Keeping it interesting

This is our third year of homeschool. The first year we did K-12 through a local virtual charter academy. The boys hated it. Well let me take that back. They loved the field trips and so did I. And Colin really enjoyed Art. So the following year we went part time. Austin also went back to Public school on a trial basis. That brings us to this year. We have gone it alone and that has created more work for me and stress. I would love to say I have kept their interest but alas I think we have gotten a bit of a burnout. So how does one go about not getting burnout on their homeschool curriculum? I think the answer lies somewhere in keeping the kids interest alive while not having mom work overtime to do just that. I mean lets be real if Mom ain't happy no one is happy, right? Lol I am kidding to some extent cause that line is actually fairly accurate isn't it?

I have all boys and I am well a girl so our interests are well different. I don't understand some of theirs and well they certainly don't understand some of mine. I loved doing lapbooks for several reasons. It went across the curriculum so I felt that I wasn't missing anything all the while studying something the boys had picked out. I also ended up with quite a few lapbooks that showed that hey we did do something. I even shared them recently with a friend, I hope she liked them. I can also say that out of everything we did last year (school year) what we studied for our lapbooks is what the boys remember most. Unfortunately my boys also seem to be getting older and more advanced and they feel that they have outgrown this wonderful way of teaching. I tried to accommodate them this past semester and I really miss those lapbooks. Conner still wants to do them but he is also the only who I think figured out that there isn't all that much writting on his part. I want to bring them back. I will have to see if I can talk them in to it. If not how do I go about doing unit studies other than boring writing in a notebook? It has been suggested I do notebooking but I have not done this yet so I need help in that department. If I could just see one, better yet get my hot little hands on one to see and explore that would be ideal.

We have started reading books again and the boys are truly liking being read to. they have a literature notebook and for every chapter I read they have to write three things about it. I put a little list on the sidebar to show what we are reading and for me to remember what we have read. We just finished "The call of the wild" and they got to watch the movie after. We are now starting the first book in the "Chronicles of Narnia" series, "The magician's nephew". Now I would like to take those books and put together a vocabulary/spelling list for the week. I think it is important to learn new words and to crack open an actual dictionary.

I have been dabbling with the idea of doing a cooking day every other week. First it is an essential skill in life that a future wife will certainly appreciate. Second there is so much learning involved. From learning to measure and the math around it to learning what julienned is. Or even what a utensil is called other than a flipper. LOL. I know some hs families do this with younger children but I think it would still be incredibly valuable. I mean with smaller kids there is only so much we can have them do. I am so curious to know who else does this and considers it school with middle school kids. I have a son who says he is going to have a restaurant business so wouldn't it be great if I could teach him as much as possible so when he gets older he can skip a few college classes because well he knows that already.

Austin also loves Gems and Minerals although this past year at ps has dwindled that love which is one of the reasons I pulled him right back out. I hate seeing that spark gone. We go to rock shows but have yet managed to go rock hounding. I am going to look into this as well for every other week to have a sort of nature day. We could start a nature notebook. A while back we went on a field trip to a enviormental nature park and the kids were to sit quietly for 5 min and on their paper they had an "x" in the middle to represent themselves and they were to write down all the animals they heard and mark it on their paper as to what direction it was in in reference to themselves. Did that make sense? Anyway Conner and Colin enjoyed this immensely and we could do this as well during those trips.

All this is mulling in my head as I have my coffee and try to make our homeschool more fun. There is no reason we need to be bored and I get such satisfaction from seeing that little spark and excitement in my kids, don't you? How do you keep your homeschool interesting?

Vanessa

Saving Money

With the economy the way it is, and of course it seeming to not turn around anytime soon there is plenty of talk about how to save money. This even came up in discussion when I was with some friends the other day. So how do we save money and what are some tips that really worked. I am mulling over and over this and of course if you google "saving money" you will undoubtedly come up with an insane amount of websites/pages/blogs surrounding this subject. The thing about this is that I get to those sites and undoubtedly there are things that I am


A. already doing
B. am not comfortable doing
C. is not something that I have in my life therefore can't alter to save money on it.


So lets face it. Some things work for some and not others and vice versa. Of course it is still good to have a list of sorts to try out and see if it does work for you. So I am going to be compilling a list of money savers. All readers are of course welcome to add their own saving tip. I hope to be able to do a sort of monthly blog on new things that we have come up with. Things that my family has tried and the outcome of that. things that I am going to try in the next month. Do you have pen and paper to write all this down? Well no worries because it is written here and I sure hope this helps others out there trying to do their part to save money.

I know as a wife who stays at home I am very privledged to do so. In effort to ensure that I can continue to do so and as a christian it seems my duty to help my husband out in any way I can . I do the shopping and budget and bills so in this effort I can do so much to ensure that I am doing my part as a family member. I thought very much about this just before the new year.

