Welcome...come on in!

Many of you know that I was participating in a DIY Challenge to make as many Christmas gifts as possible under $50, which I'll share the final projects next week. While working on those, we had some home projects going on at the same time.

I'm very excited to tell you that our home projects have been completed (but I still have several sewing projects to finish up) and that we have Christmas tree standing in our family room. Also, I'm happy to tell you I found my Christmas spirit!! My kids were a huge part of how I found it. Decorating the tree with them last night helped me to rediscover that joy. I wasn't sure if Colin was at a good age or not, but we started out talking about their own ornaments they get at Christmas and I showed them how to carefully open, unpack and take care of their ornaments. Mine have lasted a long time and I hope theirs do too. Colin jumped right in to helping and it was such a joy to decorate with them!

So, with no further ado, come on inside, warm up from the cold, and let me show you around. Included in this tour will be some before photos as well, so you don't have to try to remember what my house look liked! ;-)

Please, come in! It's cold outside and the rain...yuck!

Here's some cocoa to warm you up!

And a cookie! (Ok, so they aren't fresh baked out of my oven, and I found this picture on my computer taken in July of '07 - but hey, that's the beauty of a virtual tour!)

You may remember I lost something in here?

Yes, it was my Christmas spirit.

We're still working at getting the room straightened up. But it is much better. In this room, we have Quintin's nativity he crafted in co-op last year, on display. Just look - don't touch - he's pretty particular about his handiwork. And what artist, isn't?

The photo below, was taken a few weeks ago. This is how our playroom looked. We needed to move EVERYTHING out of it which is why the living room looked ridiculously a little bit cluttered.

Let me take you into our playroom. We are still working on organizing what will work best for homeschooling. I almost feel a little overwhelmed with the space - but give me time!!

Aaaaahhhh - storage!! Let's zoom in on those top shelves, shall we?

Can you spot Charlie? Our elf from the North Pole!?!?

Just a few Christmas decorations to make the playroom more festive! After taking the above pictures, the kids and I decided to add their nativity to the shelves in the playroom. This advent nativity is a highlight for the kids! This year, instead of hiding Baby Jesus for the children to find Christmas morning, I'm going to wrap him up and give it to them to open after we sing Happy Birthday Jesus. Because I want them to know that He is the best present we all receive this Christmas!

And, let's leave the playroom and head into the family room. I LOVE these two rooms being side-by-side and just a few short steps from the kitchen. The playroom, family room and kitchen are along the entire back of our house! I LOVE it! Kudos to whoever thunk that up...HA! (Hey, after 2 weeks of chaos I deserve a little pat on the back, right?)

Sorry to throw this picture at you. I couldn't find my before pictures of my family room. This is the only picture I could find, but, if you look past the bunny and over the soldier's shoulder, you'll see vinyl flooring along the wall and a black cabinet. We treated that area of our family room as a hallway. The room was smaller and had brown carpet as seen in yesterday's post. (I'll spare you having to scroll down)

While the "grands" were here for Elle's birthday, we suckered them into moving our furniture - no cake unless you agree to help work! HA!

Ok, sorry for all the history there on our room. I tend to babble, just stop me if it gets to be too much. Don't worry about being nice, I can take it. My husband has hung up on me because I .... oh, goodness, excuse me, there I go again.

Remember the hallway with the vinyl? We removed the vinyl and re-carpeted the entire room after our cabinets were installed.

From the left, the two santa stockings were made by T's mom. I made the third one for T about 10 years ago. I started working on an angel stocking for myself at the same time...and well, yeah, it's one of the many UFOs in my house (un-finished objects). T's mom made the angel stocking for Elle. She liked my idea so much. She's made them for all the grandchildren in the family. Have I mentioned there are 17 grandchildren? Before making them for my children, she asked if I would prefer to make them...um, let's see. I made one in 10 years and you've made 14 in a matter of a few months...yeah, why don't you go ahead and make some for my kids! LOL!!! They are beautiful, and one day, there will be another angel alongside Elle's.

This is our first artificial tree. It's 9 feet tall. It only can fit in this room - hence the reason I had to wait so long to put it up. I did purchase it at 50% off after Christmas last year! And I think it is the most beautiful tree ever...and that isn't just because I didn't have to string it with lights!

Please step a little closer so you can see all the things on my shelves. Just be careful, the paint was touched-up yesterday.

