Thursday, June 28, 2007

Here's some Total Momsense

h/t to http://matschsticks.typepad.com/matschstick_adventures/

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Soccer Kid

This is so cute. Family...... brothers .... siblings.... Adorable!!


H/T to Michele and to La Vie Catholique

Moxie visiting

Grandma is in Iowa visiting her sister. So we are dog sitting for Moxie.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Science plan for next year

Here is my science plan for my kids for next year. Adjusting the requirements by age. I have Katie 2nd/3rd & James 5th

I'm going to get Apologia's text book: "Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day"
the book is $35 at http://www.adoremusbooks.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=3704
They are having a 20% sale using discount code CHINO67 until 7/16. and free shipping on over $25.
LOOK at a sample module on whales here at the Apologia Website: http://apologia.securesites.net/pdfs/sample/ecz2_2.pdf

Then do notebooking (which is lapbooking in a notebook since there will be lots of pages for a whole year or how long it takes.)
using Live N Learn's materials. They are still working on it, and should be done in a week or 2. I think this is going to cost $30

They have samples up at: http://www.liveandlearnpress.com/zoo2.pdf
which go with the whale sample that Apologia has up above.

I'm interested in putting together a co-op for science if other families want to do the same book.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Be Not Afraid



A song from Mass today was "Do Not Be Afraid" and I've been singing it all day.

Do not be afraid, I am with you
I have called you each by name
Come and Follow Me
I will give you hope.
I Love You and
You are Mine.


And it reminds me of this other wonderful song I like to remember: "Be Not Afraid"


Be not afraid
I go before you always
come follow me
and I will
give you rest

Tidal Homeschooling

I haven't written yet about how HAPPY I was to meet my blogging "Idol" Melissa Wiley.
She writes 2 blogs I read regularly: The Lilting House and Here in the Bonny Glen.

She wrote about how her family moved to San Diego, and I couldn't wait to meet her.
Somehow I knew that sometime I would. I just hoped it would be sooner than later and luckily it was sooner. She posted looking for students for a piano class and I had 2 kids ready to take piano lessons.
I emailed her about my kids.
In my next email I told her that I was a lurker and didn't want to appear a blog stalker, but I was so thrilled to meet her.

She has so much to teach me.
I have come to a similar philosophy (yet STILL learning) in homeschooling that she discusses and LIVES and Posts about on her blogs.

And now she has created a new Yahoo group: tidalhomeschooling.
I'm so excited to read about her ideas and the ideas of everyone who join the group.

spiral binding... a great idea

H/T to Cheryl for the idea to sprial bind your workbooks!

Definitely a thing to do with the Seton books. Especially for my left-hander Katherine and her handwriting book.
Maybe it would make the spelling, phonics & english books easier to. hhmmmm.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Latest Amazon Purchase

Look what arrived from amazon today:
Katherine found the "This is America Charlie Brown" at the library last month and it was very interesting. It has so much information about Early American History. I was/am so surprised. I had never seen the videos before.
Of course the School House Rock is an oldie but a goodie.
The kids are having fun watching it and are amazed that I know most of the words.
Only thing, now I'm falling asleep and waking up with those songs in my head. "Ohh a noun is a person place or thing..................."





I've had this in my wishlist for a while now. Karen was going to look for her cassette copies for me to borrow.... but I decided to just order the cd's so that we can listen to them in the car.

Blockbuster online has the DVD of Beethoven Lives upstairs and Bach Pays a Call.
Looking forward to renting those. There is a short wait.

We have been watching "The Electric Company" episodes on DVD from blockbuster.
That has been fun. It is interesting to see the video animation technology or lack of in their presentations. I have also been surprised to realize that the actors are Bill Cosby and Morgan Freeman. I didn't remember who the actors were from that show. I never realized Bill Cosby on his Cosby Show was the same as the guy I watched on TEC all those years.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.

6/17/07

"I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me."
- Galatians 2:20


I love this verse. It was wonderful to hear it at Mass today.
When I was studying for my Master's Degree, this was
Doulas Bushman's favorite quote. He said it MANY times over 3 years.

We finally got a trampoline

Geoff finally said "YES" we could get a trampoline.
We've only been asking him for one for about 5 years.

