Foodie Penpals

In September I participated in the ever so popular Foodie Penpal exchange created by Lindsay at The Lean Green Bean. How fun! Never heard of it? Well here's the gist...I signed up on Lindsay's blog to be matched up with another foodie. I was paired with two Gayles (or Gails). I sent a box of treats to Gail Lynn in Illinois and Gayle from Pennsylvania sent a box of treats to me. Here's a look at what I got:

A box full of yummies! Sport and Spice were just as excited as I was to dig in. Gayle also sent a handmade card with a description of each item chosen.

The Granola Factory Granola, made just down the road from Gayle's home, was strange (in a good way) and addicting. I love granola and this one had a unique saltiness to it. It was the first thing to disappear.

The Good Bean chickpeas made for a tasty, crunchy snack. Gayle must have read my mind because the day I received the box I had purchased the ingredients to make roasted chickpeas.

I'm still enjoying the dry roasted edamame (even as I write this). I've had steamed edamame, but never roasted so it's a nice treat.

I've been wanting to try the single size servings of peanut butter and almond butter from Justin's, so I thank Gayle for buying them for me.

The kids couldn't wait to get their hands on the Clif Kids grape and mixed berry fruit snacks. They each took a half and unanimously voted grape as the best flavor. They also tore into the Fruit Stripe gum. I loved this during my college days, but apparently never introduced the kids to it. To say they loved it is an understatement. I left them alone for a few minutes and when I came back there were only about 5 pieces of gum left out of a 20 piece pack! I rescued the few remaining pieces and stashed them away so I could actually have some later.

The only thing I have not tried yet is the cashew flavored Larabar. I tucked it away in the pantry out of the kids' sight (do you see a pattern here?)  and forgot about it. I'll try to sneak it out tomorrow.

I enjoyed my first round of Foodie Penpals and am looking forward to participating again this month. If you'd like to give it a try head over to Lindsay's blog. You've got until Thursday to sign up.

I'm Baaaack...

I'm not even going to try and explain my absence for the past year and a half. Let's just say I've been busy. There have been some big changes though, most notably we have moved back to Louisiana to be near family and (old) friends. I look forward to sharing new faces and places with you as we remodel our new old house and continue on our homeschooling journey.

Swagbucks Coupons Work For Me

Are you a Swagbucks collector? What about a coupon clipper? Did you know you can have the best of both worlds by earning Swagbucks when you use coupons? Swagbucks has a page on their website where you can print coupons. The site is powered by coupons.com so if you're a regular couponer you're probably already using many of the coupons available on the Swagbucks site, but not getting credit for them. Today I printed out coupons to save 40 cents on 6 cups of Yoplait yogurt, $1 on Kashi cereal bars, and $1 on Kashi cereal. There are also coupons for Udi's gluten free bread. I have a friend who buys gluten free products so I plan to print those for her so she can redeem them and put some bucks in my account. Go to the Swagbucks website, click on earn and then coupons. You'll find 18 pages of deals to choose from.

If you aren't earning Swagbucks yet, what are you waiting for?!? I've earned nearly $100 in Amazon gift cards in a little over a year just by using the toolbar. That works for me! For a homeschooling mama of two reading machines, free Amazon money is pure bliss! Head over to Swagbucks now to start your account then go to We Are That Family to find out what's working for everyone else.

Learning with the American Girls

In just a matter of weeks, Spice turned into an American Girl addict. We received a catalog out of the blue in the fall. I was going to chunk it right off the bat, but decided to hold on to it for a bit to see if she showed any interest. She did not and I thought I had tossed the catalog in the recycle bin. About a month later, I walked into the living room to find her deeply engrossed in the catalog. Apparently it had gotten buried under some books on the coffee table and she unearthed it. Since that day she hasn't talked about much of anything else. She got an AG doll from Santa (one of the My American Girl dolls, not a historical character) and Sport bought her a mini Kaya doll for Christmas as well. This semester she is taking an American Girl class through a homeschool enrichment program we participate in. The class will spend the entire semester studying Rebecca Rubin, a Jewish girl living in 1914 New York. After reading through the books, I decided to supplement her studies at home. I'm also in the process of planning a more in-depth unit on WWII and American Girl Molly. I have decided to post about the work Spice does at home and in class in case others want utilize the wonderful books in their child's studies. I will post about each book in a series as we finish it. First up will be Meet Rebecca. Check back soon for our first installment!

