Tired Mommy

So  I haven't really been on here much the past week and a half. Last week was just crazy and I really didn't feel well, and I started  my new job yesterday. My husband hasn't had much luck finding a job, so I finally convinced him that I would have to get one until he finds one. I haven't worked in 3 years, and my body is feeling the pain. I haven't finished college yet, so I don't have the skills to do much. I'm working in a very small lamp warehouse putting lamps together. It's easy work, but my back has got to get use to being on my feet 10 hours a day. I miss my kids, and homeschool is more exhausting now that I have to do it after work. I plan on working until at least August, when I "plan" to go back to school. By then Hubby should have a job. He's trying to get his GED. He has tried a couple times before we got together, but the poor guy has trouble taking test. He is dislexic and ADD. This does not mix well with test taking. I also think he is scared of failing again. SOOoooooo, now trying to balance work, homeschool, girl scouts (soon!!), spending time with the kiddos and the hubby, and what the hubby doesn't get accomplished during the day. Whew!!! Everyone please pray for me!!! For patience, strength, and time management!!!


Check out the blog hop page!!! Link up and find lots of new blogger friends and followers!!!!

Menu Monday

Hi, all you menu planners!! Here we go with another week of menus. I start my new job this week, so to make our transition a little easier, our dinners are gonna be simple ones this week.

Monday-Chicken and Dumplings

Tuesday-Baked porkchops(with what season my hubby is inspired to us:), steamed mix veggies, and season rice (which ever box he grabs:)

Wednesday- Hamburgers and fries

Thursday- Grilled chicken sandwiches and steamed veggies

Friday-Pork stir-fry with white rice

Looking for more menu ideas, or just wanna share your own? Link up at Organized Junkie!

More free curriculum for your Homeschool!!!!

I found a free full life science curriculum download!!! The Lab of Mr. Q has created 4 elementary science curriculum download: Life Science, Earth Science, Chemistry and Physical science. Each has a student book and a teacher/parent book, and the Life Science can be downloaded for free!!!



Guest Hollow-This site has some really good elementary history curriculum! They are all literature based curriculum which she used with her son. There is also a full science curriculum and different printables.

PreKinders-Great ideas and printables for pre-k for all subjects

Prek-8- This sight has TONS of great printables for phonics/language arts, math, games, and color pages from prek through 3rd grade! I really like this site!!

Teacher.net-Has TONS of free lesson plan ideas for all grades and all subjects, and new ones are always being added!

Free Math-This site has a full planned out math curriculum for grades 1-5 and includes printables.

Conversation With My Three Year Old

Here is a conversation I had with my three year old while he was outside playing, It was soo funny, I thought I would share.

Crazy Man-Look a rooster in the tree!!!

Me-/A rooster?

Crazy Man- Yes! A rooster, in the tree.

I see nothing in the tree, but do hear some kind of bird from that general direction.

Me- You mean a bird? Do you see a bird in the tree?

Crazy Man- Nooo, not a bird, a rooster! A rooster, rooster from the Naked Center (by this he means Nature Center cute huh!?!)

Me- Oooohhh, you mean an Owl. Like the one in the cage at the Nature Center? (Our local Nature Center has a rescued owl with one eye)

Crazy Man- Yeesss a Owl!! Look, in the tree, a owl rooster.

Me- *Face in palm* Cool, I must have missed it.

Proud Momma!!!

So just a few things I am proud of today!!! Baby J rolled over from back to belly!!! Yessss, isn't that awesome. That's the hardest turn, cause their little arm are always in the way. Soooo proud. He turned from back to belly at 4 months, and now a month and a half later, he's goin the other way. I thought it was a fluke at first, or I had forgotten which way I had laid him. I put him in bed with me, then had to get out to help hubby find something. When I got back, Baby J was on all fours grinning at me! So I thought I put him on his back, but wasn't sure, you know how mommy brain is. Then after our early morning nap of an hour or so, Diva Queen crawls in bed with us to say she was awake, and started to play with J. Then he did it again!!! It was sooo awesome, and you can tell he is sooo proud of himself. He was giggling so hard!!Then this afternoon, while playing on the floor, he tried to sit up!!! He as been trying all week, but today he completely lean back with one foot in the right position, but while trying to get the other one under him, he got stuck. I was sooo funny!!! He didn't think so though, and started screaming at me to come and help.


Also I got Diva Queen signed up for Girl Scouts yesterday, and just waiting on a call about a local group. I think she will enjoy it. It will give her more little girls to play with. She is soo excited!! I can't wait for our first meeting!! So anyone else out there with girls in Girl Scouts? I was in it one year back when I was in the 2nd grade, but that's all.

