welcome....

i am trying to understand

how to walk this weary land

make straight the paths that crookedly lie

oh Lord, before these feet of mine

oh Lord, before these feet of mine

the last 2...

i've been in a state testing blur the last 2 months...

while i enjoyed being out of the house and working at the charter school my daughter is schooled through...i'm glad to be back to my stay at home mama / housewife status. 

i found it pretty difficult to keep house, care for the bunnies (have i blogged about those yet?) school cadence, and work full time. but we made it through and today, my first day back as captain mama, has been spent deep cleaning, doing tons of laundry, making kale chips, cleaning the kitchen, making homemade pizza rolls, and going through old mail/papers... or in others words.... making up for everything i lacked while working :)

i shall not stop till everything smells like pine-sol. haha!

but i will be back as i have a bunch of exciting (or exciting to me) stuff to post about. :)

time for learning review....

did 30 days fly by already?! i've been sort of dragging my feet with writing the review. i feel as though i just did not have enough time to truly experience it all . 

when my sister mentioned to me that time for learning was doing this free trail in exchange for review i was super excited as i had heard from a few others that their children loved it and it helped them excel. 

the first day of our trail i was overwhelmed trying to navigate through this new to me program  but i did not let it get me down, as i still had those awesome reviews swirling around my brain. after getting the over all gist of the program i got cadence hooked up to it, picture if you will, an over excited mom with her eyes bugging out over the child's shoulders just waiting for her to love it..... 

after a few clicks and her logging herself in she was off, but it did not take long for her to get frustrated with it and shoot over to me the poor puppy dog eyes asking if she really had to do this. me thinking maybe she just didn't understand the directions i started to explain what she needed to do. then out came the *sigh* followed by "i know mama, it told me the directions at least 105 times, it wont just hush up and let me work!"

...blink blink...

i tried to reassure her to hang in there and maybe as time went on the program would explain the directions less and less. but as time went on the more upset she got with it all. the directions never eased up and the repetitiveness to them really set her up for a sore learning time. i started her out slowly, since her attitude to the program was already not good.... but by day 3 we had full blown feet dragging all the way to the computer chair. even with me allowing her to play in the playground area (playground area = games) 

i was a bit shocked at her true dislike for the program and a bit confused as i've never had this type of reaction to starfall. to be completely fair to time for learning we did started this trail right when i started working doing state testing at the charter school cadence is schooled through. so her reaction could have been a bit of mixed emotions... tired from being woke up so early every morning to go spent the day with grandma or auntie while i spent 9 hours sometimes more a day away from home. she's not use to getting little sleep and not having me home with her. so while cadence did not enjoy or show any improvements with the program i'd be willing to try it again to get a better experience with it.  we are wrapping up the state testing and starting may 3rd i'll once again be a full time stay at home mama and we'll give time for learning  another try, this time paying for a month. after that i'll make my full assessment and write another review. 

time for learning

Free trail! I'm super excited about this!! 

*I've been invited to try Time4Learning's online education program in exchange for an honest review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so come back and read about my experience! For more information, try their lesson demos or find out how to write your own curriculum review.

*Over the next 30 days, I will be reviewing Time4Learning's online education program. It can be used as a homeschool curriculum, an afterschool tutorial or for summer learning. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. You can write your own curriculum review, too!

*Time4Learning has invited me to try their online curriculum for 30 days in exchange for an honest review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so come back and read about my experiences. Visit them for information about lesson plans, homeschool portfolios or writing your own curriculum review.

updated:

***I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.

As always, please feel free to contact us anytime at reviews@time4learning.com.****

please check back in 30days to see my review. i've heard very good things about this program! 

wonky weather

i have the spring itch.

i'm so ready to get soil under my nails. and get a beautiful lush garden planted.

but the weather is not ready for that..

it keeps playing tricks on me,

 bright sunny days, to snow, to rain, to sunny, and all over again.

cadence helped get some of the weeds and old stocks pulled from the garden area, but planting outside will have to wait.

(old sunflower)

so to hold us over we decided to start planting a bit inside.

this is part of our townhouse garden :)

(cadence's valentines day gift)

(hello, awesome. tater pot!)

it's so exciting when things start sprouting!

also in the picture are my green onions.

i heard about this trick through pintertest, and it is amazing!

you can regrow green onions all year round and let me tell you these little buggers grow fast! 

 to regrow green onions simply submerge the white ends in a glass of water and place them in a sunny window. you'll need to watch the water level and about once a week i dump out the old water and add new. 

too bad we can't do this with all our veggies!

we'll see how gardening in oregon turns out. (hopefully better then CA)

and between my sister and i we are taking on a huge garden!

excited! 

on the road again...

california\oregon

once a month i travel to california to take cadence to see her dad 

here's a few things i've learned over these trips

1. ziplock bags are always handy to keep in the car:

because paper bags do not hold throw up well. : x 

2. glow sticks are a kids best friend on night drives:

at least 80% of our trip home is in the dark and it can make cadence go batty, but having the glow sticks gives her just enough light to play but not enough to bother me.

