my blessed life

Recently we have had the opportunity to review a unity study from The Old Schoolhouse magazine . We've done a couple of unit studies in the past so they're not entirely new to us, but we haven't used them much. I am beginning to wonder if using unit studies more often, especially with my son, might be very beneficial for us. It's a great way to incorporate so many different areas of learning into one topic. This particular unit study was about red tides and is a part of The Curiosity Files offered by The Old Schoohouse magazine. I loved how it was laid out sort of like a detective's file~that was particular appealing to my daughter who loves a good mystery. We had never heard of red tides, so we have very much enjoyed learning about them. We are huge beach and ocean lovers so this was right up our alley. This unit study began with simply talking about what red tides are~and what they are not. It's set up in a Q&A format and The Princess a...

(our room was in that curved part on the left) Last week Vince and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. Time sure does fly when you're having fun~and raising kiddos:) (the front entrance of The Williams House) We don't always celebrate the same way each year. Sometimes it's a quiet dinner out at a favorite~or even a new~restaurant and occasionally it's been an overnight getaway~or even a whole week away for our 10th anniversary. (a garden fountain) This year Vince surprised me and planned a little overnight escape to Hot Springs, AR. And to a Bed & Breakfast! (homemade snickerdoodles~my fave!) We love to stay at B&B's! We spent our wedding night at a local one (and our favorite!) and have returned to it several times for special occasions. We've also stayed at B&B's in Eureka Springs, AR and Charlottestown, Prince Edward Island. It's always an adventure! (room decor by a local artist~so cool!) Each B&B has it's o...

Time for our 2nd link-up with The Homeschool Village's Garden Challenge! A lot has happened since our 1st link-up ~hard to believe that was only a month ago. Let's start at the beginning and talk about how I started my garden this year. I've not done much with seeds in the past, but this year I went all out (for me). I started 10 different kinds of seeds in little newspaper pots that I made. I just have to show you the newspaper seed pots because they're working great and they were totally FREE! (I priced those little pots at the store and they are so expensive). These just took a little time and effort, but I got made over 100 in just an afternoon. First I gathered my materials, which were newspapers, a straight-sided glass, some containers to put the pots in, my seeds and, of course, potting soil. (BTW, if you don't have newspapers~or you run out like I did~head to your local grocery stores and pick up some of those free sale newspap...

(our back patio/yard taken with my phone) I mean, I realized April showers bring May flowers, but there better be some flowers on steroids after the rain we've had this month! It's been a while since I remember having such a rainy~and very storm~spring here in Arkansas. I'm so ready for the tornado season to end. It's not fun. At all. And it terrifies my Princess. So far we've only hauled them out of bed to the *safe place* once. But last night I was hosting our homeschool group's Moms Nite Out and Vince had taken the kiddos to Chuck E. Cheese. Then the storm swept in (tornadoes are fast, you know). They ended up spending part of their time at CEC sheltered in a closet~the sighted tornado was right by where they were. And I spent the time storm-watching on the front porch with my fellow homeschool moms. We Arkansans are great about protecting our children, but ourselves not so much. By the time you're an adult here you're pretty well us...

Happy Monday! I hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend~we had a lovely day in spite of nearly floating away in all of the rain. We are having one rainy Spring here in the South. I am thrilled to say we now have internet at our {new} house and I am posting from here for the first time this morning. Yea!! I think a menu planning post is appropriate for getting back into the groove. Our house is finally starting to shape up (although I still have way too many boxes to deal with) and having the kitchen in good working order is top priority! The kitchen truly is the heart of the home. I have been grocery shopping, but when it's been so long and you're restocking your fridge entirely there's a lot to remember (and it's expensive!). So I'm also trying to work with all the pantry stuff I had already. Monday: Beans and Cornbread Tuesday: Sandwiches and Snacks (I'm hosting our monthly Moms' Nite Out for our homeschool group~ I know, what was I thinkin...

May you have a wonderful weekend celebrating His Resurrection!

I missed y'all! :) It has been a crazy couple of weeks and my routine is all shook up! As some of you know, we were supposed to move on April 1st but were delayed until the 4th. And even though we began moving on the 4th we weren't actually able to spend our first night in our house until the 10th due to some work still being done inside the house. Then we left on an already-planned trip on the 15th, came home for one night on the 18th, then left for an overnight anniversary trip, just getting home today. So it's been a long process and there are still a lot of boxes to go. But I'm having fun putting it all together. Each house is SO different, you have to rework things in completely different areas. I like that it makes be creative with what I have. I'm looking forward to sharing some of our recent projects with you soon! I am especially happy to be getting my {new} kitchen all put together, too! Not having my kitchen is almost like being without an...

