"Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest; Home-keeping hearts are happiest, For those that wander they know not whereare full of trouble and full of care; To stay at home is best."~ Longfellow ~

My Valentine Idea

Walmart had these white cardboard mailboxes that you assemble and decorate for $4. The idea is to let the kids decorate the mailbox and tell them that there is a legend about 2 valentine mice named Mitch and Millie. If you make a box and leave them a note each night for the first 2 weeks of February, they will leave you a note the next morning and a treat.

I bought a little heart shaped notebook to place in the mailbox, so that they can write a note every night and Mitch and Millie will respond with a question or a joke and a piece of gum, candy, stickers etc the next morning. It should be fun!!

February Plans

Here are some of the things we are planning for February:

~ January 31st, we will read Brigid's Cloak ; An Irish Legend to kick off the month.
~ Watch the Superbowl on the 1st. I have a recipe for Touchdown Taco dip we will try
~ Make our " Mitch and Millie the Valentine Mice " Mailbox ( See above post)
~ Watch for Mr. Groundhog and read a few funny books on that legend and make a groundhog puppet.
~ We get to begin our WHE ( Walkertown Home Educaters) ACE clubs this month. Abby chose Scrapbook stampin and K9 Club, Nathan chose Basketball and Legos and Esther chose Bible crafts and Super Science. We meet on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Thursday of each month until May. On the first Friday of the month we go bowling. I am leading the Lego club and am excited about some of the themes we came up with for each week and I found lots of cool books at the library to go along with each theme
~ We will continue on with a moon lapbook to go along with our Astronomy study and plan a field trip to the planetarium at Sciworks.
~We have a Children and Widows luncheon at church on the 8th
~ We plan to celebrate Abe Lincoln's birthday on the 12th with a book about our 16th President and play with Lincoln logs.
~ Celebrate Greg's Birthday on the 14th
~ Make some valentines for our friends and read about the real St. Valentine
~Pull out the Christmas sugar cookie recipe and cut out heart shape cookies and decorate
~ Go to Florida for a week vacation to see family.
~ Begin Reading Inkheart out loud and maybe finish it up before the movie comes to the $2.50 movies in WS. If we can finish up the book, we may have to go watch the movie.
~ Celebrate Washington's birthday on the 22nd, complete with a book, craft and cherry pie :)
~ Make Mardi Gras masks and eat pancakes and bacon on Shrove Tuesday (The 24th). It is a tradition that many people gave up fat, eggs, milk and meat for lent and so they would finish up all they had in their house the day before Lent. The name Mardi Gras is french for Fat Tuesday. I am neither catholic or french, but I am all about dressing up and eating pancakes for dinner!
~ Esther and I are going to read through all of Beatrix Potter's books this spring and we may get a jump on that the end of this month.

Have a happy last week of January!

Wednesday Recipe

Here is a yummy filling soup for those cold winter evenings:

Cheeseburger Soup Recipe
2 Carrots
1 Onion
2 Stalks Celery
8 Cups Potatoes diced
3 Cans Chicken Broth
1/4 c Flour
1/2 c Butter
1/2 lb Hamburger meat
1/2 c Milk
1/4 c Sour Cream
1/2 lb Velveeta Cheese
Salt and Pepper to taste

Brown the meat and drain. Set Aside. Chop the potatoes up into small chunks and set aside. Grate the carrots and chop the celery and the onion. Melt 1/4 c of the butter in a large 5 qt pot and saut the onions and the celery until clear. Add cooked hamburger meat, and potatoes along with the chicken broth. Simmer until the potatoes are tender.

While this is cooking, take the remaining butter and add the flour over low heat. Stir until thick then set aside. Once the potatoes are done to your liking add the flour mixture to thicken the soup. Stir well, then add the cheese cut into blocks along with the milk. Stir occasionally until the cheese is melted. Right before serving take the soup off of the heat and add the sour cream. Stir until incorporated and then serve. Goes great along with some French Bread!

Chinese New Year

Here are some pictures of us celebrating chinese New Year today.

My camera broke right after Christmas and so any pictures I have taken this month have been with Abby's new camera and I have just not borrowed it very much! I am hoping to get a new one before we go on vacation next month. I did a small slideshow below with some January highlights like our New Years bags and the winter's first snow. I will try to blog a little more this month...I am kinda missing being on here.

