Sewing fever

I'm *really, really* wanting to sew. I really want to sew some aprons. They are quick, cute and don't take a lot of fabric. I've been looking at apron blogs and flickr groups for 3 days! I have about 3-4 apron patterns somewhere... I found one while cleaning Olivia room! YEAH, it is the one I really wanted to make. Saturday I ordered A is for Apron. I'm looking forward to getting it soon.

Here are some others I like. Simplicity 4282 view C,
Butterick See and Sew 5274 View A, Butterick Waverly 5263 View A, C. I really like the big pockets and full coverage of this vintage pattern. This one is a lot like it too.

I adore the looks of the aprons at Stitch Through Time, but I refuse to pay that much money! So I scouring the web looking for patterns that look similar. I think I've gotten close with most of them

Do you think that this Amish Canning Apron, looks like "Grandma's Apron" and/or "Violet's Apron"?

*************update**************
I found 2 more patterns I knew I had.
Kwik Sew 3396
And "Winnie"
I also found a free apron pattern pdf.

Now I'm on the hunt for fabric.

Olivia's Room

Olivia has wanted to rearrange her room ever since she moved in. Today's the day! So far we have the bed, nightstand & dresser moved, cleaned under the bed & hung up clothes in the closet rather than the floor.

Pictures coming soon.

We had a great Christmas!

Pictures to come soon!

Well now I can't find the pictures on the computer and Olivia isn't here to help me.gggrrr

Product Reviews

Check out my product reviews. HERE

Making it easier

Tonight is the Faithgirls Christmas party. One of the activities the girls will be doing is decorating cookies. I really didn't feel like making "homemade from scratch" cookies so I just got Betty Crocker Gingerbread cookie mix and a Sugar cookie mix. You know what, it made the whole process a lot easier, and kept the stress level down. Emilie, Olivia and Bella appreciated that!

I don't think the girls will have any less fun decorating and eating these "almost homemade" cookies.

For more Christmas ideas and recipes check out the Online Christmas Party.

It's Started!

The Online Christmas Party is a blog meme hosted by Melissa Telling of Lilliput Station Adventures. It is a way for homeschool bloggers all over the world to celebrate the Saviour's birth by sharing some Christmas spirit with our online friends. It is a place to gather new ideas, new recipes, and maybe a few new traditions. It is our way of making the season a little brighter for those we have never met, but still feel as if we know. This year's party runs from December 6th through December 19th.

Christmas School

Christmas School begins today!

We stop our regular curriculum during December and do a special Christmas study.

Check out these 3 Different Christmas unit studies. This year we are doing "Good Christian Men Rejoice" and reading The Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry. I've not found any cool thingy to go with it, but will just be doing some worksheets I found online.

I've done Jesse Trees several times, the graphic with The Glorious Coming are so neat. This Jesse Tree devotional is free with "ornaments" for children to color. There are a lot of other free devotions and ornaments online.


Last year we did an Inductive Advent study.
The "sisters" read a Christmas Carol and did A Reading Record with it.
I *loved* the set up of the Reading Record. Isabella did this Christmas Lapbook last year, by Lilliput Station.

I'm a sucker for Christmas unit studies. I've got other Christmas studies this past weekend. One was A Christmas Adventure. I also bought Symbols of Christmas Lapbook, a couple years ago.
I have the Advent Calendar Lapbook but haven't used it yet. I've never met a Lilliput Station product that I've not liked.

Christmas just doesn't come around enough for me to use everything. I probably need to stop collecting Christmas studies now.

For more Christmas ideas to share with your family visit the On Line Christmas Party!

Menu

Turkey Roll Ups-chopped turkey, diced celery, onion, shredded cheese, dried cranberries, miracle whip-roll up in crescent roll dough, bake.
Beef Stew
Chicken soup-going to make this one up-I'm thinking white beans, chicken broth, diced chicken, green chilies, green enchilada sauce, onion, celery
Hamburgers
spaghetti
pizza
Jerk Chicken nachos

Happy Thanksgiving

Praise God from whom all blessing flow,
Praise Him creatures here below,
Praise Him above ye, heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Menu

oven chicken
eggs and bacon
pizza
Thanksgiving feast-Turkey, which I brined in a mixture of kosher salt, crushed red pepper, black pepper, sage, sugar, and garlic.
Sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas, corn, asapargus, rolls, cranberry/sausage stuffing, pumpkin pie, apple pie, eggnog, and citrus punch.
Leftovers

Menu and More

2nd grade Lesson plans for this week.
2nd grade Reading list for the year-this reading list has a great age and interest range, can be used from K-3. Reading the books aloud for the K-1 or the older students 2-3gr can read selected books themselves, while others are still read alouds. The Usborne's IL Children's First Encyclopedia includes experiments and websites for diagrams, worksheets, online games and puzzles.

Menu
coconut chicken
chicken and dumplings
taco soup
spaghetti
pizza

~Vet Day Parade~
Here we come!


Here we are! Bella is on this 4H Clover Kids float.


Emilie and Olivia on on this TEACH float. Emilie is on the other side so you can't see her. Lindy is in the cab.


