Gone Long, but Not Long Gone

It has been so long since I've been on my blog, I forgot what it looked like!  I bet you're wondering where in the world have I been?  All I can say is busy and enjoying the everyday tasks of life.

After my last post in November, Nate got a promotion at work, so he's been a little busier than usual.  Not too much though, since he was already really in that position without the title and compensation for two months.  We continued to homeschool and I signed up to teach a quilting class at the college in February.  The week of Thanksgiving, we traveled to San Antonio for 5 days and visited Sea World, The Alamo, the River Walk, and the old World Fair site, which included the Towers of America.

At the Alamo

A waterfall along the River Walk

The kids absolutely loved Sea World.  When we pulled into the parking lot the first day, Jman exclaimed from the back seat, "Shamu!! We are here!!"  His excitement reflected all of our attitudes.  And to make it even better, Sea World was celebrating Christmas.  It was decorated in Christmas trees, lights, "snow", costumes, carolers, a Mariachi band dressed in Santa suits, lights set to music, and a Santa Shamu!

BG feeding a dolphin

Jman was the only one not afraid of the characters

December brought more school and preparations for our trek up north.  We celebrated Christmas and New Years in Fargo and then spent our last couple of days in Minneapolis.  It was lots of fun getting to see family and friends.  The weather wasn't as much fun.  It was cold, windy and icy.  But we weren't expecting anything different from North Dakota or Minnesota.  It was great to get home and have temperatures in the 50s.  We didn't NEED our coats on!  As wonderful as it was to see everyone, we were grateful to be home after our 16 day vacation and not living out of suitcases anymore.  It's a long time to be away.

At the farm

North Dakota winter 

Now, as we are getting to the end of January, we are back in the swing of things.  The only new adventure in our horizon is that I start teaching my quilting class in less than 2 weeks.  It's only one night a week for 4 weeks, so it should be a nice, fun break for me!  

It doesn't seem like a lot, but it sure kept me busy.  We continue to walk in Christ's footsteps and grow as a family and as Christians.  God has provided for us and blessed us immensely.  We are so thankful.

How have you been staying busy??

Blessings,

Why We Chose to Homeschool

My homeschool book bins for Jman and BG

When I tell someone we homeschool our children, there is usually a list of questions to follow.  I've had a few people ask me why we chose to homeschool, and I'm going to share that answer with you.

First off, I'll start with my husband's and my education background.  I grew up going to public schools my entire life.  I enjoyed school, in fact, I loved high school and college.  I had a great experience.  My husband went to public schools as well, except for Seminary and his other graduate classes, in which he attended a private Christian school.  He would say he enjoyed his schooling.  

We first started talking about homeschooling after hearing stories from friends that were teachers, and other people that were still in high school.  They would talk about kids doing drugs in class, having alcohol in water bottles, the lack of motivation and respect in classrooms, as well as the lack of knowledge one would think kids would know in high school.  We do realize that these could be one time incidents, but the fact that they even happened in public and private schools raised flags on our radar.  

I was still not convinced about homeschooling; my husband was more for the idea than me, until I did some volunteer time at an elementary school in a Title I classroom in north Minneapolis.  North Minneapolis is not one of the nicer neighborhoods in Minneapolis.  The school was in a low-income neighborhood and would be considered a rough neighborhood.  The children I helped were way behind in their reading.  It was a daunting job.  The regular classrooms had over 30 kids in them, and the teachers were not able to spend quality time teaching each subject to each child.  This caused many problems for kids that couldn't keep up or learned in a different way than what was being taught.  The kids were also sent home with massive amounts of homework.  I couldn't believe the size of the 1st and 2nd graders backpacks!  I don't remember having a lot of homework that required taking textbooks home.  After finishing up my volunteer time at that school, I felt more called to homeschooling than ever before.  I do believe God placed me there to feel compassion for those children, pray for them and work on guiding my heart towards homeschooling.

The main reason for our family deciding to homeschool is our values.  Nate and I both decided that we want our children to be filled with Christian values as their hearts and characters are being developed.  I am always amazed at how much they pick up from listening to others speak and watching others interact.  They are little sponges and I want them soaking up Godly virtues.  There was a first grade teacher in Minneapolis that was openly conversing with his students about his homosexual relationship. After hearing this, I knew that I didn't want someone else responsible for my children's education.

We also want our children to get the attention and help they need, when they need it.  I am able to pick up right away when they are having difficulties or getting frustrated.  This will help in the long run, making school enjoyable now and nurturing a love for learning.

As an added bonus, we like having the flexibility to take family vacations when we want to, and use them as specific learning experiences.  There is always a time to learn.

We feel so blessed to have the opportunity and freedom to school our children from home.  It is so awesome to watch the "light bulb" go on as it clicks in their minds, a privilege really.  It is an adventure, with ups and downs, excitements and disappointments, but always with an atmosphere of love.

Blessings,

My Own T-Shirt Quilt

I finally finished my own t-shirt quilt and I am very pleased with how it turned out.  This is my first ever quilting project done for myself.  I have lots of ideas planned for myself, they just aren't in the works yet.

 

It took me longer than I thought to hand stitch the binding, but it is my own fault for letting it just sit on my sewing table!

I machine quilted in the ditch, down each column and along each row.  Then, I free sewed a little flower close to each corner, following the pattern on the orange material from the front. 

