Back to School Blog Hop - School Room

Darcy at Life with my Three Boybarians is hosting a {Not} Back to School Blog Hop throughout the month of August. It's a chance for us homeschoolers to share things we do in our {home}schools ...



This week is all about sharing your school room. We have moved our room many times and have finally found a space in our house that works really well. We have a very small middle bedroom that we made into an office/school room/craft room. Back in June I completely redecorated it and I'm so happy with how it turned out! Since I never revealed those photos you will get to see the new result as well as all the before photos. The space was so cluttered before and since it's so small I struggled with how I would fit everything I needed in there - it serves so many different purposes! But somehow we made it all work and it looks beautiful, clean and less cluttered now!

I also have to note that we do 'school' in just about every room of our house, including outdoors! We use the kitchen table and island, the couch in the living room, the deck ... etc ... This school room is just a great place to house all our stuff and have a table and chairs in case we do want to sit and do school work there in that room. This coming year Hope will be using the computer for a couple of her subjects so I anticipate that while she's in there doing that I will be working with Joy out at the kitchen area.












With my awesome IKEA shelf in the room we can have all our needs met! I have all my scrapbook supplies and albums on the top two shelves and most of our school books and stuff on the bottom two shelves. The girls basic craft stuff is on the white shelf to the left. There are also dresser drawers in the closet that hold the rest of our craft supplies.

More July photos!

July was SUCH a busy month for us ... two major road trips plus a bunch of other events here at home. Here are some random photos that we took in July - some were too good not to show off!

Fireworks!
Hope and Mommy at the Fireworks ...
Joy and Daddy ...
I've been having so much fun capturing wildlife with my zoom lens! The sneaky little critter was raiding my neighbors bird feeder!
Wish he would've been looking AT me, but beautiful nevertheless!
Speaking of beauty - gorgeous, joy-filled smile on 'Joy's' face!!!
woohoo, wave jumping with a friend ...
And singing on the beach, with giant driftwood as their microphone of course!
More wildlife - with his lunch clenched in beak!
Splashin' in the waves!
Toes in the sand, there is no better place to be!

Ridin' on Grandpa's boat ... Mommy taking more pics than I will ever have the time to scrapbook!

I love my family!

4th of July - in August!

Once again, it's blog catch-up time! I know it's been a busy summer ... but I just don't know how I get so far behind with my blogging! So bear with me, and I hope you will still enjoy my slew of pics, even if they are from a month ago!

Our Fun Family Fourth was a hit again this year. The new thing we tried this year was a talent show and it turned out SO good! I was worried that no one would want to participate, but in fact almost every single person did something. We had jugglers, magicians, bike riders, basketball players, video makers, you name it! We will definitely make that a yearly tradition!

Here are some other things we did ...
Enjoyed time with cousins ...
Decorated the yard ...
Had a judges table for Bob's Grandparents who were our talent show judges ...
Found a way to re-use those fun cruise cups again ...
Drank lots of orange soda ...
Passed this sweet little one around from person to person ...
Took some group photos ...



Ate lots of yummy food!
Tried to impress the judges with our talents ...
Captured my hubby with a gorgeous smile ...
Watched our oldest thoroughly enjoy her job as the MC ...
Dragged one of my best friends into doing a 'talent' with me ...
Did the Hokey Pokey, the Chicken Dance and the Limbo ...
Got a quick hug from hubby ...
Did lots of swimming ...
And got a quick snapshot with a mini version of myself ...

All in all it was an amazing day, filled with fun and laughter. Sometime that has become our tradition for the past 6 years and something we will certainly look forward to again next year!!!

I Heart Faces - Beach Week!

If there ever was a topic that I love to photograph, it's the beach! Here is my submission for this week over at I Heart Faces.

This was Hope, on the beach in Bermuda, this past June. I love how this photo turned out!

Oh Canada!!!

My home and native land ....
{Come on Mary, I know you can sing it!!}

Yes it's true .... for those of you who didn't know this, I was born in Canada and lived their for most of my childhood. All of my Dad's family still live there. This weekend my cousin is getting married, and I get to go! I'm so excited! I haven't been back to my hometown in about 10 years. I get the privilege of bringing my daughters too and showing them 'where Mommy grew up'.

So stay tuned for lots of pics, and enjoy your weekend. We've got a lot of hours in the car ahead of us so say a prayer for us!

I {Heart} Faces ... er, um, Feet!

I'm tryin' something new around here ... I've been having SO much fun playing around with my new camera and taking some really neat shots lately ... soooo, thought I'd join in the fun over at I Heart Faces.

This week instead of Faces they are focusing on FEET! I just so happened to have some fun feet shots and this is the one I'm submitting for this week. Stay tuned, I could get addicted to these photo contests! Oh, and please go gentle on me, I'm new at this and have A LOT to learn!