Spring Break

Most of our friends went to sunny, southern locations for Spring Break this year. We were just going to be staying home and at first I thought we might just do school but in the end we just had some relaxing fun around here. Now get ready for a super-duper picture heavy post! =)

Monday we didn’t do much, we went and got our groceries for the week, then the girls just enjoyed playing outside for hours. Hubby got to golf with his friend and then we grilled steaks on the grill that night and enjoyed eating out on the deck for the first time this year and playing basketball in the driveway together.

Our little sweetie, Gracie …

She likes to think she’s the ‘Neighborhood Watch’

Tuesday I decided to make a special breakfast, yummy homemade Whole Wheat pancakes with fresh strawberries! Mmmmm, the girls were surprised and excited when they woke up!

 

I have been LOVING these gorgeous tulips my family gave me for Easter! And yes, we did use fancy stemware for our special breakfast!

That morning I had the girls work on writing out the Fruits of the Spirit … they had been fighting and arguing a lot in the days before and I wanted them to take time to reflect on how they should be treating one another. It worked wonders as they got along the rest of the week!

My hubby took the day off work and we went out to lunch at The Olive Garden, which is one of the girls and I favorites!

Then we went roller skating and met up with some friends there … we skated for almost 3 hours and it was SO.MUCH.FUN! What a good workout! Later that day we checked out a new frozen yogurt place near us and it was so delish! Then we came home and hung out, playing outside some more and relaxing.

On Wednesday the girls went to spend the day with my Mother in law … she picked them up and they were gone all day and hubby was gone to work all day so I cleaned ALL day. It felt so good to get so much done around the house! I also did my exercise and then went to pick the girls up at church after Awana that night. When we got home my daughter had this little patch of hives on her arm, so I gave her Benadryl and sent her to bed.

Then she woke up around 3 am with most of her torso and back covered in HUGE patches of hives. We were out of Benadryl at that point so my hubby drove to the drugstore and got more {so thankful for him!}. I never did get back to sleep that night, was just worried about my girl and restless.

On Thursday morning she was worse, the patches were now covering most of her body so I took her in to see the doc who really couldn’t do much for her – she advised doubling the doses of Benadryl and trying cool baths.

Unfortunately we didn’t do much else that day – my daughter was so uncomfortable that she really just laid around and the rest of us didn’t do much either.

So, while the girls were playing, watching TV and relaxing I decided to get the rest of our school year planned out. I was inspired by this post by Alicia at LaFamille … I figured that the rest of our year will go SO much better if I have a PLAN and get it all down on paper. I’m actually super excited to finish our year now that I have things all penned out.

Friday morning I got up early and got BUSY! Got my bootcamp video done first thing in the morning, got showered and dressed and ready for the day. I felt great and know this is what I need to do EVERY day!

 

We had a quick doc appointment that morning, then I took the girls shopping. They each had money to spend and I had promised we would go. They wanted to go to Five Below, Claire’s and Justice and it took FOREVER! My girls love to shop but they take forever making decisions! Guess I now know how my hubby feels about shopping! LOL

We came home, ate lunch and played outside. It was GORGEOUS out! I sat on my swing and worked on more of my planning and doing my Bible study homework.

I am loving sandal weather!

My youngest bought these fake glasses at Claire’s – she loves them, she’s worn them ever since she bought them! She is too funny!

I got my camera out and decided to look for some beauty around the yard …

Even the weeds look lovely … just so nice to see things growing again!

The girls played in the creek, always a favorite. Mud and water are such a draw for kids, right?

      

When my hubby came home from work we grilled burgers for dinner and played baseball in the yard. Then we had a campfire and made SMORES, our first ones of the year!

This morning I had to take another pic of my tulips … I love, love, love fresh flowers!

Today I decided to be intentional with my time, it was spurred by a couple things I’ve read lately and I have A LOT more to say about this topic later, but for now, let me show you all the fun we had today!

