Things I Love

There are many things in the world I love, licorice, beautiful sunsets, a quiet walk in the woods. Since having two kids, my list of things I love has slightly changed. Now I find things like an uninterrupted shower, eating dinner in a nice restaurant (anything other than McDonalds) and the ability to read a book in its entirety are creating the same warm and exciting feeling that the things listed above used to. This week my new favorite thing to "love" is the Goodwill. I've always enjoyed a good bargain, but now the amazing treasures I am able to find brings such excitement to my life, that I'm sure my husband has been looking very strangely at me. Yesterday I went to our "local" (ha, ha a 20 minute drive, we live in the country) Goodwill and came out with a small pile of games and puzzles for my kids. The best part is that if they get destroyed in the next week or pieces go missing, I won't fret because I only spent $7 on the whole lot.

Here is Star playing with a foam alphabet puzzle from the Goodwill


I also got Hi Ho Cherrio which we played for our first official Friday Family Fun Night


Here are some pictures from our "Tot School" time for the rest of the week. This is a picture of Star practicing her handwriting skills. I slipped some pages from various workbooks into page protectors and Star uses a white board marker to write on them. She is able to practice drawing straight lines, shapes and we've started doing a few letters. When she's done I just wipe the pages off.

She insisted that we do an art project. I didn't have one ready, so I just looked around to see what I had around me. I found packing peanuts, markers, glue and paper. She had fun sticking the colored peanuts to the paper.


We've been learning about the parts of our body this week. Here we are doing the Hokey Pokey.

I also found these great cards online for ABC Exercises. She LOVES them. Here she is jumping over a Pillow.


Overall its been a great week, though I'm exhausted. I've really enjoyed sharing what we've been doing and can't wait for next week.

Blissful Moments

I wish to explain the meaning behind the title of my blog. But first, I need to also explain that I will not be using the real names of my children. I know many others do this as well and I figured it wouldn't hurt. I will be calling my son ButterBean. Its the nick name that his Grandparents gave him. It kinda fits since he's a small pudgy little bean of a baby. We debated what to call my daughter and decided on Star. Chaos may have been a better fit, but we were trying to think positively.

This leads me to the title...blissful moments. If you were ever a mother or currently are one of a toddler, then you probably know what it's like to live in a state of constant chaos. My daughter can be sweet and adorable, but she can also throw one of the biggest fits and can be quite determined, a nice way of saying stubborn. And just when I am at my wits end and I find myself thinking "why did I have kids?", that's when it happens. She will say something or do something that goes right to my heart and all of the anger and frustration just melts away and I remember why I did have children. This is a moment of bliss. Some days they can be rare and some days can be overflowing with them, but every day has one. Its in these moments that my love for my children grows even deeper.

As an example...just this morning, it had been a rough morning. I still feed Butterbean 3 to 4 times a night and this morning Star decided to make it extra special by waking up at 6:00. (her normal wake up time is 7:30 - 8:00) So after trying to make eggs and toast while half asleep and then attempting to get my daughter to actually sit at the table for more than a minute and get more of the food in her mouth than on the floor, she turns to me holding a piece of toast and says "look mom, triangle". And sure enough her piece of toast looked like a triangle. Then she looks around finds another piece and says "look, letter C" with the biggest grin on her face. Ahh, the motherly pride. That definitely put a smile on my face. And for that moment there was nothing else in my heart and mind than love, joy and happiness. A moment of bliss.

Here she is holding "up" her toast

Here are a few more pictures of activities we've from our week so far

We played cars on a playmat I made from paper I taped to a large piece of cardboard which folds in the middle for easy storage

She sorted her colors in a workbook I got at the dollar store. Who knew a child would want to work in a workbook by her own choosing.

Here are some of our art projects

We made a caterpillar out of an egg carton.

We painted with watercolors which quickly turned into finger painting

This turned into Mr. T the turtle. Isn't he cute!

We are learning about the parts of the body this week so I traced her body onto paper then colored it in naming the different parts of the body.

Overall it's been quite a fun week so far.

This is a first

Well, here it is, my first blog. I have no idea what I am doing. Usually when it comes to computer stuff I find myself calling my husbands name quite a lot. Over this past week I've been reading a lot of different blogs and have found myself to be inspired. I've been inspired not only by the content I've read but by the simple fact that people are willing to take the time to share their lives with the world for better or for worse. I have been extremely helped by what I have seen as well as the rest of my family. It is my hope that not only will this blog help me to record the happenings in my life, but that maybe somewhere, some time someone will benefit from it. So it begins....

I am a wife to a wonderful husband as well as mother to two children, my daughter is 2 and my son is 1 month old. The main purpose of this blog is to record my journey with my children. I have known for a while that I wanted to homeschool my kids, but it was only recently that I really came to understand the idea that learning starts at any age. My kids don't have to be of school age fo rme to teach them. I have the joy of teaching them from the moment they are born. Every day is filled with teachable moments. Because of this I have decided to be a little more proactive in providing more of these teachabke moments with my daughter. It is mostly these moments I hope to capture on this blog. This should be an interesting journey.