Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

Hi folks!!

I hope y’all don’t have a heart attack to see me back in the bloggy world?!!

oh dear… I am so so so behind!  =)

I didn’t mean to take a long break from the old blog

its just…. well… time management is not exactly a strength of mine

Let me splain Lucy   =)

It all started just before Labor day weekend…

we had Rock delivered… just before Labor Day 239/365

(I wonder if I took enough pics for my 365 day challenge?  I take pics every week… but they are in desperate need of sorting and editing!!)

5 cubic yards of rock  … oh my!!

the work began  240/365

transforming our yard from this 242/365

(long story… the neighbor built a beautiful fence… a little high and the rock drain was 6 inches from the fence… leaving their landscaping that is really our 6 inches of property…anyway it was  exposed under said fence… the area needed some help after the fence went in!!  a year later… )

243/365

Better, eh??!  =)

Lets just say Labor Day “week” was full of hard Labor…

my son even humored me and brought his old dump truck out of retirement

so he could help us haul.. rocks, clippings, weeds &  grass sod we dug up

244/365

we worked hard that week…

so we would appreciate the full JOY of resting on  Labor Day…

well…ok… we had 5 guests in our house that weekend…

so resting we did not…

245/365

Family visited so we played… and hunted geocaches…

ate gluten free peanut butter “breakfast” cookies

246/365

I’ll share some recipes soon… I’ve been baking lately…

Autumn rain will do that to a girl…

then… The Day before School started we played hard

to keep little nervous minds off of MIDDLE SCHOOL…(ack!)

we watched the sun rise  246/365

we went downtown to see Lady Washington sail away

after the boat show weekend (that we didn’t attend…ggrr…rocky weekend)

247/365

ain’t Lady Washington smaller than you’d think?

(she was in Pirates of the Caribbean you know!)

we didn’t wait around to see her sail… she took too long! ha ha…

instead we played with a River Otter in Capital Lake

he really was playing WITH us…. it was fun!!

he came out of the water… 248/365

and right up to the kids….

like… 10 feet from them!!

crazy!  Abby took this pic… =)

Twas a fun day that day before school

we played Snort… ate donuts…played Tennis… etc.etc.etc.

and I succeeded with my 365 challenge that week/day!  =)   249/365

I kept my little girl busy the WHOLE day

We played all day…  I will spare you the details

eventually the sun set  250/365

it was a wonderful day before MIDDLE school started!  (sob, sob) =)

251/365 Then it happened …

My girl became a 6th grader  (sniff)

this pic was taken after school… she was too nervous before! =)

apparently starting middle school wasn’t as scary as she imagined

and let us not forget my home schoolin 3rd grader!!

252/365

the start of home school always ROCKS my world A.LOT!. in Sept!

***Shall we take a Merlin intermission first?***

253/365 Lets not forget my Crazy Dog…

he is always up to his regular mischief!!  eating Toilet paper…

or trying to eat dead chipmunks the cat left behind

*ugh*   254/365

see the tail hanging out there… (ewww!)

Hoses are a wonderful thing…

when your dog hates water/the hose!!

*not sure how to move on after that… *shudder*…

OH…

speaking of dogs

I bought this hysterical dog cupcake thing

as an “after the first day of school treat” for my nervous middle school kid

255/365

who knew?  dog cake… ha ha ha

Abby decided then and there she wanted me to make them for her 11th birthday party that was approaching…  (lets just say we compromised…by the time her birthday came)

anyway…I was about to talk about Home School Curriculum…skip way ahead if you don’t or will never home school… Trust me!!  =)

I spent A LOT of time organizing curriculum in September!

not exactly 365 quality pics here folks… but it IS my real life !

(I think I won’t include these in my WAY behind 365 day photos!)

I use a lot of Evan Moor (Moore?) workbooks  and enlarge them on the photocopier for my little man with Low Vision…

( for anyone who doesnot know… my little man Sammy has 20/200  vision ~ that is not correctable)…  that is the main reason I love workbook style teaching with him!

I love  Teacher Created Resources and Creative Teaching Press too…

These companies combine well rounded Grammar & Reading with Social Studies, History, Science, Math, Geography … its a beautiful thing!

