Schoolhouse Review Crew: Micro Business for Teens

When Micro Business for Teens showed up on the list of possible review items, I have to admit, I dismissed them as one that wasn't for us. Afterall, I don't have any teenagers!!! But then, when we actually got the information on the review, I found out that the products up for review, Starting a Micro Business, Running a Micro Business and Micro Business for Teens Workbook are ideal for ages 10-18, and much as I hate to admit that my kids are growing up so fast, I most definitely DO have children in that age range.

I mentioned the option to Lexie and Ashlyn (11), and they were SOOO excited!! They have alot of their Daddy in them, and have been plotting "business plans" practically since birth. We requested the ebook version of these books so that both girls could read them, on their iPods, computer, or my iPad, and I could print 2 copies of the workbook for them.

As the titles indicate, Starting a Micro Business ($9.95 for paperback, $4.95 for ebook) is a short, easy to follow book, written by CPA, Carol Topp, that walks teens, or really anyone, through the steps of starting a micro business. A micro business is smaller than a small business, typically it has few, if any employees, requires very little start-up expense, and is small enough to close down easily if needed. It can include typical "teen businesses" such as babysitting and lawn mowing, but also might include selling items, offering services, such as computer support or graphics design, etc.

Running a Micro Business ($9.95 for paperback, $4.95 for ebook) is the "sequel" so-to-speak, and goes more specifically into the things a person needs to do to run a micro business, once you've decided on a business.

The Micro Business for Teens Workbook ($14.95 for paperback, $9.95 for ebook) ties in with the first book and walks the teen through what to think about, consider, and do, for each chapter, from brainstorming the type of business you might want, to writing up a business plan, etc.

When we got the downloads, the girls were anxious to jump right in. I loaded the first book onto their iPods and the computer and let them start reading it, while I quickly read it on the iPad. It's a very quick read, which was nice, I could quickly read it and then know what to expect from the girls as they read through it. One thing I noticed, the book seems to be written to assume that the reader will make each decision and do the things on each step, as they read the book, however, it seemed more logical to me, after reading through the whole book, to have the girls read through the whole book and then go BACK through it, with the workbook, and start actually brainstorming and otherwise making decisions about what business, if any, they wanted to start.

One thing that I had liked about this whole idea, was the thought of Lexie and Ashlyn being able to work together on a business. However, this book never really address, or even seem to consider, the possibility of siblings working together on a venture like this. It speaks quite strongly, and rightly so, about not going into partnerships with others (friends, etc) because of the possible pitfalls inherent in that, however, I feel that a sibling situation is different, and should at least be addressed. We chose to discuss that, in light of the book's suggestions against partnerships, on our own.

Both girls, are currently abit obsessed with needle felting, so I wasn't too surprised when they quickly decided that making, and selling needle felted products was the path they'd like to pursue. They've always had lots of "big ideas" about starting businesses, and these books were a great way to get them to be more methodical about it. As they began looking into what's involved with selling items online (using etsy.com), they realized that, while they love their iPods, if they're going to run a business, they need the greater functionality of an actual computer. My husband and I had been talking about getting them a computer to use for school projects anyway, but this got them on board and not just asking for one, but asking about how much one cost, and really thinking about what they NEEDED and were willing to pay for. In the end, their dad helped them choose a small laptop, and they each contributed to the cost of purchasing it.

We've also been discussing the time commitment of starting, and running a business. I pointed out that whenever fun things come along, they tell me they don't have time for their chores, and if they really don't have time for the basics, then they definitely don't have time for a business too. So, right now their "job" is to show us that they can keep up with their chores, even when other life happens. Meanwhile they are also researching the best place to buy wool, and other supplies, and whether it's a better choice to purchase wool already colored, or to purchase white wool and dye it themselves.

