Why We Love Our Kindles!

I'm a English major and from a early age I had a passion for reading! This is something I've tried very hard to pass onto my children. However, if you want children to read - you must give them high quality literature and lots of reading material!!

I fought continually with the school my children were at about getting into their hands good literature and using their library time effectively! My oldest child's goal, when he went to the school library was to find the biggest and largest book to check out. Our librarian never gave suggestions, helped kids find good books at their reading level, or any of those wonderful things you should do to encourage young readers!

So when we began homeschooling, I knew one of my goals for our school was getting good literature in my kids hands. Since we are small in space and I don't have a unlimited budget, I used the library a lot. We would haul big stacks of books home and audio books; then we would read away!

Then winter hit.....

Our first winter homeschooling was cold and it snowed a lot! Jan and February we spent the entire two months in negative digits and our library was closed "due to weather" more days than it was open. The few days it was open, frankly it was too cold to haul kiddos out (not to mention if the car would even start!). I was struggling to get any literature into my kiddos hands and they were eating through our library several times over. Then Amazon ran a great deal on Kindles so I decided we would give them a try. I have to say, I really enjoy having them as part of our homeschooling tools.

                                                   Reasons Why We Like Our Kindles

1. Easy of getting materials!
Our library has a large selection of digital materials. A couple of clicks and my kids have new reading material in their hands! I don't have to leave the house, haul to the library, and pay for parking!

2. No LATE FEES!!!
I think late fee are the bane of all homeschooling moms! I know some moms have a line item in their budget for library late fees! Our library doesn't charge late fees for digital books! That is some serious savings!! 

3. The Reduced Cost of Books
If the library doesn't have the book my child wants to read (either in digital or paperback) and they REALLY want to read it, I've enjoyed most digital titles are at a reduced cost vs. buying them off the shelve. When you got readers (myself included) those $3-$5 saving adds up fast!

4. Space!!
We are limited on space around here - so buying a stack of books means they get read and then sit piled on the bookshelves. Yes, piled because our bookshelves are already full (and then some) and since we don't have room for more book selves, they go where we can find room. With digital books, they aren't piled around.

5. One book - Multiple Readers
Since all our e-reader devices are linked to the same account, I purchase one book and both my older kids can read it at the same time. No more fighting over books, yelling to "hurry up and read", and the whining that the current reader "reads to slow!".

6. Audio Books
Again, we are really lucky our library has a pretty good selection of digital audio books. So a couple clicks and downloaded book (with no skips or scratch CD) is a really nice perk!

I will close with not all the books my children like to read are available via digital format so we currently do a mix of paper and digital. I personally feel this is a good balance as there is mixed research on digital reading.

Is digital reader apart of your homeschool tools? Loved to hear if others have enjoyed (or disliked it!)

Detour in the Kitchen

I fully had intended to write a post about my famous Carmel Corn Popcorn.

Its good, like really good and doesn't last long in our house.

My husband asked a few weeks ago if I would be willing to bake some up for a work social he was having. I agreed and was more than happy to shine like the domestic diva I would prefer the world to see me as ;)

Anyway, you need to flip the popcorn every 15 minutes for an hour so I waited until the kids went to bed and started baking up the batch. The first 15 minutes went smoothly, I flipped the batch and set the timer for the second 15 minutes. Then I sat down on the sofa with my husband. Between watching Dr. Who, talking, and convincing #4 she truely does need to sleep, I didn't hear the timer. By the time I smelled the popcorn this is what greeted me when I opened the oven. Two cookie sheets on burned Carmel Corn. 

I could have cried and considering it was 11 pm at night, I had enough sense to know I wasn't going to be starting a new batch. I also know myself well enough that the words "getting up early" don't fit well in my vocabulary.

I known my pride was wounded. I like to think I can pull it all off and make it look effortless but in reality, I can't. Often, when trying to pull off that grand event, craft, or extra special something in the kitchen; something always suffers. Its a balance and sometimes a ball gets dropped (or a timer doesn't get heard) . Best laid plans go stray and sometimes the popcorn gets burnt but I guess on the flip side, I was nice to visit my hubby and nothing cooler than Dr. Who.

The next morning I was able to whip up a cake with amazing frosting. However, it was simple and not complex but the request for a dessert was fulfilled.

Maybe another day I will be able to post about my amazing Carmel Corn Popcorn.......