AND he spent Father's Day afternoon putting it together.

YEAH DAD!

Friday, June 15, 2007

More Dover free stuff

Last night I figured out that there are

regular
samplers http://www.doverpublications.com/sampler/0525/children3.htm


and


teacher samplers http://www.doverpublications.com/teachersampler/0515/index.html


and if you change the date (subtract 7 days) you can go back and get LOTS more.

I printed out lots of Knight pictures for James http://www.doverpublications.com/teachersampler/0612/teacher8a.htm
some Egypt papers http://www.doverpublications.com/teachersampler/0410/teacher2.htm
some dinosaur pictures

and LOTS of mazes that Derek is really into right now.

Plus some lizard http://www.doverpublications.com/teachersampler/0522/teacher5.htm
and horse pictures. http://www.doverpublications.com/teachersampler/0508/teacher3.htm

skeleton anatomy - in color - http://www.doverpublications.com/teachersampler/0612/teacher5.htm

Thursday, June 14, 2007

How I got started blogging......

Inquiring Minds Want to Know: Your Blogging Story Carnival
A meme for today...............................
4andcounting contributed her meme post and here is mine.
This is originated at Don't Try This at Home go there to add your meme link. Or leave a comment.

How did you start blogging?

I had heard about blogs but they seemed to be political and people trying to make their strong opinionated opinions heard. I am NOT political and except for my household, I don’t have a strong need to have my opinions heard. (They don’t listen anyway). I didn't do blogs.

When my father became ill with Parkinson’s disease in July 2005 and I had to take care of him.
I had full responsibility for his health, home & welfare. I had heard of the phrase “Sandwich Generation.” So I Googled it.
Most results that came up were blogs by other women who shared their experiences of taking care of their family, usually with young children (like me) and an ailing or elderly parent.

So I started reading the blogs and found other mothers in my position. I learned a lot, I learned I wasn’t alone. At that time I read a lot of blogs and especially www.BusyMom.net most everyday. She is hilarious. I haven’t read her for a while, but now that I’m reminding myself, and seeing her post for Tuesday, I’m going back for more. Ok, I just added her to my Google Reader.

SO I decided to set up my own blog place to write about my experiences and share with whoever finds my blog.

Once my father passed away, I decided it was time to get off the fence and finally decide to homeschool.
During my research on Homeschooling, once again, good ole’ Google brought up TONS of blogs by homeschoolers.
I think homeschool moms get to vent, share and reach out to touch other moms while we are home with our kids 24/7 through our blogs.


Did you intend to have a blog with a big following? If so, how did you go about getting it?

Uh, no, but NOW I do!
I had no idea how many people were out there writing and reading blogs.
Of course I hope people will find me & read it, but I am NOT a writing genius (as you can see by my blog!) so I hope they will come back for more!
I read other blogs, I leave very few comments, but I’m trying to comment more, and I have joined a couple Catholic Mom Homeschool Blog Lists.
I try to do memes and fun things that others are doing ……. like this one!
I get some comments, so some new friends are finding me…………. or I’m finding them when they move to San Diego (hi Lissa!)


What do you hope to achieve or accomplish with your blog? Have you been successful? If not, do you have a plan to achieve those goals?

I don’t have any plan. I just want to keep a diary of some kind and share pictures of my kids and our adventures while homeschooling and living life. I do hope to share my Catholic faith and the beautiful liturgical season, the blessings of the saints and holy days.


Has the focus of your blog changed since you started blogging? How?

As I said, I started blogging to try and reach out to find others who have found themselves in the “sandwich generation”. Since that only lasted 7 months for me, my focus and motive switched to sharing our home, homeschool experiences and sharing my Faith – more in a diary sort of way.

What do you know now that you wish you'd known when you started?
I wish I knew I would lay awake at night thinking up brilliant blog posts, that have been forgotten by morning, and thus never written……… sigh! Same thing for the ones I think of while I’m driving. Watch out… when we get internet access in the car…….. who knows what will happen.