This has been a wonderful, educational experience for them, and it has been soo much better to have "the book" telling them to consider possible problems, and move through the process methodically instead of just having Mommy tell them they need to think about these things.  One thing I'd caution parents about, in the book, she recommends, rather early in the process, in my opinion, meeting with a CPA, and offers her own services, "for a reasonable fee". I felt that, given the target audience of teens, it would have been better if she'd suggested discussing with their parents, the need to meet with a CPA. In our case, since I AM a CPA and their dad is also an accountant, it was pretty easy for them to fulfill that requirement for free, but in most cases, that would be something to be aware of and perhaps steer your children to doing more research on their own to make sure they are going to move forward with the business, before spending money talking to a CPA.

I highly recommend these books for anyone whose teens or tweens, like mine, are itching to make their own money with every bright idea that pops into their heads. Even if your child isn't quite so . . . inventive, this can still be a good way to start them thinking in that direction, and even if a business doesn't actually materialize from these books, the thought process involved in considering it, is a wonderful learning experience for all teens!

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All prices and information are accurate at time of posting.

A Quick Update on My Husband's Surgery

I kept hoping to be able to post a nice up-beat update with pictures of him looking good, and all that . . . but I think I'll go ahead and post a quick update of where things are now.

We got to the hospital Monday, and he went into surgery pretty much on schedule. The surgery was LONG, but I was really impressed with the system at this hospital, they have a specific surgery waiting area (not surprising) and when you get there, while the patient checks in, the "family member" does her own check in where she's given a patient number to be able to check his progress on a monitor in the waiting room (in surgery, out of surgery, in recovery, in ICU, family can go back . . . ) and they asked for my cell phone number, and asked that, if I left to get lunch or anything more than going to the restroom, that I just let them know.  I also was asked at least 2 other times by other employees for my cell phone number in case they needed to get in touch with me.

During surgery, a nurse called from the OR, every hour and a half (roughly) or at major points (he's ready to start, he's off the bi-pass machine, etc) to update me as to how things were going (they used a phone in the waiting area for that). After surgery, the surgeon came and met with me and told me how things had gone.

Long story short, as a precaution, he wanted to do another heart cath to double check that there weren't any blockages or kinks, before closing the chest cavity, so for Monday night they had closed over the top layer (or done dressings, or something, I never saw his chest during that phase) but hadn't closed the chest cavity.

Tuesday morning they did the heart cath, as planned, and everything looked fine, but then, due to scheduling issues, they weren't able to close his chest cavity until Wednesday afternoon. Because of it being open, they kept him sedated that entire time as well. So Tuesday was a very long day of just sitting and watching him sleep . . .

Last night, they woke him enough to make sure he could follow instructions and move his extremities but he was very disoriented, and REALLY didn't like the breathing tube that was in, so they kept him lightly sedated overnight, with plans to remove the breathing tube today.

This morning, things seemed to be on track. He was awake, but still hated the breathing tube and not being able to talk. He wanted me right with him though, so I spent the morning standing by the bed holding his hand, nice after 2 days of him being kind of "gone". . . Late morning, they made the decision to remove the chest tube, and all seemed to be well, but when i came back from lunch he was complaining that he "couldn't breath" and they found that his blood oxygen levels had dropped.

He had been difficult to intubate in the first place, so they were nervous about waiting and getting to a point where they needed to re-intubate him NOW, and not  being able to get it done quickly enough, so they decided to re-intubate him abit earlier than they might otherwise have, just to be safe.

So now things are back to pretty much how they were last night. He's sedated, and intubated, but resting peacefully. While they were intubating, they checked and confirmed there's no fluids in his lungs, so that's good, and the PA said that he's recovering very well from the surgery itself, so really the only concern right now is the breathing issue.

The current plan is to try again tomorrow, but have him breath with the chest tube, but no extra oxygen, for a little while first, to make sure he can handle it ok.

So, that's where things are at. Our original time line had figured he'd only be in the hospital around a week, and we'd figured that, by this point, he'd be doing well enough that I could spend some time at the hospital with him, but also spend some time with the kids, but so far that hasn't worked out.  Thankfully, the kids, even Little Bit (who was quite apprehensive about being without me) are doing great! I've been e-mailing frequent updates on my husband's condition to the older girls, along with his mother and sister and a few friends, and Ashlyn replies to every e-mail with a long list of questions for more clarification.

