Putting Pinterest ideas to the test and cheering up a friend.

Yes, I am addicted to Pinterest.  In order to make my self feel less guilty about it I have been putting some of the amazing ideas to the test.  I will admit that I did pick some pretty easy ones, but you have to start some where right?  I already did the chore magnets and cute laminated room cleaning check lists, so I figured one more easy one would seal the deal.  Introducing the $0.96 (there really should be a cent symbol on the computer...) soap holder turned card holder:

Smart, easy, and cheap.  That is right up my alley.
The next thing I tested out was this:

Yes, the concept worked, but I am adding a step so I don't have to rub my skin raw trying to get off all the extra nail polish.  I put Aquaphor (you could use Vasaline) all around my finger (except the nail itself) so when the nail polish dries I could just wipe it and the extra nail polish off.  It took some time but what else am I supposed to do on a night Aaron works and I can't sleep.  There isn't anything good on TV at 1:00am so I swirled my nails. :)

We also put a couple of "recipes" to the test when we went to visit Jake's buddy Corey for a "field trip".  Corey had to have surgery on Wednesday to take car of an awful broken arm (Corey on a bike vs. hill...The hill won, poor kid) and needed some cheering up, so we packed up some fun one handed science experiment and headed out. We decided if we did science experiments we could still say we homeschooled.  

Okay, so how cute is Jake?  I love that he loves to read so much that he does it in the car even though we have a portable DVD player. :)  He was finishing Seekers #1-The Quest Begins.  He started reading it a while ago but got interested in about a dozen other books. He finally came back to it and really loved it.  He wanted to finish it so that he could loan it to Corey to read.

We made a "lava lamp"-there is no lamp just lava, but it turned out very cool!

I love this picture of Jake and his lava bottle.  That makes more sense than lamp, don't you think?

We even brought a festive $0.99 (see I needed the cent symbol again!), Halloween tablecloth.  Just in case of spillage or worst case scenario: an explosion.  You never no with science experiments.  I guess you can really only call them science experiments if you include an explanation of why it works...That will be a follow up lesson-they were way to distracted. :)

We also made slime.  Don't worry they played for hours before we "forced" them to sit and do "science experiments". :)

Turns out you do need two hands to mix it.  Corey's didn't really turn out so great because of the whole "one hand" thing, so Carrie (Corey's mom.  Yep spelled the same name as me and everything.  Do you know how weird it is leaving a voice mail and saying: "Hey Carrie!  It's...Carrie...".) stepped in and tried to salvage the goop!

It didn't work so, we ended up adding all sorts of stuff to it just for the fun of it.  More glue, more borax,...and more food coloring...It looked like bleeding intestines to me...That probably really isn't what intestines would look like but with it being Halloween weekend that is what came to mind. :)

Jake decided to add some more food coloring to his too and here is another Halloween"ish" photo for your viewing pleasure.

Yes, even though he has showered and washed his hands a bagillion times he went to church today with tinted fingernail beds.  A crazy angle for a cray slime picture.  We were going for mad scientist creepy...

And just because I miss my Basset Hound (and first baby) named Daisy, I had to take a shot of their sweet doggie.  This sweet face belongs to Billy.  How cute are Basset Hounds?

  We had a ton of fun hanging with Corey-so much so that we were tired pooped to go to trunk-or-treat that night...That was Jake's decision and we didn't mind at all. :) We are skipping the whole trick-or-treat thing tomorrow and opting for a family Halloween party for FHE.  Then on Tuesday morning we are hitting the stores and getting 70% off Halloween candy (an idea that I would like to carry through to Christmas, but no one else is buying into the idea...)!  Why spend $50 to hand out candy and go to peoples houses we don't know, to get candy we may not like?  We are turning off the outside lights, carving our pumpkin (no we still haven't done that...) and planning on  what candy we really want to buy for cheap the next day.  We are kind of party poopers when it comes to Halloween I guess.  The past couple of years of Aaron in school have made us home bodies and I don't mind that at all.  When we are all home (and awake) we want to be together.  What can I say?  We like each other. :)

Wow...Was that brave or stupid?

