We will officially be starting our school year on the 4th of Jan. I'm very excited, but also a tad nervous. The beginning of the school year brings many emotions. We will be taking 2 weeks off at the end of Jan., though, so it will be slow going at first. Can't wait!

Only the first 3-4 pages have pictures

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Make a Smilebox photobook

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Homeschool Curriculum Choices

Sooooo.... couponing isn't going so well.  I have a few kinks to work out and I'll let you know when I figure them out.  Hopefully, it won't take long, but while you wait I thought I'd share our homeschool curriculum choices for this January for both CJ and Faith:

Language Arts/Handwriting: We are going to be working through Cursive First.  Just 1 or 2 letters per week and their sounds.

Math: RightStart Math A.  I really could not say more about this curriculum.  It uses games and FUN to teach math.  How cool is that?  Not to mention the fact that it is advanced math. Students score very well using this curriculum generally speaking.

Read-Alouds: Sonlight P4/5.  We love reading around our house, so we will also use the library tons.

For fun one day per week (3 days total) we will do the following:

Artistic Pursuits Pre-K
Science- just some fun hands-on things that I ordered like growing a butterfly, hatching baby chicks, etc.
Baking day- the kids love to help bake!

Our school year starts in January, so we are gearing up!  It'll be here before I know it with Christmas right around the corner.

I am officially resurrecting my family blog.  We are starting our new homeschool year in Jan. plus I am going to try the whole "couponing" thing again.  I figured it called for some blog time.  So, here it goes:

Couponing

Tomorrow I will be headed to Smiths to cash in on a few coupons that are too good to pass up.  Last time I tried couponing I failed miserably.  So, my plan is to ONLY do couponing at Smiths for now.  This will give me a chance to get more comfortable and knowledgeable about couponing before branching out to other stores such as Walgreens.  The things on my list for tomorrow include: toothpaste (free), lunchables (free), and Progresso Soup (cheap).  I will also be picking up between 5 and 7 copies of the newspaper tomorrow, because there are 2 really good inserts. 

My thoughts about couponing are that we are trying to raise enough $$$  for our move to Tanzania, and we need to stockpile some stuff (such as toothpaste) that we need to take with us.  What better way to stockpile than to do so with FREE stuff?

I'll talk about homeschooling later this week, and explain what curriculums we will be using for this coming year.

Denver Zoo trip

Lots of posts of our extremely fun trip to the Denver Zoo. We had such a blast! I will remember this trip for a long time to come. We did a ton of fun things in Denver. This was just one of the highlights. We also went to a puppy place where they sell puppies and now the children are begging Daddy for an "inside puppy".

Very cool tiger!

As you can imagine, it was all I could do to get them to turn around for this long.

Awww... sleeeeeepy baby. Isn't she cute? LOL I'm not biased or anything.

These little guys were so cute! They were really close, too.

This eagle was amazing! He was so close that I could have gotten my finger bit off if I had felt so inclined. : )

Literally ALL day from the time we arrived at the zoo my my daughter kept asking "where are the birds that stand on 1 leg" over and over. I had briefly metioned them a week or 2 earlier because we saw one on TV. I didn't even think she was listening. We had to take a picture with the flamingos.

The Lions...Last Zoo Post

The lions ate their "snack" right next to the glass. It was so cool for my hubby and daughter to be able to see.

Interesting fact: At the Denver Zoo, the females are dominant. Not the male. The lion keeper said that the females often steal food from the male. I thought that was interesting.

I made this cute collage of Alexandra eating her cupcake on her 1st birthday. If you missed the other pictures from her birthday scroll down to see all of the fun! Also, this is the 2nd post today, so if you missed the other one about Spell to Write and Read scroll down for that as well.

Spell to Write and Read Post #2

In my last post about Spell to Write and Read (SWR) I showed you all of the things that I purchased as well as some of my thinking for choosing SWR. The next thing that I did after my lovely package arrived was that I read the book pictured above. Consider the book above (SWR) to be the reference guide for using SWR. Keep in mind 2 things when I say that I read SWR:

1) There is no reason that you need to read the whole book before you begin. I just like to read books like this. That is why I
did. All that I would suggest to do is read the first few steps and prepare for teaching. After you have started teaching read the
next step a little before you come to it.
2) A lot of the information will not make sense until you actually start teaching it.

I used the book pictured below (WISE Guide) which is included in the Core package to check out the spelling lists, etc. to get an overall grasp of what dictation would be like. Once you have read through step #11 in SWR you switch to the WISE Guide and you use SWR as a reference manual. Any time that you need to go back and complete another step is SWR your WISE Guide will refer you to it in the SWR manual. So, don't worry about missing something.

The next thing that you should do if you have not done it is join the SWR Yahoo! group. It is amazing. After I read the book I wrote down any questions that I had and I asked them on the group. It is an AMAZING tool. The trainers spend countless hours giving very detailed responses to any questions. Often times, even Wanda (the author) will respond to the questions. This alone is a huge tool in you tool box to succeed with SWR. Honestly, the Yahoo! group is one of the main reasons that I chose SWR over Spalding. Here is the link to the Yahoo! SWR group:

Link

I'll have another SWR post soon!

Happy 1st Birthday Alexandra Hope!!!

Happy first birthday my beautiful baby girl! Oh, how it breaks my heart for you to be growing up. Yet, the excitement to see what a wonderful, powerful woman of God you will become is just as intense. You will always be my special princess. There is NOTHING that you could do to seperate yourself from our Father's love or from my love. I will cherish all of those late nights with you more than you will ever know. I will always remember what a joyful spirit you have always had! You are such a happy baby!

You absolutely adore your sister and brother. You make us laugh all day! We love you!

Look at all of the presents I got!

Don't tell Mom... just one little peek won't hurt anything.
.

Eating Alexandra's birthday dinner. She loves this chicken noodle casserole that I make, so that is what she had.

Mmmmm...

That's good stuff!

Waiting patiently to open presents even though it is 2 hours past my nap time (yes, that is sarcasm).

Opening presents!!! Big sister and big brother along with cousin Andy were big helpers opening everything.

She was soooo excited about her baby doll that she got.

Almost as excited as she was about how tasty these shoes were.

More clothes!!! Thanks Nana!