Day #2

The master. Have I mentioned that I hate paneling? Can't wait until it's invisible!
This is the wall we demoed (is that word?)
The boys room. Again, more paneling! WooHoo!


Well yesterday was Tuesday, Day 2. We got a lot accomplished! We don't go until about 2pm since we stay home and do school first. Last night we stayed until 11pm though! We're still without water since Ben can't seem to figure out the problem on the pump yet but we're making do. I have a lot of containers I fill up to go and then we take a trip back into Mom or Grandma's to refill since we've been bleaching a lot. Hopefully our friend John will come up tonight and him and Ben can get the pump running. It's also getting cold and we need to call the propane company to get a tank and heat but we also have someone else at church who has a neighbor who might be selling his tank since he just got natural gas. It's nice to have a great church!
The entire house is now bleached! WhoHOO! My lungs are not thanking me but my peace of mind is! It's took 2 days. Well, I guess not the entire house because downstairs is not done but the rest of it is. I'm focusing on the top floor first and then downstairs. We're also doing some major caulking and it's almost completely done which means we can start with the painting today! I have 16 gallons of expensive Lowe's and Home Depot paint and I'm still going to have to buy more. Everything was bought for $5 off the mis-tint rack which I'm thrilled about! So today we'll start painting. I'd like to have it ready to start ripping out the carpets soon and we have to paint first...that way we won't have to put down drop cloths. Here's the breakdown so far
Day#1- Bleach and Work on the Pump, Vacuum
Day#2- Bleach, Work on the pump, caulk, demo a wall
Day #3- To be determined!!

Our Miracle Home Story

We received a miracle involving our home! We were given a word from the Lord through our Pastor telling us we would receive everything we were asking for if we would obey God. This is an area we've been really trying hard on...just listening and obeying. About a week later we found a house that we wanted to look at. We had Dad, Mom, Adam, Janiece and Grandma go look at it with us just really out of curiosity. We had driven by before but it was out of our price range..now not even a year later it was marked down under 1/3 of the price they were asking. We looked at it on a Sunday, we were told that they were already accepting best offers and the agent wasn't sure why it was still on the market so we'd have to put in an offer right away and get our own financing because the bank wouldn't finance it. Within 20 minutes Ben had someone arrange a personal loan for us, we had the OK that it was a sturdy house from Dad and we had prayed and felt like it was good for us. We made an offer the next day, a Monday. We were told it could be 2 months before we hear anything. We prayed for information within in a day and on Tuesday we received the information that we had the house! God just provided it all miraculously for us! We have our current home on the market and believing it will sell super quick. We have a blog for it: http://aHomeToLove.blogspot.com Today we closed on our new house and we've begun fixing it up. It has sat empty for while so it needs some work. We found out part of the property (especially the barn) was built in 1883 which seems so neat to us! We can't wait to research it more. There are 3 acres, a barn, a shop, and a couple of other out buildings. So day 1: BLEACH! It's all in my lungs and nose but 1/2 of the house is done!! We hope to keep up with our progress here!

A HUGE sycamore tree in our yard! From the porch you can see the barn



Part of the paint we've bought!

Fun things to do with kids around Branson / Springfield

My dream job (in addition to being a Mom, wife and homeschooling teacher) is to take our family on expense paid trips to places like theme parks, restaurants, movies, etc. and write reviews or do a show on it. I've actually wanted this job for about 15 years now but I'm not sure how to go about it!! However, I'm always googling for tips so I thought I'd post this to help others!

So on to the top activities for this summer that we've enjoyed so far:




1. Going to the Palace for Twilight Tuesday. The Palace is regularly $3 each which is a lot cheaper than other theaters since the movies are older, but on Tuesdays it's only $1 each! Our family of 4 saw a double feature this past Tuesday for only $8 which is less than 3 people would've been for one movie on Monday...less than 1 person at the other theaters! Of course this didn't include the popcorn and soda but we got a single's combo which is $9 plus 50 cents for butter and had refills for the 2nd movie. For 4 people you just can't beat it! Go to palacemovies.com for showtimes. The Palace is off of James River and Kansas Expressway in Springfield.









2. Visit Silver Dollar City in Branson. Right now they're having Kids Fest and every weekend they're featuring a different guest. This weekend it is Scobby and Shaggy. In the future it will be the Jetsons, Tom and Jerry, The Backyardigans and Spongebob. This only lasts until August 8th and then the festival changes.









3. Participate in reading programs. Right now we're involved in 3. The Christian County library has a great one with different activities you sign up for. So far the meterologist from KY3 has talked to the kids and then we're going for a pirate party and a big finale party which includes discounts to area places (last year Rib Crib and Sonic plus others) and a free book or two. The Greene County library has a cool flip card that gives you discounts for 30 places in Springfield! Bowling here we come! Plus a coloring sheet and a book. Then Barnes and Noble has a reading program...read 8 books, put it on your "passport" and get a free book. Fun!