What would you do if you pinned an amazing quote, by an amazing man, onto your Pinterest "I am a Mormon" board, and came back later to have 28 comments about it?  Not good comments...except a couple (thank you!).  I was SHOCKED!!!!  What else could I do but comment in a non-offensive way and defend my beliefs?  I hope it wasn't offensive...If you have time go here and read the madness that occurred. You just have to scroll down after the quote.  Then read my comment and let me know if I made it worse or better...Part of me is hoping that  no one who made these comments will even go back and look again.  There were a few other members (that I don't know) of the church that defended it in a not so nice way.  They got their feelings hurt and got sucked into the argument.  I felt the need to end the discussion since it is my pin board!!!!  By the way here is the quote that had people up in arms:

I think that a women could feel guilty if they read this quote is if you choose to work.  A lot of  women have to work in this economy.  If you choose to work for an ego boost or for all the extras in life(not the necessities-I am talking the things you don't need but just want)  and make your family 2nd priority, than maybe this would make you feel guilty and even offended...I don't get it...But then again I know President Hinckley was NOT a sexist.  He had an amazing love and respect for women. I also know my divine nature and what I am here in this life to do.  President Hinckley  knew (knows...) that there is NO ONE more capable of nurturing a child than that child's mother.  Notice I said nurturing-I believe 100% it takes a mother and father to RAISE a child.  Okay...I am just rambling now but I can't believe people got so worked up about a quote I like and they don't even have to read if they don't want to!  Crazy...

Here is the catch.  Right after reading and responding I decided to check out my friend Melissa's blog since I haven't read it in a while...This is what her latest post was about. Not the same scenario,  but it made me think I should have "LET IT GO".  Should I have read this post before I responded on Pinterest?...

I am pretty sure that what I did was stupid but I felt brave doing it.  Have you done anything in your life that made you feel brave...or you had to be brave to do it?  If so what's your story?  Check out what other people had to say about being brave over at Cocoa's Wordfull Wednesday.

A Book Review and a good lesson for me...

What can I say I got this book for free so I read it?  Our library is taking part in "The Big Read". Apparently people don't read anymore so the National Endowment for the Arts (does that mean taxpayers are paying for this? I really hope not.  I need to look into that.  I may give my copy back to the library...AHHHH!  I just looked it up.  The NEA "budget" for 2011 was $154...I am taking this book back to the library and telling them to keep it TODAY.) give people a book for free and  the library has book clubs, art exhibits, movie viewing (the Sci-Fi channel made this book into a mini series-which the author had no part in and didn't like at all how they changed her characters and basically took out the important parts and just added violence...Why would I watch that?) and even dance/singing recitals to get people to read again.  I kind of wish I looked into a little more ahead of time ("the big read" and Ursula K. Le Guin) because if I had, I probably wouldn't have bothered to read it.  The book is...okay?  I am not a Science Fiction fan (yes I loved Harry Potter and Twilight, but I honestly don't think they truly fit into that category...at all) but the word FREE is hard for me to pass up.  I have come into the habit of reading for too long at night on the nights Aaron is at work and  I actually only had around 10 pages left in the book last night and at 10pm (that isn't a late night reading by any stretch of the imagination...) I was literally falling asleep so I had to stop reading.  I finished it this morning.  It wasn't a boring or bad book, it just isn't my kind of book.  It is about a wizard named Ged and his journey to becoming a true wizard and defeating a dark shadow he released as a boy because of his pride...yada yada yada (I LOVE that this came up to spell check and gave "Yoda" as a choice to correct it!)...That is all I can muster to explain what it was about.  I didn't dislike A Wizard of Earthsea, but I didn't really like it either.  That is the best I can do.  In the beginning I thought I would like it.  At times I even really enjoyed it.  But then I just read it to see what would happen.  I read a little about Le Guin and decided I wouldn't bother with any more of her books because she is a liberal, feminist (in the worldly "burn your bra" kind of way.  I believe in feminism in a very less worldly way-read this if you want to know what I mean.) that writes about gender neutrality, anarchist, and other things I just think are kind of stupid.  None of these themes were in this book and it is a safe read-other than the creepy "dark shadow" he had to destroy...take back...I am not even sure what really happened because it went from describing the encounter with the shadow that Ged was having, to what his friend that accompanied him on the last leg of quest who thought was a battle but couldn't really see what was happening...Blah, blah, blah...I am getting sick of talking about it.  If you are a huge science fiction/Le Guin fan and you happen to stumble upon this post through the world wide web-don't take offense.  I am more of a classics kind of girl.  Anne of Green Gables, Sense and Sensibility, and Little Women are all in my top 10 favorite books.  If you are a sci-fi fan you will probably love this book.  Me not so much-though at times I did get sucked in.  So, I guess that means it is good if a non-sci-fi fan liked some parts of it enough to think in the end this may be a favorable review.  Now I really am going to go back to my lists of classics.  I said I was going to do that after finishing the Help (which I liked 95% of and the other parts were too much for this sheltered, conservative).  This time I mean it.  I am thinking some Mark Twain (never read anything but quotes by him...sad I know) is sounding good right about now...

