The Burlap Bug

I don't know how it happened but I've fallen head over heels in love with almost all things burlap.  I can't imagine wearing any burlap clothing but I do love to decorate with it.  I know it's been around for a long time and the truly hip and savvy people have moved onto something else but I don't care, I'm. In. Love. With. BURLAP so I guess you could say I've been bitten by the burlap bug.

It all started at a Homeschool Mom's retreat, our craft was making a burlap wreath.  They all turned out too cute.  ADORABLE!  Here's mine, please excuse the giant bow...I'm working on it!

 The next thing that arrived was a flower pot with a circle of green burlap and a ribbon tied around it. Super cute and super easy.  The flowers died so I wrapped it around a candle holder and put it on the table over a zebra pattern burlap runner.

 
My sweet friend Dana and I needed a mom's night out so we attended the Vintage Market Days-Tulsa.  If you missed out on the spring show they have another one coming up in the fall.  Click on the picture for more info and to be taken to their website.  I found this fabulous little foot stool which was covered in Fleur-de-lis burlap.  I knew it was mine as soon as I spotted it and then I toted it 3 or 4 blocks to our car.





 

Last but not least my friend Kim posted on Facebook about an 80% off sale that was going on at Hobby Lobby, I knew that some giftcards were in my wallet just waiting to be spent so Makenzie and I went on a shopping spree.  I found an organizer that had a burlap background for $10, I thought that was quite a steal since it's normal price was $50!

I'm considering making or buying some cute burlap curtains for the kitchen.  Has the burlap bug bit you yet?  Comment and leave me a link to your favorite post about burlap, I'd love to see what else is out there!!

My friend ShaRhonda posted a couple of really cute Christmas ideas over on her blog The 4 Crows.  To check them out click on her button below.

Thanks for reading,

 

Dear Mom of an Adopted Child (guest post by Kathy Lynn Harris)

As most of my faithful readers know, we've been so blessed by our 2 adoptions.  Sometimes you can't put your feelings into words and sometimes you can and when you do everything just clicks.  It makes you cry, think, pray and be thankful and this letter to an adoptive mom resonated with my heart and soul(or Seoul for the mommies of Korean children).  I wanted to share it with all of the other adoptive mommies out there and with all of my wonderful readers.  Kathy Lynn Harris perfectly described how I feel as an adoptive mom.  If you'd like to check out Kathy Lynn Harris' blog just click on the link.  She's funny, she's spunky, she's a hoot and one of my new favorite blogs out there in bloggerland simply because she's a great writer!


Dear Mom of an Adopted Child,

I met you in adoption education class. I met you at the agency. I met you at my son’s school. I met you online. I met you on purpose. I met you by accident.

It doesn’t matter. The thing is, I knew you right away. I recognize the fierce determination. The grit. The fight. Because everything about what you have was a decision, and nothing about what you have was easy. You are the kind of woman who Makes.Things.Happen. After all, you made this happen, this family you have.

Maybe you prayed for it. Maybe you had to convince a partner it was the right thing. Maybe you did it alone. Maybe people told you to just be happy with what you had before. Maybe someone told you it simply wasn’t in God’s plans for you to have a child, this child whose hair you now brush lightly from his face. Maybe someone warned you about what happened to their cousin’s neighbor’s friend. Maybe you ignored them.

Maybe you planned for it for years. Maybe an opportunity dropped into your lap. Maybe you depleted your life-savings for it. Maybe it was not your first choice. But maybe it was.

Regardless, I know you. And I see how you hold on so tight. Sometimes too tight. Because that’s what we do, isn’t it?

I know about all those books you read back then. The ones everyone reads about sleep patterns and cloth versus disposable, yes, but the extra ones, too. About dealing with attachment disorders, breast milk banks, babies born addicted to alcohol, cocaine, meth. About cognitive delays, language deficiencies. About counseling support services, tax and insurance issues, open adoption pros and cons, legal rights.

I know about the fingerprinting, the background checks, the credit reports, the interviews, the references. I know about the classes, so many classes. I know the frustration of the never-ending paperwork. The hours of going over finances, of having garage sales and bake sales and whatever-it-takes sales to raise money to afford it all.

I know how you never lost sight of what you wanted.
I know about the match call, the soaring of everything inside you to cloud-height, even higher. And then the tucking of that away because, well, these things fall through, you know.

Maybe you told your mother, a few close friends. Maybe you shouted it to the world. Maybe you allowed yourself to decorate a baby’s room, buy a car seat. Maybe you bought a soft blanket, just that one blanket, and held it to your cheek every night.

I know about your home visits. I know about your knuckles, cracked and bleeding, from cleaning every square inch of your home the night before. I know about you burning the coffee cake and trying to fix your mascara before the social worker rang the doorbell.

