Sorry, AGAIN, for my absence..

It has been quite a month here at the Simpson home.  I was without a computer for a little over a week, but luckily I got exactly the laptop I wanted for $100 LESS than what I was planning on paying!  So I’m all set up now and back online, though I have not been on much due to plenty of cleaning/organizing projects, school, new curriculum and planning, etc.  I have been making an effort to spend less time on the net in an effort to get more done in “real life”. 
We have once again re-structured our curriculum and schooling, which I plan on highlighting in a post in the near future.  In a nutshell, new curriculum, a new approach, and a different way of planning and prepping has made a HUGE difference in enabling us to get things done.  Which means, hopefully we can begin to catch up on a few things we have fallen behind in.  It is going well and I can’t wait to share with you how a few changes have helped us to stay on task and get focused.
The kids are are doing well and we are eagerly awaiting the return of spring and nice weather.  We are all getting a bit of cabin fever, but I hate to bundle everyone up and get out and about unless necessary.  Cold weather is NOT my friend! 
Joey is now cruising and pulling up onto everything, which makes for some nervous mommy moments.  But I know I have to let him test the waters and try new things, even if he might get hurt.  He has had a few bumps and falls, but nothing major.  I’m sure that will get worse in the coming months, as he seems eager to get walking.  We are guessing he will be toddling around by his birthday in May.  He also has learned to clap his own hands this past week, which we thoroughly enjoy!  All we have to do is say, “Yay! Joey!”, and he smiles a big grin and claps!  It’s heart-melting!  He has also learned to say “no-no-no”, but it’s more like “nah, nah, nah”.  Hmmm, wonder where he picked that up?……
Anyhow, I wanted to give a quick update to let everyone know we are still here and doing well and I hope to be posting regularly again very soon!  Til then……

Blessings,

Cassie

Grilling Goodness #14 (late I know..)

1. Do you like scary movies?  Not even a little bit, though I used to when I was younger.

2. What kind of cell phone do you have?  My hubby and I have the same phone, it’s a Nokia… not sure of the model?

3. Do you have a passport?  Nope, never needed one.

4. Has anything sad happened in your life this week?  My husbands uncle is in the hospital under a medically induced coma.  He had complications resulting from chemo to treat lung cancer.

5. Have you ever broken any bones?  Nope, I guess I’m made of pretty tough stuff!

6. Did you do anything this week that you don't normally do?  We have completed all of our lessons every school day this week.  Pretty sad that doesn’t happen often huh?

7. What's the worst thing you ever had in your wardrobe?  There are too many to narrow it down to one or even two.
 
8. Did you have braces on your teeth?  No, though I was supposed to for an overbite.

Blessings,

Cassie

Homeschool Memoirs #22 – ABC’s Describing Me

THEME

This week use the ABC’s to describe your character, your life, your homeschool, and your family. Next to each letter of the alphabet put a word that describes you or has something to do with you. It was very amusing and a bit tricky. Once you actually get to a letter your mind goes blank!

OK, this sounds like a fun challenge…here we go!

A – Attentiveness – This is something I am trying to teach my kids daily.
B – Bible – The Bible is the center of our school.
C – Cooperation – We are learning to work together to reach our goals as a family.
D – Delegation – Something I am finally learning to use in order to manage our home.
E – Efficiency – It’s all about getting the best results we can in the time we have to do something.
F – Family First – What more is there to say?
G – Games – We try to use games to reinforce what we learn often.
H – Humility – Another quality I am trying to instill in my children.
I – Intelligent Design – Our belief in the origins of the earth and life.
J – Jokes – Our day is filled with laughter!
K – Kindness – Yet another trait we encourage daily.
L – Laughter – We are a family that loves to laugh.
M – Messes – I am constantly picking up messes, but what mom isn’t.
N – Nerds – We love Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and we are not ashamed to admit it.
O – Organization – This is something I constantly struggle with.
P – Personal – We love being able to personalize the way we teach each individual child.
Q – Quiet – Something we are NOT!
R – Responsibility – We encourage our children to take responsibility for their own actions.
S – Schedule – This is something we are slowly moving towards.
T – Truth – We are teaching our children that the Bible is the highest Truth.
U – Unique – We encourage our children to be individuals and accept them for who they are.
V – Values – We are instilling Biblical values.
W – Will – We want to follow God’s will for our family.
X – X – Drew will be learning times tables soon.
Y – Yes! – What I thought today when we actually completed all of our lessons today.
Z – Zany – A word that describes all of my children, the are always making me laugh.