Taco Pie

I haven't done a recipe post in awhile. Just haven't been able to find the inspiration, but it came this week in the form of organic ground beef on sale at Publix. I stocked up and was trying to think of how to use it when I remembered this recipe. It's a family favorite, but I haven't made it in a lonnnggg time because I quit buying canned biscuits - too many weird ingredients. I recently discovered Trader Joe's has a (relatively) healthy store version though so this recipe is coming back into the rotation.


Here's what you need:

1 lb. ground beef (sometimes I substitute the fake Morning Star Farms meat and no one is the wiser)
1 packet taco seasoning
8 oz. tomato sauce
8-10 oz. can of biscuits
1 cup refried beans
1 cup cheese (I use whatever's in the fridge)
1 small onion, chopped

Brown beef and stir in tomato sauce and onion. Heat until it begins to boil. Lower temp and simmer 15 minutes or until thickened. Lightly grease 9-inch pie plate. Flatten biscuits over bottom and up sides of plate. Spread beans over dough. Top with meat and bake for about 20 minutes at 375. Sprinkle cheese over top before serving.

This recipe is being linked with Balancing Beauty and Bedlam's Tasty Tuesday, All The Small Stuff's Tuesdays At The Table, and At The Well's Tempt My Tummy Tuesday. Head to either of those for more yummy recipes.

Jen over at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam is also taking a poll to find out what brands we can't live without. In other words, if you found out a particular brand item was going to be discontinued, which ones would you stock up on. Here's my (not so short) list:

Coca Cola - No diet or zero stuff here. Can't beat the real thing.
Kroger Natural Peanut Butter - I could live with other brands if I had to, but this one is the best in my opinion.
Annie's Mac and Cheese - Spice is a mac and cheese addict. I don't feel quite so guilty when I serve her the Annie's all natural brand.
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups - Nothing else compares...
Tostitos Restaurant Style Salsa - Nice and refreshing. The closest to actual restaurant salsa I've found in a jar.
Tostitos Baked Scoops - The perfect complement to the above mentioned salsa. These are the ONLY baked chips I like and they make my constant craving for chips and salsa a little less guilt inducing.
Crayola Crayons - The rest are just colored blobs of wax.
Oral B or Johnson & Johnson dental floss - All the other brands fall apart before the job is done.
Scrubbing Bubbles Bathroom Cleaner - The only one that actually works on the tub.

And No. 1 on the list...

Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning - My luxury item if I'm ever on Survivor. This stuff could even make grass taste good.

Head over to Jen's blog to see what brands other reader's are loyal to and feel free to leave a comment here telling me your favorites.

Frugal Fashionista

Jen over at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam is hosting a Frugal Fashionista fashion show this weekend. I’ve wanted to participate in one for so long, but it seems like once I first discovered them she didn’t do one in forever then when she did have one I totally missed it. So here’s my first Frugal Fashionista post. Unfortunately, the pictures aren’t the greatest. My camera was taking for-evah to charge so I had to get Hubby to snap a few pics with his camera phone. Not the best quality and to say he wasn’t into it nearly as much as me is a huge understatement. But it’s all we’ve got so here goes…


This jacket was my thrift store find of the week (and I found some goooood stuff this week)! Abercombie and Fitch via Goodwill for $5.90! As for the rest of the outfit…
Ribbed turtleneck – FREE from a homeschool swap.
Jeans – FREE from an awesome consignment shop. I bring most of my unwanted goods to this consignment shop so I have built up a nice little line of credit. It’s fun to walk out of a store with a sack of free goodies and not have to worry about the police tracking you down.
Shoes – $4 on clearance at Cato.
Grand Total: A whopping $9.90!



I picked up this nice and cozy sweater yesterday. Can’t wait to wear it!
Sweater – $2.72 from America’s Thrift Store
Jeans – same as above
Axcess Shoes – $3.88 America’s Thrift Store – These aren’t my normal style of shoes. I prefer “sensible” (i.e. comfortable shoes) but for some reason when I saw these yesterday they just called to me. Here's a better picture:


Grand Total for that outfit: $7.76

Ooh! I almost forgot this sweater and it’s one of my new all time faves. Luckily, Spice was kind enough to take a picture for me today.
I picked up this Dress Barn beauty at a church run thrift store on Tuesday for $2.00!!! The aqua shirt underneath came from the same store last season for $1.50.