Little Bit has lost both front bottom teeth while I've been gone. And apparently can't wait to show her Sabbath School teacher at the church there, hee hee. My dad said he raised the training wheels on her bike and she's having fun practicing riding with it abit more wobbly, and he lowered the seats on his and mom's bikes as low as they'd go and the big girls have been riding those, so sounds like lots of fun going on up there, and thankfully they're doing ok without me. (well, mom might be going crazy, guess I haven't asked her about that LOL).

So that's where things are around here. Not a great, fun, post, but life is, what it is . . . hopefully my next update can include pictures of hubby up and moving around abit, and, no doubt, glaring at me for taking pictures :)

Schoolhouse Crew Review: Golden Prairie Press

As you've probably noticed, history is a BIG part of homeschooling in our house, and something all of us, except Little Bit, enjoy thoroughly! After spending the last 3 years studying American History, we are currently learning about Ancient World History, but when we were asked to review Digital Heroes and Heroines of the Past: American History Curriculum from Golden Prairie Press, I figured we could take a few weeks and do some more American History.

Heroes and Heroines of the Past covers American History, from 1000 AD to Present in one year (30 week) for grades 1-6. This curriculum is a digital download consisting of the "textbook" (divided into 2 ebooks), additional materials downloads (printable worksheets, etc), a Historical Skits ebook, "Sing Some History" audio download (containing some of the songs mentioned in the curriculum), and "Listen to Some U.S.History" audio download (containing some original speeches, etc. mentioned in the curriculum).  It should be noted that in some cases, the songs and speeches mentioned in the textbook must be accessed through links on the vendor's website. This download package is available for $98.99.  There is also an optional literature package sold separately for 5th and 6th grade students. The curriculum can be used without this, and we did not receive it as part of our review. Some of the books included in the literature package can be found free for Kindle or other places online, however it is my understanding that the books included in the literature package have been re-edited to modernize some things and remove some possibly objectionable content, so the author recommends purchasing the literature package if you plan to include these optional books in your studies.

The curriculum is designed to be used 5 days a week. Accordingly, the textbooks are divided into 30 Sections, one for each week, with each Section divided into 5 lessons, one for each day.

Each day begins with a few pages of text to use either as a read aloud, or to assign the child to read. In some

lessons, the first page is a shorter, more summary level, read-aloud for 1st and 2nd graders, and the rest of the reading goes into more detail for 3rd-6th graders. Other lessons are the same reading for all students. After the reading, there are various activities, including timeline activities, map activities, copywork or dictation, artwork or music from the time period, famous speeches to listen to, cooking activities, writing topics or craft projects.

In addition to the curriculum package, and the optional literature package if you choose, you will need various basic craft supply and cooking supplies, in order to complete the end-of-lesson activities. While I didn't read through all the activities, in the section we were using, the author had made sure to keep things simple, using easy-to-find ingredients (for example, when the historic recipe called for barley flour, the author adapted the recipe to use regular flour, though in that case, my children insisted we needed to be more authentic and get barley flour LOL).

Since we had ended our American History studies, last year, at the start of World War I, when we were asked to review this curriculum, we decided to start up where we had left off, and study World War I and II during the review period. As I expected, this curriculum went into much less detail than what my children are used to (did I mention that we spent 3 years and only made it to the start of WWI, obviously a one year curriculum would need to summarize more).

I considered having the girls read the text independently, but in the end, decided it was easier to just read it to them, so that all 3 of us could hear it at once. The reading was short, and easy enough that they would have been able to read it independently without any problem. An advantage of having the child read the book on her own would be being able to see the pictures and captions throughout each chapter. After reading the day's assignment, we discussed any timeline, art, music, or map activities included in the end-of-lesson section. We also listened to any famous speeches, etc, that were assigned. For the more time consuming hands-on activities, such as cooking, skits, crafts, etc. I had the girls choose one or two per week instead of trying to do them all.