I wish I had known how many blogs I would have on my Google Reader and WANT TO check everyday. As of today there are 54 blogs on there.
I don’t get more than a couple emails a month that are personal notes from friends telling me about their lives. But EVERY DAY I can look up 100+ entries of friends I’ve found on blogs and see what they have been up to for the past couple days. Learn new things about my faith.
Learn LOTS of new craft projects, homeschool curriculum advice and that my children really do act normal for their age, even when I think they are crazy, or they are driving me crazy.


Do you make money with your blog?

No. I have not figured that out yet. I'd love to make money. Can I make it for READING other blogs?
I’ve joined with Amazon, but that was more so that when I put book covers in my blog I don’t get sued for copyright infringement. At least when I’m doing advertising for a book that I like Amazon gives me the HTML code for the book and there’s a handy link if you want to look at it and THEN you are going to BUY it, right?


Does your immediate or extended family know about your blog? If so, do they read it? If not, why?

My family says, “What’s a blog?”
My cousin, when I commented in an email that she can keep up with us and our antics and pictures of the kids said, “OH, I don’t have time for that blog stuff.”
Helloooooo, YOU Don’t have to blog, just come to my blog and read it. It doesn’t take a credit card #. Someday I'll set up a paypal account.


What two pieces of advice would you give to a new blogger?

1. Post as often as you can. If you use blogger, you can date your post whenever you want, so if you are like me you can spend 3 hours in one night posting pictures and stories about the past few weeks.

2. BE HONEST<> I’m still learning what I want to write about and how I want to say it. There are such excellent blogs out there. There are better writers, funnier writers and there are more creative writers out there than me. I can only be me, write the way I do, and hope that someone likes what I have to say.

p.s.
#3. If you haven’t noticed already, I’m a big fan of Google Reader. It took a while to find it and it has really helped to read the blogs you really like without keeping a long list on your “Favorites” list and trying to remember what you have read that day, and being disappointed if you figure it out and find that they didn’t post anything that day.


tagging: Esther, Lissa, Jen, Christine, Alice, Jen
and YOU anyone else that kindly reads my blog :)

Hands of a Child - Lapbook Project & Research packs

Are any of you doing lapbooking/notebooking??
We are working on lapbooks for
1) James' California state study
2) Katherine's My Human Body
3) Multiplication Pizza party

I am very happy with the products from Hands of a Child (especially the FREE ones)
you download the e-books with adobe and they are yours to use as many times as you need.

If we have a common interest, I would really like to get some kids together to do a co-op Lapbook.
Lapbooking is very good for Science and History.

Some other lapbooks & have purchased and we will be doing:
Volcanoes
the Moon
Penguins
Oceanography
Ancient Egypt
All about Me
Thanksgiving
Mythological Creatures

Check out their products if you are interested. They have a lot of "sample" pages you can look at.

Dover Sampler - more free stuff

I was telling Sande & Kelly about this Dover Sampler, so I wanted to share it with all of you.

It is a Free weekly email on Fridays that you click on and it brings up a page of book covers.

You can click on the book covers to see sample pages from the books and print out pages for free.

From this weeks sampler I printed out:
For James:A page with the Golden Gate Bridge
and a page with the Redwood trees from the Sequoia forest

For Derek,
2 pages with easy pre-K Farm mazes with a cow and chickens
a great page with hermit crabs on it (thanks to Lorraine for the enclosure for his birthday, but we didn't get a crab YET)

For Katherine:a great beach/shoreline scene for her to color
a "find the difference" page from the tidepools.
how to draw a manatee

I just like to share FREE stuff.

free at HomeSchool Estore

Today at "Homeschool EStore.com" there is a great Oceanography packet utilizing bible scripture that is Free.
There are scripture quotes for most of the days. It is divided up into levels for grades 1 - 12. It is a 10 day unit study. It is 36 pages of daily activities an answer key and glossary.
http://www.homeschoolestore.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=243


They also have a Free California State Study packet (4th graders)
Too bad I already ordered it in March and Paid $18.
This 113-page unit gives you and your student state facts, geography, climate, government, and much more in the 16-page research guide.
These are Adobe file downloads.
http://www.homeschoolestore.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1033


I'm on their e-mail list and they have FREE products to sample every month.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Bible Quote for the Day

2 Corinthians 12:9-10
"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

Author/Writer: God and The Apostle Paul
Context: II CORINTHIANS. Written to correct erroneous views arising out of the first epistle, and emphasizing

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Happy Anniversary Hon!

