Peanut Butter Day

One of our favoite ways to eat healthier and save some money is to order peanut butter in bulk from our favorite whole foods distributor, Something Better Natural Foods.

The peanut butter comes 9 pounds at a time in a big bucket. Since the peanut butter is all natural, it must be stirred. This is the fun part!



Dad gets to use his power tools in the kitchen. One mixer attachement fixed to the cordless drill and we are in business!



Once the peanut butter is stirred, we divide it into small glass recycled jars. When the process is complete, we have about 9 jars of very healthy peanut butter for about $10!

Miracles

What better way to renew my blogging efforts than to share my excitement about our youngest daughters birthday.
It is hard to believe that it has been five years since Lily Grace was born. I remember the tears of joy I shed we the doctor handed her to me. I also remember the tears of fear and heartbreak when at our 20 week ultrasound, the doctor told me that my baby most likely would not live. I remember him looking at me and saying that we would take it one day at a time. The doctor told me that if my baby did survive, she would have some severe birth defects and would not live long. I looked at him and asked "she?"



Lily Grace was born just a few months later. She had many more defects that we thought she would have. She spent the first two months of her life in the NICU at Children's Hospital. At four months old she finally had her first open heart procedure. Although, the doctors told us that the procedure could not be done with any degree of success, God blessed our baby and brought her though with flying colors. She continued to amaze all of us, and especially the healthcare professionals evaluating her.



Today, she is a happy, healthy, normal five year old little girl!



Mark 10:27 And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.

Baking Day

I Just Needed a Laugh Today!

The following is obviously not my original work. It was published by the Examiner but, considering the fact that we as a homeschooling family have actually encountered some of these arguments before, I thought it was absolutely hilarious!

Memo: Top 10 Reasons to Criminalize Homeschooling

In an effort to increase the public drumbeat for criminalizing homeschooling, a memo has been distributed containing the top 10 reasons why public schooling is better than homeschooling. Here is an excerpt from that memo:

1. Most parents were educated in the under funded public school system, and so are not smart enough to homeschool their own children.

2. Children who receive one-on-one homeschooling will learn more than others, giving them an unfair advantage in the marketplace. This is undemocratic.

3. How can children learn to defend themselves unless they have to fight off bullies on a daily basis?

4. Ridicule from other children is important to the socialization process.

5. Children in public schools can get more practice "Just Saying No" to drugs, cigarettes and alcohol.

6. Fluorescent lighting may have significant health benefits.

7. Publicly asking permission to go to the bathroom teaches young people their place in society.

8. The fashion industry depends upon the peer pressure that only public schools can generate.

9. Public schools foster cultural literacy, passing on important traditions like the singing of "Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg..."

10. Homeschooled children may not learn important office career skills, like how to sit still for six hours straight.

Managers of Their Homes

Another favorite tool that works especially well for large, homeschooling families is the Maxwell's Managers of Their Homes. At first glance it looks like just another home management book but it is so much more. It is packed full of all the tools you need to make your home run much more efficiently.

Managers of Their Homes (MOTH) not only gives you the tools you need to set up an effective family schedule but it is full of examples of how other families do it.

Basically, you learn to break down your day into 30 minute segments. Then you arrange those segments on the same schedule with all the other people in your house. Looking at everyone's schedule this way prevents conflicts like; your 7 year old trying to practice piano at the same time your 1 year old is napping. That is never a good combination around here!



After I had read the book and worked through the tools. Here is what the finished product looked like for us.

As you can see, there is a different color coded line for each person in the home. Even our baby has a schedule. The children love it because they can always see what they are supposed to be doing. Sometimes, they don't even need direction to move on to the next item on their schedule.

I believe the process took a little more time for me than for most because we really never have the same daily routine. We do the same thing almost every morning until about 10:00 and then everything is different every day until about 7:30 in the evening. So, instead of having just one chart to follow every day, we have a different chart poster for each day of the week. The best part is, when the schedule changes, you just move the pieces of your schedule around and you can still see how each change will effect everyone else.

The Maxwell's are coming to Knoxville for a conference the first weekend in October!

Super Noots

With four children, there will always be one or even two that simply will not eat anything that is not shaped like a chicken nugget or mac'n cheese. Our oldest daughter in particular would eat almost nothing except chicken nuggets. We tried everything to get her to eat some healthy food with absolutely no success, until now...

Super Noots has been a lifesaver for us! I think I saw SuperNoots for the first time at the local women's expo. I liked it then but wondered if we would really use it. A year later, when we were still not making any headway with Abby's eating habits, I decided to order and try the SuperNoots boards. They worked like a charm!

Basically, SuperNoots are dry erase boards with food group circles on them. As your children go through the day, they move their Noots into the circles. At the end of the day, if all circles are filled in, they get a prize. The SuperNoots board allows parents to reward their children for making healthy choices.

There is also one circle on the board with room for only one treat noot. So, when your child has moved his one treat Noot. The board says, he has no more treats for the day. Woohoo, the board is the bad guy, not mom!

As you can see, SuperNoots boards can be attached to other boards to accommodate all members of the family.

The starter pack also comes with a really cool dry erase shopping list that is made to hang on the buggy and a Snack Pack with snack options for your kids. The really cool part is that everything is color coded. Even if your child cannot read, they can look at thier board, see that they need two more brown (bread) Noots for the day and a green (veggie) Noot and flip through the snack pack and find a card with brown and green. When we bought the system, Lily Grace was only 3 and she was able to use it.

SuperNoots has also been very educational in that it has taught our children the difference in breads, protiens, fruits, milks and veggies.

We love SuperNoots!

My Fearless Boy

Not only does my oldest son ride BMX style bikes and do things that make his mom cringe, he is also a competitive gymnast. Here are the latest photos from his team party where they boys got to enjoy a rock climbing wall. Caleb was so proud to come home and tell me that he had climbed all the way to the top 11 times.

Here is a shot of the team.

This is Caleb on the way up the wall.

Look at that sweet baby face.

Caleb coming down the wall. Gosh, I am sure glad I wasn't there!