Hubby works on Saturdays, and many times the girls and I sit around with not much too do. They usually watch cartoons all morning and I usually sit on the computer all morning. TODAY though, I decided things would be DIFFERENT! I got my workout clothes on, packed a healthy picnic lunch and we headed out …

{I like to use a laundry basket in the car to keep everything organized … }

 

First stop – the library! We LOADED up on books and movies that will last us a good week or maybe even two!

    

And I love it when my ‘read’ bin is FULL!

  

Then we met a friend of mine at a local park so I could run/walk with her and my girls played on the playground. We did about 3 miles and it felt great! Then the girls and I sat on the grass and had our little healthy picnic, it was such a beautiful day!

After that we hit a few tag sales. There were a couple big ones at a school and a church where I got some AMAZING bargains {more on that in another post}.

Then we headed home …

at home we washed my car {can’t beat a FREE car wash, it’s fun and good for the kids to see the results of hard work!}

NICE and clean!

Then the girls decided to read their new books so they set up chairs outside and laid in the sun.

I made them a fun snack and brought it out to them … you can tell we’re at the end of the week and running low on groceries cause it’s a mix-mash of stuff! LOL

My healthy snack was an apple and a piece of Muenster cheese …. yum!

Did I mention that I’m super happy it’s sandal weather?!

And my last photo … my daughter found these daffodils for me, sure they’re almost dying, but still add a bright spot to my kitchen and a smile in my heart. =)

 

It’s been a WONDERFUL week, we did some fun things, we did some relaxing, we enjoyed the weather and time together. No, it wasn’t Florida or Myrtle Beach – but we’ll do those things another time. I think we still had a pretty good week overall!

Winner, winner, where are you?

As I said a couple posts ago, the winner of my spring giveaway is JAMIE! However, I have absolutely NO way to contact Jamie, no email, no blog ... so PLEASE Jamie, I really want to send you your prizes but you need to contact me at fourkerwins@sbcglobal.net so you can choose your journal and flower and I can get them mailed out to you.

Jamie said...
My favorite thing about spring is tulips growing in our yard and the green grass!

Truth Quest History Review

A couple of months ago I was given a new History curriculum to review for The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew. The program is called Truth Quest History and the guide we were given to try out was called Beginnings.

Beginnings goes over the span of Creation, the Old Testament, the Ancients and Egypt.
The program is ideally for Grades 5-12, but younger siblings can participate. Included in the curriculum is a book list with book recommendations for all ages. This history guide is available as printed book, or PDF eBook (for immediate download). It has optional "companion resources" (lapbook, notebook, timeline) which are offered on the website for purchase.

The cost for this History Curriculum is: $29.95 for the book version
or: $23.95 for the PDF version.
It is comprised of 88 lessons.

In this study guide you will learn the history of the world through God's Word, starting all the way back at the beginning of time.

Each day you will gather your kids together and read the commentary for the day. After the commentary has been read and discussed, children will be ready to dig into the historical event or personage being studied and can do so by choosing from a long list of books on the topic. These books can either be purchased on your own or by borrowing from your local library. Some lessons will include a Think Write exercise which will deepen their insights through writing, but most lessons simply have them read, talk and think. There are other optional resources but for the most part it's just the reading and everything else is optional.

Our thoughts:
We reviewed the first week of lessons in the Truth Quest book and although God's story is certainly an important and interesting one - we unfortunately didn't find it met our needs for a history curriculum. For the most part, we found the lessons far too wordy and filled with words my kids didn't even understand. I'm sure much of this was due to this book being geared towards 5th-12th graders. My students are just in 5th grade and 3rd grade now so it was definitely above their attention and comprehension level. And when I tried to secure the books from the book list at my local library I found that almost every single book I wanted was unavailable.
There were some companion resources, such as the Binder-Builder provided by A Journey Through Learning. This sets up much like a lap book to go along with the daily lessons. It is available for purchase for an additional $18 {PDF version only}. Although I didn't receive that part of the curriculum, I viewed a sample of it and found that it too was a bit drab for our taste. It was mostly copy-work or questions for the kids to answer, nothing to color, nothing to craft, no pictures, etc.