House Keeping, Babysitting and Deja Vu

It is funny how things can come back to haunt you! Here is a funny tale for you:

 In a land far, far away there was a teen age girl who was slightly hard up for cash (what teenager isn't?) and received a call from a neighbor who had 4 children. This sweet neighbor was begging said teen age girl to come over a babysit! Now, teenage girl wasn't thrilled but the need for cash won and she walked over.

The neighbor and her husband ran for the door and the teenager was in charge. She went to work getting supper for the kids and couldn't believe there was burnt Mac'n Cheese was on the stove! Who burns Mac'n Cheese! After feeding the kids, the next step was putting them all to bed. The house was a maze of clothes, toys, and random piles of stuff. The dog wouldn't stop barking and the kids seemed to be boucing off the walls.

After the kids had been settled down to bed, the dog let back in which stopped the barking (but lead to a dog running everywhere!) the teenager said the following things:

1. Who in their right mind would have a kid, let alone 4 kids!!
2. Her house would never be this messy!
3. She would never have a dog!
4. She would never burn such a simple meal Mac'n Cheese

And then this little teenager settled on the sofa reading a book and passing the hours until midnight. 

Now, let's fast forward 15 years, I will reveal said teenager is me. It had been nearly year since my husband and I had a real date (shopping for Christmas presents and Easter baskets doesn't count!). There was this really cool movie out called "Mom's Night Out" and I really wanted to see it! I called our teenage sitter begging her to come over and watch the kids! And then that is when deja vu hit me!!

See, I had 4 kids running wild through the house, 1 extremely ill behaved dog, and while begging the sitter to come I may have burnt lunch (which wasn't Mac'n Cheese but it would have been total poetic justice if I had!)

Also my sideboard may have looked like this:

My bath tub may have looked like this: (That is dog paws, tooth brush, and a few items that are suppose to be in tub)

And it goes without saying the piles of clothes, toys, and other "life" that made the house a maze to walk though! I seriously consider cancelling the sitter and cleaning my house instead but then the need to get away from all this crazy won over and I went about picking up as much as possible in the few hours I had.

However, I'm pretty sure my sweet babysitter would have never judge me, however if she did its ok! Because in 15 years, I can only hope she will be blessed with a husband and 4 beautiful children. When she needs a break or even a date, she can totally call me ( I won't judge!). Or better yet, she can hire her own 15 year old babysitter and the cycle can start all over again!

New Year's Resoluations

So with ringing in 2015 I've decided to put forth some positive resolutions for the year:

1. I want to run a 10k and a 15k

I've got a 5k under my belt and I've been working on taking off baby weight. Having my sights on that milage will keep me moving in the right direction. Plus my friend challenged me to 600 miles for the year!!

2. Get back into writing

I worked on my school newspaper in high school and this turned into a paying gig in college. However, I wasn't able to get my foot in the door outside of college. Then babies came, life happened, so I'm hoping this blog will be a good outlet for writing again.

3. Do 52 Week Organizational Challenge for homeschooling

I came across this challenge over at Psyowith6 and it really caught my interest. While I think I may have a good handle on some of the topics, it gives excellent suggestions to other. My plan is do a check in post called "Resolution Friday" to monitor my progress on this week challenge. If your interested check it out:
http://www.psychowith6.com/52-week-get-organized-homeschool-challenge/#sthash.gpDY83iW.dpbs

4. Participate in the Rudolf Club (http://christmas.organizedhome.com/rudolph-club)

This year the holidays REALLY came up fast on me! Advent and Christmas seasons are truly one of my favorite times of the year. I liked the idea of taking the 25th of each month a checking off a few Christmas tasks that came be done ahead of time. However, I'm going to do my own list as starting my Christmas list in February isn't really my cup of tea!

5. Continuing to de-clutter our house!

It seems with 6 people in a small house our stuff just seems to grow!! To make things more manageable de-cluttering and being very conscience of what we bring into our house needs to keep to the top of list!

There you have it folks - something for me, something for our homeschool, something to help keep me sane (working on Christmas!) and something for our home.

Its gonna be a great year, I can just feel it!

Happy New Year!!

And a blog is born....

Who am I?

Well I'm a wife, mom to 4 kiddos (the boy, the princess, tinkerbell, and baby) , and we homeschool our kiddos.

While some may call me a Stay At Home Mom - I prefer the title of Domestic Engineer. That title is far more fitting to what I do every day than Stay at Home Mom.

This blog is gonna be a little bit of everything - homeschooling, organizing, cooking, and what is on my mind.

Forgive the grammar errors, I run on little sleep and frequently interpreted!