Garage Sale Finds

$2 endtable that needs a little love.

Shurley Grammar 5 to sell. i got the whole set for $1.00.
Cute shirt.
Colorful pots.
Curtain rings. These are expensive for some reason and I got this whole bag full for 2.50. I really like these. they make opening and shutting curtains so easy.

now i am off for a hot date with the Hubby. it has been over a year since we went on a date!

I Love Books

Design Sponge highlighted these awesome cloth bound editions of classics in their post here. They have such great designs on their covers. I really love them. So pretty. I'd want the Jane Austen editions especially. I wonder if you can buy them separately. Books are practically wallpaper at our house and they are still one of my favorite things to buy or get as a present.

I found this wild Jasmine growing in my yard. I think I am going to let it grow up my porch. You never now what you'll find if you don't mow your lawn for 3 weeks instead of 1.

Rub a dub dub, 3 goofy kids in a tub. I think they are outgrowing the sandbox.

So I got this shirt at the thrift store and I love the print but the sleeves looked goofy. So I am going to try altering them ( I already cut them off). I also got these blue shoes. I like them too but I am having a hard time figuring out what to wear with them.

Pizza and Limeade

I am about to eat homemade pizza (and I make a mean homemade pizza) and fresh squeezed limeade. Then off to the library with the kids to get a last book of a series I am reading and books for the kids. That sounds like a wonderful end to an day to me. It looks like it is going to rain too just to make it a bit cozier.

Goodbye, Tomatoes

I had to pull up my tomato plants today. Sniff sniff. No more yummy fresh tomatoes out of the garden. sniff, sniff. Stupid squash bugs got them again this year. Their usual demise.

It has been so hot and dry I think the only two things I am going to get out of my fall garden are collard greens and radishes. Not my favorites. Good, but not my favorites. I'll probably plant more in September.

Co op

Ok, so I missed a day. Sue me.

Yesterday was the first day of Co -op for the kids. Everyone at our church homeschools so we decided to start a co op once a week for the kids to do some fun classes together. They have art, latin and science. The kids, Joffre and Renata, had a great time being in "school" with all their friends.I was happy to let another painter at our church do the art teaching. They made coil pots out of playdoh and learned how to say hello and goodye in latin.

I'm excited with the things we can do with the co op. Like I hope we can have a sewing class and teaching the kids some dances for our yearly ball, etc.. Fun times ahead.

Renata was so cute. She went home and made a picture for one of her teachers, Mrs. Costner. (Karla, if you read this pretend some surprise.) I remember loving my teachers and wanting them to like me. I was such a goody goody. Ah...the memories.

Prayers of the Saints

So today during prayer time Joffre prayed for one his friends to have "a wife as great as Mom". YES! I am so cool. Renata prayed for her friend to have lots of babies and her babies to have lots of babies and for her to be obedient to her parents and her babies to be obedient to their parents and you get the idea... I am worried I am going to have to pull the plug on the 3rd generation prayers.

The Birthday Tea

The birthday tea party was a big success .The Lady of the Hour, Renata, dressed in her Medieval lady garb.

The guests came in their finest. Here is Renata's friend Julia and Bayleigh is in the back.
Tea and cake was had by all.And the only gentlemen invited to the party looked very distinguished and behaved with all propriety.

Except one was a late arrival because he fell asleep.

Cookin' kids and Library bags

I have been a sewing fool lately. I sewed up library bags for each of the kids ( hopefully I won't have to haul everyone's books now. We are library book hogs.) I also am trying to finish a really cute purse for Renata for her birthday...yea...like her birthday today. I'm almost done. We made her cake today and I got lots of "help" as you can see. We hung our banners and cleaned and washed the tea set. Now we wait.

Crazy Grandma's House

Renata learned to make a strip map today of her house to Grandpa and Grandma Floyd's house. So she is drawing and she says to me ," Grandpa George and Grandma Charla's house is a little crazy." You go that right! Hee Hee. (No worries, Mom she meant her drawing.) Between our house and the Grandparents' she put palm trees, lakes and Aunt Jen and Uncle Tone's house (that is how she phonetically spelled Tony. Cute. So cute.) Here is the drawing.

Dandelion Fire Giveaway

Amoretti is giving away 2 of Nate Wilson's books, 100 cupboards ( read it and loved it) and Dandelion Fire ( haven't read it but want to.) She does great giveaways at The Fortnightly Purse.

More Birthday Prep

So I finished my birthday banner for Renata's Party and future parties. (The pictures don't do justice to these babies. I've got to learn how to take better pictures. I think I'll try taking pictures outside today and see if they are better.)I also whipped up this little garland last night. It was easy and I love it. The tea set is one of two I got at Walmart for $5 even though I am not a fan of Walmart. I love this little tea set. It is ceramic not plastic btw.


