Real Food Challenge Update

On Monday we went and did our grocery shopping. I was looking for meal ideas and found a great resource! 100 Days of Real Food has several week long menu plans including breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack for each day of the week. Also included is a shopping list and prices. 

One of the myths of eating healthy is that meals take a lot longer. This menu is great because they are all quick and easy meals! Things like granola, muffins and waffles are made ahead of time and stored for the week. The dinners are quick and easy to make too. 

Now for how our family is doing with this.I wish I could say it's been perfect. Unfortunately though it hasn't. I made the mistake of letting my wonderful husband go into the store on Tuesday and he comes home with donuts. Other snacks have sneaked in and Wednesday afternoon was a day of running multiple errands so it was a stop to the store for something quick for dinner since we didn't get home until almost 5. 

For the most part though we have been doing better! The kids still like their cereal for breakfast. The home made granola was a bust with them yesterday but the muffins and smoothies today were a hit with all! It will take some time to figure out what they like and make adjustments from there. Today we made muffins and smoothies. Shh don't tell the kids but there's spinach in the smoothies! I have never tried this before and was a bit leery but it was good! You really don't taste it at all. 

Here's to the rest of the week going well and keeping the junk out of the house! Be sure to stop by the Holistic Mama's site as well for more great ideas on cleansing foods and fun ideas to add to your spring menu! 

Marriage Monday....Marriage Retreat!

This is my first marriage Monday post but I wanted to share all of the good things my husband and I learned from the retreat we went to this past week. On Friday we took the kids to my dad's for the night and made the hour drive to the Dutch Host Inn in Sugarcreek, OH

I was so looking forward to this weekend! It was a chance to forget about issues going on and just reconnect and learn more about what God wants our marriage to look like. After getting settle in at the hotel we took a short drive to Beachy's Country Chalet to meet with the other couples on the retreat. 

There were 7 couples total including us and the two speaking. I think everyone would agree that dinner was AMAZING! Everyone went back to the hotel quite full from all the yummy food and dessert to get started for our first session. 

My husband on the left and other couples with us at Beachy's Country Chalet

That first session focused on a term I had heard before but knew nothing about, he next day was Saturday and sessions started at 9am.. My hubby was sleepy since he couldn't fall asleep but he made it through. Pizza and salad and great fellowship and encouragement over the lunch hour and a few other sessions afterward completed the day. We really enjoyed our time (I wish it was longer!) but we did miss the kiddos too so we headed back to my dad's and got home in time to make a quick dinner and play with friends. 

April 15-19th Homeschool Recap

This has been a very crazy week! Here's how our week went. .We got lots of school work done, played outside a LOT had co-op on Thursday night after a sad accident in which we had to have one of our baby kittens put to sleep and then Friday the kiddos went to Grandpas' and Aunt Judy's for the night so my husband and I could go on a marriage retreat hosted by our church. I'm glad to have a chance to slow down a bit today and update things here on my blog and get ready for another school week.

Adventures Week 31

History

This week we read about living on the plains in American Pioneers And Patriots. Wednesday and Thursday we covered North and South Dakota and tried a yummy healthy cookie recipe!

6 Tablespoons of each of the following. Mix with your hands (yes very messy) and roll into balls. Roll in coconut or sunflower seeds. These are VERY sweet but very good. Enjoy!

Honey
Peanut Butter
Cocoa Powder
Dry Milk
Wheat Ger

Science

We covered several topics this week including several birds from Birds, Nests & Eggs. We also read from the First Encyclopedia of Science about friction.

Math

Long division is the name of the game! Chelsea realized real quickly why we had learned all those addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts! She put them ALL to good use doing long division. This coming week we will finish up long division and move on to the last chapter in our 3rd grade math book on decimals!  It's exciting to be getting near the end of the year!

Reading/English

For reading we are almost done with the Treasure of Pelican Cove. Chelsea will read the last two chapters this week and start our next book.

In English we worked on sentence writing using present and past tenses of words. Go, going, have gone for example. I think this will help Chelsea a lot since she still struggles with these forms in her speech.

