Wife, Then Mama

Apologetics is something I have recently become interested in, and honestly didn't even really know what it was until the last year or two.  Since I have discovered this topic, I have wondered why more people don't talk about it on a regular basis and teach it to people more often. I have read a few books on the matter in that time, including God's Crime Scene for Kids.  I think it is fantastic that people are writing books to deepen children's faith and their ability to defend it.  When children are little, they take your word as truth, but as they get older, they can sometimes start to question things.  With books like God's Crime Scene for Kids, you can preemptively give them the answers they are seeking, or point them in the right direction when the question arise. This book doesn't talk down to children at all, and it uses a "real life" mystery to mirror the "mystery of creation".  It is a fun, child-friendly mystery, not a grit

Soooo.  I got my gorgeous corset from Orchard Corset a few months back.  I seasoned it, I loved it, I wrote about it . Then I got a job baby-sitting at someone else's house.  Which left me either a) not waist training, b) wearing my corset 10+ hours a day (which some people do) and/or messing with it as someone else's house, or c) wearing it in the evenings. See how it pushes away from my body at the top? That is because I don't wear it enough to tighten it at the top without bending the boning. The more you wear a corset the better it looks, feels, and fits! As the lazy person I am, you can probably guess which option I took.  Then I came back home to baby-sit, but now it has been 90 degrees most days, and I just haven't wanted to lace up! However, I still got my corset for free from Orchard Corset, and I feel like I should really attempt to keep up my end of the bargain better than I have been.  But since I don't really have any update pictures, w

I am going to share the rest of my Alphabet Island pictures.  For June, Mother Goose Time sent us curriculum designed around an theme, and it really was a lot of fun until I got off of my schedule. In this first set of picture, my son is creating a picture of the sun.  With rays coming off of it.  Unfortunately all I can see is sperm, but hey that is what I get from my years of infertility I guess? One day we made crabs.  Little Guy was irritated (again) that I cut out the shapes for the littler boys so they look more "professional" than his.  Buy I really think that cutting them himself is important, so I make him push through.  We were supposed to put either sand or tiny rocks in them, but since I didn't think the people I baby-sit for would want sand or rocks all over the house we just left them empty. The blue and tan pictures are sand pictures.  I thought the cellophane was a fun touch.  I love that Mother Goose Time always sends a variety of diff

Have I ever mentioned before that I am A WRECK without a schedule.  Yeah, I am sure I have, many, many, many times.  Anyways, I had a pretty good run of getting everything done, then the boys I baby-sit started coming to my house, throwing off the routine I had gotten into (although I really prefer it this way).  After that my mom came to visit for 3 weeks (YAY!).  During the time my mom was here, free lunch at the park started.  Needless to say my house is a mess and Mother Goose Time is not being done daily and blogging isn't being done regularly.  Okay, that is the end of my explanation/excuse. *Confession: I lost the Teacher's Guide to Alphabet Island, between bringing it back and forth from baby-sitting and completely cleaning out my homeschooling cupboard I have no idea where it went.  So none of the Alphabet Island activities will have names anymore unless I find the guide.* This is the set-up for the Invitation to Create.  The boys were making Sailboats.  Poo

Last summer I decided that I was going to homeschool our foster daughters while they were on summer vacation.  There were two reasons for this: 1) Two of the three girls were behind academically.  I really hoped that by working through the summer we could help them get on track for the next school year.  They left our house soon after school started, so I don't know how well it worked. 2) I don't allow my children much in the way of screen time, and these girls were accustomed to having TV and tablets in their rooms all the time.  So they never really knew what to do with themselves.  I figured school work for the morning would help with that dilemma. Choosing a curriculum was difficult for me.  I know that some people bounce around and change curriculum a lot, but whatever I got, I hoped I would like enough to use the non-consumables with Little Guy.  I don't like wasting money, and I hate the idea of some topics falling through the cracks because different curricu

After a very fun first day of our trip to Alphabet Island this month, we were ready to learn about boats!  You can't very well set sail with out something to sail in after all! Once again we started our day with our brand new coloring books, this time putting some "b's" on a boat before coloring it.  Little Guy said the b's were something, but I can't remember what...  I should write down notes more often. They we did some Island Exploring, which was using our "magnifying glasses" to look at the theme poster.  On the back of the magnifying glasses there is always a question and a charades style prompt, adding to the fun.  Little Guy has always loved this part of Mother Goose Time , probably because he has always been good at it.  One of the twins actually did really well at finding the matching picture too.  I was supposed to bury the magnifying glasses in sand and have them dig to find them, but since I don't have any clean sand, and I don&

Raising children can be expensive.  According to Wikipedia (the ever reliable sort) the average spending per year, per child, is approximately $9500 for dual parent families, making less than $59,410.  I am about 99% sure that I don't spend nearly that much on Little Guy, and 100% sure that families with more than 3 children cannot possibly spend that much, seeing as how the average income of the families surveyed was $38,000.   Regardless of how much children do or do not cost, it is always great to find ways to make it less expensive.  One of the easiest ways to save money is to spend less on clothes. Shop at Second-Hand Stores!  Children grow quickly, so spending $25 on a pair of jeans that will only fit them for a few months isn't the wisest way to spend money.   Purchasing second hand clothes is ecological as well as economical.  If no one bought used clothes, all of the clothes that no longer fit children would be in landfills, despite having lots of wear le