As a side note, if you like the idea of sewing but found it too costly (it often costs more to sew things than to just buy them. ) I have found lots of great fabric and sewing stuff at estate sales or garage sales and some designers like Anna Maria Horner and Amoretti sell scrap bags of their fabric. A little of a beautiful fabric goes a long way next to a mediocre fabric.

Homeschooling

I tried a great activity from my friend Jen for Georgie to do while the others are homeschooling. You put cotton balls in a bowl and the kids use tongs to move the cotton balls to another bowl. Georgie did this for an hour happily, I kid you not. Then the older kids wanted a turn too.
Renata is gearing up for her birthday tea party this Saturday. I wrapped her presents and put them out for her to drool over them. I made the pink gift tag for her one present. It took 10 minutes and made the present oh so pretty. She's excited. I think I am going to make cookies called pink pigs and cupcakes for the party. More of that later I'm sure.

Teaching Crochet

I have tried teaching Renata a little knitting and sewing but haven't had much time to be consistent with it. So she has these unfinished projects that look like they will take a very long time to finish. I don't know if she is discouraged by this but I am.

So I was happy to find this project on the Skip to My Lou website. It uses a bunch of crochet chains (which are quick and easy to make) that you make into shapes and glue on cardboard to make a mosaic. Nice a simple, quick and not discouraging.

Elephant Feeding

If you have been keeping up to date with my blog then you read about my brilliant plan to keep Georgie occupied while I homeschool the 2 elder kids. If not here is a recap. I hand George some stuffed animals and create tasks for him to take care of them. Joffre has dubbed him The Zookeeper even though that makes me think of a Stephen King novel ( I told you I was having a hard time being positive today.)

So today Georgie pulled out his animals and said he was going to take care of them. So I told him he needed to feed them and give them their nap. So Georgie grabs the elephant, lifts his shirt and lets the elephant suckle his chest. I had a hard time not bursting out laughing. He gave each animal their ..um.. feeding and put them to bed but I was so distracted by his antics I had a hard time teaching the lesson. Hmmm....plan B.

I had a very black day. I'll just say it involved a new battery for our car. So I'm hard pressed to be positive, but I did just eat a cheese quesadilla with yellow peppers and onions topped with my salsa and a spinach salad. And my chubby baby just walked! across the room grinning from ear to ear at me while wielding a hair brush. Things are ok.

Bat Barf

Have you noticed I have made a resolution to blog once a day except Sunday (it's the day of naps.)
It is good for me to blog and put something happy up once a day. I consider it counting my blessings.

So anyway I heard words I never wanted to hear out of my daughter's mouth today.
Yes, that's right out of no where Renata turns to me and says, " Mom, what is bat barf?"

Me: " I have no idea. What did you just say?" (Imagine how you would deal with that with no context.)

Renata: " What is bat barf? I read it in Calvin and Hobbes."

Me (the light bulb has turned on.) : " Oh, bat barf. It's like when a bat throws up, vomits. Was that from some part where Calvin describes his lunch to Susie?"

This of course led to a semi discussion about why Calvin wanted to be disgusting. Whew.

Ahem...I have an announcement!

No, I am not pregnant. My husband has started a new blog. Yea! I love when he blogs. He is a snappy writer. So go check out Irene, Goodnight ASAP.

George

So I am homeschooling Joffre Jr and Renata this year. This means it takes quite a bit longer and George has time with no one to play with. I decided to come up with some activities for him while the kids do their schoolwork.

So last night I had a brilliant plan. I put 3 small stuffed animals in a pillow case. In the morning I gave them to George and told him he had to find food for the animals. He smiled big and went off with lots of gusto. He found fake food and gave it to the animals. I got Joffre's math done. Then I told George the animals needed a nap. could he put them to bed, please? He grimaced but put the in a box and made snore noises. Joffre finished his worksheet. George came back for more. I told him to excersise the animals by walking them around the living room table 3 times. (Do you see the brilliance of this plan..it grows...I could keep this up all day. I know all about being a caretaker and all it's endless tasks.)

But this is where George decided he did not want to be a caretaker and thought to himself, " Mom really thinks I am going to walk around the table 3 times with a bunch of stuffed animals." Outwardly he grimaced and whined. That is when I had to deal with a minor tantrum, spank, and grumpy child lying at my feet sucking his thumb and twisting his hair while I did Renata's math lesson. So much for my brilliant plan. That's when I thought about my plan for tomorrow...a bean bag hunt...it's going to be awesome.....

The Broom Battle

So yesterday Ward and I had a couple of battles. That's right battles. The first was the vacuum battle. I was vacuuming and he was chasing it because he wanted to play with the reachy thingys. (that was fun for spellcheck.) Every time he "caught" the vacuum he would plop his Royal Fattness right in front of it making vacuuming impossible. So I drag him into the living room and try to get the kids to entertain him. But my backup battalion usually is found yelling and chasing him as he books it back to the vacuum. So the cycle repeats.