Hope you enjoyed taking a peek at my bargains. Can’t wait to show off more next time. I already have a nice little wardrobe of spring goodies built up, but since neither my legs nor my toes are in spring mode, they’ll have to wait! Check out other fashionista bargains at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam and My Red Apron's Thrift Store Thursday.

Christmas Craftapalooza

Two weeks ago we rounded up a few friends and hosted the first ever Christmas Craftapalooza at our house. I love the idea of kids giving handmade gifts for Christmas, but I'm not so much into giving out cheesy toilet paper roll Christmas ornaments or framed handprints (OK the handprints aren't necessarily cheesy, but there's only so many years you can really do those and have them mean something). I'm all about having the kids make GOOD and USEFUL gifts that aren't just pulled out once a year when the grandparents know you're coming over for a visit.

Usually Sport, Spice, and I make these candles every year for my mom and a few friends.

Photo from Family Fun

Obviously adult supervision is required, but they make a nice gift and are fun to create.

We've gotten a bit tired of those though so this year I scoured the internet to come up with some new ideas. Here's a look at what was created at our craftapalooza...

Beaded Rings:

Photo from Family Fun

Spice and I actually made one of these as a make and take on a recent trip to Micheal's. We liked them so much we decided to make more for Christmas. I found  instructions at Family Fun. Our rings were similar, but we used small pearls in place of the silver beads to give it a fancier Christmas look. Unfortunately I did not take a picture of any of the finished products. We had kids aged 5-9 at our event and some were better able to do this than others. I'd recommend it for ages 7 and up as an unsupervised craft. Some of those pearl beads are hard to string!

Cookies in a Can:

Similar to cookies in a jar, but uses Pringles cans instead. (This was one of those spur of the moment "I'm in desparate need of a gift NOW!" ideas I came up with last year.)We wrapped Pringles cans then fillled them with cookie ingredients in Zip-Loc bags. Here's our recipe:

In one quart-sized Zip-Loc bag, combine 2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp. baking soda, and 1/4 tsp. salt. 

In a second bag, combine 3/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup white sugar.

Fill a sandwhich size bag with 3/4 cup chocolate chips, raisins, nuts...We used the peppermint swirl chips for a festive look. They were delicious!

Place all bags inside a 6 oz Pringles can and add a gift tag with the following instructions:

To use combine all ingredients in a large bowl with 3/4 cup shortening, 1 egg, 2 Tbsp. milk, and 1 tsp. vanilla. Form into one inch balls and bake 12-15 minutes at 350 degrees.

Altered Notebooks:

By far the favorite craft of the day was altered notebooks. My kids are still making these. I purchased three-to-a-pack memo sized notebooks at Dollar Tree. These had a plasticy type cover on both sides. One side had a second cardboard cover underneath the plastic layer so I cut the plastic cover off (I was worried the glue would not adhere to it as well) and we worked with the cardboard side. Before the party I traced the cover on a bunch of pieces of scrapbook paper and cut them out so the kids could just pick the paper they liked best and glue it on. Once they had a new decorative cover they were able to add embellishments using paper punches, stickers, and stamps. Some websites give instructions for removing the spiral wire so that the entire front of the notebook can be covered, then making new holes and reinserting the wire. Way too complicated for my tatste! We just glued the paper as close to the wire as possible, leaving a small white edge along the top of the notebooks. I think this worked out just fine and made it much easier for the kids to complete the project on their own. Oh and for all you true bargain hunters out there, I've since found more notebooks at Big Lots that come four to a pack, making these cute little personalized gifts come out to about 30 cents each.

If you're still looking for gifts to put under the tree, get the kids to work and if none of these ideas float your boat, check out Works For Me Wednesday for more last minute gift ideas.

