Cowgirls and Angels in theaters May 25

Movie night.

We love it. 

Our family has gone TV free lately.  We have no satellite TV.  We have no Netflix.  We don’t even have a converter box to watch local channels.  The only thing we watch now are DVD’s.   So, we are always looking for good movies.

I was excited when I was allowed to preview a movie that is coming to theaters on Friday, May 25, 2012.   It is called Cowgirls and Angels.   This is a terrific family movie that we enjoyed watching.   My kids thought it was pretty cool that we were able to see it before it even came out in theaters.

This is a heartwarming movie about a young girl named Ida.  (My kids also thought this was cool because that is my Grandma’s name and they have never heard anyone else named that before.)  Ida is a little mischievous in the beginning of the movie and it shows her stealing things out of people’s purses at the rodeo.  She is rebellious and I think her acting out is just a way to get attention.  Her mom works a lot and her dad is absent in her life.  She hangs out at the rodeo because she is hoping to find her father.  

While hanging out at the rodeos, she is spotted as having talent by the leader of the Sweethearts of the Rodeo.  This is a group of young female riders by do trick riding at the rodeo.  She is recruited by the Sweethearts and her new “family” accepts her quickly. 

Ida finds a new passion that redefines her life.  I’m not going to spoil the movie for you because I really think you should go see it.  But, her newfound passion just may help her find the father she has been searching for.

Cowboys and Angels opens in theaters tomorrow, May 25th, 2012.  

Check out their website www.cowgirls-n-angels.com/.

Cowboys and Angels–in theaters starting May 25.

So, if you and your family are looking for a great movie to go see this weekend, I highly recommend Cowboys and Angels.   I think you will love Ida, just like our family did.

Have a great weekend!

I was allowed to preview this movie thanks to Propeller in exchange for this review.  No other compensation was provided. 

Art–it just might be her thing

I love seeing my kids excel in something.  Don’t all Moms?  Homeschooling allows me to see each time my kids light up when they learn something new or when something just clicks.

My husband is an excellent artist.  He can pretty much draw anything he sees.  He is very modest about this and of course doesn’t agree with me. 

Thankfully my kids have gotten their artist ability from him and not me.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am a great colorer.  LOL.  That’s  not very impressive right, cuz it’s not even a real word.  I am a crayon snob.  I hate any any crayons that are not Crayola.  So, my kids don’t have any other kind of crayons.    But, I love to color and always have.

Bella, age 9,  has been drawing a lot lately.  I love to see her work.  She will work for hours on drawing.  It is great that we do school at home because she wouldn’t be able to work for hours on anything if she was in school.  I love that I don’t have to stop them in the middle of working on something special to learn something different.  

Here are a few things she has drawn recently.  I think this just may be her calling.  She just looks at a picture and can draw pretty accurately the same thing.   The cow is  my favorite.  I love it’s eyes.  I think it captures a real cow perfectly.   And, no she didn’t trace any of them. 

I hope you enjoy this.

                                          

 

                                         

 

                                          

                                         

Square Foot Gardening–The basics

I have never been a gardener.  Yes, I admit it.   But, I love to garden.

I hate weeds.  I hate hoeing.  I hate the heat of the sun in the garden. 

But, I love garden food. 

And, I am trying really hard to fix healthier foods for my family.   So, last year we started square foot gardening. 

If you hate weeds and hoeing, this is the thing for you.

I’m not going to lie and say its easy, because it still takes work.  But it is easier than regular gardening.

Here are a few reasons why:

Weeding is super simple- just pick each one out as they come and no hoeing.

Watering is quick and painless.  I don’t even usually get the hose out.  I just leave a bucket sit next to the garden and dip cups of water out and put it exactly where it is needed.  Plants love sun-warmed water so this is perfect for them.

Planting is easy because each thing is planted in a one foot square.   You know exactly what and where the plants are.  (This helps with weeding if you aren’t sure what is weeds and what is plants.)

Are you interested in trying this?  

The most work you will do is building your boxes and getting the soil ready.  The good this is you only have to do this once.  After that, you just add compost and replant. 

I read a lot of books last year when I was getting ready.  My favorite was Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew.  It was the most informative and easies to understand.

I am going to blog about each step of the process but today I am sharing the Basic 10 steps for square foot gardening.   These are taken from the book above.   You can also check out the Square Foot Gardening official website here.

THE 10 BASICS

1.  LAYOUT - Arrange your garden in squares, not rows. Lay it out in 4'x4' planting areas.

2.  BOXES - Build boxes to hold a new soil mix above ground.

3.  AISLES - Space boxes 3' apart to form walking aisles.

4.  MEL'S MIX - Fill boxes with Mel's special soil mix: 1/3 blended compost, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 coarse vermiculite. (This is super important.  We tried this in two boxes and just regular dirt and this works so much better.  Don’t waste your time and money on regular dirt.)

