Saturday, September 28, 2013

Inspiring Posts

I am not creative on my own.  For real.  I get all of my ideas from other people which sometimes gets me in trouble because I find TOO many good ideas and get overwhelmed with them because I try to do them all!  Today I want to share links to different posts from this past week from two of my favorite blogs to read. 

My husband and I are slowly making a plan to take our kids to Disney.  By slowly I mean s.l.o.w.l.y.  I am just now starting to ask die hard Disney fans what I need to plan, how to plan and, well, frankly, how much it costs.  Our goal it to take the kids in 3 years.  We feel they will be the perfect age to enjoy "everything" and actually remember the trip.  I'd love to then take them back when they are mid-teens to enjoy the older kid stuff but that is another story. Anyway, a blogger friend of mine just posted her fabulous movie list she used with her kids to prep them for their Disney trip.  I loved her list and am waiting for the day my kids like movies HA  I like this list also because well, we don't have many DVD's so I'm using her list as a jumping off point to get some that are available.  You can check out the Disney Move Countdown over at Superchikk

Another thing that I am looking forward to doing with my kids is reading chapter books.  We tried starting one last winter and my kids just were not ready.  I'm being inspired to try this again after reading a great post over at Homeschool Creations.  She shares the list of books they are planning to read this year (school year) and shares some great tips for reading out-loud with your kids.  One idea is give your kids something to do with their hands - legos, crayons and paper, etc.  The funny thing is that I would have made them put that stuff down but, after reading her post, I understand now that they need something to help them focus.  I also love the timer idea too.  My kids still aren't quite ready to focus on chapter books but one of the ideas in the back of my mind was to put together a book basket for each week.  That way, they could each pick out a book after lunch and we could read it together (or I can set the timer for 10 minutes and read until the timer goes off - they love the timer).  This basket could be library books or at home books (well, if we ever get back to the library HA)  The other thing the hubs and I want to start doing is reading Bible Stories/Devotionals at bedtime.  I will admit that this is "hard" because we are often tired but the boys love to sing at bedtime so we figure that to start with a short devotional would be a plus, then some songs, then hugs and "quisses" before we say goodnight.  I know what I want to get for this but just haven't gotten it yet :-)