Homeschooling

I have to say things with Big Kid are going amazingly well. When we started schooling at home in July he hated reading, I could barely read his writing, his grammar and language arts skills in general were awful... and he had a general distaste for anything that could be considered "educational". Six months later he now asks for more new books, and when he gets them he dives right into them. His writing is improving greatly, or at least his printing is. We haven't even attempted to start handwriting yet, the public school just sort of ignored it...

He is amazing with math, logical problems are his forte. He enjoys science as long as I can insert hands on projects here and there. We decided to go with life science this year, and it's a rather dry book, but it's secular and that's what I wanted. I have started him doing a "word quiz" every day out of a reader's digest collection of their quizzes, and it's teaching him how to use a dictionary and broadening his vocabulary like crazy!!

Social studies is just amazing as well - I truly don't understand what the huge difference is between me and school. Is it the one on one? The interest I take in what he is learning? Whatever it is the gap is huge. He talks about how beautiful Russia is when we read a book about it, how he never knew there were so many beautiful places in the world. We have studied the US, South America and Russia so far... can you imagine what he will think once we have studied all the continents?! I love that he is soaking in so many facts about so many things, in all subjects. He was excited to learn in our Russia book that bears aren't just carnivores, they are also herbivores. I love watching my son learn so much so quickly! He now has me record specials on tv about this animal or Pearl Harbor (yep, asked me to record Tora Tora Tora, I was floored), or about how our galaxy was formed.

Education is a beautiful thing!

New Pantry?

Yesterday mom and I sort of went spelunking, to a friend's mom's house that has been repossessed. No power, no heat, no room to move! She doesn't want anything she left in the house, and boy did she leave a lot! So I grabbed a number of shelving units and closetmaid shelves, and plan to make a new pantry! We have two coat closets in our hallway, and one TEENY and I mean tiny pantry in our kitchen. With the way I coupon and follow our local sales, everything goes on sale every six weeks or so, and so when something is on sale and I have good coupons for it I buy six weeks worth... yes, now you are understanding why I need a bigger pantry with a family of five to feed!!

I can't wait to start, but homeschooling comes first... after school I will begin!! Mwahahaha!

*update* The new pantry ROCKS!! I used plastic shelving that was 3 ft wide (closet is 3ft 1in wide!) to make three sturdy shelves, and then hung a nice little wire shelf system on the back of the door. I did buy a clear over the door shoe rack initially to help organize packets of koolaid, mixes and such, but I instead put that in our coat closet, to organize our hats, gloves and scarves. Worked SO well!! I am so happy to finally have some room to buy a few extra boxes of cereal! YAY!

Family Game Night

We decided last week that we are going to have a family game night every week. The twins aren't quite old enough to participate yet, but will be soon!! Last week we played Clue, which was fun for everyone! Hubby liked it because it's a logical game, not one where by total chance you can utterly lose like Sorry or Life. Every time we play Life he loses his job and lands on every pay space possible! This week I think we'll try Wii Sports Resort - however hubby and big kid have played numerous times, I'll have the handicap tonight as I have never played. They better be nice, I'm the only "girl" in the house!!!

I think it's so nice to have a night where we just play and spend time together - every week! I realized we were going through the motions of every day... and not really spending any "quality time" together! Granted homeschooling I spend a lot more time with big kid than I ever have, and I love that, but hubby misses out on all of that. I think this is going to be a great tradition in our house, we will all benefit from spending time together :)

Mmmmm pizza

I used to run a pizza shop years ago, before I had to go gluten free. As lots of people understand if you work in a restaurant you really don't want to eat what they serve. I didn't until I was pregnant while working there, and then I wanted to inhale half of the shop! I had two favorites, and I still crave them today and now I want to make them when I have the ingredients - I made french fries topped with mozz cheese and bacon bits - it's fried, fattening and omg so good. I also made buffalo chicken pizza (I'll now have to make the dough from scratch), layering buffalo sauce, then buffalo chicken, then mozzarella and bleu cheeses... yep, I have been in the house for too long now!

*Buffalo Sauce Recipe*
super easy - for every 1/2 cup of Frank's Red Hot Sauce use 1/3 cup melted butter or margerine, and voila, buffalo sauce! You can spice it up with more tobasco sauce, or habanero sauce, this makes a basic mild wing sauce.

