Wow, I can’t believe my last blog post was October 20th! Everything just sort of went crazy between October 20th and January. Between making loads of candles for orders, a bazaar, and Christmas,,, sick kids, me and the hubby being sick, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and everything in between, I just felt like throwing in the towel on my blog. So I quit blogging. I thought I would never want to blog again, but I’m beginning to feel like maybe a couple times a week wouldn’t be so bad. Especially after going back and reading some of my posts. It’s kind of nice to go back and read some of the things that have happened in the past. I don’t keep a journal, except here on this blog.
So anyway, I may be back a couple times a week. I’m going to quit trying to blog everyday because there’s just too much “life” going on to be sitting here writing about it instead of living it. Some people may have the time, energy and discipline to do that, but I just don’t!
So now I’m going to say goodbye till next time because I’ve got to go get a screaming 16 month old out of his highchair……
Category Archives: Getting Organized
Kid’s fall craft project-Autumn Poster
Hello. Long time no talk. So I haven’t had much to write about this week and I’ve been busy trying to keep a schedule and actually clean my house at certain times during the day and do a load of laundry every day, plus working on candles, and I’ve had a couple sick kids, so I just haven’t felt like I’ve had anything interesting to write about. But have been planning this post for a few days now.
I decided the boys and I should do a fun fall craft project that would be easy for them to help with, yet would look nice for a fall decoration in our school room/dining room/play room…..
I’ve had this hankerin’ to decorate my home for fall. I love decorating my house and I don’t usually get to, except at Christmas time. So in the name of “homeschooling” I’ve decided to decorate for the seasons this year! So I went out last week and bought a piece of yellow poster board. I also bought a pack of 75 fabric leaves from Target in their dollar section, and Tuesday I went to Joannes fabric and bought a 35 pack of even nicer, real looking fall leaves for 50% off which came out to $1. Before I went to check out, though, I was very, very tempted to purchase more fall floral stuff since it was all 50% off! Oh, how I love Joannes!! I decided to wait a bit before buying more fall stuff from there though, because usually they end up at 75% once it gets closer to winter and I wanted to be wise in my spending.
But I was oh so tempted….. must….wait…..patience!
So anyway, then I printed off some fall/harvest/thanksgiving pictures from the computer onto some photo paper and cut them out. I let Nboy help with some of the cutting and then he and Ekid helped me glue the pictures on first and then the leaves around the edge of the poster. I didn’t think the leaves were going to stick well at first until we left off gluing them and then I came back later and they were stuck firm. The fabric leaves just take a bit longer to dry, so be patient.
And here’s the finished product! We all enjoyed this easy fall craft project. I loved it because it’s not very messy and it’s something that is pretty easy for young kids to help with. I plan on making a poster like this for each season, and then I can just save them and bring them out the following year and reuse them!
I decided to go with the not so realistic looking leaves from Target because I hated the thought of gluing those beautiful real looking ones from Joannes forever to a poster.lol I plan on using those for maybe just spreading out on a shelf, or using them when I take pictures of my candles for my fall specials.
OSU vs. Boise State…..Yikes!
Well, it’s game day for the Oregon State Beavers today. My husband was going to take NBoy and Ekid with him to a friends house to watch the game, but then the neighbor boy came over and really wanted Nboy to stay and play, so reluctantly I said okay. This is Nboy’s first time having a neighbor kid to play with right next door and they’ve been playing almost every day and he is thoroughly enjoying having a friend so close. So I just couldn’t say no.
So now I’m hoping Baby will take a nice long nap, and Nboy and his friend will kind of stay out of my hair so I can get the back yard rototilled (how in the world do you spell that word?).
My husband has been so nervous for this game. The Beavs are up against Boise State and playing on their blue turf. Can you believe someone actually donated tons of blue paint so they could paint a practice field blue to prepare for this game? LOL I guess you do what you have to to have an edge!
So if the Beavers don’t win, I’m going to have a very dejected husband later tonight.
I’m not looking forward to that. I am looking forward to having a nice quiet house in a little bit, and a few hours not hearing Nboy and Ekid fighting, though.
I’m also looking forward to tilling up the back yard and getting it planted with grass in a couple days! It’s been bare for too long. I want a nice green yard! Of course that means I’ll have to start picking up the dogs poop……
But it’ll probably be worth it…..
Maybe I’ll make Nboy do it……
So who do you think will win? OSU or Boise State, or do you even care? :)
Oh, yes, and this is our wonderful dog King……
Sorry for the mess!
Dear reader(s),
I’m truly sorry for…..
Oh, wait, I almost forgot. This is the “Disorganized Mom Blog” so I guess I don’t have anything to be sorry for!
Anyway, just because this is a “Disorganized Mom Blog” doesn’t mean I like being unorganized! So I’m in the process of trying to clean things up a bit…hmm, sounds like something I say about my house all the time….yet it never seems to get finished….. But,But, I will be finishing this!
I have a plan!
And this blog will be Beautiful!
And organized!
So please bear(bare?) with me as I change things up and get things looking all spiffy and shiny, and then when it’s done I may just have a blog warming party with some sort of prize to celebrate!
Thank you!
Speaking of spiffy….
Homeschooling first grade-Day 1….
Well, it’s that time of year again. The kids go back to school, the rain starts in, and it gets dark way too early. I do love fall though. Summer and Fall are my favorite seasons.
My oldest, Nboy, turns 7 in November and we started homeschooling first grade yesterday. Sure we “homeschooled” Kindergarten, if you really want to call it “school”(it just gets me that people think you “have” to send your kids to Kindergarten, but that’s another topic for another day), but yesterday we started official schooling.