And I know about the followup visits, when you hadn’t slept in three weeks because the baby had colic. I know how you wanted so badly to show that you had it all together, even though you were back to working more-than-full-time, maybe without maternity leave, without the family and casseroles and welcome-home balloons and plants.

And I’ve seen you in foreign countries, strange lands, staying in dirty hotels, taking weeks away from work, struggling to understand what’s being promised and what’s not. Struggling to offer your love to a little one who is unsettled and afraid. Waiting, wishing, greeting, loving, flying, nesting, coming home.
I’ve seen you down the street at the hospital when a baby was born, trying to figure out where you belong in the scene that’s emerging. I’ve seen your face as you hear a nurse whisper to the birthmother that she doesn’t have to go through with this. I’ve seen you trying so hard to give this birthmother all of your respect and patience and compassion in those moments—while you bite your lip and close your eyes, not knowing if she will change her mind, if this has all been a dream coming to an abrupt end in a sterile environment. Not knowing if this is your time. Not knowing so much.

I’ve seen you look down into a newborn infant’s eyes, wondering if he’s really yours, wondering if you can quiet your mind and good sense long enough to give yourself over completely.

And then, to have the child in your arms, at home, that first night. His little fingers curled around yours. His warm heart beating against yours.
I know that bliss. The perfect, guarded, hopeful bliss.

I also know about you on adoption day. The nerves that morning, the judge, the formality, the relief, the joy. The letting out of a breath maybe you didn’t even know you were holding for months. Months.

I’ve seen you meet your child’s birthparents and grandparents weeks or years down the road. I’ve seen you share your child with strangers who have his nose, his smile … people who love him because he’s one of them. I’ve seen you hold him in the evenings after those visits, when he’s shaken and confused and really just wants a stuffed animal and to rest his head on your shoulder.

I’ve seen you worry when your child brings home a family tree project from school. Or a request to bring in photos of him and his dad, so that the class can compare traits that are passed down, like blue eyes or square chins. I know you worry, because you can protect your child from a lot of things — but you can’t protect him from being different in a world so intent on celebrating sameness.

I’ve seen you at the doctor’s office, filling out medical histories, leaving blanks, question marks, hoping the little blanks don’t turn into big problems later on.

I’ve seen you answer all of the tough questions, the questions that have to do with why, and love, and how much, and where, and who, and how come, mama? How come?

I’ve seen you wonder how you’ll react the first time you hear the dreaded, “You’re not my real mom.” And I’ve seen you smile softly in the face of that question, remaining calm and loving, until you lock yourself in the bathroom and muffle your soft cries with the sound of the shower.

I’ve seen you cringe just a little when someone says your child is lucky to have you. Because you know with all your being it is the other way around.
But most of all, I want you to know that I’ve seen you look into your child’s eyes. And while you will never see a reflection of your own eyes there, you see something that’s just as powerful: A reflection of your complete and unstoppable love for this person who grew in the midst of your tears and laughter, and who, if torn from you, would be like losing yourself.

Thanks for reading,

 

Our spring break "staycation"

Thanks for reading,

 

Oven roasted veggies

 

The past couple of weeks I've really been working on eating a lot more veggies and we've been trying them different ways like steamed, roasted, grilled and raw.  One of my all time favorites is to pour on a little EVOO, salt, pepper and pop the veggies into a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes.  We've had cauliflower, broccoli and asparagus this week.  My family devoured all of them and next week will be zucchini, mushrooms and squash.  What's your favorite way to prepare veggies?

 

This was taken from The Pioneer Woman and were amazing!

Thanks for reading,

 

Benjamin Franklin and the glass harmonica

This week in homeschool we've been studying and learning about the life of Benjamin Franklin.  I've been fascinated, he only went to school until he was 10 years old, he was one of the Founding Father's of  the United States and he invented so many things.  We also learned that he didn't patent his inventions because he wanted to share them with everyone and didn't want anyone to have to pay for them, quite a man of integrity.  I'm sure most of you know about him flying a kite with a key attached to it so he could see if electricity and lightning were in fact the same thing but did you know he also invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass harmonica.  I had never heard of the glass harmonica before and was mesmerized by the beautiful sounds it made.  Here's a video so you can check
out the glass harmonica or glass 'armonica as some people call it.

We worked on a lapbook about Benjamin Franklin, click on the link and it'll take you straight to it.  Now, we're ready to dive into The Revolutionary War.  Do you have anything interesting you'd like to share with us?  If so please be sure to leave a comment! I was pretty bummed when I realized that I didn't have our Time Travelers CD for The American Revolution by Homeschool in the Woods, it must be packed and in one of our storage units.  BUMMER!!! We just love the Time Travelers CD's they are so packed full of activities.  No, I'm not reviewing the Time Traveler products I just love them and wanted to share with you!

