A New Adventure this Summer

We have a few new plans this summer that will be a little different from the past. Since I will be in my third trimester and we are still waiting for my Placenta Previa to clear up. Things will be a little more relaxed and slower which I'm looking forward to. Will spend more time as a family around our home in our sweet little town, and will be avoiding long trips in the car and of course saving money at the same time.

Last summer we spent a lot of time at the pool which lead to many things I would have liked to avoid. Since the pool was the place to be last year, Two of my kids got sick from drinking pool water, and I most likely added some extra wrinkles from too much sun, no thanks skin cancer I would like to avoid. With 7 children to watch at all times in the water it is not very relaxing and more of a chore so we plan on skipping most of the pool this year.

We have chosen to school are kids year round and not break for a long summer of non learning. It will be more relaxed of course with plenty of fun summer activities just different. The girls love the idea and so do mom and dad.

Here are the plans that my hubby and I have come up with for our summer months.

Read lots and lots of Books, fun reading for our kids with many prizes to keep them going. We will make a weekly trip to the library one evening each week where the girls can pick out what ever books they would like to read. This really is an exciting thing for our girls and it is always great to see them just dive into books and learn. Our library has a great summer reading program with all kinds of prizes at the end of each week if you read your weekly goal.

The first week we got family water park passes which with a family of 9 saved us about $270.00. We have 28 passes since we have 7 girls in the reading program and each girl received 4 passes, so we will most likely go more than once:)

Other weeks it is baseball tickets, Museum tickets and lots of free food coupons for around the area. Our family looks forward to this each year, what a blessed town we have.

Something a little extra were adding which I wish I had started years ago is earning a penny for each page you read in a book this summer, we may even continue this into the fall. This will add up quick since most of my girls love to read but I love to see them again enjoying books and not so much the Wii and T.V.

You are allowed 100 books at a time to be checked out at our library so each week I will allow 5-8 books per child to be checked out. One rule 4-5 books may be for fun reading but 2 books must be a fiction book, something that they can learn from.

I have come up with a Theme for each week of summer as well which will include something fun as a family. Were not just going to read all summer long, we have to much available to do in our town to pass things up.

June 2-June 9th-Gear up for summer week, this week we will be going over our plans and bringing out our summer fun gear, as a surprise we will be buying a pool for the backyard not a big one that's next year but a pool that the kids can splash in. We will be marking down which parks we will be going to as well since we have so many parks in our town they said they would like to go to them all at least once. We also will be starting summer bingo, and the Ticket to summer plans. We have a busy week ahead but loads of family time and planning.

Summer Bingo and Ticket to summer were great ideas I found over at Jessica's blog. I hope to have all our cards done this weekend and I will share what we have come up with next week.

Also new this year was a great idea I found over at The Happy Housewife, something called I'm bored activity cards. These were made for the summer but I think these could be use year round. I would just change some of the activities to fit the season of the year. 85 cards with fun activites and 15 blank cards for you to fill out. Next time your child says that they are bored they can just pick a card out of the jar and do that activity for the next 30 min.

June 11-16th we will go over Dairy since June is national dairy month. We also have a weeklong Butter fest in our town which is always fu.

June 9th we will be going to a Dairy breakfast on a farm

June 11-17 we will enjoy all the events in our town, tractor pulls, art and craft fairs with toy shows and farmer markets, beauty pageants, lots of food, dancing and the best parade I have ever been to.

We will be making a Wisconsin Cheese Garden Lasagna, Wisconsin Cheddar Cheese Curds with Roasted Tomato Coulis, Wisconsin's Favorite Mac & Cheese, Summer Fruit Dip, Corn Cakes with Wisconsin Queso Fresco Salsa, Iced Chocolate Chai Latte, Pork Tenderloin with Blue Cheese Mushroom Sauce, Sweet and Crunchy Cream Cheese Spread, and a Rhubarb Cheese Pie. Visit

Of course this will be throughout the entire week not all in one day that would be crazy.

June 18th - 24 coming soon....

Happy Birthday Grace

An Angry Bird Birthday for Grace

Today we had an Angry Bird birthday party for our not so little Grace. I cannot believe how fast children grow up it goes by way to fast. Today our little girl is turning 11 years old and we are so blessed to have her in our life.
Grace asked for Chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries for breakfast.
Daddy made them as big as the plate!!  It took her 3 days to finish it; the other girls thought it was so cool.

We finished the day with gifts and a bbq backyard dinner.
Instead of cake this year she wanted to go out for ice cream but I forgot the camera.

Happy Birthday Grace!!!