Blessings,

Cassie

Oh the Joys of Apartment Life….

So the night before last we started having problems with our furnace.  The pilot went out at 1am and hubby could not get it lit.  The furnace here is ancient and the button that you push down and turn wouldn’t budge.  We called the emergency maintenance 3 times to no avail.  The maintenance here is atrocious.  But usually when you have a real emergency, they are out within half an hour to take care of it.  It was beginning to get chilly in the house and I was starting to worry about what we would do if we couldn’t get it lit.  Finally around 4 am hubby got it going again. 
It ran fine all night until the next afternoon when it went out again.  We called maintenance again and they came out and replaced the thermal coupling and got it going again. But alas, it went out again within a few  hours.  We called and the same guy came out again and said that there must be something more wrong, probably the air exchange.  Since the furnace in ancient, as I mentioned before, it would be next to impossible to find parts for it so we would need a new furnace.  He left again to see about getting us some space heaters until the next day, when they could see about getting a new furnace installed. 
He came back with one tiny electric heater.  He apologized for the inconvenience and told us that was all he could find.  We managed to keep the house reasonably warm through the night.  I did some laundry and kept the dryer running and we turned the oven on to keep it warm downstairs and we used the space heater in the hall upstairs.  However we had nothing running downstairs while we slept and boy was it frigid when I got up.  So I turned the oven on and ran some more laundry and brought the heater down to warm it up.  Maintenance came and measured this morning for the new furnace and said they would be back to install it later.  We are managing to stay warm in the meantime, and I’m making some major progress climbing Mt. laundry!
The thing I am most excited about is with a new furnace we are hopefully going to have a lower gas bill and be able to keep it warmer in here.  All of our front windows that face the wind are leaky, 2 of them having huge gaps where the cold air gets in.  When the wind blows, you can really feel it blowing in.  We have plastic AND blankets hanging over those windows and it helps but it is still very hard to keep the house uniformly warm.  In order to keep it warm downstairs, it is usually roasting upstairs.  Hopefully the new furnace will remedy this problem some.
I guess you could say the whole ordeal is a mixed blessing.  I will keep you updated on how things go once the new furnace is installed.

Blessings,

Cassie

Joey is on the move!!

Yes, you heard it here first!  My baby boy is getting so big, and now he is learning to crawl.  We were playing with him last night when we decided to get the camera out .  take a look at what we captured…

  
I am continually amazed by my youngest son.  He is babbling, saying mamama and dadada, feeding himself finger foods, drinking from a sippy, and now he is CRAWLING!!!  I am so very proud yet at the same time it makes me sad that time is whizzing by.
I am thankful we were fortunate enough to get a permanent memory of this huge milestone!

Blessings,

Cassie

This week’s links…

So I was surfing around the other day, reading my favorite blogs for new posts and looking up random things when I thought, “Hey! I should share things of interest I find by posting them on my blog!”  So here is the first weekly post of many to come.  Enjoy and feel free to comment to share what you thought!

• Read about Tonya’s process of reformation from messy to organized click here.  (From “The Kissack Chronicles” )
• Learn how to make your own yogurt using a crockpot and everyday ingredients here (from “A Year of Crockpotting”)
• Stephanie from “A High and Noble Calling” shares a wonderful recipe for Chocolate Éclair Squares that I can’t wait to try out!

Yeah, I know that’s not a whole lot, but hey, I’m a busy woman!  I hope you enjoy them just the same.

