C.H.I.N.A. Chronicles

October 21

2011-10-29T14:08:00.002-05:00

This day marked two years since my double mastectomy at the hands of Dr L. and the start of the reconstruction process by Dr S. Three months later all surgery would be complete. One year following that I would have a final procedure to normalize my look.
Two years later I still struggling with the whys?, the what ifs?, the shaking of my head and the sobbing over what was lost. On this day two years out I was serving some beautiful women on a weekend renewal. I had asked my team to cover me in prayer because anniversary dates are difficult and I really didn't want to go down in a sobbing ball of messy while serving women. I made it about halfway through the day without a thought to what the day meant in my history. And then....I glanced up. A simple black t-shirt with a large pink ribbon caught my eye and my breathing became shallow and the tears started pouring. I quickly excused myself from the room and headed for fresh air. I pleaded with God to make it short, this weekend wasn't about me and I didn't want it to turn that way. A few of my team mates saw me hit the door and prayed for me. The attack was blessedly short lived and did not reappear the rest of the weekend.
I learned a few things this past weekend.
1.God is present even when I am pushing Him away
2.Prayer is powerful
3. Good friends who pray are powerful
4. Pray now not later
5 Time does heal wounds but scars are always present.

Girls Weekend

2011-10-05T12:51:00.002-05:00

Once a year I get together with a few girlfriends and head out on the town. We are homeschooling moms who live about as far away from each other as you can get. Between us we leave 15 kids in the capable hands of our husbands. I literally breathe deep the whole weekend. These two women have listened to me whine, rejoice, cry heavily over broken dreams, and laugh. At their feet I glean wisdom.
This year one of friends couldn't make it. Logistics just couldn't be had. God has a reason for that....but it sure was a different time without her, besides we all know how much getting away recharges us.
I plum wore myself out this weekend. Time was spent walking all over the riverwalk, and alamo. Eating whatever I wanted, and doing whatever struck our mood. We also managed to run a 5k at Sea World after the above walking! Good times.

Bright Ideas Press WONDERMAPS

2011-10-04T10:11:00.001-05:00

WonderMaps by Bright Ideas Press is well, wonderful! This is a fabulous product that makes finding and printing maps for your specific need very easy.

This year my kids are studying American History with a little bit of world thrown in to set up some timeline correlations. As we study each time period of American History I need to find about a dozen different maps with the detail or with the click of a button lack of detail that I need. Wondermaps provides that and more.

So let me give you an idea of what I mean. We are currently studying a bit about the Civil War. I needed a map that showed confederate and union states as they were at that time. Navigation is fairly easy in the program. I searched using the thematic maps. I also browsed over where the Mystery of History and All American History curriculums are mapped out to see how easy it would be to use if I was using those curriculums. Once I had the map I could decide how much detail I wanted. Rivers, key, labels etc could all be selected. This works beautifully for quizzes. You can use the same map for teaching and then remove the labels and present the same map for testing. No more white outing!

Here my son is coloring in the confederate states

A close up of the maps. This one is from the All American History II.

As I briefly mentioned above if you are a user of Mystery of History or All American History then the maps for those are organized for you in their own section of Wondermaps.

WonderMaps isn't just maps. There is a teachers guide as well that has ideas, mapping projects, how to make a salt dough map and much more.

Below is a video that Wondermaps created that gives a fantastic overview. See for yourself how the program works.

I really enjoyed getting to use Wondermaps. Not having to search all around the internet for a clear map of exactly what I need to teach my kids is a blessing. I love the fact that you can select more or less detail as you see fit.
You can get WonderMaps from Timberdoodle for $44.95. This is a product that will span the entirety of history teaching. You can get a Free homeschool catalog from Timberdoodle as well.

Disclaimer: As a member of Timberdoodle's Blogger Review Team I received a free copy of WonderMaps in exchange for a frank and unbiased review.

Been and month in some regards...

2011-09-22T17:28:00.002-05:00

....six months in regards to other things.

I have several posts waiting for me to finish them up and publish but my heart hasn't been into writing lately. But that is fairly obvious given the month between posts here. School is going, not as smoothly as it was in the beginning but it is going and for the most part we are enjoying our new curriculum and the addition of Classical Conversations. I am thoroughly enjoying the community aspect of CC. During Essentials class I feel like I'm back in high school writing notes on my white board to the other moms sitting back there with me and stifling giggles. The competition is fierce in those chairs along the back wall during math drill time :)

Speaking of CC. I had my first day tutoring last week. I subbed for the 6 year olds. It went well but I have a lot to learn! I am learning to let go of my procrastination habits but that is going to take awhile to chip away at those old habits.

As for the six months......today I had a six month checkup at the oncologists. I had forgotten about it due to the fact that it never made to my calendar. A phone call Wednesday afternoon sent my heart racing and my head traveling down all sorts of paths. You see an e-maginary friend announced this week that breast cancer is claiming her life. She supported me through my mastectomy with helpful advice and prayer, so how is it this damned disease is taking her out of this world and I got off with surgery? Don't get me wrong I am grateful for my health but incredibly sad to watch someone go through it and not come out ok. Some might chalk it up to survivors guilt.
So with dread I walked into my appointment.....after drying the tears that fell on the way there. I barely made it through the blood draw as two bald women walked by me as my hair fell past my shoulders. The doc spent all of 5 minutes with me and really didn't discuss my iron issues when I brought them up. He claimed the low numbers for me were a result of menses and nothing to be concerned about. WHAT??? Then why did he comment almost two years ago that my red blood cells were puny weak and any other negative adjective you could imagine. Why did he say I probably had an absorption problem an recommend iron transfusions?? Why in the past two years have I wasted over 24 hours getting said infusions stealing 6 days from my family? So I am done with this doctor. Finding a new one brings on all sorts of other issues. If you have never had to sign on with an oncologist then consider yourself blessed. The questions they ask feel like you have one foot in the grave and are just waiting to give you a shove the rest of the way. Did I mention that my husband is out of town so I dealt with the emotional trauma that these damned appointments bring on my own? Friends stepped up and heard me out, helped with the kids etc but John gets me, nothing in this world makes me feel better than to be wrapped in his arms. Must be what it feels like to be wrapped in the Fathers arms.

Hoffmann Heights Academy Class of 2011-2012

2011-08-18T11:36:00.000-05:00

Character Traits

2011-08-01T16:53:00.000-05:00

We spent one day in the Magic Kingdom with our two youngest. The older three hung out with their grandparents all day at their home and then drove over to downtown Disney to have dinner together. The park was not that crowded and the littles found a few characters to hang with.

Goodies I love in our school room

2011-07-26T11:30:00.001-05:00

I have a few things I love about our school room.
The Room~
First off I feel blessed to have a space dedicated to the purpose of schooling my children. This room was originally designed to house a pool table but educating 5 kids seems a better purpose, my 8 year old disagrees. I don't have a current picture of it but will in the next week as I reveal all the changes I made this year to our setup.

My walls~
I convinced my sweet husband that gluing cork to the top half of the school room walls was a brilliant idea. He went along with my plan and we corked the walls several years ago. Now my kids can stick what they want up there.

My Timeline~
I stole this idea from a friend of mine. The timeline is from Knowledge Quest and I zipped it down to our local Mardels to laminate it for sturdiness. The figures are from Sonlight. Amy Pak also has them.

My storage containers~
I picked these gems up at Garden Ridge I think after seeing the idea in a pottery barn catalog. I spray painted the lids red and voila storage containers that hold crayons, markers, pattern blocks and whatever else I need them too..

My maps/window shades~
I picked these maps up at our local school district surplus store for about $20 I think. They fit perfectly over our windows and store up out of sight behind the cornice when not used. We live in Texas and our state is a little prideful so we have two huge maps of Texas on each one :)

Trial Run with the younger set

2011-06-28T11:36:00.000-05:00

I affectionately call my younger two "the littles" and my older two "the bigs". Poor Ian is the middle child and can be lumped into either category given the event. This school year he will be part of "the littles". This in no way indicates he is doing "little" work. He will be doing grade level work if not above. This year I have the littles using My Father's World 1850-Modern times (portions of it). We took a break from Sonlight as a whole and are trying something new, not because Sonlight wasn't working for us but because I was burnt out on Core 3 and juggling more than one core. With MFW I can instruct all three in the area of history. I am using a different Bible curriculum than MFW but again all three will be using it. Apologia Who Is GOd? is what we will be using. I did a review on it for TOS last year and liked it enough to pull into our school year. I ordered the notebooking journals as well. I am also using Apologia Exploring Creation with Anatomy for science.

Today I am doing a trial run of the first day. My bigs are away at church bootcamp so I have my littles undistracted. I gave them the option of which subject to start with and they chose math. We started with our Classical Conversation math facts. This is how it went down
Avery skip counted by 2's to 24 and skip counted by 3's to 36
Neil did the 3's times tables
Ian did the 4's times tables.
They all listened in while the others recited, gotta love the one room school house set up.
I then set the timer for 30 minutes and had Avery work in some old workbooks I found while cleaning out the school room. Mostly addition and other simple stuff to keep her brain working. Neil corrected and rewrote some tests from the end of last year that I couldn't read :/ Ian wrote out the times tables 1-4. The timer rang and they voted for History next.
I printed out 3 US maps and gave them a pretest.
Avery got 5/50
Neil got 12/50
Ian got 28/50

Being a pretest I was glad to see lots of room for improvement. It means they won't be bored as we learn some states this year. So with those results in hand we move on in our history lesson to the Northern States Song and some history review. A little later we will hit the store for some colonial cooking supplies and eat something from the past.

This post is mostly for me to look back on as we tackle this new journey with a new curriculum and some piecing together of some other subjects all while doing Classical Conversations.

2011-06-27T14:45:00.002-05:00

School room changes

2011-06-24T13:34:00.000-05:00

I'm in the middle of cleaning out and rearranging my schoolroom. My idea was to pull everything into the hall and only put back in what I wanted. The result of that brilliant plan was what my husband lovingly refers to as "hoarders hall"

It only looks slightly better at this moment. However you no longer need to hurdle to go watch tv ( I am too old to hurdle).

The rest of the room is coming together. I moved the furniture around with the help of my dashing husband. Good thing he works from home as my pec muscles just aren't what they used to be before surgery.The other half of the room I haven't photographed. But it is set up. This week I am purging hoarder hall and moving books onto all those empty shelves. The coffee table will hold manipulatives and science supplies, the shelf behind will hold school books and manuals. Most of what you see furniturewise is IKEA I LOVE IKEA!

I will post final pics when it is all done and when hoarders hall is cleaned up. Coming up soon will be a list of what we are using this year too.

Update

2011-06-21T10:12:00.000-05:00

After trying to get information last night from the office it closed without a return call. Friends of ours called us up and treated us to a movie for John's birthday and brain distraction for me. The movie ended at 11 which left me exhausted. I gratefully slept hard all night and woke just after 8. I called the office and got voicemail again. I called the automated number, it must still be down because the receptionist answered....I cried she tracked down the nurse. Turns out she was calling to say all results were good! UGH! I am ecstatic over the good news but don't hand me a slip of paper saying call the automated results line in 10 days and then call me in 4. I cried to the nurse too and begged her to flag my chart to allow release of all information to my husband if he answers the phone. I had signed the release to leave a message on a machine but he picked up both lines. So now my chart is flagged. God willing I won't see another doctor until September when I return to my onc for a check up and blood draw.
Thank you all for your prayers. I truly felt them as I was able to sleep all night with out anxiety.

Confession......I'm scared

2011-06-20T17:35:00.000-05:00

I came home from a perfectly enjoyable afternoon at a friends pool to the news that my doctors office had called not 10 minutes before. I had failed to grab my phone when I left earlier, an unusual event for me. So with that news I quickly hit call on my cell and was greeted with the nurses voice mail. I grabbed the little form they had sent home with me asking me to call back in 10 business days (still 6 days away) and dialed that number.....it rang.....and rang.......and rang while my blood pressure climbed. The third time I attempted the number the nurse picks up and says the line is down and transfers me to the nurse whose voicemail I get again. My heart races and I try to repeat I Peter 5:7 to myself and I.just.can't.
Why? Why am I panicking over a missed call? Two years ago a simple doctors visit sent my life into a tail spin. That simple little fibroid adenoma my surgeon removed "just to be cautious" turned out to have Stage 0 LCIS attached to it. Even typing that out my throat is thickening and tears are welling like it was yesterday. Even then a simple visit to the oncologist leads me to a decision I had rebelled again over cheesecake with a dear friend who was walking me through my diagnosis. Even after I was cleared my oncologist dropped another bomb of my iron being very low and needing infusions twice. I had let my guard down last week when I stepped into the office of my GYN for an annual appointment. I was overdue by a year and figured I needed to get in there again. I say a NP, my doctor was out on maternity leave, who was very understanding and supportive of my decisions. So a simple doctors visit just isn't even in my vocabulary anymore. Now 6 days before I am supposed to call in for results of blood work and other female tests they are calling me...and I'm scared. I missed the 4pm cutoff so I won't hear back until tomorrow.
Dinner has gone unplanned so hubby is cooking.....he shouldn't have to.
I'm crying and paralyzed......I shouldn't be.
I'm creeping towards the edge of a pit I promised I would never go back to.....I shouldn't be.

The only good I see in this is that my hallway full of stuff kicked out of the schoolroom might get cleaned up tonight with all my nervous energy.

Summer is here

2011-06-15T14:53:00.000-05:00

Summer is here and we have spent it being lazy, swimming in friends pools and working over 40 hours at Cub Scout Day Camp. This week has been the first one that we are mellowed out. So mellowed out I decided to make doctors appointments now rather than later in the summer. Avery was first up with her orthopedic. Everything looks good on her, so good that she doesn't want to do surgery or see her for a year! Fabulous news. The other appointment was for me. I dragged my sorry self to the GYN. Haven't been since I was diagnosed so it was time. I had to laugh when she went to warm her hands before doing a breast exam :) For the record they are no longer looking for lumps but just examining the scars and implants. Next up is chiro appointments for John and Ian. The rest of us are looking forward to more water days and lots of ice cream. If I don't blog you can find me at the nearest pool.

Progress

2011-05-27T11:46:00.000-05:00

I have made progress in my Bible reading. I had a friend step up and volunteered to hold me accountable. It helps knowing that if I don't read than she might wake up on the Pacific coast and question my lazy rear! So here is my progress. Ok and because I am struggling with rearranging pics on the blog this morning you have the after first. Scroll down for before!

I have almost closed the gap in March. Today's reading is partially done because I was busy in the March readings.