Arthur visited Barnes and Noble to support Early Chilhood Special Education in the Spring:






4. Visit the Ozark Medieval Fortress. This is about 30 minutes south of Branson and is super cool! They do not use any modern tools to build this castle...everything is centuries of years old. We went and the kids helped cut stones to put in the castle wall, build bricks from clay for the potter, made rope, studied the herbs, carved stone and so much more. We're studying kings and queens in the fall so we intend to go again! We did pay $1 extra each to get the tour which I highly recommend. It was a little lengthy at times for the boys since they're not big on staying still and listening for that long but it was awesome for learning and they pick up more than I think. The website is: http://www.ozarkmedievalfortress.com/

Here is a picture of the device they will use to raise rocks to the top of the castle walls!

5. Take a trip to the Precious Moments museum. Absolutely free but dontations are accepted. This is gorgeous! There are chapel tours which are highly recommended and still free. They go into details about the portraits painted in the chapel so you can understand them better. Then it's all self-exploratory. Precious Moments in located in Carthage and their site is: http://www.preciousmomentschapel.com/

Inside the chapel





6. Make free photo books on Hot Prints. You can get 4 free photo books per month. I haven't tried them yet but I'm going to. I'm sure they're not going to be professional quality (like a professional photographer could get you) and they have advertsiments built into the books. However, I could do one for the 4 biggest attractions listed above and have a fun time with it! If only I can find time to do it ;-) The website is: http://www.hotprints.com/


I know I only listed 6 activities but this should keep you busy going! I'll try to list more as we do them! Have fun and write if you do any of these things so that I know I'm not wasting my time writing!

A portion of our happenings in January

We had an amazing vacation which spilled over into January. We went to Myrtle Beach. It was a lot colder than we like but not as cold as Missouri so we survived. In Myrtle Beach we got to experience a lot of things. The guys always go on a deep sea fishing trip but this year we all got to go! The kids got to see a squid up close. Brian caught a shark, they coat Toad Fish (which will bite your fingers off so we learned about those) and some sea bass. We didn't catch much but it was sure fun! We also went to the Rice Museum in Georgetown. It was a beautiful historic town. Our extended family gave us some trouble about visiting a rice farm since we grew up raising rice, but it was very interested to see how rice effected South Carolina. We also saw the oldest vessel in North America! We went to Ripley's Aquarium which I can't imagine how crowded it would be in tourist season since it was very crowded the day we went. We ate one day at the House of Blues and did many more things! It was a great spot to visit.

This is a squid. Yuck!

At Ripley's Aquarium with our entire family crew- 23 this year instead of the usual 13.Then on new year's day we went to DC. It was bitting cold but wonderful. Ben and I have been to DC twice now but the first time was work related. We knew this was somewhere we wanted to take the kiddos and it was so cool. We went to a lot of different places this time and our 2 days there were jam packed. We saw the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, Jefferson's Library (which is amazing and huge) and so much more. We took a tour of the Capital and learned that the President has to get an invitation before stepping into the Capital building so that there is a separation of state and that a young girl created an art piece of Lincoln and saw him to complete it the day he was assasinated. We rode the Metro which Aybrin really liked. Aybrin said he learned that trains and cars go faster than roller coasters but he liked the Metro. Asher said he thought it was scarey. We went to Arlington Cementary and watched the Changing of the Guards, we ate lunch at the National Park right beside an outdoor skating rink! We went to the Smithsonian where Mom and Dad bought us Imax tickets to stay after the muesum closed so we could watch "Night at the Museum, Battle of the Smithsonian"! It was so cool! This was just a handful of things we saw and did. It was the best!

The architecture of the building in front of the Changing of the Guards

In front of the Capital Building before our tour

Making funny faces inside of the Capital

The Lincoln Memorial which is even more breathtaking at night.

The Washington Monument taken while we were driving down the road

Then we got home and a couple of weeks later we found out the kids were going to perform at the Harlem Globetrotter's Game in Springfield!! They were the half time show and it was amazing. They attend TOT class once a week where they learn basketball handling skills along with academic skills such as colors, counting, foreign language, etc. The learning part is mostly review for Aybrin (except for French and Spanish although I've been wanting to start a foreign lanugage program for quite a while now) but the skills are awesome for both kids. And Asher now knows which hand is right and which is left which is awesome! The night of the game we put orange in the kid's hair to match their orange shirts and we were so glad we did it. It really helped them stand out so we could see them good on the court. Grandma even went to the game. Mom told the Globetrotter's coach while we were getting autographs, that this was Grandma's first basketball game in 75 years. He said that if he would've known that he would've had her come down on the court during the game! The team and the coach were so nice. It was the best experience. And now I think there's going to be a write up in the Christian County Headliner with their pictures in it! We're super excited!

