{Not} Back to School Pics

We are just about to start our 2013 - 2014 school year on Monday/Tuesday, so we just did our {Not} back to school pictures.

This year Dude is in 1st grade:

Strawberry is in Pre-Kindergarten:

Linebacker is just along for the ride:

And we couldn't leave Boy Wonder out:

Then it was time for a group shot....let's just pretend this only took 1 attempt, haha.

The kids all picked their desks, and I have all their individual work setup in them, so they wanted a picture at their desks:

We are planning to start next Monday/Tuesday and I already know of one thing that will put one day on hold. I have only planned a 4-day week, so we should be able to get it accomplished. Did I mention we are away camping this weekend.......



For His Glory!



I am linking up with iHomeschool Network's Not Back To School BlogHop

Spotlight: Boy Wonder

It's been 4 whole months (actually, almost 5 now) since Boy Wonder was brought into our lives. Here he is now:

It is getting much harder to take these monthly poses since he is moving all over the place now. Boy Wonder is active....crazy active, it reminds me of Dude and he is just a fiery ball of energy....and we think Boy Wonder is even more active....yikes.

His smile will make you melt

He seems to be pretty laid back. I'm not sure if that's just his nature, or a 4th child syndrome and he has no choice but to wait or go-with-the-flow most of the time. Daddy was just saying tonight, "he is quieter then the others were", give it time Daddy, give it time. He will soon realize how to be heard.

Boy Wonder, like Linebacker, is a thumb sucker

It is a great tool for self-soothing, but I hear breaking the habit will be tough....for now though, I find it cute.

He sleeps through the night (so far, still waiting on the 4 month sleep regression that kicked my butt last time) and wakes up smiling almost every morning. He is starting to form some napping habits but we just go with whatever works that day.

He is adored by his siblings, here with Dude

They love making him smile and giggle. They make faces, jump around and laugh at him just to get a reaction from him. Linebacker (my blanket lover) is constantly getting a blanket for him and making sure he has one at all times.

I couldn't imagine life without this little man in it. He just lights up my heart and is such a delight. I am so glad he clung on and survived that scare (read about it here) and was able to join our family. I never knew how people could feel "done" having kids, it just seemed unfathomable. Now, I get it. Boy Wonder completes our family and I just love the dynamic our family has now.

I might be biased but.....isn't he just the cutest baby you've ever seen?

Our new chore set-up

I've decided recently to encourage and engage the kids in the running of our household. I've decided they are willing and finally ABLE to contribute to some of the cleaning around the house daily. I have pinned several "chore boards" the last while, but none of them seemed to fit our style or suit what I wanted. Most of them were focused on earning money, or reward tickets that after a certain amount they got a toy or prize. This was not the approach I wanted to take with our kids. I find, that despite our best efforts, the "Entitlement Generation" as I like to call it, is creeping into our home as well. I don't want my kids to help around the house with a monetary goal in mind because that is only encouraging selfishness, which in elementary/preschoolers is ever-present and something we are trying to teach them out of. I want them to help around the house because they want to be contributing members of our family and because they feel more confident in themselves as a result. We need to start young, so that by the time they are ready to start their own homes, they have all the skills necessary to run and manage their own homes.....and don't need to call and ask how to make scrambled eggs (Seriously, my sister has done this twice!!!). My goal for my kids (boys and girl) is for them to be able to do all the homemaking skills, I want to be able to say "your welcome" to my sons wives one day, beacause we have trained them to be thoughtful, helpful men!

Anyway, back to the "chores", I hate that word! It brings negative thoughts when you say it, or when completing them. If my own mantra in completing household tasks is Colossians 3:23 - "Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people", than calling them "chores" just doesn't suit me well. I've been wracking my brain the last while trying to come up with an alternative, and finally it came to me....Contributions! That's what my goal is, to have them contribute to the running of the family, so it just makes sense.

Next, I had to come up with a system...Boards, and because my kids can't read yet, pictures it was! I went around the house taking pictures of things that they could do everyday. Everything was ready to create, so I went to Dollarama last night and browsed for supplies I could use....

This is what I found:

These cork tiles came in a 2-pack and they are thin, so I was able to attach them to the wall with pushpins in the corners.

Next I found these:

4-pack of self adhesive clips (I forgot to take the pic before opening). I stuck these clips onto the cork tiles:

Next, I printed a few copies of the pictures I took the other day:

Then, I busted out the Cricut to make the name labels and title area for the boards:

I stuck the names and title onto a piece of black paper, I used my paper trimmer (couldn't live without this). This is mine:

I was really happy with how they looked.

Now it was time to laminate everything. I couldn't imagine my life without my laminator. I have a constant wall file of "to be laminated" stuff...as you can see, I was laminating more then just the stuff for this project. This is the one I have here.

