Back to School

I feel like I have been MIA.  We've just been a bit busy.  The kiddos all started school this week. With one in 8th grade, one in 5th grade and one in Kindergarten we are on the go, a lot. 

I ventured into the world of homeschooling this week.  G and I have been enjoying the flexibility and the ease of learning at home.  I've really had a ton of fun with it.  He is not a newbie to the school scene, he has been in pre school since he was 2.5 and loved it.  When registration time came around I thought about it a long time and my husband and I decided that homeschooling would be best for him this year for Kinder.  He already knows plenty of his sight words for Kinder so it's been great for him to show off to Mom. 

As a self proclaimed Pinterest addict, it has gotten even worse since the homeschool decision.  I have scoured page after page and board after board of amazing ideas.  Just this week, I used probably a few of my hoarded ideas each day. 

I will leave you now with our week in pictures....

Those would be Funfetti pancakes for the 1st Day

Loving his pancakes with sprinkles

Even 8th graders like sprinkles...

and fashionistas too!

T - 8th grade

R - 5th grade

G - Kindergarten

Writing in his daily journal

 We use the question of the day to inspire him to make a sentence and drawing for the daily journal. 

My take on the Number of the Day poster

My version of the Sight Word of the Day poster

Using Play-doh to spell out the letters and numbers for the Number of the Day/Sight Word of the Day

Sight Word BINGO

Using his cool "monster reader" to track his words

Mr. Cool reading his 1st Day of school book surprise

Our Homeschool Station....using vintage office goodies

Self Portrait time!  I traced his hands and feet and drew the body and face shape. He colored everything in and created his face and hair do.

All done!

This portrait idea came from a pin that I just glanced at knew immediately I wanted to try it out.  I never even clicked on the link until just now so I could give credit where it was due.  After I went to the website, I realized it was supposed to be a Falling in Space picture, the idea is from Oodles of Art.  Very cute idea.  We just free handed and traced and created our own kind of thing, and I like it.  We say it looks like he's looking through a glass floor.  

Studying Watercolors while making an awesome butterfly

New Paints!!

I realized as I uploaded these pictures, that someday I will look back at this picture and have a hard time remembering just how tiny those hands were.

Watercolor butterfly, all finished

 You can find this beautiful watercolor butterfly idea through The Artful Parent. I loved so many ideas there and will use more, I'm sure.  With this one, we checked out watercolor paintings online before he got started so he could see the softness of the paintings and the different ways to use the brush to make certain strokes.  This was such a calming activity and really helped his artistic side sprout. He will be using watercolors again soon.

Sight Word - 4 Ways

Our portrait with labeling for the 5 Senses study we did all week.

 I got the idea for this label happy 5 senses portrait from a post on Peace, Love, and Kindergarten.  Her blog is FULL of amazing ideas.  This was just one of many I found.  I look at the idea and use it as a framework for what we want to do. 
In our version, I cut out strips of yellow "hair", a few blue "eyes", a couple of different noses, and a few mouths.  The bow tie was a must for G.  He picked out what he liked best to make his 5 senses self portrait.  A bit like Mr. Potato Head. I cut out the face shape as well, freehand, and he glued the green paper on to make it stand out.

My little man coloring super hard, trying to get the job done. After coloring these bad boys he cut them out by himself.

We had so much fun really exploring and trying out new things.  He loved the 5 Senses I introduced on Monday so I decided to make my own week long unit.  We will finish it up on Tuesday by doing a Magazine Scavenger Hunt to find things to do with our 5 senses and gluing them in the appropriate column.  His favorite activity of the week was probably the taste test we conducted where he had to pinch his nose and taste 4 different liquids.  He has since performed this "experiment" on his dad, sister and grandfather. 

It was a successful first week, everyone came home from school happy and we are trying to get back in the groove of things. 

Happy Back to School, y'all!

What makes me smile....

According to Mama's Losin' It's writing prompt this week I need to talk about what makes me smile....other than the obvious...which is my husband and kids. I am completely aware that a writing prompt is encouraging writing but I am very visual. What better to make you smile than videos?  If you aren't visual like me, click "play" and close your eyes.



Here's a few that never fail:


Sh*t Girls Say-if you have not heard of these YouTube videos than get out from under your rock and go listen.....HILARIOUS.

any episode of Friends. 

Bill Cosby:Himself

What makes you smile?? 

Life in pictures....

Always on the go. Always making dinner. Always surrounded by crazies. 

Here's a few pics I cleared off my battered and beaten Blackberry this week and last week.

This amazing bacon frying was used to cover a pork loin that even my "vegan" 5 year old ate.

T sleeping on his way to soccer practice....

G....so happy.  He's found his place in the world, people. And it's wearing a suit. I wonder if someday he will own a yacht. And if he'll allow me aboard.

My sleepy head teenager.

G as Wolverine. Sometimes, even Wolverine likes to play the DS.

R isn't in the pictures this week....probably because she has become obsessed with her American Girl dolls again and stays in her room 24/7 playing dolls.  Which also means, I have lost my personal stylist.

Back to School.....

I mentioned on Facebook earlier how my teenage son has been whining about wanting another pair of Jordan's for his back to school shoes. 

I can not express how much I loathe these shoes. 

#1: because they are usually around $200....and that's just ridiculous.
#2: because they are big and clunky
#3: because they make his feet look humongous while the rest of his body is a normal boy size.


So, after I told him how much I hated these shoes while he scanned page after page on the iPad pointing out the shoes he just "has to have", I got to thinking about the clothes and the shoes that I just longed to have. 