Thanks for reading,

 

Supercharged Science Review

      Have you ever wanted to take a class taught by a real rocket scientist?  If you answered YES then Supercharged Science would be perfect for you.  Aurora Lipper is the brains behind Supercharged Science and yes she's an actual rocket scientist!!  We were chosen to review the e-Science course which can be used with any age, K-12th but we are specifically reviewing the K-8th subscription. e-Science will run you $37 a month for the K-8 plan, or $57 for the K-12 plan.     Everything in this program has been so fun and amazed us.  We could spend all day every day on science because our family enjoys it so much.  Aurora has wonderful videos (over a 1,000) and fantastic customer service.  If you have questions about an experiment just email her and she's right back to you very quickly.  Have you ever tried an experiment and it didn't work?  With e-science you can easily figure out why it didn't work by watching the step by step video that accompanies each and every science experiment.    I was a little apprehensive about starting a new science program in the middle of the year and wondered if I would have to buy a bunch of things that were hard to find but no that hasn't been the case at all.  Most items were things we already had laying around the house.   The e-Science programs includes:

Self-guided lessons that kids can complete on their own

Unlimited support for teachers and students

  Amazing video instruction taught by Aurora who is a real Rocket Scientist

Exercises and Quizzes

Step by step videos so you know exactly how to get your experiments done

Parent/teacher guides

Textbook readings

Goes beyond most K-8th State Standards

How we used the program:

I let my 5th and 7th graders look through the e-science website and write down what they were interested in the most.  We had some subjects that overlapped between the two of them so we started with those first and watched the videos, worked on some worksheets that we printed off and of course did some fun experiments.  After a couple of weeks working together the kids went off in their own directions and worked on projects separately.  I would print off worksheets for them and make sure we had supplies but they basically took over science each day.  Several days I found them discussing how fun this program is and that they don't really think it should be called science, it's too much fun!  I LOVE to hear that. 

Both of my kids loved the Hidden Carbon Dioxide experiments that can be found in Unit 8: Chemistry Part 1 in the Molecules Unit.  Of course this unit was fascinating to them because it was all about burping!  They laughed and laughed and burped and burped some more...crazy kids!  Then, we used the CO2 like a fire extinguisher and "poured" it onto a lit candle and the candle went out! If you try this at home make sure you don't get any liquid on the candle just the gas is enough to extinguish the flame, this is a great experiment to drive home that you can't see gas but it's still there!

Fun fact:  If you burped in Antarctica in the wintertime, it would begin to freeze as soon as it left your lips. The freezing temperature of CO2 is -109^oF, and Antarctic winters can get down to -140^oF.

If your child is a visual learner then this would be a wonderful science curriculum because of the videos, pictures and simple step by step lessons.
We are so excited that e-Science also offers Summer e-camp (June 1-August 31, 2013) we are thinking about hosting a science camp for some of our homeschool friends.
  Next year when it's time for the Science Fair with our homeschool group we've got it covered because with Supercharged Science, they have a whole section on science fair experiments.  Whew, that's going to help me out so much because as most of you know mom and dad have quite a hand in the science fair projects (at least we do).Like I mentioned before, the Supercharged e-Science program is a complete online curriculum for children in grades K-12 and retails for $37.00/ month for the K-8 section and $57.00/month for the 9-12 section.


One thing I really appreciated about this program was the fact that they didn't mention evolution or creationism and I mention this because I know it's important to many of my readers.       


Thanks for reading,

Sassy water

My goal for this year is to be healthy so I'm taking baby steps.  I try to walk 1 mile every day, eat healthier and drink plenty of water.  My next step will be to get more sleep...that's a doozy for me!  I'm a night owl and stay up until 2:00 or 3:00am almost every single night and then get up and teach the kids school.  I digress, that's another story for a different day! 


Back to the the water.  I'm pretty sure it was my friend Dawn that pinned some sassy water on pinterest and at that very moment in time I was struggling with my daily water intake.  I wanted to drink it because I'm trying to stay healthy and everyone knows you need plenty of water...but I just couldn't do it.  I was lucky to get 2 cups or maybe 3 down in a day.  I saw the Sassy Water picture and it looked so refreshing.  I went out and bought everything but the ginger to make me some sassy water. 





Over the past 2 weeks I've drank almost 2 quarts of water every single day!  I've added lemons, limes, oranges, cucumbers and mint to my water.  I think my favorite combination is cucumber lemon!

Thanks for reading,

 

More Buffalo in Bartlesville

We like to head up to Bartlesville for a couple of hours and grab some Murphy's and then hunt down some buffalo (they are actually bison, I grimace every time I type buffalo).  Anyway, I've linked to them many times in the past and here are the current Bartlesville Buffalo (bison) that we found.