After cutting everything out, it was time to assemble the area. Here is the finished product:

I added a couple of boxes. One for the kids to put completed pictures into, and another for me to store the pictures in. Now, to see if our new system works......

Organization....it's my thing!

I have a confession, I'm an organization junky. I love to organize and find new ways to organize. I am actually known among my friends circle for being extremely organized. They have even asked many times for me to organize their houses, haha.

I like things neat, I like things minimal and would prefer my rooms nearly bare, both of these I have had to give up since having kids. Today, however, I thought I would give some of my organization tips and tricks ;)

First, I love tea. I was introduced to loose leaf tea a couple of years ago. Now, loose leaf entails more then just a box in the cupboard. So, the best I could come up with was to use my turntable cupboard in the corner. I moved the spices that were in there to a drawer, and it was now the perfect cupboard for tea tins!(note: the tins are 2 rows deep)

We don't have a lot of movies/CDs compared to a lot of people, but instead of spending more money on a DVD or CD shelf, we just bought a $50 bookshelf from Walmart and use that.

I had a really stressful time dealing with our front entry way. Coats everywhere, hats, mitts, sunglasses, raincoats, etc. I started with a coat stand, but the kids couldn't reach and they only hold so many. Then, tried hooks on the wall, but there was always too many items and snowpants hung too far and fell off because they were resting on the floor, and there was no place for hats or mitts. This past winter, I finally came up with a solution:

They just throw their stuff in and I put the lid on! Another tip: if your house is like ours, you can never find one of the mitts, they misplace them constantly, so, this past winter I went to Dollarama and bought a bunch of their mitts/gloves (not for playing in the snow) and threw them in the bin - this worked because my kids hands are close enough in size. There were always mitts/gloves to go out! The inside of the bin is a disaster chaos not pretty, but I can handle it because there is a lid and because the kids can access it themselves to get and put away their own stuff. The inside:

Books!!! Books get everywhere! The shelves never stay put together, the kids pull one book off and 6 others come with it. My solution that is working, so far, is book bins. I sorted the books by category, made laminated pics and labelled the bins and put the bins on the bookshelf and it stays organized! The kids take a book and return it to the bin, it works great! Our bookshelf (I should mention, the green bin in front is for our church library books):

Hats! My husband is a hat man. He always wears a hat and has several hats, I couldn't figure out what to do with them....My solution was an over-the-door hook "thingy" haha. It is on the outside of the laundry room door, right by our side door and his wallet and keys. It's hard to see in this pic but there are 4-5 hats per hook.

While we're by the laundry room, I have a few tips for organizing in there. The laundry room is where I keep my cleaning stuff. Long before Pinterest came around I had a few things in place. My most used cleaning bottles are hanging on a towel bar, really accessible to me.

Behind my door in the laundry room is a shoe pocket hanging organizer with all my other cleaning supplies.

Lost socks. I will never understand this phenomenon, but there are many. My solution? A "wanted" board beside the dryer:

Lego, Dude has TONS of Lego. We use the Trofast system from Ikea. It was sorted by colour at one point.

Clothing, don't you find that if you don't see it, you don't wear it? I do. I put our clothes in the drawers so that everything can be seen when you open the drawer. Everyone's drawers in our house are like this:

I also find the best way to store my pants is hanging in the closet, otherwise they take up too much space in my drawers.

With 3 boys, I store a lot of clothes for the next boy to wear. I have tried many ways...bins, but some sizes have more then others, bags but they were hard to stack... Finally, I found an idea that worked! I went to Dollarama and loaded a basket with "under the bed storage bags" they are cheap and some have ripped a bit, but even ripped a little they work great. They stack great in the closet!

A little tip (not life changing at all) I found worked in my bathroom was that rolled towels took up much less space then folded towels:

Lastly, I just want to be clear, I owned this before Pinterest (actually surprised people didn't realize this before Pinterest) I store bed sheets in the pillowcase for that set. Just grab and go! (middle shelf)

Just some of my little notebook tips, enjoy!




For His Glory!

I'm linked up with:

Spotlight: Linebacker

I know it's been awhile since last posting, but as usual life has gotten in the way, but I'm back and ready to tell you about Linebacker.

Linebacker is the 3rd child, 2nd boy and our big little man. He is completely different from the other kids and is so unique it is amazing. He is a much larger body build then the other 3, he is pale skinned and has orange hair. He is our true little ginger boy. He is the funniest and craziest kid I know.

He is constantly smiling and that giggle just melts your heart, and you can't help but stop and laugh no matter what the situation. He is strong-willed, and very independent. He plays well with his siblings, but also is happy to play all by himself. He marchs to the beat of his own drum, he has a different "walk" everyday (strut, backwards, stomping, marching, etc). Dude and Strawberry are always saying "what a crazy kid" and laughing hysterically at him.

