First Day of (home) Kindergarten

This is so not what I thought my daughter's kindergarten class would look like! On Monday she started her first day of Kindergarten. Up until then we had been doing activities to help her learn and keep her busy, but nothing that I kept up with and made sure I did it regularly.

My big girl woke up that morning and was super excited. She excitedly helped me clean up the upstairs playroom which is what I turned into her homeschooling area. I gave both kids a bath and got them ready like they were going to school. I even put a bow in her hair. :) She kept asking, "I don't know what is taking too long?" Her excitement has helped put my mind at ease. Sorta.

I have always known that we were going to home school, however actually starting Kindergarten has turned me into a basket case. I am a bit confused about what I need to make sure she learns.

On Monday we went over letters and she knows every single one. We played a syllable game and she got the answer right every single time.

She is having a hard time with rhyming. She just does not understand it yet, but she will get there on her own eventually. We are going to play a rhyming game tomorrow that I hope helps her understand.

She knows how to count to 30 and she recognizes the numbers up to 9 as far as I know. She knows how to do simple addition such as 3 +5 = 8. She needs each number to be no more than 5 because she likes to count one number on one hand and the other number on the other hand. I am wondering how to teach her to count the numbers in her head. I did ask her the other day, "If I give you 7 dollars and Dada gives you 3 dollars, how many dollars do you have?" She thought about it a second and then answered it without counting on her fingers. However, after that she has counted on her fingers every time.

We read a story on Monday and I asked her questions about the story and she answered every single one right. It is very nice to know that she is comprehending what we are reading. I am actually very proud of her. I think she is doing very well, and she learns quickly. We are about to start her Hooked On Phonics computer game where it teaches her what sounds the letters make because she is really interested in the sounds right now.

I am pretty much trying to keep her a bit challenged, and also follow her interests. I am just confused on what subjects I should be teaching her. I also don't know how to organize our days. I have six activity boxes set up that I have been filling with something each day. I would like to possibly label each one with a subject and that way I can make sure they get a little bit of each. The subjects that I have come up with are Bible, math, language arts, crafts, fine motor skills, and science. Am I way off? Are there so many different things I am supposed to be teaching that I am not? I purchased some books at the teacher store, but I am very unhappy with them. They are mostly geared towards students in school so many of the activities don't work well for us. I need to go out and buy a whole new set of books again and I am worried that I will get the wrong books again. Any suggestions?

And don't worry. Once I get this all down I am going to work on decorating the upstairs. I have orange paint, and scrapbook paper that I plan to cover one wall with. I also have some paper letters that I am going to place around the room at the top of the wall. I also have a felt board that I have made and a felt calander I can't wait to hang. So excited!

Not Me! Monday Princess edition

I have not stressed myself completely out over my daughter's upcoming birthday party. She is having a princess party and actually very excited for the first time in her life for her birthday party. She knows which little girls we are inviting and she thinks that they are all coming. The party was supposed to be on the 6th, however I did not sent out invites for the party today. I did not push her party back to the 20th because I am not worried that none of her little girl friends will show up and then she will be heartbroken.

I did not just send all the invites out on the Internet in the middle of the night because I was not sick to my tummy that I have not done this yet.

My daughter and I did not make princess invites together weeks ago and I did not leave them within my two year old son's reach and he did not smear the glitter glue we did not use on the edges all over each invite. We actually have not made anymore, but I do promise that we will make some more before Wednesday so that she can hand them out to her little friends at Awanas.

I also did not schedule her party for the same day that I am doing an open house for my business Madison Rose Vintage. The open house does not end at 1 pm and the party does not start at 5 pm. Aghhhh! I didn't do this because I felt guilty for pushing her party back and just could not bring myself to make it any later than the 20th. I am at church all day on Sundays working in the nursery so that was not a possibility. Very few days I could choose actually.

I am also not stressed out over the open house. It will not be my very first time selling my vintage items outside of the world wide web! I have actually not purchased my folding table and I have no idea how I am going to set up all of my inventory. I have not put cute little price tags on anything. I have not passed out many fliers. I am not SCARED!

Fear does not paralyze me. Nope... not me!

Please visit Not Me! Monday over on McMama's blog to find out what all of us mamas have not been up to. :)

Involving Children in Charity

Recently I have really been trying to get my daughter and myself involved in giving her time to charity. Freely giving to others in need is one character trait that is at the top of my list that I would love for my kiddos to develop. I am very proud of my four year old daughter because recently she has been thinking about using her allowance to buy presents for her brother rather than for herself. Don't worry. She has so many toys that she can't even think of anything else that she wanted for her birthday. Yes. Greed is a trait that I would hate for my kids to develop, but I am afraid that them having almost everything that they could want (even though I got 95% of it from yard sales) will turn into that when they are a bit older.