Blessings,

Cassie

Grilling Goodness meme #19

1. What's your 'dream machine' - as in vehicle? Do you think you'll ever own it?
Oooh, that’s a hard one!  I think I would really love to have a Chevy Suburban.  Three rows of seats, plenty of room for the kids to stretch out and relax!  plus I just like them.

2. Can you water ski?
Dunno, I have never attempted to.  But I have been tubing! Fun times!

3. What kind of milk to you prefer?
Definitely 2%

4. Have any of your pet peeves 'gotten your goat' this week?
YES!! I had the kiddos help me around the house by dividing up some jobs that needed to be done.  Two of them did certain jobs very half-hazard and I then made them sit and watch ME do it the correct way.  I also told them that next time it happens, they will continue doing the chore over until it is done correctly!

5. How do you prepare your taxes? HR Block, Turbo Tax, by hand - or does someone else do it for you?
I fill our taxes out online with HR Block’s turbo tax software.

6. Did you start a workout program this New Year?
Nope.

7. Do you have a certain meal that you cook each and every week?
lately we are having hamburger helper once a week.  Hey it’s cheap and easy!

8. When do you normally write your blog posts?
Whenever I can and I have something interesting to share!

Are you frustrated by messy bedrooms?

Boy I know I am…constantly. I was browsing around, reading a few new threads on my FAVORITE message board (Raising Godly Tomatoes) when I happened across a thread that linked to this…..

“Cleaning their bedrooms the mean mom way…”

I am TOTALLY for this method and I am going to try it at least once. I am usually the one who ends up going in the kid’s rooms and really getting things done, which is exhausting! So if I am going to be doing the work periodically anyway, why not find a way to make it work FOR me and work towards helping my achieve my longtime goal of having my kids keep a clean room!

I am currently recovering from a weird injury from stretching 2 days ago (yes I know a sure sign of getting older). I feel much more functional today but am not totally pain free yet. I am going to add the kid’s rooms to my list of things to do once I get back to my normal routine.

I will be sure to let you all know how it goes! Leave me a comment if you like and tell me what you do/don’t like about this method and if you decide to try it let me know how it goes!

Blessings,

Cassie

Homeschool Memoirs #19 – Making a List

THEME

This week I want to set our minds on setting some goals for next year, whether personal, for the whole family, or for school.
Ok, this is something I really, REALLY need to do.  Therefore I am very excited about this week’s “assignment”.  There are a LOT of things I want to improve upon or change and the New Year is as good time as any to do so!  Right?  Right!  So off we go…
PERSONAL GOALS for 2009
1. Have a CONSISTENT daily quiet time with the Lord.
2. Read through my Chronological “Bible in a Year” for the first time in the 4 years I have owned it.
3. Be a better wife and mother.
4. Make an effort to smile more, yell less and enjoy my children.
5.  Say what I mean and mean what I say…in all circumstances.
6. Make a more conscious effort to put time into my appearance instead of staying in sweats or PJ’s all day and throwing my hair up in a bun (come on now I know I’m not the only one).
7. Be more conscious of my spending habits.
8. Keep up better on laundry (a constant struggle).
9. Implement and use a system for housework so that certain things will not be neglected.
10. Get organized (not so tough) and STAY organized (ah that’s the clincher).
11. Get into a better routine.  Meaning getting up earlier and using my time more wisely.
12. Be more attentive to my husband’s needs and wants.
13. Attend church services more regularly (we have been slacking in this area).
14. Pray more, worry less.
15. Learn to be more patient, consistent, and cheerful (regardless of circumstances).
FAMILY GOALS for 2009
1. Have daily prayer and devotions as a family.
2. Spend more quality time together.
3. Set up a chore routine for the children and stick to it.  Teach the kids new skills in this area.
4. Establish a working “routine” for our days so that they will go more smoothly.
5. Put more emphasis on child training and spend less time “putting out fires”.
6. Include the children more when doing household duties (laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc).
SCHOOL GOALS for 2009
1.  Get more done!!!!!!
2. Teach the children to do more independently and find ways to make them more responsible for completing their own work.
3. Do more science experiments.
4. Spend more time DOING and less time PLANNING to do.
5. Find a better system for keeping records and stick to it.
6. Get Isaiah reading fluently (we are slowly getting there).
7. Encourage Drew to read more independently.
8. Be more consistent with our school days.
9. Do more creative writing.
10. Improve Drew’s spelling skills.
11. Get more organized (again a constant struggle for me).
12. Encourage diligence, responsibility, neatness, and a good attitude in my children (with school and other things).
I know there are probably a LOT more goals I could list, but this is a good start.  I am looking forward to working on these goals, and others, this coming year and I pray that the Lord will bless me and my family with the ability to achieve as many of them as possible.