3. i have discovered i have night blindness:

yep, it pretty much sucks! i have a hard time seeing anything when lights are coming towards me. i have to really focus and keep my eyes on the white line to my right.. it's so draining and nerve racking! if you throw rain or snow in the mix you can bet i'm gripping the wheel so tight my knuckles hurt.

4. movies:

yep, i'm one of those moms! especially on the trip home. it's emotional and i'm sure a bit stressful on cadence so i'm ok with letting her check out and just veg.

5. headphones make the movies even better :) :

while i'm ok with the vegging out on long car rides i don't like "hearing" movies over and over, so headphones are awesome and keep cadence's movies in the back seat with her.

6. remember to pack a wide variety of medicine:
upset tummies, leg cramps, car sick, headache...etc.

7. bathroom:
always have her at least try, even when she says "i dont have to" because 5 miles down the road she will have to, and have to right NOW!

8. books on tape:
enough said.

9. bring a wide variety of snacks:
that why we are not stuck buying a bunch of junk at truck stops (although a perk of being a trucker family we do tend to get some of those junk snacks for free)

10. i spy/animal & vegetable:
just play the games with her. it keeps her happy and you awake. even if she answers half the questions wrong.

the new year

well, i think it's time to bring back my little space on the net. 

it's been about 4 months since i've posted.

mountains came be moved in 4 months, ya know.

we have settled well into our new state, and have finally gotten a home of our very own.

it's hard to put in words just how the Lord has been blessing our lives, but He is doing great things. In our lives and inside of us as well. 

the 9 months that we have been in oregon i have seen more fruit from the Lord in my personal life then i ever have in all of my 28 years.

now i'm not saying moving to oregon has fixed all my problems, but i think once i got out of the cloud i allowed myself to be in for years i was able to actually develop a true relationship with Jesus. i was able to actually see the errors in which i was allowing myself to live. i was able to see that i had been negotiating the truth. 

i feel like a completely different person! 

and i've started the year off with a new years resolution like i never have before:

dig deep into what is not negotiable in God's eyes and hold to that standard. as i look back through out my 28 years i notice just how much trouble i got myself into because i let myself fall into negotiating with His truth. the Bible is not negotiable and what better way to prepare myself then studying it everyday.

i'm  very excited to to be reading through the Bible in a year. i've never done this before, i've never even had the desire to read the entire Bible before now!

(for anyone interested check out youversion.com i'm doing the ESV study

 http://m.youversion.com/reading-plans/esv-study-bible)

excited to see all the great things to come in this new year. 

so very thankful

i have a kindergartner!

today was the big day

even after getting cadence in bed and asleep by 8:20pm it was still hard to get her rump out of bed this morning. that girl likes her sleep! at one point she even told me to go back to bed and come back in a few hours to wake her up. 

after pealing the blankets away from her and a few tickles i was able to get her up. 

she was not impressed that she had to go straight from bed to getting her hair brushed though, but thankfully we both survived. 

she really wanted her backpack and lunch box in the pictures, even though she wont start using them till next week when her onsite kindersmart class starts. 

we kept things light today, since it was the first day

i was however was surprised at how fast she picked up her math, and i know what you are thinking it's only the first day, but really she either knew more then i realized or she picked it up fast! we breezed through 3 lessons!

(we are using alpha omega horizons)

we are trying out the workbox system this year

it seemed to go over well this morning, but i'll have to give a better update further into the year.

i don't know about her, but i'm pretty darn excited to see what the school year holds for us! 

sweet earrings ya got there

i have a tendency to lose my earrings

...

after wearing them, just like my bobby pins, i'll set them where ever i am when they start bugging me. ie the computer desk, my night stand, the bathroom, in the front room, sometimes they wont even make it back into the house and will sit in the car till i rediscover them months later. 

...

after losing some super sweet pairs i decided i should make something to hang them on.

being that i have my ears gauged i can only wear one style of earrings with them and that would be the hook style. 