Having been snowed in for three days now, I'm feeling a bit "stuck". I'm painting our master bathroom cabinets, which were a horrid yellow, and I think I have decided to paint the walls a nice antique blue... maybe. We have painted every other room in our house, we just ignored our bedroom and master bath! No one ever goes in there anyway!!! It's time!!!

Snow in Georgia?!!

Wow - in this photo you see the FIVE INCHES of snow on my car! We live in the south, this NEVER HAPPENS! Hubby said this is the most snow he has ever seen. Me being a yankee I'm used to this, but not in our area! And where I'm from if your governor declares a state of emergency you can't drive on the roads... our neighbors are doing it for fun!! Ugh. Love the snow, hate the cold! I want southern weather back!!! The white Christmas was nice tho, have to give mother nature that one :)

*Update - we are on day three of being snowed in, hubby is none too happy about attempting to work from home, big kid is unhappy that there is so much ice on top of the snow. Thing one and two haven't noticed the difference other than looking at the snow out the sliders, saying "wow mommy snow!" and going right back to whatever they were doing!

Wow, two new gluten free foods in one month that TASTE GOOD?!!

Yep, bought a bag of "food should taste good" chips/crackers yesterday and ate half the bag before I made myself put them away! They taste like a cracker my grandmother used to keep in her New England home when I was little, it brought me right back to her table. It made me miss her and want more of the crackers all at once! Definitely will be buying more of these, yum! And they're health food healthy and I still like them! AMAZING! Flax seeds, sesame something, all sorts of good for you ingredients and THEY STILL TASTE GOOD! I'm sold!

Freecycle HAUL!!!

Ok, so normally I don't post about every freecycle item I pick up or give away, it would take over my blog. Today I have to brag!! We picked all of these up from a fellow freecycler and homeschooler, I was so wowed. The twins played with a few while I cleaned them all (yes, I'm ocd about cleaning everything) and fixed up the boxes with packing tape. What a find!!!

Monster party invitations!

The twins turn three this month, and they requested a "monster party". Not Monsters Inc, just "rarrr monsters mommy". Okaaaay! Big Kid and I turned art class into making monster invitations yesterday, and wow did he do a great job! Together we made nine or ten invites, and they are all just awesome!! I hope people enjoy opening them, it was so much fun making them! Next on the to-do list is to get some posterboard and make a pin the ___ on the monster. What should we pin on the monster? Eyes, tails, mouth, teeth, what? We are trying to keep the party small, so they aren't overwhelmed. Our halloween party was pretty big, and they were a bit scared of the crowd!

I can't believe my "babies" are almost three! They are so much fun to watch grow, I feel so happy to have been able to stay at home and witness their "education"! Yesterday they started playing games together, elefun and a big mouth frog game similar to hungry hippos. They played with the board of sesame street chutes and ladders, but didn't really understand the game play. They are old enough to take turns easily and "play" the games, but not really old enough to understand rolling dice, moving spaces and such. We're going to try letter bingo this week, they have known all of their letters for a year and a half so that part is easy. I'm wondering if they'll enjoy the covering them up part!

To make the invitations I just cut little teeth out of white paper, a bunch of different sized white circles for eyeballs, little black pupils, and then started cutting the shapes of the cards out. Big Kid came up with the idea of the arms wrapping around the card instead of folding a plain old card, which was awesome! I had so much fun making these!!! I wrote silly little sayings like "Bring Your Little Monsters" and such on the cards :)

UPDATE* Here is a link to another blog that has lots of ideas for monster party items. I don't have ANY of the crafting machines and such she mentions, but it sure gave me a lot of ideas to run with! I can make most of her stuff by hand, and they are just great ideas :)

What do you feed your toddlers?

We have two almost three year olds, and one has a somewhat limited palate, the other eats a variety of food. No allergies, just picky! Every morning they try to kill each other over a big warm bowl of infant oatmeal and bananas (yes, infant cereal), they eat nutrigrain bars, most any type of fruit, applesauce, plain bread, rice, yogurt, steak, pork chops, some chicken dishes, most rice dishes, smart puffs and pirate's booty, cheese its, chex mix (they love the really hard brown pieces!!!), they love cookies and potato chips! OH, and of course they love chocolate birthday cake. Of course we don't give them those last three that often, they aren't near as healthy as everything else!

