I have neglected this blog!

 
I have been so busy planning and organizing for this school year. I have totally neglected my blog. It is Sunday and so I have some time. Yesterday was our second complete week into this 12-13 school year and I must say it is going really well, better than I thought. I think the boys enjoying being on a schedule and knowing what they are going to be doing. This year I made all of them a student planner so they can keep up with their studies and schedules with independence. They have a weekly planning sheet which list their subjects and what is to be completed for that subject each day. The next sheet is a extra planner where they have their weeks spelling words, reading log, chore list, week at a glance to put library day, nature walk etc...
I have always been the type of person to plan and schedule. Which is a good thing most of the time because it saves time, money and frustration. But if something comes up that isn't on the plan I get flustered so it is not always a good thing. I have changed several things this year such as making the boys a planner but also I use a online menu planner, Plan To Eat, to store my recipes, plan meals, and create a shopping list. It also lets you print a menu out for the refrigerator and it has a button for your toolbar that will store a recipe by just clicking the button from any webpage that contains a recipe. It is pretty cool. 
My husband and I have also changed the way we do our budget. I read the book, World's Cheapest Family, and found several budget techniques that made more sense to follow than our previous way. I recommend this book to everybody even if you are not looking for a change. It has a lot of ideas that someone might not think of. It has helped us and we even paid off some debt.
 
 

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I need to post more!

I haven't been able to post on my blog in awhile with school winding down and I recently started selling Avon with my mom. I have been to busy busy. Hopefully regular post will start to come again. Baseball is almost over and that is a bummer, but I will have more time.
Baseball was rained out today after we were all soaked. That gave me a few extra minutes to post. If I can keep the kids busy inside I will be happy.

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One Reason I Home Educate

There are many reasons why I homeschool my children. There are ups and downs with homeschooling but nothing like what is going on in our public schools across the U.S. in today's world. My oldest son attended two different publics schools, kindergarten and first grade and even at this young age I liked neither school.

There were two occasions were I was called to the school. He was tapping his pencil on his desk causing a classroom disruption.(note: Why not just ask him to please stop.) And on the other, he was left alone on the playground after recess. The lunchroom worker discovered him while take out some trash. It turned out he was fine but there is always the what if….

I once had a meeting with one teacher and she informed me that she had to many children per class and when she divided her time up, she has around 2 minutes per student per day to help them one on one.

More often than I would like, I see the crime, violence and discipline not to mention safety issues that are going on in public schools. I see it on the TV, newspaper, Web etc... Recently I browsed over the internet and was shocked at what I found.

This site states that corporal punishment is routine in public schools including children being paddled, thrown to the floor, pinched, and being struck with objects such as a ruler. What bothered me about this site was the comments I read by parents sharing their story of abuse. You can read this article and the comments at Care2.com.

This site talks about the safety of children in public schools including gang violence, bullying, lack of communication which creates safety issues.

And then, she had stories of children getting arrested or suspended from school for the craziest things. Here is three stories of student arrests or being suspended:

A young girl, 17, was suspended from school for the rest of her senior year for taking her dads lunch by mistake which contained a small paring knife.

A 12-year-old girl was arrested for  writing “I love my friends Abby and Faith” on her desk and another girl, 13, was handcuffed and arrested for writing “Okay” on her desk.

This 8-year-old boy drew this picture of Jesus and sent home to undergo a psychological evaluation.

 

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I would not trust the school systems with my child's safety or my child’s education.

 

This was the first time Wesley had taken allergy medicine and it didn’t take long to see how he would react to it. I am glad he didn’t have a baseball game. He sat down on the couch about 30 minutes after he took it and he was out cold. I carried him to is bed and slept two hours.
Allergies has affected the whole family this year. Normally, Dylan is the only one who needs medication but we have all had a few doses.

Day By Day – Chart by Chart

 

I was sitting outside when one of the kids ask me who gets to sit in the front seat of the car on the next time out. I told him to go check the chart and while he was went to check I started thinking about how our entire life is charts, charts and more charts. We have charts for almost everything we do. Most of them have been made to schedule our daily lives and to stop fighting and arguing among the kids. I wonder how many families with kids live day by day with charts. We would probably be lost without ours. I believe planning and being prepared is important but it amazes me at the number of charts we actually use on a daily basis.

Some of the charts we use are…

• Reading charts
• Chore charts
• Riding in the front seat chart
• Menu chart
• Who-says-the-blessing-tonight chart
• Baseball practice and games chart
• School work chart
• Phonics chart
• Behavior chart
• What’s the weather chart
• After dinner clean-up chart
• Bible reading chart
• Daily, weekly and monthly cleaning chart

 

These charts help with organization and promotes responsibility. You can customize charts to age so everyone can use them. They have helped my younger kids learn the order of the days of the week and how to read them. They can also read most words on these charts like menu items and holidays.

I made some of our charts with excel but others I found online for free. They make our days move smoother and less stressful.

 

 

 

 

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Easy Creamy Chicken

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cooking Time: 2-4 hours (4-qt. slow-cooker)

Makes 8 servings

 

8 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

lemon pepper to taste

10 3/4-oz. can cream of chicken soup

3-oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened

8-oz. carton sour cream

1. Place 4 breasts in bottom of slow-cooker, Sprinkle with lemon pepper.
2. Mix soup and cream cheese together in a bowl. When blended, fold in sour cream.
3. Pour half the sauce over the breast in the cooker.
4. Repeats steps 1-3.
5. Cover and cook on High for 2-4 hours, or until chicken is tender.

You can serve this over rice

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