We refer to him as our class clown. He loves to make people laugh. He enjoys cars and trucks, but his true passion is sports! He plays baseball 75% of the day, with his siblings and also alone (he has just figured out how to "self-pitch"). He asks for the "Vee on, me watch baseball, Bue Jays!!!" Atleast 6,834 times a day I hear "Me hit ball, Me run". I think it's fitting he is named after 2 All-Star baseball players!

His other favourites are his blanket (a fleece Mickey blanket I made him while pregnant with him) and his thumb.

Part of the reason for my hiatus is that we had a health scare with Linebacker at the beginning of the month. He had sudden onset of pain, difficulty breathing and they couldn't figure out what was going on. We spent a week in the hospital with him, with Daddy sleeping there with him and Me (with Boy Wonder) spending the days there and coming home at night. It was a long week with lots of tears and prayers but in the end, it appears everything is rectified and his surgical scars have healed amazingly. Daddy had an unexpected week off, which is not a good thing when you're self-employed, but BFFs to the rescue and we were able to get by.

I don't know what our lives would be like if God hadn't given us this little man, but I bet they would be a whole lot more serious! I seriously love the joy this kid brings to all of us everyday!

Spotlight: Strawberry

Today I'm going to focus on Strawberry.


Strawberry got her nickname due to her red hair. She is 3 1/2 years old, but seems much older. She is the 2nd child and only girl, sandwiched between a bunch of boys. She can play hard but is also very (read: VERY) sensitive.

She is a caretaker of her brothers, whether they like it or not. She is always filthy, always. She eats with her hands, despite numerous reminders to use utensils, she is usually covered in marker and can't even look outside without being covered in dirt. Yup, she's our princess! Daddy and I often joke that in the future, she'll have to be in a pretty serious relationship before they ever do any type of "food date" just to be certain the suitor doesn't scare off too easily.

She loves her Daddy, she is definitely his little girl. She hates bugs, like really hates, she has a full on anxiety attack over a fly near her. She can be clumsy, and something always "hurts". We were in the van the other night, and just for fun I said, "[Strawberry], what hurts right now?" Her response, "Nothing.....just my knee a little". She likes to count her booboos, and says, "here is one, if you look really really close, it is just a wittle one".

She has Daddy and her brothers wrapped around her little finger. They would do anything to protect her.

Strawberry with her Knights in shining armour.

She is a sweet little girl and will be starting homeschooling this fall, she is so excited to do her own school, not just busy work.

She has a desire to manage a home already, she enjoys observing and helping me with the Stewardships (chores) around the house and I am trying to remember to train her in these areas.

It will be fun to see who she grows into, we have no doubt she'll be pretty sassy, though. Must be the fiery red-head in her!



For His Glory!

Spotlight: Dude

I was thinking that I would write a little bit about each of my kids. Then I realized this would be a good exercise for me, personally, to think hard about each of my children and what makes them who they are. This could be fun!

Today, I am going to focus on Dude.

He is our first-born, like me. He is 5 years old. He is stubborn and strongwilled, er...like me. He is full of Energy. All. The. Time. He has always been incredibly active. He started walking at 8 1/2 months old and has never looked back. He has his own way of doing things and is passionate about it (read: strongwilled). He is compassionate and sweet.

He loves playing with his siblings and has a special relationship with each of them.

His little sister, Strawberry, looks up to him and wants to please him and do everything he does. They are the best of friends....until they disagree.


He is a protector to his younger brother, Linebacker. When we went out to a store last week, he took it upon himself to hold his hand and get him in and out of the store safely. It was such a sweet moment.


He is just getting to know his littlest brother, Boy Wonder. He enjoys spending time with him and loves to work smiles out of him by doing crazy dances and funny faces.


Dude can be very difficult to corale some days, but I was listening to Focus on the Family's radio show last week and it gave me hope that this Strong Will is going to be a positive thing one day. We just have to get there.

Dude is going to be working at a 1st grade level this fall, he has a love for learning that we hope to maintain and build on. He is very inquisitive right now and we are doing our best to satiate his need for knowledge. I can't wait to get to know who this little man is going to grow into!


For His Glory!

Looking ahead

I have spent the last few weeks getting things planned and in order for the fall. I am really excited to do more formal schooling with Strawberry in addition to Dude and have 2 kids to work with everyday. I have a lot of thoughts for this coming school year, and I think we will have a lot more intensity this year. This year kind of worked as our prep year to get the kids used to doing some formal activities and to start some scheduled times during our day.

