Weekly Snapshot

A quick look back at our week: 

We celebrated Darryl’s birthday. 

We played games at my moms

Took my brother to the airport. 

Josh and Nate enjoy hanging out with friends. 

Josh then continued to hang out with friends.  Nate is at winter retreat with another group of friends! 

Weekly Menu

 I'm a little bit in disbelief that February is done. February was a little tough due to illness but I am hoping that it is finally gone and we can move on into March all healthy!  It is time to get back to actually planning my menu instead of pulling it out of my brain HA!  I need to pull out my recipe file and plan some meals!!  

Friday - Nate is heading off to his third and final winter retreat with a friends church.  (Can you guess he LOVES camp!)  I’m guessing Darryl, Josh and I will grab something for dinner 

Saturday - we have a family birthday party with Darryl’s family 

Sunday - Turkey roast, potatoes, green beans and rolls 

Monday  - pot pies 

Tuesday - Tacos

Wednesday - youth group! 

Thursday - BBQ cups and fries

Joyful Weeks 4 and 5 - Our Co-Op

 We always start the same each week: 

1) This semester I am sharing a short devotional around the idea of why we memorize scripture.  I'm taking my thoughts from HERE.  There are 10 Biblical reasons to memorize scripture so I'm sharing one each week. 

2) We then do our Joyful Bucket.  Each student has to name one thing that brought them joy throughout the week.  Sometimes this is hard.  I try to help them understand that their item doesn't have to be a "thing" - something they did or experienced - but rather even something simple they saw that brought them true joy. They also get to chose something out of our treat bucket. 

3) We review our scripture memorization.  We spend the semester memorizing scripture that we then share at presentation night. 

What changes each week are our activities. 

Week 4 - This was our semester "Breakfast and Bingo" class!  It's the highlight of the class for sure.  Each semester I find a bingo board on Pinterest to use and print them off.  We start with breakfast where I supply sausage balls, muffins, donut holes, fruit, milk and juice.  Then we play bingo the rest of the hour!  

Week 5 - After fighting sickness in our house, I was not mentally prepared for planning our co-op HA!  So we had our first ever "game day".  Everyone could bring in board games and play with friends.  It went surprisingly well as in no one was left out and everyone played games the entire hour. 

Sometimes when planning a class, it is always good to have an "easy" idea for either a substitute or for weeks that just are busy! 

Crowder - Somebody Prayed (Official Lyric Video)

I really enjoy Crowder - especially since I've seen him in concert a few times.  He is such a great musical performer and just draws you in as he praises Jesus.  Hearing this takes me back to the concert Nate and I attended in the fall - such great memories!  

Our Weekly Snapshot

 Here's a look back at a few things from our week

I treated myself to a coffee on Wednesday thanks to a gift card!  Why did I treat myself? 

Well, because this was our best friend all week.  What is it?  One of our space heaters because our furnace went down on the weekend and we had to wait until Thursday for the part to come in! 

We picked my brother up from the airport and he treated us to a fabulous dinner! 

Weekly Menu

 Not only is my brother in town but this week includes Darryl's birthday!  So the menu is kind of sketchy as plans tend to change when family is in town.  It is more of a "suggestion" then a plan HA! 

Friday - dinner at my moms 

Saturday - It is Darryl's birthday!  Dinner will be at our house - whatever the birthday guy wants. 

Sunday - I'm guessing dinner at my mom's followed by games. 

Monday - Easy Cheeseburger soup and rolls

Tuesday - slow Cooker Steak and Potato casserole and green beans 

Wednesday - Back to normal with a youth group night

Thursday - one dish pork chops and potatoes 

February Goals

 

Even though I am posting this half way through the month, I actually did start these on February 1st!  Some of these will look familiar as they carried over or are just changed a little.  

Here are my February goals:

1. Follow the declutter 365 plan for February and do every task that applies to me. 
2. Follow Flylady weekly plan for decluttering then cleaning each room - 15 minutes at a time.  Since last month I only did one item each week my more specific goal this month is to accomplish at least 2 of the specific tasks each week. 
3. Pick a room cleaning - 15 minutes decluttering
1. Finish cleaning the bathroom (deep cleaning) as it was January's room. 
2. Begin the cleaning in the dining room.  I have some ideas to maybe rearrange a few things so we shall see if that happens! 
4. Spend 15-20 minutes a day cleaning the basement - this months goal is the laundry room side
5. Finish all of the odds and end in Josh's room (hang things, paint closet) 
6. Replace a board in Nate's bed that is broken. 
7. Replaced burned out lightbulbs inside and outside
8. Go on a date with Darryl
9. Read!  As many books as possible but at least the 2 for my book clubs and to read 6 books total! 
10. Do my daily Bible study, prayer journal and word study
11. Scrapbook 
1. Finish 2017 and 2018 
2. Scrapbook January 2025
3. Upload February's photos and order them.
4. Do virtual scrapbooking weekend
12. Co-Op
1. Plan Joyful weeks 5-8
2. Make Presentation Night signs
3. Work on my Joyful video.  
13. Practice my piano song until I can play it for offertory and then pick a new one; Practice a song with the family to do as special music. 
14. Update some seasonal items - St. Patrick's Day after Valentine's Day is done! 
15. Write my blogs each week
16. Celebrate Darryl's birthday 
17. Plan St. Patrick's Day
18. Plan March goals/activities by the end of February - Including one Family activity for the first quarter of the year!  
19. Finances - continue to work on tracking everything and limit spending
20. Computer clean -up - Go through every file on my computer and clean things out. 

