First Week Of School

 We had a very successful week of school!! It does depend on what you define as a successful homeschool day, but the way I define it, it went great. We didn't finish everything, and did much less on the last 2 days of the week. However, we stuck to it. We did the basics everyday. We had fun together and enjoyed learning new things. Pretty much everything we did worked well. We did have a hard time with the blocco puzzles, we'll have to keep working at those. But we loved Camelot Jr.

Getting Ready for School - Part 3

Today, I'm showing you how I plan on organizing my school journey. I would love to have a cool notebook full of sheets, calendars, to do lists, etc.. But I can never get that far, so I only have a few things to show you. I started out figuring out how much I need to do each subject and making a check off list for that. Here it is. Next I've made a schedule, this is a very rough draft. I'm not going to stick to a strict schedule, this will just give me direction. Some things don't need to be done everyday, such as the Animal Study or the Five in a Row, but I'll leave the option there, so that it does get done somedays :)

Next, I've taken five folders and marked them Monday through Friday. These folders will hold the worksheets that we'll be doing for the day. It will include Math, Writing, sometimes Spanish, and any other sheets needed for the day.  I also have three for anthony, I'll be putting color & shape worksheets in there along with coloring pages or any others worksheets I have for him.

I will then have the following weeks worksheets in these file folders. At the beginning of the week I'll have everything set, so I can pull out a folder and know what we are doing for the day.

I also have folders for each subject, so if I find a worksheet or something interesting in that subject, I can place it in the folder.

Here are our school boxes, and Alissa excited to start school  

And a few more things that arrived, the science kit looks way cute, I'll be buying another one of these for Anthony.

Getting Ready for School - Part 2

Bible - Bible is what I'm most excited about. We will be reading through this whole bible this year. We have to read 3 stories a week. I'll be making flash cards from one verse I picked to memorize for the entire week from the chapters we're covering. I'm hoping that when we start our day with this, Alissa will soar. We've been working on pray together as a family and she really enjoys that.

Math - I'm using the Math K5 book, we are doing 1 lesson a day. I chose this book, mainly because it is really cute, it has colorful pictures. We are not going to use any of the manipulative's or the teacher's guide, because I want to keep math simple. All of the concepts are easy enough that I can explain them to her or show her them in my own way.

Writing - I'm mainly using Spectrum Early Years, Learning Letters. We will be using this book on Mondays. I'll introduce the letter and then we will use other random books I have to reinforce the letter through out the week. This will take us 26 weeks, and then we'll work on forming words.

Reading - I'm using Teach Your child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I have a fondness for this book, because it's what I used to learn to read. Alissa seems to enjoy it also, it works for us and we're sticking to it. I'm also suplementing that with the Reading Eggs.com program. This is a very cute website that teaches kids to read. She really enjoys playing the games. We'll do 3 lessons of the 100 easy lesson book and 2 lessons from ReadingEggs.com a week.

Language Arts - We'll be doing 1 lesson from Language Lessons for Little ones a day and 4 stories a week from What your preschooler needs to know. I think she will love the preschooler needs to know book. She loves any stories or songs.

Science - We'll be doing a unit study on animals, leveraging this book. This is a very cute book, they have multiple topics you can choose from, but I chose animals. We'll do projects and read books about animals 3-5 days a week, just depends on how well it goes.

Five in a Row - We'll be using this just to add some fun to our schooling. We're doing a co-op with our homeschool group, so we will be doing 1 book every 2 weeks. We'll read the book every day and then discuss one topic from the book and then once a week we'll have a day to do projects based on the book, including science projects or craft projects, etc..

Foreign Language - We'll be using this book for spanish, Alissa is thrilled to learn spanish. We'll take a two years to get through this book. It looks a lot like a preschool book, but teaches the spanish words for colors, shapes, letters, etc. We'll also be watching Signing Time to learn some sign language.


Next I'll show you how I'm organizing everything and a schedule of how we're going to get through all this in a week. 

Getting Ready for School - Part 1

Look what arrived in the mail!!! It's time to prep for school, I've received boxes of stuff that I found on timberdoodle.com. I'm so excited to share with you what I'll be doing with Alissa this school year. 

 Here it all is out of the box, doesn't that look soo fun!