Blessings,

Cassie

Blog Giveaway - Flip Ultra Video Camcorder

 

Want to win this?

Vanessa from I Never Grew Up is hosting a giveaway for this very cool, very chic digital video camera.  You can check it out here and enter yourself to win!  Good luck!

Blessings,

Cassie

Only boys....

There are many instances throughout my day where I have to chuckle and think to myself, "Only boys (my boys to be exact) would do or say that!"  Want an example?

Today Drew and Isaiah were having PB&J sandwiches with Cheetos for lunch.  I was in and out taking care of Joey and reheating some leftovers for myself.  As I left the kitchen for the last time to sit down and eat, I hear the boys pretending as they usually do with their GI Joes and Star Wars figures.  I turn around to go back in the dining room to remind them that they are not to have toys at the table while they eat and stop in the doorway to observe them...

Isaiah's cheeto says to Drew's cheeto, "Do you have any toys to sell?"
Drew's cheeto answers his, "Yes but you don't have enough cheese money to buy them.  You will have to borrow the cheese money from your mom."

Sigh.  Only boys!

Blessings,
Cassie

More Videos of my Famous Joey!

I think the title says it all enjoy!






Needless to say the swing is no longer effective (sniff)!




Blessings,
Cassie

Unto the Lamb - Christ for the Nations

I just had to share this song with everyone...

At our church's Christmas Concert, the drama team performed a human video while the choir sang it and wow was it powerful!  Enjoy!

Unto The Lamb - Christ For The Nations
Blessings,
Cassie

Another Funny Homeschool Video from YouTube

I will be back later tonight to do some memes and catch up but mean while...

I found this video while reading another HSer's blog and just had to share.... so funny! All about us "weirdo" homeschoolers....



Blessings,
Cassie

Grilling Goodness Meme #10

1. How many Christmas parties have you attended or will you attend?

We will attend our "World's Largest Christmas Party" Service at our church on the 21st. We don't attend other Christmas Parties. We do go to my grandparent's home on Christmas Day to celebrate with them.

2. What is your favorite dish to take to a party?
My most requested dish for dinners is Old Fashioned Sugar Cream Pie. I also get asked for my hashbrown casserole a lot.


3. When you're at home and your feet are chilled, do you wear socks or houseshoes?
Both usually!


4. What are your plans for this weekend?
Do some holiday dessert baking with the kids.


5. What is the most expensive Christmas gift you are buying for your children this year?
We are not spending nearly what we usually do for Christmas this year, so far the most expensive gift has been our daughter's mp3 player which we got the day after Thanksgiving at Wal-Mart.


6. Do you have a family portrait made each year?
Unfortunately, we do not get professional portraits yearly, though we plan to soon.


7. Do you drive your kids around looking for decorated homes?
There are a few families here in town that do a "Winter Wonderland" every year. it is really neat and we have made a tradition out of driving through every year. The kids love it! (I would hate to see their electric bill!)


8. What is your least favorite thing about cold weather?
I hate being cold. I get out as little as possible. My eczema gets ruthless.....'nuff said.

Thanks for reading!

Blessings,
Cassie