We are an average family with credit cards and bills. We don't have a car payment but I do se a need to replace my husbands vehicle sometime in the next 2-3 yrs. It is an '98 and has about 150,000 miles on it. It is starting to have things go wrong with it. I need to ensure that when we do need to buy another vehicle that we have the cash on hand ensuring we don't end up with a car payment. Let me tell you how wonderful not having a car payment is. Just think of what else you could do with that $200-$500 dollars a month. You could pay off those darn credit cards. You could put that nest egg away because you ain't getting any younger(am I right?). You could help your college bound child not incur as much or any debt during their college time. You could go on vacation. Whatever it is you aren't sending it to someone else and that is a good thing (ugg martha). Unfortunatley we do have credit cards and in recent times we have charged them up between my dh getting sick and christmas. All I kept thinking about was that if I wasn't sending this money off to those credit cards our family would probably be in a postition to not have to charge anything. So everytime I took out that card I thought "wow, I could pay for this outright if I didn't have this debt in the first place". The Bible does talk about debt doesn't it? and I know I am not doing the plan set out for me. It is time for a change (hmm why does that sound familiar, doh I know gesh I watch too much tv).

I re-evaluated our budget and then had a friend look at it for me. I did this because of two reasons One: my friend actually does this as her career and Two: Do you ever notice if you look at something long enough that sometimes you can miss the most obvious thing that right smack in front of you? Well that was me and my budget. I tweak it from time to time and I try to see where I am making mistakes so I don't make them anymore. Well we figured it out and I now have a plan and I tell you I like that plan. It is a two year plan to be completley out of debt exluding my house. The first thing you are going to want to do is to re-evaluate your budget and if needed get outside help because sometimes it is worth spending that bit of money to get someone to tell you "do you know how much you spent at Wal-Mart last month?" x amount. As your eyes bulge out and you try to think back to how it could have happened. You have a budget how could you have gone that far over? I was nickel and diming myself. This was a great lesson for my children as we explained about the difference in the spending habits of women and men. Women spend less on each individual item and men are the big ticket spenders. But it is with the women that it adds up to more. How does this happen? I'm sure you know but my son's didn't and so we told them. Men will go out and buy that big screen tv for $1000 but then won't need to purchase a tv for well years. Where women spend $5 here and $16.00 there and at the end of the month it adds up and boy if you ever have kept track of that number you probably would be shocked.

I already comp shop but I don't go on those coupon websites and talking to a friend convinced me that I should start getting in the habit of doing that. It would also be a good idea to re-read my tightwad gazette's, I have all three and love them. If you don't have these borrow them from your library or go to half.com and buy them. That is where I got them and I paid more for shipping then the books.

A friend of mine is having a "year without eating out". This intrigues me in more way then one. Of course there is the benefit of saving money but there is a hidden benefit. Do you have any idea what is in that food that you eat while out? I don't and that is scary. Plus have you ever looked up the calories in most foods you eat out? If not the numbers are staggering. As far as saving money in the eating out department you can if you eat fast food and the dollar menu only then of course it would not be as pricey. But if you ever have watched "Super-Size me" you will quickly not have an itching for it anymore.

I found one day a blog that had "a month without spending". This meant that they were paying all their bills as normal and then they had x amount of money for food, gas, eating out, fun ect. This really intrigued me and you can click on the hyperlink for all the details. I thought it was brilliant, although I haven't actually done it. Can I do it? Hmmm that is to be determined but I would like to give it a try. Essentially this disciplines you from all those "needs" we seem to have these days.
To recap I save money by

• Comp shopping/couponing
• Periodically reevaluating my budget and getting outside help if needed
• Re-reading my tightwad gazette's (all three) and trying things out of it
• Cut down traveling/doing one day errand runs every week or two

The challenge therefore is of course for you to share a tidbit that worked for you and something you want to try. I will start this coming Febuary so get ready. I hope to come with a new post once a month and I hope you join me. Let's have it, How do you save money?

Vanessa

13

Oh boy Austin is 13.

Happy Birthday.

We have let the kids decide activities and meals on their special day for years now. They love this as they get to pick all their fav's. I let Austin have his two best buds spend a couple of nights. He wanted to go ice skating so we did, two days in a row. He requested his favorite treat of brownies from Grandmy( his great grandmother) and fried rice from his Grandma. He had pizza for dinner and a great big chocolate cake I made for him. He had gotten a PSP 3000 from his grandparents and us for his birthday gift and he got it early on Christmas, another request. Anyway this meant he wasn't getting much in the way of gifts from us since we had already chipped in for this but I did get him the Left Behind teen series. Not all of them mind you but about 10 I think. I loved the Adult versions so I hope he will enjoy them as well.

How the time goes so fast. I can't beleive that Austin is already 13. That means that I can count on one hand the amount of years I have left for Austin to be at home. He has grown so much and I hope that I am doing everything I can to instill those good values. I also hope that I will be able to enjoy some of this time that I have left. Teenage years are not exactly a great time so pray for me .
Anyway here are a few shots of my not so little anymore Boy on his Birthday

Austin on the ice

Austin between his two best buds and Conner and Colin

Austin's Chocolate overload cake

Everyone is ready to be wacky and for cake

Honestly it wasn't my idea. Austins friends wanted a cake eating contest without utensils. It was a hit although very messy.

Vanessa