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He: "I don't want to skateboard today, can't I go sit at the bookstore, read and get a hot chocolate instead?"  Me: "no, skateboarding is p.e. and Teddy really looks forward to it, it would be boring by himself, you are his friend, you need to get out there."  He: "did you bring us a snack?" [full accusation in tone, he knew I did not]  He: "can we at least get donuts afterward?"  He: "will you take us somewhere later?"  

This whole scene left me thinking about his/my/our relationship with God.  This week in our devotional reading we read Isaiah 40:1-3  "...make clear the way of Jehovah; make straight in the desert a highway for our God."

Labels: devotional, family, homeschool

Welcome to the LEarning Never Stops Photo Challenge.  This week, our challenge is


link your entry post, and try to visit around :)
Linky will close 10 p.m. pacific time, Monday.  Two winners will be announced/displayed on Tuesday night.

Labels: Lens

Labels: homeschool

We had some really wonderful entries, here are the two winners!

1) Our Peculiar Lives


this was the skeleton of a hydrangea petal, the photo is hauntingly beautiful, and the words with this post -

Remnants of Winter, and Decaying Bits of Self

were even more so, click over for a feast of words and pictures.

2) Janet Rose






a great job using the micro setting on her camera!  Look closely and you will see reflection in the drop of water! Stunning!  I always hope for a great shot like this, mine are usually a lucky chance...!

I hope you will join in with us on Saturday, when the theme will be:

{Red}

Labels: Lens winners

Welcome to the LEarning Never Stops Photo Challenge- Micro/Macro edition.
This week, we are going to get close up to our subjects.  Let's see what your world looks like- close up.  Linky will close 10pm Monday night, please visit 'round :)

Labels: Lens

I made these all-time favorites last night to go with chicken tortilla soup. 


I will re-post the recipe for you.  Go make them. Now.
You're welcome :)

I found this blueberry corn muffin recipe in a magazine, sorry- I don't remember which one. It's very easy, short list of ingredients, and a surprising mix of flavors.

Corn muffins with blueberries

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 large egg
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 cup corn kernels (listed as fresh, but I used canned)
1 1/2 cup blueberries
raw sugar (turbinado) for sprinkling on top

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place baking liners in 12 cup muffin pan

Combine flour, cornmeal, granulated sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl and set aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk buttermilk, egg and butter together and then stir in dry ingredients until just combined. Gently fold in blueberries and corn.

Divide batter among muffin cups and sprinkle with the raw sugar. (I happen to think the more the better...mmm, sugar)

Bake about 25 minutes, cool.

Easy, internet friends, and soo worth it....

Labels: recipes

So much of what I do is pieced together.  I would love to be able to say that we've used such-n-such curriculum for so many years.  I'd love the safe feeling of having one curriculum to fulfill all our needs; one program to follow year after year-insuring no learning gaps.

I'd love to be that together.  Okay, I'd love to seem that together.  But I'm not. {obviously}

What I am, it seems, is eclectic.  And meandering.
And rambling. 

I was contemplating the other day on how my homeschool life seems to be one of making homeschool soup.  We use a bit of this, a bit of that,  the recipe this year might taste great, but next year I will change it up a bit.

We just started using Writing With Ease by Susan Wise Bauer for writing with the 3 Littles and for Josie.  This is week 2 and I'm loving it, still.  That 's a good sign, right?

I love the philosophy behind her method, I love that she is a college writing professor, beside homeschool mom- and that she obviously knows what she is writing about.  I love that the directions are in the front of the book, and I can tear out worksheets at the back.  -remember my worksheet lust?

A review will be forthcoming, after I've used it a few weeks, promise. :)

Here are a few other stand-outs in our years of making homeschool soup:

• Five in a Row.  -gentle.  If you are starting out with littles, I encourage you- do this, a smidgen of Math and that is all!

• Headsprout phonics -online!  Because I am too tired/bored to teach phonics. again. -and my boys won't sit still.

• Story of the World.  I keep coming back to this.  The activity book has worksheets! {lust}

• Growing with Grammar - I was a diagramming fool in Jr. High. Diagramming makes me happy and squishy inside. -nerd much??

• Math U See.  the lesson each week is on video.  Each week is predictable, we do a page a day and then a test. :)

• Abeka cursive handwriting

• Sonlight.  -this has made homeschooling my elders much simpler. I love the books.  The lack of worksheets brings me seriously down, tho.  -I tweak, I stir, it comes out good...

Labels: curriculum, homeschool, show and tell

Here are the two winners of this week's L.E.N.S. Photo Challenge.   I think our definition of February ran from the traditional hearts of Valentine's day to the stark reality of what February is like right now for many people.  I loved seeing all your photos!

1) Seeking Contentment






so many things that I like about this photo; I love the fluffy heart craft, the pinks, reds & whites, and the focus field with the blur in the background.  Wonderful! 

2) Aimee's Land



I love the shades of gray and white in this photo.  This is so serene, and so stark.  This is not my February, but it might be yours...

Thank you everyone for joining us!  I hope you will join up next week, when the challenge will be:

micro  (inspired by Janet Rose's entry!)

Labels: Lens, Lens winners

Ms.Taken Identity by Dan Begley is chick lit with a twist, the main character is a man and the book is written by a man.

Mitch Samuel is a young English college professor, working on his PhD and also on a deep, literary masterpiece that he cannot get published.  As the book progresses, he slowly realizes how pretentious and uppity he is, as are all the girlfriends he selects.  A sequence of hilarious man-tantrums leaves him face-to-face with a famous author of chick-lit.  While formulating the perfect uppity put-down, he somehow ends up telling her about his cousin who is trying to write a book in the chick-lit genre and the author offers to help sell it.  Mitch, thinking that trash/formula chick lit would be a slam-dunk project- tries to write one, and cannot.  His research into the female mind leads him into a different world, new friends he would have passed by before, new love- and a web of lies he must untangle.

