Inspiration and Encouragement all around me

Lately H and I have had a really hard time with one another when it comes to school time. This is always a tough time of year because it's cold and yucky out and we're house bound for what seems like forever. It's hard to keep everyone happy and entertained in the house, for months on end.

So Monday is when it all seemed to fall apart. Well, at least I fell apart. We were having yet another rough school day with her being grumpy and not wanting to do the work and me feeling so frustrated that all I could do was cry. I felt so discouraged and wondered for the first time if maybe I wasn't doing the right thing by homeschooling her. I worried that she would lose her love of learning because she seemed to loathe school time most days. (Well, not all the time, but for the last few weeks.) I felt as though we'd hit a real low point in our student/teacher/mother/daughter relationship.

Luckily I am blessed to have in-laws who take care of the girls every Monday afternoon. As bad as this sounds, I think it was nice for H and I to have a few hours away from one another. I went to work for a few hours, and since they were on sale ... came home with a dozen beautiful pink, purple and yellow roses. It's funny how something like flowers can really bring my mood up!

Next, I requested prayer from my alumni friends from Bible college and received many great ideas and encouraging thoughts and prayers from other homeschooling Moms who are just like me.

The next morning I talked to my friend Sarah for a long time, she is homeschooling as well and offered lots of support and encouragement.

I'm not sure why, but sometimes I feel as though I need to hide it when I'm going through a tough time. It's hard to admit when things aren't going perfectly! But I'm so thankful that the Lord helps me see that I can't do it all on my own. That there are many others who are there to encourage and support me, if only I'll let them. And through it all, God is faithful. He never fails me.

So here's what I've learned about homeschooling H ...

• I need to pray more, by myself and with her.
• I have a creative mind ... I need to USE it, to keep things fun for her so she doesn't get bored with worksheets.
• There are resources everywhere that I have not taken advantage of but need to! (library, internet, museums, etc)
• I need to realize that life isn't perfect, and we will have bad days and good days.
• I need to remember that I had days as a child when I hated school too, and that's OK.
• I need to school her in a way that appeals to her interests!
• I need to remember that I'm not alone!
  

Thank you Lord, for showing me that I am not perfect, my child is not perfect and life is not perfect. Thank you for your faithfulness through our trials and your wisdom for dealing with life's ups and downs. Thank you for my beautiful, healthy, vibrant children ... give me strength, creativity, and energy as I teach them every day. Thank you for friends and family who encourage us, pray for us, and help us in raising our kids. And thank you for the internet which connects me to friends, family and other homeschooling Moms all over the country in ways that I am so thankful for!

Photo help!

I want so badly to put cute images behind my blog title. I can't seem to get the images and the words to fit just right. Any experienced bloggers out there who could give me some advice?

I heart Bloggy Giveaways!

If you've never been to the bloggy giveaways site before, this is the week to check it out! They are having a bloggy giveaway carnival in which there are currently over 760 giveaways going on! No purchase necessary, just go to the site, start clicking and leave comments on the ones you are interested in. Winners will be drawn randomly. I really hope I win something!

My friend Hope won a gorgeous necklace from bloggy giveaways ... so that gives me "Hope" that there is a chance I could win!

Here's the link ... do it now, the drawings only go till the end of this week!

Bloggy Giveaways Carnival

Later that same night...

Yes, we had a VERY busy Saturday, we came straight home from the birthday party, ate a quick snack, grabbed our stuff and went right back out the door to a Girl Scout event. They had a 'semi-sleepover' ... so the girls brought PJ's, blankets, pillows, etc and stayed up till about 10pm, then went home to sleep in their own beds.

I stayed to help out and it was so much fun. There were 7 girls in all, including my J who isn't quite a girl scout yet, but was able to come along anyway. They played games, did crafts, did dress-up, put on a puppet show, made and ate mini pizzas and watched .... you guessed it "Hannah Montana". I have to say, my two favorite moments were watching them practice for the puppet show, you will see pictures of this below. And also while watching Hannah Montana is was SO cute when all 7 girls would jump up and start singing and dancing all over the room.