I realized, going into this review, that any curriculum that covers all of American history in one year, wouldn't provide enough detail and specifics for Lexie and Ashlyn. They LOVE history, they love the details, as do I. However, I liked the idea of at least giving them an overview of WWI and WWII since we haven't really covered that time period yet. I made it clear to them, going into the review, that this wasn't going to cover the time period in depth, we will spend much more time on this time period when we get to this point in World History, but this seems like a great way to get a general idea of what happened, and they were agreeable to the idea.  Unfortunately, the lessons that gave an overview seemed to take more of a "bullet point" approach, that left my 5th graders scratching their heads in confusion, instead of understanding the wars better. On a positive note, it's encouraged them to show more interest in other books on the topic, to better understand the things mentioned in the lessons.

We did enjoy the cooking, and other hands-on projects. I had to laugh, my children are very big into "everything must be authentic" so were horrified when the "Libherty Cake" recipe had been adapted to use easier to find ingredients. Conveniently (I think) the original recipe was also shown, so I humored them and hunted down barley flour and maple sugar to make it authentic. It WAS yummy!

Listening to the musical selections from the time period was fun, and interesting . . . and left my girls scratching their heads . . . people LIKED that music? WHY?!?! Hee hee.

I was excited to see that art from each time period was also included, and expected that to be something that Ashlyn would especially like. We were both disappointed to find that there was no information provided about artists or art techniques. The art for this time period were mostly war posters, which could still be interesting, but unfortunately, no real information about the artwork was provided and the "discussion questions" for the artwork were simply asking the children to find things, like the soldier's hat, in the pictures.

The skits, that were suggested for the lessons we covered during the review period, required more participants than my 2 girls, so, while I included them as a possible hands-on project each week, my girls always chose other options. I think the skits could be a fun aspect for larger families and/or a co-op group.

While the map and timeline activities were easy enough to do, my girls felt they were "boring" and didn't encourage them to want to dig more deeply into the topics. Nor did they feel these activities would help them remember much about the time period.

All 3 of us preferred the lessons where the reading focused on a single topic, such as the nurses who were at Pearl Harbor, or a short biography of Roy Rodgers. These were interesting, and provided information that my children could understand, though I don't think my children would have enjoyed them in 1st or 2nd grade.

I found the curriculum required very little pre-planning. I can also see being able to simply hand the book to a 3rd-6th grader and let them do it independently, either assigning specific end-of-chapter things, or letting the child pick and choose. The only prep-work required would be for the crafts and cooking projects, but for the most part the needed supplies were things we had on hand.  Answer keys are included at the back of the textbook, so you can easily check your child's work, or let them check their own work.

Overall, I have to admit, I was disappointed, I was hoping to find a great resource that summarized American History in a way that young children can understand, and I don't feel this curriculum does that. However, if you have very little time to spend on history on a day-to-day basic, and want a curriculum that includes hands-on elements, this could be a good choice.  It could also be a good resource if you're looking for a summary of American history for yourself or an older student, who's learned the information in the past.

However, I also realize that our family is much more eclectic than many homeschoolers, and because of that, we don't always look for the same things in a curriculum as others. I'd strongly encourage you to read other reviews, click on the banner at the bottom of this review) to see what other families thought about this curriculum. I also encourage you to read over the vendor's sample (on the product page) to decide for yourself if you feel the level of detail and explanation will be a good fit for your child(ren).

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All prices and information are accurate at time of posting.

Weekly Wrap-Up - May 11

Our main focus this week was getting ready for my husband's surgery, tomorrow.

I probably would have thrown school completely out the window if it wasn't that we have alot of review stuff going on right now.

Bible - a review product, that I can include the big girls AND Little Bit in, Lexie and Ashlyn were ambiguous about reviewing this because they have been really enjoying our regular Bible this year, but now that we're into this one, they're loving it too.

We Choose Virtues - we reviewed this a few years ago, and I re-used it with Little Bit, E, and J this past winter, but when we had a chance to review another "piece" of it this year, I figured we could all use the re-fresher, and it's going well, another one that includes all 3 girls. (this month, use promo code BIG50 to get 50% off 11x17 Kids of VirtueVille Posters).

