Friday Favorites

Hey friends! Happy Friday!! This week has been a doozy! Because I had 2 weeks off for COVID, I've been working extra to play catch up, which has kept me away from the house so I feel super behind in life. But, this weekend my parents are coming in to town to celebrate Gretchen's 13th birthday! I cannot believe she's turning 13 and we will officially have a teenager in the house. 

I'm linking up today with Andrea and Erika and sharing my Friday Favorites, which is a super random mess of things. 

Last Saturday we headed to Houston for the day to see DJ's sister and brother in law. They were in town for a visit with MD Anderson, and we were able to drive over and have lunch with them. Seeing them for a few hours was definitely a favorite! 

After lunch, we headed to the Galleria mall and let the girls (and DJ) ice skate. 

DJ was the best helping the girls skate around. 

We took the girls ice skating last year, and Adalyn told us that she wants to go ice skating 1 time every year. Ha! 

Gretchen had just fallen before this picture, but look at Adalyn behind her! It cracks me up! 

These people are my favorite. 

And this picture cracks me up! 

Having a Saturday with our entire family is pretty rare because of football, but now that the season is officially over, having DJ home more is definitely a favorite! 

Last Friday, I dropped Megan off at gymnastics and went to TJ Max, Target, and Ikea. Y'all, those few hours were pure bliss. I picked up new pillow covers at Ikea that were $5.00 each and it gave my couch some fresh life. 

I'm always in the mood to redecorate and freshen up in the new year. 

I've been making a sourdough starter since the day after Christmas, and while the 1 time I baked bread didn't turn out, lots of sweet treats have! I made the yummiest sourdough banana muffins this week. 

I came home from work and these girls had a new trick! 

I found the cutest striped dress for Target, and it comes in multiple colors. It will definitely be a favorite as we head in to Spring. 

Earlier this week, Young Living announced a 10% sale on two of their starter bundles!!! Sales don't happen often, so when they do, it's definitely a favorite! 

The Holiday Starter bundle has a leopard print carrying case, the sweet aroma diffuser, hand sanitizer, and 9 essential oils. 

The Desert Mist bundle has a diffuser, samples of Ningxia, hand sanitizer, thieves spray, roller fitment tops, and 12 essential oils! 

And when you grab either kit, I'm gifting you a $20.00 credit! 

And finally, I was thankful that I had this stashed in my fridge when I burned my finger on the griddle! Ouch! 

Alrighty, that was a long list of random favorites!!! If you're new here, leave a comment and let me know! I'd love to connect with you!

Find me on Instagram! 

 

Homeschool Day in the Life

I thought it would be fun to share a fairly typical homeschool day with y'all, in case you're needing ideas of how to structure your days. Of course, some of our days look different, and some days subjects last longer, or kids need more help, or we get started earlier, or later..... the beauty of our homeschool days is that they're super  flexible and we make it work for us. 

I am not an early riser. I told myself that I would wake up around 7:30 on homeschool days that I'm off work, but honestly, I don't do it. The girls typically wake up when DJ leaves for work, and they watch TV, make their own breakfast, feed the dog, and watch more TV. I usually get out of bed around 8:30 or 9. (I'm ashamed to admit that, but I'm much more pleasant with 12 hours of sleep.) Once I wake up, I eat breakfast, and make sure the girls have had breakfast- because some days they wait and don't eat, or they want to eat a 2nd breakfast. Breakfast and getting dressed/ready for the day takes about 45 minutes. 

On good days, we start around 9:30, and some days, we start around 10. 

Megan and Adalyn will start with their handwriting notebooks. We use The Good & The Beautiful for handwriting. Now, Texas doesn't require handwriting, but Megan's handwriting was awful and rushed last year, and I felt that Adalyn needed the practice too, so they're both using Level 2. Megan actually just finished her handwriting workbook and Adalyn is a few weeks from finishing, so I went ahead and ordered Level 3 which starts cursive. Megan never learned cursive, and I heard that our public school teaches it in 2nd grade, so I thought they at least need a foundation in cursive handwriting. 

After handwriting, they write in their journals. I purchased these from the dollar spot at Target, and each day, they write 4-6 sentences about anything they want. I read their journal, correct the spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors, and write something back to them. We just started journaling this month. 

After journaling, we review work from the day before that needs to be corrected, work in a workbook for extra practice, and Adalyn completes a reading comprehension journal that her 1st grade teacher made, but nothing was actually finished from last year. They also work on spelling. 

While the girls complete those activities (fairly independently), I get dressed, make the bed, start laundry, etc. Then, I sit down with them and work. 

Adalyn starts with either math or her reading/language arts. On this particular day, we started with math. When Megan finished 2nd grade, her teacher sent her home with her math workbook, that was barely completed. I literally do not understand why their school buys workbooks, because they have come home with them the last 2 years, and they're basically brand new. We decided to use Megan's old 2nd grade math book for Adalyn's math curriculum. 

