Bye-Bye Crockpot

“Everything’s impossible until somebody does it.” – Batman

Yep, it's a goner! 

Ran the dishwasher and then while unloading it I grabbed out the lid to my new crockpot and it just shattered all over the place. Big shocker!!!

While the shock wears off, head on over to my favorites gluten free (you will never know these recipes are gluten free) Crockpot website. A Year Of Slow Cooking She has a recipe for EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR!!! Our faves are the Rotisserie Style Chicken it rivals Costco! and Refried Beans, I do add a bit of bacon grease to these

Always read to the bottom of Stephanie's recipes because she give you a review by her family and any tweaks that she decides to make after they try the recipe.

Enjoy, while I shop for the new Crockpot or many an InstaPot???

Moe

Ahhhh...A Day Of Rest...

Winter blahs got you down? 

Surprise the kids today on Valentines Day!!

Shut those school books,

Let that laundry pile grow higher,

Grab some pillows and blankets,

Head to the living room and camp out for the day!

Some days you just need to chill out and this is one of those!

Enjoy those little ones while they are still yet little,

Play games with your junior high kids,

Hang with your teenagers...

Let them all have cookies and hot cocoa for lunch,

If you have the fixin's create some fun treats like the guy below.

Homeschool Mom, you are doing great! Create memories that last a lifetime with your kids and 

crack the school books open tomorrow...

Moe

p.s. It's Valentines Day, grab a nice hot shower before hubby comes home and have the kids do a quick 15 minute pick up of the living room before dad gets home.

Homeschool Rooms & Homeschool Spaces

I love to look at other home educator’s schoolrooms to get ideas for our school space.

This one is from Ikea and very COOL! You can see more pictures on Confessions of a homeschooler blog at  http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2011/08/our-schoolroom-on-ikea.html#comment-32408

Look how neat and orderly this is. WOW!!

Now, I will post a picture of our humble little home school area,
we use workboxes.

The Adoptive Mom Homeschooling An Only Child's version of the Workboxes, decorated using my Circut machine (love that thing!) and the Locker Talk cartridge. My Circut is my must have homeschool tool.

Using stacking drawers/bins from Hobby Lobby bought using my 40% off coupon of course!

Above is my built-in workbox from our home remodel. This space was two large windows in our dining room. Our contractor thought I was crazy when I ask him to do this, until he saw how many books we had! lol. Once he finished it and I had all the books and the drawers up there, he was pretty impressed by my idea.

This is our DREAM schoolroom! hahaha.. Yes, it is a dream, especially since our homeschooling days are numbered, might be something for a Veteran Homeschool Mom to enjoy.

I could not leave out my favorite home education sign that hangs in my dining room, the homeschool room. It’s from my friend and fellow homeschooling mom Sue. She gave it to me for Christmas a few years back, as she knows I love snowmen and I like to keep them up year round. I just love this! lol.

Moreover, yes, for those of you that don't homeschool or are new to the concept, we do take snow days off here and there. However, most often the subject matter or the conversations are just too exciting to stop for a snow day. Nevertheless, if the public school kids are outside playing or if they come knock on our front door, we do head outside for some playtime.

Homeschool Graduation Day...It's Here Already...

This is right where we are, hard to believe that we are done homeschooling. I came across Lee Binz website Lee Binz: TheHomeScholar back around the 7th grade when I was looking into homeschooling high school and thinking it was NOT POSSIBLE!!! Lee has some great ideas and tips and her Webinars are totally incredible and so full of great information that even the Homeschooled Young Man could be caught listening in to them!

Once I catch my breath, maybe life will slow down a bit, it's been a wild ride and busy time with college visits, applications, essays and fun stuff like that! We enjoyed our last homeschool convention and were so blessed to spend that time learning from college guidance counselor talks that were given. It was also a melancholy time of reflecting on the years gone by and a sad, but inexpensive time of shopping the vendor hall. It was sad to look at all the new curriculum's out there, yet have no need to buy anything. Of course I bought myself some goodies...lol.

We are embarking on some exciting uncharted territory for us with some interesting twists and turns along the way. But as the Homeschooled Young Man always tells me "God's got this." or "The Lord always takes care of us, don't worry." Got to love that little guy (well a big guy now!), who is now taller than me. And it's become obvious...lol.

Just turned 16 years old and graduating high school...WOW!

Graduation Day was a wonderful experience. One of our graduation requirements was that a speech had to be presented, no perimeters given, just a speech. I was totally not expecting what our son said during the speech, he left me speechless which is pretty hard to do! The Homeschooled Young Man spoke of many things, including the sacrifice that his Mom and Dad made to live on one income, to sacrifice the years of earning potential that I had, he mentioned some of the shenanigans that he pulled as a homeschooled student and recounted some of this favorite times. All the while his Momma shook and quaked with tears streaming. His first grade teacher was in the audience (now a homeschool Mom of 3 boys) had lost it right about the time that I did, she understood exactly what our son was saying from his heart.

The true blessing was that the Homeschooled Young Man spoke all of this from the heart, with no notes (which drives Homeschool Momma crazy because you must write notes for a speech in a rough draft form and then write the final draft notes on lined index cards!!!). There were not many dry eyes in the room, most of whom knew us from the very beginning before he was even born. They had wondered how this whole homeschooling thing worked and now they were enjoying the fruit of our efforts and the wisdom that the Lord had imparted upon us early on to homeschool.
Wow, what an exciting day, Homeschooled Young Man's birthfamily was with us for the day to celebrate (along with some of their friends), sadly without his birthmother who was killed by a drunk driver over Thanksgiving break in 2006 as she was driving home from grad school. But her memory is still with us and alive. For without her, we would not be parents. God is good, all the time, in the good and in the bad, God is good all the time.

Of course we have to have a graduation cake with our homeschool theme verse Matthew 4:19 "And He Saith unto them...follow me and I will make your fishers of men. And the favorite school subject...Chemistry!

Enjoy these new times and find the blessings while grabbing those last few fleeting hugs along the way.

Moe