Try It With Me Thursdays

So every Thursday, I have decided to try a new recipe with my family, and share it will all my fellow bloggers. I will comment on the post to say how we liked or disliked the recipe. It would be awesome if you would try it with me, or after me, and tell me how your family liked it! Like I said, I plan on doing this every Thursday, but I am already off to a bad start. Surprise right!?! I forgot to marinade my porkchops, soooo this weeks Try it With me

Thursday will be Friday. I'll try and get it right next week.

Molasses Coffee Marinated Porkchops

Ingredients

Recipe courtesy Alton Brown, 2009

1 cup cool strong coffee

6 ounces molasses, by weight

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

6 to 8 sprigs fresh thyme

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

4 (6 to 8-ounce) bone-in, 1-inch thick pork chops

Directions

Place all of the ingredients into a 1-gallon zip top bag, seal, and shake to combine. Place in the refrigerator to marinate for at least 2 hours or up to overnight.

Preheat grill to medium-high.

Remove the pork chops from the marinade. Transfer the marinade to a small saucepan and place over high heat. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-high, and boil gently, stirring often, until reduced to about 1/2 cup liquid, 12 to 15 minutes. Remove the thyme stems after the glaze has reduced. Meanwhile, grill pork chops 3 to 4 minutes per side or until they reach an internal temperature of 145 degrees F. Allow the pork chops to rest 4 to 5 minutes before serving with the glaze

Have you ever forgot to Pee?

Seriously!?! With our crazy morning routine and me getting distracted every 5 minutes, I realized it was 1:00 before I had time to use the bathroom. I get up, feed the baby, fix breakfast, clean up, get Diva Queens school work started, entertain Crazy Man, help Diva Queen with new stuff, and then fix lunch, I realized it was nap time and I haven't peed all morning!!! I literaly was about to wet myself.  Yes I am sure you are a loving to hear about this, but the point is, that we get so wrapped up in our children's needs, that we sometimes tend to forget our own. I keep telling myself that I am going to get up an hour earlier so that I can have some morning me time, but I am sooo NOT a morning person, and getting up any earlier than I have to is truly torture. So all of you morning people, HOW DO YOU DO IT???, and to those like me and 8am is still to early, what do you do to keep sane when you have no free moments?

Menu Monday

So here we go with another week of  menus to plan. So I hope this

gives you some inspiration!!!

Monday-Chicken Alfredo with Penne Pasta//garlic toast

Tuesday-Beef Stir-Fry with white rice

Wednesday-Make your own tacos with refried beans

Thursday-Molasses Coffee Marinated Porkchops (Try it with me!!!)/ grilled asparagus/corn on the cob

Friday-Grilled Cubesteak, smashed potatoes, broccoli, glazed baby carrots

Looking for more menu ideas, or just wanna share your own? Link up at Organized Junkie!

Silly 'Saturday

                                         

He actually had half of that foot in his mouth!! Course as always with photographing the kids, he removed it just as I snapped.

Funny Quotes:

"My mother had morning sickness after I was born."

                                                                — Rodney Dangerfield

"I want my children to have all the things I couldn't afford. Then I want to move in with them."

                                                                        — Phyllis Diller

"If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?"

— Milton Berle

"I can remember the first time I had to go to sleep. Mom said, 'Steven, time to go to sleep.' I said, 'But I don't know how.' She said, 'It's real easy. Just go down to the end of tired and hang a left.' So I went down to the end of tired, and just out of curiosity I hung a right. My mother was there, and she said 'I thought I told you to go to sleep.'"

                                                                   — Steven Wright

"It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder, and violence every single day should be avoided entirely. But the desire to beget children is a natural urge."

                                                                   — Phyllis Diller










Recycle and Reuse!!!-Homeschoolwise

So I thought I would start sharing, and collecting others ideas for reusing things around the house to use for their home school. So if you have any ideas, leave a comment!


I like to save all my cardboard boxes from around the kitchen. You know, cereal boxes and other food boxes. I like to use them instead of buying card stock. When I make games or puzzles or anything else that we will be using over and over, I glue them onto the cardboard, cut them out, then use contact paper to cover both sides. This has saved me a lot of money for not having to buy cardstock!

Help a Fellow Blogger and Do Some Hoppin!!