5.  GRID - Make a permanent square foot grid for the top of each box. A MUST!

6.  CARE - NEVER WALK ON YOUR GROWING SOIL. Tend your garden from the aisles.

7.  SELECT - Plant a different flower, vegetable, or herb crop in each square foot, using 1, 4, 9, or 16 plants per square foot.

8.  PLANT - Conserve seeds. Plant only a pinch (2 or 3 seeds) per hole. Place transplants in a slight saucer-shaped depression.

9.  WATER - Water by hand from a bucket of sun-warmed water.

10. HARVEST - When you finish harvesting a square foot, add compost and replant it with a new and different crop.

Praying today

Yesterday was a hectic day.  It started out good.  Kids were doing school without crying or complaining. 
Then my mom called me and told me my father in law was having chest pain and I needed to go down there.  She had called 911 and we live close to him so I could get there before my dad (who he called). 
So, I went to his house and waiting with him until the life squad came.  I rode with him in the life squad so he didn't have to be alone.  Now, that's something I don't ever want to have to repeat.
It's funny how you think you know how you will react when something happens. 
You know?
Like, I know exactly what to do in a situation like this.  I've read about it.  I've taken classes on it.
Well, guess what?  When it came time to put things into action, I called my sister.  She's a nurse and I knew that if he needed CPR I wanted someone who would definitely be able to perform.
Thankfully, he didn't and she was just there to keep me sane.  
I love my family and that they always come through for me when I need them. God has blessed me with an amazing family (and extended family through my husband).
My father in law is an amazing, kind, loving man.  My kids love him.  We all love him. 
Thankfully he is doing okay today but we are praying big prayers for him.  He definitely had a heart attack and they are going to do an angiogram to find the blockage.
There are days when I wish I lived in an earlier time period.  You know, like Little House on the Prairie times. 
But, then something like this happens and I realize how blessed we are to live when we do.  Medical advance is one of those reasons.
So, today I am thanking God for saving my father-in-laws life and for keeping my family safe.
Keep your families close and
Happy Homeschooling.

Encouragement

Encouragement.

Oh how I need it.

It seems like these days everyone has an opinion as to why I should put my children in school.  They don’t get the reasons we do it, I guess.  Because just because things aren’t always perfect, I will not give up.

You know, like my son’s spelling is atrocious.

Math has become a subject that brings tears instead of joy.

My daughter is a perfectionist that cries when she misses something.

And sometimes there are days that I just want to go back to bed and start all over the next day.

But, you know what.  God doesn’t want me to quit.

He has called us to homeschool our children.  And yes, there are times when even my husband says school is where they should be.  I just find myself praying even more during these times.   He seems to have these moments more lately.  I believe it is because of the pressure at work where people are asking him about our kids.  Or just that he hears all about everyone else's children and how “great” they are doing.  

You see, I’ve learned that most of what they say is bull crap.  People lie and exaggerate to make their selves and their children look better, smarter, whatever.  We believe those lies.  That everyone else’s kids are smarter.  They do better in sports.  They can play every instrument and do it while reading Shakespeare.   My husband especially believes the lies.  I know it’s hard for him at work.  

The latest thing is one of his co-workers has sucked him in to believing my daughter needs to join an elite cheerleading squad.  Her daughter is in it and it is “WONDERFUL”.  Bella likes cheerleading.  I don’t think she would if she had practice 4 hours a week (which we would have to drive an hour each way to), and everything is competition.  It isn’t for fun.  It is to win.  She also doesn’t have the skills yet that are needed to even try out.  But, this women insists she should.  Oh yeah, and it costs $300 a month.  Yep, you read that right, a month.   This in turn makes my husband think that maybe I should get a job because you know, we can’t afford that and our child will probably turn out to be a serial killer if she doesn’t get to be a cheerleader on this team.  

Now, what I want to say is “stay away from this woman at work and you won’t have to listen to this”.  But I’m trying to keep my jealousy at bay these days so I just say, I don’t think so, Honey.  It’s too much money and I don’t want to drive 4 hours a week for cheerleading.  You know, gas prices are pretty high.   Thankfully, the tryouts are now over and we can forget it for awhile. 

I just keep wondering why everyone worries so much about my kids.  Guess what.  Me keeping my kids at home is not hurting you or your kids so don’t worry about it. 

Don’t make comments.

Don’t give advice (unless asked for).