Here are some pictures:











































All snuggled up in sleeping bags!

First time bowling

The girls were invited to a Hannah Montana party the other day ... and then another Hannah Montana party this week ... lately our house has been a buzz of Hannah Montana fever!

Anyway, the birthday party was for H's friend Katie and they went bowling. It was the girl's first time bowling and they had SO much fun! I took a few pictures so you can take a look.

The birthday girl Katie ...
H with her new Hannah Montana t-shirt on ...
I swear J looks SO much older in this picture!!


The whole group of goofy, giggly girls ...

Oh so fancy!

My girls are really into Fancy Nancy ... if you've never seen these books, you have to check them out. Little girls are bound to fall in love with Nancy ... who loves everything in her life to be fancy!
So take an otherwise boring afternoon, with everyone feeling blah, and nothing to do ... Daddy is gone to work, so it's just us girls. Mommy doesn't really feel like 'cooking' since it's just me and the girls ...

Then comes the brilliant idea to have a fancy tea party dinner! I told the girls to go dress up any way they wanted, I made heart shaped PB & J sandwiches, apple and banana slices, and cucumber slices. Then we had cranberry juice served in my fancy china tea cups and all the food served on my good china. And for dessert, little lemon cakes (the girls thought they were fancy, they didn't need to know they were actually weight watchers dessert cakes!)

I set the table with a fancy tablecloth and candles, then put all the food out and invited the girls to join me in our fancy restaurant ... Oh, and I dressed up fancy too with a scarf, fancy shawl, glittery top and dangly earrings ... who cared if I matched, the girls thought it was fancy!

We had so much fun! The girls really enjoyed our little fancy tea party! I am thinking that we really need to make this a weekly tradition, perhaps I could surprise them by doing it once a week on a day when they aren't expecting it at all!

Here are a couple photos: Fancy H
Fancy J Mommy and H Mommy and JOf course you can dress 'em up but you can't guarantee they'll act like ladies!!
Now there are some sweet smiles!
And a fancy bubble bath to finish the night.

My new favorite (low fat) dessert

Actually, I'm thinking that this dessert has little to no fat at all!

I'm a big fan of sweets, and especially creamy stuff like ice cream. Trying to eat healthy makes my ice cream addiction so hard to avoid! Even the low fat ice creams have a serving suggestion of 1/2 cup. 1/2 cup??!! That's nothing!

Anyway, I read about this dessert on the internet, I think it was the WW website but I can't remember. It is SO yummy!

Take one package of fat free cream cheese,
one container of fat free cool whip and
2 TBSP of coffee flavored mix
and blend together with your mixer.

Below you will see the coffee mix I use, it's even sugar free and comes in a variety of flavors. And it's decaf so you can enjoy these yummy treats at night and still sleep at night!

After it's all blended together I divide it into muffin cups, then sprinkle a small amount of slivered almonds over the top, then freeze. This is yummy even when it's not frozen, but freezing it makes it more like ice cream.

When you are ready to eat them, just take out of the freezer and let them thaw for a few minutes before trying to eat. These are so good and so low fat that you might even want more than one!

Just a side note, I am pretty sure you could adapt this any way you want. Example, if you really don't like coffee flavor, you could probably use some sort of sugar free choc syrup or caramel syrup, or any other flavor. I haven't taken the time to experiment yet!

Oh yeah, I usually just use regular paper muffin cups ... but I found these cute heart shaped silicone ones really cheap and bought them for the kids ... so I figured why not use them for my treats as well? One batch filled about 10 cups ... they are pretty small though. Yeah, I just might eat 2 at a time. :)

Change is good.

I'm a big fan of change. Not major change like moving to another state or changing jobs, or things like that. But little changes. I am forever changing my hair ... the color, the length, etc. And I love to change things around in my house. It's a small house, so sometimes it can start to feel a bit cramped. But just simply changing around the furniture in a room, or giving it a new fresh paint color, can make it feel bigger, newer, more exciting!

