Surprise!

Surprise!


Well, it was a bit of a surprise to us!

But praise God that He is sovereign and has plans for us beyond our own plans.

The kids are so excited.  They are so interested and asking so many questions.  What a wonderful age they are at to experience this!

I am, however, extremely wore out!  (With a bit of nausea, too.) 

So, I apologize to my readers for my lagging posts.  We HAVE been accomplishing our school tasks for each day, which I am extremely proud of, but little else is being accomplished right now.  And blogging at the end of the day has fallen second place to sleep.  Things should perk up in a week or two! 

So, any guesses? 
Will Curly Girlie get the sister she's been praying for or will she remain the sole princess with a trio of brothers?  If it helps you guess the baby's first heartrate was 179 bpm and the second was 166 bpm. 





Blueberry Banana Oatmeal

Usually when I grab the bananas and frozen blueberries, it's to make smoothies - which we all love.

But this time I was making oatmeal . . .

Blueberry Banana Oatmeal!

And it was a huge hit!

 I made 2 servings of old-fashioned oats on the stove top, following the directions on the canister.  I mashed up 2 bananas and grabbed a heaping cup of frozen blueberries.  I mixed them both in the oatmeal as soon as I pulled it off the stovetop. 

Mini M&M Fun

I thought I would kick things up a bit today and add some extra incentives - Mini M&M's! 

(found in the baking aisle with the chocolate chips)

 I wanted to do a thorough practice of special sounds with my Curly Girlie for her Phonics lesson. Since the list is getting quite large, I thought an incentive might be in order. But not wanting to load my kids up on junk, I thought the Mini M&M's would work quite nicely. So I grabbed the bag and we set to playing some games!

Organization 2012 - Binders

I feel like I am quickly becoming a "Binder Queen" in this New Year!  But what a great way to organize!  Add some sheet protectors and you have your papers and projects right at hand. 

My organization project has been to convert my old monthly files into monthly binders.  How much more convenient to flip the sheet protector pages to see what I have available for the month. 

Counting Caterpillar

While I had been working on counting by 2's with my Curly Girlie, we only recently started using the terms odd and even.

So I came up with a fun game to help her remember which is which.

Slow Cooker Orange Chicken

This was a recipe I pulled from a Kraft Food and Family magazine years ago

(back when they were free). 

I love it becuase it's only 6 ingredients!

It cooks in the crock pot!

And it's super yummy!

I made a few minor adjustments, so here's my recipe.

Ingredients:
4 or 5 chicken breasts
2 tbsp. flour
1/3 cup orange marmalade
1/3 cup BBQ sauce
2 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. ground ginger

Top 5 Posts of 2011

I have had a ball starting a blog this year.  And I am amazed at the response I have gotten on it!  I am so very thankful for the encouraging words of others.  It's so nice to know we are not in this homeschooling journey alone.  I love sharing ideas with others.  And I look forward to sharing many more ideas with you this year (I even have a list started!).  

But for now, I thought I would start off the New Year with a list of my top 5 posts from 2011.  So in case you missed any of the fun, here they are:

1. Word Family Books
a simple project you can whip up in a moment's notice