Still Behind

2011-05-16T08:54:00.000-05:00

Going on record to say that I did manage to get up this morning and have some quiet time. Now that BSF is over I am trying to catch up on my chronological reading plan via youversion on my iPhone. So heres the deal........I'm behind! Nothing new there. But for the first time ever it bugs me to be behind. The next few weeks will find me doubling and tripling my reading in the morning until I am caught up. Then I will take it day by day and journal some of my thoughts on the passages I have read. Since I am lacking blog material I might post a few of those notes here.
Just to show you how far behind I am.... the red is all dates I haven't completed. I didn't realize I had missing dates in March this morning or I would have started there. I did connect March with April this morning.

Hold me accountable if you feel led.

Getting Closer

2011-05-15T19:35:00.000-05:00

We are getting closer to the end of our school year. We have about three weeks left. Hannah has wrapped up her classical conversations Challenge A class so she spends her days helping me read to others, reading books that she never go to, or working on some project or other. I have senioritis still! My new curriculum guide is here and I have been looking it over. My planner also arrived so I have been working on setting that up. Plans are being made to gut the school room in June and start over fresh. Not with furniture but with supplies and books. A little rearranging is in order as well, i think.
I'm excited about next year. It will be a new program for us both with My Father's World and Classical Conversations. I needed change.
I need to get back on the bandwagon of getting up before seven and doing my quiet time. With BSF over I have become very slack in my daily time and since my iron tanked I haven't been able to manage getting up before seven except for when I served on a Tres Dias weekend where I lived on caffeine for seventy two hours!
Growth is happening in this house. Growth in our kids character and John and I's. Honestly sometimes it would be easier to just be my old self. So pray for our family as we work on our relationships. Rebuilding some damaged bridges, finding joy in being a mom, wife and homemaker again. True joy not just a fakey "yep wouldn't change a thing" joy.

TOS REVIEW~ Student Writing Intensive Level C

2011-05-13T15:21:00.000-05:00

Oh my a review for a writing program! That was my first thought as I received Institute for Excellence In Writing's Student Writing Intensive Level C for review. You see I have a 9th grader who strongly dislikes, ie hates, writing. You can’t blame her, as I strongly disliked writing in high school as well. I still do, although I am no longer in high school! With my dislike for writing, it trickled down in our homeschool to me not wanting to teach writing and thus avoided doing so. Obviously that was not beneficial to my kids. So with Student Writing Intensive Level C in our possession we dove into the first video lesson. Level C is geared towards 9-12 graders. The reaction was this....

yes that is a smile on my “I hate writing” daughters face. My other daughter is a camera avoider but it’s a good shot of the binder :)

Here is a brief video introducing Student Writing Intensive. I think you will find it helpful to see and hear Mr. Pudewa himself.

The videos were shot live in a class setting so your child feels as if they are in the class with other students and Mr. Pudewa. Here is a short you tube video giving you an idea of the setting for level C.

Mr. Pudewa is engaging and light hearted with the students. He encourages, directs and teaches in such a way that my 9th grader just had to join along. Yes, they thought some of the jokes were corny but they were smiling. We didn’t make it through the whole program yet but plan on taking the summer to wrap it up. Just in the amount we did though I saw a confidence blossom in my daughter’s writing. As we continue with the program and broaden her skills to enhance her writing, I believe that moving into her 10th grade year she will be a more confident writer.

SWI Level C is $99. It contains four DVD’s, a binder with dividers, and a packet with the teacher’s notes, handouts and checklists. The handouts were able to be copied for same family use. There are 15 lessons included. You can choose to do one lesson over one or two weeks making this program anywhere from 15-30 weeks long.

I also received Structure and Style Overview DVD. It introduces you to the style of teaching writing that this program uses. Available for download off the website are additional handouts to help you teach the course to your students. The DVD is available for $10. IEW also sent along a portable wall (pictured below). This portable wall offers several bulletin boards full of information to be used in conjunction with the structure and style program. It offers synonyms for overused words, strong verbs, prepositions, -ly adverbs. It also gives highlights for each of the 9 units. So compact that it fits inside the students notebook. A great resource for $7

Institute for Excellence in Writing offers many other writing products for all levels of writing.

Come on over and see what my crew mates thought of the program here.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product for review purposes only.

TOS REVIEW ~ Go Trybe

2011-05-11T13:16:00.002-05:00

GoTrybe is a web based fitness program that incorporates fun easy workouts that kids can customize along with health and wellness related questions. You can read their full description of their product here.

I prefer my kids to get outside and play rather than be in front of a monitor doing exercise. But some circumstances like months on end of snow on the ground (not here in Texas mind you), or no yard could make this a great fit for a family, For us it was a hard review because we are active outside. GoTrybe, being web based, required us to set up the laptop in an area where the kids could move around while viewing a small lap top screen. It was not an ideal situation for us. However the workouts were challenging and got the kids heart rates up. We were signed up for the high school level which was nexTrybe. Other levels were zoodoos up to fifth grade and Trybe180 for 6-9th grade.
My 14 year old daughter enjoyed being able to pick her warmup and activity videos. She could customize her workout based on a particular sport or mood. There were so many videos to choose from a teen could easily find something of interest to them. She would choose a video for warmup, cardio, strength and flexibility.
In addition to the workout videos they could move on to nutrition, motivation and wellness questions. For nutrition a small paragraph would be presented with a multiple choice question. A correct answer would earn them points, which I will discuss in a minute. The motivation portion is a video that offers insight from some of the instructors. The one I just watched was silly with no real motivation. Wellness is also a brief video that offers advice and information. Being that this is for high school level I found these last three parts basic and not challenging at all.
Everything they do on the site earns them points which they can use to customize their avatar. If racking up points on a video game is a good motivation for you kid then the point system might work for them.
Like I said we are big on getting outdoors and moving. GoTrybe isn't a great fit for our family but it might be for yours. You can try them out for free with the code GETFIT. If you like it you can then subscribe for $19.95 which is a reduced price. Cheaper than P.E. classes or a gym membership but still screen time in my book.
See what my other crewmates thought of here.
Disclaimer: I received a free subscription to GoTrybe for review purposes only.

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-08T00:01:00.001-05:00

Happy Mother's Day to all!

I'm without electronics this weekend serving on a retreat but I have this auto posting (hopefully). My present this year came early. John and I had been discussing getting a chair/recliner for our bedroom for me to read and relax in. We picked one out, fabric and all, last January or so but never moved forward on it. We were going to use the tax return but never did or so I thought. I'm pretty sure I brought that point up in a disagreement we had as well. John came to pick me up from one of my iron transfusions....in the van. It is a 14 year old vehicle but I thought it odd that he picked me up in that. He knows how much I love the ride in the truck. But whatever, I was high on benedryl. He treated me to lunch at Jason's Deli and we headed home to eat it. I walked into the bedroom and the first thing I noticed was how clean the dresser was! Seriously observant. In the window bay was this beauty

It's a lazy boy if you can believe it. It reclines while still looking like a chair. It has the yummiest fabric on it too. The dark brown is actually fuzzy. My kids try to pet my chair but I tell them not to touch. This baby is mine all mine. Of course John was the first to recline in it, a privilege he earned by carrying it by himself into the bedroom. And here are the reasons he bought it for me

I plan on locking this one up before she discovers boys!

I love this picture. She NEVER lets me take her picture.

Tree climber

Another tree climber

Girl has her own style!

TOS REVIEW ~ Latin's Not So Tough Level 3

2011-04-29T15:16:00.001-05:00

Latin's Not So Tough is a product of Greek N' Stuff. As part of this review I was sent the Level 3 workbook ($21.95),full text answer key ($21.95)and pronunciation cd ($10.00).
Latin's Not So Tough Level 3 is geared towards the beginner Latin student in upper elementary or above. I started this program with my 3 oldest (14,13,11) and let my two younger ones (8,6) tag along. At first we were going along great. The beginning lessons are mostly vocabulary and my children were picking up the vocabulary quite quickly. The pronunciation cd was very helpful with pronunciation.
Where Latin got tough for us was where the conjugation began without teaching how to conjugate. According to the teacher guide "the third level uses an inductive (parts to whole) approach...Level four transitions to a deductive(whole to parts) approach". So the kids are learning conjugated verbs and are just memorizing what the all ready conjugated verb means. For example, Amō nautam, means I like the sailor. Therefore the kids are memorizing that Amō means I like. On the same page they learn others as well all with the ō , being told to recognize it but it will be explained later. It is just a different approach than I am used to and one that caused a stumbling point for us in our studies.
That being said we enjoyed the large font of the sprial bound workbook. The minimal exercises per day were enough to sharpen their vocabulary skills without boring or exhausting them. The flashcards were invaluable as well. The little checkbox on the bottom of each page reminding the student to study their flashcards was a great way to remove me from the nagging role :) I went ahead and ordered the accompanying test booklets as well available from Greek N Stuff.
This was our first exposure to Latin studies and it did seem tough because no one in our household is versed in Latin. Latin is tough but it is made easier with this program. After just a few lessons my kids were spotting Latin everywhere, root words in English, on coins etc.
In the end though, Latin's Not so Tough is a good program.

See what my crewmates thought here

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the workbook, full text answer book, and cd for free for review purposes only.

Mothers Day Giveaway

2011-04-26T09:57:00.000-05:00

Holy bag of loot Batman! Check out this mothers day giveaway over at Econobusters! Seriously great stuff. The cute pillow :: drool::, the bloom necklace ::drool:: get over there and drool for yourself.

Feeling blue and very non metal binding

2011-04-21T03:45:00.001-05:00

I have been remiss on blogging.....why? Because I just haven't plain felt like it. You see I was once again diagnosed with low iron. I've shared it before. But this time it has me reeling. I was feeling fine until I got the diagnosis and THEN I needed sleep every afternoon! I have my last iron infusion today. I'm probably sitting in the recliner watching the metal drip ever so slowly into my veins. I'm lucky if I can focus for very long on it as the benydryl takes over and makes the whole world just a little wonky.
This process has had me in a mini depression. I need to take steps to get to the bottom of this iron issue. I need to find a doctor who will take time and talk this out with me. I have a lead and I need to follow up on it. But I am currently in a mode of procrastination or rather denial. I'll get through it and once that little red bag of iron isn't hanging over my head once a week I will once again grab life by the horns and the Good Book and get myself off the edge of this pit where I have plunked my happy behind on the edge to dangle my feet in the abyss. I will graduate C25K, I will finish up the last six weeks of school with the kids and I will start cooking again. Just let me get a little metal in me and I should be good to go.
Please accept this as my apology for not boring you with more posts on my life :)

TOS Review ~ Nutrition 101:Choose Life!

2011-04-20T15:39:00.000-05:00

What an honor to review Nutrition 101:Choose Life! by Growing Healthy Homes. This a a fabulous 448 page Biblically based book chock full of information. I hate to call it a text book because it has such valuable information. I would call it a christian family resource, one well worth the price of $99.95 for the book version and $79.95 for the electronic version (the version I received for review).

Nutrition 101 is labeled a "family nutrition and health program" and I couldn't agree more. This is a book you can use for the whole family. If used by a high schooler it counts as a nutrition/health credit.
Within the book you will find that 12 main body systems are covered in 6 units which are then broken down into four chapters. The 6 units are:
The brain and nervous system
The digestive system
The respiratory, olfactory, auditory and visual systems
The muscular and skeletal systems
The endocrine system and emotions

Each chapter includes information, scripture, discussion questions, activities, resources, fun facts, word power(vocabulary), power recipes and illustrations. Folks these are jammed packed chapters, however you will not feel overwhelmed. The book held my interest and kept me coming back for more. It made me call out to the kids "hey did you know this cool thing about the digestive system?" The recipes at the end of each unit are designed to go with the system just studied. It motivates the parents to get the kids involved and in the kitchen making healthy food with the explanation of why we need healthy foods for our bodies to work the way God designed them.

As if 6 units with four chapters each isn't enough, this book has appendices.......from A -EE! They cover a myriad of charts, share debates on milk, talk sugar alternatives, spices, etc. This is the section you will keep coming back too. For me personally I plan on printing out the appendices and placing them in sheet protectors and putting them in a kitchen binder for easy access.

This resource has made me think about the food I feed my family. It has encouraged me that change in habits takes time, that each step taken in the right direction is good. It has given me a tool that I can use to share with my family the interesting systems God created in our bodies. I plan on making it a portion of our science curriculum for my high schooler in the fall . I also plan on pulling details from it as I do anatomy with my younger set as well as trying the recipes that go with each system as way to reconnect with my kids in the kitchen. This resource has me digging deeper into health issues that I have experienced since being diagnosed with and surviving breast cancer a year and a half ago. This book, this wonderful resource, has me seeing scripture and knowing that I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

But wait did you tune out just a bit when I mentioned the price tag of this resource? Don't Growing Healthy Homes has offered all the readers a 15% discount coupon using the codeTOScrew11!

To see what my other crew members thought go here. I'm sure you will read many more positive reviews of this product as last year it was voted best e product of the year by the crew.
Disclaimer: I received a free electronic copy of this product for review purposes only.

TOS Review ~ Zeezok Z Guide

2011-04-01T12:34:00.000-05:00

The latest review is from Zeezok Publishing. Zeezok provides a host of products from penmanship to movie guides. The product I was asked to review was a movie guide. I chose the high school guide for the movie "The Hiding Place" My seventh grader had read this book for an English class and I thought it would help her with understanding the time frame. The guides are priced at $12.99 for an e-book download.
I was impressed immediately with the guide. It had questions to answer during and after the movie, activities for understanding the time period, and an answer key. The company does strive to "develop your family's love for God and Country" which means faith is talked about.
I asked my daughter Hannah to write about the guide. Here is what she had to say:

The Hiding Place movie guide was fun. It allowed me to learn some new things about the different aspects of the movie and life in World War II. I learned that Ravensbruck was just as bad as it was portrayed in the movie, if not worse. The guide made me explore details of the hiding place in Corrie's room in detail,
and challenged me to pick a room in our house that would be best for a hiding place of our own. Would I hide Jews if it meant going to Ravensbruck?
Where would I hide them? It challenged me with these questions and more. It made me respect the Ten Boom family even more than I used to.
They sacrificed so much, and expected nothing in return. This movie guide was great because it made me look beyond the surface of this movie.

So there you have it. Two thumbs up from my girl for Zeezok movie guides.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this movie guide for free for review purposes only

Pumping Iron again

2011-03-31T05:17:00.000-05:00

I had my six month check with the oncologist last week. Everything is fine except my iron. I am back to iron infusions. I had my first drip yesterday. It took four hours for them to pump it in. I react if it goes in too fast. They load me with benedryl but it wasn't enough to stop a reaction. So for me it has to go in slow or I react. One down two to go. Then I plan on getting to the bottom of my iron absorption issue.