 ***Update***  When we homeschool we start with our "morning routine" (pledge, morning prayer, scripture study...).  In the Thomas Jefferson Education book I read, it says right after this (but before you get into studying secular things) you should take the time to teach something "that is your own".  Something I have learned in my studies that I can teach him.  They called it "kid school", but we are calling it "Mommy school" because it makes more sense to us...and yes Jake does still call me Mommy and I am soooo glad.  I decided to start doing Mommy School today so I could teach him the lesson I learned just this morning.  Jake and I had a great discussion today about the fact that we need to learn about our government.  We can't complain about the way things are run if we aren't willing to study it and take part in changing what it wrong.  So, we decided we are going to start studying, more in depth, the branches of the government and their responsibilities.  We discussed why we monitor what he reads, plays on the Wii, and watches on TV.  I told him about the things I learned about the author of this book (how she writes in later books in this series about gender neutrality, feminism, and anarchy...) I just finished reading and what other books in her series start to talk about-things that we don't believe in.  I told him about the National Endowment of the Arts and the founding for the "Big Read".  Long story...shorter...we had a discussion about researching before jumping in to something.  We talked about "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" and how we know that our gender is an essential characteristic that we were given by Heavenly Father (when I was explaining why I wouldn't read any more of her books).  We talked about our roles as women and men-fathers and mothers.  I told him that there may come a time that he does like the fact that we won't let him read certain books or watch certain shows but that I hoped he would always remember why we did it. We talked about so much and it was so AWESOME!  When we were done I told him that was what I wanted to talk to him about for "Mommy School" (I am not sure that is the name we will stick with...) today.  To this he said: "That was Mommy School?  I thought we were just talking!"  We were.  And that is why, even though it is Hard (notice the capitol H), we homeschool.

Project Granola Mom

A friend of mine is on a mission.  Her mission?  To spread her knowledge and she has a ton of it trust me!  (When we both lived in Asheville she started up an exercise class at Church and she is a step aerobics queen!)  She is the go to person on nutrition, exercise, and being an in shape Mommy.  You HAVE to check out her blog. I am a huge fan and she has only just begun! Check it out-I know you will love Project Granola Mom.

Della's Visit

I would like you to meet Della (this is when she figured out the "bird"-we use that term loosely because it really doesn't look much like a bird-Tangram):

If you have followed my blog for a while than you know she is my niece. Or if you read my last post you will see her in all the fair pictures! :)  Della is Aaron's older sister, Ranee's 2nd daughter.  Did you follow that? She is just over a year older than Jake (Jake was 10 the end of Aug. & Della was 11 the beginning of July.) and I have the cutest picture of her holding him when he was 4 days old.
Any way! Jake and Della are good buddies and she happened to have a teachers workday today so she came to spend a couple of nights with us.  We did a very light day of homeschooling today so they would have time to have all kinds of fun.  We just did Family Math and Art.  Cocoa over at Chocolate on my Cranium did this post on 3D drawing and I have been waiting for the perfect chance to do it.

We like to sharpen both ends of our colored pencils so they are always ready to use.  I love this shot of Jake.  His pencil was moving so fast it is blurry!.

I think I had the most fun doing it...They didn't finish theirs.  This is in the process...

.....Then we took a break and went to the park.

Sadie couldn't resist the kiddos playing with out her so she learned how through the tube...

 

...and down the slide.  I don't know if she really liked it but she did it a couple of times to make everyone happy.