Easy Teacher Gift

It's been a while since I've done a Works for me Wednesday post. I've been planning on making my comeback with this idea for two weeks now, but kept forgetting to post. Guess that's a good thing since today's WFMW topic is Gift Giving. You would think as homeschoolers, we wouldn't have to worry about teacher gifts, but you're wrong! There are co-op class teachers, piano teachers, dance teachers... the list could go on and on. We gave out our first round of gifts the week before Thanksgiving when Sport and Spice's weekly enrichment classes came to an end. Here's what the kids handed out...

a roll of Christmas wrapping paper with a note that says "May your holidays be wrapped in love." We also added a homemade flavored coffee drink mix to this batch. I tried some of it later though and found it kinda gross (guess I should've taste-tested it before we give some out) so I'm not sharing the recipe. I am not a coffee drinker though, so what do I know? Maybe that was how it was supposed to taste. At any rate, we also included a few chocolate dipped spoons with the coffee mix so that should have improved the taste. We will be giving out more of the wrapping paper gifts. They were a big hit and I like giving out gifts that can be used up rather than a cheesy knick knack that does nothing but sit around gathering dust. I found these rolls in the Target dollar spot. I like them because they are shorter than regular rolls, but have a ton of paper on them.

Here is another twist on a popular gift that I blogged about last year (scroll down to the picture at the bottom). We had friends over today for our first ever Christmas Craftapalooza. All of the kids put together a few of these kits, and made some other cool gifts that I hope to blog about in the next few days. In the meantime, head over to We Are That Family for more great gift ideas.

Roasted Carrots With Feta and Parsley

Hi all! I'm back from my extended hiatus to share this delicious recipe from Martha Stewart. Jen over at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam is looking for Thanksgiving recipes for today's Tasty Tuesday. I tried this for the first time earlier this year and have planned on adding it to our Thanksgiving feast since the first bite. Not only is it delicious, it's super simple to throw together and looks quite impressive.

Photo from marthastewart.com

Ingredients:

3 pounds medium carrots, cut 1/2 inch thick on the bias
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Toss carrots with oil on a rimmed baking sheet, and season with salt and pepper. Roast until carrots are caramelized and tender, about 25 minutes.
Transfer carrots to a bowl, and toss with feta and parsley.

Check out Jen's blog for more new dishes to add to your Thanksgiving feast.

Muffin Tin Monday

This week's Muffin Tin Monday theme is Movies. This is probably a stretch, but here's my contribution...a build your own pizza kit because what goes better with movie night than popcorn pizza?!?

Truth be told, I've never been good at keeping up with the MTM themes (that would require planning ahead) and it's sheer luck that with just a little imagination, today's meal could acutally work with the theme. The thing I love about MTM is it's a great way to serve a decent meal when the pickins' are slim. I come up with some of my best meal inventions at the spur of the moment on Mondays when the kids proclaim 5 minutes before eatin' time, "It's Muffin Tin Monday!"

Today, I lucked out and found two large pepperonis in the fridge. We were out of tortillas, pitas, English muffins (you get the picture), but I did find one hamburger bun lurking in the cabinet. I toasted the bun, gave each kid a half and called it a pizza crust. I also lucked up on a little piece of Parmesaen cheese that I sliced up and split between the two and  a stash of homemade pizza sauce in the freezer. To round out the meal I added in a handful of almonds and a couple shreds of carrot. Spice is the world's pickiest eater. She'll eat carrots, but only with a side of ranch dressing. I put the carrots in the tin and acted like it was a perfectly normal pizza topping and it worked. She actually put them on her pizza and ate them. Score one for Mom!

Check out the Muffin Tin Mom for more creative muffin tins meals.

Weekly Wrap-Up For The Birds Part 2

We continued with our bird theme this week. I thought we would wrap things up today before taking some time off to visit Disney World, but the kids are really enjoying themselves. There's always more to learn so maybe we'll extend our studies for one more week before taking a few more days off to tag along with Hubby when he goes to a conference near the beach.

We do most of our heavy work from Wednesday to Friday. Mondays are devoted to the basics and Story of the World Volume One. Sport has a religion class and Cub Scouts on Monday nights so I like to make sure he has some time for fun during the day. The kids have homeschool enrichment classes on Tuesday so I also don't like to start in on our unit study work on Monday just to be interrupted by Tuesday! We do math and grammar every day of the week. Wednesday through Friday are more of our FUN days - assuming the kids like the unit we're working on. So...when I write these weekly wrap-ups and go on and on about what we did Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday that doesn't mean we didn't have school on Monday and Tuesday. It just means whatever we did wasn't exciting enough to share. We actually did have school this Monday, despite the holiday. Hubby had to go out of town, so after a morning of family mountain climbing, he left and the kids and I had night school. They were intrigued by the idea at first until they realized it was just regular school held in the evening.