TobyMac - God Did It (Official Lyric Video)

A second Toby Mac song!  I know this won't be everyone's cup of tea as Toby brings out his Rap side but it is a great song! 

Our weekly snapshot

 Well I missed lasts weeks post!  We’ve had sickness in the house so that’s my excuse!  Here’s a look back at the last two weeks!

Last week we enjoyed breakfast in my co op class.  

This week we played games!  

We also had our Valentines party 😊

The games class the boys are taking.  

And they are off to winter retreat!!  

It’s been a quiet few weeks 😊

Weekly Menu

 This has ended up being a super busy weekend.  My brother is in town, it is Valentine's Weekend, and my guys are heading to winter retreat.  

Friday - Joshua and Nate will be heading off to their second winter retreat (the advantage to attending two youth groups!)  I'm planning Tacos again because it is super easy! 

Saturday - There is a snow event coming, we are recovering from being ill and have no kids.  I think we are just planning to hang out at home.  Food? 🤷‍♀️  we shall see what we feel like!! 

Sunday - The guys return today so again, to keep things quick and easy, we will most likely use a gift card to grab lunch on the way home from picking them up from the church. 

Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday - let’s keep it real.  We’ve had varying degrees of sickness for two weeks and Darryl and I are still fighting the cough/cold so I haven’t planned my menu yet. I’m planning to work on my menu and grocery order for a pick up on Monday over the weekend.  

Wednesday - Well, it is youth group night BUT my mom and I are picking my brother, Ken, up from the airport and eating dinner out with him!  I cannot wait! 

Thursday - 

Update on January Goals

 

As I worked through this first month of the year, I gave myself grace and space to figure out how to make my goals work.  I really focused on the process - meaning figuring out how to incorporate the tasks I wanted to get done into my daily routine.  I quickly figured out where I can slip things in during the day and what doesn't work.  I never expect to accomplish every goal because life gets busy and even when I try to block out time to do certain things it doesn't always happen. Guess what? That's ok!  Anyway, here are my notes about my January goals: 

Any, here is my list for January!  

1. Follow the declutter 365 plan for January and do every task that applies to me. I accomplished all of the items on the 365 plan that pertained to my space.  This month the majority of the tasks were about decluttering and deep cleaning the kitchen.  Not every item on the calendar match my space so I just alter it to make sure I touch every space. 
2. Follow Flylady weekly plan for decluttering then cleaning each room - 15 minutes at a time. I uploaded the app to my phone and tackled at least one item in each space this month.  I'm working on making lists, again, more relevant to my space. 
3. Pick a room cleaning - 15 minutes decluttering
1. January's room is the bathroom I am continuing work on this space.  I totally deep cleaned (and cleaned out LOTS of stuff) the bathroom storage cabinet.  I also did more cleaning but still have more to go.  
4. Spend 15-20 minutes a day cleaning the basement - this months goal is the laundry room side. I did tackle some of this in order to put Christmas decor back neatly.  Not nearly as much as I wanted but, again, that's ok!  
5. Finish all of the odds and end in Josh's room (hang things, paint closet) Nope :-)  Darryl put his weight tower together and Joshua put all his Christmas gifts away so now I feel like we can empty his closet and finish painting. 
6. Finish things in Nate's room (hanging things and fixing a drawer) Done! 
7. Replaced burned out lightbulbs inside and outside. This got bumped to February. 
8. Go on a date with Darryl Our teens have been busy this month so we've had the chance to go out a few times which has been nice :-) 
9. Read!  As many books as possible but at least the 2 for my book clubs. I read both of my book club books; Five books total this month. 
10. Do my daily Bible study, prayer journal and word study. This is one thing I did not start - I have all of my books but just didn't find the right time to focus on this.  
11. Scrapbook 
1. Finish 2017 and 2018 I worked on 2017 but did not finish it. 
2. Upload 2024 photos to Snapfish Done
3. On January 31st upload to Snapfish, order and then scrapbook 1/2025 by the end of February They are uploaded and ordered 
4. Order large prints for my wall Done! 
5. Do virtual scrapbooking weekend Done - I didn't get nearly as much done as I wanted because there were other things going on that weekend that took me away from my desk but I did finish a handful of pages which is great. 
12. Co-Op
1. Plan Joyful weeks 1-4 and make a sub plan Done! 
13. Go through my music books and pick one song to practice. I picked a couple of songs to work on as well as a piano song. 
14. Update some seasonal items  Done!  I found some great Valentine's Day items to add to what I already owned to add a little seasonal fun to our house! 
15. Write my blogs each week Done! 
16. Finish taxes Done! 
17. Plan Darryl's birthday (February) Done!  (It helps my brother will be here so we plan to celebrate with him!) 
18. Plan Valentine's Day This is about 1/2 done - I planned our menu but still need to think through some fun little things. 
19. Plan February goals/activities by the end of January Done! 
20. Finances - continue to work on tracking everything and limit spending I did work on this - not as consistently as I'd like but better than last month :-) 
21. Computer clean -up - Go through every file on my computer and clean things out. I never got to this item. 
22. Update Josh's gradebook by January 31st This won't be done by the 31st but I plan to work on it over the weekend (First weekend in February)
23. Host Nate's birthday party (1/25) Done - and it was fun! 