Top row: Enoch and Aybrin

Bottom row: Eleesia and Asher

Essa does not perform in TOT yet

Enoch is in the left row- the one closes to the camera turned towards the camera. Aybrin is right beside him. Asher is in the right row closes to the camera.Eleesia's the girl closest to the camera with straight hair (Janiece straightened it for the performance and it was so cute) Asher is right beside her.Mackenzie- our friend, is sitting down, then it's Eleesia then Asher.
Our friend Morgan is the girl with the bow in her hair, then it's a little boy, then it's Enoch then Aybrin.

Now we're into February. Janiece and I have been doing a full force decluttering/Spring Cleaning attack on our homes. We're spending 3 days a week at each other's houses going through EVERYTHING! We're so tired of doing it but it's nice to see the end results and to realize that things are now super clean. No more dust bunnies under the bed! We've also been researching Natural things for your body and cleaning supplies. We're doing research on the harmful toxins in our everyday products. And of course we're planning our gardens and learning natural cures for herbs we're going to plant.

Our big news for school is that I think Aybrin will enter his first Science fair! The fair will be at the Library Center in Springfield on April 16th. We're excited and looking for good projects we can do. We're also planning to attend the SHEM homeschool conference again this year which always gives us plenty of encouragment and resources to get inspired for the upcoming year. That partly sums up our month. We're having fun here and hope to hear from some of you soon!

Fall is in the air!

Our recycled scarecrow! He was a lesson in art, creativity, problem solving and recycling!

These very cool ghosts that we made. The inside lights up at night and they're just super cute! Asher's cricket. One of the many joys of studying nature!

Oh sweet fall! It's crisp leaves, warm cider and Halloween! We've started off our week by studying a unit called "Remembering Fall" which was pretty cool even though it was outdated. So far this fall we have collected leaves and acorns, made some really cool ghosts and a recycled scarecrow. Visited the recycling center to learn about recycling, read Charlie and the Chocolate Factor and the Vicar of Nibbleswick by Roald Dahl. We've worked on journaling, reading, writing, math, habit training and learning lots of life skills. We're attending TOT which teaches the kids basketball handling skills while they also learn right from left, vowels, mixing colors, spanish, french and lots of other stuff. We're still in tae kwon do as well. Aybrin and Enoch should be ready to test the next cycle which I believe is 13 weeks from now. They're excited about that! And Asher loves both TOT and tae kwon do...it's so adorable! We just found out we're going to Myrtle Beach and Washington DC for Christmas this year and we're busy trying to fit everything and everyone in along with planning Christmas gifts! We're still balancing life, school and the photography business but all is well and God's a big God who helps us out constantly!

Our first day of school!

Monday was our 1st day back to school and it was a great day! (I've been trying to post this since Tuesday but the internet was messing up). We're trying to implement the Charlotte Mason method this year and I know it'll take a while to get the hang of it but we're on the right track. We did our journals, writing, reading, real life math, puzzles, then lots of nature time. It was wonderful. While I was outside taking clothes off the line I found this bug. So I snapped some pictures then found something on the clothespin that the bug was sitting on. I brought the whole clothespin in, put it in a jar with grass and left it. We looked it up this morning and found out it is a katydid and that these are indeed eggs! So we're already rolling right along in our nature studies! We're doing our sit down studies this morning and then heading into Ozark this afternoon for a visit to the library and a nature study walk. I'm taking clipboards for the boys to draw a certain animal and then write about it. We'll then come home and look it up in our Nature Study book and learn more about it. I'm excited about this part of schooling to us since it's new to us. I think it'll really teach the boys to be attentive which will really help.

I'm also posting a few photos of our excursion last week. We went with Jonna to Fantastic Caverns where we got some great photo opportunities! I'm trying to add Ben's picture but it messed up yet again (sigh)!!

New Camera!

We got a new camera for the business.. one I get to keep at home! YEAH!! So I've been taking a lot of photographs. Here are a few from last week. All the kids can now jump off the diving board so we're thrilled! Last week we also went to the Dance and Move at our library which the kids had a blast at. I was amazed how much Asher loved it! I would really like to find a creative movement class for him, especially since he's so upset that Aybrin played TBall and he was too young to do it. I need to get him in something fun!

I've also been visiting this blog called raisingolives.com Very inspiring and motivating. They have 9 kiddos so I like to see how big families handle their chores, housework, etc. instead of following someone's plan who has no children. Plus they homeschool which is super nice. It's amazing how much school stuff I have to get organized! And the kids are so young! I can't imagine how it will be when they're older!!