Now for most people. this might not be brag-worthy, but for me, it is a bit of an accomplishment: We have done ALL of the activities (well, not the STEAM stations) for FOUR DAYS IN A ROW! Last month we tried to do Mother Goose Time  with the boys that I baby-sit, but it wasn't a huge a huge success, unless torn paper and slobbery manipulatives are successful. I decided that I would try again at the beginning of each month, because at two, children really can mature a lot in 30 days.  I had much better luck, and although I don't think the little boys are really grasping the point of anything, I think they at least kind of like it.  Little Guy is pretty stoked because now we can do Mother Goose Time everyday again. This month's theme is Alphabet Island, and for the first week we were "Setting Sail". The summer months with Mother Goose Time are all about review, hence the alphabet twist to the island theme.  Day one was just about Islands in general. Ther

So.  May, much like April, was not our biggest success, Mother Goose Time -wise.  What we did was fun, but it was not very much.  The last day (that we completed) was Praying Mantis Day.   We started out with the Invitation to Create, which would have been much better if I had brought regular glue, rather than a glue stick, but either way, Little Guy had fun, which is really what matters when it comes to art projects.   I don't remember exactly what he did with each thing, because the glue didn't hold the pipe cleaners on, so it went in the garbage as soon as he wasn't paying attention, but he did tell me what everything was.  It wasn't until the last few months that he has really planned what he is doing, and been able to describe his art to me after he finishes, so I am always happy when he can. Little Guy is so good at cutting now, but his children's scissors were no match for his limited cutting skills, so for the pipe cleaners, he told me whe

Butterflies are one of the only tolerable bugs in my opinion.  Ladybugs and bees are the only other bugs that don't send me in the other direction.  Butterfly day with  Mother Goose Time  this month had such fun activities! We started out with Camouflage Matching, which was a matching game focusing on the way that butterflies can blend in with their surroundings.  Little Guy doesn't LOVE matching games, because he is always a bit perturbed when he doesn't get a match and I won't let him flip over more until he gets a match.  However, he actually is very good at the game after the first few turns.  After we played I had him count how many cards I had and how many he had, then tell me who had a greater amount.   Then we played Butterfly Migration.  After talking about what kind of weather butterflies like, as well as what kind of weather Little Guy likes (sunny on both counts), I had Little Guy go clean up his playroom while I hid the puzzle pieces around the r

We have had many, many foster children.  Since July 2013 we have had more than 20 children live with us for some period of time. I am going to be super honest here.  We are not amazing, selfless people.  The reason we started doing foster care was to adopt a baby.  I can't get pregnant, and I wanted to be a mother.  Out of the 20 plus children we have had, only a handful of them have felt like "ours".  Miss Baby was our first placement, and it killed me inside when she left to go live with her grandma.  Little Guy never left, he really is ours!  In March 2016 Bitty Baby went to live with her dad.  Although I was sad to see her leave, I was very happy that her dad was going to have her (he wanted her as soon as he found out she was his).  Tomorrow, Baby Girl is leaving.   The fact that this was surprising to me is my own fault!!  There was a family member that wanted her, but wasn't able to get certified.  Once they told us that she wouldn't be leaving to g

Last April we did an entire unit on Bees & Butterflies , so Little Guy has had a fondness for bees since then.  He was quite happy about Bee Day being included in Bugs & Crawly Things.   We started with There Are Bugs, which is our storybook this month.  Each month we get a new book to add to our collection.  It is great because they are unique books, most of the time created specifically for Mother Goose Time , plus they offer a lot of variety.  Some months we get fiction books, others the book is non-fiction or a concept book (like the alphabet, counting, or mixing colors).  I always leave the Mother Goose Time books out for Little Guy to look at when we are done.  *I have also recently found that the binding is ideal for reading aloud to groups of children.  They are sturdy enough to stand up without much support, but light enough to hold comfortably in your hand.* There Are Bugs is a fun book that mixes the Mother Goose Time illustration style with photographs of b

This month we are learning all about the types of creatures that I hate.  The theme is literally called Bugs & Crawly Things.  YUCK! However,  Mother Goose Time  can make even the grossest things interesting and fun.  For the first week we were learning about Backyard Bugs. Let me start by stating the obvious:  We are behind (again). I started baby-sitting this week, and although I had planned on bringing the MGT goodness with me to do with the boys, they simply tore apart all of the art projects and chewed on the manipulatives.  But we are gone all day, and getting up early, so finding time for MGT is problematic.  We leave at 6:30 am, and get back around 5:00.  After dinner it is basically bedtime for the kids. Change is inevitable.  I hate that.  I don't function very effectively without a schedule, and every time I get something set up that is working, something changes, and I fall apart. Anywho.  Bugs, yucky stuff. Let's start with the tiniest little b

We did it.  We were a week late, but we finished our Birds & Eggs curriculum.  Yes, the art projects were skipped, but a lot of learning and a lot of fun were had.  For the next unit, we will just make sure we do a bunch of the art projects to make up for it! Our last week was all about Exotic Birds.  I think this was Little Guy's favorite week, just because he knows the names of most of them.  We didn't do the Birdwatcher day at the end, although I might let him make the binoculars another day, because he made a pair last winter during "Going on Safari" and promptly broke them.  Which he still talks about.  That and his rhino horn that he took to my mother-in-law's house and left there. Ostrich: Bird Egg, Big Egg was fun.  We talked about how big an ostrich is, as well as how big their eggs can get.  Mother Goose Time provided us with a photo of an ostrich egg, and we compared other items in the room (a really weird assortment of items including our poc