This week finished up our review of an American History curriculum, watch for that review in the next couple of days.

Learning Palette: We got access to the web version of this for all 3 girls, so they've been playing with that, then Tuesday we received a HUGE box of goodies from the same company. Little Bit's excited to play with her new "toys" and getting the Learning Wrap-ups has renewed Lexie and Ashlyn's interest in drilling multiplication and division, woo-hoo! It also meant a nice big box of "entertainment" to take along to the grandparents' house where the girls are staying while Daddy has surgery.

Besides all of that, the girls played outside as much as possible.  I had to laugh at them, last week, on a hot afternoon, they wanted to play in the creek, but it was too soon after a heavy rain and the creek was too flooded for me to be comfortable with them getting in. By Sunday it had gone down enough that Rodney said it was safe, but it was COLD! But, not to miss their chance, they put on their suits and got in. Little Bit lasted about 30 seconds and then I took her inside and let her "swim" in a warm bath instead. The big girls stayed out in there for quite awhile though! Silly kids!

Somewhere in between all that, we managed to get current on laundry and the girls packed for their trip to Mama and Papa's, where they're staying while Rodney's in the hospital. They were even ready to leave for music lessons EARLY (that doesn't usually happen even withOUT having to be loaded up for a trip!).

Little Bit wasn't too excited about being away from me, even if she gets to be with Mama and Papa. So, since she was going to have the iPad with her, Thursday morning, she, with Lexie's help, made sure she had a picture of her with her mommy, and her with her cat, Joy :)

Since we were going straight to my parents' house after music lessons, I didn't have to make my usual grocery shopping, and going to the farm for milk & eggs during music lessons. So I took Little Bit to a playground instead. She LOVED it!!

After music lessons we headed to Mama and Papa's.

Friday morning I headed back to PA, to the CHAP homeschool convention, and the girls apparently had a very busy day at Mama and Papa's. Based on e-mails from the big girls, they spent their day decorating their playhouse for Mama's birthday (yesterday), weeding flower beds, helping Mama cook, and getting to see a black snake that Papa found, and showed them.

Yesterday, Ashlyn tells me that Little Bit actually went to her SS class alone (usually she wants me to go with her), and said it was fun :)

So that was our week. Tomorrow my husband's scheduled for heart valve replacement surgery, please keep him in your prayers!

Schoolhouse Crew Review: Maestro Classics

Ever since Ashlyn started piano lessons, she's been very interested, and Lexie soon joined her in that interest (and started violin lessons). So, when Maestro Classics gave us the opportunity to choose two of their CDs to review, we were all excited!  We chose My Name is Handel: The Story of Water Music and The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

A few years ago we had the opportunity to review Peter and the Wolf and Swan Lake, but  this time I noticed a new section on the Maestro Classics website. They have a whole section of educational materials including free homeschool guides, ideas for projects, etc!

So, using ideas from the homeschool guides, I picked and chose activities that fit my girls' ages and interests so that we could spend a week doing a "mini unit" on each of the CDs.

As soon as I knew we were on the review, I reserved some of the library books suggested in the curriculum guide for My Name is Handel: The Story of Water Music, so that we'd be all ready to go when the CDs got here.  One thing to note, at least in this case, the list provided for books about Kings and Queens isn't at all specific to Handel's time or really even to the British monoarchy . . . I would have found it more useful if the list had been a few specific books related more directly to the topic, at least one of the books included content I was uncomfortable with. Otherwise, these curriculum guides are amazing! Providing lots of suggestions for a wide variety of subjects, interests, and ages.

As soon as the CDs came, we listened to My Name is Handel: The Story of Water Music. I originally thought we might listen to it in pieces, remembering that, when the girls were younger, they found these CDs to be too long, but with age, comes attention span . . .so we easily listened to the whole CD in one sitting this time.