"Hi Ho Silver"

Sponsor: Washington County Sheriff's Office

Artist:Kerri Fleming

Located at Washington County Sheriff's Office, 420 South Johnstone Avenue

"Sit(el)ing Bull"

Sponsor: Sitel

Artist: Kerri Fleming

Located at Sitel, 3001 East Frank Phillips

"Hands-on Fun"

Sponsor: Kiddie Park

Artist: Erin Rakes

Located at Bartlesville Kiddie Park, Corner of Cherokee and Hensley

Last time I talked about Patch, he's the Boy Scout Buffalo and he's a cutie!  That post has links to all of the buffalo that we've found so far.  Click on the link to go check them out!

Thanks for reading,

 

Bacon flavored Scope? For breath that sizzles...

Just wondering if this is real?  Did Scope get the jump on April Fool's Day or is it in fact a real product? Hmmm, I can not imagine that it would taste good but you never know.  Scope send me some bacon flavored mouthwash and I'll let you know what I think!

Thanks for reading,

 

Adventus MusIQ Homeschool-review

For Christmas Makenzie asked for and received a keyboard so she could play around and eventually take some piano lessons.  I was thrilled to see that MusIQ Homeschool from Adventus came up for review because I knew that Makenzie would be really excited.  

First I wanted to let you know that if you want to use this program you need a MIDI piano keyboard. Adventus does offer one that you can purchase on their website that's a plug and play and is $114.95. Thankfully the keyboard we had purchased for Kenzie at Christmas was compatible and all we had to purchase was a USB cable to hook it up to the computer. Although it did take me a little while to figure out why everything wasn't working correctly at first.  I'm affectionately called the "geek squad" of our family so I got it figured out and working and then Makenzie was off on her music journey!

 Kenzie hasn't had any piano or music lessons ever so we decided to start her at the very beginning with Children's Music Journey Vol. 1 (each volume has between 25-35 lessons).  She's 12 years old and caught on really quickly so she was able to skip ahead quite a bit and is now on Vol. 3.  As you can tell from the picture this software is all animated and would really appeal to a younger crowd of ages 4-10.  Even though she's 12 she's still enjoying the lessons.  Each lesson would begin with a piece of music by a famous composer and then that composer would teach the lesson for the day.  As you can see in the picture up above the first lesson began with Ludwig Von Beethoven.  After each lesson then 10 games open up and they help reinforce what the student has just learned.  Another fun component is that you are able to compose your own music with dozens of different instruments.

Recommended ages are 4-18 and they offer a 7 year curriculum that includes over 20 levels and is for beginner to advanced intermediate students.

2 different options are available, you can download the software onto your computer which does require a monthly subscription (lesson plans are not included with the monthly subscriptions) and is only $10.95 per month or you can purchase the software and they will send you CD-ROM's. Depending on which software you choose then your price could start at $89.95 and go up to $489.95 for the complete bundle.  I really think any of these options are a wonderful price because I was checking piano lesson prices in our area and they were about $20 per lesson per child and most of them require at least 4 lessons per month.

Makenzie has been enjoying her keyboard lessons and practices quite often.  I told her that her "required" practice per day was 30 min. I feel that's very fair and is exactly how long I had to practice the piano when I was a child.  Although lesson plans were included in our package I'm just letting her move at her own pace right now, when she's been playing for several months that option might change. This has not been a problem for her at all since she loves this software so much she can easily play for an hour or more (if I let her).  She's soaking it up like a sponge and is so excited about music now!

 I'm hoping Kylan will catch her enthusiasm and try the curriculum for himself.  Which brings me to my next plus about this curriculum, you have the option for many different students to use the curriculum.  It keeps track of each students profile and remembers where they are at and how often they have practiced.  That's a bonus in my world, especially if you have multiple children that want to learn to play the piano.

Thanks for reading,

 

The American Bible Challenge review and giveaway

My family and I really enjoyed The American Bible Challenge last year and I'm so excited about the new season.  Once again this year will be hosted by Jeff Foxworthy and you are sure to learn a lot about the Bible.  Test your skills and see if you have what it takes and do you really know your Bible like you thought you did?

I received a copy of the book The American Bible Challenge Daily Reader and so I'm loving it! My children and I have been reading it every morning and quizzing each other on some of the questions asked in the book.  Enter today and you could have a chance to win your own copy of The American Bible Challenge Daily Reader, it was writen by Troy Schmidt.  Troy began writing animation in 1985 for Dennis the Menace and Heathcliff as well as The Mickey Mouse Club.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Website: http://gsntv.com/shows/the-american-bible-challenge/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theamericanbiblechallenge?fref=ts

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GSN_Bible

GodTube: http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=WKL667NX

Thanks for reading,