Oct 2008

There's a lot that's been going on in my neck of the woods lately. Sept. 22nd, Rod started courses at SVC for Computer Information Systems. If all goes as planned, he'll end up with a CIS certificate. Still waiting for unemployment to approve or not approve an unemployment extension. He's begun, and he's enjoying it.

We just got a used piano. Someone through our co-op posted on our First Class Google Group that she had a friend who wanted to get rid of her piano. I've been wishing I could get my hands on one for years. Even going to far as to look through craigslist to see if I could find one for free. But I was really reluctant to get one that way. I've thought about getting a keyboard, but I just didn't want my kids learning on one.. even though, i'm sure we'll end up with one eventually.

We were able to get ahold of the piano lady & it must have been ordained. I actually know her! Well, I did in highschool anyway. She was the mom of one of my very good friends! So we were able to talk & catch up. A few days later, we went to her house to look at it. Turns out, it was the same 'kind' that I've always wanted. It's an upright grand. Heavy as the house, though! We have another friend, Mike, who owns a party rental business (www.airplayrental.com). He has a lift truck! So him and another friend Matt went with Josiah and Rod and moved the piano. So I didn't pay anything for the piano or to move it!

A couple of gals from Friday School have loaned me a couple of kids piano books. I don't know what I did with the one that I used to have from when we lived at the church. I suppose i'll find it eventually!

Kids have officially begun school. We are also doing swimming lessons. Looks like I will be adding music lessons to that as well. I played flute for years, and we've only had the piano a few days and I'm quite surprised with how much I've picked up. The boys have been teasing me saying things like "I thought you didn't know how to play piano, Mom!" I'll take that as a compliment, thank you!

Friday School started a couple of weeks ago as well. I'm making espresso. I have definately gotten better at it. Rod's teaching three Rockin' classes: Extreme Toothpick Engineering, Pop Bottle Explorer and Let's Play Chess. All three of those is going well. It took quite a bit of prepwork to get the toothpick class together! Josiah is taking Faith's spanish class and loving it! I was hoping that would be a good choice for him. He loves his name translated into Spanish Josias with the emphasis on "si".

Personally I've been taking a couple of Digital Scrapbooking classes online through www.jessicasprague.com using my Photoshop CS3 that I got not too long ago. One of the layouts I've done is at the top of this post. That's been going well, my new layouts are really fun. I'll have to post a few more. I really have been enjoying it because it's challenging, fun and making me use the digital materials and photos that i have. Definately curbs the creative bug that I have!
I guess that's all for now....

The Old Schoolhouse Fall 2008 -PLUS Free Digital Back Issue!

For those of you who don't know what TOS is, it is a couple of things...
It is a place to keep up to date on what's going on in the homeschooling world.
It is a place to find curriculum and other homeschooling products.
It is a place to get connected and encouraged.
It is a magazine that Homeschooling Moms should have!

I wanted to tell you all about The Old Schoolhouse Magazine's Fall
Special. You can get two years of the magazine, 6 fabulous physical
gifts (no downloads!) worth over $120, plus the current issue of The
Old Schoolhouse Magazine that is full of ideas for the new school
year, so you start receiving your magazine in a flash!

It really is one of their best deals ever and you don't want to miss
out. In fact, they've got a really cute Homeschooling with Heart tote
bag (valued at $13.95) for the first 1000 to subscribe. About half of
them are gone, but you should still be able to get one if you hurry!
(They will remove the info from the subscription page when the bags
are all gone.) The total value is over $212, but you receive it all
for only $39 - 50% off of cover price! Plus subscribers get their
online monthly Teacher's Toolbox which focuses on a different topic
each month, giving you words of encouragement, hands-on teaching
ideas, book recommendations, field trip ideas, and a bonus download
item. To subscribe or get more information, click on the TOS picture!

If you want to take a sneak peek - click on this link to get a free Digital Back issue of TOS!

Product Review: TOS' Digital Magazine

Have you ever read a magazine and thought to yourself, "I need to remember that web page!" Subscribe to the The Old Schoolhouse magazine in digital format and you won't need to!

You will absolutely love reading a digital magazine, as long as you can get over the fact you are not holding a paper magazine in your hand! You won't have any bent-page magazines to recycle either - and that's definitely a bonus. You get the same magazine, only digital, at a discounted price. Plus you have access to it 24/7 via your computer.

The digital interface is friendly and easy to use. There is a toolbar across the top with many options to personalize your reading experience. Turn the digital pages by clicking the left and right arrows. Figuring out how to adjust the settings to meet your personal visual needs is self explanatory.

Two of the toolbar items that are helpful in navigating the magazine are the "Contents" tab and the "Pages" tab. By clicking on "Contents" you fill find links to the contents of the entire magazine. By clicking on "Pages" you will see the entire magazine in thumbnail sized pages (that are clickable to full pages).

The best reason to subscribe to The Old Schoolhouse digital magazine is the clickable links. You have access to clickable links for homeschool related articles and homeschool related products. If you are interested in a homeschool product, you don't have to find their url and type in in the address bar correctly... you just click on it and it magically takes you to their site!

View the sample Summer 2007 edition of The Old Schoolhouse HERE.

Subscribe to TOS HERE.