The CD begins with the story of Handel's Water Music, including the music itself. This is the "main part" of the CD, and the longest part. It's followed by a track called "About the Story" which gives "background information" telling, in a more factual, less story, way about Handel and how/why he came to write Water Music. Next comes a short, kind of silly, song that takes a short piece of the music, and adds words telling abit of the story. Little Bit likes this song, the older girls kind of rolled their eyes, but enjoyed the next track, which is a conductor talking specifically about the music. The last couple tracks were for Little Bit again, encouraging the children to sing along with the above mentioned, silly song. She LOVED it :)

I think it works well to have the tracks broken up like this, alternating something for the littles, and something for the biggers to keep everyone interested!

Over the next several days we enjoyed various things from the curriculum guide, but the highlights for my girls seemed to be the food on this one. We learned about England, since that's where Handel was living at this time.  Since we love tea parties anyway, the girls were excited to try the recipe for scones. It's always fun to see the girls having fun together in the kitchen! And the scones turned out great!

Time for tea!

The geography activities in the curriculum guide also suggested learning about Italy, and one of the suggestions was to make gelato, but I couldn't find our ice cream maker, so we compromised and bought gelato instead. The girls didn't mind, hee hee. But Little bit didn't like it, and chose plain old strawberry ice cream instead. None of us minded not having to share with her :-)

After we finished learning about Handel, we moved on to The Sorcerer's Apprentice.  The story is what Disney's Fantasia is based on, and the format is similar to the other, and again, Little Bit's favorite part was the part the big girls rolled their eyes at . . . in this case, playing along, on pots and pans, to the March of the Brooms. Despite the eye rolls, they DID tap along with a pencil though :)

Ashlyn had some complaints about the story itself. She felt the Sorcerer was too "mean" and that the Apprentice had just made a mistake. In About the Story we learned that this version is based on a poem by Goethe. It's believed that he wrote the poem, based loosely on an ancient Roman story by Lucien, which had a different moral, that magic doesn't work. Since we're currently learning about the Greeks and Romans in history, we wanted to hear the original story, but I wasn't able to find it, except to buy a book, which wasn't in the budget at the moment.

Our favorite part of the curriculum guide for this one was the information about German castles! After we cast the link up onto the tv, and read about, looked at pictures of them all, Lexie got busy trying to sculpt Neuschwanstein Castle out of clay. I have to admit I was . . . skeptical, but she did a great job! Little Bit decided to make a "castle table" instead, and did a pretty good job, with some help from Ashlyn.

Little Bit's table

Lexie proceeded to spend the next couple of hours looking up additional information about Neuschwantsein Castle, and was really annoyed when some of the sites were in German, hee hee. I love products that lead to wonderful rabbit trails of learning!!!

The finished masterpiece!

My Name is Handel is for ages 5+, and The Sorcerer's Apprentice is for ages 6+. I would say both are for 6+. Little Bit is 5, and while she enjoyed the more interactive parts, they were still a little over her head. It worked well to let her flit in and out of the room while we listened, and join in when she wanted, but I don't think it would be worth trying to use with JUST her.


These wonderful products are available as CDs, for $16.98 each, or mp3 downloads for $9.99. In addition to price, another consideration is that the CDs come with an activity booklet, the mp3 downloads come with a .pdf version of the booklet. If you're using this with multiple children, that can be frustrating because there's only one booklet with the CD and it generally includes things like crossword puzzles etc. For that reason, if you have multiple children who enjoy activity book type things, you might want the mp3. Since my kids prefer more hands-on type things anyway, we just focused on the stuff in the curriculum guide and the girls just read the information pages in the activity books.

Needless to say, we had a LOT of fun with this review product. They make great stand-alone unit studies, or music curriculum options, but they would also work great to use along with other curriculum resources that reference the topics. Both of the titles we reviewed would fit wonderfully into their respective time periods of history, and I suspect we will revisit them when we cover those areas of history. We also used Peter and the Wolf when the music was referenced in Little Bit's preschool curriculum last year.

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All prices and information are accurate at time of posting.