Tos REVIEW ~ Big IQ Kids

2011-03-25T13:04:00.000-05:00

Big IQ Kids is a internet based program for kids K-8 helping them "become and stay A+ students". It offers math, spelling, vocabulary and US Geography lessons and quizzes.
From the Big IQ Kids website:
"BigIQkids.com turns your computer into an online learning academy by providing daily academic lessons for young learners in an interactive, easy to follow format. For the best results, children should log into BigIQkids.com daily and complete their lessons and quizzes. This “daily” strategy builds invaluable study habits, leads to better grades and greater self confidence."
There is a free version and a premium version (we were reviewing the premium) Big IQ kids has it's pricing options here. My two boys were the ones who helped me review this product. Ian is 11 and in 5th grade while Neil is 8 and in 2nd grade.

The format was indeed easy to follow, so much so that once I got my kids on and showed them around they were independent with the program. The enjoyed the study of the states the most because of the interesting facts presented as each state was introduced. The lessons build on themselves each day of the week gradually getting harder. If I found the boys were breezing through the lessons giving them ample time for the games then I went in and changed things up a bit increasing the difficulty. Below is an example of the page where I was able to customize Neil's math.

The cute little blond in the corner is Neil's avatar. He can customize it using his game coins.
How we used it in our homeschool
I let my two boys, second grade and fifth grade, use this program independently. I did go in and plug a week or two of their current spelling lists into the program just to play with that feature. Since they don't really struggle in spelling I let them do the progressive lessons that were pre-programmed. My boys would sign in with their own log in and password and go through each of the four categories. As I was working on my computer emails would ping in with their results of each lesson or quiz. I knew immediately if they were getting the lesson or if I needed to help them out with a concept. I had to laugh one Saturday morning while my husband and I were on a getaway weekend. A friend was watching my kids here at my house waiting for one of mine to be 24 hour fever free before combining my brood with hers. I get an email at 9:30 in the morning telling me Neil had just scored a 100% on his vocabulary! I knew right then that Neil had woken up and was "playing" on the computer, but he chose Big IQ Kids as an outlet.
The boys loved earning coins to use play the games. I would have to say for Neil that was the big motivator for him to do the lessons.

Overall I enjoyed the fun, easy atmosphere BIG IQ kids provided. My boys really enjoyed using it.

See what my other crewmates thought of Big IQ Kids here.

Disclaimer: I received a free premium membership for review purposes.

TOS REVIEW ~ Apologia Who is God?

2011-03-15T09:12:00.000-05:00

Bible time. As a Christian homeschooler I know that Bible time should be the first subject we discuss each morning. But in reality I had hit a slump. With five kids in five different grades ranging from 1st - 9th it was difficult to find a curriculum that challenged the olders while informing the youngers. I had resigned myself to teaching two different levels but had sent my olders to be independent. NOT what they needed. The youngers got stories but I felt it was repetitive of their Sunday School. Then Who is God? and How can I know him? Biblical Worldview of God and Truth from Apologia Press showed up in my mailbox to review for TOS. Oh happy day. We have started using Apologia's science curriculum this year and loved its narrative style. Who is God? has that same easy narrative style. It is engaging for my 1st grader up to my 9th grader!

The book is a hardbound, 252 page text that Apologia offers for $39 on their site. It is divided into 10 lessons which have many sub sections in them. Each lesson contains a Big Idea, a story that applies the big idea, several sidebars exploring the idea, think about it questions, memory work, vocabulary and notebooking ideas. There is a lovely amount of information in each chapter that each of your kids is bound to have a favorite part. I'm really finding it hard to put into words what I love about this book. It has brought our Bible time back to the family unit. The kids enjoy it. I enjoy it (which means we actually do it:) ) Who is God? is the first volume in a series.
A lesson is taking our homeschool about 2 weeks to finish using the book 3 times a week. I don't have a hard and fast schedule of what I read each day. We just read, discuss and then stop when I feel we have learned and explored the idea. Apologia offers notebooking pages on their site available to purchasers of the book. We use these pages to help the kids solidify the lesson. Also as book extras, are the teacher help pages,valuable information to help you get the most out of the lesson.

We loved Who is God? by Apologia but stop by the crew site to see what my mates thought.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book as a member of the TOS crew for review purposes only.

3 goals......28 days

2011-03-10T08:31:00.000-06:00

There is a saying from somewhere that after 28 days of doing something it becomes habit. Well I have tried to make all sorts of things habits and it just never seems to stick past day 4. In an attempt to be more productive with my day I had to do something. In the past I have always made huge lists of what I wanted to change and by day 4 I was discouraged and gave up.
Around the internet I have seen people doing 3 goals in 30 and it got me thinking about the fact that maybe I was not designed to bite off huge chunks of new endeavors and be successful. So I chose 3 things a little over two weeks ago to take a shot at. One was easy enough, two were things I have struggled with in the past.
I am happy to report that 16 days in and I have had success each day. Two days ago I did forego one as I had run out of a supply but I made up for it that afternoon.
So what are my three goals?
1. Get up before 7am. For any of you that know me you know how difficult this is for me. I homeschool for a reason people! But I needed to set this goal in order to get my day started and functioning before kids got up otherwise goal number two would never happen.
I've accomplished this by setting my alarm for 6:45 and hitting snooze twice. Now some of you are doing the math and saying "if your snooze is 9 minutes like mine you are getting up after 7am". My clock, however, at some point got set 5 minutes ahead. I've also given myself permission to take short naps during the day if needed. It has helped me adjustSo there you have it.
2. Do my Bible Study. I am attending BSF this year. There is daily homework for 6 days of the week. In the past I would get up super early Wednesday morning and hammer the whole thing out ...or not. It only took the lecturer sitting next to me with a blank sheet to decide I needed to change some habits around. So now I do the daily assignment and on Wednesday mornings I do a little reading from the chronological reading I am doing (but am desperately behind in)
3. Start a load of laundry. My 14 year old is in charge of laundry around here. It doesn't always get done in a timely matter though. She also only pulls the chute of which my husband and I's clothes are not a part of. I have taken to getting up in the morning, letting the dog out of her crate (she resides in the laundry room) while I load up the washer.

There you have it my 3 goals. Waking up is harder to do especially since we are heading into spring break next week. But I am determined to make this a habit so it will be up and at em even during spring break.

TOS REVIEW ~ Reading Kingdom

2011-03-07T09:21:00.000-06:00

Reading Kingdom is an online program that teaches kids ages 4-10 to read using Dr. Marion Blank's method of reading. From the website:
"The Reading Kingdom uses new teaching methods pioneered by renowned literacy expert, Dr. Marion Blank. These methods do not rely on standard phonics techniques which have yielded a national 40% reading failure rate. For better or worse, the vast majority of words in English cannot be sounded out. To adapt phonics to this reality, it uses almost 600 rules which are almost impossible to memorize and riddled with exceptions. The Reading Kingdom, on the other hand, has no complicated rules and empowers children to learn using simple and easy to follow techniques that leverage the tremendous skills they have mastered in learning spoken language. In addition, the Reading Kingdom is the only program that customizes itself to a child. In this way children do not become bored learning something they already know or frustrated by material that is too advanced for them."

I used this program with my two youngest kids ages 6 and 8. The program has a cute owl mascot that leads your little learner through their lessons.

The lesson pages are very engaging with bright colors and fun animations and sounds. Many giggles commenced as they answered questions and saw how their response triggered sounds and silliness.

While using this program in the beginning my kids were frustrated as they had to listen closely to whether the program wanted them to "type" or "click". Also the child could not be too quick to respond nor too slow or the program would count it as a wrong answer. Learning these nuances took time.

I teach reading using the phonics method so the approach the website took was different for my kids. Avery was doing the mouse and keyboard training and I found that helpful for those skills.
Neil is all ready a proficient reader and seems to be stuck on Level 1 of the program.

The parent can check the progress of the student on the parent tab. Here is Avery's progress as of this morning.

Reading Kingdom gives you 9 Reasons to sign up. The pricing is $199.99 for the year or $19.99 a month. They offer a free 30 day trial to check them out.

Overall my kids had fun with this program. If you are looking for a phonics based program than this is not for you. If your child learns better with Blank's method than this program would be a good fit. I highly recommend you give the 30 day trial a go before purchasing.
See what my other crew members thought of Reading Kingdom here.

Disclaimer: I received a free one year subscription to Reading Kingdom in exchange for an honest review as a member of the TOS Crew.

Avery got a lift

2011-03-06T08:03:00.000-06:00

Avery got her lift Thursday. It is a 1cm (~3/8 inch) lift. It is shaped like a shoe insole and goes under her insole in her left shoe. It makes her legs line up so she doesn't have to pop her right leg out when she stands (her right leg is longer). It is taking some getting used to as her foot rides higher in her shoe. She is also not used to having her legs the same leg so she still compensates by popping the leg out but that should resolve itself as she becomes more aware of the lift. This lift should last for a year.
Interesting information I got yesterday though via an instructional paper from the orthotics place.
0-2 cm LLD (leg length discrepency) no action required, however a lift might make one more comfortable
2-5 cm LLD surgical procedure to temporarily stop the long leg from growing. (we have been informed of this procedure)
5-15cm LLD surgery to lengthen the short bone
>15 prothesis.

My other favorite tid bit from the day. Signs all over the waiting room about the patient being late would classify them as a walk in and they would be seen when possible. However, we waited for an HOUR beyond our appointment before we were seen. Nice. The actual appointment took 10 minutes. John ended up having to grab the big kids from PE since I still had a second errand to run in that part of town.

Avery News

2011-02-28T15:51:00.000-06:00

Avery went to the orthopedic today for a recheck (we go about every six months) this appointment has only been about 4 months since her last one. Anyways she had x-rays done of her arms. There are 5 osteochondromas up by her shoulder joint total. 4 on one arm one on the other. Right now one of them is too close to the growth plate so no surgery. Her right knee is also causing problems again. The original bump is back and another one is causing numbness and pain occasionally. The plan is to wait about 4 months and head in for surgery. Hopefully the one osteochondroma on the shoulder will have moved away from the growth plate enough for Dr P to be comfortable going after it. Surgery will be at all three sites. Two arms and a leg. While that sounds like a lot it means one time in the OR, one hospital stay, and one bill. Avery is a trooper when it comes to recovering so I have no qualms about having all three sites done at once.
The bad news is our beloved ortho is leaving the practice and will not be able to see Avery come winter. This saddens us immensely as this ortho has been with us through this whole journey and Avery absolutely loves her. She will however do Avery's surgery in a few months.
Avery as far as we know does not verbalize her pain from these osteochondromas. She has slowed down on our walks which lets us know that she is feeling some pain, but that pain is a normal feeling for her.
On another note the ortho thinks Avery has enough of limb length difference to have recommended a lift in one shoe. It is a small lift but should help even out her hips a bit and help alleviate any posturing that she does to compensate.
This all sounds awful but in reality it is not. Avery functions normally and is very active. She loves life and embraces it fully.

Tos Review ~ Math Rider

2011-02-25T08:34:00.000-06:00

Saddle up kiddos its time for math!

Do you have a kid who likes horses or quests? Do they not share the same passion for math drills? Math Rider will have your kids drilling in their free time. I never once had to ask any of my kids to launch this program, they were standing in line waiting for their turn!
Math Rider is a downloadable program available for $37 on their website.

Math rider drills addition, subtraction, multiplication and division math facts. It isn't some drab flashcards popping up on the screen either. You are a rider on a horse in a magical world, questing for objects. The screen is colorful as the rider rides through the world answering math facts so the horse can jump hurdles. My only complaint about the screen is that the equation is small and off to the side, so as the player you don't get to enjoy the scenery because you are concentrating on the equation. However, those watching you play certainly get the pleasure of it. Math rider uses every response given to adjust game play. The horse slows down if the child's answers slow down and speeds up if they are answering quickly. Parents can go in and see a screen like the one on the right to see where the weaknesses are. The red indicates trouble areas, green indicates mastery. The nice thing about math rider is that it drills more of what they are struggling with than those they have mastered.

Although it is a single player game up to ten players can be riders. When a rider logs in with their password their quest screen pops up. As they complete more and more quests they earn things like flags, flowers etc. Up at the top a parent can quickly see how they are doing with rides completed, quests completed and how much math they have accomplished.

I used this program as busy work. It can easily be done independently by the child after set up. I preferred to have the sound muted because the horse neighing grated on my nerves after awhile :) My kids opted for headphones instead.

All in all this program is a great way to reinforce math facts without the drudgery of flash cards. My five kids would choose the horses of math rider over mom and paper flashcards any day. I promise not to take it personally!

Check out what my other crew mates thought of math rider here

Disclaimer:I received a copy of this program free for review purposes only.

Save the date

2011-02-24T11:28:00.000-06:00

I got an email yesterday asking me to save the date of May 8th. For what you ask?
Skeese Greets Triathalon
So today I swam 1300 yards and my arms are jello. Maybe by May they won't be.
I am back to week four of C25K
My bike is still hanging in the garage with the last Skees Greet number on it!
Saving up some change to register myself and get this body back into shape!

Strep........neg Flu ..........positive

2011-02-08T08:26:00.000-06:00

Poor Neil. All the kids tested neg for strep but Neil tested positive for Flu A. He is on tamiflu and doing well. Honestly he wasn't sick enough to be dx with flu.

Clorox wipes, lysol, and hand sanitizer have all been pressed into service. We are praying he doesn't share..... have I told you I have a surprise weekend planned for just hubby and me? Yes I do. I have it all arranged and then the flu germ decides to set up shop in our house. But by the Grace of God I have an amazing friend who is still willing to watch our kids germs and all because she knows how important a weekend away is with your man (plus there's payback :) )

Prayers appreciated because really when someone volunteers to take all five of your kids for the weekend you really don't want to infect them with the flu.

strep

2011-02-07T15:55:00.000-06:00

We had one positive for strep last week and I think she has shared the love. In a desperate attempt to stave off 6 trips to the ped I am taking 4 kids in for strep swabs. I am also pounding vitamin c and water. Here is hoping we can nip this in the bud or tonsil or whatever. Here's to a fridge full of pink medicine.