These are for Anthony. I'll be using them to keep him busy. We've already opened the lace-a-shape and Fanta Color Junior, and they work great. The kids both love them and Anthony especially loves the Fanta Color Junior. He completes the puzzles perfectly. 

The Colorback Sea-Turtle and PeekaBoo Animals puzzles are also to keep Anthony busy. The Camelot Jr. is for Alissa. You're given pictures and blocks, you have to build what you see in the picture. I'm looking forward to doing this one with her.

These are for Alissa. We have Bloco, these are like foam puzzles, Colorful Caterpillars, this is a game where you roll a dice and then lace a caterpillar. We'll be using the abc cookies to leverage our reading and writing. Crocodile Hop is an active game for the kids to play together.

Here we have Starter Spanish, for Alissa. She's super excited to learn spanish. What your preschooler needs to know is a book of stories, songs, rhymes, and some science and history too. Both of the kids will enjoy this along with the Wii Fit for kids.

Next, I'll show you the actual curriculum we'll be doing this year. This stuff is mostly just to supplement and help keep their hands and minds busy. 

I want to be like you :)

I'm feeling soo blessed with friendships lately! I've had many different seasons of loneliness and insecurities and that makes me so grateful to have so many opportunities in front of me. I'm so thankful for the ladies that have reached out to me and given me an opportunity to be their friends and given me time to open up with them. I know I'm not the most talkative or exciting person to be around, though I would love to be. To be honest, my goal is to be like Tess Benson, super sweet, inviting, accepting, inclusive, and fun to be around. I'm just learning that I need to be confident in who God made me and not worry so much about what other people think of me. As long as I am who God wants me to be, that is who I want to be. I know God is giving me these opportunities to be around His people and build relationships, now I need to be willing to open up. To grab hold of these opportunities and jump in head first :)  In order to do this, I need to give each social engagement over to the Lord. To ask for His strength and confidence in each situation. So, I'd like to say thank you to Julee, Kate, Nicole, Tess, Michelle, for inviting me into your circle of friends and for just being super sweet and loving to me :) I love all of you!!

Tiered skirt & Top

I made this skirt and top a year or two ago. They were super easy to make, I made the cupcake myself. Unfortunately the shirt was too small, but the skirt works great and she still wears it. I think I have a pic of her wearing it too, I'll show you that soon. I also have the links to the tutorials if anybody wants them.

No more Disarray!!

I've been working hard at creating a schedule, cleaning every day and trying to keep up with household tasks. I'm trying to teach Alissa and Anthony to do some of these things with me. I'm trying to focus on creating little systems and routines that will make us live cleaner. I'm hoping to share these with you as I create them. The latest one was placing little hooks all over the house to hang up various things. One in my kitchen to hang up my apron, one in the bedroom for my husbands hats, two in the kids room, one for Anthony's hats and one for Alissa's bathing suit, goggles, and towel. She has just started a swim class that she will be attending 3 times a week. I have a chore list now, so when I go to do my cleaning, I know where to start, however I haven't gotten through the whole list yet, I'm not sure why not, maybe it's too long or I'm doing too much. I don't really know what the problem is. This is the problem I'm trying to solve. I think it will help when I get on a better schedule, but I feel like I spend a lot of time helping Alissa find things to do. I'm hoping that as I get her more involved in my chores, that she will get easier. Any tips you have for running a household would be much appreciated.

Embracing Joy

As I sit here, each child sleeping, my prayer is for life, that I would learn to live it to the fullest. To embrace every moment, to be a parent that watches the little ones sleeping, in amazement at what God has made. I want to be a mother that always stops to cherish and hold my little ones. I want to be a mother that disciplines in the way that I should so that I can enable my children to be who God wants them to be. I don't want my mistakes to live on through them.

I scurry about, trying to do the things that make a household run, but just end up fumbling everything. The house is often messy, laundry is often dirty, dishes are often piled up, and the kids run wild. I'm learning to balance all these things, but there's always something to get in the way. I finally get things running smoothly and we all get sick or go to see family or have babies :). And then I start back at square one. But the days that I start right, on my knees before the Lord. I find victory. The house still isn't perfect, but improving, the kids still run wild, but feel loved. This is what I want. For God to be able to look down on my household and say, "It is good". That I'm focused on the things that matter.