They drink milk and water, that's all they'll accept, and even after the doc says they should be very overweight for drinking this much they still drink around 5 to 7 sippies of milk a day... which works out to what, 45 to 56 ounces a day! They are not anything near overweight btw, they are perfectly sized to keep their pants up but definitely don't fill them out!

They won't eat bread once it has something on it, aka a sandwich, and they really shy away from most vegetables. Won't even touch deli meat, it's a texture issue. They used to eat cheese but won't eat it now. Other kids have offered them fruit snacks, candies, etc. and they say no and won't let it pass their mouths, which I still feel lucky about! I have tried giving them a gummy vitamin, but they just aren't old enough for them and I don't dare give them those hard chewables yet!

Anyone want to share what their toddlers eat? Maybe we can help each other??

After Christmas Sales

Wow - lately between hip2save.com and southernsavers.com I have really scored some good bargains!! The twins turn three soon, so I am trying to find some good toys for them at good prices, and wow is that working out! Ok, so I did pay full price for their talking woody and buzz dolls that I ordered, but I did get free shipping!!

I stopped at Rite Aid today and got ornaments, my fave candy in the world (peeps!!), toys, a really cool wooden organizational thing to hang on the wall for letters and keys (for my mom), a pkg of loose leaf for school, and my construction paper to make birthday party invitations - all for $16.32 after coupons! AWESOME! Receipt said savings was $42.75.

At CVS I used my $5/25 email coupon, and $5 ecb I had earned, and got nail clippers, eye shadow, 4-2pks of reach toothbrushes, a coke, and two pkgs of easy ups for $16.14. Again, awesome! I had to do two transactions so I could use the $12 ecb I earned from the first on the second, but I didn't mind! According to the two receipts I saved $49.35.

At Macy's this week I bought 2 prs of junior's levi's, 2 prs of toddler jeans, and four toddler polo shirts for $40 - the first pr of levi's for me was originally priced $44 for just that one pair! They are running a sale through 1/17 or so (check the hip2save post) where you get a $10 macy's coupon good on any apparel for every pr of jeans you buy, even if they are $9.99 on clearance! So I paid $22 for my two prs, then used one $10 coupon on each pr of toddler jeans, which ended up $2.30 each after the coupon, and earned another two coupons from buying them. I found some great striped toddler polo shirts on sale for $3.40 each, and got four of those to use one more coupon. The last one my mom used to get two toy story shirts for the twins, I think she may have paid $10 oop because they weren't on sale. How cool is that?!! Those receipts said I saved a total of $109.17!!! Whoa... I usually don't shop at Macy's, our clothing budget wouldn't cover a shirt there, but this one was too good to pass by. I was heading near the mall to get a Thomas the Train mat laminated at school box, which turned out to be only $2.17 to do, and it's a big one! I have to remember they do that, it's such a great service for an awesome price!

At Kohl's today I returned two prs of jeans for big kid, he needs "relaxed fit" not "standard fit"... whatever. While I was there I noticed their toy dept was so very nicely organized, and there were signs all over saying 50% to 75% off, so I had to stop! I grabbed gatorgolf for the twins for $8, regularly $27. There are TONS of 50% to 80% off racks in every dept, so I grabbed the twins a two pack of their favorite cars pj's for $12... normally $32! Great steals considering I didn't have my usual 30% off coupon! I never look at the amt saved at Kohl's to begin with, because their "original prices" are never what you pay to begin with ;)

New Gluten Free addiction!!

Ok, so everyone knows I love eating cheesecake, brownies, cheesecake brownies, baked goods are my weakness. However - I have discovered Udi's gluten free bagels and have had at least one a day since I found them! THEY TASTE LIKE REAL BAGELS! I have had them plain, buttered, cream cheesed, jellied, and love every single way I have prepared them. Who knew I missed good ol' bagels so much!!!

I found them in the frozen section of my local publix, what an awesome treasure!!!