Ch-Ch-Changes

2011-02-03T18:23:00.000-06:00

We have change going on in our homeschool It's all good just different. After a year from H-E double hockeysticks, what with diagnosis, surgery, more surgery, and depression...... I have finally decided to do something different. My kids suffered from a checked out mom last school year and I have been having a tough time getting things done in school because emotionally I am recalling last years failures and adding them to this years.
I have moved my eldest into her daddy's home office where she sits and does her work where he can see her and keep her accountable. She is away from all her annoying and highly distractive siblings. We had pulled her out of PE as a consequence but she will be joining again next week as a reward for taking this change with a good attitude.
The other change happening is my newly minted teenager, Hannah, will be starting Classical Conversations Challenge A class. It is a once a week class with instruction in 5 courses. They then have assignments that I will assist with for the other four days of the week. She knows 3/4 of the kids in the class all ready and I think it will be a challenging but good fit for her.
In the fall I plan on signing up the other 3 for the elementary portion of CC, Foundations. Ian will take the additional afternoon class called Essentials.
I will still be homeschooling but we have a bit more accountability with the tutor and some fantastic classroom discussion that I just couldn't get to at home.

Timberdoodle Review~ Critical Thinking Co.

2011-02-02T14:43:00.000-06:00

I was so excited to try out three of the books from the Critical Thinking Press provided to me by Timberdoodle

The first one I opened up was Math Reasoning Level B which is for the first grade level. My 6 year old daughter was between math books when I received it. She had completed a first grade math curriculum but I was eager for her to review and master some concepts with a fresh approach. When I opened up the workbook I was greeted with 264 bright, colorful pages. The pages were not crowded or chaotic. My daughter took to it instantly. I was impressed with Critical Thinking Co's math vocabulary and how they applied it to this level. For instance, instead of asking the kids to draw a line to match objects, they use the term "line segment" thus laying the groundwork for proper term usage preparing them for advanced math. Besides that, when your six year old busts out with "that's a line segment" in a group of parents, it makes you look like a fabulous teacher :)
The book itself was written to the standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and offers an introduction for the parent to understand the approach that is being taken. It goes over numbers and operations, geometry, time and measurement. It was just the thing I needed to bridge math for my daughter who wasn't quite ready for a second grade level. She willingly picks up this book and does two pages without being asked. This book could easily be used with an advanced Kindergartner or an average first grader. At $39.99 it offers a well rounded math curriculum for one year.

I chose Building Thinking Skills Book 3 Figural for my 14 year old daughter. I had forgotten that in the past I have previously used Critical Thinking skill books for busy independent work. When I showed her the book and asked her to work a page a day she gladly agreed. This book is 259 black and white pages of building figural thinking skills through the use of similarities, analogies, classifications and sequences for $29.99. I really think of this book as a brain sharpener. The concepts are presented clearly and again the pages are not crowded. A full answer key is included in the back of the book. Building Critical Thinking Skills Level 3 figural can be used for grades 7-12+. The 12+ is for adults like me who can't help but grab the book and do a page or two just to clear out the cobwebs of the ole brain.

My 13 year old got to help me review Editor In Chief B1 offered at $16.99. She is the writer out of the five kids, so I figured this might help her fine tune her writing. Editor In Chief B1 is a workbook for grades 6-8 which put her in the mid range to do this book. It has 33 exercises in just as many black and white pages. Each exercise is presented like the sample page below. The student is given a picture with a true caption and a paragraph that has errors. The errors can range from grammar to content. Each exercise lists how many errors the student should find. We found it difficult at first to count the errors as we would sometimes count two when the text considered it to be just one. Despite the initial frustration with figuring out how it was done, this workbook opened up opportunities for us to discuss the errors and talk about what she perceived as errors compared to the answer key in the back. Some of the errors just plain made us laugh as homophones were used incorrectly. I added this book in as a busy independent workbook for my daughter to sharpen her writing skills. I like the concept enough to have her continue working on one or two exercise a week.

All three of these workbooks can be found at Timberdoodle.com You can check out their Free Homeschool Catalog filled with tons of amazing products while you are there.

Disclaimer: I received copies of these workbooks for free in exchange for an honest review

The One where Traci has two teenagers in her house......

2011-01-29T00:01:00.002-06:00

alternate Title

Happy Birthday Hannah

Today my sweet second child becomes a teenager. 13 years ago she made a grand entrance in the afternoon. Now she would love to sleep that late! She has presents from family to open and a full day of activities. So busy in fact that a party has to be planned later.

Happy Birthday Peanut..... her first gift will be a facebook and gmail account:)

TOS REVIEW ~Ten Marks

2011-01-28T04:00:00.003-06:00

Ten Marks is an online math program that helps students learn and practice math. There were several aspects of this particular website that I liked. The first being that it was more than just boring math problem after boring math problem. The parent gets to set a reward for their student for completing a certain number of worksheets. That gives the child motivation to keep going. I was notified via email when my son earned his chosen reward.

But let me back up a little. The child(ren) has their own account with personal login and password. When the log in they see a screen similar to this one. This is my son's home page

The highlighted box tells him what his current worksheet is. He can choose to click on the learn button and will get a new window with a a couple of different video lessons to watch. If he feels confident in the concept he can proceed straight to the worksheet. With each question he gets multiple choice answers. I am not a huge fan of multiple choice on math, well I was when I was a student but not so much as a parent! However, I felt the choices did drive the student to complete the full problem without giving too much away in the answer set. For each question the child can request 3 hints and 1 video. When you take a look at their lesson it will tell you per problem what help they required. After each worksheet is completed the little persons at the bottom start to fill up. My 7 year old loved this part. You can see that he has all ready had some successes with certain concepts. As they work through the worksheets they can also unlock games that are just for fun. Several times I found my guy logging in just to play the games. Ten Marks also builds in tests. My frustration with the test scheduling was that the tests were off to the side and overlooked by my kids, so by the time they realized they had tests in the side bar they had two or three.

Here is a screen shot from my daughters Algebra I lesson.

At just $10 a month, $49 for 6 months or $89 for 12 months it offers a good product for a good price. I believe that you can use it as either a supplement or a complete program. My oldest still wasn't convinced it was what would get her through Algebra I and the hints didn't always help her but she was WILLING to sit down to it every other day and do two worksheets, which for her is progress in math and made the product worth pursuing.

Ten Marks offers its services to homeschoolers, parents and teachers. There is even a free trial on their website. So give them a try.

See what my other crewmates thought of Ten Marks here.

Disclaimer: I received access to this website for free in exchange for an honest review.

Bless a friend

2011-01-27T16:40:00.000-06:00

This week I was blessed by a friend. Blessed because while grieving a loss she suffered less than 12 hours before she reached out to me, who was having a bad day (week really). She went beyond her feelings and remembered my hurts. This friend spent over an hour on the phone with me helping me sort feelings out, sort anger out. She gave me a revelation about something I am struggling with (that I'm not ready to air publicly) that made me stop my blubbering and praise God in the storm. Mind you, compared to the loss she was mourning at that very moment my storm was merely a drizzly mist but she took the time to share an umbrella. She cried with me too, which meant the world to me. She didn't belittle me or poopoo my feelings, she spoke truth in love.

I used to be a decent friend. I used to write thank you notes and get birthday cards out on time. Now I mail my parents Christmas present on January 27 (yes today!) and I stink at being a friend. Taking my cue from some of the people who surround me now, I want to strive to be a better friend. May I encourage you this week to pick up a pen, paper, envelope and stamp and write a friend a letter (no emails people). Tell them thank you, that you love them, what they mean to you, anything you want. Just.get.it .in.the.mail. I have several notes I want to write, but my first one goes to the friend above. I don't even think she reads this blog :) but she deserves a note of gratitude for standing with me.

Now GO and do likewise! (leave me a comment when it hits the mailbox)

Sports and Scouts and Singing

2011-01-13T13:15:00.000-06:00

Our life is busy.

We have five kids.

Of those five kids we have 3 in sports, 3 in scouts, 3 in choir and 1 that was taking piano.

Here is a photo post of how we spent our Fall.

Basically any photo with Neil in it will be blurred the boy is in constant motion!

Lest you wonder why Hannah has fewer pictures......she hates the camera and will dodge it. So I have very few pictures of her doing things. I am making it a goal to get more pictures of her.

TOS REVIEW ~Virtual Nerd

2011-01-12T14:49:00.000-06:00

Virtualnerd.com is an online supplement to upper math. They offer online video tutorials in Pre-Algebra, Algebra I, Algebra II, and an intro to Physics.
We reviewed this product at the Algebra I level for my high schooler. She found the videos helpful and understandable. What she found difficult was locating exactly what she needed. They had a proper search box and a list of topics but it took some trial and error to locate what she needed. If your student used one of the four textbooks they had listed it was easier to track down what you were looking for. What I liked about it was the instructors were clear spoken. They talked through the problem using a white board. On the right side of the video was the breakdown of the problem. You could at any time pause the video and check out the right side. At this time their is no practice sheets for the problems just discussed. However Vritual Nerd has plans to add practice, quizzes and feedback in Spring 2011.

Virtual Nerd offers several subscriptions. From $5 for a 24 hour subscription to $49 a month. It is a fraction of the cost for a private tutor but still seemed quite high for this homeschool parent.

Find out what my crewmates thought of Virtual Nerd here.

Disclaimer: I received a free trial of this service for review purposes only.

Year in Review 2010

2010-12-26T13:05:00.001-06:00

Welcome to the family Christmas letter. I didn't manage to get it out on time (heck half my cards are still waiting to get addressed and my parents christmas present is one of them. So here goes

This year has been one of happiness and heartache for our family.

John, after being employed with Sun Microsystems for 13 years was laid off at the end of January. Within two weeks he was hired at a friend's startup. He no longer worked from home which was an adjustment for the whole family. He left the startup in September for a position in Oracle. He started serving in Awana again in the fall after taking the last year off. He also continued to be the Den Leader for Neil's cub scout den. The den got so big that it was split and John now has 6 boys at our house just about every Monday. He still enjoys running but hasn't managed to get out to do it much.

Traci wrapped up the remaining reconstruction surgery in January and was cleared in March by the oncologists and surgeons to get back to life. Easier said than done as she was spiraling into depression. I won't go into the details but it was ugly. John got her to the gym and she took up running in preparation for a sprint tri in early May. In June she tore her calf and entered physical therapy. She took some time with girlfriends on a weekend trip to Seattle (so much cheaper than therapy). She ran two more 5k's in October and November and hopes to be able to continue. She still homeschools the kids and has become a reviewer for homeschool products.

Claire is now 14 and a freshman. We continue to school her at home. She enjoys singing in the high school level choir. She has been babysitting for a lot of people lately and saving up for summer camps. She is also a well loved volunteer on the toddler hall and Cubbies. She has become quite the accomplished baker. Traci hasn't had to make a batch of cookies in over a year. You can find her on facebook most days. She is still taller than Traci and working on passing John.

Hannah is almost 13. She can't wait to turn 13 in order to get her own facebook account. She still plays the piano but doesn't take lessons anymore. She too is becoming quite the baker. She loves to draw. Her math lessons often have a doodling theme and coloring scheme making them fun to grade. She continues to serve in the Kindergarten sunday school class and in Cubbies.

Ian continues to play baseball spring and fall. He just earned his arrow of light award ( the highest award a cub scout can earn) a few weeks back. He is eagerly looking forward to joining the Boy Scout Troop at our church. He has started taking some responsibilities on around the house because when you camp with the boy scouts the youth are on their own. We have seen great growth in his attitude just in the two months he has been interviewing a troop.

Neil played baseball in the spring and soccer this past fall. He LOVES soccer. It is a natural fit for his bouncy personality. He is a wolf scout this year enjoying a new pack with his dad. He is in the second grade absorbing information like a sponge. He continues to excel in math and science. He still loves the Wii but can also be found swinging away on the playset out back.

Avery at 6 is catching up to Neil in height. She played soccer in the fall too. She just loved the pink uniform! She will be taking the spring off of soccer since she had many leg pain complaints over the fall. We took her in early for her annual orthopedic appointment and it looks like she will have surgery again sometime in 2011. The original bone tumor is coming back but it is another one in the same knee that is giving her trouble this time. We go back in February (back on the every six month plan) to evaluate her limb length discrepancy and discuss surgery. She is also a Daisy scout gearing up for cookie sales in January! Other than that she is very much the princess, attitude and all around her.

The family took two trips this year. One was to Colorado with all of John's side of the family. 16 of us rented a huge mountain home and spent the week romping in the woods, playing cards and just enjoying each others company in a lovely setting. Our second trip was to Washington DC. We spent one week in the city and then headed down to Virginia to see friends and the Historic Triangle. It was a great two weeks filled with history and fun. We also took one other small weekend trip up to Palo Duro Canyon where we camped. It was too hot to hike so we explored Canyon, and Amarillo Texas, sightseeing along Route 66

Merry Christmas Everyone

Thanksgiving in Texas

2010-12-13T11:36:00.000-06:00

What a crazy weather day for Thanksgiving this year. Our guests started arriving around noon dressed in shorts and t-shirts (we are way casual around here) by the time they left around 8 they needed heavy jackets! I believe the temp at noon was 84 and by 8pm it was 43. We had the windows open at first because both ovens were going and it was just warm inside. Then the cold front blew in with one of the kids coming in from playing and we quickly got the windows shut. When dessert rolled around the kids took to lighting the gas fireplace! A fun time was had by all. There were 11 others for dinner besides the 7 of us and 7 more joined us for dessert. We cooked two turkeys, one in the oven and one in the Big Green Egg. MMMM nobody went home hungry and all left with turkey leftovers! My parents flew in from Arizona to join the festivities too.
The kids played phase 10, rockband, and general silliness in the green belt. The adults ate, ate and I think we talked between eating. We had yummy appetizers ( My sister made some brie spread that was good I hear) to start the stomachs properly. Then it was on to the birds.

This little bird was an oven bird. Brined overnight in the cooler

This little bird was smoked in the Big Green Egg. Also brined overnight in the cooler.

This little gem is my sister-in-love's recipe for cranberry sauce. A few years ago she taught Claire how to make it. I just get to watch the cranberries pop :)

TOS REVIEW ~ ALEKS

2010-12-13T09:59:00.000-06:00

I have 1 math lover, 1 math hater, and 3 math tolerators. Yep, if you do the math that is 5 kids and only one who is passionate about math, he happens to be in the 2nd grade - working in a 3rd grade level math text at the moment. So when I pulled up ALEKS for the first time it was my second grader who wanted to try it first.

What is ALEKS?
From their website...
Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces is a Web-based, artificially intelligent assessment and learning system that uses adaptive questioning to quickly and accurately determine exactly what a student knows and doesn't know in a course. ALEKS offers truly individualized instruction that meets the student at her learning level and instructs her on the exact topics that she is most ready to learn. As a result, no two students will experience the same learning path while working in ALEKS. Learn more by watching a quick 2-minute video.