This was a very fun read, a lighthearted look at life through a guy's eyes.  Mitch was very endearing, but also very dense at times.  It was satisfying to follow his adventures as he 'grows up' in some things. 


A fun read, I recommend it. :)


*you can join up with the 52 books in 52 weeks here

Labels: 52books/52weeks, book review

Welcome to the LEarning Never Stops Photo Challenge.
This week's theme is *February.  Link up a photo that says "February" to you.  Linky closes 10 p.m. Monday night.  Two winners will be chosen on Tuesday night.

**note: linky tools was down most of Sunday and parts of Monday, if you did not get the chance to link up, and wish to join the challenge, you can leave your link in the comments section, I will keep the challenge open until 9p.m Tuesday night, before I choose winners.  So sorry for the technical difficulties..

Labels: Lens

I am writing today over at the Mothers of Boys Society about love outside of our own comfort zone.

Click over to read it....With Lovingkindness

Labels: devotional, guest posts

Here are the winner's of this week's
LEarning Never Stops Photo Challenge, Physical Education edition:


1. Songs Kate Sang


this is a great shot, capturing the ball mid-air and the colors in the photo are wonderful.



2) My Southern, Hippie, Married, Mom of Four Life!





this photo is so much fun, what a lucky shot!  Look how Zen she looks!  I need to work on my zen...

thank you for joining up, I really enjoyed seeing your photos, we have homeschool families doing fun, amazing, and interesting things for P.E. ! 

Join us on Saturday when the challenge will be: February

Labels: Lens winners

Monday was a really good day, at least homeschool-wise.
Well, beside the part about my van needing to be towed to the dealership twice in one day.  Yes, we towed it there twice.  Second time is the charm, I hope :) 

So, Monday was a really good day, we got so much done.  The secret?  I planned ahead.

Yes, 11 years of homeschooling- and I don't plan ahead much.  {secret confession}

Sunday I sat down, and not only did a smidgen of preparing, like I am apt to do...but I sat down and typed up schedules for DD16 and DD14 for the week.  I haven't been doing this, since Sonlight gives me these nice schedules all done (love it!)  

But, DD14 just finished Core 6 and we decided we don't have the funds for Core 7- so I will be putting together a History reading list for her, based on Story of the World vol.3 (which I adore). 

DD16 does very well working with her Sonlight Core 100 schedule and using her syllabus for the classes she takes through the Biola Star program (Physical Science, Lit & Comp) but..she tends to get a bit free and loose with her other subjects.  I realized I need to type up what she needs to do for the week, so I can see when she doesn't do them...ahem.

I also planned out which subjects I wanted to tackle with the 3 younger students- and we started our first day with Writing with Ease .  The day went by very smoothly and clockwork. 

LOVE IT!  Sky is not surprised, it is a logical way to do things, but of course I am not logical.

I hope all of my bloggy-friends are having a great week, too! 
And that you don't have to tow your van ;)

Labels: homeschool, homeschool planning, sonlight

A fellow homeschool blogger on the hive boards suggested we dare to chronicle the less than wonderful moments of our homeschooling week.  I am convinced no one really wants to see how messy most of our bedrooms are right now, or the pile of laundry in my room, or the toothpaste gobs my younger two kids leave everyday on the sink.

Every.
Day. 

Maybe it'll change your perception of me to know that I do not clean up those globs everyday, or make the two guilty persons clean it up everyday...but I ignore it for about a week and then clean it up/or make them clean it up.
I'll spare you the photographic proof.


I will share our Friday with you, however.  This is what our dining table looked like after we finished our lessons for the day.  We finished up, and then all my obedient, loving children scattered to the four winds, leaving this mess.  Kind of makes me want to scatter, too.  The one good thing about doing our schooling at the dining table is that the books do need to be put away by dinner time, at least.

So, my kids scattered- and I began putting the books away.  I looked over my shoulder and noticed this stellar moment happening behind me.  The three youngest students had gone straight to the couch in the family room and turned on the wii.  I looked over and was struck with their slack-jaw/mesmerized expression and remembered this blog-dare.  I knew this would be the moment I would capture.

Notice, for bonus points, the unfolded laundry piled on the foosball table.  I have a laundry "nook" with no counter space, so I usually put clean laundry on the foosball table until my kids fold it and distribute the piles to their respective owners. 

So, is a little bit real good to read on a blog, or can too much real be a turnoff?                                            

Labels: homeschool

Welcome to the LEarning Never Stops Photo Challenge- Physical Education edition.  What does P.E. look like at your house?  There are so many different and creative ways homeschoolers accomplish P.E. Link up your photos and share!

Labels: Lens

Labels: hens, Wordless Wednesday

Thank you for linking up to the LEarning Never Stops Photo Challenge- we had some really beautiful photos this week, it is always so hard to pick only two!

Here are the two winners for this week's challenge:

1)  Sunflower Schoolhouse


 this photo is sheer comedy, I love the subject and the looming spacial effect is awesome.  I'm sure there is a technical term for that, but I don't know what it is...I do know that this photo is special!


2) Our Peculiar Lives



 This photo is so soft and beautiful.  I love how the blue of his eyes stands out, and I love how the whites in the background blend and fade together.  Again, there is probably a tech term for that, but I don't know what it is!  I do know that this photo looks professional- with the clean white background.  Great job!

Congratulations winners!

Please join us this Saturday, when the theme will be:

Physical Education.  How do you do P.E. at your house?

Labels: Lens winners