Spring Reading List

Ok, I have decided to do this Spring reading thing from Callapidder days blog. Here is the link if you want to check it out for yourself. http://callapidderdays.blogspot.com/2007/03/spring-reading-thing-lets-get-reading.html

I love to read. As a kid, I can remember reading but not as much as I do now. I use to read The Babysitters Club books. V.C. Andrews and Mary Higgins Clark were my favorites as well. Now I love a good fiction book on occasion but for the most part, I like non-fiction. I love to read self help books on marriage, parenting, health, and anything pertaining to learning about Christ and the bible. Anyway, I am so up for this Spring reading thing because I have so many books in my midst that I need to read. Sometimes I am trying to tackle reading two to three books at once but that doesn't work to well. I am convinced that is my ADD. Ha Ha One book at a time Tanya! I hope they do a summer reading list as well.....

I will put my reading list on here and a reading list for the kids. I have started reading the kids chapter books. Dylan is almost 7, Matthew almost 5 and Mikayla almost 4 so they of course can't read chapter books yet. It is alot of fun and makes them use their imaginations. At first they thought it was weird and boring because there were no pictures to look at but I try to make it fun. The way I read for one makes it interesting. Using different voices and making expressions helps. Right now we are reading Bunnicula and we just love it. There are some parts that are funny and I laugh at them. This gets them laughing to because they see mommy enjoying the book with them. Some books in the past I have created props for them to have the kids use while I am reading to them. We just read the book The Mitten the other night by Jan Brett. Great book with awsome illustrations in it. Here is a link to make your own mittens for the story.

http://www.janbrett.com/put_the_animals_in_the_mitten.htm

If you scroll down to the bottem, there are other things you can print and make with the children to.

I am going to try to get as many books as I can but I might need to update this later. We are in the process of moving and I have all my books packed in boxes. I'm not sure that I will remembe them all but here goes.

Mom's Reading List:

• Child Wise (Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam, M.D.) (Finished)
• Raising respectful children in a disrespectful world (Jill Rigby)
• What you don't know, may be killing you (Don Colbert)
• What matter's most (Tony Evans)
• Carbohydrate Addicted kids (Dr. Richard Heller, Dr. Rachel Heller)
• My Hearts at home (Jill Savage)
• Parenting Principles from the heart of a pediatrician (William Slonecker)(Finished)
• Becoming a contagious christian (Bill Hybels)
• Drowning Ruth (Christina Schwarz)
• We were the Mulvaney's
• Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
• To kill a Mockingbird (John Steinbeck)
• East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
• Left Behind series (#8)

Childrens Reading list:

• Bunnicula (Deborah and James Howe) (Finished)
• The Pilgrims Progress (John Bunyan)
• Little House in the big woods (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
• Little House in the prairie (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
• Trumpet of the Swan (E.B. White)
• Jesus Freaks (DC Talk)
• The boxcar children (#1)

Well, here is the list but some might be missing. I will add them later when we unpack boxes. They are not in any order. There are alot of them so fininshing all of them by the end of Spring is unlikely but I will just add the rest to my summer reading list. I will update on here on a regular basis to let you know how the book is going and what it is about etc. Hope everyone has fun reading your books.

Happy Reading:)

A peek into my binder:)

I have a ton of pages of web sites that I like to use when I need to look
something up. My first page of web sites is toxic and non-toxic plants.
Then Internet links for health and safety. And last, helpful home school
websites. These are the ones I love:) Here are a couple of my favorites:
http://www.free.ed.gov/index.cfm
http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/
http://www.freemathworksheets.net/
http://www.softschools.com/

Check them out! And enjoy........

My school charts section includes a multiplication/division facts table,

basic use of capital letters, basic punctuation marks, Branches of

Government, Levels of Government, common misused words, suffixes

and prefixes, charts on Presidents, tables of common measurement,

lists of sight words and some math tables.

Auhh, the meat of the binder! The part that I don't have quite down

yet. This part is for scheduling your cleaning, kids chores and I have

home made cleaning recipes that I have been experimenting with. This
is my cleaning section.

