An exciting goal!!

After many years of patiently waiting we finally set a firm goal on when we are going to (Lord willing) buy a house. We are aiming for the spring of 2011....So for this coming year we are going to try really hard to pay off the rest of our debts and save some more money. When we buy a house that is the only debt we want to have. Starting in January we are really going to try to be as frugal as we can...we decided we are going to cut back on everything this coming year so we can make our goal possible. I already talked to the kids and told them we are not doing any elaborate birthday parties or outings this year...and of course, they are all fine with it. We are very excited to with the possibility of having our very own house in a little over a year!!

Just wanted to share that little tidbit with ya all.... :-)

What we are using for homeschool..now

So when we "started school" in September (or was it August?) we still had to finish up our previous school books (we school pretty much year round) We were using Rod and Staff for reading, phonics, English and math. History was "My father's world" but with using the previous listed material we usually never got to MFW. Basically my kids loathed doing their schooling...sometimes they cried, sometimes they would try to sneak up stairs, sometimes they got angry and sometimes it would take one of them from sun up till sun down to complete the work. I dreaded doing school work with them to....it was turning into pure torture!! So I just said, Enough!! I ordered them each their next grade school work and told them they could put the old stuff away. They had huge grins on their faces and said, "Are you serious?" ...hee...hee. So this is what we are doing now.....

Reading ~ I am choosing books for them and they are narrating to me after reading a chapter/or set amount of pages. They are also going to be using (at their request) the Veritas comprehension guides here and there.

English/language arts ~ We are using Sandi Queen's language books...We are loving these!! I also have them do 1 page of Abekas language arts each day (just for a little more formal work).

Math ~ We used Saxon math last year and the kids loved I switched because I didn't really like it....BUT..they requested that we use it again and we are and they LOVE it.

History ~ We are using MFW....the kids are always so excited for it. Next year we are also going to use "The Mystery of History" and Ann Voskamps geography books.

Spelling ~ Diego is not doing spelling yet...but Cena is using Spelling through copy work by Sandi Queen

Handwriting ~ DIego is still doing handwriting for a reason. Azucena was having a very hard time with the cursive from handwriting for reason so we switched to Sandi queen's cursive and she loves it!! It is much easier for her to do and she is doing a much better job.


Science ~ Science is included in MFW but I add in alot more nature study.


Both of the children are doing copy work too. For Bible we use various things... first we read verses out of the bible, different children's devotionals and such.

So that is what we are using for school now..things are going much smoother and everybody seems to enjoying school time much more :-)

Feeling ALOT better!

Yes...I am feeling not so blah anymore. Things are looking better.....not perfect (when is anything on earth perfect anyways...right?) but better. I really just need to keep my eyes on God..not the things of this world. I really need to spend more time in the Bible and in prayer.

Like usual I always have a gazillion things on my mind and I fluttering here and there...whew..I need to learn how to focus a little better..hee..hee. Tomorrow I plan on putting up the switcheroo home school post. I am looking forward to a "date" with Gilbert on Thursday, our first night out alone in 4 years!!! We are just going to dinner and a movie but I am excited...hee...hee.

I hope to finish getting my fall decor up by the end of this week and then maybe do a fall tour of my home. I also have a few recipes I want to share too.... Gotta go for now...so much to do...so little time :-)

Blah...

That is how I have been feeling lately....blah. It has quickly went from summer to winter here...fall is my favorite month and it seems as if we have skipped it this year. Hopefully it gets a little bit warmer again!!!

We were really getting frustrated and bored silly with the school stuff that we were using so I made a big switch before we even finished up the old stuff..I just could not take it anymore!! Things are going much smoother on the school front....I will try to post some time this week about what we were using and what we are using now.

I am still trying to get the house cleaned, fall decorations put up and I am STILL trying to finish the basement. I don't know why but I just can't seem to get anything done right now.

You know I would like to just be really honest here and say that things are not going well ...I don't really want to say more than that as I don't feel comfortable sharing where just anyone can see....but please pray for our family. It would be easier just to pretend everything is great....but I would never want to lead people to believe something that is not true...anywhoo...I have lots to do. Hopefully I can get on here a couple more times this week.