Wednesday we started the day by going to Mass, then made a quick library run and visit to the park with friends. We came home and spent some time in the backyard looking and listening for birds. Then we put together profiles of the birds we spotted. Sport's profiles came from Cornell University's online bird coloring book, an awesome free resource.

Spice's profiles were from Enchanted Learning. We added to our collection of bird profiles throughout the week. Spice also had fun using her Math-U-See manipulatives to complete this Duck Stories worksheet from Home Education Resources.

We studied bird nests on Thursday. I'd been waiting for this day so we could work on our big art project for the week - making yarn nests! I've seen this project all around the web. Some crafters refer to them as yarn bowls. The basic idea is to cut strands of yarn, dip them in watered down glue, and stick them all willy nilly around a curved surface. Let them dry overnight and viola, you've got a nest (or bowl). I picked up a skein of brown variegated yarn from Wal-Mart for Sport to use because I knew he would want to go au naturel. Spice wanted to make her nest out of her favorite color...rainbow, so I dug out the yarn stash I put together for 75 cents a skein at Big Lots earlier this year. We started with about 30  4-6 inch long strands each, but ended up cutting more, so I'd double that amount.

My little darlins' hate to have messy hands so the idea of swishing yarn around in a bowl of glue was almost too much to bear. They did it, but weren't happy about it. I think both of them could have used more glue, especially on the ends of each strand. Here's how the nests looked about halfway through the project:

The original instructions I saw for this project said to turn a bowl over then place a piece of plastic wrap over the bottom of the bowl to provide the nest shape. I decided this would be too aggravating 'cause we all know plastic wrap never actually stays in place. I taped a barely inflated balloon to a large cup for each kid and had them glue the yarn to the balloon. I drew a line just above the halfway mark so they'd know where to stop with the yarn. Overall the project turned out well, but it was difficult to get the balloon unstuck this morning without messing up the nests. Here's a look at the finished products:

Today, as a fun activity to close out the week, we played hide and seek with these little birdies we colored in earlier this week. The template came from Preschool Express.

The first time around I hid the birds in easy to find places, like the red cardinal on a black TV stand. Spice quickly found all 6. The next time around, I made it much harder by camouflaging the birds. I stuck the bluejay on a blue part of their American Idol dance mat (it was free people) and the cardinal on a sheet of Strawberry Shortcake stickers. Spice had a much harder time finding the birds which led to a discussion about how birds camouflage themselves to hide from predators.

We read or referred to these books throughout the week:
















All in all we had an enjoyable week of school that did not feel like school at all! If only every week could be that way! To see what other homeschoolers did this week, check out the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Quotables

Sport loves to read all of my old Peanuts books. The other day he was telling me about a particular comic strip in which Charlie Brown and Lucy discussed the philosophy of life. Charlie Brown stated, "Life is like an ice cream cone. You just have to lick it." Sport, a deep thinker in his own right, told me he'd come up with his own philosophy: Life is like a thermometer. It has its ups and downs.

Later that day after getting some disappointing news, he applied this philospophy to his own situation, saying, " Life is like a thermometer. It has its ups and downs and right now we're at about minus a hundred."

Weekly Wrap-Up...For the Birds

Last week seems so long ago, I hardly remember what we did! I felt like we had a pretty boring week, but looking back at the pictures, it doesn't seem so bad afterall.

I found these synonym cards at the Dollar Tree a few months back. Sport has been learning about synomyms, antonyms, and homonyms in grammar, so I cut these cards apart to make a matching game for him.

Of course Spice had to get in on the action too. I pulled out some of the easier synonym pairs for her to work with. She begged me to do this over and over the rest of the week.

As promised in my last wrap-up (sadly I haven't posted anything since then), we started a unit on birds. I purchased two unit studies from Currclick (Birds of North America and Birds) and we have based most of our work off of them. I also looked around one of my favorite websites, The Crafty Crow, and found quite a few bird feeder related projects to work on. On Thursday, Spice strung Cheerios on pipe cleaners to make food rings for the birds in our backyard. They obviously enjoyed it because the whole thing has completely disappeared!