The nice thing, is that my mindset has changed. All year this year, I’ve been trying to get myself to get up at 7am and get the kids up at 8am. Wasn’t working. But now, I guess with the homeschooling being “official” I’ve got a motivation to get up and that’s what I’ve done the past 2 mornings. This is my plan for the school year, schedule wise:
- Up at 6:50 am-Study Bible and Prayer time
- 7:10 am-8am Eat breakfast, do morning routine(put clean dishes away, fold laundry,etc)
- Post on Twitter, blog, etc….
- 8am, get the boys up and eating breakfast
- 8:30 am Start school
- 11 am School done
So that’s a rough schedule for now, but it gives you an idea.
Yesterday we started at 8:30 on the dot and opened with prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. Then we did some review in math and counting. Nboy can count easily to 100 and beyond, so we don’t need to work on that. Ekid, who will be 4 in December, can count to 10 pretty easily too. He’s not officially doing school, but I let him sit in and learn too.
So Nboy also did some addition problems and I had to remind him how to count on his fingers when adding larger numbers like 8+6, but other than that, he did pretty well on his own. I also wrote the numbers 1-9 in the front of his math section in his binder and drew the dots on them so he can learn to just count that way(that’s what they did when I was in grade school and it made it so easy), and then eventually do it in his head. We’ll be starting addition, and subtraction of double digit numbers pretty soon too.
Next we did Art. I bought big pieces of poster board, 4 of them, to stable 2 together for Nboy and Ekid and make them into big pockets for their artwork that they do throughout the year. They both got to paint one piece of poster board yesterday and will finish them today and then we’ll stable 3 sides together and they’ll just slip in their artwork. This is an idea I learned in my art class my Freshman year in high school.
By the way, Baby was still sleeping at this point, which was sooooo nice because he didn’t wake up till about 9:30 when we were done with the painting.
Now I think I’m going to switch it up today and do reading and writing before art, because yesterday Nboy was pretty tired after art and started getting easily frustrated with the reading and didn’t really want to do it.
So we started reading/writing time off with going over the alphabet and then I used alphabet flashcards and held each one up for Nboy to say what letter it was, then for Ekid to say it(he just copied his brother) and then held the same one up for Nboy to say the sound, and then Ekid to do the same. For reading we are working through the McGuffy’s readers, starting with the Primer. We were already a little more than halfway through it before summer started, so we just jumped in where we left off. He’s doing really well and only needed my help a few times, and even then I would just give him hints and he figured it out on his own.
So after reading, we had exercise time and I put on some kids christian music and we jumped, hopped, skipped to the music and had a fun time while getting a bit of a workout(at least for me anyway!)
That’s what we did our first day of homeschooling first grade. I’m going to add Science and some History into our day somewhere as well, so stay tuned for more on our homeschooling journey!
Do you homeschool? What did you do for your first day back to “school”?
Why I can never get the dishes done…..
Ok, so my husband wonders why I can’t keep the house clean. Well, tonight was a perfect example of my plight to wash dishes. Here’s the rundown….
First off, I don’t have a dishwasher, so I have to wash dishes by hand, put them in the dish rack thingy and then if I have a whole sink full of dishes I have to dry the ones I put in the dish rack and put them away so I can wash more dishes.
So tonight was a perfect example of why it’s hard for me to get anything done with a 6 year old, 3 year old and 11 month old around all day. I get the boys to bed after brushing thier teeth, reading a book, singing a song, getting drinks, going potty and prayer time. The hubby is in our bedroom doing some song recording with a friend so I can’t put Baby to bed in there. Baby falls asleep while I’m nursing him in the boys room so I lay a blanket on the floor and put him down in there. He stays asleep. Then after praying and saying good night to the boys I go into the kitchen and start on dishes. Pretty soon I’m having to go back in and give Ekid a tums because his “tummy hurts” sure, whatever, it hurts every night lately. I don’t always give him tums because it’s usually that he wants a drink so he says his tummy hurts(don’t know what that has to do with needing a drink of water…). But tonight instead of another drink I gave him a tums and told him to “Go to sleep!”. Then I try washing some more dishes.
Baby wakes up crying.
I go into the room and Ekid(3.5) is on the top bunk bed saying that Nboy(6.5) touched Baby and woke him up. I ask if this was so and Nboy sheepishly nods his head. Nboy got in trouble…….
Now I’m really mad because now Baby is awake and won’t go back to sleep and I can’t put him in our bedroom because the guys are recording in there! So the dishes are put on hold until I can get Baby occupied with something. I finally did get the dishes done, but it was probably like 2 hours from the time I first started on them.
Ooops, actually I didn’t get them all done, but it was close…..(sorry, I was trying to romanticize this shot. How do you make dirty dishes in a sink look good?)
Is it pathetic that it’s after 1am and I’m taking pictures of my sink? And that I have edited this several times since I published it……. I think the blogging is getting to me….
This is pretty much my whole day. It almost feels useless to start something knowing that I’m just going to get interrupted shortly after. I know doing something is better than nothing though, so I must trudge on (:
Anyway, so, to my husband, that is why it’s so hard for me to get things done and keep the house clean!
And, we really need to get your recording studio out of our bedroom! (;
Oh, yes, and by the way if you’d like to hear some of my husbands songs, we just got them uploaded here: http://www.indiependencemusic.com/chris-hall You can listen, rate them, join his fan club and buy songs too! It’s pretty cool and we’re really excited about finally getting his music out there!