I know..I know..

I said I was going to be back to blogging regularly and obviously that didn't happen. I do have my reasons though. You know that Monday when I was supposed to start school I woke up with yet another severe toothache....in a different tooth this time. I did clear up the infection somewhat with the natural antibiotic but not completely.. it was still killing me , I am surprised I didn't over-dose on Advil....sheesh. I went to the dentist and they told me what I already knew ..that I needed a root canal and crown. The dentist did not have time to do the root canal so he got rid of the decay and put in a temporary filling. Anywhoo...all in all I need 3 root canals and 3 crowns and 4 cavities filled. I have always had just horrible teeth...sigh. Since I was little I have always gotten tons of cavities and such..and growing up I hardly had a stitch of sugar, brushed and flossed daily and still...aaahh well. So I can hardly afford ANY of the work that needs to be done so it is not happening anytime soon..but at least I am pain free for now.

So we did not start school when we were supposed to as I was sick and in pain for two weeks. We finally started last week but it was a half hearted effort. But this week we have been doing better and I just sat down and did a schedule for my eldest daughter. Finally I am feeling motivated again. ..Yay!!

So I just wanted to let you know what happened to me :-) Not that anyone even noticed...hee..hee. Hope to be posting more often starting next....we shall see ;-)

Meet Our New Baby

This is our new puppy Sparkles (Gabriela named her)...My Mom gave her to the children for their birthday!! She is a sweet little thing, very gentle, the kids can pick her up and carry her around, they can take stuff out of her mouth and even bother her while she is eating and she doesn't care. She absolutely adores all the children!! She is not going to grow much either only up to 5-7 lbs..which is great for where we live right now. Someday when we have our own house I would love to get a Newfoundland but those things get HUGE so we need to have more room for that, for now a little dog will do. The 2 oldest help take Sparkles to the bathroom , feed her and walk her ...it is good to teach them some responsibility :-) We all just love her.

A Circus Birthday party!!

We had a big birthday party for all four of the children July 26Th. I think I might do all their birthdays together more often. Anyways we decided on doing a "Circus Theme" . I did tons of searching on the computer for ideas and such...I did get some but there is not that much stuff around for circus birthday parties. But after finding some cool stuff from various places and a little creativity I think it turned out pretty well :-)



This is a picture of the kids before the party started. My niece is in the pink it wasn't her birthday but we still included her of course. I made all the girls hair pieces myself and I ordered the adorable shirts from Etsy. They had their age in a bright polka dot material that went well with our theme and then their names across the front of that.

This was the party favors table....gift bags, clown noses, hats, blowers, animal crackers and Carmel corn!!



I made the gift bags myself....I just used plain gift bags and glued pom-poms on them cut out circles with scrapbook paper and them glued little wooden animal that I got from wal-mart on them....I also tied little circus themed name tags that I got from Etsy to them. The cute pop-corn bags I also got from Etsy and filled them with Carmel corn.


I also made cupcakes for the guests to take home...

The outdoor seating area...For the table I got some popcorn boxes from the dollar section of Target...sprinkled some confetti and put some little circus figurines that were actually cake toppers.


I set up a kids area with a little bench, a canopy, a little tent and some games (which you can't see because they are off to the side) The games were a ducky fishing game, ring toss, a shuttle type game and a ball toss game.

This is the Where we put all the food....We had subs, potato salad, Italian pasta salad, guacamole and chips and a yummy apple salad...I forgot to take pics of the food :sigh:

We had a clown pinata for the little kids and a circus tent pinata for the bigger kids..Unfortunately both of the pinatas broke right away so nobody got to have too much fun hitting them...but they still had fun picking up all the candy ~smile~

For the cakes the girls had the clown cake which was Tres Leches and the boys had the elephant cake which was a marble cake with raspberry mousse filling. The cakes turned out OK although they were decorated the way we had agreed upon with the man we ordered them from but they were still cute.

We rented a bounce house with the jumping side on half and two huge slides on the other side...that was ALOT of fun!!!

All in all the party was a lot of fun...the kids seemed to have a blast ,however, next year we might take a family vacation instead ;-)