Food for Thursday!

I have been a stay at home mom now for 6 years. One thing I have learned over and over is the need to be able to prepare a meal quickly and/or easily. As my kids get older I am finding we are getting busier than ever with school and outside of the home activities. While it is hard to keep up with some things (who needs clean socks anyway?), one thing that cannot be missed is dinner. I have a few go-to recipes for those extra busy days and I am hoping I can help another mom out there by sharing them here!

My first recipe is one of the easiest:

A glimpse into our school day!

Our homeschool room is actually in our kitchen. It is in a very central location as the whole house revolves around it, which is nice! We have a smaller home of barely 1500 sq ft so we make every room a little bit of school! Our main "station" is in the kitchen.

As you can see, we use

Enjoying the break in the HEAT...and learning too!

It's Friday and we have had some out of the norm errands to run so school has had to wait. As soon as we got home it was hard to think about heading inside when it was a nice 72 degrees outside and only party sunny. God has blessed us with this beautiful day...why not use it?! Immediately I thought of sidewalk chalk and phonics!

I parked at the end of our driveway, ran our errand "stuff" inside, told all 3 kids to keep those shoes on and we ran back out. I located the sidewalk and we began!

We wrote letters based on phonetic sounds, practiced our cursive letters and we played a new game...

Our Curriculum for 2012 - 2013

It's that time of year again! Although we have already delved into our curriculum this year ( it's our 2nd week here!), I thought I would still share what we are doing this year. Keep in mind, our base is Abeka books - I just love them! I am also including my

How we are where we are...

Almost 6 years ago now, our first child was born. A beautiful baby boy. When you hold your child in your arms for the first time, you instinctively make that promise to do all you can to give them the best life possible and to protect them from all evil. Little did I know at the time that even stairs could be evil, or that corner of the coffee table. All those nicks and bruises that come with life, we can't always (nor should we) protect our children from them all. I do believe we should keep them from the true "evils" of life though. There are so many in the world that this is not an easy task. I also wanted the best education for my children. I did not want to see them struggle in school. I did not want them to deal with bullies, some of which are teachers. I don't want them to think if they don't have that pair of shoes, or show off their body in skimpy clothes then they are not "cool". I want my children to learn to be independent and learn how to use their minds and make smart decisions.

 I also believe God gives us a road map on how we should raise our children. It is the Bible. He tells us to teach them about Him and how to live according to His word.


It is impossible to teach those values if my children are at public school. All of the good that I could teach at home, they would just teach away in the school. They want my God out of schools and if He comes in, they want to treat Him as an outcast and make it seem wrong to believe in Him.

As you can see, I had a strong desire to teach at home.

About 4 years ago our daughter was born. Not long after she was born I started really working with my son at home. He was still very young, but we could do things like counting and ABCs. We did everything in a fun way. As he got older we moved on to some papers we would work together and more fun activities. He was just picking things up so quickly, he loved

The goal of my homeschool blog....

I have to admit, I am not new to the Blog world. I have owned and written several others, but they never kept my interest long. I would write about living on a budget and how to get the biggest bang for your buck.I would do reviews and host giveaways.  I would help others decide what the best toys were out there for your children and maybe even some vintage toy memories that I had from childhood. I even had a Disney blog, which as much as we LOVE Disney as a family, I just did not keep up with it much. My hope and prayer is that this blog will be different...

I want to have an outlet for my own homeschooling and mom thoughts. A way to express myself and also share any knowledge and tips I come up with along this path. I want to share ideas, curriculum reviews and anything else I can find. Won't you join me?

My first post will be how I was able to homeschool, when I had already settled into the fact that I could not. I want to share the most of myself that I can and really commit to this project!