14 Days of Love - Day 5 - Honeymoon

Honeymoon... We had the best honeymoon ever! Our honeymoon was 2 weeks long, we first spent a week in snowbird, ut, in a timeshare provided by his parents. We got to hang out in the mountains, relax in our room, play shuffleboard. We made breakfast together, and ate at a nice restaurant. It was just what we needed to recover from our wedding. We then went home, opened our gifts from our wedding and then went on a cruise in the Caribbean. We visited st. Lucia, st martin, st. thomas, barbados, & somewhere else :). The beaches were beautiful, the water was crystal clear, sand was soft and white. The weather was perfect, the dinners on the ship were delicious. I had bought new dresses, and received some as gifts from my wedding party, to wear on my honeymoon, so I got to dress up in those. It was the best. I couldn't have asked for anything more. 


Things I love about him: He's handsome (have I said that yet :) ) , adventurous, fun, & loves to make me happy :)

14 Days of Love - Day 4 - The Perfect Wedding

The Perfect Wedding... Eric was the perfect groom. He didn't have many opinions about our wedding and let me have full reign on most things, but when I needed a decision made, he would make it for me. Preparing for my wedding was so much fun, my family and best friends were soo excited and made the event wonderful. The morning of my wedding, I was soo excited, I couldn't contain myself. I didn't get much sleep the night before, but it didn't slow me down. I went and got my hair done, it looked beautiful, I had told Eric that I was going to have it all up, which he didn't really like, but surprised him by having it only half up, with curls down my back. I had a tiara with a veil in the back, and the most beautiful wedding dress, that fit me just right. I did my own make up, so that it would look light and natural, I didn't want to look like someone else on my wedding day. I felt absolutely beautiful. Our wedding colors were silver and bubble gum pink, I had white & pink daisies everywhere. Everything was perfect, especially the handsome groom :)  


Things I love about him: He's handsome & easy going

14 Days of Love - Day 3 - Engagement

I'm sorry for the delay, life has gotten the best of me :( But I am turning it around now :)

Engagement... Eric's proposal, was a bit of a surprise, it wasn't a total shock, I was suspecting it, but I've always been a dreamer, so I figured I was wrong. It was Christmas morning, Eric wasn't able to go to utah for Christmas, because he was working at Costco and couldn't get time off. He was lucky that he had Christmas off. He came to our house on christmas morning, bearing gifts, which he placed under the tree. We waited for my sister and her family to come over and then began opening gifts. At one point, I was handed a gift, I opened it to find a brown box, inside the box in packing paper was a rock that was being held together with a rubber band, I took the rubber band off and out came a plastic green ring. Eric took the ring, got down on his knee and asked me to marry him, my family was standing by in shock. I said YES!! He gave me a kiss and I sat back stunned. I was so excited to be getting married!! The next few months were fun, but painfully long. Eric was super excited and soo much fun to be around during this time. The fact that he was committed to me changed his view of our relationship and it was a welcomed change. 


Things I love about him: He's Family oriented, He likes to make me happy

14 Days of Love - Day 2 - Dating

Dating... Some of my favorite dating memories are sitting in the quad at fullerton college, just hanging out in between classes. In the very beginning, I would find a spot in the library that I knew Eric would pass , just so that I could spend a few minutes with him. Sometimes I wouldn't even need to be at school anymore, but I would hang around just to see him. As we started to spend more time together, we would often hang out with nothing to do in between classes just basking in the warmth of the sun, talking about silly things that often weren't interesting to me, but I would pretend to be interested and just enjoy hearing him talk. We had a lot of special places at the school where we would hang out together or we would go for a walk and eat lunch at the taco bell nearby. I don't think he realized at the time, that he was winning my heart over, by taking me to my favorite fast food restaurant. One of my favorite times was when Eric was on the water polo team at fullerton college, I attended every game. I was so proud of his strength and agression in the game. It was just so much fun sitting in the bleachers and watching him play. I also enjoyed working in youth ministry together, the youth didn't know we were dating, but it was fun to see the way he worked with the youth and cared so much about them. It was during this time that I learned how much people are drawn to Eric. How comfortable they are around him and how he can always make an awkward or stressful room of people burst out laughing. He may not be a class clown, but he's great for a good laugh when it's most needed.