My favorite piece to put out this year is this:

T bought the basic nativity part of it for me for Christmas last year. To my surprise, one of the stores in our quaint little town had the rest of the pieces at 50% off the day after Christmas! Score!! I love it!!

Here, you may leave through the kitchen door. Next time you stop by, please use this door instead of the formal front door. I know, you didn't know, but now you do! You are a friend, and like the sign at my mother in law's says, "Backdoor friends are best!"

Thanks for stopping by. I'm going to grab a pepsi and crash on the couch with the kids now! :-)

Praising God this Christmas for all that He has done and for sending us the greatest Gift,

His one and only Son!

Homeschool Open House

Tammy is hosting a "Homeschool Open House" today. I'd like to invite you into our homeschool room today and let you know what we've been up to for the past 5 months...yep, you read that right, we started school in July - it was really hot and I figured while we are inside, let's start. We've taken some breaks along the way, but we are more than halfway through our second quarter.
**Each "title" of the products I've listed below are links and will take you to different websites showing you the actual products.

This is where we "do" school. The orange chair is mine and Quintin sits to the right of me, which works because he is left-handed. I have a huge metal basket on the table that houses most of our books. As you can see, our bookshelves are full to bursting as well. We certainly need to incorporate some more organization and storage in this room....it will come!

We are still working our way through the Weaver Curriculum's Volume 1. We are currently in chapter 9 studying money and stewardship. Weaver covers Bible, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, Health, Field Trips and Memory Verses.

We use RightStart Math and guess what our current study is??? Money - yep, these are two individual curriculums and God's divine planning never ceases to amaze me that we are studying money in both programs at the same time!!

I've incorporated an additional Bible Study program into our time because the lessons in Weaver are a little above Quintin's understanding. While we discuss those themes, I like using this other program to learn more Bible stories. We've been working our way through the New Testament using the Explorer's Bible Study "Bible Foundations."

We continue to use Spell to Write and Read as our foundational phonics program. I am very pleased with his progress in this area and his love of reading. I've also introduced The Well-Trained Mind's "First Language Lessons" as a supplemental language program. It is a scripted guide and each lesson is very short. I really enjoy the poem memorization that is part of it.

We throw in all sorts of other activities that we see from TV programs or magazines. My goal is just to keep it interesting and engaging...not just for Quintin, but for his brother and sister too. They often join us at the table, if only for a few minutes, but they are still there - and I want them to see it being fun so that they continue to come back.

Thank you Tammy for hosting this. Since this is the first time I'm participating, I wanted to do an introduction to our school. I hope to post more specific activities in the future!!

Design Inspiration

Mary is hosting the Design Inspiration Carnival today. I'm looking forward to this and the glimpses into people's home for some fresh decorating ideas. It doesn't have to be magazine-like ideas (because mine certainly aren't) but just a fun way to share things we like about our homes.

We built our home in 2005. We didn't want to try at that point to choose colors for every room, so we went with one basic color for the walls throughout the entire house. If we wanted to paint one room later, we could. But, after being here almost 3 years, I have grown fonder of my paint choice each day! We used Benjamin Moore's "blanched almond" for the walls and "timid white" for the woodwork and ceilings.

I like to use the color black as an accent, wrought iron being my favorite way to tie that in.

Here are 2 inexpensive and simple plate racks next to a wall hanging that my mom made. I chose 4 plates that matched it and I interchange them for a fresh look every few months. The other 2 plates are red and purple. I do green and red at Christmastime, purple and yellow and Easter, and so on. Gives the kitchen a nice new feel.

Hanging above my cook top are these wrought iron trivets. I didn't buy them to use them this way, but I just love how it fills in this gap. And, they weren't a real expensive way to decorate.

One of my favorite pieces of furniture is this wood rack in our laundry room that a good friend built for us. Our laundry room is directly across from the garage - its the first thing you see when you walk in from the garage. I wanted something to hang coats on as well as to be used for storage. This fits the bill! I got the idea from a Pottery Barn catalog and Duane did a wonderful job!

To give the kids' bedrooms a "personality" with the same brown walls, we picked carpet to match quilts my mom made them. Here is Quintin's room, before last week's spring cleaning.