TobyMac - a lil Church (Lyric Video)

Toby Mac has a new album coming out so he is releasing some songs including this one!  

Weekly Menu - Superbowl Weekend!

 We love Super Bowl weekend.  It's such a big game and I enjoy all of the human interest stories throughout the coverage.  

Friday -  pizza!!!  

Saturday - dinner at my mom's 

Sunday - Super Bowl Sunday!  

Monday - leftovers from Sunday 

Tuesday - nachos and salad 

Wednesday - Youth Group night

Thursday - We are going to celebrate Valentine's Day tonight since my teens will be gone on Friday.  So, our tradition is Homemade Spaghetti, Salad, Garlic Bread and Chocolate Covered Strawberries!  Plus we always invite my mom for dinner today so we can celebrate together (Because, after all, we all love each other HA!) 

Joyful Weeks 2 and 3 - Our Co-Op

 I realized last Wednesday evening that I forgot to post my weekly Wednesday post and decided that I would just combine weeks 2 and 3 of my Joyful class all together in one post.  

Weeks 2 and 3 started out the same way as week one.  

1) This semester I am sharing a short devotional around the idea of why we memorize scripture.  I'm taking my thoughts from HERE.  There are 10 Biblical reasons to memorize scripture so I'm sharing one each week. 

2) We then do our Joyful Bucket.  Each student has to name one thing that brought them joy throughout the week.  Sometimes this is hard.  I try to help them understand that their item doesn't have to be a "thing" - something they did or experienced - but rather even something simple they saw that brought them true joy. They also get to chose something out of our treat bucket. 

3) We review our scripture memorization.  We spend the semester memorizing scripture that we then share at presentation night. 

What changes each week are our activities. 

Our activity for week 2 was a team building activity that included popscicle sticks, tape, and a rubber band.  It also included NO talking as it was an activity build around non-verbal communication.  

The activity is sold on Teachers Pay Teachers and you can find it HERE. 

It was great to watch the teams work together and figure out how to communicate their ideas.  It was also interesting to see them look around at what others were doing to get ideas for their own projects.  

I told my class that this was my new favorite activity.  Why?  The silence HA!  We are usually a SUPER loud class so having them work in silence was a nice treat. 

Our activity for week 3 is called The Fishbowl Game.  We actually played it last semester and normally I do not bring back an activity the next semester UNLESS it is something that is requested by multiple people.  

The full instructions can be found HERE. 

We divided into two teams after everyone wrote down 3 nouns on 3 pieces of paper.  All of those papers are put into a large bowl.  Then three rounds are played - Taboo, Password, and Charades.  It's great because the same words are used in each round so, if they pay attention, they can use clues used in previous rounds.  I was actually surprised at how much everyone enjoyed this game AND that they requested to do it again.  It really is "The best party game".  

 

Josiah Queen - Can't Steal My Joy feat. Brandon Lake (Official Lyric Video)

This is a new release and it is great!  Enjoy 

Our Weekly Snapshot

 Here's a quick glance back at our week

Nate got to enjoy his birthday party on Saturday.  Since his birthday is December 22nd we always wait until January for him to celebrate with friends.  It's a nice break in a long month!  This year he decided to have a few more friends over than normal and just hang out during the day instead of an all nighter.  It was a very enjoyable day!  (He has great friends!) 

Wednesday included haircuts!  It's always fun to see them with new cuts :-)  

Joshua and Nate headed off to Winter Retreat with our church youthgroup and these are the best photos I was able to snap 🤣