So for the last 8 months we have had the girls sharing a bedroom, while we've used the other bedroom as our schoolroom ... you might recall I posted pictures of our homeschool classroom back in September. This arrangement actually worked very well for awhile. H had been going through a very tough time with her sleep habits at night, but as soon as we put them in the same room it all got better. She started sleeping soundly all night and seemed to feel more secure just knowing that J was in the room with her. We also enjoyed having a space to keep all the school stuff.

Well recently I got this idea in my head ... and you know me, once I think of something I have to carry it out as soon as possible! So on Monday when we had a snow day, and Bob was out of town for the day, I did some major room changing! I moved ALL the school stuff downstairs to our finished basement/family room area. And I moved ALL of H's stuff and furniture out of the pink room and into the former school room. It was SUCH A BIG TASK! I must have run up and down the stairs at least 100 times! I even took apart and moved the bed all by myself and then put it all back together again!

Now that everything is all moved and settled I am so happy with the change. These are a few of the positives:
*H now has space of her own which is good because she sometimes just likes to be alone.
*J now has a BIG open space in her room to play which she is enjoying.
*The room was SO cramped when they shared that it was never clean, so maybe with more space we can keep things neater.
*The schoolroom was very small and cramped as well but downstairs we have LOTS of space to spread out and do school time.
*The computer is also now 'in' the schoolroom since it was already downstairs.
*The girls can get to sleep easier since they won't be keeping each other awake.
*H can stay up (just a little) later (to read books) than J since she's a little older and J really needs more sleep.
*They won't wake each other in the morning if one is up before the other.
*They are both sleeping really well in the separate rooms!

CONS:
*The basement is COLD! Especially this time of year. But we have space heaters to use if needed, or we can bring some school work upstairs if it's a really freezing day ... and spring will be here before we know it!

So with all those pros and only one con ... I am really happy that we went ahead with this change. I'll post some pictures soon when I finish cleaning everything up!! :)

Drop in guests

Recently I've been involved in several discussions about 'drop in guests'. So I figured it made for good blogging material and also a way for me to challenge myself.

Basically, the 'drop in guest' is someone who just stops by your house unannounced. As I was talking about this with a friend I couldn't even remember the last time someone had just dropped in. I think one reason is that so many of the people I know lead busy lives ... myself included! And most of us wouldn't take the time to drive to someone's house unless we knew for sure they would be there.

Another very important topic came up as well. Would you welcome someone in to your home who had just dropped by? Well yes of course, I might say ... but what if my house was a disaster?? Would I be able to physically sit and enjoy the company of a friend, without frantically rushing about to pick things up or apologizing profusely about all the clutter and mess??

As I pondered these things I realized this is an area that I really need to work on. Not just my house, but my heart. Yes, I like to have a clean, organized house ... and if I was expecting company you can bet I'd make it clean before they came. But the truth is, my house is often very messy! Dishes in the sink, laundry on the floor, kids toys, books and coats everywhere .... and most of the time my one bathroom is pretty gross too! (I'm so ashamed to admit that!)

But I could almost bet that if any one of my friends stopped by unexpectedly they wouldn't care! They would want to chat and hang out and would see that I'm a real Mom, with a real house. (the lived in look is what I like to call it!)

So my challenge to myself is to really take this to heart. To try my best to make sure my home is picked up as much as possible, but to not stress if it isn't.
And now I just need some drop in guests to test it out for me! So come on over, I always have coffee and tea, my kids don't nap so no need to worry about that, and I would love to have company!

J funnies ...

On Saturday the girls and I were doing some scrapbooking together and J started doing this really silly laugh. She had H and I in hysterics because it was so funny. Then she started telling us to try it, but for some reason we just couldn't do it nearly as funny as she was. So a few minutes later, she's still trying to teach us the laugh, and out of the blue she says "You've got to put a little BOOM in it!" .... Needless to say, that just made us laugh even harder! I have no idea where she came up with that expression but it sure was cute!

This morning we woke up to LOTS of beautiful snow. I love snow days!! Anyway, J was standing at the window watching the snow and she says "Mama, the trees are dancing!" ... another adorable comment that I knew I just had to write down. What a nice way to start our week!