my blessed life

0291. rays of sunshine at the end of a cloudy day 0292. hanging out at our new library with my kiddos 0293. having a good cry 0294. singing {especially harmony!} 0295. spending time with my sister 0296. the smell of clean laundry 0297. watching my kiddos *dig to China* in the sand pile 0298. Spring's first flowers 0299. driving with the windows down 0300. the patience of my husband with me {thank goodness!} 0301. participating in the excitement of my kiddos over their science experiments 0302. two nights out this week with girlfriends 0303. good, honest conversations 0304. the smell of my kiddos' clean, damp hair 0305. Sunday afternoon naps

Happy Saturday! Isn't a slow Saturday morning wonderful after a very busy week? I even slept-in a little this morning...ahhh. Now I'm just enjoying my hazelnut coffee and reflecting on this week. Bliss. ***** Monday was...well, a typical Monday. I'll admit it's always a little hard to get my kiddos motivated again after the weekend so Mondays are a little slow around here. Does anyone else have that experience or am I the only one? It was Presidents Day, of course, but I regret to say that we didn't do anything special. I wanted to, but right now I am having some challenges in the way of printing things, etc. I so wish we hadn't stored our printer. The ones I'm working with now are no t user friendly. But that will be over soon. Patience, Lora, patience! Tuesday began way too early with my son being revisited by a stomach bug. Ugh. But thankfully it didn't even last 24 hours. It did however knock him out for much of the day, a...

I hope you're having a great week! Mine has been super busy~and pretty good, too. I keep thinking it's Saturday instead of Friday, but I'm glad it's not because I need that extra day! This week has been filled with delivering Girl Scout cookies (Thin Mints, anyone?) , school, church, the usual house stuff and--believe it or not-- two girls nights out! I don't know how I managed to get two in the same week, but I did. Last night was our monthly Moms Nite Out for our homeschool group and we had a really great time. We had a guest speaker, the childrens pastor from my church, who talked about those *Awkward Talks*. You know , the ones we dread to have with our growing children. She had some amazing advice to give and some great resources to share. I'm definitely going to be headed to the bookstore very soon. And tonight is the kick off of our *new & improved* womens' ministry at our church. So I'm headed out to dinner with some of my girl friends...

I think I may have mentioned before how much I love my homeschool planner...once or twice:) Well, my friend Robin asked me to share my thoughts on her website, New Homeschool Help . Of course, I was honored to. If you're interested in a great homeschool planner, go here to read more. And while you're there check out Robin's site ~it has lots of great homeschool advice and resources.

A week ago today we took the kids on a field trip to Little Rock, our state capitol. It was Homeschool Day at the Capitol and we joined several families from our local homeschool group and also hundreds of other homeschoolers from around the state. (the rotunda) The purpose of this day was to promote good will between homeschoolers and legislators and bring more awareness of the homeschool community to our leaders. Of course, we also schmoozed them with desserts...ha! Oh~and it was a great educational field trip for our family! Our group was able to receive a personal tour from one of our area's senators. He did a great job of explaining to all of the kiddos (and parents) just how everything works. (our state seal...in carpet!) (the ceiling of the state senate) (where the state senate meets) We also had some time on our own to explore the capitol a bit. The upper level was filled with kid-friendly displays telling all about our state. Our kiddos were a tad yo...