My parents probably thought they were all really ugly.  I know they hated a certain pair of black, clunky shoes I wore almost everyday in junior high because they told me that they looked like Frankenstein's shoes.  I loved them.  Like, loved them so much I wore them with everything.  While searching for 90's shoes...which are now called 'vintage' by the way....I came across these shoes that looked exactly like the ones I loved so much.  Guess what!  They are in the FoundedShop Etsy shop.  For sale. Believe it or not.

Seriously.

Then I remembered a pair of shoes I tried to get rid of years ago but R begged me not to.  She has had them in her closet all this time.  Now, these are bad. Super super platforms. With buckles. And I wore them constantly in high school....usually with short dresses, short skirts or short shorts. Sheesh, I'm locking R up when she hits 13 and we will suddenly claim that all good Christian girls have to wear Dickies coveralls.

It's no wonder I had decent legs back then. These suckers were heavy.  Of course, I never would have admitted it then.  I thought they made me look thinner. Yes, the time when I was the skinniest I have ever been...I wore platform shoes to make me feel even skinnier. I rarely took off my shorts at the beach either...
Note to younger self: your thighs get bigger. Sport your bikini now.

In honor of my strange, younger self and all of you peeps that I'm sure have pictures that seem similar to these...here are more adventures in weird clothes.

This was a phase that was a huge in south east Texas in the 90's...okay, at my junior high it was popular.  Wearing Looney Tunes (or any other cartoon character) sweat shirts and pants....and to top it all off.....wear the corresponding cartoon character on BOXER SHORTS, on the OUTSIDE of your sweat pants. Listen, people, I didn't make the trends, I just followed them.

My flannel phase.  This lasted through junior high and honestly it never really went away. I love plaid. I love flannel. But, I don't think I roll my eyes as much as I did back then. Oh, the joys.

The floral dress phase. Denim on top, flowers on the bottom. Oh yeah. H.O.T.

The peroxide blonde phase. Always nice.

My New Kids phase.  I thought Joe and I were destined to be together. It wasn't meant to be.

This is the over sized sweatshirt phase....don't forget about the hand painted domino action happening all over the front. 

oh, and the dye-my-hair-every-week phase.

After strolling through memory lane and laughing out loud at some of the things I chose to wear, I wonder how my parents felt about it all.  I know they didn't like it all.  And some of those atrocious choices were expensive.  I still remember getting my first pair pf Dr. Martens. And that was a BIG deal. 

I know, as a parent, I can't just give T everything he wants.  The hard part is when it comes to this age where you remember what that was like. You know how you HAD to have a certain pair of jeans.  And of course, they were more expensive than other pairs because that's why they're so trendy. 

The irony in this all is pretty entertaining, I'm sure, for my parents. 

Now, will the boy get a pair of Jordan's again this year?  Probably.  But I'm guessing he'll probably have to wait until Christmas.

Hope you guys enjoyed the laughs.  If you are inspired to laugh at your younger self in a post, let me know!  I would love to see.

So, I like to read....

.....a lot.

If I don't have a book going, everything seems a bit off. 

I like to read pretty much anything. 

My favorite thing to experience while reading.....

when I'm reading a book from a new author, by new...one that is new to me...and I find myself inside the story so much that I can't it down. 

I had three magazines come in the mail this week.  Usually, if I take T to soccer practice or if I'm sitting at the dining table having lunch, I would pick up a magazine to have a little read while not being fully committed.

No such luck when I bought the book Slammed by author Collen Hoover.  This is her debut novel.  I always love reading debut novels.  It's like a peek into someone's writing soul. 

Debut novels can obviously be hit and miss.  And it's all a matter of taste. Lately, it's been easier to find books I didn't really dig more than books I can't put down. 

This is a hit. 

Slammed is novel wrapped in poetry and lyrics. 

Seriously.

She did a great job if introducing these characters in a way that wasn't overly descriptive but you still "got" them.  You love them.

Slammed is a story of two people who click. Immediately.  Their circumstances don't make things easy and there are choices to be made.

The tragedy and the forbidden drives you to keep reading....even when you really need to get some laundry done or maybe cook dinner for your starving family.

The poetry and song lyrics are intertwined in the story where it feels like it was just meant to be there. 

I had never even heard of the Avett Brothers but I totally looked them up after reading the first set of lyrics used in the book. 

The complicated part of Lake and Will's relationship is part of what keeps you hooked.  Not just because of the complications and you want to see what happens....but because as a parent I'm reading it and pulling for it and then have conflicting thoughts on why I'm pulling for it. 

In my opinion, any book that has you questioning your own morals, values and points of view....is a keeper.

The depth of her characters were wonderful and not so deep that you felt you were just reading fluff. 

Read Slammed. 

While you're at it, you might as well just buy Point of Retreat because you will undoubtedly finish in record time and want to immediately read the 2nd part of the series.

Check out Colleen Hoover's  site...she's a pretty cool chick and she's from Texas which automatically ups the cool quotient.  We happen to be great people, Texans.

While you're checking out cool people....go to the Avett Brothers site....look up all of their songs, all of their lyrics....and just be amazed. By the way....they are pretty darn cute (and have beards!) so be prepared to be listening to them for awhile. Tell everyone to leave you alone....just blame it on research.

If you read Slammed or Point of Retreat, let me know.  I would love to hear your thoughts on it.  I don't have a cool book club to attend so we can just have our own.