When you first use ALEKS it has you set up a master account for the parent to oversee the student accounts. You then set up individual student accounts. When the student gets on it takes them first to an assessment. I loved the assessment part. It took the kids through a series of questions and assessed what they knew. The student has an option of "I haven't learned this yet" button if they haven't learned the concept yet.

After the assessment the student is given a pie. "My ALEKS Pie" as Neil called it. In fact he would often say he was going to go "eat some ALEKS pie" and he would log himself on. The pie shows both parent and student what they have mastered and what they need to work on further. The student can select a topic to work on. ALEKS then has them do a few questions and if they master it they move on. ALEKS works towards mastery, it isn't just a one right answer - you know it deal.

I liked several aspects of ALEKS for all my kids. The assessment was good. The pie gave them visual of their accomplishments and what they needed to work on. The questions gave them an "explain" option where the problem was explained in detail, then another question of the same type was offered for them to solve on their own. Like I said earlier my math lover loved ALEKS and considered it a treat to log on. My math tolerators tolerated ALEKS. They found the interface enjoyable enough though to come back to it once or twice so I could see how the program worked. My math hater is just really hating math right now. The nice thing about ALEKS for her was to show her her pie and just how much Algebra she really knew. I can see ALEKS being a huge asset as a tutor to the upper level math programs.

Overall ALEKS is a good program with an easy interface, good customer service.
Subscription for an individual child is $19.95 a month.
ALEKS offers a family discount for more than one student for either the 6 month or 12 month time frame here.

The button below gives you a free one month trial of ALEKS! This is a great way to see if ALEKS is for your family. Their website only offers 3 hours of use in a 48 hour period so click the button below to get started.

See what my fellow crew mates thought of ALEKS here.
Disclaimer: I received a free trial period of Aleks for review purposes only

TOS REVIEW ~ Master Ruler

2010-12-01T15:14:00.000-06:00

Do your kids ever get frustrated using a ruler? Do all those lines confuse them? While grading the young ones math do you discover they used the centimeter side rather than the inch side? Well the master ruler will help with all that!

The Master Ruler is several clear plastic rulers that are bound together. The clear plastic helps one with seeing through the ruler. A huge plus for little ones trying to manipulate a ruler on a math sheet. The several rulers are actually different measurements. For example on the inch ruler you have a 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, and a 1/16 ruler. To eliminate the lines for the smaller dimensions if you child is merely looking for inches then you just open it up to the inch. As you teach the smaller ones you can add them in. It gives the kids a great visual that a 1/2 inch is 1/2 of an inch and so on. They also carry a metric ruler as well. Both are available for $9.95 each.

Along with the two rulers I received Master Innovations also sent along a work book (pictured above) and a measurement poster ( pictured below). The workbook has lots of fun worksheets that encourage the use of the ruler while introducing the various measurements. Listed in the upper corner of the worksheet is the measurement used for example on the "Birds of Beauty" page it indicates 1/2 inch. This workbook provides a lot of ruler work. The 24 page workbook is available for $15.95. The poster that was sent has made a great addition to our school room wall. It shows length, capacity and weight. It also gives kids some reference points as to how big an inch is.

The Master Ruler is available through Master Innovations website. Also on the website you will find videos that show how to use the ruler and how to use it to help teach fractions. Overall I think the master ruler is a good tool to have in the classroom.

Check out what my crew mates thought of the Master Ruler here.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the product for review purposes.

A Family Favorite

2010-11-08T13:51:00.002-06:00

Our family started a tradition a few years back that I would love to share with you. Based on homeschooling mentors recommendation in a class I took I picked up the book Jotham's Journey by Arnold Ytreedide. Based on the calendar in the back of the book we started it one advent season. You read one chapter a night leading up to Christmas, lighting our advent wreath as we go along. Jotham's Journey is fictional based on the New Testament story of Christmas. The book can be intense, even scary, in some parts for young children. However, it brings the Christmas story to life from a child's perspective. The author has followed up the first book with two others, Bartholomew's Passage and Tabitha's Travels. I just noticed that he has an Easter book coming out soon as well.

Reading a chapter each night during advent led our family to slow down and spend time together during the busy Christmas season. After reading each night for over a month we realized it was a part of our day we didn't want to end. On my husband's prompting we continued reading aloud from our school read alouds. This tradition is going on it's third year! We will be reading Tabitha's Travels this year for the first time and then we will revisit Jotham again next year. Each year as my kids get older I pray they glean a little more from the story.

TOS Review ~ Collectorz.com

2010-11-05T09:19:00.006-05:00

I have a problem. My children, all five of them, have a problem. My husband funds our problem. However this is not a problem you will see portrayed on any of your daytime talk shows. Nope this is a problem most homeschoolers have..... books and lots of them! I heart books. I have loved books since I was little. I used to polish off Nancy Drew's in 2 hours. It was hard to keep me in books and it is hard to keep my kids in books. So the problem lies in how to keep track of what books we own or don't own when we head to the book store.
The solution came via this review product. Collectorz.com offers a downloadable program for Mac or PC that will help you organize your book collection. Phone apps are available too. They also have programs for movies, music, comic books, and games. Book Collector standard edition is $29.95 while the pro edition is $49.95.

I quickly downloaded the program, typed in my license code for the pro version and got started entering ISBN numbers into it. The program is easy to use. After doing manual input without a number pad I went ahead and ordered the cue cat scanner from them. It arrived incredibly fast and has made input a whole lot quicker (once I discovered the barcodes on the inside of the books are more accurate) My kids have been bringing me stacks of books off their personal shelves as well as the books we are currently using in school. The search function is fast and almost 100% accurate. I can organize them into folders of my choosing according the tag I give them. I can also indicate on which bookshelf they are located on. More features can be found here. I also like that I can print a copy of our books for insurance purposes. This product is very well thought out for the collector.

You can try book collector for free up to 100 books.
In a household that loves books this is a great program to have to keep track of what you have. You can also indicate if you loaned out a book and to whom.
Crazy book lovers can see their collections on screen with Collectorz.com
See what my crew members thought of Collectorz.com on the crew blog

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product for review purposes.

One year later

2010-10-21T04:00:00.000-05:00

.......I said good bye to the "girls" a year ago today. I don't regret our decision but there are days where it creeps in and I wonder what if? Then I hear stories of people who underwent chemo and radiation..... I avoided that. I hear stories of women who have had it metastasize years after being cancer free. I know women who have fought a long hard battle and won. I know women who fought a long hard battle and are losing........I didn't have to fight that hard.
Over the past year I have struggled. Surgery was in October and all was done reconstruction wise by January. In February I suffered a huge blow and was spiraled into depression and rage. My kids were scared of me, my husband was mad at me and couldn't fix me. I couldn't fix me. I gave up on God (short of renouncing him) I spent many months shaking my fist at Him, cursing Him and kicking at His shins. It took some marital counseling, a compassionate and devoted husband, a loving and forgiving Savior, and a group of friends not willing to let me drown, plus some exercise goals to crawl to the top of the pit. It was a DARK time in my life. I believe a majority of it was PTSD. At times I feel back on that edge but the Lord has been gracious to help me recognize it so that I can amp up the running. Running has been therapy. Doing that tri was therapy. Doing both those activities reminds me that I am alive. It reminds me that I was given the chance to AVOID all that is usually associated with breast cancer. It also leaves me in a bit of a quandry. Some call me a breast cancer survivor. I call myself an avoider. I'm ok with that. I still get shook up at the weirdest things however. My trip to Seattle in June found me smack in the middle of the Race for Cure while trying to get to Starbucks with friends. I panicked. My pulse quickened, my breathing got shallow and my eyes locked on all the pink running by. My friends, God love them, saw the panic in me and rushed me across the street and into the nearest pink free zone they could find. They just did what needed to be done and did it. Just the other day I was in a neighboring town buying running shoes. The store didn't open for another 30 minutes so I was walking around the city square. Pink ribbons flags were hanging everywhere. Pink support shirts were being sold in the shops. I hate pink and I just got angry seeing it all. I'm not over it, nor do I expect to ever be really. What I do expect is to remember that I am alive and live life. Taking the time now to invest in friendships, and relationships that I have neglected this past year because I just couldn't do life while depressed.
Physically I am recovered. I have about 50% of my sensation back. Final sensation levels will be solidified over the next six months. After that what I have is what I have. Scars are fading. My drain hole scars are the most faded looking like chicken pox scars now. The incision scars are not as red but still a very in your face reminder of what I went through a year ago. I can use my pec muscles without pain. I can hike mountains, I can swim bike and run triathalons, I can run 5ks, I can do anything through Christ who strengthens me. It isn't always easy to let go and let God with all the mental stuff but I am learning......

Two Crazy Options Sale from TOS

2010-10-15T11:22:00.002-05:00

The crisp winds of autumn have blown TWO special deals into the Schoolhouse Store for

ONE DAY ONLY!

Usually our crazy deals are on one item--

But THIS FRIDAY ONLY—

Please read carefully--Both options will give you the Cranberries & Cream Homeschooling with Heart tote bag FREE!

TIME SENSITIVE--FRIDAY ONLY

Here are your choices:

Option A:

Just $19.95 for The 2010-2011 Schoolhouse Planner. Plus, receive the gorgeous Cranberries & Cream Homeschooling with Heart tote bag for free!

http://www.theoldschoolhousestore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=191_193&products_id=14269

You save 63% in all--for ONE DAY ONLY.

OPTION B:

Only $19.95 for the May 2010 Expo To Go OR the Fall 2010 Expo To Go, and receive the Cranberries & Cream Homeschooling with Heart tote bag for FREE.

Select from the May 2010 Expo To Go or the Fall 2010 Expo To Go!

You save 43% in all--for ONE DAY ONLY.

Either offer is only $19.95 and both offers give you the beautiful Cranberries & Cream Homeschooling with Heart tote bag for FREE.

http://www.theoldschoolhousestore.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=433

But you have to act fast-the wind is changing and this offer is only here for one day!

Happy Day

2010-10-13T12:23:00.002-05:00

For those of you that have followed me for awhile....... pop on over to my sister in love's blog post! :)

And then come back here and happy dance with me!

Week 8 of school

2010-10-01T11:58:00.000-05:00

Today marks the end of our 8th week of school. We started back in July and have taken 3 weeks of vacation amongst those 8 weeks of work. For some reason hitting the 8 week mark makes me happy. I think it is because next week will start the end of our first quarter. We school 36 weeks with lots of breaks. I have us ending our school year at the end of May.
So what have we been studying of late......
Claire is learning about Eastern Europe in Geography, nutrition in health, yucky math stuff in Algebra, and water in Science.
Hannah is learning about George Washington and others of that time period, Pre-Algebra, simple machines in Science.
Ian is studying about Japan, practicing his hand at origami, doing math, and studying ants, beetles and other creepy crawlies in science.
Neil and Avery are learning about Knights, math, and studying ants, beetles and other creepy crawlies in science.
We all started learning a bit of Latin this week too. It is proving to be interesting.
Neil and Avery are playing soccer with a local organization. Both are involved in scouting learning lots there as well.
Ian is studying some engineering in scouts this month.

All in all it has been a good 8 weeks. Definitely some rough patches but I think we have the swing of things now.

Books we are reading
Man of the Family by Ralph Moody (family evening read aloud)
Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski (Neil and Avery's Read Aloud)
The Ravenmaster's Secret by Elvira Woodruff (Claire and Hannah's Read aloud)
Tales of a Korean Grandmother (Ian's Read Aloud)

Running

2010-09-27T17:31:00.000-05:00

I've been running lately. Technically since last April. However I have only been running regularly since July. I've been using the C25K app on my iPhone. My sister-in-love gives a good overview of the program on her blog here (by the way I introduced her to it and she finished the program before my lazy butt did) :)

This morning I went for the first run since running with my friend Dana in Virginia while on vacation. I did week 6 day 2 of C25k, consisting of a 5 minute warm up, 10 minute run, 3 minute walk, 10 minute run and a 5 minute cooldown walk. So 33 minutes total workout and I ran/walked 3.1 miles! That is just shy of a 5k. I came home and looked for local 5k's coming up and found one this Saturday in a nearby town. I just got done registering for it. I'm so excited! I can't wait to see what my time is. Bonus is we are having beautiful weather so it should be nice and cool for the race. Here is where I will be racing. Along a hike/bike trail with water views! Ahh Texas in the fall.
<a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/tx/georgetown/569128389419331690">harvestfest 5k run 2010</a><br/><a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-run/united-states/tx/georgetown">Find more Runs in Georgetown, Texas</a>

TOS Review : Schleich

2010-09-24T04:00:00.113-05:00

Christmas in August! That is exactly what my kids thought when my review package of Schleich figurines showed up on our porch one afternoon. Exactly 5 new fans of these figurines have been born.

Included in my package were
•Swabian-Hall Piglet
•Okapi
•Donkey
•Gnu Calf
•Gnu
•Przewalkski's Horse
•Dartmoor Pony
•Indian Elephant Calf

These animals are hand painted, containing great detail to each figurine. The weight of the figurines is what surprised me. I am used to light weight flimsy figures where over a short amount of time a trunk breaks off or a leg bends and snaps. Schleich figures are solid, with a good weight to them. Schleich figures are geared towards the 3 and up crowd, fitting nicely in a small child's hand. The details of each animal are amazing. It gave my kids the ability to really explore the animal without being around the life sized one.

There are many things you can do with these animals. For instance my little ones ages 6 and 7 began imaginative play with them. I also let them choose one to play quietly with while I did a read aloud. My older kids were fighting over the color catalog that came with them, choosing which ones to spend allowance on. My 14 year old was particularly taken with the magical collection of fairies that they offer since she collects fairy figurines. The prices vary for the animals and other pieces.

One thing I enjoyed was on the Schleich.com site specifically. You can look up any animal they sell and it will give you its zoological name, conservation status and global home. Also listed with the specific animal is a blurb about that particular breed along with a fun fact. This could be a fun activity for kids to look up different animals to help them classify them or dig deeper on a specific animal. My 12 year old spent some time checking out all the different information they offered on the various horse breeds. Local retailers sell them, use the locator on their site to find one near you. You can also find them at online retailers. We purchased some at Amazon.com for stocking stuffers this Christmas.

Schleich figures are a great toy. When you see one in person you can see the painting detail. This is one company I will turn to for quality toys for all the kids in my life.

You can see what my other crewmates thought of Schleich figures here.

Disclaimer: I received these 8 figurines for free for review purposes only.