Teacher Created Resources

Evan Moore

Fiction and  Non Fiction Reading &  Read and Understand

Creative Teaching Press ~ Grammar Minutes

love the Math Minutes too

(we are finishing second grade grammar we overlooked last year)

3rd grade  is the first year I didn’t order too little or too much!! =)

SO yeah… Workbook style learning combined with readers, hands on art, science experiments, field trips …etc. etc.  works well for my low vision kid!  I am glad Sammy likes workbooks!  there are  so many subjects to explore with workbooks from these three companies alone!!!  =)

I use Evan Moore, Teacher Created Resources and Creative Teaching Press workbooks for Spelling, Vocabulary, Science, Reading/Comprehension, Science, Math warm ups, Grammar, History, Geography … etc. etc. etc.  They have too much to choose from!  Love love love them!!

Oh and how could I forget the Drops in a Bucket Grammar??

they have Drops in a Bucket Math too… not visually friendly for Sammy

(sorry about the sideways pics!) edit button is not cooperating!

Combined with reading books and art or science projects … the workbooks create  a very well rounded education plan.. I make “units” out of it all … for instance we are doing a unit on Explorers…  learning about early ships, famous explorers, geography/land & sea explored, Kings & Castles, Vikings, Pirates… all the places, people and things that were apart of that era… the unit ends up covering history, a little science, reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar, history and sometimes even math!  =)

*please note my chat style of blogging does not reflect proper grammar, writing, etc.etc.**  its how I rebel against such things… =)

The Readers we are LOVING this year … are these Usborne Early Readers!!  it is like they were designed to go with the workbooks!!  for *grades 1-4*


Love love love!!  Such fun subjects…

well… We think so anyway…

and this is only half of the books we are going to use for Fall/Winter…

Ships, Pirates, Vikings, Explorers, Castles, Knights, Cowboys..

Romans, Aztecs, Egyptians, Vikings…

never mind the animal and science based ones… Volcanoes, Weather, Penguins, Birds, Mammals, Frogs, etc.etc.etc….so much to choose from!  =)

Seriously Sammy is SO excited reading through all these!

I LOVE it!!  he is not waiting for the “units” to begin!  Crazy!

The Castles, Knights and Pirates are my/our favorite so far! =)

and there’s more

(these are not Usborne books)

there is  more…

The list is endless…

Gso many fun people, places and things we will explore in 3rd grade…

as you can see… I’ve been very distracted… from my blog…

it’s all making sense now isn’t it??  ha ha ha  =)

I haven’t even told you about Math yet!!

We are LOVING the Teaching Textbooks Math program…

Sammy loves it & I don’t do Math…so this is a Fabulous MUST for me!!


the DVD’s do all the introductory teaching for me *wink*

Teaching Text books are fun, interactive, colorful, and entertaining!  =)

Sammy enjoys following up on the lesson in the workbook too!?!  Ha. Love it.

b/c they include pictures from the DVD lesson… clever!!

**Yawn**

are y’all bored yet….

I’ll stop here… even though I didn’t tell you about Abby’s Birthday, Soccer, Sounders games, Learning Tennis, our ever growing home maintenance list, painting dilemmas, looking for a job (**Sigh**), the endless piles of laundry, dishes (still no dishwasher), etc.etc.etc. …. oh… and all the yummy baking I have been doing!!  *sheesh*

HOW do you all do it??!!

I love blogging… I miss it when I am not here…but I can NOT for the life of me… manage my time enough to be a faithful blogger!  =)

(one blog at a time… right??… ha ha ha)

I really miss keeping up with you all…  now that routine is settling in (until I get a job and throw a curve ball into my routine!)… I am hopeful I can fit blogging back into my life again!!

Forgive me for the Giant blogging break??

Though my daughter has a couple soccer games this weekend… we are laying lower than we have in a long while this weekend… maybe I will find time to read blogs!!  Please leave me a comment and let me know you were here… so I can come visit you first!!  =)

**Can I come back and play again??!!   =) **

Blessings~

Jenn

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