A big thank you

We Did It! 100,000 Days of Clean Drinking Water

Thanks to so many of you, my blog has helped generate 100,000 days of clean drinking water through P&G Children's Safe Drinking Water Program (P&G CSDW). We crossed the finish line with hundreds of other bloggers who embedded the P&G Clean Water Blogivation widget on their sites. Every time a reader clicked, P&G committed to make one day (2 liters) of clean drinking water available to someone in need in a developing country.

To help you, our readers, understand the impact you made by pitching in with the Blogivation, check out this video about P&G CSDW's work in Tanzania. It's just one of the many stories about people who P&G CSDW – with the help of partners like World Vision, CARE, Save the Shildren and others – has been able to provide access to clean drinking water.

The PUR packet – developed by P&G in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – is an innovation that quickly turns contaminated water into clean, drinkable water. Every day more than 4,000 children in developing countries die, simply because they don't have clean drinking water, and more than 1 billion people around the world do not have access to clean drinking water

For that reason, I am so excited to have been able to make a positive impact through the P&G Clean Water Blogivation on Changents.com. We hope you will stay involved on the P&G myGIVE Facebook page – for each new "like" and "share" through January 31, P&G will donate an extra day of clean water – and continue supporting extraordinary Change Agents around the world through Changents.com, our partner in helping P&G rally our readers to GIVE a day of water.

Amazing music, have to share!

Ok, I'm usually that mom that only listens to music when the kids are asleep, otherwise in the car we have the dvd player going to keep my sanity. My mother sent me a link to a youtube video of a group called Straight No Chaser, and I'm in love! It's a group of ten men who sing acapella and every time I listen to it I get the goosebumps. I am currently listening to their Christmas music and for the first time this year I am truly in "the spirit"! I even made my labor intensive Christmas sugar cookies and awesome frosting - three hours later I have super yummy cookies and I am humming along with every song :) Hubby put Straight No Chaser holiday into his pandora account and it's been piping into our kitchen all evening! YAY!!

I love this part of the holidays, this is what makes me personally smile. The last few days before the big day - giving that woman in line behind you the five dollar coupon you didn't use just for the heck of it, making holiday cookies with my family, listening to acapella holiday music, and knowing how big my family's smiles will be in a few mornings when we start to open presents!

Ok, here's my fuss for the month

I know it's December, and I should be happy about everything right now, and for the most part I am! However, I just read a post in a "community" on southern savers website. I use the site all the time for coupons and such, and they started a community I don't really understand yet. It seems to be a place for women to hang out online and talk, but I can't figure out a real navigation system or a reason to waste my time getting lost in useless chatter. Ugh. However, I popped "gluten free" in the search box and there were actually a number of posts about gluten free. The one that really caught my eye was a girl asking if going gluten free was truly a health benefit for the average person, or if it was just a fad diet.

That annoyed the snot out of me, and it wasn't her fault. It's the issue she innocently asked about. Do you know I have been told after getting sick on a "gluten free food" by the company who made it that no one has to test that a food is "completely gluten free" to label it so??? Yep, from what I have been told the gov't is trying to get some parts per million law passed but so far nothing is regulating what is actually sold as gluten free. So thank you fad dieters - while yes, you have shed some light on the plight of all of us who HAVE to eat a gluten free diet, you have now flooded the grocery stores with fakes!!

I am one of those unlucky (or lucky I guess) celiacs, if I eat even a crumb of gluten I'm sick for a few hours (for one crumb). I have gotten sick on Amy's Frozen Pizza, Amy's frozen lasagna (and that is why I don't eat Amy's!), and stupidly I once tried "gluten free oatmeal". Yes, I knew I was going to get sick but I had to prove to myself that oats can't be grown gluten free... they grow and are stored with wheat!!!

So thank you to all the companies trying to capitalize on a gluten free diet fad, for making people like me have to work even harder to find foods to eat!

Homemade Gluten Free Creamy Soups and Chowder Recipe

Over the last few days I have been talking with hubby about soups. I miss soup - New England Clam Chowder, Chicken & Stars, all those soups people eat out of a can without thinking!! So I decided to peruse the web and try to learn how to make a creamy soup. I was amazed at how easy it was, and so far have made an amazing ham and potato chowder, and last night a lovely cream of chicken soup. It's almost like a chowder, the broth is so thick, and omg is it amazing. I am in love!