TOS Review: Salem Ridge Press

2010-09-22T08:46:00.000-05:00

Salem Ridge Press sent me one paperback book and two E-Books to review. Salem Ridge Press is committed to wholesome moral books. They describe themselves on their website as "Salem Ridge Press is a publishing company, established in 2005, dedicated to bringing back quality children’s books of the 1800’s and early 1900’s for a new generation of readers. We strive to republish wholesome "living books" for the whole family, and we hope that you enjoy these books as much as we have! " Their website has a large list of historical fiction.
Two of the books were by Emma Leslie, an 18th century author. Salem Ridge Press has republished her historical fiction 12 book series on church history.

From Bondage to Freedom was the first book I chose to read. From Bondage to Freedom is a historical fiction book about the rise of Islam. At first the book was hard to get into. The old English wording took some time to adjust to. After awhile though it became easier to read. The characters in the book drew you in to their plight. The character Aseeyah especially caught my interest as she began the book as an outcast due to her blindness but ends up being a leader of her tribe sought for her wisdom. Asseyah becomes a Christian but all around her is the pagan religion of the Arabic tribes and a new religion being proclaimed by Mohammed. The story line follows several characters and bounces between the three. It also switches between Mecca and Constantinople. This book is obviously written from a Christian perspective. Not being a scholar of Islam or having much knowledge myself of how that religion came about I can not speak to the historical authenticity of the book. However the author does a good job of drawing you into the cultural difficulties of the time. The book is geared towards ages 12- adult but I think I would wait until high school to introduce this book. From Bondage to Freedom can be purchased in soft cover for $14.95. Hardcover is available from Salem Ridge Press.

Before the Dawn is another of Emma Leslie's books on Church History. It is available for $14.95 for softcover at Salem Ridge Press or in E-Book format from The Old SchoolHouse Store. This particular book is church history surrounding the times of Wycliffe and Huss. Again the language is of old but after reading the first book of hers I was more accustomed to it. Some vocabulary words are defined as footnotes at the bottom of the page to aid the reader in better understanding. This book pulled me in right away, perhaps because From Bondage to Freedom had warmed me up to the author's style of writing.

Marie's Home available for $12.95 for softcover is written by Caroline Austin. This particular book is geared towards the 10-adult age range. So I gave this E-book version, available at www.theoldschoolhousestore.com, to my 12 year old daughter to read while waiting for her sister to finish choir. My girls are hard to keep in books, if you know what I mean. so I printed it out (several pages per sheet) and sent her on her way. She wrote her own review of the book.
My 12 year olds review of Marie's Home

I liked this book because there were very few dull moments, and you saw Marie grow and mature as she told her history. The only thing I did not like was that there were a few vague points where you did not really know what was happening, until Marie addressed the event afterwards (usually telling her thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc.) You did not know what had happened when a person suddenly dropped from the story line. On the other hand, it had quite a lot of historical insight. The story was set a little before and after the French Revolution, from 1789-1793. It showed all different sides of the story, the French Nobles, King Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette, and last but not least, the peasants. As Marie and her family happened to be in the French Court as a Noble family and favorites of the King and Queen, things do not bode well for them. But an act of kindness committed by Marie upon their arrival at the French court saves them in an unusual way. The title “Marie’s Home” comes from the fact that Marie and her family move from place to place in England and France but every time they come back to the one place they call home. I would recommend this book for ages twelve and up. All in all it was a great book, and I really enjoyed it.

I enjoyed these living books from Salem Ridge Press and will definitely add them as a resource when looking for more historical fiction for my children. They have the entire series from Emma Leslie, plus books on World History and American History. These books that I reviewed were for an older set but if you check out the reviews of Salem Ridge Press by my fellow crew mates that can be found here you will find reviews of some of the books published for the younger set as well.

These three titles are available at The Old Schoolhouse Store in E-book format

Disclaimer: I received a hard copy of Bondage to Freedom an E-book of Marie's Home and Before the Dawn for free for review purposes only

TOS Review: Vocabulary Cartoons

2010-09-17T04:00:00.096-05:00

mnemonic |nəˈmänik|nouna device such as a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations that assists in remembering something.

Mnemonics is the exact thing that Vocabulary Cartoons utilizes in the book Vocabulary Cartoons SAT Word Power. This book is geared for 7-12th graders, although when it arrived in the mail for me to review there was fighting amongst my kids grades 2, 5, 7 and 9 as to who got to read it first! For $12.95 this book offers over 290 vocabulary words. Each page has one vocabulary word. This word is the word intended to be memorized. Beneath each word is it's phonetic pronunciation, part of speech and definition. Also under the vocab word is it's link word, a word that links it to the cartoon. Then you have the cartoon. Under that you have the caption which uses both the vocab word and it's link word. A few sample sentences using the vocabulary word follow the caption. You can follow this link to see how it works. Below you will find an example from the website

My kids would grab up this book in their spare time and look over the words. They really enjoyed the format for each word. The cartoon usually had them snickering to themselves. Most words required calling over a sibling to let them in on the cartoon and caption. The funny thing is while they were laughing over the cartoon and caption they were actually absorbing the true definition of the word! Fun, easy learning.

For the most part, I just have this book handy in our school room for them to pick up at leisure, however when I was met with a particularly snippy 7th grader I presented her with the book to work on the first 10 vocabulary words. The requirement was for her to take the review quiz and earn a 100% in order to relieve her of other vocabulary work. She aced the review. Even several weeks later she can still tell me which each one means as she recalls the cartoon. My goal is to present a few of these words each month reviewing the previous ones in the process. I figure by the time SAT time rolls around they will have a good grasp on the vocabulary words.

I love the concept of Vocabulary Cartoons. It works for several types of learning styles. The vocabulary words are presented in such a fun manner that you can't help but learn the word. This is one book we will keep handy as we approach the years leading up to the SAT.

Vocabulary Cartoons also has books for elementary as well as a second volume for middle - high school.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of Vocabulary Cartoons for review purposes only.

TOS Review: America's Math Teacher

2010-09-10T07:20:00.000-05:00

Math is a four letter word to my freshman. She really detests math and will make it the last subject of the day. She struggles with math but still manages a mid to low B in Algebra I, her current course of study. She *thinks* she stinks at math.

Along came this review for America's Math Teacher. America's math teacher is a web subscription based product. For $195 you get one year access to the entire library of courses from basic math to algebra. This fee would cover all students in your homeschool from 4th grade - Algebra, with plans to add more high school level courses . Each level offers short instruction videos, practice sheets and evaluations. The website was just being launched as we started our review process and more features are being added as the author receives input and feedback.

I let my daughter loose in the Algebra section. We started with adding integers, something that was giving her grief at the beginning of the year. Claire watched the videos, each of them are about 9 minutes long. The video itself is just a male voice over with a computer white board. As the teacher discusses the problem it is displayed on the screen. My daughter, who has done other “video” math programs felt the male voice was nervous and dry. After the lesson I printed out the practice sheet . With the answer sheet I corrected her problems and reviewed the one problem she got wrong with her. A few days later, once she had watched the other videos in the first section, I opened up the evaluation page. She had 30 minutes to complete the exam. She completed the test in under 4 minutes (hence the “she *thinks* she stinks at math”). She managed an 80% on the test. The one thing this website does not do is record the student scores, nor track their progress. For her the quick lessons and practice sheets were a nice change up. Each lesson was based on one concept - helping with mastery.

The best aspect of the site in my opinion are the speed drills. One can choose addition, subtraction, or multiplication. Below is a picture of my daughter working a speed drill. She enjoyed this aspect of the site very much, always trying to better her speed.

Overall I believe this has the potential to be a great product. However at the time of the review the site was just getting up and running, with new features being added frequently. I did not have enough time to explore the features that were coming online. America's math teacher offers free lessons to try out.

To see what my crew mates thought of America’s Math teacher click HERE

Disclaimer- I received a free 60- day subscription of this product as a member of the TOS crew for review purposes only.

TOS Review: Vantage Learning My Access! Home Edition

2010-09-01T04:00:00.031-05:00

Ugh! That is my immediate reaction when faced with assigning a writing assignment to my kids. I don't enjoy formal writing and I sure don't enjoy grading it! In fact when I received this review I was dreading it. I felt my back against the essay wall.

To be honest my older girls (who were my testers) were not that thrilled either.

My Access Home Edition from Vantage Learning however changed a few of our minds. My Access is an online writing program. The program is $129.95 for up to 6 students per year. They also have an option for up to 3 students for $99.95. For this fee you get access to the online writing center. My Access! has writing prompts offered for up to three age groups, 8-10, 11-14, 15-18. The parent has an account and each kid has their own login and password as well. In the parent center you set up the child's account. Also in this area you can choose to have progress reports emailed to you each week and set point goals for your child. There is a huge list of writing prompts available for the student to choose from, but the parent can also create a topic. I implemented this program in our homeschool by having my girls sit down with the program for about 30 minutes twice a week.

My 14 year old is not so keen on writing. She went through the self-paced pre-writing exercises begrudgingly. As she went through the pre-writing exercises though there was a writing guide she could print out and refer to. The pre-writing used a nice interface of a journalist gathering info. It kept her somewhat motivated to get through the initial exercises.

My 12 year old daughter enjoyed the program. Well I should rephrase that... she tolerated the program until her final submission of her first essay. I walked in the door one evening after she had drafted, submitted, corrected and then resubmitted her paper and she was beaming from the top of the stairs. I asked what was up and she proclaimed that she was "advanced proficient" in all five of the areas the program scores in. That made her day. Here is a screen shot of her progress

What I like most about this program was the step by step approach it took to introducing writing. It didn't just assign a topic and leave you with a blank page. It "held your hand" helping you build the essay. What I loved about this program was it's grading process. It took my daughter's essay and highlighted every grammar, spelling, punctuation, and syntax error. It then allowed her to hover over the highlighted error for corrections listing what was wrong with the particular phrase or section of the paper.

I'm hoping to incorporate My Access! Home Edition into more of our writing lessons. I feel it has valuable resources in the writing guide as well as in the correction phase of the writing. The cost for three students is reasonable.

See what other crew members had to say about My Access! here.

Disclaimer: I received this product for free as a member of the TOS Crew for review purposes.

One Year ago...

2010-08-31T22:00:00.000-05:00

...I walked into my surgeons office for a mere recheck on a lumpectomy site that was performed one week earlier
...my world was rocked
...I was diagnosed with Stage 0 LCIS.
...a set of decisions was put into motion

Today
... I sit here thankful that I am alive and cancer free.
...I don't regret my decision... most days
...I count down the days till my next oncology appointment (24)
...I pray for my friends who have been hit with cancer and are going through treatment.
...I mourn for the things I have lost
...I rejoice for all the things I didn't lose
...I am alive

From Colorado

Fun with hands on projects

2010-08-30T16:05:00.000-05:00

Today I decided to do something out of character for me... I pulled out the hands on kits and did a project with N and A that wasn't scheduled. Shocked?? I was. :)
So what did we do you ask? Well after pinning a cicada that decided despite the lysol in the relaxer that it was going to grow mold, I pulled out this kit and the instructions for the catapult. I have all the kits Hands and Hearts offer. Most of them are undone. Why? Because I feel I don't have time or the space in the school day to do them. Well I'm wrong. My kids love them and hands on learning really is what it is all about. The catapult fits into our current study of the Vikings. We are reading Usborne book of Time Traveler. The vikings raided other villages. Whether or not they used catapults to do so I have no idea but it fit with what was in the box so I went with it. The littles enjoyed launching animals with it. It is currently in the shop for repairs though!

From Aug 30, 2010

Fun fact (or disgusting depending on how you look at it): In the middle ages they would load dead animals into the catapult and launch them over the castle walls if they were unable to leave the walls due to threat of enemy.

Pinned Cicada

From Aug 30, 2010

A myriad of insects in the "kill" jars. N fed the one a tomato so I am not sure it should be considered a kill jar

From Aug 30, 2010

I have a few goals

2010-08-23T19:58:00.000-05:00

I realize New Years Resolutions are about 8 and half months overdue but I'm setting some goals regardless.

1. clean kitchen every night so I wake up to clean surfaces in at least one room
2. run 3 times a week and finish C25K
3. Gym the other 2 nights a week
4. Input up to week 6 of curriculum (seeing as how we are all ready starting week 5 I am behind but almost caught up just to be behind again. So really the goal here is to input a little each day always staying ahead.

I will start my goal setting there and see how I do. I did wake up to a clean kitchen this morning just an hour and a half after I thought I would be up. ::note to self:: turn alarm clock on!

What we are using this year.........for the younger 3

2010-08-17T15:24:00.000-05:00

I- 5th Grade
He is doing Core 5 exploring the Eastern Hemisphere. So far he has mapped and explored the Pacific Islands, Antartica and now Australia. For Language Arts he is doing Monarch 500 online. Science is combined with the littles (I expect more complete sentences and vocabulary cards). For that we are using Apologia's Exploring Creation Zoology 1 Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day. It is all about insects and birds. Right up the boys alley. Handwriting is A Reason For Handwriting E. Math- Horizons 5

N-2nd Grade
N is doing Core 2 which is part 2 of World History from Sonlight. Language Arts is Sonlight's LA 2 for advanced readers. Spelling is A Reason For as well as Handwriting. Science is the same as Ian's. He is also using MCP Plaid D for phonics and Wordly Wise C for Vocabulary. Horizons 2 math which he started last year is being wrapped up and then he will move on to level 3. He is a voracious reader and is consuming books as fast as the girls.

A-1st Grade
A is doing Core 2 which is part 2 of World History from Sonlight. Language Arts we are using a mix of things. Sonlight's LA worksheets for K and Beginning Readers. Spelling is a Reason For Level A. Phonics is included with her spelling so for now we are using that. Handwriting is also a Reason For. Math is Horizons 1 which she started last year. We are working on perfecting and speeding up our reading. Today she read from the Beginners Bible for me :)

School is now in session

2010-08-10T16:22:00.003-05:00

We started school back on the 19th. I wanted to get a few weeks under my belt while the sun was at its hottest so that we could vacation when it was nicer (and all the regular kids are back in school). So we are wrapping up our second week of school. Next week we have off for a camping trip and then back to work for about a month and then a big vacation to DC and Williamsburg. Apparently I am the only one who has ever been to DC! That will change soon. I will take our first of school year pics tomorrow and post them up.

We also had two birthdays come and go all in one weekend. Claire is now 14 and Avery is 6.

Claire getting ready for her first science experiment of the year.