Weekly Wrap-Up - May 4

Busy week! I've been trying to fit in more hands-on stuff for Little Bit, in between everything else we've been doing, so on Sunday, I asked if she wanted to play "ice cream store". Needless to say, that got her attention. based on an idea I'd seen on Pinterest, we made "ice cream" by mixing flour and baby oil together until it was moldable but not too sticky. Then I handed her plastic bowls and a plastic ice cream scoop and told her to have fun. And she did!! Since I'd called it ice cream STORE, she insisted on "selling" us ice cream for awhile, but then she just had fun seeing how many scoops she could fit in the bowls and such. I'm not sure if the consistency got better as it sat, or if she got better at figuring out how to pack it into the scoop and pop it out in one piece, but later in the day, when my camera wasn't handy, she was making some very realistic scoops :) She had a BLAST!

Her sisters, being opportunists, instantly came up with the idea that Little Bit needed to go to a REAL ice cream shop to "see how it's done". I have to admit, it didn't take TOO much arm twisting to get me to go get ice cream! And, since the closest ice cream place also happens to have a free petting zoo, and it was a gorgeous afternoon, after we enjoyed our ice cream, we enjoyed the petting zoo.

We've continued to soak up as much outside time as possible. The girls found a male carpenter bee (so it doesn't have a stinger) with an injured wing and have been torturing nursing it all week. They think it's pretty cool that they can hold a bee, since he can't fly AND can't sting . . . poor bee! They've also spent lots of time this week playing basketball and otherwise enjoying being outside.

As usually happens this time of year, pretty much the only "book work" we do is review products. Afterall, one of the advantages of schooling year round is being able to toss the books aside and enjoy the weather when it's good!  We do have quite a few review products we'll be sharing with you over the next several weeks, so that's kept us busy as well!

Wednesday was rainy,  so a perfect day to listen to our next Herb Fairies story, all about Plantain. Our neighbors, E & J came and joined us, and stayed to play for a little while after listening.  I had to giggle at Lexie, while she's been all for trying recipes with chickweed and violets in them, since Plantain is our go-to bug bite poultice, she's had experience with chewing it up (quick, on-the-go poultice, chew a few leaves till you have a paste, stick it on the bug bite). As soon as we'd finished listening to the story, she announced that we were NOT eating Plantain, it's nasty!!! (don't tell her, but I recently read that it tastes better cooked, like spinach, so I might try to convince her to try it that way, we'll see . . . hee hee ). 

Thursday afternoon the girls declared it HOT and begged to go wading in the creek, but it was still running REALLY high from Wednesday's rain (we got a LOT of rain on Wednesday) so mean mommy said it wasn't safe. They had to satisfy themselves with water balloon fights and water guns, but from the shrieks and laughter I heard, they managed ok LOL.

Friday, I woke up with a stomach bug, that left me pretty much sleeping all day. The girls happily spent the day outside again, and proved that despite their insistence that they do ALL. THE. WORK around here, they obviously do NOT because just one day of me NOT doing all those things that they claim "don't count" left the house a complete and utter disaster, sigh . . .  On a positive note, my much anticipated new phone got here on Friday (my old one had gotten to the point where it froze pretty much every time I tried to do anything on it,and the battery only lasted a few hours, which rendered it pretty useless, and with homeschool convention coming up, I REALLY needed a reliable phone (there is much price checking and other such research that goes on at homeschool convention!).  So YAY for a new toy for Mommy (I used "testing the camera" as an excuse to get all 4 of my sweeties in a picture, even if dh does look abit pained by it all, hee hee).

Sabbath, I still didn't feel great, but felt enough better to go to church. I did decide to let Lexie and Ashlyn do most of the Sabbath School program, and couldn't resist snapping a picture of Ashlyn and all the kids sitting in our "garden" corner, while she told them the story. This was on of our busy Sabbaths, with dinner at the church afterwards, but all went well and we headed home for another afternoon and evening of lovely weather for the kids to enjoy. They pretty much didn't come in until bedtime :) 

Spring Nature Study

Spring is the perfect time for nature studies! Today I'm blogging about this over at SDA Homeschool Families, come check it out!