*as always, if you are making this as a gluten free recipe check your ingredients to ensure gluten free status! I have brands I am very loyal to, but I still check every time I buy a new container to ensure nothing has changed on the ingredient list.

To make a chowder type soup simply get 3 to 5 cups of water boiling, and throw in whatever veggies you want. You'll learn quickly what to throw in first, and what to put in last, so they have the desired consistency. My first try my celery was super crunchy, but everything else was right so for us the celery and carrots boil for five minutes before adding potatoes or onions and such. I threw in a chicken boullion cube for both soups I made, and let that boil in. For ham I just threw in diced ham and was done, for chicken I skillet cooked cubed chicken breast in poultry seasoning, then threw that into our soup. Last step is tricky, so have your three ingredients measured and a whisk ready. Melt 4 to 5 Tbs of butter in a medium sized pot, then stir in the flour. The moment the flour is stirred in start SLOWLY pouring in two cups of milk, stirring nonstop with that whisk. If you get lumps, stop pouring and stir out the lumps. Make sure you get the edges of the bottom of the pot, we don't want dumplings! Keep stirring until all the milk is in, by now you should have a nice smooth whitish liquid. Keep stirring slowly over medium heat until it suddenly starts to thicken, and shut off the heat. Thicken it a tad more in the pot off heat, just stirring, then stir it into your soup!

Yes, it's easy! Next post I'll let you know how we make out trying creamy tomato soup and a beef soup :) WOOHOO!!

Happy Holidays everyone!!!

Today's Funny :)

Our twins' friend turned three a few weeks ago, and we went to his awesome party. Mom served a really yummy homemade chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, which my twins fell in love with. She used paper plates and plastic forks, which my two must have associated with getting birthday cake because the next week when I drove into work to have lunch with my bosses and coworkers my twins got all sorts of excited when they saw the plastic forks come out, and started yelling BIRTHDAY CAKE!! So now plastic forks mean chocolate cake in our family ;)

Gluten free crab chips

A good friend brought us some UTZ crab chips from up north, and I almost cried when I read "a gluten free food" on the back of the bag!!! I LOVE CRAB CHIPS!!! For the nonfollowers of UTZ chips, crab chips are the greatest potato chips ever made covered in chesapeake bay crab seasonings. Mmmmmmm they are just so DARN GOOD!! She brought hubby some UTZ hot chips, he took a ziploc bag of each kind of chip to work with him today and is in heaven right next to me :)

It's days like this that make me happy to have found a gluten free food that is SO DARN YUMMY, and makes me sad all at once because it makes me realize how many foods I MISS!!!

THANK YOU UTZ!!!

Studentsfirst.org

Wow, that is what I have to say about this wonderful woman who is trying to change our public school system for the better. Did you know we are #23 out of 30 developed countries in reading and math skills??? That is just unacceptable... and I won't rant, anyone who knows me understands this is the reason I homeschool. The public school system failed my child! If anyone is interested, check out the site - she's going to change our world someday!

Writer's Block

I have been compiling my own recipes into a book for at least two years now, and it became this pigsty of a book, I could never find the recipe I was looking for, and it frustrated the snot out of me. So I dumped it all onto the table and spent three hours putting it into the order I wanted it, so it was usable for me! Now there are recipes that aren't mine in there (so I can locate them) and recipes that aren't gluten free (ok, one - so I can remember how to make hubby green bean casserole every holiday). I have my recipes typed into a document, well most of them, but I just have no idea what the heck to do with them now! Do I start a new document with only the recipes I want to put into a book? Do I go through "my book" and add the good ones I have added since typing them up six months ago? I have come to hate the idea of even publishing a cookbook - how do you get someone to publish it, how does all of that work? How do you market and sell it? Being gluten free, is that a mark against it? Ugh.

hip2save.com and coupondad.net

So everyone who knows me hears me talk about using southernsavers.com to coupon and ferret out deals. I have found myself using two new sites now, who find even better deals!! Hip2save.com and coupondad.net/blog both are excellent places to find good savings on items. I have saved SO MUCH on Christmas presents alone using these sites! LOVE IT!