When we got back to the house they played the Wii, while I finished my 3D hand-that I love so much I laminated it.  Seriously, I really did laminate it...and I put it on the fridge because it has been a really long time since I had a picture on the fridge.  I wish I took a picture of Della and Jake looking at my picture on the fridge and saying it looked so professional.  (That made me happy).  I think they are just jealous that they didn't finish theirs yet and get it put up on the fridge. :)

I also made some very cool chore magnets, (I made mine a little different but it is the same idea). I got the idea on Pinterest.  Jake is saving up his money to buy a riffle (guess who gave him that idea? Daddy) and he doesn't get paid an allowance (we have done it in the past but not so much lately.  There are things you just have to do to live in our house and there isn't always time to do more than that to earn money...because lets face it there are much more fun things to do than more work. :) ), so the money doesn't add up very quickly.  I decided to make the magnets so Jake can look on the fridge and decide to do an "extra chore" for cash.  You know all the ones I don't want to do. :)  I have things like "27 Fling Boogie"-have you heard of that?  (Check out this awesome decluttering and house cleaning website.  I used to do this tried to do it once but fizzled out...Some day I will be that organized)  You go in a room (Jake would only be allowed to do this in his room because I don't want him tossing my stuff!) and find 27 things to throw away to clear out the clutter.  If he does that he gets $1.00!  He gets 50cents if he "dirties a rag".  That means he has to get a white cleaning rag and clean stuff until the rag is dirty!  Depending on what room he goes in, it may not take that long... :) I love this idea and Jake is pretty psyched about it too.  There is one that says "Mom's choice" and one that says "Dad's choice".  He gets $1 for each-but he doesn't get to know what it is ahead of time and he has to do it.  I hope he picks this one first because I HATE this chore:

 We just got done eating calzones and watching the cutest movie, that if you can find, you should totally watch.  It is by Disney and is called "The Secret of the Magic Gourd" (or as Jake kept calling it "gorge"...).  We saw it at our local video store and it looked and sounded so good.  We had never heard of it and found out why once it started playing.

See how cute Baily and the frog are!

It must have been made in Japan and then they dubbed the English over it-which was pretty funny at first but it was sooo good.  You will laugh out loud (at a little frog running on it's back legs like a human) and has a great message.  I am assuming in Japan they have a legend of the Magic Gourd.  Whoever finds it can make all the wishes it wants.  The boy in it, Raymond  (who is probably in the 6th grade or so-I am guessing), finds it while fishing and can't believe his luck.  Raymond wishes for all sorts of things like getting good grades, but the Gourd uses his magic to take all the writing off a smart girls paper in the class-including her name. Raymond gets accused of cheating-which he did.  He says he loves all the toys at the toy store so they all end up in his bedroom.  He gets on the swim team but Bailey (the Gourd) helps him swim super fast.  Finally the boy realizes that even with the help of a magic gourd you can't accomplish anything with out hard work.  I won't tell you the ending because you have got to watch it.  I did snap a couple of pictures just because we couldn't get over how cute the darn Gourd and Frog were.  Yes, I know I take too many picture, but I know it sounds like a crazy movie!  We figured if you see the Raymond, you will fall in love with his cuteness and want to go rent it!  I hope you can find it because it is so worth it. :)

The past week and a half in one post...I am warning you I didn't even edit it this one...

Am I the only one that never seems to be caught up on what I call my scrapbook posts?  The reason I started blogging in the first place: to document our lives...Here are a few of the things we did last week-not in any order at all...

Jake and Corey, after what seemed like hours of playing the Wii, decided to take a break and put their imaginations to work (and I didn't even tell them it was time to turn it off.  That makes me happy.).  They made up a super hero they wanted to be and drew it.  Then they explained to each other what they could do and what their powers were.  Boys are pretty cool when they aren't being gross and crazy.  :)

This is Jake smiling after we did math.  That is right he was smiling.  Even though he loves math he doesn't usually smile after it because there are so much better things you can be doing when you are at home.  That is one of the things that makes homeschooling tough-you are home...where all your toys live.  But after this fun math lesson we are hooked on a book I heard about on Latter Day Homeschooling (which is on of the websites you could sit and read for hours).  It is called Family Math and we are doing it on Fridays to take a break from the norm.  We learned about tangrams and made up puzzles for one another to solve.
AND my genius husband found the most amazing website called Khan Academy.  You have got to check it out.  This very cool guy had made awesome videos that explain math in a way that even I may learn to like.  Have you ever heard of lattice multiplication?  You probably have because you aren't as dumb as me in math.  It is pretty cool.  I want whatever this guy is using to make these videos.  I have no need for it, but I want it.

