Teaching Tuesdays

We had a great week last week.  One of the great things is we went on a field trip.  For real.  We went bowling and it was awesome.  The boys had never been bowling and they loved it.

There was also a pro-bowler there and he took an interest in the boys.  He gave them pointers and let them bowl on his lane to try and get him a spare. 

We also had a snow day last week.  Last Tuesday the local public school was closed so the Munchkin was home with us all day.  The boys were having too much fun playing together so I called a snow day and just let them play.

Despite that, we did get lots of school work done.  Josh is completely done for the semester - he has nothing left to do this coming week.  We are going to focus on learning sight words and AWANA sections.  Nate finished up his December writing (yes, we didn't do it in December) and we worked diligently on his work.  My goal is to have all of his lessons done by the end of the day today.  Then we will focus the rest of the week on his January writing and AWANA review - Nate finished his first book last week and now we have to review that book. 

I mentioned last week, I think, that the boys started back into Tae Kwon Do so I wanted to share a photo of their new uniforms.

Just this weekend I printed off the registration form for Gymnastics which needs to be sent in this week; registration for T-ball which is due by the end of March and I'm making calls on some swimming lessons for the boys to start in March hopefully.  Busy, busy boys!

Goals.

I haven't posted my  January Goals as of yet.  I've been debating posting the full list now or waiting and posting it at the end just to show the accomplishments.  What I did at the beginning of January was write my goals for the year.  This list is pretty basic but lists where I want to be at the end of the year in each of my categories.  From there, I wrote my January goals.  Anyway, here is my basic list (see, I decided to post it after all)

Now, as you read these, remember they are goals . . .even I know that I will only accomplish about 25% of these even part way but it does help me to stay focused during the week and not just sit around all day :-)  Each night I look over the list and write my to do list for the next day.  For the record, I have accomplished some of these items and have made great progress in the basement HA!  

January 2016 Goals

Spiritual

1.     Do the Women in the Bible Bible Study Daily

2.    Scripture memory – Find a memory program and work on memorizing 1 verse a week (so 4 total for January)

3.    Read 4 “Soul” books – books to help make me better

Physical

1.     Walk/ride bike for 30 minutes, 5 days a week every week this month

2.    Incorporate the beginning Couch to 5K (See pinterest)

3.    Find a rotation of 5 different breakfast items that I can eat that keep my sugar in check

4.    Get Nate to eat one new food this month

Scrapbooking

1.     Finish scrapbooking 2014 (on my desk currently)

2.    Scrapbook January 2015 using project life

3.    Order one month of 12x12 pages and put them in a scrapbook

4.    Go through 3-4 (so 2 years) of photo albums and make sure they are complete

Finances

1.     Keep an excel spreadsheet with Darryl’s income/expense, money spent, bills paid,

2.    Start the Christmas Savings Program and the Kids Savings Program

3.    Put $20.00 away for Darryl’s clothes budget

4.    Make a list of wish items for the Tax Money

House Goals

1.     Work in the basement weekly sorting into my four bins.  I’m not even sure if I’ll finish what I want to get done but I just want to work downstairs 5 days a week – a little each day.

2.    Make a brainstorming list of things to do in the spring/summer in the yard

3.    Room by Room deep cleaning

a.    Kitchen – Each day go through one cupboard or deep clean one appliance

b.    Dining room – Go through every item and clean stuff out, get paint to do touch ups, clean up homeschool stuff and organize the piano better and rehang some of the wall art that is hung off center

c.    Living Room – Clean out the filing cabinet, dust, clean stuff out that we don’t love, cobwebs, ect.

d.    Bathroom – Just clean the whole stinkin’ thing

4.    Go through Lego Catelogs and put into binders and then put new ziplock organization into a crate for easy project redos

All about me

1.     Purchase new clothing item (approx. $20.00) such as socks  or a new shirt

2.    Buy me something each month (Focus is chapstick, pen and paper)

3.    Paint my fingernails weekly

4.    Paint my toenails

5.    Send Kate a birthday card on time

6.    Pinterest

a.    Each week print/read/do 10 items in my January focus (so two a day).