So basically we found that Truth Quest just wasn't the right fit for us. It's a very extensive curriculum and will probably work very well for many families, for us though it just wasn't the right choice. If you'd like to check out Truth Quest please visit their website. And if you'd like to read more reviews on this curriculum please check out The Old SchoolHouse Homeschool Crew and see what other homeschoolers are saying about it.

Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine.

Fitness Challenge and How I notebook

I am SO, super excited today! I was telling my hubby and my friend Julie that I am sick of doing this yo-yo thing with regards to my weight and health. I try hard for a week or so, then fall off the wagon. It's a constant battle for me. But I am tired of doing that and I'm ready for a change. I want THIS year to be the year where I feel CONFIDENT and COMFORTABLE at the beach instead of being annoyed at myself for not trying harder {which is how I usually feel!}

So, why am I excited? Well just today I asked on FB if any of my local friends wanted to form an accountability group to get fit for summer and several people are going to join me - THEN I checked the blog Women Living Well and SHE is doing a 5 week challenge so this is HUGE confirmation to me to just JUMP RIGHT IN with two feet and DO IT!

This week, Courtney told us to choose one area that we would work on this week. Whether it's giving up junk, drinking more water, exercising more, etc. Well for me, I usually eat pretty healthy, but I do my best when I'm writing down EVERY.SINGLE.THING. that I eat.

A few weeks back I created this fitness and nutrition journal and I notice that I can tell which days I was really eating bad - because those are the days I wrote NOTHING down! So my commitment this week is to write it ALL down, the good, the bad, the ugly - hopefully it will all be good and I won't have to be ashamed of anything I've eaten this week!

Now, here's a little sneak peek at my journal ....

I took a basic composition book and cut out various pictures and phrases from Health magazines - then I stuck them on the journal and used packing tape to sort of laminate the cover.

The inside cover also has some inspirational pics ...

 I chose this verse for inspiration and posted it in the front cover along

with my weight and measurements ...

This is a typical day...

And I like to include little things to encourage me and spur me on ...

On the back cover, another inspirational verse and a few guidelines for myself:

Think you wanna join in? Click over to Courtney's blog and check it out! And if you live locally to me and want to be part of our accountability group please contact me and I'll include you in our FB group. =)

Being a Mom of only Girls

Being a Mom of only girls is a wonderful, amazing, rewarding experience. Of course, I've never had sons, so I have nothing to compare it to! When I decided to join in Kelly's link up for Mom's of girls all I could think of is what a blessing it's been to be a Mom of these two beautiful, amazing girls.

My daughter's are nicknamed on my blog for the sake of privacy, so I refer to them as Hope and Joy on here. Hope is 10 {and a half!} and Joy is 9. They are just 17 months apart which is not something we EVER planned, but it has been a wonderful blessing to have them so close in age.

I always say, sometimes they can be the best of friends and other times they can be the worst of enemies. They will fight and bicker at times, then an hour later will play and get along so well. Many times they will go off to play for HOURS together and have the best time together. Their personalities are different, so obviously sometimes they just need a break from one another - probably just like ANY other siblings!

My girls are a great mix of girly girl and tomboy {well, maybe they lean a BIT more towards tomboy!}. They do like to get dressed up pretty and look nice. But they ALSO love to get dirty, play in the mud, ride bikes, pick up frogs, find bugs and wear grubby

t-shirts and sweatpants.

Hope is the more adventurous one, but I would expect nothing less of a firstborn. She will readily try new things and push herself out of her comfort zone. She loves a challenge and when she tries something new she will keep at it until she's come pretty close to perfecting it. {Rollerblading is her latest thing.} =)

Joy is a bit more timid. She waits and watches things more and then will step out and try things only after she's seen someone else do it. She is more cautious and often likes to follow in her big sister's footsteps.

 They both LOVE the outdoors, we do a lot of outdoorsy things together and they have naturally learned to love those things as well. We hike mountains, bike ride, go camping, go to the beach and play sports in the backyard. They also love to play in the creek behind our house, usually coming in completely muddy and soaking wet!

