Lentils

This is a favorite around here, so I decided to share it with you guys. I was scared of lentils at first but after trying them, at my mother-in-laws, on my husbands behalf I had to come up with my own way of fixing them, so if you are “scared” just try it I promise you will love it!
Ingredients:
2 cups lentils
2tlbs. olive oil
2 small onions chopped
4 small garlic cloves chopped
1 can Rotel tomatoes (or any chopped tomatoes)
handful of cilantro leaves
10 cups water
salt to taste
8-10 slices of bacon
1 can green chilies
1. heat oil in soup pot, add onion and garlic cook till tender.
2. Add all remaining ingredients, undrained, except bacon.
4. Bring to a boil, meanwhile cook bacon stripes until crispy.
5. Reduce heat and simmer loosely covered, add bacon in pieces. cook for 30-45 minutes.
Serve over rice or as a soup.
Garnish with a Mexican cheese and sliced avocados for a richer taste.

Awarded: To you

I don’t know if you guys have noticed but a couple of weeks back my blog was awarded the One Lovely Blog Award. This was such an honor for me and I thank Bev over at Preschooler Busy Hands for this award.

Now it is my turn to share the prize! I spent weeks looking for those special blogs that in some way encouraged and or shared thoughts and materials through the homeschooling community.
Some of these blogs are well known, but I picked them because they are truly “One Lovely Blog” sharing life, heartache and encouragement for fellow readers.

Others, for the most part, are new bloggers a with a low following group. These are blogs that I felt need to get out and be heard!

So the winners are: (drum roll please)
Amy @Raising Arrows
Lisa @A 2nd generation Homeschooling
Erin @ A full Heart
Lana @Hart to Hart
Renee @ Living Laughing and Loving
Mary @Grandma's blogspot
Julie @Creatin' Classical Chaos
Carole @Our Normal Chaos
Andrea @No Doubt Learning
Maria @A Simple Mom
Tricia @ Autism and Salvation
Victoria @SONset Academy
Kelli @Life with thing a majiggers
Colleen@ Raising Life Long Learners
Bev@ Grace for Seven

The rules for excepting this award:
Follow the blogger who felt moved to present it to you. And in turn search for 15 more bloggers and blogs who you fell deserve this award.
Have fun and be encouraged!

What’s Wrong?!

It has been awhile since I have posted on any of the children, especially Lady Bells, but we have been having some attitude from her. She just refuses to do anything school related for the past couple of weeks?! She is too young to have the end of the year itch so I am bewildered. Can she read it from me? I know I have been trying to rush the days, even though we really do not take a break but things just have not gone as planned this year.
First we had the move that made things crazy, then the curriculum we are doing is just not as fun as we expected, not for me anyway because I am scrapping and scrambling to get things together. I am at the point to just say, STOP!
But I am afraid to do that because Prince is getting closer and closer to his important high school years, although I know he will redo all of this within these years I just want him to enjoy these years. (Although I know if I am unhappy with the way the year is going so are the kids).
When we moved, I got the 4th bedroom I wanted, but the room is proving too little for all 5 of us and all the school things and I find myself having to take several breathers. So what is the solution?
After much prayer and talking with my husband, we have come up with a few answers:
1. Even though I LOVE the thought of MFW and their reason behind the curriculum, I have decided it is just NOT for us. There is not enough meat within to satisfy my teaching style. I have realized through a pros and cons chart, which I do often, the cons out way the pros. And the Pros are things I can be involved in without using the curriculum, such as supporting the Bible translations.
2. I have realized that my first choice for curriculum is what God had chosen for my family. I backed away from this curriculum more than once because of the price, but have since realized that this was the source of my unhappiness and feel peace in my heart now that I have accepted God’s will and know that he will provide this curriculum for us, if this is his path for us.
3. I have since, through other blogs that I love realized that there is no one perfect curriculum. There is no standard that we as homeschoolers have to follow, this is the reason that we homeschool so that we are not held under the Public school standard. My heart is at peace with this also, this is a big one since I was always trying to tweak this and that to make it “perfect”. I spent most of my time doing this. Now I can create because it is what I like to do.
4. I myself have realized that homeschooling is the heart of our family, and have helped my husband come to this realization also. We have this huge living room that is barely used because we don’t watch TV; the children are band from the filth. We hardly invite people into our “sanctuary” and those that are privileged enough to be invited in, know we homeschool and that this IS our life. So do you see what I am getting at? We have decided that the living room would make the “perfect” classroom! The 4th bedroom will become the living room (minus the wall that makes up the hall) which will be the right size for the perfect cozy living room. We will be again a 3 bedroom family but most of our time is spent in the classroom so everything will even out. I am so excited about this change, which will happen the first week we will be out, so maybe this is the reason for the end of the year itch for everyone.
I will keep you posted on the change!

TotSchool: Lady Bells way

The past few weeks have been a struggle with Lady Bells. I don’t know if the “terrible” twos are finally setting in or if her allergies are just keeping her cranky. She refuses to do anything school, at times I can talk her into a activity, but only on her terms. I do not want to force her, because well she still has time before it is a must, school for her is just for fun now, and because she wanted to do it at the beginning of the year.
anyway here are a couple of things I got her to do:

This was something new for her (clips from the dollar tree and colored wooden disc) so she agreed to try it out, But notice her hair is not pulled up, that was her condition

She was into singing so she sang her favorite song, Jesus Loves Me, her condition was Sissy had to sing with her doing the signs.

She tried to do a puzzle (she’s done it before) but when the pieces would not fit just right she got mad and gave up!

I gave her, her notebook and went to check on the older kids in the classroom, when I got back in the living room her notebook was thrown in the kitchen and replaced with toys . I can’t wait until things are switched around and NO toys are around for temptation!

While working with Lady Jey, this is how she chose to entertain herself, until she fell!

She done a color sorting and Vocabulary activity only if her Pet Shops could “Watch” her and I didn’t “pull” her hair. Notice the flowers in the bottom left hand corner, this will cause the next tantrum?

I could not get her to understand WHY the flowers she picked earlier for me were now wilted.

This was soon forgotten when I gave her a scrap paper to “free write” She loves it when she thinks she is doing work like Prince and Princessa.

Thursday was a little better:

Magnet Stacking

cutting and pasting paint chips, still no luck with the hair.

Lacing beads.

Stacking pegs, I tried to show her patterns but she was having no part of it.

Friday was much better, maybe she knew the weekend was coming

She agreed to do a lacer after which she let me fix her hair!?

The FIRST real smile I seen ALL week!

She did a color clip activity, not to happy though!

So I told her to go to her box and pick something she liked, then we would go to the library!

She came back with the marble transfer activity, she ended up doing this at least 4 times, which helped out while I got the others ready to go.

Lady Bells is so picky like that. Some days she gets up all happy and ready to go, others you can hardly talk to her without making her cry. She is also a loner, which is ok I guess until someone tries to get into her space which usually ends with a tantrum and a nap. I try to explain this to lady Jey who often starts the tantrums, but she does not understand because she is a social butterfly and always has been. Lady Bells is was “touchy”that it is hard to gage her feelings. But I guess this is all part of growing into her special little person.
Thanks for joining us for “TotSchool” here at Our Days at CA