DIY Air Freshener--Awesome for Fall!

My mom used to do this when I was a kid and it always made me hope she was baking something yummy! :) The smell is perfect to welcome the glorious season that is FALL!!! Take the peels from 2-3 oranges, put in a large sauce pan of water, and sprinkle in a generous amount of cinnamon (or nutmeg, pumpkin pie spice, whatever fall scent you like :-D).  Heat to a rapid boil and turndown to medium.  Let simmer until water is almost completely evaporated. This will last about 45 minutes to one hour.  Once the water is gone the smell will last about a good while!

Week in Review #41: Ff is for Flower and Frazzled

I typically read our current astronomy lesson to both girls
while they have lunch

My computer had been having issues with not recognizing the cord when plugged in and the battery does not hold a charge worth anything. So I've been a week without a computer. Gotta love these first world problems. :-p It has not been so horrible since I can keep up with everythying via iPhone. 

Ryan took my little computer with him to the academy and he brought it with him this weekend. I'll have a computer again! Hallelujah!

Hannah and I started using Evan-Moor Daily Language Review this week. Each day is a very simple language lesson (the structure of a sentence, spelling, etc) and you can easily expand on each lesson. Of course we hit a few bumps since it's something new but I'm sure after a while it'll be fine.

Autumn loved all the gluing activities (see below) and kept asking for more, so I was pretty sorry I didn't have more prepared. Watch, I'll prepare a ton of gluing activities and she won't have any interest. :-p I'll still do it though...just because I love her. Heh.

We managed some good activities this week in the midst of being busy with church, soccer, and getting ready for our trip to Clarksville.  We got here yesterday and I am ready to enjoy some birthday fun later this afternoon!

The flower activites are from 2 Teaching Mommies and the fall coloring book is from Kid Sparkz.

Piecing a flower together with various shapes

A great intro to all that is fall! :)

Don't all flowers need cars and pizza?

Next week will once again be brought to you by the letter 'F' and we will do more with fall and farm!

And don't forget to "like" us on Facebook! Look to the right and you'll see our profile! :)


This post is linked to the Weekly Wrap-Up

Week in Review #40: Ee is for Earth and Eccentric Education

The week started out with an unplanned trip to the zoo! Hannah's lesson in her Bible curriculum was animals of day 5, and Autumn had a file folder game where she had to separate animals into three categories: ocean, farm, and zoo. Feeling like a super cool mom, I said, "You know where we can go and see these animals..."  Both girls immediately cried out, "The zoo!!" So we got dressed, packed the cooler and away we went. The zoo was eerily quiet since school is back in session.  It was actually kind of nice.

Hannah narrates to me in her own words
what she is learning from the latest lesson
and copies it in her astronomy notebook.

I've been reading the astronomy lessons to both the girls while they're eating or working on a craft.  We skipped to lesson 5 for this week, the lesson on Earth to obviously coincide with Autumn doing "E for Earth" stuff.  It's all very interesting.  Either I was never taught this in school or I just did not pay attention to ANYTHING! :)

Hannah got a 94 on this test ;-D

The rest of the week was very productive.  New activities started this week for Wednesday night church.  I was quite pleased with that.  The girls were beyond giddy to go to their own groups.  I think we all were anxious to get away from each other for a couple hours. :)

Other activities from the week:

Earth bingo (Hannah called it Earth-O)

 I printed these bingo cards from DLTK.  You can customize them with different themes and sizes. I think we'll be using these alot! :)

The morning board in action!

Earth craft..super easy! Blue paper circles,
scraps of green paper, pulled apart cotton
for clouds.

No, TV is not part of the curriculum, but they
were sitting so nicely together I had to get
a picture. :)

Autumn working on dry erase pages

animal sorting

Sensory bin...this was a big hit! I should have brought it out
forever ago! I'll be making plenty more of these!

First soccer practice! Hannah loves it!
More on that later I'm sure.

Next week is F which will be a combination of flower, fall, and farm!

This post is linked up to the Weekly Wrap-Up

10 Unit Studies FREE! A $35 value!

Use the coupon code FBWANNABE at check out to receive downloads for 10 unit studies on 10 different professions--artist, vet, doctor, firefighter, farmer, military, chef, missionary, pilot, and police officer. 

Click here to get in on this fantastic deal!

The coupon is good through tomorrow, Aug 27!!Thanks, Money Saving Mom!

The Grace Card DVD Giveaway!

Our Busy Homeschool is holding a giveaway for a copy of The Grace Card on DVD! Click here and see about how to enter! :)

Goals This Week 8/22-8/28

Inspired by Money Saving Mom, I decided to make a list of goals to accomplish this week.

1. Do my workout at least four days this week
2. pay the water bill
3. homeschool!
4. start reading Little House on the Prairie with the girls (we watch reruns of the show every day so I thought it would be fun)
5. finish favor bags for Emma and Autumn's birthday party
6. clean kitchen floor (I go totally old school here with a bucket of diluted Lysol and a rag)
7. call the lawn guy to get the yard taken care of (Ryan is gone so I'm not about to do it, plus we got a good deal :-D)
8. wash and change bed linens (most definitely looking forward to putting a fitted sheet on a top bunk. yeehaw)
9. put away laundry that has been sitting folded and stacked all weekend. :-P
10. pick up prescription at Walmart I refilled four days ago

Procrastinate much? Heh. Hopefully this will help.

I had this saved as a draft, so I was excited to see I had already accomplished two of these goals.  I know paying a bill and picking up medicine may not seem like much but having to get dressed, get shoes on the kids, pile them in and out of the car is just never very appealing to me. I like to think my primary audience here is moms, so I know all you understand. :)

EDIT: two more goals I forgot to mention that will definitely need to be done this week: take the trash to the dump and get Hannah soccer cleats and shin guards for her first practice Thursaday!

More Dora Party Fun: "Backpack" Goody Bags

Disclaimer: I got this idea from Pinterest, so I am not claiming it to be my own.

Rather than search all over town I simply went to ebay to find the purple paper bags. Yes, "Backpack" is not this dark but I can't complain. The paper bags themselves actually came from Oriental Trading, which I felt kind of silly for not thinking of that in the first place. Next time, I guess. The face is not hard to draw so I copied it in pencil and drew over it in marker.  I made color copies on my printer (I colored the mouths to save on printer ink), and--now the tedious part--cut out the pieces and glued them together on each bag.  It's something to do while I watch reruns of Frasier after the kids are in bed, so it's not too bad. :)