Avery the morning of her birthday. sorry the quality is bad but a picture had to go here as the other one was not working

What we are using this year.........for the big girls

2010-08-10T16:10:00.000-05:00

C- Freshman in High School (really wasn't she just learning to talk yesterday?) This year I had to take a different approach with C as she needed high school level courses. So far so good on the text book type things I threw in. We will start Spanish when I get around to scheduling it.

History- BJU Cultural Geography
Math- Teaching Textbooks Algebra I
Language Arts- Monarch English 1/ My Access
Foreign Language- Rosetta Stone Spanish
Health - LifePac Health
Science- Apologia Exploring Creation with Physical Science
Readers/Read Alouds- Sonlight Core 7
Concert Choir via CCSA
PE via a homeschool PE Class
Bible- Bible Study Guide for All Ages

H-7th Grade.

History-Sonlight Core 7 part 2 of World History
Math- Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra
Language Arts- Monarch LA 700
Foreign Language- Rosetta Stone Spanish
Science- Apologia Exploring Creation with General Science
Readers/Read Alouds- Sonlight Core 7
Piano
PE via a homeschool PE Class
Bible-Bible Study Guide for All Ages

TOS Review: TOS June 2010 Module Travel the World!

2010-07-19T04:00:00.009-05:00

I enjoy traveling, who doesn't? Our family takes new roads just to see different scenery. So imagine my delight when I was asked to review an E-book Schoolhouse Planner June 2010 module Travel the World!. This E-book put out by The Old Schoolhouse, which is available for $7.95 at TOS Magazine's Schoolhouse Store is an introduction to world geography. My kids and I were on a summer break when this arrived but we chased away some of the summer blues by diving into Travel the World.

All of my kids ranging in age from 6-14 enjoyed the different aspects of this E-book. It has lapbooking activities for the younger set and a separate section set aside just for high schoolers to go more in depth. Within the module there are links to geography games online which were a huge hit with the whole family. The kids and I raced against the clock and each other to place the countries within the continents. The younger ones enjoyed the included coloring pages and word searches. My high schooler got a taste of geography through fun activities before she tackles a full year of high school geography. The high school expansion activities listed in the E-book are ones that I hope to incorporate in her geographical studies this year. The links to online maps of the different continents and quiz games reinforcing the memorization of countries will prove invaluable.

Included in the E-book is a brief introduction to geography. It then goes on to talk about each of the seven continents with plenty of links to maps, quizzes and other details about the continent. There are copy work pages for both manuscript and cursive, famous quotes and bible verses. A resource list, lap booking ideas, and an answer key are also included in this 56 page E-book.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product for review purposes.

1 week to go

2010-07-12T11:16:00.000-05:00

I will be starting the kids back to school next Monday. I am working in peace right now as my 3 oldest are off to Xtreme Adventure wired and my youngest two are happily watching Mathtacular 3 over and over again! I am slowly dwindling the paper pile that has become my desk! I graded a few forgotten math tests from May, inputed unit one of Health into Home School Tracker and cleaned up a few workbooks that were still hanging around from last year. I have one pile to go and then I will be on my way to starting this year off on a good foot.
So when do you start back to school? Do you school year round?
Our plan this year is to start on the 19th - school for 2 weeks (it's so hot here it makes sense to do it now)
break for 1 week
school for 4 weeks
break for a week at labor day. Everyone else will be back to school so we will probably hit the pool, see some area sights and maybe get the trailer out for a weekend of camping.
That is as far as I have gotten in solid planning. I have the rest of year penciled in but not set in ink!

B is for Bicker Busters

2010-07-02T11:05:00.000-05:00

I subscribe to CurrClicks newsletter. They often have a free product to download. I download, I look at it, I make plans to use it, but you know what I never do. I'm too busy to do "fun" stuff. Well the kids were bickering over the Wii so I made them shut it off. I had printed out the B is for Boats by Sharon Crooks a long time ago and never put it to use. In cleaning out the school room this week I found the printouts and decided to actually use it! So right now my littles are talking boats, coloring and gluing and learning terms like "stern" and "bow". Rainy day bicker buster worked. If you are at home with littles I recommend you sign up for their email newsletter and then you too will have bicker buster freebies.

1776 was a great year and $17.76 is a great price!

2010-07-01T09:39:00.000-05:00

I just snagged my two year renewal! This is an unbelievable price available today only. Find rest, resources and real homeschool stories in this magazine.

1776 was a spectacular year, and it's a smashing, save-more-money price! Grab your subscription to The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine during their four-day Fourth of July sale, and check out the craziest price on July 1 only! Receive a 2-year subscription, free Homeschooling with Heart tote bag, and five FREE E-Books for just $17.76! While supplies last. U.S. and Canadian residents. July 2 through July 4 the unprecedented savings continue. The sparks are flying at TOS Magazine . . . join in the celebration and savings! Get the details here.

TO DO

2010-06-25T10:57:00.000-05:00

My big girls are gone for the week visiting with grandparents in another state. The dynamics in our house are very different right now. The three youngers are content to be on the WII for large chunks of time, so using it to my advantage I am gutting the school room in prep for our new school year. I plan to start mid July giving us time off when the weather is a little less severe in Texas. So bear with me as I post my to do list for the day. I figure it might keep me accountable :)

1. wash jeans for John (nothing to do with school but my man needs clean jeans which he did not have this am)
2. tackle the paper piles that spawned from the large one in the school room
3. input science for both learning groups into HST+
4. Make a list of items needed
5. Gut the bookshelves
6. Move old cores down and new ones up
7. label core 2 adv readers
8. sit with avery and work on some phonics

that should keep me busy right??

Home Sweet Home

2010-06-22T13:13:00.000-05:00

We arrived home last night. My shower has never felt so warm, my bed so perfect nor my pillows so soft. We rolled in late so it was jammies and bed for the three kids we brought home with us (don't worry we didn't lose two along the way we just shipped them home with the grandparents for an extended vacation). John watered his garden and checked some work stuff and crashed only to be awoken with a "my tummy hurts"from N. We told him to crash on our floor. Sometime in the middle of the night A joined him. I guess after sleeping in a room with 7 other kids for a week they didn't want to be alone!
It is good to be home. I am now trying to catch up on some TOS Crew stuff and plan to spend some time planning and inputing next year into the computer. While we were gone we let A detonate some dynamite in a Gold Mine. We're cool like that :)

Colorado

2010-06-15T10:16:00.000-05:00

I'm really not a traveler. I usually get out locally a few times a year and see the country maybe once a year. Just so happens in the past week I have two vacations. Last week it was Seattle, this week Colorado for a family get together. There are 16 of us renting a house near Rocky Mountain National Park. All of us hiked Beaver Meadows yesterday seeing the gorgeous meadows and mountain peaks. We then walked around Estes Park doing a little shopping and sight seeing. Dh and I snuck out for an evening hike at Lumpy Ridge. That's me on the trail :) As we were driving back up the drive of the rental house I snapped the sun setting over the valley. I am amazed at the gorgeous beauty of this area. I miss mountains living in Texas.

Seattle R & R

2010-06-14T22:34:00.001-05:00

I was blessed last weekend with a trip to Seattle. Two friends put the weekend together and invited me along for the ride, all I needed to do was book my plane ticket and pick up a third of the tab. DONE! I had a wonderful weekend away. I was blessed with conversation, scenery and no one calling me mom. These two friends made me laugh, ushered me through an unexpected encounter with race for the cure, and shared a fondue pot with me. We saw orcas hunt a harbor seal, saw a bald eagle fly, and blue sky in Seattle :) I came home refreshed and relaxed and blessed by my time away.

I Tri-ed

2010-05-18T10:46:00.000-05:00

Sunday was the big day. My alarm went of at 3:45AM, yes AM. John got up and made me coffee while I blended up my protein smoothie. He saw me off. I swung around the corner and picked up a good friend who volunteered to get up at an ungodly hour to go with me. She was going to do the race but found out she was pregnant a few weeks before. So she came to be my cheerleader and volunteer. We got to the ski ranch about 5:30 parked and walked around checking out the swim and facilities. When transition opened we set up my bike and gear. I got 402 marked on both arms, both legs, and the number 37 on the back of my right leg. The 37 is my age at the end of the year. All women had their age listed on their leg. During the race it was exhilarating to pass a 20 something and humbling to get passed by a 50 something.
At 8am the first wave was in the water, 8:04 the green caps went, at 8:08 the red caps started swimming with me in their midst. It was a fairly easy swim other than the fact the water smelled sulphurous. No visibility in the water. I apologized to the few people I swam over and then gave up being polite as I got swam over too. I ranked 75th in the swim with a time of 7:11. (out of 422 participants) As I exited the water I pulled off my cap and goggles and jogged over to the transition area trying not to trip on the mats. I sat down rinsed my feet, pulled on my socks and running shoes. I stood up put my sunglasses on, slammed my helmet on my head and buckled it, choking from the strap I yanked the back of it over my braid and could breathe again. I pulled on my jersey but my back was wet and it rolled. I wrestled with it and finally got it on. I unracked my back and jogged to the mount area on the frontage road of I-35. Transition took me 3:21. The bike started with a brief flat and then hit a hill to get up to the overpass. After that it was rolling hills and mostly flat through a farming area. The course was open road so Comal County sheriff were at each corner holding traffic for us. I think my time could have been better if I had the whole lane to pass on the downhill. But I had to hold back a few times because there wasn't room on the smooth lane and I really didn't want a flat riding on the rough lane. The bike was shortened the morning of because of rain the previous night causing a low water crossing to have too much water on it. So the bike went from 11.1 miles to about 10.6. I ranked 271 on the bike with a time of 43:54. I dismounted and entered tranisition, racked my bike, tore off my helmet, swigged some gaterade, and realized my bib number had flown off during the bike. Transition this time only took me 1:17. Due to a recent calf strain I was worried about the run. I jogged out of transition and through the skate park and then slowed to a very brisk walk. I alternated jogging and walking. My friend was at the final water station and she cheered me into the last mile. The last 1/3 of the race was back inside the venue so I jogged the whole time crossing the finish line with a time of 1:20:05 (24:19 for the 2 mile run) My run rank was 341 (yikes).
Overall I was pleased. My goal was to finish (preferably not in last) and I accomplished that. My overall rank was 262, looks like about 59 out of 90 for my age group. Lots of room for improvement in the future :)
I haven't signed up for my next race yet but plan on doing a 5k run while in Colorado this summer.

I Tri

2010-05-15T14:59:00.000-05:00

Picked up my packet and swag bag for the tri tomorrow. The nerves flared as soon as that cute little tech shirt was in my hands. The swag bag... full of goodies, cap color... red, popcorn flavor.... dill pickle?? really dill pickle flavored popcorn? Pass on that one.
I'm ready. I wish I would have been able to train harder but the calf strain put a crimp in my training schedule. Tomorrow's goal ...... finish (preferably not in last)
I have a sweet friend who is getting up at dark o' thirty to go with me. She was going to race it but had to withdraw so she is volunteering and being my car trip buddy. She has done tri's more recently so I am mooching some supplies off her and her wealth of knowledge.
I will report back tomorrow with how I fared, hopefully with photographic evidence.

Pic coming later of the swag..........

TOS Review: e-book Help, Lord, I'm Getting Ready to Start Homeschooling My High Schooler

2010-05-14T11:18:00.004-05:00

I was asked to review this product by The Homeschool Crew as I have "older" kids. Exactly when did "my" kids get older? Thirteen years ago homeschooling wasn't even on my radar, now I'm gearing up to homeschool one through high school. Seriously... high school?
Aging crisis aside... When I loaded the e-book and read the title it took awhile to register in my brain that I was indeed graduating a junior higher in just 4 short weeks and that this e-book did indeed pertain to my current life stage.

Help, Lord, I'm Getting Ready to Start Homeschooling My High Schooler provides encouragement to parents about to embark on high school. This $12 e-book published by TOS is a compilation of 13 short essays from a variety of homeschooling parents who have been there done that and lived to tell about it. Amanda Bennett provides an introduction while Deborah Wuehler wraps it up in the epilogue.

Each family's way of going about high school is different, but one thing remained the same for all of them, they sought the Lord's wisdom in the path they should pursue. Reading how each of them sought the Lord reminded me that I am not the one in charge of my children's educational path. Relief from buried anxieties flowed through me as I read how each high schooling path was as varied as the child and teacher forging it. High school does not have to fit any preconceived mold, even within the same gene pool! I enjoyed reading the different ways the families pursued the high schooling years, whether dual enrollment, apprenticeships, or life skills focused. It offered insight into finding what was right for each child, by seeking the Lords' direction to suit their individual temperaments, talents and passions.

The final pages of this e-book are filled with resources and web links - from transcripts to general help. I look forward to grabbing a few of the recommended books to read over the summer.

If you value peace of mind as you approach the high school years, this book is invaluable.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product for review purposes

Getting off my Butt

2010-04-19T13:03:00.003-05:00

I have decided to get off my butt. Two reasons really, mentally and physically. I have had a downward spiral in my physical well being since being laid up for 6 weeks and then scared to lift anything heavier than my laptop for a few more weeks than that. Then it was too chicken to start back at the gym lest I tear or pop something. I have no excuses now. I have been cleared by my plastic and my onc to get back to the gym. So I joined a little gym up the street with John. We've been twice in three weeks :) Need to work on that. I have also rededicated myself to tri training. I enjoyed biking 9 years ago when I first got in to tri's. Swimming for me is a given. So I am joining a tri training group, downloaded a Couch to 5K app, and have almost signed up for my first sprint tri in May.
Mentally I need this. I need a season of me time. I'm not gonna lie, I'm in a dark place right now. I need to get out of it. Part of it is what I have been through, not sure I ever fully processed what happened to me and I am now suffering for laughing my way through the pain. Homeschooling and parenting are overwhelming right now. Luckily the kids have switched to auto pilot and are keeping pace while I do what I can. John has stepped in also to ease my load. So for a season (hopefully a short one) I need to focus more on me. Is this selfish? Yes in the short term, no for long term. I need this. It isn't a want it is a need. I need to be healthy both physically and mentally and I have neither right now. I am on the road to recovery.......