And here is how it looks after we've moved his furniture. (I'm taking the below picture standing in the corner where the quilt hangs.)
Here is Elle's room (taken before she officially moved into this room. The bed had been against a wall, but I didn't have any good pictures of the room that way.)
And here is her room after changing it around last week.
Colin's room hasn't had much of a chance to develop its personality yet. We chose carpet colors before we were even expecting baby #3, so we went with a nice soft green. I plan to have my mom pair that green with cream and some dark browns for his quilt (No rush mom, you can relax!!)

Hanging in Colin's room right now is a wall hanging my mom did when I was pregnant with Quintin. I hope you've enjoyed this little peek into home and maybe you even got some new ideas. If you haven't posted anything for this carnival, I hope you'll think again about doing something - I'd love to see your ideas too!

Have a blessed weekend!

Homeschool Open House 2007

I'm joining in on the Homeschool Open House 2007 hosted by Tiany at Less of Me~More of Him. Thank you for hosting this Tiany, I think it is a great idea!



A short intro about you, how many blessings?
I'm Momma Roar (aka Leigh Ann) and I have a 5 year old son - Quintin, a 2 1/2 year old daughter - Noelle (Elle [rhymes with belly] for short) and an 8 month old son - Colin. Quintin is beginning kindergarten this month.

We home'pre'schooled last year using Weaver's Interlock program. We loved it. It was a 37 week program that covered Genesis 1-11. It formed an excellent foundation for Quintin with the days of Creation - I really enjoyed it too.

Your Homeschool Day, what does it look like?
Our schedule is still being "discovered!" Last year, when I was pregnant with Colin, I would work with Quintin first thing in the morning, while Elle was still asleep. Now, Colin is the first to wake up and I've been trying different schedules this past week. We spent some time reviewing from last year and experimenting with different times to work together. We did it one morning while Colin was down for his morning nap and the next day we did it while he was in the pack n play in the next room. I'm sure we'll have some other variations, but it was nice to know it still worked and it doesn't have to be the same each day.

Our lessons will be Bible, Social Studies, Science, Language Arts, Phonics and Math - we won't be starting with all of these, but gradually adding some in each week.

My plan is to finish before lunch, unless we have a crazy day - then I'll work with Quintin while his brother and sister nap.

What curriculum will you be using?
We will be using Weaver's Vol 1 this year and I am looking forward to it. It is set up differently than their Interlock program, but I think I've gotten myself prepared!!

We'll be using RightStart for math and Spell to Write and Read for phonics. I also want to go through Gregg & Joshua Harris' The 21 Rules of This House with Elle and Quintin.

Anything else we add will just be a hodgepodge of this and that, lol!

Do you schedule your day to the minute or go with the flow with no real structure?
I like to have a plan, but "to the minute" is too difficult to do - I have a goal in mind to complete each day. I was an elementary PE teacher before having children and that taught me to always have a plan B - some days I would have the gym to teach in and some days, there would be no janitor there to clean up after lunch so I'd have to move elsewhere (those were the days!)

Do you homeschool in a homeschool room, at the kitchen table, at a desk, in the park on the grass?
We homeschool everywhere - the kitchen table, at a table in the playroom, outside, in the truck...everywhere!!

Do you have any “must share” tips?
I recently purchased Ruth Beechick's "A Biblical Home Education" and I am finding it so refreshing. Here is an excerpt that I really needed to hear:

"Many new homeschoolers, and older ones too, buy too much curriculum and then cry for help. They worry about "gaps," about not covering everything. It is a myth that there is an "everything" standard that we all should know. Graduates who are good thinkers can later learn whatever they need. One whole generation had to learn computers on their own. Schools like Mass*achuset*s Insti*tut*e of Te*ch*nolo*gy hired self-taught men to teach computer until they could raise degreed computer professors. Who knows what your children may need to learn in the future? There is no way to "cover" everything. Aim, instead, to teach your children how to think and learn in whatever content you are using."

Thanks for stopping by my Open House! Blessings to you all for a wonderful new school year!

PA Limestone Quarry

The quarry's open house was last month on the Saturday of Mother's Day weekend. They do an open house like this every 5 years - this year is their 70th anniversary! I finally had a chance to have Poppa Roar with me while I worked through the captions - suprisingly, I knew enough 'quarry lingo' to do most of them on my own, but needed his final approval (I think I even suprised him with my knowledge)! The Open House is a big hi-lite and the employees enjoy putting in the time to make it succesful. You can pick out the employees in the pictures, as they are wearing blue shirts.

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*:-:¦: Leigh Ann :¦:-:*
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