I have laid out all my plans and here they are:


I have laid out a plan of action for each child. Daddy and I have to have, what I hope will become, our annual goal setting meeting. We will sit down and make a plan for each child as to what we hope they will accomplish in the coming school year and set some goals for each.

Our plans:

* Contiue using our Children Desiring God curriculum with Dude and Strawberry and include Linebacker informally.

* Continue using Math U See Primer with Dude

* Teach Strawberry to recognize and write her numbers, if accomplished start her on MUS Primer

* I took the plunge and ordered All About Learning Press curriculum last night (already got the shipping notice this morning!!!). Dude will be using All About Reading level 1 and All About Spelling level 1. Strawberry will be using All About Reading pre-reading level. Now, I just have to wait patiently for it to arrive....and check the tracking obsessively.

* I plan to use The ABCs for Godly Children (which was included in one of the e-bundles I've purchased) for Dude and Strawberry.

* I am going to use Expedition Earth (all included in the e-bundle) to help teach some geography

* I want to work through a book list with the kids and have some comprehension questions to go with them.

* There was a good resource in an e-bundle I have about notebooking, and so that is in the plan as well.

* I am going to work in some LOTW and RRSP activities for Strawberry.

* I want to prep some lapbook games and busy bags for their workboxes as well. That way I can plan one child doing a game/activity independantly while I work more intensely with the other one.

* I am also going to try to have a bit of a totschool routine with Linebacker

* I want to include Darlene's prayer cards for children into our morning prayer time. I have them printed and 1/2 cutout, just need to laminate and put on a ring for each child.


I can't wait! I have a lot to do to prep for the year, but I am an organizing junkie who loved school, so that shouldn't be hard for me. I am so excited to get in our new schoolroom with all our new plans and start....Hopefully the kids will be excited, too.


For His Glory!

Homeschool Schedule mid-year changes.

After an extended Christmas break....okay, okay, November until the middle of January type extended break, we are back at it! I took the week before we started up again to re-evaluate our plans and the things we were doing and decided we needed to change things up a little.

We started the year out with this schedule that I blogged about back in September: Our Homeschool Learning, but are now on a new schedule and it seems to be going great so far!

The 1st change I made was to scrap the calendar binders, honestly they got boring and old quick. We now just start by putting the date up on our calendar

Each day we just add the date, and then say the day and month. This is what we are using as our calendar. I just created and laminated the month cards and the number cards myself, and did a different theme for every month.

After we do the date, we pray. This is something I didn't think to add to our schedule in September. The kids each take a turn thanking Jesus for things, usually for Daddy's work, his safety at work, and hoping for a good time with school today.

After our prayer time we sing a song. I try to find it on YouTube to play and we sing along. Today we did "Our God is an Awesome God". They are just learning these songs and are not able to sing a long very well right now but they love it and I think they will know the songs soon enough!

Next we do our Bible memory verse. KDude (age 5) memorizes the verse he is supposed to for Sunday School each week and Strawberry (age 3) is memorizing the verses that I ordered with our Bible curriculum. They are both excellent at doing this and Strawberry surprises a lot of people when she recites a verse complete with correct reference at 3 years old. We do 1 verse a week and it seems to be exactly the right pace for both of them. Once they are readers there is so much more we could do during this time.

After we do our memory work it is on to what they call "Bible Time".

We are still using the same curriculum we started with, which was Children Desiring God's "He Established a Testimony". The only change we have made in the Bible teaching time is that I have complimented this curriculum with Betty Luken's Bible in Felt. It is a little pricey but will be used for so long that it is completely worth it. Just get ready to cut! The 600+ pieces it advertises.....you cut each one of them out. This has really helped engage the kids during the story, instead of trying to picture it for themselves they remember because of the visuals. This week's lesson is about Abraham and Sarah and the birth of Isaac.

The next subject we move on to is Math. We are still using Math-U-See's Primer. On Monday's we watch the video of Steve instructing the week's lesson

Then there are 6 worksheets pages per lesson and we just divide those up through the week. Dude did the first one for this week today, we are doing the first lesson on addition!

We finish off everyday with our Language lessons. Dude has now mastered his letters upper and lowercase. He knows which upper goes with which lowercase letter. He can write them all, and he can find them if I call them out. So, we have moved on to the sounds they make in preparation for reading. I found an amazing site to help with this (and more advanced stuff too). It is Starfall. We have just started with 3 letters per day, and he works through them himself and checks them off on his list as he completes each one. We will likely repeat this cycle a few times until he really gets it.

There you have it. Our new homeschool day. This is the reason I love homeschool, we can just change anything at anytime to make it suit us. This schedule is going really well and we are really learning a lot with it. YAY! So, we will continue like this....until its time to freshen it up again, that is.


For His Glory!