Life Changes

For months now I have been praying about what I should give up.  My plate is full and over flowing.  I am stretched thin.  Going to bed in the wee hours of the morning.  Sitting at the computer all day long working on logo's and branding packages.  Recently my hand has been hurting.  My middle 2 fingers up to my elbow.  Pain, I tell you.  Keep me up at night pain.  I talked to my mother-in-law and she said that is exactly how carpal tunnel starts.  WHAT?!  I am 28 in my 20's. I am too young to be worrying about things like that.  Hubby and I talked things over.  We have mulled, figured, and budgeted.  This last weekend (our 9 year anniversary weekend) we revisited the subject of what I should cut out.  We decided that it is time for me to stop taking on new clients in my business.  Last night he and I were talking about the impact that it is going to have on our family and my 6 year old chimed in.  She was delighted that I will no longer be working like I was before.  She said that she is excited that I will be spending more time with her and her brother.  That sealed the deal for me. That took away any doubt that I had about staying open or not.  It is time.  Today I made the announcement, sent out emails, and feel about 20 pounds lighter.  I cannot believe that I feel like such a burden has been lifted from me. I have faith that God will send me what I need and show me where I need to go.  He led me to open Tatorbug Creations and He showed me that it was time to close.  This is where I am following right now.
Follow Him,

Books at Bedtime

My children love books.  They love to be read to.  So I am very surprised that the thought to use audio books had never occurred to me before.  The idea came from a blog post by Our Busy Homeschool a few months back.  I got to looking online for books that are free and easy to use.  I discovered a great website!  Great, I tell you!  Books Should Be Free - no, really, that is the name of the website, and I couldn't agree more.  Books should be free!  The kids are currently listening to Black Beauty.  The kids are genuinely loving this book.  The woman who reads it has a wonderful accent and a soothing voice.  Generally they are out after about 1 1/2 chapters.  I haven't decided what book(s) we will do next.  I will have to go through all of them and see what will be best for their ages.

Do you enjoy audio books?  Are there other sites you can recommend?  What are some good books you have read/listened to?

 

Calendar Notebook

If you know me, you know I love to PLAN!  I love to get things ready and in order more than I enjoy the actual event.  I am spending some time in the classroom this week working on getting our notebooks in order and ready for next fall.  I plan to do a lot of notebooking with the kids this upcoming school year.  I love that kind of learning.  Right now I am working on our calendar notebook and want to share things with you that I am using to put in it!

THIS is a link to a website where you can get a FULL August 2012-July 2013 calendar all ready to go.  Just enter in your school name at the top and print!  Super simple!  This will serve as a static sheet in each of the kids calendar notebooks.

I used the 2012 Simple Monthly Calendar for our month to month calendar.  I changed the dates and created it all the way through May 2013!  This will be where both kids fill in the appropriate day of the month.  There is a notes section to the side so we can fill in any important info if we need to.

It will also contain...

• Daily Routine - This will be static in both folders
• Attendance
• Today Tomorrow Yesterday - Just a simple table that S will fill in the days of the week in the blanks in the right spot.
• Crack the Code - For S to do the code date *0/0/0000*
• Date Sentence - For S to do the date all the way out Sunday *May 1, 2012*
• Birthday Calendar- Where they can fill in who has a birthday for that month and then have running tally's at the bottom.
• 100 Days of School - sticker sheet
• Weather Graph
• T-shirt Color Graph
• Cheat Sheet

Here is how our notebooks looked last year...  We used a folder.  This year we will use a binder.

I have created most of these files.  If you want copies leave your email below and I will email them to you for your personal use!!

Schoolhouse Teachers

I joined a great online community!  It is only $5.95/month and includes so many extras.  I am VERY excited to be a part of this community and to take advantage of all that they offer.  Coming in June - 2012-2013 Planners with your subscription!!!  You can pay your entire year at one time or you can pay monthly.  They even accept PayPal.  Enjoy!

Last week was a FLOP!  F-L-O-P, flop.  It is my fault.  I didn't do my regular planning.  You know the old adage, fail to plan = plan to fail?  It is very true in my life.  I made a decision the end of the week that was NOT going to happen this coming week.  On Friday I planned out the next 2 weeks.  I will work on getting art stuff together through the week as I decide what art projects we will do per day.  I am trying to soak up as much outside time as we can before it gets too cold.  We were able to get in a few neat and new art projects along with our curriculum just to get the wiggles and boredom out.  I will post pics and links to the projects this week.

The weekend has proved to be much colder and I am thinking that fall is really about to set it.  YAY!  I love fall.  It is my favorite time of the year.  (I probably say that at each season change)  This week we are doing a leaf theme.  We will go out and do a search for leaves and one day this week we will investigate them and find out which leaf belongs to which tree.  I also want to do some projects with the leaves.  I am excited!

I hope life finds you and your family well.

We Went On Safari

That is right!  We went on safari last week!  It was a blast and we didn't even have to leave the state.  We went to a local farm that features some safari animals and 3 endangered species.  We got to drive through 3 times and walk through the petting zoo.  They even opened the gift shop just for us (we were the only ones there) YAY!  We all had a blast and plan to return in the spring.  Here is a look at what you would see on safari...