The always resourceful Sport dug through the recyle bin and crafted a bird feeder out of a Laughing Cow cheese wedge container.

On Friday we set our new hummingbird feeder out on a table on our deck until we could find a place to hang it. It wasn't long before we were rewarded with a visit from a fine feathered friend. The picture isn't the best because it was taken from inside the house looking out the window, but the green blur on the lower left-hand side is a ruby-throated hummingbird.

We also read these two books:
















We will continue with our bird theme for another week or so. Check out Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap-up to see what other homeschoolers have been up to.

Weekly Wrap-Up

Twenty days down and 160 to go for the 2010-11 school year! We started school at the end of July because we knew we would be taking time off here and there to travel in August and September. We're using Story of the World for history this year and, honestly haven't gotten very far. We spent some time last week putting togethere our family history books and personal timelines then moved on to archeology this week. I set up an archeological dig sight in the backyard and told the kids to pretend they were scientists from the year 3010 looking for clues to human civilization in the year 2010. Before starting the dig, we read this book by Kate Duke:

Sport and Spice had a fun time digging, once they finally came across the first artifacts. For awhile it was a little iffy and both kids decided there was way too much work involved in being an archeologist. Here's a tip if you do this activity: Draw a treasure map for yourself to remember what's buried where. I was sure I'd remember from one night to the next morning, but as it happened we actually did not get to complete this activity until 4 DAYS LATER! By then I could hardly remembered what I'd buried, much less where. At least I had kept the dig site contained to a small area.

 

I had the kids mark off their dig site with string and sticks then draw a diagram on graph paper showing what artifacts were found in each cell. After everything was found, along with a bonus bottlecap that Sport unearthed, we talked about each item and what kind of clues it could provide...pen and can showed they had a developed alphabet and knew how to write; the skaterboard dude and army guy showed what kind of clothes they wore and that they had weapons and wheels; the Mardi Gras doubloon could have been a form of money and the fork showed they had highly developed eating utensils (and perhaps worshipped frogs?) They had a good time with this and of course wanted to stay out digging afterwards which is why I planned this as the very last project of the day.

 

In math, Sport is humming along with Teaching Textbooks Math 4 this year. This is our first year with Teaching Textbooks and so far it seems to be a good fit. We started around Lesson 40 though because the first part was way too easy and I didn't see the point of spending the entire year in review. He is still reviewing, but he could always use more help with multiplication facts. Spice, meanwhile, is having a blast with Math-U-See Alpha. She loves Decimal Street and has asked everyday this week, "Are we going to go back to Decimal Street today?" So of course we do. Yesterday we used Mrs. Bear, one of her purple bear counters, to go from door to door asking how many units, tens, and hundreds were home. Spice has quite the imagination and can tell you a story that goes on for hours so this was right up her ally. I finally managed to tear her away after about 5 different number stories and two tornadoes on Decimal Street.

 

In just about every other subject, we've been studying John James Audubon. I'm employing more of the unit study approach this year and so far we are having a really good time with it. It has been much more relaxing for me too. Planning out 2-3 weeks at a time seems so much more managable! Sport has always loved birds, but his interest was piqued again during a recent trip to Avery Island in Louisiana. I promised him when we got back from our trip we would study birds. Next week we will focus on two bird units I picked up from Currclick. I thought learning about John James Audobun would be a nice way to ease into the unit. This week we read The Boy Who Drew Birds by Jacqueline Davies.

Then followed many of the unit study ideas from Homeschool Share. Today we recreated some of our favorite Audubon prints using this idea from Incredible Art Lessons. Spice drew a mallard.

Sport, the bird afficianado, used the ceramic birds he just had to have from the thrift store as models. He drew a cooper's hawk and a Florida Jay.

Here's a look at the finished products. (That's my Carolina wren in the middle. I can't resist getting in on the art action.)

That's pretty much a wrap on our week in homeschooling. Tomorrow we'll go to morning Mass, do some math, head to art class, and then enjoy an afternoon at the park with our homeschool group. Hope your week was as fun as ours. To find out how others are homeschooling, check out Weird Unsocialized Homechoolers Weekly Wrap-Up post.