In return I won’t tell you that putting your children in the public school is probably the worst thing you can do for them (of course that is only my opinion). 

Deal?

If you are in need of encouragement in your journey, whether it be homeschooling or not, here is a great post that I assure you will encourage you.   It is from Homeschool Mosaics, a new homeschool site that I write for. 

God Bless and Happy Homeschooling.

Dying Easter eggs with Crayons

My family loves to dye Easter eggs.   Every year we usually dye at least 2 dozen.
The funny thing is that neither of the kids will eat them.  Not deviled.  Not hard boiled.  They don’t eat eggs.  
So, we usually take them to Easter dinner at the family’s. 
We always use the Paas Easter Egg kits.  This year I wanted to do something different.

Thank you Pinterest.   I found really cool pictures of eggs dyed using crayons.  We have a lot of those so I knew this would be perfect.
I dyed two dozen eggs and the secret is that they have to be hot when you color them.
This makes it hard for little ones but my kids didn’t really have any problems. 
We laid the egg on a paper towel and colored half of the egg.  Then we laid it on a cooling rack and colored the other half on that.
Super easy.  And so incredibly cute.
We shaved a few crayons and just dropped the colors on.  These are my favorite.


And then some of them we actually colored on to make pictures. 


This was so much fun and you can be a lot more creative than regular easter egg dying.  Next year we are going to try kool aide to dye them.  Tasty and pretty.

Pillsbury Ready to Bake Cookies - $1.10 coupon code

Easter Sunday is in 4 days.  I love this time of year.   Spring is here and the weather is amazing.  The most wonderful part of spring is Easter.  Jesus is Alive!!!!  He died especially for you.  (and me.)  You have the promise of eternal life.  Isn’t that amazing?
I can think of no better way to celebrate that with cookies.   Pillsbury Ready to Bake! Shape Cookies are great anytime but right now they have Easter ones and I think you’re kids are gonna love them.

I was given a Pillsbury Cookie jar, oven mit, spatula and coupon for a free package of Pillsbury Refrigereated Disney Cookie Dough through My BlogSpark and Pillsbury.

• Quick and convenient, Pillsbury Ready to Bake! Shape Cookies are ready to enjoy in 8-10 minutes and can be found at your local grocer
• Celebrate Easter with your family’s favorite Disney characters including Lightning McQueen from Cars and Minnie Mouse

The oven mitt is amazing.  It has a magnet in it to hang on the fridge.  How did they know I’m always losing my pot holders?  There’s just one thing I want to warn you about.  The spatula is sharp on the edges.  It scraped my cookie sheet when I held it straight up.  I also don’t want you to let your little ones use it cuz I think it could cut them.  It works great though if you just slide it under the food.
Everyone can  visit this link to download a printable coupon for $1.10 off the purchase of (1) package of Pillsbury Ready to Bake! Shape Cookies today!  That’s a great coupon. 
Here’s the Pillsbury website www.Pillsbury.com
You can also find Pillsbury on:


“Disclosure:  The VIP coupon, prize pack, information, and giveaway have been provided by Pillsbury through MyBlogSpark.” I did not promise a favorable review and no other compensation was provided. 
(This giveaway was done through a personal group.  Please watch for the next giveaway on my blog)  

Square Foot Gardening–soon but not yet

Okay.  So I wanted to do a post on how to start your square foot garden.   I went outside to clean out the gardens.  I had great intentions.   But, guess what I found?
Chickens.  They were taking a dirt bath in the garden.  Did you know that they do that?  Have you ever seen it?  It was pretty enlightening. 

Chicken Dirt Bath

I had dirt in my hair after taping this.  They can really throw the dirt up.
Supposedly they do this to keep bugs off of them.  Bugs don’t like dirt so they fill their feathers with it and it keeps the bugs away.
Isn’t it amazing that God gave animals the intelligence to know how to keep themselves clean?  Even chickens point me to God’s intelligent design.
I did get lettuce and carrots planted.  I planted them about 10 days ago.    It has been so beautiful here that it only took about 4 days for it to come up. 