 

 

Now that I've finished my quilt, there is little time to enjoy it.  I need to get back to my sister's t-shirt quilt and finish it up, before her birthday in December.  One would think I'd get it done by then, with ample time to spare, but I can be the first to assure you that life happens!

 

Blessings,

 



Chai Tea Latte Recipe

This is my FAVORITE!

1 c nonfat dry milk powder
1 c powdered non-dairy creamer
1 c French Vanilla flavored powdered non-dairy creamer
2 1/2 c white sugar
1 1/2 c unsweetened instant tea
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cardamom

Optional: Spice it up more with 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp allspice, and 1/4 tsp white pepper.

1. In a large bowl, combine the milk powder, creamers, sugar and instant tea.  Stir in spices.

2. In a blender or food processor, blend 1 cup at a time, until it's a fine powder.

Above is a double recipe.

3. To serve, stir 2 tbsp Chai mix into a cup of hot water.

Makes about 36 servings.

If you can buy cardamom in the shell, in bulk, and then grind it yourself, it is MUCH cheaper than buying it already ground.  Look around for it.  In MN, I found it in the ethnic food section of our local grocery store, in the bulk bags.  I have yet to find it in bulk down here in TX.  I'm still searching!!

Blessings,

Bugs!!!

We have had lots of fun this week and last week working on bugs!  We should have been done by now, but we have been struck with illness and took a couple of days off.  We are finally on the mend with the help of antibiotics, an inhaler and some cough medicine.

My kids like bugs if they are not crawling on them or biting them.  Learning about them has helped alleviate some of their concern.  I know they love butterflies, so I eased them in to the topic with an enjoyable bug.  I ordered some Painted Lady butterfly caterpillars from Insect Lore and watched them grow, become cocoons and emerge as butterflies.  My kids LOVE them.  Jman keeps telling me he has new best friends.  Funny boy!

We bought some fresh cut flowers to put in their garden.  Which has turned into the boys telling every checkout person, regardless of where we are, that we have butterflies and they love flowers.  Super cute!  

We had one butterfly perish.  We took it out and examined it.  It was good for them to see the wings, legs and antennae up close.  There is always a teaching moment!

My curriculum this week is the Bug Pack printed from 3 Dinosaurs.  My boys have been enjoying it a lot, especially all of the puzzles.  BG, my 3 year old, has benefited a lot from all of the copy pages, tracing, coloring, counting and cutting pages.  His handwriting is amazing and he loves school time.  I've been collecting a lot of random pages to go with each theme I've planned, but I got most of my bug pages from this particular website.   

That's our school week in a quick nutshell!

Blessings,

Fair Day

Last Wednesday, we went to the Four States Fair and Rodeo.  It was Kids' Day, which meant free parking, free admission, free ice cream, bouncers, rodeo demo, petting zoo, cow milking and lots of fun!  Did I mention it was free??

We started by going to a rodeo demo, which was very cool.  My kids loved it!  They had bull riding, barrel racing, bareback riding and cow roping.  They loved the bulls and broncos, but were a little nervous when they came RIGHT by the railing in front of us.

Petting Zoo.  We went through 3 times.  The workers knew us by the end of the day!

The boys finally coaxed this little calf over the 3rd time through.  They kept their arms stretched out until he came over.  It was pretty cute.

 We got to watch a cow get milked with an electric pump.  The guy explaining the process was talking to a bunch of young elementary school students and talked for a LONG time.  He kept telling the kids to be quiet and calm so they wouldn't spook the cow.  Yet, he was the one yelling into the microphone, "Hey! Listen!" and "Look at me!  We're almost done!"  It was a little ridiculous.  My boys did awesome sitting still.  They were not the ones he was yelling at.

Afterwards, they got to try milking a fake cow.  I got down and tried it as well.  The lady supervising the activity liked my milking. "That's the way you do it!"

We had a picnic lunch and finished the day walking around, seeing the rest of the exhibits.  It was a fun day!  After we got home, the boys made the executive decision that we need a cow, a horse, 2 ducks, 3 chickens and a dog.  We better get a bigger yard!

Blessings,

Ashley's Quilt

I've been working on Ashley's quilt and finally have the t-shirts pieced together.  It doesn't take that long, really.  The hard part is picking out the material for the rest of the quilt.  It has been especially hard this time around, because I can't go to the store with Ash.  We're doing it via pictures, which don't always portray the colors just right.  But with a little help from BG and Jman, we have picked out the material!  (Those pictures will be for a future update when I have actually sewed them onto the quilt.)

In the process of cutting out t-shirts.

My stack of shirts.

I separate the shirts into a white pile and a colored pile.  I then begin laying out the quilt top.

This is a picture taken during the sewing process.  I wanted to know what Ash thought of the size.  It was imperative that BG and I try it out to give her a size comparison.  :)

The quilt top finally sewn together.  The border is the next thing on the list.  So far, I love how it looks and the boys think it's great too.  It's always hard to send them once they are done.  The boys think it would look better in their beds...but it isn't hard to persuade them that uncle Nick or Auntie Ash would like the quilt just as much.  Their kind hearts want to send the quilt the minute they realize this.  

I'm hoping to get her quilt finished in the next week.  I got a little side tracked starting my own quilt (which is almost done now!)  That is for next week!  

Blessings,