My oldest has a really fun and *interesting* sense of style right now. She likes to wear all kinds of crazy outfits and hairstyles and doesn't really care if it's not 'in style'. I'll admit, I haven't always been on board with every outfit and I know it's just because when we leave the house, I want her to look presentable so people won't think I'm a bad Mom. It's something I've been trying to work on because I want HER to feel confident and secure in who SHE is, and if she is confident in the clothes/ hairstyle she chose than why should *I* make her feel otherwise. I guess it's one benefit of homeschooling, kids feel more able to express themselves in what they wear than if they were feeling the peer pressure at school. The Lord has really been showing me that if I want my daughter's to feel confident and secure, I need to be supportive and not turn my nose up at every outfit that doesn't match or look cute.

Being a Mom of girls has it's challenges too. Dealing with emotions and 'attitudes' is an ongoing thing. Seems like whenever we get through one difficult stage, we start with another one. But I am getting better at not reacting so strongly towards these stages and trying to keep my own attitude and emotions in check {which isn't always easy!}.

Some of the fun things are having spa night, watching movies together, curling up to read books together, having little 'fashion shows', listening to their endless giggles, being creative & crafty together, talking about life, teaching them God's Word and seeing their friendships grow.

One of the best books I've ever read on raising girls is Dr. James Dobson's 'Bringing Up Girls'. I simply can't recommend it enough!

I also can't stress enough the importance of a wonderful Daddy in a girl's life. My husband does an AMAZING job of being there for his girls. He LOVES to take them out in the driveway and have basketball competitions with them, he takes them fishing with him, he takes them biking, he is VERY hands on with everything they do and they simply ADORE him. In Dobson's book he talks a lot {about 3 chapters worth!} about the importance of a great Dad in his daughter's life.

When people ask me if I'd ever keep trying to have a boy, I tell them NO WAY! I am so happy that God chose to bless me with these two wonderful girls. I know there have been challenges and there always will be - but the blessings FAR outweigh the challenges and the rewards are too numerous to count.

 My daughter's have both accepted the Lord as their Savior and I hope and pray that they will always make the Lord the center of their lives. My greatest desire is to see them grow into women who love the Lord and go on to raise their own families to know and love the Lord. I pray that they will always have confidence in knowing who they are in Christ; beautiful, chosen, dearly loved daughters of the KING!

 I am SO blessed!

WINNER!

The winner of my spring giveaway is JAMIE! Jamie, you are the only person who I do not have any way to contact so PLEASE contact me as soon as possible at fourkerwins@sbcglobal.net so you can choose your journal and flower and I can get them mailed out to you.

Jamie said...

My favorite thing about spring is tulips growing in our yard and the green grass!

Thanks to ALL who played along and don't forget you can still get 12% off your total purchase in my Etsy shop, RANUNCULUSLY CUTE CREATIONS for the whole month of April. Just use the coupon code SPRING12 at checkout.

Easter - He is Risen!

I've been thinking about the big holiday coming up this weekend. Easter. Yep, you know the one, right? So just like Christmas, so many people have gotten SO far away from what Easter is really about.

Easter isn't about bunnies and eggs! It's about CHRIST! There would be NO Easter, without Christ!

Do we still have fun with Easter? Absolutely. My family and I still have fun dying hard boiled eggs, doing an egg hunt, going on a scavenger hunt to find their Easter baskets, etc.

But we also focus on Jesus Christ and the awesome gift He gave when He died on the cross for us. We attend church {and not just on Easter and Christmas!}, we sometimes do Resurrection Rolls {which show the empty tomb}, we spend time in our school days talking about the days leading up to the cross and we make it the focus of Easter.

I hope and pray that each and every one of you would know Christ as your Savior, He died for YOU, for ME, for every single person who ever lived. If you have questions about this, please ask! I'm not an expert in Bible theology, but I will certainly try to answer the best I can.

Here is a link to Kelly's Korner, she has a beautiful post today about what Easter means to her with some links to helpful Bible verses.

In the next few days I pray that you will draw closer to God and thank Him for giving the gift of His Son. And maybe take your family to church this Easter if it's not something you normally do.

Have a wonderful, blessed Easter my friends!