Not too long ago we "adopted" a deployed soldier. We are sending him letters and care packages to keep his spirits up. I did this through the website adoptaussoldier.org. My daughter and I have fun shopping together for him and putting together themed care packages. Right now we are putting together a birthday party package for him. We have added enough food to make two tacos for 16 soldiers, chips, cheese dip, a pinata with two bags of candy, a game that 10 soldiers can play together, pop corn, and a movie. I hope that they really have a good birthday party once they receive our package. My daughter really gets into making cards and collages for him. The most recent collage she made was with different comic strips and jokes printed from the Internet. She pasted them and colored the page as well.

I also love that Kristin from We Are That Family has started posting a new craft each month that can be made for charity. We all make some of the crafts and then mail them to her so she can distribute them to the charity that month. The craft project this month is very very easy and my four year old daughter can do the entire thing herself. Last month was the first month she did this and we all made no sew fleece blankets for hospice. It was very easy once I practiced on the first one. We ended up making two blankets. So much fun!

So what types of things do y'all do to get your children involved in helping people who are less fortunate? I would love more ideas!

Today was bitter sweet. My oldest baby turned four. I have been a mom for four years now! And now there is only 14 more years until she turns 18. That really is a hard pill for me to swallow. These four years have flown by, and I can just imagine that the next four will pass us by even faster.

My husband has been working seven days a week for the last month, so he took off today so that we could spend today as a family. We spent most of the day at the Children's Museum downtown. It was our first time and the kids loved it! We will go back again soon for sure. I forgot my camera so I didn't take any pictures other than a couple on my cell phone that was dying since I always forget to charge it up.

When we were leaving I took a quick look through the gift shop and found a really neat game. It is called Monkey Math. There is a monkey scale and there are bunches of bananas with different numbers on them. You can put two different bunches on one side and then one bunch on the other side that equals them to keep the monkey balanced. My cutie is doing so well with addition so I thought this would be fun for her. Can't wait to play it with her next week when we have our first official day of kindergarten.

Now I have to brag a bit. When we were coming home tonight I asked her if all the toys in the toy store are $1 each and you have $5 how many toys can you buy? She answered correctly. So to see if she just guessed I asked her if all the toys are $2 and you have $4 how many can you buy. She answered correctly again. I am one proud mama. I think she is the smartest little thing ever! :)

So after the Children's Museum we got together with some friends at Chillies. I did get photos of this!

So the kiddos couldn't (or wouldn't) sit still. They normally do very well at restaurants, however today was an action packed day and we were all smooshed into a booth. They were also sitting with our friends so that didn't help much. They let them get away with more than mean mommy does!

They brought my sweet little girl a chocolate cake topped with ice cream and everyone around us sang happy birthday with us. You should have seen the huge smile on her face as everyone sang. It was so precious and my heart almost burst to see the joy in my little girl's face. Before I became a mama I never thought it was possible to have that much love in my heart for someone, and now I have that much love times two.

She is such a sweet big sister. She loves to share. She says she likes to make people happy. I couldn't be happier to be the lucky one who gets to be her mommy.

Yum Yum!

Done!

Get a picture of me too!

Opening presents!

There was even a diaper in her gift bag! LOL

More costumes that she wanted! Would she believe me if I told her I bought those dresses a year ago? She always seems to ask for items that I have in my gift stash.

Princess Smartypants book

A pretty pink dollhouse!

I just love my family! Happy Birthday Sweetie!!!

Stress Free Christmas

This Christmas has been stress free for me! Well, I have not been stressed out about Christmas, doesn't mean I haven't been stressed out this month. But that is an entirely different story.

I have decided that stress during Christmas time is overrated! What do I want my kids to remember when they grow up - the fight I had with my husband over hanging the Christmas lights and accidental catching me crying in my room because I am stressed out about how I am going to get them the Christmas presents that they want, or the time we spent making fudge to take to Santa so that they can learn how wonderful it is that God has given us the means to give to others and decorating our home with homemade Christmas crafts. You can probably guess which is my answer.