0371. going to my son's first t-ball game and seeing him get a hit and a run:) 0372. watching my kiddos do *tricks* in the hotel swimming pool (their fave thing about traveling) 0373. good home cooking after so many meals out 0374. warm, fluffy blankets 0375. the calm after the storm 0376. seeing former students who are thriving in life 0377. laughing with my hubby (he still cracks me up after all these years!) 0378. seeing my children's joy in their {new} treehouse and backyard 0379. catching frogs with my kiddos 0380. laughing with my kiddos over Paddington Bear's funny antics as we read through the books 0381. surprise packages in the mail 0382. getting a few more boxes unpacked each day 0383. family antiques {or hand-me-downs} that bring to remembrance special people 0384. painting my daughter's fingernails 0385. kissing the back of my son's neck 0386. brand new tires on my car {gifted to me!} 0387. a cold Coca-Cola that my hubby made a s...

(Yes, I've had that tune running through my head lately!) Although I enjoy crashing at night on our {brand new!} mattress!! But look! You can actually see the floor in the photo above. And there are really books on the shelves!! As opposed to the photo I showed you the other day . Now, don't ask me if the books are organized or on the right shelf. But at least they're out of boxes, right?! The boxes are disappearing slowly, but surely. At least I can find clothes to wear now. The first morning in it was questionable:) We haven't gotten our internet hooked up yet (so I'm blogging this from my parents house while I take care of my gray roots...multitasking at it's best!), but we will very soon and I'll be back here on a regular basis. While I'm not a big fan of the moving process, it does bring blogging fodder with it! I'm sorry that I haven't been able to visit anyone's blog very often lately, but I promise I will asap! In the meantime,...

0356. wild violets sprinkled around the yard 0357. a new mattress on our bed 0358. springtime crafts 0359. an unexpected, but much-needed nap 0360. watching and learning about our tadpoles 0361. watching the bees pollinating the flowers 0362. Lego creations 0363. rereading a favorite Nancy Drew mystery 0364. fresh, cool mornings after a night of thunderstorms 0365. watching the boxes disappear after our move 0366. thankful that I have boxes full of things for our home 0367. that unexpected but much-needed encouraging word (post, message, etc.) 0368. blue spring skies 0369. family devotions snuggled up with my kiddos 0370. the view of the sky from my hammock

{I'm reposting this even though I just posted it on Thursday. It was brought to my attention that I had some bad links and I have corrected those now. So sorry about that! Maybe it was Blogger, but mostly likely it was me trying to blog with a brain exhausted from moving:)} ***** It's Spring time again~and that means it's Easter time! Such a wonderful time of the year, celebrating Christ's resurrection, new life, rebirth. It's beautiful! Do you have some special Easter traditions? Here are a few of ours: Fabric Easter eggs Our own Resurrection eggs Velvety Carrot Cake One new tradition I'm looking forward to beginning this year is this special {free} Easter devotional from Ann at A Holy Experience.

(Schoolhouse Rock Live!) Well, technically we took the week "off" because of our move, but I like to think we got in some schooling on the sly. Our move began on Monday, but it has continued all week (we have yet to spend a night in our {new} house) because the owners still have a bit of repairs and painting to do. We've been working all week getting things done, but some things just need to wait until the painting is over and since we could still sleep at my parents' house it just seemed like the best thing to do. School this week has consisted of: Catching tadpoles in our backyard pond. I even bought an early reader on the life cycle of frogs last week knowing that we would have the perfect opportunity to learn about them and today I actually unpacked the box that had a book I bought a while back: Pets In a Jar. Exploring in our new backyard in general. There's a treehouse and their very own *jungle gym/swingset*, new wildflowers to pick...you get the pic...

...I'm busy unpacking. I'll *see* you soon though!!

Yes, this is a repost from 2009~written about our previous house~but I'm linking it up to the *Gallery Wall {Party!}* at The Inspired Room today. These are some of my favorite family photos and I can wait to unpack them and get them hung up in our new house. I already have the wall picked out! ******* As I slowly wind up the house tour~there's just maybe one or two posts left on that~I just had to show you my favorite wall in the house. My wall of black and white photos of The Princess and Mr. B. This *collection* didn't start out planned, but grew and evolved. Until we moved into our current house I have always had these in our master bedroom, it just always worked out that way. But in this house I had a lot of wall space in the hallway and this just seemed like the right spot. I love the way it turned out! I look forward to adding more.