Kindergarten

Apple Unit

Plugging along and having fun! Monday everyone got a fun surprise when we cut an apple and found the star inside! We cut a slice to hang and dry. \

We also  played a game using our textured letters. I put several in a bag and they each took a turn trying to feel which letter they grabbed and guess what it was. 

We finished our Apple unit on Wednesday with a fun book and project! We read How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World. We used the recipe in back of the book to make our own apple pie! I have to say I loved the apple pie filling so much more making it myself! It doesn't even compare to store bought fillings!

Hunter and I with our VERY full apple pie. 

The kids also made and apple tree picture. I traced their hands and part of their arm on white paper. Each colored the "trunk and branches" and I cut them out. We glued them onto blue construction paper, glued on green leaves and I cut a little bird to go with the poem from our MFW manual. The last step was to use red paint to make apples in the tree. These came out really cute!

Hunter used the cuisenaire rods again for our Cuisenaire Rods Alphabet Book. He made the letter A and several pictures that start with A. He really enjoys this activitiy and pulled the book out on Thursday to see if he could do some more.

Nests Unit

Thursday and Friday began the next unit on nests. We practiced the new letter sound, writing the letter N and learned about animal homes with a fun matching game. Hunter used a container of salt to practice writing the letters. Although this time he had a new idea....

Preschool

Natalie joined in a lot of the activities for kindergarten and Adventures this week but also got out her Rod and Staff workbook and finished pages for co-op since she wasn't there the first week.

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7 Day Real Food Challenge

What is this 7 Day Real Food Challenge? That's just what I thought when I first discovered it in a Facebook Post! After looking into it more it sounds like a great idea! The challenge is to eat only "real" foods for one week. This means no processed or prepackaged foods. Why? Because basically they aren't healthy for you. Especially during pregnancy it's important to eat the right foods to get the best nutrients to the little one. I have to admit I haven't been very good about this lately. So this week I will share with you our meals and other ideas.

 For breakfast this morning I made myself a smoothie. A favorite breakfast since I've been pregnant. It consisted of a banana, peanut butter, ice, milk and honey. SO Yummy and healthy too! I started the challenge without even realizing it this morning. 

To find out more about the challenge, download your FREE Real Food Guide E-book, get a recipe book AND enter to win prizes head over to The Holistic Mama's website. Lots of bloggers have joined in and will be there to help you along with tips, ideas and support. Hope to see you there and take this journey with me! 

Apples and Railroads....homeschool week inreview

Week 30 of MFW Adventures completed and halfway through our 4th kindergarten unit! Trucking right along and loving it! Here's how our week went.

Adventures

Bible

In our Bible lessons this week we practiced a new verse and talked about the resurrection of Jesus. On Thursday we attempted a recipe for resurrection cookies but with a mixer that only has one beater I tried for a long time and only ended up with a sore wrist and a big mess! 

Math

We have continued working on multiplication and using rounding to make an estimate Chelsea finished the chapter on Friday so Monday we will be starting the next chapter! 

Science

The kids continued to enjoy our magnet kit and the experiments that went with it. 

History

TRAINS! The transcontinental railroad to be exact. We read the last story in American Pioneers And Patriots and Iron Horses about the building of the first railway to connect both ends of our country. Thursday was state number 38, Colorado! 

Reading/LA

In our English lessons we did more letter writing, talked about words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanines ie. flour and flower.

For reading we continued working through The Treasure of Pelican Cove. This book is really good! I'm even enjoying it!

Kindergarten

We finished up our leaf unit started our Apples unit! This unit has been a lot of fun so far.

Bible

The Bible talks about us "bearing fruit." We read from Galatians 5 to find out what those fruits are and made an apple tree picture with the fruits of the spirit.

Math

We got a variety of apples from the store and made a graph of the colors we had and how many. Then Hunter put them ALL in order from biggest to smallest. On Friday he did a worksheet with red and yellow apples and placing them in the correct spot on the chart.

