A Hostage Situation

Disclaimer: the girls thought this was hilarious and would have used the whole roll of tape if their daddy let them!

Sometimes the girls will hang out with Ryan at work while I go to the gym (which is only a block away).  The other night there was apparently a situation. I am happy to say all is well and Violet and Kracker Bear are safe and sound. :)

Stocking Your Craft Box

1.  Glue (both glue sticks and Elmer's School Glue, glue guns for your more durable projects)

2.  Brown Paper Bags (mostly for hand puppets which are always fun and easy!)

3.  Construction Paper (endless possibilities!)

4.  Popsicle Sticks (picture frames always make great gifts!)

5.  Stickers (I noticed with Autumn that peeling the thin papers off the stickers helps with fine motor!)

6.  Washable Paint (I would spend a few extra dollars and buy the Crayola brand since I know from experience that the paint is in fact washable and non-toxic)

7.  Googly Eyes (anything and everything can have a face!)

8.  Scissors (for both adult and child plus maybe some scrapbooking scissors for that extra pizzazz)

Everything listed here, except the paint, I have found at the Dollar Tree! I love it there! I also love buying different seasonal  supplies when they are on clearance. I have a big package of foam snowflakes that I can't wait to use.  Although it would be rather silly since it's almost spring (praise the Lord!).  I am currently working on putting together some activities for St. Patrick's Day and Easter (which I will post about at a later date).

If I've missed anything that is a must for craft time, let me know!

National Delurking Day

This day was apparently January 14 so it's a little late, but I read about it on another blog and I liked the idea.  This is a day where you leave a comment on blogs that you "secretly" read.  According to my stats I have people from all over the world clicking on our blog, and I would love to have some comments even if it's just your name and where you're reading from.  I'm flattered that people check out our blog and read about our crazy little family.  While you're commenting be sure follow my blog if you feel so intrigued. ;)

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

Week in Review #21: Cranky McCrank

Monday - We finished school by 8:14 this morning.  I only know that because I happened to look at the clock when I went into the kitchen to get more coffee. We did reading, math review (which Hannah wanted to do a page more than I had planned...always a good thing!), and for geography we did the Africa GeoPuzzle.  We did the Africa workbook pages yesterday when she stayed home from church due to a fever.  Crazy girl.

Tuesday - Another successful school day! We went over  the Europe section in geography and the first thing it said was that Italy was the country shaped like a boot.  That's something no kid seems to forget!

Wednesday -  I started  having horrible tooth pain in a tooth that I know has been needing to get fixed.  Last week I started going to the UT School of Dentistry since we are currently lacking dental insurance.  So far I am quite impressed with the  service and the cost is a third of what it would be at a private practice.  The dental school offers emergency services so I went in this morning.  I got there at 8:30 and left around 11:30.  I initially expected to have a root canal, but the tooth was too far gone that I opted to have it extracted.

Don't let this sweet, happy
face fool you! I think this
was right before the odd
numbers fiasco.

Thursday - A very mellow day which I always welcome with open arms!  Well, Hannah is particularly cranky today.  I asked her to write out odd numbers as far as she could just to see how much she remembers, and you would think the sky is falling.    It's kind of hard to plan school for Autumn's age so a lot of learning is just through play (sometimes that's the best thing!) During Play-doh we unexpectedly went over shapes and she caught on pretty quick!

Autumn loves to make taking
her picture difficult!

Friday - Autumn loves playing the animals match game my mom got the girls.  Except she cheats and turns all the cards over and then matches them. :-p Hannah was a bit of a crank again, so I decided to make next week spring break. I think it's pretty good timing. We'll hang out at home, do crafts, and we might just wear out our zoo membership. :-D That is seriously the best $99 I could have ever spent!  Tonight I made it to thhe gym for the first time in over a week.  My mouth is healing great from my tooth being pulled, and I was in desperate need of pumping up some endorphins.  The girls hung out with Ryan at work and watched Veggie Tales on Netflix.  Happiness was all around!

