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August, 2011

  1. Bye, bye games!

    August 29, 2011 by mags

    I’m so thankful to the Lord for sustaining me through today.  Normally I leave a lot of things undone at night because I’m tired and it just seems like way too much to do.  Well, even if I went to bed right now, things wouldn’t be in too bad of shape, because I was able to keep up on top of things through out the day.  There are a few things that I may do tonight, but if I don’t it won’t be overwhelming in the morning.

    I’m also very pleased for the extra grace to be diligent with school and de-cluttering.  We’re using Bob books to get reading going, the 4th book was a struggle, but we persevered and got that book read.  It was such an accomplishment for her and for me for pushing her.  I had also intended to start going through the girls’ clothes today, well when the opportune time came, baby was asleep.  Normally I would consider that a wrench in the plans and just give up, but instead I had the big girls’ help me go through the games.  We were able to get all kids’ games into our two storage ottomans.  They had spilled over into our corner hutch where my vases normally go, and now they are out of there.  I also made a spreadsheet of all the games and will print it up and set it in the ottoman for us to the write the date on as we play them, then the next time we need to weed some out we can see which ones we actually play. I’m so thankful for today, despite back aches and some fighting with my big girl, by God’s grace we persevered.

    Category Homeschooling, Housework, Purging | Tags: | Comments Off

  2. Menu Plan Monday

    August 29, 2011 by mags

    So the house is still in good shape, even after being home all weekend with company both days, which will make for a good start to the week.  I also planned my meals with a plan to go shopping tomorrow after dinner.  So here is my meal plan, which is posted at Organizing Junkie’s Menu Plan Monday.

    Monday: breakfast burritos with leftover fajita fixin’s, apples with pb, tuna mac, veggie tray, leftover chinese food from Sunday

    Tuesday: cottage cheese with fruit and toast, packed lunch-cheese and crackers, apples with cream cheese dip and juice boxes, tuna salad and bread

    Wednesday: waffles with eggs and fruit, ants on a log, sandwiches and chips, watermelon slushie, spaghetti with salad and bread

    Thursday: smoothies and pb & j sandwiches, Aunt Linda here for lunch-going out, chili and cornbread

    Friday: egg casserole and fruit, sandwiches or tuna mac, chicken and rice with mushroom gravy and broccoli

    Saturday:leftover casserole, ???, carnitas?

    Sunday: cottage cheese and fruit, rest at the in laws. :)

    Category Cooking | Tags: | 2 Comments

  3. Company!

    August 27, 2011 by mags

    So the in-laws came over and we had a wonderful time.  The girls played games with their Teta (grandma) and the big one read to her and shared some of her memory work, with a little help.  The house is looking so good I even invited my lovely sister in law and my beautiful niece and nephew over for lunch tomorrow.  My aunt is coming during the week for lunch, and I’m thinking we’ll be just fine for that.  Three rooms are no go room, but I’m hoping those will be better soon.  Big girl is really pushing for their room to be next, but ours needs it too as does the garage.  We’ll see how it goes, it won’t be as quick as the others with John going back to work on Monday.  While I’m quite ok with the season of life we’re in, and the dirt and clutter it brings, I’m glad that there seems to be some hope that it can be a bit less than it was previously.  I want my home to reflect what my priorities are, I want to glorify Christ, bless my family, be a help to my husband and be hospitable, the hospitality had not been much as of late.

    Category by God's Grace! | Tags: | Comments Off

  4. Beautiful Home

    August 26, 2011 by mags

    I’m so glad I did even though I didn’t wanna!  We did some educating, and lots of house work.  Turns out the in laws are coming tomorrow instead of Sunday.  No biggie, we like having open Sunday’s, but it meant today we had to get things finished up.  Well the house looks great and the big girl said we should pretend like it’s a hotel, because it looks like a hotel and that we should keep it clean forever!  She’s so cute.  I do hope we can keep it this way longer than we have in the past.  On Monday I’m going to start checking off boxes on my new, Totally Together notebook, by Stephanie O’Dea.  We’ll see how that goes, I doubt I’ll ever be totally together, but maybe I’ll be a little closer than I am now.  Now we just have the 2 bedrooms and the garage that need to be gone through and organized.  The garage looks like it could be on an episode of Clean House.  If it were it could all go to the yard sale, but instead it’ll go to Goodwill, cause I don’t have the desire to do a yard sale, so somebody else can use it instead.  Besides I don’t want everything out to be displayed and anyone have second thoughts, or even first thoughts on those things I snuck in there.

