It's That Time Again!

It's not too late to break out the seeds and pots and start preparing for this year's garden. I found this wonderful website that has made gardening easy and exciting!

First of all she has valuable information like a how-to video on growing seeds indoors, an easy-to-read companion planting chart, and helpful links among other things. She also groups areas into colors according to your last spring frost date. Once you determine your color, you can sign up for a weekly newsletter where she reminds you what gardening activity you should do that week. I don't know about you but I need reminding!

On her site there is also a link to a gardening planning website that has software which helps you plot and plan your garden. It has a activity log and other great tools to help you get organized. There is a free 45-day trial and then if it is worth it you can sign up for a $20/year subscription.

My husband good-naturedly teases me about a gardening weakness I have. For some reason I have a hard time harvesting my garden. I have phenomenal starting (of a project) power, pretty strong staying power to carry it through, but this year I am going to work on finishing power. Hopefully these tools help me with that.

Happy Gardening!

Creating Beauty

My amazing friend Ali posted this on her blog the other day. I love it!! Thanks for letting me share Ali!

Acorns $ 0.00

Berries $0.00

Flowers from the park $0.00

Cattails from the river $0.00

Sticks and weeds $0.00

Using a bunch of weeds, leaves, flowers, and berries to make something beautiful........

P r i c e l e s s

"Free" from the Government!

Hi all. Just wanted to pass along an awesome resource my brother-in-law Daniel shared with me. This website http://free.ed.gov/ has some great information. As I check in out in depth, I'll let you know what we've done with it. Have fun exploring!! Now here's something I will take for "free" from my government!

Paper Making

I am a FUN homeschool mom!

This is my new positive affirmation. Today we made paper and everyone had a hand in the process. We followed the directions found here.

We decided not to blend the paper pulp too much so that there are colorful flakes left in the paper. We used a lot of color so our paper actually came out sort of purplish.

We just let it dry in the sun instead of squeezing the water out with cookies sheets and hanging it on the clothes line. Simplify!

To tell you the truth it made me feel sort of powerful. While we made our paper we chatted about this and my daughter decided to write a story about how she and her siblings saved the country by covertly making paper and sending a crucial message to the White House while we were at war. Can't wait to read it!

Serving with Smiles

For awhile now I have been looking for ways to involve my children in meaningful service. I finally found the perfect venue!! On Saturday, I took my children and a neighbor friend to a wonderful activity organized by Serving with Smiles.

Talk about INSPIRATION!

Corinne Allen and co-founder Elizabeth Jeffrey have created a great way for children to serve others around the world. The participants make bracelets, coloring books, blankets, baby blocks, picture books, bead toys and more! They also assemble kits with hygiene and school supplies to send throughout the world. You can also bring home instruction sheets that explain how to do these projects at home. My kids really want to make bead geckos and bracelets!

After the activity the kids got popsicles and won fun prizes in a raffle. It was definitely a class act! Anyone can attend so check out their website Serving with Smiles. If you would like to bring this kind of opportunity to your community or would like to donate, contact Corinne or Elizabeth for more information. They are more than happy to help!

Summer is around the corner and I can't wait to be LAZY! What!? You can be lazy with five children, you wonder? Well NO, not really...BUT I have found that if initially you play with your kids, it seems to fill a need and then you can go on and take care of mommy business. At any rate, it pays to have some exciting alternatives in preparation for the inevitable "I'm bored!" exclamation.

My friend Jenny R. is such a fun summer mom (she is for other seasons too : ) Here are some of the activities she does with her kids:

• "The boys each have a four-man tent that they got a few years ago. They love setting them up as forts in the back yard. They each have a pack with a compass, flashlight, water gun, snacks, etc. They play spies, army, camping, etc. for hours. They also love it if it is lightly raining."

• "Water balloons are fun for all four of my kids. I have an attachment that hooks up to the hose so it makes it a lot easier."

• "Taking a picnic to the park along with bikes, scooters, roller blades, etc. is also fun."

• "We have had a swimming pass the last few summers which makes a great incentive to get chores done in the morning. Spending a few hours at the pool is one of their favorite things to do."

• "My girls are really into crafts and projects. I taught them to crochet(Emmy loves it Kylee hates it).

• Paints, beads, weaving, and building things with popsicle sticks are some things they love.

• "For smaller kids one of my favorite things is Water Wow! El Grande Activity Kit- Color with water! It is painting with water so there is no mess. Little kids love it. I just ordered it online."

• "The girls also love the Painting By Number Kits."

THANKS for the fun ideas Jenny!

Another fun idea I haven't actually done YET is a kids projects at Home Depot. All stores on the first Saturday of the month offer a free project for children ages 4-12. Some stores have sign-up lists and some are first come, first serve (check the Home Depot near you). They ask that there is one adult for every two children to help supervise. They have done fun projects such as a birdhouse, a gift for Mother's Day, a hardware sorter for Father's Day, a picnic caddy in July, etc. Try it out and let me know how it goes!

On that note... FYI I had my comments on a restricted setting but now you can leave comments (I hope ;)

Give it a try and share some fun ideas!

The Perfect Project

I don't know about you but as soon as February hit this year, I was dreaming of planting a garden. I had the BEST idea! The children could make the garden THEIR project. I got out the graph paper and I taught them all about the horizontal and vertical axes, quadrants and coordinates.

They made designs including plotting points on the graph to make a noble knight.

It seemed like a hit! Then we tromped through the snow with some coaxing and measured our garden plot. With still more coaxing, we all drew maps of our garden plot on graph paper all the while the children were listening to mom blissfully talk about all the wonderful vegetables and flowers we could plant this year. Pretty soon mom looked around and noticed she was talking to herself... Apparently their project was really MY project.

Well spring has FINALLY sprung. When it came down to it, playing in the dirt was all the inspiration they needed...