Things I love about him: He's laid back, dedicated to what he does, he's manly, friendly, & funny

14 Days of Love - Day 1 - When we first met

Inspired by my friend, Nicole Milkie over at Olive Blue, I've decided to do a series called, 14 days of love, dedicated to my husband. I plan on sharing the reasons why I love my husband, along with little tidbits of our life together. 

When We First Met... I didn't like Eric, it wasn't love at first sight. I told my friends they should stay away :) I soon found out that I was wrong, one of many times Eric would make me realize this. My mother's first impression was that he was a very nice boy, and she really liked him, the same impression my best friend had. I just wasn't interested. We saw each other regularly at a friends house where we would hang out around each other, but not with each other. The first time I talked to him was on my brother's birthday, we along with other friends got dressed up, prom style, and went out for birthdays (our 1st official night on the town). Over the months, I got used to seeing him around, and when he left to visit his family for the holidays, I noticed his absence. I missed the company at the game nights, and began to wonder why. When he came back, I talked to him briefly, and was happy to see him. This was the beginning of our love. 

Things I love about him: He's great company

The Seven Year Itch

Marriage, it has been on my heart for a while now. For years I've been longing for love, wondering why I feel so needy and unsure, always questioning him, telling him it's not enough. I've even laid it out for him, just bring me flowers, maybe that will help. Four years later, still no flowers. He's told me this is just who he is, and I scold myself, why would you want to change him. But still, something is missing, I just can't put my finger on what it is or what I need. Six years into my marriage I give up, I tell the Lord, maybe it's you I'm looking for, I'm expecting my husband to be perfect, to be something he's not. When all I need is to accept God's love.

This is when he springs it on me, "I should've been loving you more" I can hear the pain in his voice, regret for the years wasted. In statement, it's good, but as I dig deeper, all I can feel is pain. This is what I get for surrendering to God, the past dug up and poured out in front of me, the one that I've been running from. It's one thing to suspect it, it's another to hear that it's true. All I can feel is the knife in my chest, twisting with each word. He says it's the spark that's missing, and I wonder if I've ever had a spark for him. As I go back to those days of falling in love, I can feel it all over again, The butterfly's in my stomach, the confidence from God, and the pain of the unrequited love. I know I had a spark, he was all I wanted. I was so sure that God was leading me toward him, that God would teach him to love me too. I knew as I was going into it, that I liked him more. I remember each step he took. It's as if our relationship was a cold pool, I jumped right in, knowing it would be cold, but there is some excitement and exhilaration in jumping in, and later it would feel refreshing and fun, but he's been walking in slowly afraid of the cold, agonizing over every step. I saw the battle going on in his head as he pondered over each decision. He now tells me that most people are able to look back and remember when they were head over heals in love, but we never had that, he pauses and I can hear every breath, my heart's beating through my chest and I wonder if he knows that I was head over heals, he continues, or maybe it was just me. It's then I remember telling all my friends about our relationship, how excited I was, how I would go home and think about him. I remember our first kiss, and staying up and talking with my mom for hours afterwords, so full of excitement and hope. I also remember him never missing me, never hating to leave, or wanting to stay. I feel as though everything he's done, he's done out of obligation. Was our relationship even real? or did I imagine it all, I remember our wedding and our honeymoon, surely he loved me then, surely there was a spark. What does that even mean?

As the days go by, I know, I can't keep thinking about this, I have to live in the now. I realize now, how much I love my husband and how I've been holding back, so that I'm not hurt and disappointed by him. I know my husband loves me. I know God is doing a mighty work. I trust Him, He's always been good to me. "Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength" Neh 8:10 I need that Joy, thirst for it. Although it feels like I've been betrayed by my God and my husband, like the years have been wasted, I know I had a part in this. I walked away, I didn't stay close to the Lord, I didn't pray for my husband, I didn't love him like I should. I thank God that we have Him, knowing if we didn't, this could end in adultery or divorce, He saved us and is only trying to bless us. I don't want to walk down this road, but if the end result is a husband that loves me with his whole heart, one that is head over heals in love with me. I will do it. I want nothing more than to love and be loved. I know he is the one for me and I know God is working. This is a new beginning...