...

i'm not sure where i first saw the idea, but this is i ended up with

 while this picture frame wasn't truly what i had in mind i couldn't pass it up when i found it at a yard sale

technically my sister found it, she bought the other one for her kids to take school pictures with, showed me, told me her price($2), and sent me to go get it's pair.... mr. yard sale man tried to get over on me for a second trying to charge me $3, but he changed his tune when i kindly told him my sister bought the other one for only $2 after that he said he would throw it in with the dresser we bought cadence. 

i had been holding onto some old screen my parents replaced after their puppy decided to chew through the bottom :\ 

 so all we really had to buy was spray paint.

making it was rather easy, especially when tristan decided he should take over for me because apparently i was spray painting it wrong 

i think secretly he just likes being able to do everything! :)

now i just need to start restocking my ever shrinking collection.  

homemade laundry soap

my sister and i have been making the duggar family laundry soap for about 2 years

this stuff is pretty awesome and very cost effective. 

my sis has 5 kiddos and one batch can last her almost a year! 

we've found it to be awesome for sensitive skin, and it can also be jazzed up a bit with essential oil. 

i normally use tea tree oil, but want to try lavender one of these times.

it's rather easy, here's what you'll need

1- 5 gallon painters bucket with lid

1- fels-naptha soap bar

1cup- arm&hammer super washing soda (baking soda will not work)

1/2cup- borax

grate the fels-naptha bar and put in a saucepan with water (about 4 cups) 

stir continually over medium heat till it melts

fill the 5 gallon bucket half full with hot water, add melted fels-naptha, borax, and washing soda.

stir well, till everything is dissolved. Then fill the rest of the bucket with hot water and mix a bit more.

this will need to sit over night to thicken

to use: fill an empty and cleaned out old laundry soap container half full fill the rest with water.

shake well before each use.

-Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)
-Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)

give it a try! 

i'm pretty sure you'll love it as much as we do.

*note* this soap will not bubble up like other detergents.... you do NOT need to keep adding more soap. 

(love you mother!) ;)

   

holiday

i've been on a bit of a blogging holiday

enjoying my family

enjoying the time i get with my luff

trying to stay cool

working on the summer bucket list 

getting cadence's school stuff together

also a whole bunch of lazy pj days thrown in there :)

1,2,3,4 i declare a thumb war

my day...

1. our kitty, little foot, caught a blue jay midair and then proceeded to eat it.

2. my lil honeybee came home! longest. 9. days. ever.! they didn't even have her out of the car before i was out the front door to cover her in kisses!

3. we did a little crafting, cause that's just what we do

4. went to my sister's for dinner with 2 other families.

5. watched soul surfer (i really liked it, and may or may not have cried a few times during it)

6. i now have 7 kiddos sleeping in my front room.

---

meeting cadence's ES (education specialist) tomorrow. pretty excited about that. we will be going over the expectations we have for the school year and the curriculum we will be using. 

tristan's ac went out in his truck this afternoon, so he's been stuck at a texas truck stop with little help to escape the heat wave.... this has been a very long week, on top of the ac going out his frig blew a fuse a couple of days ago and all his food went bad, and his power steering pump went out. praying he gets to come home soon and start fresh. i know this week has been really hard on him. he's heading to utah in the morning, hopefully it's cooler there! 

missing him is an understatement! 

i better hit the hay, i'm pretty sure the 4 year old in my front room does not sleep in. :) cadence on the other hand, she's like her mama and can sleep till 10 easily! 

wham bam, thank you can!

crossing off 2 items on my summer bucket list  

#14 & #3

i recruited my sister and her 5 kiddos to help me find random blackberry bushes and start pickin

which is a rather easy task; finding them, as they grow wild around here!

we made 3 stops all with in half a mile 

the first 2 were a bit hard to get to most of the berries, but the 3rd stop we were able to park in a church parking lot and walk right up to a massive area. 

blackberries are a bit of a pain in the rump to pick, hello thorns!

but thankfully we made it out with only minor pricks!

after picking and the kids stealing all my water :) we headed back to my sisters to start canning.

does anyone else think it's just wrong that public schools don't offer home economics anymore?!

as i've been learning these new task i've been getting more frustrated with the fact i didn't learn them in school years ago! *end rant* at least i'll be able to pass this all onto cadence now! *ok, really ending rant now*

i was really surprised how easy it was to make jam.

run the jars through the dishwasher, soak the berries, pick through them, mash them, add sugar, boil lids in separate pot, bring berries to a boil, and pectin, pour into a jar, put the lid and ring on and flip them upside down!

wham bam, thank you can!

(notice the not even half full one, we ran out of jam... so it was our sample jar!)

after making 2 batches my sister threw together a cobbler

we are normally a peach cobbler family, but this was mighty yummy!

in a few days i plan on making another run to the berry patch so i can make tristan a cobbler when he gets home.

sewing, embroidery, and canning all in one week!

my lil honeybee comes home on sunday, so happy about this! can't wait to start knocking out some bucket list items with her by my side! 