I think in only a couple of days we will be able to start eating out of this.  I planted heirloom seeds.  I am going to do totally organic plants this year.  I am really excited to see how this works for us.   These are about 2 inches tall already.  I’m going to plant about 3 more squares this week so we will have an ongoing salad bar in the garden.   With David being vegetarian, we’re going to need it. 
Have you priced lettuce at the store lately?  I don’t mean a head of lettuce.  It’s fairly inexpensive.  I mean the organic leaf lettuce?  At Kroger the other day it was $4.99 a pound and of course they water it so I would be paying for the weight of water too.  What’s up with that? 
The carrots have even begun to come up.  They aren’t as impressive as the lettuce but I can see em.    The kids are watering them because the soil is looking a little dry.
Now, back to the chickens.  I have to admit that I love them.  They are so pretty.  I love looking out in the yard and seeing them forage for worms and bugs.  
This one is in the edge of the woods digging in the leaves.  (His sister was in the coop laying an egg.) It is so entertaining because everything I see them they have a worm in their mouths. 
Chickens are so educational too.  The kids are doing chickens for 4H so they are learning so much.  They’ve learned all about the crawl.  Did you know that there are people who eat it?  Gross.   The crawl is where everything the chicken eats gets stored.  They eat pebbles and rocks so it gets ground up.  Their stomachs don’t work like ours do so they have to have the crawl to digest the food.  That’s where the rocks are.   If not, I’m pretty sure you would see everything they ate whole in their poop.   Chickens that are kept in cages and are not allowed to graze are fed oyster shells because they don’t have access to pebbles.    Some feed has the shells in it.  Our local feed mill lets you pick if you want them or not.

A couple of things that I don’t like about the chickens.

Poop.

There is a lot of it.  And because we let them out in the yard whenever we are home, it is all over the yard.  This in turn gets on my shoes.  Yucky.  
The other thing is that they seem to love our front porch.

Which in turn produces poop on the porch.  Again, Yucky!
I guess that is just one of the things I have to endure for fresh eggs.
David says it will take us 15 years to break even on our chicken investment.    We paid $300 for my dad to build it (that was materials only), $20 for the chickens, $20 for the food.  I’m thinking he’s a little off on his calculations.  I had Griffin figure it up (one of the great ways to incorporate meaningful math into our day).  If we compare it to the cost of organic, free range eggs, we will totally be in the clear in 9.3 years.  
Here is some of the ways we use chickens to add to our schooling:

Math – calculating cost of coop compared to the cost of eggs.

Math -  Figured how much food we need for 2 chickens for one month – you’re not suppposed to keep it longer than that and we want to make sure it doesn’t go bad.

Science – learned all about chicken crawls

Science – checked out the chicken poop to see if food is digested completely (it isn’t)  I’m thinking we could sell this to other homeschoolers so they can dissect it.  You know, kind of like they do owl pellets. 

Home Ec- cleaning up after the chickens is quite enlightening.   I guess it could be under science too cuz they get to mix bleach and water to clean it off the porch.

Science – we have learned that chickens really do go to their coop at dusk. 

Physical Education – chasing them before we didn’t really believe that they would get in the coop at bedtime

Science – learned all about dirt baths.

Science – we have first hand seen the difference in eggs from the store and eggs from chickens at home.  Wow, there is a huge difference. 

Math – the kids calculated how much paint we would need to paint the coop and still have enough left over to touch up later if we need to. 

I love showing the kids that school really is used in everyday life.  It makes it all make sense to them when we need to use these skills on our own little homestead.

            

Until next time. . . . . ..
Happy Homeschooling.

The Woodcarver–DVD giveaway

I have been blessed to receive several DVD’s to review on my blog.  Most of them have been good.  I have to admit that The WoodCarver is probably my favorite one so far. 

Everyone in my family enjoyed this film by Faith and Family Films. 

Matthew Stevenson is a troubled kid from a broken home. When he vandalizes the local church to get back at his parents, Matthew has to repair the damage to the church to avoid criminal charges. While working at the church, he meets Ernest (John Ratzenberger), an accomplished wood carver who created the intricate woodwork decoration that Matthew destroyed. Ernest has become something of a hermit, but reluctantly comes out of reclusion to help repair the church. Now Ernest and Matthew must work together to preserve the church's beautiful antiquity, and along the way, they also manage to restore their faith in God and in life.

This was an excellent movie that allowed us to discuss how your even if you are hurting, you have to be aware that your actions can hurt others and get you in trouble.    We loved the ending (it was happy) but I won’t ruin it for you.  

You can win your own copy of this great movie by entering below. 


a Rafflecopter giveaway


My favorite thing about getting all of these movies is that it enables me to give one to you and I love to give my copy to my local library.  This ensures that our library will have family friendly movies for our neighborhood families to watch.  And, of course, I can rent it if I want to watch it again.  

Please note that I received a copy of The WoodCarver from Propeller in exchange fro my opinion in this review.   No other compensation was received.  

Mighty Mac's Winner

Thank you to everyone who entered my DVD giveaway.  The winner is Debbie.  

I have another movie review/giveaway starting today.  It's for the movie The Woodcarver.  It was also a great family movie. 

Happy Homeschooling!