There Are No Formulas

Homeschooling a word some people run from and scream about, I on the other hand love this word. We live in a country where we are STILL FREE to school our children what a blessing. I have to say I have not always loved the thought of homeschooling I was at one time the one that screamed about doing it. Looking back I wish I would have done things different from the start.  I have learned a lot over the years about how to love homeschooling, but it took time for me to understand that the Lord was calling me to school my children and that neither private nor public were in his plans.

 I first had to learn to avoid the do's and don'ts of homeschooling since it seems that everywhere you look someone is giving great advice on this area. I needed to stop comparing myself to other families and instead I did the one thing that most of us fail to do, I prayed about it.  I would normally ask advice and read books about how to do it the correct way, than when all else failed I would pray about it. I am not saying I have never prayed about homeschooling deeply over the years but I never just left it in God’s hands completely and gone to our heavenly father first.

 It is do freeing and it feels so good to know that I am not the one in control, which was very hard for me since I like to be in control of most things. I encourage you this year to allow God to control 100% of this area and not to compare yourself to others in this area of motherhood. Remember with GOD all things are possible and he never makes a mistake, what a great feeling to know that the one in control will never make a mistake sleep well knowing you are in good hands.  

I prayed with my husband about the way we would school our children this year, something I have really never done. I just bought the books did what I wanted and he helped when I needed him. Another big mistake leaving your husband out of the homeschooling plans, my husband loved the idea of helping out with our plans for this year I had no idea. I thank Jesus for showing me this and to think all I had to do was come to him and ask what he wanted me to do... I wish I would have asked years ago for his help.  I feel our little school is even more blessed now that our heavenly father and our daddy are involved more.


This year with the support of my husband I actully have my plans in place before August:) I have all my books ordered and our plans about 95% done which I could not have done if it was not for my husband.  I know my husband had a lot to do with this early planning because it seems each year I am getting things done just in time to start school, and the summer is just crazy with desision making. Thank you sweetheart!!!

I will be writting a blog post on what we are using and doing later in the week since I have it just about finished!!! I am so excited about this!!!

Remember my home looks nothing like your home, and that's okay God has a different plan for each of us.

Easter ~2012

Mommy has lots of kitchen help with 7 little girls

Our Easter started out rough but ended 2 days later with nothing but good memories. Sat night we had spent the evening decorating Easter eggs using natural dye methods. The picture above shows two of my daughters pulling onion peels off of onions, the skin will turn our eggs a deep red. Using onion skins is an old Polish tradition that we have grown to love in our home. We also tried using spinach which was not so great, Turmeric powder which gave our eggs a great yellow color, and then the yucky food dye in a box which turned our eggs bright blue and Orange.

These are definitely different than what you see in a box kit, but love went into them and we made them so I love them. Next year will try some new ideas for dyeing Easter eggs:)

Easter Sunday was just perfect and everything fell into place and mommy was happy, until.....

I found out our stove was out of gas, no gas until Monday:( At first I was upset and I bite my tongue and tried to figure something out. We had 3 hours before Church and I had meals to finish up before church that morning, what was I going to do. Well my husband always has great ideas so I asked what in the world do we do now we have no stove.

My hubby brought in a plug in burner and my Roaster, and said this should help until Monday. Well our big Easter dinner was on Monday and gas would be at our home Monday Morning so I calmed down and came up with a new menu for church. We brought Ham and cheese sandwiches to church which requires no cooking, Easter bread which was already done, Easter colored eggs also already done, and Whiskey-Glazed Carrots. The Carrots took forever to cook but they did turn out very yummy!

I forgot the picture of the carrots, and our Easter eggs are up above.

Church was wonderful as always and the fellowship with friends on Easter Sunday was so nice, what a great way to celebrate the day.

That afternoon when we returned home I had remembered I had not taken a single picture of anything or anybody at church. I really need to remember my camera I miss so much when I do that.

Monday 2 day of the Easter celebration

After all the excitement of opening spring baskets and searching for eggs and treats, we tried to get a picture of all the girls. This is the best I could get this year, if everyone just held still and faced the front, left each other’s hair alone, and stopped all the happy giggling it would have been just weird. This is life and my girls always have fun, well not always but most of the time:)

Spring baskets with new books and toys, and candy of course.

Easter egg hunt where each girl found a new hula hoop

Dinner was wonderful and I managed to get almost everything on my list done by Dinner time. We ateearlier than dinner hour which left plenty of time to visit with Grandma and play games as a family.

Our Easter feast included Veggie and fruit tray before dinner, baked ham, Green bean casserole, Au gratin potatoes, homemade Mac and cheese, cranberries, homemade rolls with Lamb butter, and a Cross Cake for dessert.

Our homemade rolls are really in the basket, but I forgot to lift the cover:)

 

Happy Easter!