The rest of the TEACH float. We won 1st place for a non-profit group.




~My birthday pie~

A Psalm by Olivia

Menu and More

Mac and Cheese

Buffalo Chicken Nachos

Hamburger Potato pie

Chicken Fajhtias

Pizza

Week 10 Lesson plan Some may be wondering why I'm only doing 1 and 2 weeks at a time. I'm doing this so I can have flexability in our schedule, exspecially in math. Also I tend to add books at the last minute. I suppose once I've completed the whole year I can go back and make it one file.

Things Change

The first item to change is my age, today is my birthday. No big plans for today, except very minimal school for Emilie and Olivia. Bella's lessons don’t take long and I will be able to really focus on her today. My mother and gramma are coming up from Austin, not for my birthday, that is just a nice coincidence.

Tomorrow the girls are in the Veteran's Day parade, on 2 different floats. We will be going out to eat lunch with mom and gramma and the girls.

The trees are starting to change and the smell of fall is in the air. I love autumn, it is my favorite season. The girls have been spending more time outside this week, which is nice since we had nearly nonstop rain for 2 weeks. We did school outside yesterday.

Emilie and Olivia went to the Powerhouse Wednesday with a friend. They all loved it. Live youth band, lots of friendly nice kids. The girls didn’t feel excluded, but excepted. The knots of kids, enlarged, (they stepped back to make room for others) not turning their backs to keep others out. They enjoyed the lesson, Emilie really likes to have a good lesson. I’m thinking about letting them go once a month. I don’t feel it is right to abandon our church, but I do want them to have spiritual growth, feel a part of a group, witness other youth living for God, & witness youth’s authentic worship.

Bella told me this week, that this year in school is “really good, better than last year.” So I must be doing something right! When I asked her what she likes best, she listed everything except math, and she isn’t to fond of Language Arts.

After 8 weeks of LLATL with the “sisters”, we dropped it. None of us liked it, very little grammar work, not much creative writing. So I started back the Language Arts in our unit study- Learning Adventures. I know it was a “God Thing” that we started it back when we did, because when I opened it up, it was the beginning a whole new unit on newspaper writing. That coordinates with their literature section- reading a biography on Ben Franklin. The Fine Arts lessons are about cartooning. Both the girls love to draw and both are really good at manga, so that has been enjoyable for them.

This week we started reading the New Testament on a 90 day plan. Not sure if we will finish in 90 days but we are working on this. Emilie has read a lot of the NT herself, but not front to back all the way through. I’m excitied about this.

Weekly Menu & activities

grilled chicken sandwiches

chili or soup- something with hamburger

super baked potatoes, salad, leftovers

chicken spaghetti

pizza

Wednesday-AWANA

Thursday-TEACH (homeschool support group)

Friday-My birthday

Saturday- girls in Vet. Day parade.

2nd grade lesson plans

Bella's week 8 ( this week, 10/26-10/30) and week 9 (next week, 11/2-11/6).

The big girls won't have school on Novemeber 6, it's a holiday for us. Mom's birthday!

School Week

Click to see Bella's Lesson plans for the past week. And here are our plans for this week (10/19-10/23)

~Sisters~

10/12-10/16

Bible-AWANA, Missionaries

Literature-Calico Captive

Grammar-LLATL-dictation, creative writing

Math

History-New Jersey, N & S Carolina, Pirates, The Story of the Thirteen Colonies ch. 44, This Country of Ours Ch 38, timeline

Science-Test unit 2, Start unit 3, 4 experiments

Home Economics-Apple Crisp

I'm seriously thinking about adding MuGuffey readers.

Menu

~Menu ~

Beef Stew

Poppy Seed Chicken

Grilled Chicken

Tacos

Spaghetti

Pizza

What is Faithgirls?

Here are our Faithgirls lessons for the next couple months.

So what is Faithgirls?

I've been doing "Keepers" with my girls and off & on with other families for about 7+ years. I introduced our pastor's wife to Keepers of the Faith, last summer when they first moved here.
After spending a couple hours in my home looking at the vast curriculum choices available to homeschools, she ditched Abeka and pretty much ordered the whole Keepers catalog (along with Doorposts materials)! LOL.

Anyway, she loves the KAH concept and introduced it to the Ladies Ministry at church, asking if they would support it to train the girls in ministries. They agreed and I'm the director.

We meet just twice a month. We do AWANA on Wednesdays, and since most of the the girls go to PS I figured we'd get low attendance and/or uncompleted projects if we met to often. I also wanted them to do projects and "homework" at home between meetings. Part of their homework is baking for a ministry weather for their own family or different ministries at church.

I call the club, "Faith Girls" first because our church is Faith Baptist Church.

Right now we are learning to Bake. My girls have been baking for years, but all the girls voted for Baking. For the Bible/Spiritual lesson we are doing the Missionary lapbook from Hands of a Child.

After we finish with the lapbook, we will use the Polished Cornerstones from Doorposts for character/Bible lessons. I coordinated the character trait/chapters of the PC book with the KOF badges. I'll see if I can get that in a pdf soon.