 We had a 3 in 1: play, school, chore the other day and it wasn't planned. Those are some of the best teaching moments. We decided to play with action figures in the sink and pretend they were discovering a sea that no one had ever swam in with creatures that were never seen before (Ben 10 aliens and GI Joe action figures + Jake's imagination is always interesting.).  When we were just about done we made whirl pools to see if it would drag the action figures around.  It did-which was pretty cool.  We also watched as funnels (I can't think what they are called right now so I am just going with funnel....you know when it looks like a tornado in the water?) were made as we drained the water from the sink.  I took pictures of the funnels but uploaded the wrong one so the picture below is Jake making the whirl pool with his action figure in his hand when we dropped it in after it zoomed around the sink with the current.

Then we shined the sink with some comet (I prefer Bar Keepers Friend-have you ever used that?  It is awesome for shining sinks and cleaning glass stove tops. Try it you will love it!)  Jake was surprised how shiny the sink was after.  We were multitasking and we didn't even plan it. :)

 I no longer feel guilty about sitting for long periods of time on Pinterest.  I have done a couple of the ideas I thought were cool so it is worth the time I waste spend on it!  I made these cute little lists of the basic chores we have to do to pick up each room in the house.  I liked the idea even though Aaron said: "Don't you just know what you have to do by now?" Yes dear husband I do, but it is fun to look at these cute little laminated (I love to laminate) lists (I love lists) and check off what I have done.  Not to mention it reminds we to smile while doing it.  See how the little 1950's housewife is smiling while she cleans?  Plus I can give one to Jake and tell him to go forth and clean the living room while I clean the kitchen and he won't have any excuse about not knowing what to do.  It is actually much more fun to guess how long it will take to clean a room and see who was closer after we clean it together. :)

 We also did this cool idea to the left.  You use a ketchup bottle to have pancake mix on hand and ready to use anytime.  Jake has been really into making breakfast for the past couple of weeks and today (yes I these pictures are actually from today) he made a special heart shaped pancake for Nee.  She is going to spend a little over a month with Tina (my sis) and her family in the Ukraine, so Jake wanted her to have a special breakfast.

 This is Jake's pancake.  It was extra large with chocolate and peanut butter chips in it.  Doesn't really sound like breakfast...more like dessert!

 On Tuesday we went to our local library for "Ghosts Galore!"  An author from the Carolina's named Terrrance Zepke was there to share some ghost stories from her lasted book called Ghosts of the Carolinas for Kids that we got.  She autographed it and wrote "Jake read with all the lights on!".  (Later we talked about how when ever someone asked her if ghosts were real she laughed and kind of talked about something else. She did a great job of telling the stories in a way that wasn't scary and let you know that although she thinks ghosts are an interesting idea she may not actually believe in them. :)   She travels the two states and gathers research on "hauntings" that people claim to have happened and shares them with us!  She was really funny and not only does she love ghost stories but she loves PIRATES.  We have been searching for some books about Black Beard (he was a real pirate that I am sure you have heard of that terrorized the Carolina coast and his ship sunk and he was killed in NC) because Jake really wants to do a project about him.  Ms. Zepke also wrote a book called Pirates of the Carolinas  that we got that not only is full of Black Beard facts, but also 3 other pirates of the Carolinas.

 

 Since Nee is going to be gone for Thanksgiving we decided to celebrate it with her before she left.  it was a "quick" Thanksgiving dinner as far as preparations.  We used Stove Top stuffing, potato pearls, and Jiffy corn bread mix.  It wasn't the full blown meal but it worked!  Papa isn't going this time because he is going to go in March when Saku turns 8 and gets baptized.

We couldn't resist letting Sadie have her first Thanksgiving meal with us.  She got the left over potato pearls and the turkey skin and fat.  I have never seen her eat so fast!