    I’m so excited for this quite literal clean start.  We’ve had them before and I haven’t been able to keep it up for more than a week, but something seems different this time.  It also helps that I have a new focus, instead of just wanting it to be done because it needs to be, I wanting it to be done because it glorifies my Savior.  I’ve always said I wanted that before, and I always have wanted that before, but I’m beginning to see more of the how it glorifies Him.  I’m sure I’ll fail and I’ll fail because I think I’ve got it handled and that I can do this now, but then I’ll be drawn closer to Him, I can’t ever forget how much I need Him, even when it comes to scrubbing toilets, which, by the way, I’ve got to go do.

    Category by God's Grace! | Tags: | Comments Off

  5. I don’t wanna!

    August 26, 2011 by mags

    I don’t wanna go wake the girls up, I don’t wanna make breakfast, clean up breakfast and then I don’t wanna do school either.  But I’m gonna, and I’m gonna right now.  Sometimes I act much worse than my 7yo when it comes to work.  She’s constantly telling me “it’s hard.”  I know it is baby, but we’ve just gotta do it.  It is hard to obey.  It is hard to be diligent.  It is hard caring for a house and it is hard training children in the way they should go.  It also brings Him glory, and since that’s what I want most I am going to get up right now and do all those things I don’t wanna do.

    Category Homeschooling, Housework, Parenting | Tags: | 1 Comment

  6. First Day of School!

    August 24, 2011 by mags

    The school room is mostly done, yesterday was Classical Conversations, and today was the first day for me to take on teaching my 2 big girls.  It was so nice having a clean room and being able to ignore the breakfast dishes and the clutter in the living room and the laundry that needed to be done.  The past two years my biggest struggle with homeschooling was feeling like I needed to get my house in order first, well that never happened, and so school never really happened consistently.  Well, it tuned out I just needed one room to be in order and for the girls to be ready and for the baby to be a bit bigger.  I’m hoping that one room will spill over into the other rooms, I love it.  I keep the door open and smile every time I look inside it.  It is also super helpful that John is still off this week, so he was able to help with the baby and even help pick some things up while we were working.  I was so pleased with how much my big girl retained from previous lessons, I’m so proud of her, she definitely is ready for more formal and focused education.   I’m so excited for this year of school.  I’m hoping that with doing school first thing in the morning the girls will be fresh, I’ll be fresh and then I’ll have the rest of the day for chores and dinner, that way I won’t need to choose between school and dinner.

    Category Homeschooling | Tags: | Comments Off

  7. The Finished Room! (Almost)

    August 23, 2011 by mags

    So the finished pictures have been taken.  School, at home, starts tomorrow, so we’ve got to be able to use it.  If you read this, rest assured that we aren’t starting grammar yet, and I’ll brush up on it before we do. So here it is!

    John's desk

    Here is Dad's desk, he's in the corner by the closet.

    Imagine a white board on that wall and me teaching my girls.

    Big Girl's desk

    This is where the girls are, with all paper and writing/coloring supplies in the middle.

    I really wanted another desk coming out from the wall where that storage area is.  I wanted it to look like this.  But this is more practical for this size of room.  We may get TV trays, so they can sit and see the white board, that isn’t there yet, more easily.

    Storage

    Here is the main storage area.

    The open space is my curriculum.  The boxes hold manipulatives, office supplies, stationary, etc.  I also will put toys in one of the boxes so the baby can play on the floor in here while we work.  Imagine red, laminated, labels on each of the boxes.  We call this The Ladybug Room, due to the red and black, the girls love it!  The calendar will be mounted to the wall as well.

     

    These are my littlest two enjoying the new space.

     

    Thank you Miss Artie, for the desk, it’s perfect!