7.    Learn How to put my make up better – find You tube videos to teach about mary Kay Foundations

The Family

1.     Plan Summer activities

a.    Parks

b.    Activity

c.    Food item

d.    Craft

2.    Plan a family outing – January – take the boys shopping with their money and go to Red Robin (Gift Card)

3.    Get Family photos done this month

4.    Plan Darryl’s birthday fun

5.    Purchase kid item – January find new rain boots for each of the boys at the best price possible

6.    Put the boys fish tank together and let them each pick out some fish

7.    Find some swimming lessons

9.    Create a Routine/chore chart for each boy with $ incentive

10.  Purchase and mail Kaleb and Erins gift

11.  Map the trips we want to take

12.  Research some kid cooking classes.

13.  Watch for Tickets for the Circus in March and the Motor Cross (or whatever is in march)

Reading and Music

1.     Make a list of books I want to read from Pinterest and what I already own

2.    Pick out a chapter book to start reading to the boys

3.    Build an older library for the boys – pick up 3-4 books.

4.    Practice one piano song this month (well, actually two, one to play in January and then start working on one for February)

5.    Purchase “How Can it Be” and practice it to sing

6.    Review the “must” sight words with the boys and make sure they are on target for all areas in school

Joyful Thanksgiving

1.     Find one book that relates to this in my life (40 days of Joy?) and read it.

2.    Find resources on how to discipline, teach and train using verses and Biblical examples

3.    Have the family learn 4 verses talking about Joy and/or Thanksgiving – work on them at dinner.

8.     

Family Fun - Christmas Parade

Over the past few years, I've tried to be very intentional when it comes to Christmas and the activities that we do.  One of the wonderful things of living in a small town is things like an awesome Christmas Light Parade.  We have never attended because it has either been rainy or so unbelievably cold that we didn't want to go!  This year was perfect though - it was clear, only just below freezing, and we actually felt like going!  The boys were beyond excited because the Munchkin and Princess had talked about it so they planned on finding each other and, guess what?  They did! 

 The evening starts out with caroling around the tree.  The city puts a HUGE tree right in the middle of town - it sits in the middle of the intersection for the entire holiday season and it is amazing. 

 The start of the parade. 

 The boys loved seeing all of the the trucks decked out with lights.  Not to mention the candy.  I had no idea they threw out candy so we did not bring bags - my coat pockets were saggin' down to my knees.  I swear, they got more candy then they did at Halloween!

 The three friends -Josh, Nate and the Munchkin.  Sometimes I think we all forget that these boys are really best friends - they have been together since the Munchkin was 12 weeks old.  Crazy.

My attempt at a photo of the boys in front of the giant tree.  This is real life.  That's all. 

Once we left the parade, we went to McDonald's for a treat . . which in our family means Chicken Nuggets and Fries HA! 

Weekly Menu - The One I haven't Planned

I'm. tired. of. cooking.  Uuuugggg.  I'm tired of chicken, food that doesn't taste good, and cleaning up after dinner.  For real.  With that said, we are not eating out - we are eating at home and I'm still cooking, still cleaning, and we are not starving HA!! 

One of my goals this year is to get Nathan to try one food each month. Just one.  He has a very, very limited number of items he will actually eat but he refuses to try anything.  Well, month one was a success!  He has a game on his Ipad where he "makes" food and one of those recipes was Homemade Mac and Cheese.  He begged me to make it, so we did.  Too his credit, he tried it.  At about a 1/4 of cup of it and even said he kinda liked it but . .. then he said it made his stomach hurt HA!  He has a pretty sensitive stomach so I'm thinking it might have been too rich for his little tummy BUT he tried it!!!  Whoo whoo!! 

We tried several new recipes this week and two of them were a huge success - I'll share the success' (and failures) in the coming weeks.  But now, it's time to think about this coming week.  This past week I cleaned out my recipe book - took out all of the recipes that I've made once and will never make again.  I only want the stuff we love in that book - and stuff I'll actually cook!!