While I work with Adalyn, Megan gets online to complete her homeschool activities. She uses Easy Peasy All in One Homeschool. I chose this because it was readily available and free. I had looked at using The Good & the Beautiful with her, but all of their workbooks were sold out at the beginning of the school year. 

Easy Peasy is what Gretchen uses as well, and Gretchen is 100% independent, so I didn't document her day, but I'll share it at the end :) 

On this day, Megan started with science and is learning about the water cycle. Adalyn and I finished her math, and we made a water cycle in a bag with Megan. 

Then it was time for lunch. The girls fix their own lunches and we take about an hours break to watch a show, eat, and clean up. On this day, Adalyn took my phone and texted this selfie to their babysitter. 

After lunch, I sat down to help Megan with her multiplication from the day before. We decided to skip that day's math lesson, so she could review. 

Her lessons are set up with math, language arts, reading, and science. She completes the online activities, and then works in a work book for additional math and language arts practice. 

Once I was finished helping Megan, Adalyn and I worked through her reading lesson through The Good & The Beautiful. On this day, she had phonics cards practice. She likes to put them in a circle, and dance around to music. When the music stops, she reads the phonics cards. 

After we played this game, we finished her lesson which includes some grammar, spelling, and/or reading. 

We finish by 2:00 on good days. There are some days where we don't finish until 3. On this particular day, we finished by 2, and then did some baking together. The girls love baking or cuddling up to watch a movie. 

As far as history- Megan is working on states and capitals and learning about Texas history. Adalyn usually piggy backs on what Megan is learning. We also watch a lot of movies for history. The girls wanted to learn about Anne Frank, so we watched a movie about her over the last week, and toured her home online. 

We've incorporated other projects- like our Christmas Around the World. 

Every day we focus on handwriting, spelling, language arts, reading, math. Bible, Science, History are mixed in throughout the week in various fashions.

I mentioned above that Gretchen uses Easy Peasy All in One Homeschool as well. She is taking Language Arts, Reading, Chemistry, Pre-Algebra, and 2 History classes. She completes 5 days of 1 subject, and then does pre-algebra every day. So on Monday, she focuses on the entire week for language arts, plus pre-algebra. Tuesday, might be history plus pre-algebra. We found that she was taking a really long time to complete all of her subjects every day and pre-algebra was very overwhelming, so we opted to do 5 days of 1 subject in 1 day, and she's less stressed and happier with this method. 

Most days take around 3 hours for us to complete everything! I shared a homeschool update with activities here and you can read other updates here. 

 

Pantry Re-Organization

Every January, I get in the mood to de-clutter, re-organize, and re-configure spaces in our home that aren't quiet well functioning for us. One of the big projects I wanted to re-organize was our kitchen pantry. 

Here's a bit of the before.

We have hooks hanging on the door for lunchboxes, but we aren't using lunch boxes this year, and somehow we accumulated extra bags. The floor of the pantry started to become over crowded, as did the top of the pantry. 

I had things on the shelf rather than in the bins, and that was driving me insane, because it didn't feel like anything had a "home."

The baking section (on the top) was a mess after all of our Christmas baking. 

So, I took everything out, except the air fryer. 

Then I cleaned all of the shelves and wiped everything down so it would be fresh and clean.

I slowly started to add things back in. I started with the baking section, and refilled our flour and sugar canisters. Then I placed, cooking spray, and oil, oats, vanilla, and finally contained smaller bags of baking supplies in a clear box.

The next shelf holds dinner staples- pasta, chicken broth, mac & cheese, etc. 

The box next to it holds our "mexican" pantry staples such as rotel and enchilada sauce.

 Below it, we have breakfast boxes.... cereal, cereal bars, pancake mix, granola, peanut butter, syrup, etc. 

Next to the breakfast, I have two bins for snacks. I keep snacks at eye level for the girls, so when they want a snack, it's really easy to reach in, and make a quick choice because they can see everything. 

Now, on the floor, we only have trash bags, dog food, my oil box, and a big box of extra snacks. (I need to find a cute basket, but we have a chip box we've used for the last year or so.)

The after is so much better than what we started with and I'm less stressed when I open the pantry door! 

Pantry Organization Tips:

1. Take everything out so you can see the space you're working with

2. Clean the shelves, and any bins that you use.

3. Refill canisters, throw away anything expired.

4. Use bins to store and organize. I use clear, plastic bins and have some large, and some small (think shoe box size). I store the lids under each box. I use the bins with lids, because when we go on a road trip in the car, or need to put snacks in the camper, I can quickly grab the snack bin, chips, breakfast, etc. put the lid on, and put it in the car, so we have snacks on the go. Also, because we've moved so much, it makes packing the pantry a breeze. We just put the lids on the boxes, pack, and move. 

5. Categorize your boxes and areas. I have all of my baking supplies together, then a box of chips, a box of dinner basics, a box of canned soups, a box for extra baking supplies we don't use often (like sprinkles and baking cups). 

6. Use wall space. I have command hooks that hold our broom, mop, aprons, and dust pan. Then we have command hooks on the door for lunchboxes. 