My Daybook::April 5, 2012 {Holy Week}

Outside my Window... after some cooler spring weather, we are finally having a sunny day. Our Tulips and early spring flowers are blooming, and it puts a smile on my face.

I am thankful...

for God! I took Lent off of blogging which was hard but needed, and read my Bible more instead:) I am thankful for the wonderful people in my life. I am also thankful for health, we have all been sick in our home this past Lent. When you have 10 people in a smallish home all throwing up or coughing it can make life very challenging. Praise God we are all better!

I am thinking...

about Holy week and Easter and how well planned I am this year. I feel I am very relaxed and ready for the next 5 days, which will be busy but also fun.

Lot of learning...

well not as much as I would have liked due to colds but that's okay. We have some work ahead of us and catching up to do to make up some lost time. I have so much planned for the rest of the year and I am excited to share it with my girls. We school year round now instead of taking off 3 months, the girls love that they just might finish high school early. Next week we will be starting our State by state scrapbooking and baking class, this is going to be so much fun. It may take 2 years to go through everything but that's fine with us. Thank you Jessica for this wonderful idea!

Living for our Lord each day, and learning  much along the way...

We try our best to live for the Lord each and every day. This Lent has been not as busy as normal, which I must say was an okay thing. We normally do so much that dinner is more like a mini Bible study to our family. We have several activities that we enjoy and learn from that we started and did not finish. Our Jesus tree is half way done and our Noah's boat has windows still closed, but that's life.

We did set out our stations of the cross and as a family we studied and learned more about what Christ went through for us. 

From the Kitchen...

Lenten teas, lots of remodeling and kids everywhere:) We choose to do some work in the Kitchen and bathroom these last 2 monhs. I think my husband did a fantastic job, everything he does is fantastic and I really mean it. My husband is a very smart man if he puts his mind to it he can accomplish it and accomplish it well.

My husband put the floor in a few days earlier and now is working on the new counters.

Kitchen sink, fixtures, appliances and much more in the days ahead.

I am creating...

Easter baskets and Easter egg hunt eggs for Sunday and Monday. I have been thinking that maybe we should do Easter baskets and egg hunts on Monday. The Easter season lasts 50 days really you have lots of time to give your children gifts of spring.  I have been feeling that Easter Sunday should be all about our Lord and fellowship and not Easter egg hunts and baskets full of candy and gifts. We have not opened Christmas gifts on Christmas day for a couple years now and I feel this should be no different.

I am working on...

cleaning out my basement, and the rest of my home for Easter, maybe even my van. I have also started working on Julia's first grade lessons since she has finished Kindergarten. We school year round now so we are able to just keep moving forward, wish I thought of this years ago.

I am going...

to pray that my hubby can finish some of the projects he has stated. When early spring and summer hit in our area my husband will put in long hours at work, and when he's home he needs to rest.

I am hoping...

to rest most of the day on Saturday to prepare my heart for Communion and Fellowship on Easter Sunday, which means my Good Friday may be busy.

I am reading...
my Bible alot these days since my heart is full of many questions. I am aslo reading Rome Sweet Home , What Jesus saw from the cross, and listening to a wonderful book called Reforming Marriage. Reforming Marriage is by far one of my favorite books now, I think  every married couple should listen to this or read it.

I am praying...
for my health as I come closer to my 20 week ultrasound, I am always a little scared at this time. I am praying and praising the Lord for my Pastor and his family, what a blessing they have been to us. I continue to pray for our country and for all the unborn babies killed by abortion, I ask the Lord to please keep us safe in his arms, Chrisians in our country are facing hard time right now. I rest knowing that God the creator of the world is always in control, his plans are perfect.

Around the house...
I see lots of kids with smiles on their faces, which makes mommy very happy.

CJ had a dount and was full of chocolate when she was all done. I just had to take a picture of her she was having so much fun. We gave up sweets for Lent but on Sundays we let it slide a little and Auntie was up for a vist so we had a little extra fun.

One of my favorite things...

Mornings out with my hubby:) A big ,big perk when you have grandpa living with you. We can leave when the kids are still sleeping and get away for alone time. We have done this a few times now and we think once a week is a must, even if it is only for a few hours.

Our plans for the rest of the week....

•  Have our Good Friday Lenten tea
•  Go to Good Friday Mass
•  Try to finish up our chores before Easter, we are almost done
•  Make up my food for Church on Sunday, and start on Monday's meals
•  Make Easter eggs and sweets for Easter with the girls
•  Spend the day at Church on Easter Sunday with family and friends.

A little look at our Thursday Lenten Tea...

A little look at our Holy Thursday Lenten Tea.