So . . here's the plan:

Saturday - Amish Chicken, Buttered Noodles, and Green Beans

Sunday - Roast, Carrots, Potatoes, and Rolls - a classic Sunday Dinner

Monday - Stuffed Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes, Corn, and Biscuits

Tuesday -Tacos - we haven't had them in awhile

Wednesday - Sausage and Egg McMuffins (homemade), Waffles, and Hashbrowns

Thursday - Double Orange Crunch Chicken, Fried Rice, and Crescents

Friday - I'm heading to Linden to attend a Ladies conference on Saturday so the boys and I will grab something on our way out of town. 

Teaching Tuesdays

We are back in the swing of things once again and I would like to say that this is our mantra:

But it is not HA! My boys sing, "I hate school, I really do. . ..except for Math" HA!  Oh well.  That's ok.  They still get their work done.

We are wrapping up the first semester and, after weeks in November and December where we were over a week behind so I changed their schedule some, we are now so caught up that we will be done a week early with their semester work.  Josh is even further ahead and could be done today, if I let him, but we are just going really slow so he has an assignment each day at least.  I'm not complaining at all, after struggling so much at the beginning of the year with trying to stay on top of the boys work, it feels good to be in a better place and actually spending time on their lessons instead of just pushing through to accomplish tasks on time.

Our plan for the week is simple:
1) Nate has some journaling assignments from December that we need to finish up this week. 
2) Wrap up almost all, if not all, of the lessons for this week and next week with the goal of working only on Live Lessons, Sight words, and Nate's January Journaling next week.
3) We have a field trip this week that we are very excited about - we are going bowling!! 

We started Tea Kwon Do this past week which the boys are thrilled about.  Gymnastics starts in February and T-ball/Baseball is just around the corner plus I'm still trying to find some place affordable for some swimming lessons for the boys. 

Family Fun - Thanksgiving

So, I realize Christmas has just passed but I haven't posted any Family Fun posts since before Thanksgiving and wanted to start there so here's a recap of our Thanksgiving.

We spent Thanksgiving with my parents.  We arrived Thursday morning and enjoyed football, fellowship and, of course, some awesome food. 

It has become tradition for the boys to help my dad put the tree up and then help decorate it.  Papa had two very eager helpers as he put the tree together and worked to get the lights all working on the tree.  

Darryl . . enjoying some down time after working lots of days in a row. 

The boys watching Papa try to find the light that isn't working.  Notice the shirtless kid?  He is always hot and almost always shirtless. 

My dad.  Taking a break from all of the work.  

Quality time with Nana . . playing games on the Ipads.  HA!  What did we do before we all had something to play a game on???

The boys helping to hang decorations on the tree. 

The crazy kids, posing, shirtless, and just having fun.

Joshua :-) 

We had a great time at my parents and then we left the kids!!  Another tradition - they boys always stay for a few days after Thanksgiving while Darryl and I get to take off for home and enjoy some "kidless" days. 

Weekly Menu

I didn't realize until after I went grocery shopping last week that I planned all soups . . .the weather ended up being perfect for it though so it was ok.  We tried something new in our soup this week too - Kale.  It was actually good and holds up better than spinach does in a hot bowl of soup.

Things have calmed down after the busy holidays and, like normal, I try to "stop the bleed" of holiday spending and save money instead so a big part of that is keeping the food budget as low as possible.  So our meals stay simple :-)

Here's the plan for the coming week:

Friday - Pancakes, Sausage, and Hashbrowns.

Saturday - Copy cat  Chick-Fil-Lay Sandwhiches, Coleslaw and Fries

Sunday - Sunday Swiss Steak, Mashed potatoes, Corn, and Rolls

Monday - Slow Cooker Teriyaki chicken, Fried Rice, Egg Rolls

Tuesday - Nate has been asking me to make homemade Mac and Cheese because he has a cooking game on his Ipad that has taught him how to make it.  So, I'm going to make Mac and Cheese  not out of the blue box, Ham, and Green Beans. 

Wednesday - Spinach Ricotta Pasta with Chicken, Salad and Breadsticks

Thursday - Leftovers OR Homemade Pizza.