I only have two recipes in this section so far. This section is meant to

include recipes you have just encountered and want to try out. If after

trying them, you like them, then remove from the binder and place in a

special recipe box etc. You don't want your binder to get to

overcrowded. If you have any good recipes, please share them. I love

to try new things.

I like to keep track of what the kids are reading as well as myself. I think it is a great way to look at the end of the year and see our progress. It is a great motivator for the kids also.


Side view of my binder. I have almost everything inserted into plastic

sheet protectors to of course protect the pages. With the kids, things

are always prone to spill:)

The first half of my binder is all about my homeschooling and the last

half is my home management.

I have to have the pens. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a penaholic. These pouches are nice for some storage especially if you take your binder elsewhere to work on it.

~Home Managment Binder~

Creating your binder can be a life saver if you are like me and scatter brained. I guess having ADD doesn't always help that either. That is why creating this binder has helped me in many ways. I needed help with organization and just keeping on task with certain areas during the day such as tackling the cleaning. I saw that I was one of those that cleaned all day long and it didn't look like it. I was scattered all over the house and doing the same things over and over like picking up things off the floor, washing dishes when there were some in the sink and sweeping etc. With a home managment binder you can tackle the visible things and also those areas that seem almost impossible to get to like cleaning out your fridge! One thing I hate to do and by looking at it, you can tell. And organizing closets, scrubbing things that you may scrub once a year because you just don't have time.

I have my home and homeschool binder all in one. This works for me but you may choose to have two seperate ones. For each section I just typed the title and added some of my clip art. The same for the binder cover although this will eventually change. I love to scrapbook so when things are settled down and moving is done, I want to make a nice scrapbook page for the front of the binder.

For more information on home managment binders visit these websites,

http://www.titus2.com/ecommerce/products/prod_listing.php/1100?review=0

http://www.flylady.com/pages/cjmain.asp

http://myblessedhome.blogspot.com/2006/11/my-home-management-binder.html#article

These are a few that I know of. The very first link (Keeping the home), scroll down Candy's blog and click on some of her friends blogs to look at some other binders ladies have made. It's neat to gain and share ideas between each other. Make this binder your life and your love. Spend some time making it and be creative. It is alot of fun! I will post some pictures of mine but I am always tweaking it some.

What does your binder look like?

What a tragedy this is. My heart goes out for the students, staff and the families of the lost ones. I pray that God will be with them and console them with his empathy and love. Bring their grieving hearts peace and stay beside them through all of this.

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb_lY_E4lOw

All Natural

Hubby and I have been contemplating for a long time now whether or not to do all organic and natural things. We didn't have to convince each other to long since this is the best for our bodies and for the children and their lives. We have slowly added things like changing our deodorant since there is a chemical in it called aluminum that can be very bad for you. We are switching our tooth paste as well. On the label on the back it warns of calling poison control if swallowed. I know it suggests if in a big amount but every time you brush your teeth you are going to swallow some of those chemicals in the tooth paste. Yes it may be a very little amount and you wont die from it then and there but what are the long term damages being done on your inside that you cant see? Any thing you put onto your skin only takes a matter of 30 seconds to penetrate the skin and wallow into your blood stream. That means everything you touch, taste and even smell gets into your body. When you put lotion on your hands, where do you think it goes. It doesn't just magically disappear. It soaks up in your skin and goes into your blood stream and then I don't want to even think about where it is going on from there. Read this article about that yummy tasting stuff your kids eat for breakfast. http://www.healthy.net/scr/news.asp?Id=8350 and they say that Pantene hair care products have a floor wax in it. That is what gives you all that shine you see on the commercials. I often wonder why there is such a rise on all those cancers and other health related problems now days. I suspect it is this very issue of having toxins? There are toxins in everything from cleaners, health and beauty products, and even food. When I told a relative about our life style change, the comment was "well you are going to die sooner or later?" I responded back with "I would rather die more later than sooner." Two great books to read are http://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Relief-Don-Colbert/dp/0884197603 and book from Kevin Trudaeu called Natural Cures they don't want you to know about. I have learned a lot of information from these books and there are many more books and information out there. Just shopping in the grocery stores the last months, I have noticed the shelves adding more natural and organic products. People are realizing all those chemicals are not good for you. We have switched our peanut butter to all natural, trying to buy some organic fruits and vegetables and have even bought Stevia instead of using the Splenda or Nutrasweet. There is so much to be learned. Just check your labels and if you cant read the ingredients then don't eat it. I will do some more posts in the future on things that I find or products that I change and start using. This is a slow process for us and alot of research is going into it. Here is a web site for making your own home made cleaners. www.doityourself.com