    Category Homeschooling, Housework, School Room, Uncategorized | Tags: | 5 Comments

  8. Menu Plan Monday… on Tuesday

    August 23, 2011 by mags

    Menu Plan Monday

    So since this is the first week of school, I knew I needed some easy meals planned to make the week go smoother.  We’re already behind on the house, my back was in pain yesterday so we didn’t get things as cleaned in the main living areas as we wanted.  We could not go without meal planning though, otherwise it would be more fast food, which is not good for out bodies or our wallet.  We had to fill our cupboards today, so after CC we went to Costco.  I’m so glad John was with me.  We left with 2 carts.  Well anyways last night I printed out this menu printable from Stephanie O’Dea at Crockpot365.  I just got her new Totally Together organizer and she had it in the back, so I thought I would use it.  Here’s what I came up with:

    Monday: well I meal planned at night, so we at out, since I didn’t have anything planned.

    Tuesday: Breakfast-cottage cheese and fruit.  Lunch-Pizza at CC.  Dinner-grilled chicken and tortellini salad (big girl’s request)

    Wednesday: Breakfast-eggs, toast, fruit. Snack-cheese and apples. Lunch-sandwiches and chips.  Snack-Veggies and dip.  Dinner-American Chop Suey, salad.

    Thursday: Breakfast-yogurt, granola, fruit. Snack-apple and pb. Lunch-tuna mac. Snack-cheese and crackers.  Dinner-Sweet and sour chicken, brown rice

    Friday: Breakfast-oatmeal, smoothie.  Snack-Watermellon, fresh mozzarella.  Lunch-Sandwiches and chips. Snack-Veggies and salsa. Dinner-BBQ Pork sandwiches, salad.

    Saturday: Breakfast-yogurt, granola, fruit.  Other food ideas: popcorn, watermellon slushies, leftovers, tuna mac (Saturdays are very unstructured around here)

    Sunday: Cottage cheese, fruit, toast. Snack: Veggies and dip.  Supper: in-laws here, grilled fajitas, rice, beans, chips, all the fixin’s.  Snack: home fellowship group

    Let me know if you want any further details.  This is linked up at I’m an Organizing Junkie’s Menu Plan Monday.

    Category Cooking | Tags: | Comments Off

  9. Cleaning up Today

    August 22, 2011 by mags

    Today we’re trying to get the living areas of the house cleaned up and livable again.  I cleaned out the fridge and now we desperately need a shopping trip, so we’ll be having Panda Express for Linner tonight and I’ll be shopping this evening.  Our fridge looked full, so I assumed we had food, but we didn’t we had month old leftovers, eeeewwwww.  I even took out the shelves and washed them, no more gunky stuff on them.  We took out a piece of furniture from our dinning room today, since most of it moved to our new school room, the room looks better already and there’s still a pile or two in it that needs to be taken care of.  There really will be “after” pictures soon, but since we cleared out the dining room piece, we have random things in the school room again.  Tomorrow we start school, so hopefully by the end of tonight I’ll have one, maybe tomorrow though, since tomorrow they’re actually going to a “school.”  I guess it doesn’t really matter though, since I don’t have hardly any readers.  Maybe I’ll let people know I have a blog again.  :-/

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | 2 Comments

  10. Almost there

    August 20, 2011 by mags

    I think we’re just about done, I won’t be able to say for sure until our main living areas are picked up.  The living areas look really cluttered and I can’t tell what is what, Monday our goal will be to finish it off.  My girls love the space, my oldest (age 7) told me that she wants to “change her life,” and she wanted to make a list of things to do every day.  So far on her list is to make her bed, pick up clothes in the morning, pick up night clothes, read her Bible, and pick up toys.  These are all pictures and I guess reading her Bible is a goal since reading isn’t quite there yet, but I love it.  She was able to make the list on paper and pens that were easily found and sit at her desk in her red chair, that was all cleared off. :) She also recognizes that she needs Jesus to help “change her life.”  I love conversations like that and praise the Lord that little seeds are being planted in my girls and little bits of harvest are being seen.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | Comments Off

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