer biscuits...flattened them out.

used a slice of cheese and then a small spoonful of sloppy joe

then roll the side of it over and try to press the ends together (not all of ours cooperated).

Claire did good making the rest once I showed her how.

my happy lil' chef!

Ready for the oven.....we baked them at 350 for about 17 minutes

 

All done...so good!! 

 

I wonder what it would be like if we did this with pizza stuff??

That's life for ya!  (And I like it when its very tasty too!)

A book I read yesterday...

OH MY....I finished the Sacrifice by John Whitlow yesterday and while at the library grabbing more of his books I came across Still Alice by Lisa Genova.  I started to read it and fell in love with it...so I checked it out...read it on and off all day yesterday and finished it around 1am this morning...it was oh so worth it! 

Basically in a nutshell its about a 50 year old lady, who is diagnosed with early onset alzheimer's disease.  Its from her perspective which was just fascinating to me.  Its an awesome book and I encourage you to look at it.    My heart laughed with her, broke with her...it was a book I hated to see end. But that's life right? 

Awesome book!

"Good thing we don't own a panda mom...."

HAHA!  My 9 year old dtr Claire is a  riot.  She LOVES for me to do her hair in all sorts of braids...

...and so because of this and all the pony tails we do for basketball we go through a ton of hairspray.  I was buying the very nice and cheap White Rain brand, but it made my head itch and caused Claire to get tons of white flakes...so this time I bought

and she was sooooo excited..first of all it comes in a shiny green can...and so she is reading the can and she says "Mom! It has bamboo extra."  I said "No, bamboo extract, not extra."  She replied with "oh....well you know what mom...its a good thing we don't own a panda for a pet, cause he would eat my hair-they just love bamboo!!" 

So she decided that she just had to try out the new hairspray...so she ran to the bathroom and put her hair in a ponytail and sprayed it's loveliness all over her head. Tyler comes in and being a big brother says "why are you spraying your hair? We aren't going anywhere tonight."  She said "I know, but mom got new hairspray and look Tyler its got bamboo extra in it."  Tyler then says "wow..good thing we don't own a panda-they love to eat bamboo-you would be bald, he'd chomp off all your hair...."   I laughed!!  At least they pay attention in science...HAHA!

That's life folks...enjoy those little moments of humor, enjoy your kids just being kids...

What I'm reading right now...

I'm about 1/2 way through this book and I love it!  I read all sorts of books...both secular and Christian, (mystery and suspense are my faves!) and I will resort to an occasional romance book, but not often.  I like to use my brain!  HAHA!  I have months though where no book interests me? Do you ever have that problem?  But for right now my brain cannot get enough of this book!

This book here one of our local librarians recommended to me.  A classic good against evil book...it almost reads like a Frank Peretti novel with a dash of John Grisham (two more of my favorite authors) ...but there is a little romance as well...its keeping me guessing! 

What are your favorite authors?  Do you stick with one genre or are you all over the place?  Our library has some more books by this author so I think I will be checking those out as well...as soon as I am done with this one.

Reading opens our windows of our mind...reading is a daily requirement of my kids here and they read everywhere we go.  There is no TV in our van...but there are books.   That's Life! 

What does homeschooling look like to us?

We have homeschooled for 7 years.  I love it, the kids love it.  Even on the days where it "seems" like nothing gets done we love it.  WHY? Because we are together.  When I look at the "short" amount of time I have with my Trio (yes I have three kids-you will meet them here), I realize how precious this time is.  We have a short amount of time to invest in our children before we send them out into the world, and I intend to do a good job! 

Homeschooling...a word that you either love, hate or think "oh what a weirdo."  HAHA!  Yeah, I am a little strange sometimes. But I will go to bat for homeschooling anyday for I have seen the success that it brings.  I have fought the stereotypes, the clashes about socialization, and struggled with the whole question of "are they learning enough?"

We have done lots of different types of "homeschooling" over the past 7 years, we change it up a lot and think outside the box alot, especially since we are dealing with learning disabilities. We have done textbook learning, Charlotte Mason methods, unschooling, eclectic and some years a little bit of everything! I will think "aha! We have found a science book we like!" Only to realize that come next year it won't work for the soon to be highschooler...but that's okay, that's life, we grow, we move on and up and change if we have to... But I would never trade it for the world! 

Here are some pics from our homeschooling this year....enjoy.

 I should introduce you to one of our "bullies" HAHA!  Dillon, our old lab will chew up a pencil or wooden ruler if he can reach it...many a pencil has met its fate with these jaws.

 

This is my youngest dtr, Claire who is 9. We go on field trips to different places.  My kids are total animal lovers and artsy lovers, so our field trips usually revolve around that.

We foster animals...love this!  We have fostered 10 animals so far since starting it almost a year ago.

We use social media...my oldest dtr, Emily made our cat Bella her own facebook page.  Of course I supervise this.

My oldest Em and her passion-chickens! We have a wonderful flock of chickens.

My son Tyler, who is 11 and Spark, this is his first very own foster kitty that he takes care of. She absolutely adores him too.

Sometimes school is nature walks..we have found lots of interesting things this way.

We do lots of cooking too...so we can incorporate home ec, math, etc..into that.

We multi-task...read while waiting for your cupcakes to cook.

Lots of play!  My kids adore each other (and yes they argue), but they are lost when one of them is not home or sick and cannot play.

Mice!  Yuck!  I only post this in a homeschooling post, because when Bella catches one it interrupts our homeschooling...and so we learn to roll with life ya know?  Life is full of interruptions.

Sometimes we watch a video for a subject, esp. science...so then we can curl up with a furry friend and enjoy it.

We learn to overcome our disabilities, and see them as "different abilities."

crafts!

Yes, even the boy sews!

My oldest did a business venture this year and made Christmas cards for a friend who paid her and she used the money to buy supplies for the humane society we foster for.

We have recess and yes, it sometimes looks like this.

We are learning how to research.

My oldest is an artist.

More recess.

Drawing for science is Em's favorite thing to do.

We play games...these two love strategic ones!

Sometimes the cats decide its time for us to take a break.

Monopoly is always a hit and good for money skills.

Yes, some days we don't want to do school.

My gallon guy...a way to learn liquid measurements!

Em discovering water colors, learning how they work, how to mix them

we have snow days too!  So we play lots of games, watch tv...all that.

my Emily's buddy, Moocher. He is her constant companion.

Ty and Claire play basketball with Upwards (our second year) and I cannot say enough wonderful things about this program!  This is me and Claire

Me and Tyler...he is getting tooooo tall!

 

So, this is what homeschooling looks like for us. Its very different from the four cement walls and desk version I grew up with and there are days I fight that mentality...but then I see how much my kids really do...how much they enjoy reading, being with other kids, etc...and I know we are doing just fine. 

That's Life!