Fall is in the Air!!

I love this time of year! I love the colors, the smells, open windows, blue jeans, long sleeves, candy pumpkins, the fair in town...the list goes on and on!!

Here are some pictures of what I've done so far to get our house prettied up for fall!

Our dining room table - it looks really cozy in the evening with the candles lit!


The island in the kitchen:


The front door (don't you love those pumpkins?! My aunt got them at a thrift store!)


And this is in our front yard. Joel is going to bring me some corn stalks, but I need something else. Just more pumpkins? Hmmm...


Sorry I've been such a bad blogger, I'm not going to promise to get better, but I've been missing it!

No School This Week!!

Mary Helen left this morning to go to the beach with Joel's mom for the week. Joel, Anna, and I will head over Wednesday afternoon until Saturday.

I have been doing some fall cleaning, and some fall decorating. This is probably my favorite time of year. I love the weather cooling down, the colors, and the smells of fall. Come Christmas, I'll be loving that season too, but for now fall's my favorite! I've been getting all kinds of ideas from blogland of fall decorating ideas...I just need more time, space, and money for all of them!

I will work on some pictures when I get all my fall stuff out. For now, here are some pictures from Mary Helen's birthday party that I never posted!

I think we're on to something!

Okay, last week went much better than the first week, and this week has gotten off to a better start!

This week we are learning about the letter B and talking about bears. My main book this week is to be Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?, but I went to the library this morning (of course on the day I wanted to use it!), and it's checked out. Being the popular book it is, I thought surely Wal-Mart would have it. No luck. So I checked with the preschool director at church...she told me where her stash was and I looked through it. Probably all the Eric Carl books except the Brown Bear one! The good news is that she is going to ask her husband if I can borrow one from his school!

So, on we went with the bear theme. Here are some pictures from our day!

The girls had teddy bear and letter B sandwhiches for lunch.




Mary Helen did a gummy bear sort, then as she was eating them, we did simple adding and subtracting (If you had six green bears, and you ate two, how many are left? How many green and red bears do you have all together?)



Here are some pictures of the beginning of our lapbook. Mary Helen will add to it along the way this week. I'll show the finished product at the end of the week.

brought to you by the letter A

Wow! A whole month since my last post! I'm a very bad blogger!

I have begun homeschooling my dear Mary Helen. It's been a week, and I've only thought of registering her at school about a dozen times! Last week was pretty much a flop. She thinks coloring is boring and not hard, and she wants to do "real" school stuff. She's four. Coloring is REAL school stuff!

So all weekend I re-did our whole plan. I included lots of cutting, gluing, some coloring, some pencil work... so today, I was all excited, and she colored the first thing, and started cutting it out. But cutting is really hard. And it's boring.

So we went to the library.

We came back, and fought it out until she cut the whole thing. Never mind what I had planned for the rest of the day!

She is peacefully sleeping now, and I am enjoying an almost frapaccino that I made myself. It's almost as good as starbucks, better if you consider the cost!

So, that's where I've been since I last posted, homeschool convention and planning homeschool stuff.

Not much decorating going on here either. I've got to do something picture-worthy!

Cleaning Sshedule

Well, in an effort to better organize myself, have a cleaner house, homeschool, and still have a few free minutes everyday; I've decided to make a schedule for myself. I am amazed at how you can do just a few things everyday and have a clean house. I have given Mary Helen 3 chores everyday, which she loves and asks for more jobs! I only have a few cleaning jobs each day, some days are heavier than others, but I only have one thing to do on Fridays so it can be easily moved, and I don't have any jobs on Saturdays!!

We haven't started school yet, but I can see how it will fit easily into the routine I've set up. I'll even be getting around to deeper cleaning stuff instead of putting it off!

This coming week is pretty quiet, then starting next Saturday, we are busy busy busy! My dad is turning the big 5-0 this week, so we will be celebrating that on Saturday evening. Then on Monday, I am going to go to the mountains with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law, her kids, and a family friend for church camp meeting. I'm sure the kids will have a blast...I'm looking forward to it too! I will come home from there on Wednesday and head out early Friday for the homeschool convention.

Works for Me Wednesday

A couple of months ago, I walked into my mom's bathroom, and there sat the cutest little contact case. I don't wear contacts, but I figured that shouldn't stop me from having that cute little thing to carry around in my purse, right? It came to me almost as soon as I saw it...I could scrape out the bottom of my favorite lipstick, and get many more uses out of it! It even has a little mirror!







Check out what works for other bloggers over at Rocks in my Dryer!

no TV update

It's been nearly three weeks without a tv, and I have to say, it's going great! I always thought it would be worse on me than it was on the girls, but it's not been bad at all. Mary Helen has spent a bit more time on the computer, especially at first. She is playing more, and her imagination seems to be soaring. She is following me around the house more, but that's something I've wanted...to talk to the girls a lot. It's not alway convenient for me, but that's my selfishness!

She's started doing chores, and she loves that. I'm sure it will pass.

Anna's begun her terrible twos. She is trying to see who's boss in this house. Parents win. She's spending a lot of time on the bathroom rug. In fact, she fell asleep there last night during a battle. She woke up and went there within minutes, then we did it again after nap time. When we get her ready for bed, and up from bed, we send her with her diaper to throw away. This week she's decided that she doesn't like that job.

Tomorrow night, I get to go out to eat with my very best friend growing up. We were in the crib together at day care (her grandmother was the leader and she saw to it that we were best friends). We took swimming lessons together, we went through puberty together, we went through the drama of boyfriends together, we fought about a boy, we made up, we rebelled together, and after highschool we drifted. We kept in touch sporadically, and last summer she got married. Now, I am not an emotional type. I don't cry at weddings or most funerals. It's life. It's happy, it's sad. But, at her wedding, when her bridesmaids started walking in, I started crying. I didn't know any of them. I should have been right by her side. She should have been at my side when I got married. When we went to her house for the reception and she and her dad danced to "Butterfly Kisses" I totally lost it. The guests at our table thought I was real nice until that moment. Then they (along with Joel) thought I was just plain nuts.

Anyways, we've been through so much together, and I can't wait to catch up with her!