 Reading

To finish our L unit Hunter thought of words that started with L and drew them. The cutest by far was one of his Aunt Lauren! 

A new letter was added this week and as usual, Hunter picks it up quickly. We also started a short vowel song. He tried writing some upper case and lower case A's on the handwriting page. We are splitting it up and doing a little at a time since he gets frustrated easily. Hunter enjoyed trying to write his letters in a container of salt,

Science

To go along with our apples we tasted and compared the different types of apples. Hunter couldn't choose a favorite. Chelsea liked the red ones and wasn't a fan of the yellow and green apples that had a little bit of tartness to them. To finish our week we made home made applesauce! It was really good and pretty easy to make. Just 1/4 cup of water for each apple you are cooking. Cook them until they are soft and can be mashed up. Let the kids take turns mashing them and enjoy!

Have a blessed weekend and week to come! Here's a fun picture to close with. Max being very skittish around the kittens but trying to play.

Wordless Wednesday

2013 Ultimate Blog Party!

This is my first time joining in the fun with the Ultimate Blog Party hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom. I joined in the Twitter Party tonight and it was CRAZY at first to try to keep up with it all but so much fun! I made some new blogger friends, including Sarah at Pillow Talk, who is due the day before me. We both have the joy of our little ones constantly kicking our bladders! If you're just stopping by my page for the first time from the party here's a little about me. Thanks for stopping by!

About Me

I'm Jacquie, and I'm 30 years old (that still sounds weird! Do you ever get used to it?) I have been married to my husband for almost 9 years. We met in 2003 when I was a sophomore in college.

A month before Chelsea was born we were invited to church by a friend of my husband's. We went and fell in love with everyone there. That's when things turned around. In March of 2004 we had our oldest, Chelsea and 3 months later we got married!

We have gone through a lot of growing and changing in the past nine years since recommitting our lives to Jesus Christ.

In 2005 I went back to college, determined to get my degree in education and have a career as a teacher. Doors got shut and those dreams were flushed. In May 2008 I graduated and had my son. It was a crazy week!

The following year I sent my oldest off to kindergarten in public school. She enjoyed it the majority of the time thanks to an amazing teacher! She did have some issues with kids making fun of her speech. Some of which I heard of and other times from her classmates parents. Now we're getting to..

Why I Homeschool

This is the funny part. My husband wanted me to home school from the very beginning. My answer to him? "NEVER."

I've since learned to never say never! In February of that kindergarten year I started thinking about it and thought I'd lost my mind. BUT The seed had been planted. God had started changing my heart once more. He kept placing it on my heart and mind until finally I gave in and we started homeschooling the following school year.

That year was NOT easy. I had to learn to teach my daughter and she had to learn to obey mom as teacher! There were many,many days I wanted to give up. We made it through though and are now close to finishing our third year of homeschooling! I have no desire to ever go back to public schools nor do my children. Not that homeschooling is for everyone, because it's not. The house is always a mess, it's a lot of work and not everyone has the time or patience for it. For me though this is the path God has chosen. He closed those doors to a career I'd dreamed of for years to open doors to another I never even considered! ]

Why I Blog

Connection to the outside world! Well, that's part of it but it also lets me be creative without having to spend money on printing pictures and scrapbook materials. It's a lot faster! Better yet, I can encourage other mom's on this journey of homeschooling, mothering, Christianity, being a help-meet and many other ways! I love getting ideas and encouragement from other blogs and so this is my way of hopefully spreading some of that to others out there.



Phew, that was a LOT. If you've made it to the end thank you for visiting and reading about me and my journey! Be sure to join in the Ultimate Blog Party Hangout on Google+ tomorrow night. I hope to see you there!


God Bless,
Jacquie 

What a Week!

Another week come and gone. It's been a crazy one! Stomach bug hit each and every one of our family members. Three of us on Tuesday alone. School has been done as much as we could so here's a little update for our crazy week.