The other battle I have with Ward is similar but much more intense. I call it The Broom Battle. As I sweep the kitchen (constantly) to get all the food my kids drop on the floor Ward tries to beat me to the food before I get it in the dust pan. Getting between a fat baby and food is dangerous. He even emits a war yelp (ok, maybe a cry of despair) as I sweep the food away from his fat little fingers. He's tricky too. He sits and watches me for a while making me think today is a day of peace and then he sees me reach for the dust pan....all heck breaks loose! He books it at top speed on those fat thighs and grabs handfuls of stuff from the pile while I try to put my legs between him and the pile and sweep it into the dust pan at the same time. I kid you not, people, it is brutual!

Captain America

Captain America is my least favorite superhero. Do you know why? He "throws his mighty shield." Which means my children imitate him by hurling things across the room yelling "Captain America throws his mighty shield." This is George's favorite hobby right now. Yikes!

Homeschooling

We just got our Veritas Press order of books including other silver chair customers orders today and I have to say they do everything well. I was looking at their cursive writing books that I was thinking I would skip using. They are so great. The Classically Cursive bible primer has the books of the bible, the 2 greatest commandments, and the Lord's Prayer. Just a great way to get them learning these things with little effort. I love the Phonics Museum partially because I am biased in wanting to teach my kids about art as much as possible. Each letter and phonic sound(?) is on a card with a work of art and there is a museum you place the art cards on. Their history stuff is awesome. They have won awards for that. So I highly recommend them.

Cheap

I have become cheap. I confess. I started garage saling and thrift store shopping and now I am so unwilling to buy new things. I had a great haul at the thrift store yesterday. I usually don't get things I am looking for but rather things I was looking for or things I know I'll want or need later but yesterday I got things I wanted right now. It was awesome. Things you think you will have to buy new like paint rollers for house painting, file folder trays, etc.. Nope I got em' super cheap at the thrift store.

I have at least 2 Christmas presents for each of my 4 kids hidden under the bed (and I mean nice wooden toys or Little Pet Shop big thingys) and I paid less than 7.00 for all of them. It's kind of a high not to have to waste/spend a lot of money on things like toys. It's also nice to see these things being reused. Clothes (except Joffre's - not enough gigantic people around) and all our homeschooling books are also things I get great deals on. I got 2 complete Saxon Math sets (the Math I use for homeschooling) for $5.00 yesterday too. They are normally at least $50 for the whole set used. Yep I'm feelin' proud of myself like us ridiculously frugal people do. I just hope I don't become one of those people who talk about how much things cost all the time...so I better end this post.

My Talents

I have become a connoisseur of kitchen chair messiness. Let me explain. I could come into your child laden house and determine the age of your child/children 5 or under by the messiness of his or her chair. You can walk around my kitchen table and determine where each of my children sit by the degree of messiness. We had noodles today.

Yow Yow

This is my husband's rugby team. He is the gigantic sweaty one in the back. I am having a hard time getting used to watching Rugby after being a football fan for years. It looks like football with the rewind button on.

Walking Baby and A Birthday

So this one walked for the first time two days ago and has kept it up . My neighbor's comment was, "How in the world does he support that all that weight." We like em' chubby in this house!



Renata's 6th birthday is coming up and we decided to do a tea party. She is really excited and drew her own invitations. Aren't they great! She is going to color them and hopefully be able write all the info on them.

I am also making this birthday banner (it will be one long banner) for her birthday and future ones for the family. I am trying to think in terms of less disposable stuff and very lovely things we can keep for a long time. Things my kids will have affection for later. This of course is trendy right now but it is so nice to have handmade lovely things. It helps that I love to make things. I got the idea to do this from Soule Mama's post. Her new book is out and I was so hoping I'd be the lucky one out of 5000 or so to win it but alas it was not my fate. She is sharing a lot of it on her blog which is generous.

School

So I have gotten myself organized for school only to start today and feel completely disorganized. How did that happen exactly! I just need to get in the swing of it ( I hope). Here is my school room as I get it ready. We have plaster walls which are a nightmare to hang on. I have so many visual aids (of course) that I want to hang but I've got to figure out some corkboard genius plan -o-action.
I had the kids decorate their manilla folders that I am going to put each day's worksheets for them. Then I started working on a giant calendar to laminate. I love Veritas Press's letter and timeline cards. It is such a rockin' curriculum. I think I am going to finagle going to an art museum to play the letter game this week.

Pioneer Woman

I have so been enjoying the web site of Pioneer Woman as of late. She is so funny and she is a homeschooler which is fun to check out.. She has fantastic giveaways every week/day it seems too. Check it out.