Mid-South Homeschool Convention

This weekend I went to the Midsouth Homeschool Convention.  They offered many workshops on all sorts of aspects of homeschooling, but I was more excited though about the many many curriculum booths.  I was warned by another homeschool mom to leave  my checkbook at home, but I figured I would take the risk anyway. ;)  Today I browsed through the dozens of booths and looked at a lot of different material.  I will never cease to be in awe over how much is out there!  In the consignment booth, I found a few drawing books, long and short vowel workbooks, 1st grade spelling, and a storybook about a bear who loves to draw (how perfect, right? I read it to Hannah tonight and it's the sweetest story).  I also bought the math curriculum for next year.  We are using Horizons which I enjoy immensely.  Hannah does really well with it, too, and I'm guessing that's important also.  I'm thinking about getting their phonics set as well.  I could go on and on about all the many ideas I have, but I am sure there will be plenty of time for those posts in the future. ;)
I also joined the Memphis-Area Home Education Association which I have been meaning to do for a while.  They have different events throughout the year and even a kindergarten graduation! :-D

I love homeschooling!!

Have I said that already?

International Polar Bear Day

Upon purchasing a family membership to the Memphis Zoo (yay!), I found out that they were having a small event for International Polar Bear Day with different booths set up by the polar bear's habitat, just learning about this wonderful creature and bringing awareness to the fact that they are slightly endangered. They also had real polar bear pelts--they were seriously from the head all the way down to their claws!  They were confiscated when they were brought in the country illegally by poachers.  I'm all about poaching them as well, but I digress.  They now use the pelts for awareness and educational purposes.  The girls were not scared at all! I was afraid Hannah would be sad, but she was just looking at the teeth and claws.  She was so into it! The polar bear was swimming laps and we were able to watch him (her?) through the glass.  I really think the four of us could have sat there all day! Aside from the beloved polars we saw the black bears (which we didn't see last time) and the pandas.  Last time the pandas were asleep but this time they were all wandering around and I even saw one of them sitting up eating bamboo! Cutest thing ever!

Week in Review #20: A Mini Spring Break



Autumn covered with
mud, thus began a messy
adventure

This week actually began on Thursday. Ryan and the kids were in Clarksville again, this time Sunday through Wednesday.  Ryan was wanting to trade in his truck and get a car from the same dealership since he's kept in touch with the salesman, blah blah blah (I won't bore you with that :-p). The car was taking a while to get ready, and we thought they would  be there one or two nights tops.  It was totally fine though, since the kids had a ball with their cousin and their grandparents.  I for one was all by my lonesome, which was alright.  I'm not going to say I totally lived it up but it was definitely bizarre.  Although I forgot how nice it was actually wake up on my own and have some coffee without telling the girls to stop acting psycho! 

The girls loved seein their
cousin!

By Wednesday I was missing Ryan and the girls pretty good.  I was so glad to see them, even though the girls were sobbing something fierce from being so tired.  I can understand that feeling for sure. Autumn had to take a nap the next morning to finish catching up on sleep.  Hannah and I jumped right back into her school work the next morning (Thursday) which was wonderful and productive.  Ryan said Hannah was reading various signs on the drive home like "Wal-Mart" and "Starbucks"...just sounding them out using those handy phonics rules she has learned. ;-D


 Autumn is all about books these days! Makes me want to jump for joy! She will cram as many books as she can in this one basket (which I used to use to keep diapers in) or a tote bag, drag it to either her room or the couch, and sit there looking at all of them.  once in a while she will ask me or Ryan to read one  to her. I have pretty much given up trying to fight her to take a nap so I let her sit in her bed and  look at books, which has gone beautifully!!! So now both girls have quiet time.  Hannah has hers on the couch in the school room since that limits the misbehavior that would undoubtedly occur.  Autumn is now becoming distressed that she can't look at books at bedtime.  I suppose eventually we can work something out to where both kids can look at books quietly for a half hour or so before lights off.