{truth} part 3

{sixteen} whenever i use a public restroom i have to tear off at least 8 inches of the toilet paper and throw it away, because you just never know who touched it before you. 

{seventeen} when we first moved to oregon i hated hymns and the church we go to up here sings them, but 3 months later i like them!

{eighteen} i really like birds, owls, and old vintage things.

{nineteen} since my husband has been driving OTR (over the road) i have a hard time sleeping, i normally dont even try to fall asleep till 2am. 

{twenty} i love reading, but i often get way too attached to the story and get sad when the book is over.

{twenty one} sorry if i sound like a broken record: i'm super thankful for tristan. that man is awesome. he bust his tookus and gives up so much to support his family. he doesn't get to go out and play all day long or even enjoy his hobbies because he's out there in the world being a real man and sacrificing his wants to care for us.

{twenty two} back to that hymn thing, my heart  melts when i hear cadence and/or tristan singing in church.

{twenty three} as if my readers didn't know, i'm a  horrible speller. i'm constantly pulling up google to check my spelling. (one plus is i earn a lot of swagbucks because of it!)

{twenty four} i'm the baby of my family, number 3 or 3. and i got away with a lot growing up because of this :)

{twenty five} to add to my lame factor i totally watch jersey shore, but what's even better ,is when he can,  tristan watches it with me!

{8-15}

embroidery

i've been trying to stay as busy as possible this week. not really allowing myself to focus on the fact cadence is in CA and tristan has been in colorado, wyoming, and now texas where he will probably run out of driving hours and will have to spend the weekend.

i miss them both like crazy and when i'm not busy i tend to whimper and mope 

so after my sewing lesson my mom and i ran down to a local fabric store to get all the goodies to embroider

i got the idea to start embroidering when we were packing up my parents and i found this....

i tried to talk my mom into giving it to me, but she happens to like it's awesomeness as well and would not part with it. come to find out someone made it for my parents as a wedding gift in 1977. 

and since she wont part with it, i'll just have to learn and make my own! :)

i decided to start off with a puppy on a tea towel

isn't that just the cutest little puppy, has a cutesy vintage look...and who doesn't love vintage these days?!

i took to it rather fast, but i've only tried 3 types of stitches.

turns out there's about a zillion different ones though.

i think from start to finish with some long breaks for things like garage selling, church, sleep, and time with the matz and vondos i think it took around 4 hours to stitch together.

up next are some burp cloths for a friend's baby and a pillow case for cadence. 

finally!

i'm pretty darn excited about the fact i just made my daughter a dress.

i've been wanting to learn how to sew for a while (it's also on my summer bucket list ) 

today my mom showed me how

i cheated a bit and used material that was already half way made into a dress...

but i still had to measure it all, and pin it, and sew it together, i even hand stitched on the tie straps and the buttons.  

(not the best picture of me, but proof i did it!)

drum roll please....

hoping to make reuseable snack baggies and to get the sewing machine off rabbit mode while i do this. ;)

baked kale chips

i made my first batch of kale chips

pretty easy

wash and fully dry the kale.

preheat oven, i did 400... but i think next time i'll do 350 

then remove the stem and tear the kale into bit size pieces 

throw the stems in the compost and put the pieces in a bowl 

drizzle olive oil, sea salt, and pepper on the kale

then lay the kale out on your baking sheet/s so that it does not overlap

and bake for 8-10 minutes 

i think for my next batch i'll add more flavor.

while they are good, but i think with a little more salt and garlic they would have been even better.

(finished product, crispy baked kale chips)

happy birthday, my little baby

dear cadence

as i sit here looking through pictures from your birth so many emotions are racing through me.

little did i know when i saw those two little pink lines just how much you would change my life.

writing you this letter is not easy as words do not seem to do justice to the feelings i have for you.  

you are my heart, with every beat i want to hold you close to my chest and whisper how thankful i am for you.

since day one you have been a spark in my life, a true blessing.

i can see God's caring heart in your eyes, knowing He knit you together in His likeness. 

your smile makes my heart gush.

your voice melts my moods.

your tender heart for others gives me hope.

my little baby, you're not so little to the world anymore.

i'm not sure how five arrived so fast, and while i miss your chubby little baby hands and you sleeping nestled up against my chest, i'm excited to see you grow and learn new things.

to see that twinkle in your eye when you accomplish a new big girl task. 

my little honeybee, you will always be little to me.

i love you. 

always and forever

happy 5th birthday