Hands of a Child sale!

This is one of my favorite places to buy lapbooks. I can't resist a good sale, so I thought I would pass it along!


Dear Valued Customers,
Due to the new CPSIA law In the Hands of a Child, for the time being, is discounting our Kit Pack inventory in order to lessen our possible loss in the event that an exemption is not granted.

While we are still praying for this situation to work out for all small businesses we feel that it is in our best interest to lessen our possible loss. And what better way than to pass the savings on to you, our wonderful customers, who are praying with us through this difficult situation!!

Please help us clear our shelves and enjoy a 35% savings on all Kit Packs!! Savings will be automatic! Spread the word and help us empty the shelves!!

This sale will continue until our Kit Pack inventory has been exhausted, so purchases will be on a first-come-first-served basis.

Once they are gone, they are gone!

In the event the law is modified, In the Hands of a Child reserves the right to bring back Kit Packs in the future at full price without any discount, implied or expressed, during this sale.

Cannot be combined with any other offer, special, discount, coupon or sale. Super Member discount DOES NOT apply to this sale.Tax and Shipping not included in calculating discount price. Not valid toward prior purchases. No rainchecks.

January organization

School is going well this week. We are reading quite a few books with winter as our theme. My sunshine loving Essie told me that she was not impressed by the books I had chosen from the library yesterday...they made her cold! Wait until we study the Iditarod next month..she will freeze for sure!

I have been tweaking my system for keeping paperwork organized this week. I found a wonderful blog from a lady named Dawn, who has some great ideas. I have a link on my sidebar to her blog...she probably thinks I am stalking her I have visited the site so much this week.

The reason I need something better as far as organization is that I will often find cool lapbook ideas or crafts and then I forget about them the week I wanted to do them. So I now have my very own file crate system!



The gist is you have a crate with 6 hanging folders, each one representing two months. Then within that folder, you place smaller manila folders, one for each week. Whenever I find something interesting to do, I simply slip it in the file for the week I want to do it. Then on the weekend before, I pull that file out while I am working on lesson plans and I can gather any materials needed. I will see how well it works, but I am excited about it





I also made myself two folders for out two vacations coming up. We have been planning to go to Florida in February to see family and camp at Disney. This weekend we found out that Greg's parents are going to take us on a cruise in May!! We are sooooo excited. I have my two folders now to put anything that come about the vacation, as well as paper to make lists of reminders and plans. I have them along with my church info folder all in this cute little magazine holder I bought at Target for $1!




Another idea from Dawn is a journal to go along with my monthly planner. It is basically a notebook where I put the date each day for two pages. Then I have a spot to jot down ideas, paste recipes, poems ect that comes up in a day that I am sure to forget. It is not very pretty to look at, but it seems to be helping me remember more things. I did go through our Christmas cards and clip any cute graphics I can stick on random days to brighten up the pages.

Well, we are puttering around the house all day today and so glad not to have to go out in the cold wind and rain. Only problem with theses lazy days is that we seem to stretch school out way too long for me! So, off to get some children back on task...again.

January Plans

Here is some of the things we are planning to do in this first month of the new year.

Cheer for the GATORS in the national championship game for college football

Esther to begin a rowing Katy and the big snow

Aesop Fable Literature Pocket. I think we will do a fable a week with our Bible lesson

Finish Jotham's Journey (It was for Advent, but we didn't quite finish in time)

Abby to begin a study on Betsy Ross

Learn to play our new game Ticket to Ride

Snowflake craft

Watch Arctic Tale

Winter Nature walks

Poetry Study ~ Stopping by the woods by Robert Frost

Ski/Snow tubing trip to WV (and to visit some dear friends up there)

Skating Day

Home school PE

January 19th is A.A. Milne's Birthday, so I think we will celebrate on Friday the 16th with a little honey cakes and Pooh bear

Martin Luther King Jr. birthday (read a book about him and do a lap book)

Watch the Superbowl

Learn to knit ( this is a New Years Goal for Abby and me)

Make a pajama run...haven't done this in a while

Create peanutbutter bird feeders

Chinese New Year on the 26th. We will read a few books on the Holiday, make some Chinese lanterns and origami, watch Mulan and end the day by going out for Chinese Food.

the 29th is National Puzzle Day, so I will pick up a new puzzle to work on that day.