Tanya

The kids are still all snug in there beds with visions of candy bars dancing in their heads. Just kidding. I thought I would take a few minutes and do my blog before I start to get to busy and the kids get up. The weekend did seem to go fast. Maybe that is because we were really busy. We got alot of packing and cleaning done. My dad came up yesterday and shampooed my living room floor and Paul and I took the kids to my moms for awhile so they would stay out of his way. I have alot of boxes packed but still more to do and for sure some cleaning to do. This is our last week here and crazy as it sounds, I'm going to miss it. We have been here for almost three years and I really like this apartment. It fit us just right and we had the convenience of having the park, YMCA and the Library very close. Oh well, this is for the best.

Everyone is just getting over being sick. Everyone but Paul. It is so weird because usually he is the first one to get sick and I never do but I was hit with it hard this time. I was literally on the couch for three days. Now Mikayla and Matthew are fighting it off. Poor babies.

Paul and I are getting excited about starting our garden. Last year, I didnt do to much with it. I think I was to overwhelmed at how big it is. And the fact that Paul and I are the only ones that do work in it. My dad said he was going to join us this year. I think I might do some planting in my moms yard as well. I told her I would plant some pretty plants for her. We are of course going all organic which is a bonus for our bodies but it is so much more work to do the garden to keep it up then. Last year the bugs were really bad. We just need to continue to learn about new ways to do things and get educated. This is a learning process for me and it is fun. I am going to get the kids more involved with it this year because this is good stuff for them to learn as far as science stuff. It is also a great life skill to teach them and hopefully they will carry it on into adulthood. Oh, and did I mention it helps Paul and I out when we can have the kids slaving away for us? Just kidding. I do want my kids to learn what hard work is and team work. The kids back in the old days worked their butts off all day doing this and kids now days do nothing but sit in front of a television and play video games. What is that teaching them? I used to be one of those kids and my older son is like that because of the mistakes I have made in the past. Let me tell you that is not fun sitting back watching your child be a certain way or do a certain thing because you didnt teach him any different. And now that he is almost 13, it is so hard to change. And I get the back comments from him "well you used to let me do this and that". Trying to explain to him that I am not the same person I was then and that I want to teach him the right things is not always easy because he is not set in his ways. All I can do it pray for Gods guidance. Well anyway, I could go on and write forever because there is always so much to say. I of course have lots of fun walls to wash and should get started. The kids will be up soon wanting to eat.

Tanya

It's been a busy week

Trying to juggle home school with packing to move, having to run my own errands and trying to keep everything else in order has been a challenge the last few weeks. I'm so used to having Paul here to help me with those things and now that he has found a job, I am being forced to learn the ropes all over again. I think I became spoiled with those 2 years off with him just having to go to school. If I needed something at the store or my prescriptions picked up, I could just send him. When the kids had doctors appointments or swimming, he would always help with that. Although I miss the extra help, this is the way the Lord meant it to be and I am glad things are looking up from here on. God has been blessing us and taking care of us and our every need and I am so grateful for that.

We haven't been doing as much school as I would like with having to pack and clean but the kids are learning life lessons as well. I have to consider that part of our school. I started this new chore thing recommended by my best friend and sister Jodi. I have these things that look like work badges. They are just the plastic inserts with the clip so that you can attach them to your clothes. I write their name and their chores on a piece of paper and insert it into the plastic and they wear them. They have to wear their work badge until their work is complete. If I find it laying around or lost and their work is not complete, they get more work added. So far this has worked well and it is fun (See above picture of badge).

I'm so glad today is Friday. I am looking forward to the weekend. My dad is going to come over and shampoo our rugs with his huge shampooer from his work. What a blessing that will be. Less work for me because he wants to do it himself:) I hope to get more packing and cleaning done. Maybe even do some more work to this blog. They should have manuals for these things. I will be blogging soon.