If you would like to receive a free one-year subscription to the digital version of The Old Schoolhouse magazine, leave me a comment in the comment box on my blog before the end of August be entered into my drawing! Forward this on to friends to give them the chance to win a subscription too! www.homeschooling4life.com

Product Review: The Schoolhouse Planner by TOS

The Schoolhouse Planner is a downloadable ebook for homeschooling moms. An all inclusive planner that has just about every conceivable fill-in-able form that any homeschooling mom would ever want.

It should have been called
"TOS' Great Big Book of Everything!"

So, what's inside?
*July 2008-June 2009 Monthly Calendars
*2008 & 2009 At-A-Glance Calendars
*Recipes for each calendar month
*Monthly Teaching Tips on writing, unit studies, foreign language, and more.
*Monthly Resource Lists that correlate with the teaching tips.
*Almost every homeschool form you can think of (from curriculum planning pages to nature journal pages).
*Household forms (from chore charts to meal planning).
*Over 240 pages of helpful planning materials!

The Schoolhouse Planner has two *incredible* features:
First, the table of contents items are clickable to the actual pages of the items; which means that if you want to find the "field trip log," you can click on "field trip log" in the table of contents and it will click you there!

Second, unlike many .pdf files you open in adobe acrobat, TOS has published the planner so that you may fill in the blanks and save the file with your own personal information in it! Fill it in, save it and print it out at your discretion. Thank you TOS!

Print only the pages you use and put them into a binder for your own personal use!

You'll find The Schoolhouse Planner HERE at The Old Schoolhouse Store!

Not familiar with ebooks? Save it to your hard drive, and view it with a PDF viewer, such as Adobe Acrobat (a free download at www.adobe.com).

To see a special sneek peek click HERE.

Post kudos on my blog (by clicking on "comments" below) and I will put you into a drawing for a free copy of The Schoolhouse Planner at the end of August! www.homeschooling4life.com

Share the Welt!

This last week or so has been interesting.... Actually, the whole month has been.

The kids went to the dentist, and no cavities *again* Yay!! We had a hard time with Josiah when he was young, and we've come a long way in this dept.!

This is a picture of us on the 3rd of July, down at the Hasenhorls on the 3rd of July party in Stanwood, Wa.

Rod and I are adjusting to life. Things are going well... as well as can be expected anyhow.



Josiah played in the AllStars tournament at the beginning of the month. I'm not sure I would have him play again. They stayed in for four games. Won-lost-won-lost.

7/13/08: A friend of ours, through Friday School, had a bunch of free tickets for paintball. So they took a group of about 40 people, including a bunch of our friday school teens. I didn't think anything of going, until the day before when I realized what we were going to be doing. Then when we got there *sigh* I was SO chicken!!!

There were quite a few of us who hadn't played before. By the end of the day, I felt like I was one of the boys. Can you see me crawling on the ground with a gun and hiding behind paintball shelters? Funny, huh? I played every game, and had so much fun.

They have a sign up that said "share the welt". Yah, we sure did. I have a couple of big ol’ bruises. We took Josiah with us. He was a real trooper - figured out fast to stay out of others' sights. One of my favorite memories from that day will be seeing him "charge the hill" like he was playing in Star wars Battlefront! Living the Dream - that's what he did! I ended up really enjoying myself. Told Rod that we need to invest in some guns and create a paintball type field out at mom & dads... that would Rock!

Left: Josiah with his paintball gun.

Afterwards we spent the evening out on Samish Island at the beach. Bonfire & BBQ. I love bonfires. (The only thing missing was Jay & his guitar!)

Left: Julia on Princess Amy.

This last week the boys went to horse camp. Josiah full day. Jedediah and Jaden half days.

Monday when went to pick the boys up, Julia was mad as a hornet. She wanted to ride a pony so badly!! There was a big "show" over it. (The boys have been talking about it for two weeks, and she thought she was going too, but she's not even close to being old enough.) So we signed her up for a couple of pony rides. She rode the pony named Princess Amy. That was a befitting ride for my little girl. Josiah rode Digger (horse) this year. Jedediah rode Maple (horse) and Jaden rode Rex (pony).

Below: Jedediah on Maple.

Graduation was last friday.. where we go watched them ride and where we hear our boys get awarded… Josiah “best drill team leader”, Jedediah “speedy cowboy,” and Jaden “energizer cowboy”. I got a kick out of each of their titles… they don’t’ EVER have a boy be the drill team leader on graduation day… so it was a BIG deal for Josiah to be one! And he did an awesome job! Jedediah really found his place in horse riding this year… Jaden I guess had enough energy for the entire group! It was a good week.

Below: Jaden on Rex.

Rod got his first unemployment check this last week. I seriously wonder how anyone is expected to live on that... but it's a good something. His severance check hasn't come. They have 30 days to give it to him. I sure hope they don't wait till midnight on July 28th (last day) to give it to him!

For what he has looked for work, he hasn't found anything. Honestly, i'm enjoying his time off. I just keep thanking the Lord for keeping enough in the bank to pay our bills and put food on the table. I'm really trying not to stress because I really do believe that the Lord will provide for us.

It's Friday School newsletter time again. I haven't had to do it (take a couple of months off in the summer), but it's time to get that started up again. I'd put it so far out of my mind, that I had to try to remember what program we do it in. Polli began using this particular program, and it works fantastic for us, but I only use it for the newsletter.. so I had to laugh at myself about that. So, you can see me.. sitting in front of a large monitor working on it for a few hours trying to fit all the new stuff & changes into it!!!

Hope you're having a great July! Thinking of you all! Looking forward to some sort of get together when the TenBrinks get home :) Zip.