Hi everyone!!! Holly over at Popsicles and Pigtails has entered her daughter Darbee (such a cute name by the way) into a photo contest. So stop by her blog and click on the link to go to little Darbee's photo and click "Like" to vote for her. Then repost so your friends can do the same. GO DARBEE!!!

Menu Monday

So here is the plan for this weeks dinners:


Monday:Grilled porkchops, grilled okra, corn on the cob


Tuesday:Cheese filled Manacotti w/ maranera sause, salad, and garlic bread


Wensday:Wont be home


Thursday:Sante Fe Chicken Salad


Friday:Quesadillas with mexi-corn and salsa


Also hopping this morning, so check out the blog hop buttons on the left, and link up!!!

Sight Word Games

So today I have been looking around the web to find some fun ways to practice our sight words. We have a workbook we do everyday that introduces new sight words on the front half, and reading sentences practice in the back half. We do three new words every week, and sentence practice everyday. I also have a little game that I put together that we play. I have all the words she learns written on the large popsicle sticks, and we are always adding new words. I show her the popsicle stick, and if she gets it right, she keeps it, but if she misses, I keep it, and she can't sound it out. Then whoever has the most wins, and she loves to beat me ;p. I like her not being able to sound them out, so she will say the word right out since she knows it. She is getting better and better at her reading, but she tends to sound out words she already knows, therefore slowing her down. I am a major believer in phonics, for without it, new words are hard to learn and pronounce, but I also believe in learning to read everyday words by sight so that reading goes more smoothly in the beginning. So anyways, back to the whole web search thing, I didn't find much, at least that looked fun, but I did find this one sight that has quite a bit of printable games to play with sight words. It's at Kelly's Kindergarten: tp://kellyskindergarten.com/Games/GamestoMake/games_to_make.htm.


My only problem is everything that I find is for multiple players, and I am the only one playing with Diva Queen, so I need to find games that don't require me answering questions too. Because of course I'm always going to get them right. Does this make sense? I am finding it hard to word that. Mommy brain strikes again!!


So, I am still searching, although a few of the games on that sight did seem promising, I want to always keep things fresh, so they don't get boring.


Any suggestions, I'm ears!! 

Our Not So Perfect Homeschool

So our first year of homeschool is definitely not going as planned. I had such high hopes at the beginning of the year, and at first, I did everything as planned. We did phonics, math, art, some music, and dabbled in some social studies and science. We started school everyday at the same time, and stayed on schedule throughout the day. Even after the baby was born (once  I was better and healed) we returned to our routine. After a month or so I dropped the social studies and science lessons, using children books and normal reading times for our social studies, and decided to save science for the summer. Music was lost, and we only did art once in a while. Then after Christmas things just blah!! One the baby has started to be awake more, there for needing me more. Another is Crazy Man seems to be fed up with all the attention Diva Queen is getting, and while I try to include him when I can, or finding activities for him, he wants none of it! Then there is the now remodeling, and we're all just in a slump. I find myself wishing the year to be over so that we can start new next year. As of now, we're down to just our phonic/sight word workbook and math. Oh and I do make sure she reads aloud to me at least sometime during the day!! Yay me!! It is only kindergarten right? And the main thing is she has fun being a kid? Right!!???!! Uggh!!! Then why do I still feel like I failed :(

So I pose a question: Did your first year of homeschool go as planned? Here's another one: How did you cope with having an infant and a wild toddler/preschooler plus trying to do school?
(Ok! So that should be QUESTIONS instead......don't judge me.....I have frazzled mommy brain.)

Remodeling!!!!

We've finally started remodeling our house. Who ever built it did a very bsd job, and sooo much has got to be done. We have started in the bathroom, which was the worse, and even turned out to be worse than we thought. We have replaced the ancient tub which was peeling and rusting on the outside. Under the old tub was nothing but rot!!! So now not only were we replacing the tub, we now have to replace the entire floor!! It is a horrible mess. We also have to re-sheetrock the walls behind the tub because they had several mildew spots. It is a work in progress, and hubby is doing a wonderful job!


Next will be the kitchen, which the floor will be retiled, and I would like the cabinets to be redone. Also the washer and dryer hook-ups are right beside the stove, which I hate sooo bad!!!


Then we will get to the livingroom. We plan on recarpeting and painting it. We're also talking about adding recessed lighting. My brother-in-law has it in his house, and my husband loves it!! It will give the lighting a more even look in the room. Our living room is long, with a fixture on each end.


After that, we will just go in to the individual room and add new paint and carpet.


It will take a long time to get done, but hopefully the outcome will be well worth it!!