7. Buy what you need. I don't keep a ton of excess around because we don't have the space for it. Our last pantry was larger than the one we currently have, so I just don't buy a ton of extra cans, etc. 

8. Keep snacks at eye level for kids. I do have a large box on the floor of the pantry for extra snacks (because we buy in bulk at Costco) but I only put out a few snacks at a time and when they're gone, I refill the snack bins. 

9. The top shelf holds things that we don't use often- decorative platters, vases, and our air fryer. Don't forget to use spaces above the fridge or microwave- you know- those smaller cabinets that are hard to reach- for storage. I ended up moving things out of the pantry and into the smaller cabinets that we weren't using so we would have extra room.

Now that our pantry is organized, it's easy to find exactly what we need and put things back exactly where they go! 

 

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday friends! 

First, can I just say that this week has been a whirlwind of emotions for me. Last weekend, I lost my Instagram account and I'm having to start over building my community there. I also realize that it's social media, and only a snippet, but I worked hard to create the community and online content, and in an instant, it was taken away, and despite completing the help forms, I don't think I will ever be able to get it back. I told DJ that I felt like my house had burned down and I lost all of my memories. (and I realize that's a harsh comparison, because I've never had a house burn down), but it hurts more than I thought it would. If you're feeling up to it, you can click here and follow my new IG account. 

On top of that, we have been in quarantine, and I've felt sluggish and my allergies are insane this week. So, the groove I had so desperately hopped to be in to by now, has been halted and staled and that's hard too. 

Now, on to some not so depressing stuff. 

While we've been home, I've been taking full advantage of spaces that needed to be cleaned or re-organized. I updated our entry way with removing some signs, hanging a new eucalyptus ring, and switching out the rugs. 

Sunday morning, we woke up to snow fall, and these girls were excited! It's been a long time since we've had a "real" snow, and it's rare enough for Austin to get snow. 

The flakes were fat and puffy and the girls put on what snow gear we had and headed outside. 

Catching snow flakes on your tongue is always fun. 

Eventually the snow started to really accumulate, so the girls made snow angels, snowmen, and had snowball fights. 

I think in all, they made 5 snowmen! 

DJ eventually went out to join them to help make snowmen, and it ended up in a big snowball fight. I was happy to watch the fun from the porch. 

Gretchen received a pretzel making kit for Christmas, so she made soft pretzels on Sunday afternoon. 

We had another snow day on Monday, and the girls cleaned the upstairs while I worked on organizing the pantry, and we ended the evening with 3 little helpers in the kitchen. 

We did some minor school work last week and skipped on Monday, so Tuesday was a full homeschool day and Megan decided her favorite place to do schoolwork was on the kitchen counter. 

The girls watched a TV Show, where they created little photo props, so after the show was over, the girls created their own photo props and had a photo shoot. This kept them entertained forever and I was able to get some chores done. 

I had sourdough discard I wanted to use, so we baked chocolate chip cookies this week! Yum! 

Adalyn was missing her summer babysitter, so she grabbed my phone, sent her a text, and this selfie. 

Wednesday night was spaghetti night, so we used more of our discard to make breadsticks! 

We have loved having lots of family time the last few weeks, but the girls are excited that we're able to break free and play with neighbors and get back in to gymnastics and dance!

Have a blessed weekend! 

 

Homeschool Update

We officially have 1 semester of homeschool under our wing, and while we don't know if we will continue to homeschool, I have to admit that it's something I have thoroughly enjoyed. I decided to tweak a few of our systems as we head into a new semester

One thing I really want to encourage this semester is more independent reading. Gretchen is fine and reads more than anyone could imagine. Megan often reads to Adalyn at night, but Adalyn isn't one to go and grab a book on her own. 

Enter in.... warm fuzzies. 

We were using warm fuzzies to help the girls get motivated when we started homeschooling. For each day completed, they earned a fuzzy, and after 30 fuzzies, they received $5.00. Yup, I payed my kids to homeschool. We have never been consistent with allowances, so this seemed like a good plan for us. 

But, we're changing it up this semester..... every time the girls read a book they can put a warm fuzzy in their jar. Once they get to 30, they'll earn $5.00. 

So, now I'm just paying them to read. 

I had seen the idea of paying your kids to read on Facebook, but never thought it would work in our home because of how much Gretchen reads. She would literally make me go broke. I couldn't afford her. But, with this system, I can afford all of them, and if they aren't earning the money, then ultimately, it falls on them. 

Adalyn has started to pick up books on her own now and it's working really well. 

I found these story dice in Target's dollar section. We really need to work on journaling with the girls, so I thought these would be great for days that they can't come up anything to write about.

I also picked up these little journals in the dollar spot. Megan and Adalyn are using them for daily journal writes. Each day, I read what they wrote, and edit their capitalization, spelling, and punctuation, so they can have feedback. 

And finally, I found this clock in the dollar section for us to use with telling time. 

I have a few more things that we're going to be implementing, but we used last week to ease back in to our routine, so those updates will come in the next week or so. 

And finally, I asked the girls what they wanted to learn about for history and Megan chose Anne Frank, so we are working that in to our lessons as well.