Before we get to school stuff, I wanted to share an update on the kitties! They are getting big already and starting to wander more. It's so funny to see their personalities. One is more outgoing and struts around the house. The other is almost opposite and sits and watches everything going on.

Henry

Adventures

Bible

We read several of David's Psalms this week that talked about God being our shepherd and practiced the verse for Wednesday night Bible club at our church.

Psalm 42:5
Why are you in despair O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence. 

Math

This week  we are working on multiplication with renaming! It's proven a little tricky to remember to add the renamed number instead of multiplying it but Chelsea is plugging along and doing great!

History

Four more states were covered this week! Kansas, Nevada, Nebraska and West Virginia. Chelsea was excited about Kansas being the sunflower state and has decided she wants to plant some this week.

Science

This week we have been experimenting with the Lauri - Fun with Magnets kit. On Monday we made our own compass using a bar magnet, container of water and a plastic lid. The kids also had fun seeing which spots on the magnets things were attracted to the most. We didn't get to all the experiments planned for this week but we'll be sure to try them next week!

Reading

FINALLY finished Carolina's Courage on Monday and started a new book this week,The Treasure of Pelican Cove. We haven't gotten very far with the sickness this week but so far it looks like a good book!

Kindergarten

We've only had a few days of school this week but they have been fun ones!

Bible

We continued to learn how we are like the leaves and Jesus is the plant and God is the gardener taking care of us. On Thursday Hunter made a leaf shaped badge and proudly wore it most of the day. It said "I will live and grow in Jesus. "

Math

The math page practiced writing the number three. I gave Hunter a few reminders that his 3's dont' have to be perfect but he should try his best and it helped a LOT. The rest of the page was patterns. I didn't have to finish reading the directions before he picked up on the pattern and was coloring the rest of the leaves! He easily made up his own pattern for the last row.

Reading/LA

We have continued to work on letter sounds that we have learned so far and recognizing beginning sounds of words. S,M and L are what we've done so far and it's a breeze for Hunter to find the beginning sounds of each word. It's fun to see him saying words and telling me what they start with.

Today he decided he was going to write the entire alphabet on the white board! 

Hunter and little sis played alphabet mmory.

To finish our school day we made letter Ll cookies! 

After school it was a trip to the grocery store, enjoying the nice weather outside and then a game night to top it off! I was one tired mama by the end of the night but it was fun and worth every moment! 

Have a blessed weekend with your family! 

We Must Be Doing Something Right

I just wanted to share about our week and the blessing that Chelsea has been for us this week. On Friday she was the first to get hit with a not so fun stomach bug. She was better by Sunday and everyone else was fine, or so we thought. That night my son got sick. Then on Tuesday it hit the rest of us. 

My big 9 year old was such a blessing this week! Playing with the younger two kiddos, taking the dog out when we asked and helping to straighten the living room. I even woke up this morning to find all three of them eating breakfast quietly in the kitchen! 


We have been studying Proverbs 31 this year for our Keepers at Home Bible study as well as diligence and I am seeing such great things from this little girl! Of course there are occasional complaints and such but for the majority of the time she is such an example of the loving servants heart God wants us to have for our family.

It's days like this that I thank God for my oldest blessing and think that we must be doing something right! 

I won the Gift of Parenting Basket Giveaway!

A few weeks ago a bunch of homeschool moms with blogs had a FUN giveaway called a Tisket a tasket...win an Easter Basket. There were a LOT of creative baskets from parenting book to kids craft supplies and more. I was quite surprised when I got an email saying that I'd won one of them!

Dollie from Teachers of Good Things sent me a great package with all of these great books!

• Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson with Sally Clarkson
• 7 Tools for Cultivating Your Child’s Potential by Zan Tyler
• Parenting the QBQ Way by John G. Miller
• How to Have a Heart for Your Kids by Rachel Carman
• Wisdom for Parents: A Daily Devotional from the Book of Proverbs by Frank Hamrick
• OVERRULED – A shocking film about the Government invasion of your parental rights by Overruledmovie.com

I have plenty of GOOD reading to do now!