Wild Olive is having a giveaway!!

I LOVE my Wild Olive tees and now they have a hoodie that is beyond cute! See that button on the side of my blog?? That's the design. I.want.it. If you want a chance at winning it, too, check them out at http://www.wildolivetees.com/hoodie-giveaway/

Grad school here I come

So I finally made the final decision that I am going to go ahead and go to graduate school. I think that all the struggles that my family will face will be worth it. I know that it will be hard but I think that it is something that I am meant to do. I feel led and I finally have a peace about my decision. I have asked God to put up roadblocks if this is not supposed to happen and instead I have a peacefulnfeeling and the path seems to be cleared. So I'm going.

Kami finally lost that front tooth that has been HANGING out of the front of her mouth for the last week. It was really gross and I am so glad it is out. I think the other one is loose now. She looks a little too old with that tooth out!! Please pray for my relationship with her. I am really struggling with her and how to discipline her appropriately. Her drama is just too much for me to handle. It is a constant struggle and I feel like I am fighting a losing battle on a daily basis. I am going to read The Five Love Languages of Children because it was recommended by a good friend. If you have anything else to suggest, I am all ears!

Tomorrow I am going to hopefully finalize the curriculum I have been working on for the past year. Tim is off for President's Day so he and Taylor will get some time together and I can go work at the church building. As bad as this sounds, it will be a relief to be finished with this. I have enjoyed teaching, but I am completely burnt out. And writing lesson plans is just difficult work! It will also be satisfying to see it all out in print and in notebooks. Hopefully it will be useful for other teachers as well.

I am not exactly sure whqt we rare doing for dinner this week. I still need to talk to the kids and see what the want to choose for their days. I do know that we are having balsamic chicken, friend potatoes and roasted broccoli for tomorrow night. I will post a meal plan tomorrow.

Meal Plan Sunday??

Tomorrow is going to be crazy bananas so I am trying to get ahead of the game. :) We had an interesting week last week so we didn't follow our meal plan exactly as I had hoped, but that's life, right?

Monday: carino's take-out
Tuesday: Taylor's choice--grilled cheese
Wednesday: Mac and cheese and ham
Thursday:MYO pizza
Friday: Tim's choice--balsamic chicken and fried potatoes
Saturday: Kami's choice
Sunday: small group
Monday: pork chops and roasted veggies

I am going to Kami's Valentine's Day party tomorrow and forgot that I got assigned to bring sandwiches. We barely have enough bread for 2 sandwiches so I will have to go to the store. I might as well do all my shopping since I'll be out. I also need to finish up the Bible class curriculum I have been writing for the last year. I am in the home stretch!!! Then I am planning activities for the Financial Peace kids classes that start in March. And I need to work on my Time Value of Money problems for school. There are just not enough hours in the day. Or maybe there are and I just don't have enough energy to put all those hours to use!! Lol!

Valentines!

Last year I bought Valentines for my kids to give away. I hated it! I love handmade things much more than store bought and that was the very first year my kids gave away store bought Valentines. But they enjoyed picking them out so it was fine. BUT this year I had time to make them, so make them we did! I enlisted my little man to help me out since it was such a big job....Ok in reality it would have gone twice as fast without his help, but the pictures and memories are worth much more than my time! If you have never made old crayons into new crayons, here is how you do it:

Step 1: Peel the crayons.


Step 2: Break crayons into smaller pieces. Usually you will use a bigger mold than I am using this time so using a mallet or hammer wouldn't be necessary. But I had 60 of these bad boys to make, so smaller equaled better this year!


Step 3: Scatter the crayons in the mold. I bought these particular molds at the Dollar Spot at Target because I knew that they would be good for nothing else besides crayon molds after this project. If you are attached to a certain mold, especially if it is silicon, DON'T USE IT for this project!


Step 4: Melt the crayons in a 200 degree oven. Ours took between 20 and 25 minutes. Some crayons never melted so I dug them out with a toothpick or just submerged them a bit deeper in the melty mass of crayons.


Step 5: Let them cool and then remove them from the mold. Don't worry if they break. You can just remelt them! And there you have brand new crayons!


I used my Cricut to make 2 1/2" hearts and then wrote "You COLOR my world!" on the front and Taylor helped to write his name on the back. Kami will be able to do all of the To and From for her class, but Taylor still needed a bit of assistance. ;) Here is the finished product!

Meal Plan Monday

It's Monday again, so that means it is time to plan the meals for the week. I need to get input from the family because I have decided I don't have to make every decision pertaining to what meals we eat! Last worked great. They each got a day to choose: Kami chose soup, Tim chose pancakes, and Taylor chose Mexican Casserole. That only left a few days for me to plan and I was a happy camper. :)

Monday: pork chops
Tuesday: Taylor's choice--lasagna
Wednesday: left overs
Thursday: Tim's choice
Friday: Kami's choice
Saturday: MYO pizza
Sunday: out for small group
Monday: ham and mac-n-cheese

I have started the laundry for today. Seems as if there are not as many loads this week for some reason, so I think I will catch up on some towels. Doesn't that sound like fun?? LOL!

Also on the agenda for today: making heart crayons, Wii boxing and walking, and a fun trip to the dentist for all 3 of us. Woot! Ok, really, I love my dentist and everyone in his office, so it will be fine. It will be Taylor's first time to go and Kami's first time to get X-rays and a cleaning. They get to watch t.v. so it should be fine. I just worry about Bubba so say a little prayer for us today! :D

That's all for now! Have a great week!

New Project

I bought Kami the Hayley bedding from Pottery Barn Kids and obviously dropped a small fortune on it. So I'm trying to decorate the rest of her room on the cheap. I found some coordinating fabrics in a fat quarter bundle from The Ribbon Retreat so I am attempting to make a knock-off, er..., replicate the smaller of these two owls.

My friend Julie, of Sew Julie, gave me a tutorial over coffee one day. So this morning while the kids were building Eiffel Tower replicas with alphabet blocks, I decided to make a pattern and cut out my pieces. I used a Sun Harvest paper bag, in case you were wondering. LOL!

This is the back.

This is the top front.


Bottom front.

And the wings.

I have them all cut out now, but I don't have a sewing machine, so they will have to wait for another day. I was going to go to my parent's house to use my mom's machine, but there is noooooooo way I am getting out of the house today. Too cold!!!! I'll definitely post pics when I get it done, though!