Our weekend...

We had a very nice, relaxing weekend.  Not a whole lot accomplished except family time :)  Could anything be better?

There was soldier playing...

Sarah enjoyed her new maze book...

Jonathon also got into the soldier playing...

Samuel and Jonathon created books (with Katie's help :).  This one is Samuel's :)...

Sarah moved onto the dot~to~dot book, while Madelyn took over the maze book...

A little bit of chess...

Lots of drawing and coloring.  This is Jonathon's picture of the Tiger Tank and the Sherman Tank.  He told me all about both this weekend...

We also ~

created all sorts of "shopping lists",

watched video's online about different tanks,

of course chores,

worked on a new puzzle,

Emma sketched in her new sketchbook,

played computer games,

Emma researched about her favorite characters on some TV shows,

Katie enjoyed a couple of movies with some friends,

the boy's sorted soldiers by color and common characteristics,

read books,

and played the game Zitternix.

How was your weekend?...

Christmas pictures, FINALLY...

Ya, I'm a little behind ;)  Oh well, here they are!...



M...



I think Santa came :)...



There's still room for more stockings!...



Isn't that an AMAZING photo?...



Stocking time...



Wow, between Granny, Grandpa and Santa...they did alright :)



Enjoying our new things...

Of course that's not all of the pics, but it gives you an idea of how wonderful our day was!! :)

Talk to ya soon...

The Feast of St. Nicholas...

     A little late on this, but better late than never :)  December 6th was the Feast of St. Nicholas.  Here are some pictures from some of our activities...



Our yummy candy cane coffee cake from Catholic Cuisine



Our goody basket, the kids really enjoyed all of these treats ~ even into the next day :)



Our gold coins...a big THANK YOU to the awesome mommy at Shower of Roses for creating the document of St. Nicholas gold coin covers!



J working on a St. Nicholas puzzle



P is enjoying a treat after working on his puzzle



S and another puzzle



K is working on a St. Nicholas memory game



Some help from P and M



P is cheering K on after she was successful at a match!!

I got the puzzles and the memory game from another wonderful website: The St. Nicholas Center

Enjoy your day!! :)

On large families and frugal living...

     Having a large family means many things are done differently ~ obviously.  I know this, I live this...but for some reason some things I/we continue to do as if we were a family of say 3 or 4.  Those things have to change :)

     We store clothing the children have outgrown in large bins for use by other children (some of those clothes are on their 4th child :), we purchase good, solid homeschooling books that can be handed down, I make copies of consumable workbook pages (if allowable by copyright laws!), to save from having to re~purchase every year, we re~use and recycle what we can, and we purchase used as frequently as possible!  I took a test online once to see what kind of carbon footprint we are leaving on God's beautiful planet earth.  Believe it or not, our carbon footprint is actually LESS than the average family of 4's!!  So, we are doing something right.  But, still some changes need to be made.

      One area that truly needs to change is our grocery shopping/meal planning and prep.  Somehow our grocery bill has skyrocketed to an unacceptable amount.  I still continue to make a menu ~ that includes all 3 main meals, plus 3 snacks for the kids EVERY day.  They have to have their snacks or else they ALL end up with low blood sugar levels, which is no fun!! :)  I'm not quite sure what has happened to our bill, but I am on a mission to lower it. 

     So, I started hunting yesterday for more ways to cut back on the grocery bill.  I googled all sorts of things, but the one that brought me to a treasure was bulk cooking for large families.  That took me to an amazing womans blog entitled: bakers dozen. This woman is amazing.  She has 14 children (that she homeschools by the way :), and she feeds them on about $800.00 per month!!  I am actually devouring her blog during every free moment (which aren't many) I have ~ and LOVING it!

     This morning I am sitting here with my pen and paper out and taking notes.  I am finding this all very exciting!!  The chance to save my hardworking husband MORE money ~ YES!!!!!!!  I can do this!!  Wish me luck!! :)

 

They're 5...

Yesterday the boys turned 5!!  I'm not quite sure where the time went, but it sure did go by fast!!  Here are some pictures from our little party :)

 

  

 

 

  Enjoy your day!! :)

Ma & Pa Scarecrow...

The kids have sparked an interest in scarecrows, among other things!!  So, while at the library last week, we checked out a few books about scarecrows!!  Yesterday they had a blast making scarecrows in the front yard!



The book they took out to help them *create* their scarecrows :)



J showing everybody that they needed to use straw and "not leaves"!













Didn't they do a great job?

Talk to ya soon...

Just for you...

This was the view outside of our front window yesterday morning!  Absolutely gorgeous!!

Here are a few pictures of the kids playing out in the sun & leaves!

Talk to ya soon...