Dear Family and Friends,

2010-03-19T20:47:00.002-05:00

I was curious to know if you have finally decided to homeschool your children? I mean after all are you not worried about them being over socialized? Are you not concerned that they could excel academically beyond their peers in one class but be held back from learning because no one else excels? Are you not concerned that they may be excellent readers but be held to reading at their grade level? Are you not concerned that they are perhaps struggling in math yet are barely keeping their head above water because the other 29 students must be taught at the pace set by the standardized tests? Afraid that they are only being taught the test in order for the school district to get its money? Does it not concern you that they don't have time to hop down bunny trails when something strikes their fancy?
I do not ask you these questions when I speak with you so please do not ask myself or my children if they are going "back" to school. They are back to school although they never left.... we just switched schools. My children enjoy homeschooling most days. I'm sure if you asked your kids or yourself if you would not respond that traditional school was enjoyable or tolerable most days as well. If you are concerned about my kids socialization don't be. They have friends, they know how to talk to others, play nice etc. We ask each year if they would like to go to traditional school. Each year the answer is no. Lest you forget two of our children have been to private school and know what each side is like. Our family functions just fine with them all at home. Is every day roses and sunshine? NO but I bet it isn't at your house either or at school for that matter. Am I cheating my children? From what I ask? Am I the best teacher in every subject? Nope, but we were paying for our kids to have worse teachers. I have flaws, yes but I am human as are you.
So please don't ask my children if they are going back to school in the fall or ever. If they decide to go to traditional school you all would be the first to know.
Sincerely,
Traci

Month in review via pictures in no particular order

2010-03-05T09:50:00.000-06:00

Hannah earns second place with her teammates at Awana Bible Quiz

Neil and Ian at Report to State for Cub Scouts

Neil turns 7

Snow day 2010

Wow almost a month

2010-03-03T08:51:00.000-06:00

didn't realize it had been a month. John has been working outside the home and I guess I don't have as much free time as I used to. I do have a ton of pictures to post as we had a SNOW DAY last week. Neil turned 7, and baseball started up for both boys. You should see the evening scramble! Insanity. I will try to get those pics up later. I'm at John's computer because it has a nice big screen :)

The SUN has set.......

2010-02-08T13:26:00.000-06:00

after 13 years John was laid off by SUN microsystems. Oracle's buyout of them finally was approved and after watching a webcast of both sets of executives wearing "Now Hiring" buttons the call came that they were not hiring John. Their loss. We didn't panic as we had just finished taking FPU and had an emergency fund, and John would be receiving a severance package. Turns out John never had a day off. He started work as a contractor today (well he was supposed to but he is down with a bout of brochitis, on the mend) The only downside to the new job is it is an office job. So the good days of having him home all day are gone. But I thank God that he was home for a season especially during my recent surgeries and recovery.

The pictures in this post are from our beach trip. Avery took a dunk in the gulf and we had to strip her and put john's fleece on her.

In Memory of....

2010-01-28T13:39:00.001-06:00

click on the button and read about Heidi. Hard to believe it's been a year. I remember the call saying she was gone so vividly. I can't imagine how much more vivid it is for her mom and dad. Lauren and Josh my prayers are with you today and this whole next few weeks. May God grant you grace and peace as you hit this year mark.

A relaxing weekend

2010-01-19T20:43:00.000-06:00

John had Monday off so Saturday we hooked up the trailer and hit the road. We headed south to the Gulf to our favorite area, Padre Island National Seashore. We have never camped here before but enjoyed our stay. The sites were primitive meaning no water or electric hookups. Not a bad thing unless your pipes in your trailer froze and the filter canister and a shower knob were blown up in the process ::note to self ..... winterize the trailer next year even though you live in Central Texas:: Actually it turned out fine as the campground had running water we just had to go fetch it. We walked the beach several times a day and each one was a different experience. We found starfish, jelly fish, shells, crabs, sand dollars and dead fish. Apparently there was a huge red tide that happened a few weeks ago and stuff is still washing up. I need to upload pictures. The weekend was very relaxing giving the whole family a time to forget about mergers, school, appointments and the like. Our good neighbors watched the dog for us and she got a glowing report as well.
Photos to follow tomorrow later

Christmas Day

2010-01-07T10:03:00.000-06:00

Our tradition here is to open one gift on Christmas Eve and it is always coordinating jammies. I made the bottoms this year and embellished t-shirts to go with. Somehow this is the only decent picture I got and when you look at what the dog is doing you realize it's not a stellar photo. :) Besides 3 people were taking a picture all at once and apparently my camera only won out for one child.

Thanks Mimi and Papa for the cash! I believe it was all spent at Target and Barnes and Noble!

Thanks cousins for our gifts! Thanks Auntie Lauren and Uncle Josh too for our presents (that pic is on your moms camera!) they were perfect!

twenty ten

2010-01-02T10:01:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year!
Starting the year off with some deep cleaning and organization. School starts back Monday and the teacher isn't ready! On the other hand my craft room got a bit more organized, I finished off an entire spool of brown thread, and finished up two projects. I will be ordering my walking foot off amazon so I can finish another project without stretching the fabric all wonky. When I finish my other task on my to do list I will post a pic of the kids in their jammies that I made them for Christmas. Off to organize school. Inputing 5 weeks of 3 cores into HST+! YIKES!!

Recovery going well

2009-12-20T16:34:00.000-06:00

The surgery on Thursday went great. The hospital I was at was fantastic. The staff was great so much so that I sent John home to buy milk for the kids breakfast (we had run out the night before), and let them know PE had been cancelled. He got back to the hospital while I was in surgery. I was back in my recovery room by 10 and slept till 11. They discharged me at 11:30. Came home and slept. I went off the pain meds Friday night. Went to church today and even went for a quick spin behind the wheel. The final product is much nicer than the expanders were. I feel NORMAL! Finally. Now I will enjoy Christmas with my family.

I'll be gone for awhile

2009-12-14T19:33:00.000-06:00

With surgery Thursday, and Christmas right around the corner and school work not being done unless I sit on them I won't be posting anything. I have nothing interesting to post anyways.

Long time no blog

2009-12-06T14:23:00.000-06:00

I have not updated in awhile because I have actually been feeling really well. I had my last expansion the day before Thanksgiving. I have my exchange surgery set for December 17th. It is outpatient.
Life for now has returned to normal. The kids are schooling again and we should wrap up week 15 right before Christmas. The Christmas Tree is up and the house mostly decorated. Life is about as normal as it can be right now. I'm looking forward to putting all this behind me.

Yesterday

2009-11-18T09:02:00.000-06:00

The infusion went well. They preloaded me double time on the benydryl. Took 3 1/2 hours for the iron. I managed to finish Catherine, Called Birdy It was light enough reading that even in a benydryl haze I could read it. Came home and crashed for over two hours. Woke up and hosted a den meeting for Ian's den. Luckily the leader had it all planned out and all I had to do was execute. A fabulous tortellini soup was delivered for dinner. The family watched Merry Madagascar (lame) and the Biggest Loser. Jammie time and a chapter of Ginger Pye. Tuesday's are a write off for me these days. One last infusion next week, hopefully I start to feel the perky it's supposed to give me. I have an expansion appointment today. Praying it doesn't force me back onto the pain meds.

Iron Drip

2009-11-17T08:23:00.000-06:00

Today I get to sit in a recliner and receive this

into here

unfortunately I forgot to swing by the library and pick up a book so I will be grabbing something off the core 6 shelf.

A trip to the oncologist who is now my hematologist

2009-11-10T23:04:00.000-06:00

I am cancer free. I avoided or survived take your pick, but you won't find me wearing pink anytime soon :)
However we have finally addressed my anemia problem. Basically right now my red cells suck. I spent 3 and half hours on an iron iv today. They tossed a little Benydryl and steroids in to make it fun and to stop the reaction I had, which was similar to me standing in a grassy field. Nasal congestion, snot and a bit of wheeze. Nothing alarming and nothing a second cocktail of Benydryl couldn't handle. I will go back for the next two weeks for another iron drip. Then back to the doctor right before Christmas to see if this worked. I had a nice chat with a man battling pancreatic cancer. Just so you know we are all in this fight against cancer together doesn't matter who you are, how old you are, whether you are in the middle of your cancer battle or avoiding the battle by eliminating the risk. Pretty humbling to sit in there today JUST getting an Iron drip when a few months down the road it could have been a chemo drip. Praising God for dodging this bullet.
In other exciting news I CAN DRIVE again! Woohoo. Celebrated with driving to a pack meeting for Ian's pack.
And in other news I cancelled my expansion for tomorrow and will get another one next Wednesday. I just need some time off. Only 1/2 a pain pill at night to take the edge off the sensations, and soreness. I can see the last few pages of this chapter in my life and it feels good DANG IT!

Recovery isn't just all physical

2009-11-09T09:54:00.000-06:00

I am struggling with my recovery. The physical recovery is going fairly well. Incisions are healed, feeling is returning, and scabs are falling off. The muscle soreness is almost tolerable during the day but not at night. I am struggling with the mental recovery. 3 weeks now I have had to let others serve me. Now I don't say serve with an air about me, I say it because that is what others are doing for me. But the downside to that is I'm tired of being a patient. I want to be whole, off pain meds, able to sleep at night, able to drive to the store or anywhere else I want to go. I want to cook for my family. Please do not get me wrong, the people who have stepped up and taken care of us through rides, meals, visits, and errands have BLESSED us tremendously and I am not ungrateful. I am just at the point in my recovery where I can do most things for myself but the few things that i can not do have an impact on my independence. My goal this week is to get out of the house more (lets hope the weather cooperates). I plan on canceling my plastic surgery appointment this week because I want to go on a 24 hour campout with my family. I am able to go and it is within guidelines so don't go telling me to take it easy. I can sit in camp chair and visit and go on a short hike. I also have an oncology appointment tomorrow but I may have to cancel that as well due to the fact that I have bit of a sinusy thing going on. No fever, no cough but man I would hate to be the one to cause a cancer patient illness. I will evaluate my health before 5 pm and make the call then.
Just keeping it real.

Fill 'er up

2009-11-06T10:22:00.000-06:00

Wednesday started the expansion part of my reconstruction. I had 70ccs of saline injected into both expanders. Needless to say I am back to the pain pills. I am sore again and moving slow. I was also back to the recliner but managed a two hour stint in the bed this morning so I think I will attempt the bed tonight. John and Avery are headed out for a little father/daughter camping this weekend so I will have the bed to myself :) Don't worry about us we have enough neighbors helping out if we need anything.
Life in general is going well. I just would really like to be able to function normally. I have a friend coming over and I am going to ask her to drive me to the grocery store since I still can not drive due to the pain meds. I have stopped them today so we will see if I can make it on just Tylenol for the weekend. Should be fine.

Clean and Clear

2009-11-03T11:28:00.002-06:00

so says the pathology report :)

Drain Free

2009-10-29T10:55:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had another shampoo :) A sweet friend came by to visit and she french braided my hair. I then got jeans and a shirt on while another sweet friend brought her two little girls over to hang with my kids so I could go to the doctor. Claire and Hannah were thrilled to have little ones in the house, Avery notsomuch! Dr S pulled all four drains! He also removed the tape from the incisions. Good thing my boobs are numb or he might have had to surgically remove me from the ceiling. I was feeling so good being drain free that dh and I stopped at the new McD''s and had fries and hot fudge sundae. Came home and took a nice long nap. Dinner was delivered, eaten and we all headed out to RLG. Yes I went too! It was just down the street so if I tanked John could drive me home. I made it the whole two hours sitting there slightly stoned :) It felt good to be out. I also slept in bed last night! Bliss. Today I am laying low in bed just because. I feel good but don't want to overdo it. I have plans to shower in a little bit. Recovery is happening.
Ian asked me last night if I was considered a breast cancer survivor, John answered appropriately, your mom is a breast cancer avoider! I'll take that for now.

One week post op

2009-10-26T16:41:00.000-05:00

7 days ago I had my bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction surgery. Dr L found no surprises during the mastectomy and all tissue was sent to the path lab. Dr. S was able to place the expanders with no real problems other than my skin was a little tight. I spent 3 nights in the hospital. I was only supposed to be there 2 but my hemoglobin tanked and they started talking blood transfusion. My first draw preop had me anemic I believe at a 9, thursday morning draw had me at 7.2. Surgeon wasn't concerned as I wasn't exhibiting any other symptoms. They redrew immediately and it had gone down to a 7. Plan to redraw in the afternoon was made as well as an increase to the pain medication. There was some misunderstanding in my drug induced state that I could continue the pain pump and still be eligible for release. I had no concept of time in my stoned state but I knew getting home was key so I did not hit the pain pump after early Thursday morning. Then they realized I was under pain medicated and uped the dosage. Thing is the nurses were not allowed to wake me every four hours to give me pain meds. I had to request them. Again I was time retarded and couldn't remember if it was 5 minutes or hours ago that I had had meds. I ended up hurling Thursday night from dinner (food was awful) and was glad that I stayed that night. My nurse and I came to an uderstanding that she would check on me and make us much noise as possible in order for me to wake and "request" meds. Anyways I got home friday and lived in the recliner for several days. I have good days, horrible days and tolerable days. I just wish they built on one another. Yesterday was a great day, today was awful. Not all of it is pain related it's emotional and mental as well. I see my plastic surgeon on Wednesday to discuss what is next and have everything evaluated. My inlaws were here for a week and just left today. My church small group is having a lady come and clean our house for us tomorrow. Dinners are coming for the next two weeks at least. We are well cared for.

11 and a half hours to go

2009-10-19T22:35:00.000-05:00

Surgery is tomorrow at 10 am. I am going to attempt sleep. John will be updating via email and facebook and SL.
(Diana could you pass the updates along to Lorri?)
The kids are all crashed in our room tonight. I'm half packed and half don't really give a rip. Laundry is almost complete.
Apparently I'm not even awake enough to put together a unified paragraph :)

One week

2009-10-13T17:55:00.000-05:00

The house is coming together. Just three more rooms to tackle and then I can turn it over. School is functioning.
Appointments are almost completed. Deductible met, out of pocket almost met.
Still freaking out.

Plastic Surgeon

2009-10-12T13:35:00.000-05:00

I met with the plastic surgeon today. Preop visit. We went over what to expect etc. I will be in the hospital two days post surgery which means I won't get out till Thursday. I will come home with at least three tubes coming out of my chest hooked up to drain bulbs or pain pump. I will be on antibiotics and unable to shower for two weeks. With that statement alone I am ready to call the whole thing off! I have hospital preop on Wednesday and then I get to lay low and stay germ free until surgery day. 8 days and counting.

Amazing Grace by Il Divo

2009-10-11T13:40:00.003-05:00

enjoy this video and rendition of Amazing Grace this Sunday
Amazing Grace

Tomorrow when I wake up

2009-10-09T20:52:00.000-05:00

John and Ian will have left all ready for camping with the scouts.
I will have to make my own cup of coffee.
I will dress in BSA tan and attend BALOO training (gotta get it out of the way while I can still raise my arms and pitch a tent)
I will still hate pink even though it is Avery's favorite color.
I will be 10 days from surgery.
I will continue to be held in His hand.