This year I started Christmas shopping early. I actually started in January. Every time I went to a store I would make a beeline for the clearance section and purchase items I thought my kids would like. I decided that the kids would get three presents each just like Jesus did to help put a little bit of meaning into Christmas and to keep myself from going overboard like I sooo totally could. I actually went through my totes of gifts at the beginning of this month and I have enough to give them not only for Christmas, but also several presents each for their birthdays too which are coming up at the end of December and the beginning of February! What an awesome feeling!

Today my friend wanted to know what my daughter would like for Christmas. Her response, "A puter, camera, and a dinosaur toy for my brother." What a sweetie thinking of others! She wants a toy laptop which I didn't purchase, but one of the grandparents will, but I did get a kids digital camera with scrapbook and stickers on clearance sometime this year for $20! Do I know my kids or what? For my son he is even getting a talking bear that reads story books along with the books and cartridges that I got at a church sale for fifty cents. At this age he doesn't know the difference and he will love it anyways.

Through out the year I spent about $130 on both (not each) of them for Christmas. That includes three gifts from us (each kiddo has one gift that I couldn't resist buying off of Etsy), a gift that I took them to buy each other which they will receive on Christmas eve along with their new PJ's. This amount stretched through the year to me seemed like I was spending almost nothing. This is nothing compared to how I felt last December. What a relief!

I am trying so hard to keep the focus off of getting and instead put it on the joy of giving. I have done this by making fudge with the kiddos to take to Santa along with pictures they have drawn, taking each kiddo to purchase a gift for each other, and before they purchased for each other anytime my oldest started talking about the many toys she wanted I asked her what she wanted to get for her brother and she got really excited about choosing one for him.

The last thing that has helped take stress away from Christmas is by making decorations with the kids instead of spending money on them. I wanted a garland for the tree so with my daughter's help we made a paper chain from vintage music sheets. I also love the wreaths that the kids made at Church the other day from paper leaves, berries, and plates. I have one taped to my front door and one to my back.

So if you find yourself stressed over Christmas please step back and think about what is really important to your family. Our family values time with God and with each other more than any gift or decoration we think we have to have for Christmas. I am so much happier this Christmas because I finally realized what is really important to us. I hope that you are doing the same.

Dear Secret Santa,

Thank you so much for my Christmas gift! I LOVED everything! You really were reading my blog! :) So sorry for taking a few days to post about your gift. With all the Christmas hoopla here at home and at church along with my regular routine it can get a bit crazy around here.

These vintage little girls are my fav! I absolutely adore them! :) They are so sweet and perfect for a cottage style home! :)



And of course I LOVE this little tea cup. I drink tea daily. I am a bit obsessed.
Can't wait to rip into these goodies! As you might be able to tell I already opened the cookie before my kids saw my gift! My daughter is begging for some marshmallow poles! I told her she had to wait til after I took the pictures.

And I am so excited to have some more Christmas decor! I have not collected much yet. If it wasn't for my Christmas tree you wouldn't be able to tell that it is Christmas time over at my home. I better get to decorating! :)

Once again I wanted to thank you for the lovely gifts! I also want to thank Georgie over at Decisionally Challenged for hosting this secret santa gift swap! It was so much fun! :)

Happy Thanksgiving To All My Bloggy Friends!

I hope that you all are having a great Holiday!

I have had a pretty unproductive day today. I planned on getting much of the food made today, so I plopped my daughter up on the counter while my son was napping and we got started. We did make Summer Salad. Mix one box of raspberry jello, one can of fruit cocktail drained, one large container of cottage cheese, and one container of whipped cream. Very yummy. We have it every year.

Then I cut my pumpkins in half and put them in the oven. I am making pumpkin puree to make my wonderful hubby some homemade pumpkin pies! Here are the instructions. I haven't managed to puree them, but they are done baking.

Once I pulled the pumpkins out of the oven I put the yummy granola in. Too bad I burnt it because I spent too much time watching Jon and Kate Plus 8. That's what I get! I was also planning on making crock pot yogurt so that my hubby could have a breakfast that he really likes, but I forgot to save some yogurt from an old batch for the cultures for the new batch. I really don't know what we are going to do about breakfast now. I might make some more here in a bit.

The last thing I managed to do today was peel potatoes. Not cut them up or put them in my steamer. Just peel them. I have had a hard day trying to get all of this food cooked while I have what feels like a sinus infection.

But one thing I did get done today was I made my entire website for my new business venture - Madison Rose Vintage! :) No matter what I can't keep myself from working on my shop. Let me know what you think. http://madisonrosevintage.yolasite.com/

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving! I can't wait to hear about it. And to try all your wonderful recipes next year!