I need to find a nice wedding picture to scan and post.

Here's a Family shot from Las Vegas.








June 12, 1993
The Immaculata church, San Diego.
Msgr. Dan Dillabough.


Here we are 14 years later!!


All weekend in Las Vegas I was waiting to hear if he remembered it would be our anniversary today, but I didn't.
I waited all Monday............. and this morning...................
Then as we kissed goodbye, and he was taking my mom to the airport..............
I said, "Happy Anniversary!"
He said, "Oh it is June 12. I guess I have to go buy you something."
"Oh wait, you got a new Dooney & Bourke purse...... Happy Anniversary"

I told Katherine later while we were at the park that it was our anniversary.
She said, "OK let's go out to dinner!"
No, we need to go get groceries. How about Hawaiian Chicken Shish Cabobs?




And we'll make a cake!


James made most of the cake himself. His first time. I just coached, and helped with the mixer and scraping the bowl. He made garlic bread too.

He was excited about cooking (good why don't you help out more often?)

Then James & Katherine set the table with our BEST china, silverware and crystal water goblets. (wedding gifts!)


Geoff did surprise me with a new shirt and shorts with a cute Anniversary Card!

Monday, June 04, 2007

Music reading lesson

The kids started piano lessons and are learning to read music.
I needed a refresher, and I'm a visual learner :) so i googled music reading lessons and found this great site.

This one is pretty good too with the 6 lessons.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Derek the artist



Derek pulled out this little table, got out the paper and crayons, laid out the Clifford blanket and then was VERY quiet.


I was reading while watching TV so the quiet was nice.


Then I went to check what he was doing and was happily surprised at his clever idea, and great artistry.


Here is his picture of Clifford the Big Red Dog as copied from the blanket on the floor.

Saturday, June 02, 2007

Geoff's Rock 'n Roll Marathon - 9 th Year!



The Rock 'n Roll Marathon is celebrating it's 10th year in San Diego.



Geoff missed the first year 11997 - (James was a newborn and we were sleep deprived).



But he has ran the 26.2 miles every June since - 9 years now!



I don't know how he does it.





There are runners (him) and those of us who would rather eat dirt than run (me.)



I got winded running from the parking space I finally found to the gate where we were able to see him run by in the last mile before the finish line.





We usually skp Mass (bad, bad bad) and go and see him along the route.





This year, with 2 kids now taking Holy Communion, I took us all to Mass! (good, good)


We were able to see him at the end and then in the reunion area after he crossed the finish line.



Here is his medal, and he is changing his shirt.

Friday, June 01, 2007

James' Last Basketball Game



Today was James' last basketball game with his team at the YMCA.

YEAH they won the game!! finally.
Poor kids, trying to be sportsmanly here, but they had to play the same team every week.

The other team always had 6 players. 2 very good players, boys, and the rest were pretty good too - 2 boys and 2 girls.


Our team had 3 boys, good in their own right, but not as good or as agressive as their 2 great players. We had 2 girls where were pretty good, but they only showed up for half of the games.


So one of the boys' little brothers would play and we would have 4 vs. 4 and they would rotate in 2 kids. Our poor boys got poked, tripped, punched and were cut & bleeding (by fingernails).

And they lost most every game in points.


Oh well, I guess I'm just whining. I just didn't think it was a fair division of teams. They did assessments before chosing teams, but I think it is wierd how the other team got the better more agressive players, and our team were sweet boys. (Ok, I didn't mention it above, and I was trying to avoid saying it, but their players were 2 black boys and one girl and our team were all white kids). There I said it. SO I just don't understand why each team didn't get one of the boys and they would have been more evenly divided. Oh Well.
It was the first time this new YMCA has set up a basketball league. I hope word gets out for next season and there is a better turn out so there are more teams to play each other.
p.s. After the game we went to see Spider Man 3.
I was avoiding it, but actually liked it very much. except the ending where EVERYONE is crying in the movie. All the guys and the one girl...... all crying.......
I think I liked it a tiny bit more than Shrek 3 --- Which we saw the morning it came out!
Ditched homeschool and went to the movies at 11 a.m. :)