We were domestic last week too:  My mom and I canned meat!  Sounds gross and I have to say it looks gross but it tastes great.  Aaron just walked in eating the homemade cookies I promised I would make him 2 weeks ago and finally did.  He looked at the picture to the left and said: "Oh look a picture of a jar of raw meat."  He doesn't understand the hard work that goes into canning, the mess it makes in the kitchen, the danger of exploding canners.  He doesn't understand that I have to document this so that

our posterity will now I am not a complete slacker.  Women in 2011 do can!  Not as much as women of the past did-they had to.  We do it for our family...And so we can brag and feel like we are awesome when it comes to being prepared...even if it is just every now and then.  Mom posed for  a picture.  She was humoring me, isn't that nice of her?

It was still boiling after we took it out of the canner for at least an hour.  We remembered (it has been a LONG time since we have canned meat) that you need to kind of stuff it in a little so it will be more full.  Next time...  I know it looks gross but seriously pour this in a pot with the juices, add a little flour to thicken it, along with potatoes, carrots, and an onion and you have the best beef stew EVER!  Canned red potatoes are amazing too....

On Saturday we went to Spartanburg for the county fair. Nana works at it every year and got us tickets to get in and a wrist bracelet for Jake to go on all the rides as much as he wanted-all for free!  Thanks Nana!!!!  We had a blast.  Jake and Della must have ridden a million rides and I of course have the pictures to prove it.

I just realized I didn't warn you ahead of time this was going to be a long post with lots of pictures...Sorry.  This is your official warning.  Matt (Aaron's little bro), Jeremy (bro-in-law), and Aaron are the guys leaning against fence.  See the empty swing?  Della is right behind it and Jake is behind her.

I also just realized I don't really have to tell you about every picture of the fair...You are on your own from here on out.  Jake, Della, and sometimes Matt are in the picture of the rides somewhere.  You can think of this kind of like a where's waldo.

Except this one on the left!  Matt and Erin are having a baby!!!  They told us while we were eating lunch.  Erin said: "We brought dessert!" and put the cake down on the table.  How cute it that?  Congrats guys.  I am calling a girl and it isn't just because we have the only boy grandson so far either. :)

Papa Harmon's hand carved goat won a second place ribbon.

We finished off the evening at Nana and Papa's with a fire and roasting marsh mellows.

Last Tuesday we went to the Rain-aissance Festival...I mean Renaissance Festival.  We had about 2 hours with misty rain and the rest with full on getting drenched rain...It was still fun and spent the week before studying the Renaissance and even making our costumes to wear.  It was pretty fun and educational.  We even had a girl stop Jake and I to take our picture.  We must have looked pretty authentic.  :)  It is usually only open on the weekends, except a couple of school days during the week.  You could tell who the homeschoolers were because we were in costume.

Random picture upload in the wrong spot!  Jake lost another tooth last week while eating his lunch.  The tooth fairy still has not brought him his money for it yet...He keeps reminding me but I keep forgetting. :)

I have to brag just a little...When the King and Queen went by with their royal court everyone was supposed to bow in the Renaissance fashion.  Those of us who did our research (they had a packet of info. that you could down load to learn all about the Renaissance.   We had fun reading it and learning how they spoke, dressed, and lived.) knew that we needed to bow or curtsy.  Well any way, the Queen saw me curtsy and she said: "Very well done", as she bowed her head back at me.  It is amazing what being in costume and playing the part can do-it makes you feel like you are there living in that time period.  I am sure any Renaissance maiden would have been very excited if the Queen spoke to them personally. :)

The joust was very cool, even though we were sitting in the pouring rain.  Our knight to cheer on was "Sir Max A Million" and though he was not the "good knight" he was much more fun to watch and seemed to be very "knightly".  Is that a word?  The other knight was a skinny guy that didn't really look very tough.  Our knight really looked like a knight.  It didn't hurt that he was very handsome either. :)

That is a rain drop going by Jake's nose-not snot. I promise.  We couldn't resist the cool Jester hat.  It was only $6 and it kept his head dry...kind of...Can you tell the fun was wearing off.

This is the view of the mass exodus at about 1:00 from the safety of my umbrella.  A lot of people gave up and called it quits about the same time we did. 

                                                                   



  As we were leaving I took a shot of the people biding us farewell.  You can really see how bad it was raining in this shot.  The guy was saying to me: "Madam do not point that cannon at us!..." He said something else but I was too busy laughing.  They are in character at all times and do not reference things from our time out right.  He meant cannon as in a weapon...but also a hint to the camera brand Canon.  I know it was too far away for him to see, but my camera really is a Canon. :)