I had fun in Arizona this weekend, but it's always good to be home. We had a window seat and a row to ourselves on both flights which made traveling with a toddler a lot easier. The high point of the visit was going to lunch with my grandma. It was fun listening to her stories and introducing her to her great grandson, Joseph, whom she had never met. I was praying that he would behave himself in the restaurant, and miraculously, he did. He ate lots of hot salsa and most of his hamburger and didn't throw one thing on the floor. After lunch, when my brother Steve and I were getting ready to leave Grandma's apartment, I leaned in to hug her, and Joseph kissed her on the nose. It was so cute! A lot of times when people Joseph doesn't know try to talk to him, he "air slaps" them. My daughter, Jessica, coined that phrase to described the way he swings at people without actually hitting them. The gesture is usually accompanied by a bratty grunting sound--if you have kids you might know the sound. "EHHH!" Anyway, I was thankful that he didn't do that to my grandma. We took some pictures together which I'll post once my brother e-mails them to me.

I also had fun at my brother's house that evening, playing church with my nephews who were quite the dynamic preachers, and then later swimming in a ninety degree pool. My sister-in-law made two types of chicken curry for dinner along with some flat bread which was really good. I enjoyed hearing my brother preach on Sunday and going out soul winning between the morning and evening service. Winning a teenage boy to the Lord was another highlight of the trip.

The low point of the weekend happened Sunday afternoon when I decided to lie down for a minute to rest. Joseph had dozed off in church so he wasn't tired enough for a nap, but I had the door closed so that he would stay in the room with me while my sister-in-law put her kids down. We were in the play room, and he seemed content playing with the toys while I rested. I wasn't asleep, but my eyes were closed, and all of a sudden, something extremely heavy landed on my face. Joseph had pulled out a large dresser drawer full of toys which had fallen on me. Both of my eyes were slightly blackened, and I got cut above one eye plus a few other minor scratches around that eye and on the bridge of my nose. 

The good news is that, while I was gone, Bobby and the kids caught the hamster and returned him to his cage--just in time for the arrival of my in-laws.

I get good deals on flights since my mom is a flight attendant, but since I have four kids, I haven't  had the opportunity to fly anywhere in several years. My husband will be on vacation for a couple of weeks, so I decided this would be a good time to visit my grandma in Arizona who is almost 87 years old. I'm also excited about visiting my brother and sister-in-law and my niece and nephews and about visiting their church. I'm bringing Joseph with me since he is under two and flies free, and my other three kids are staying home with my husband. I'll miss them, but I'll only be gone for a couple of days.

My husband's parents and his grandson will be arriving here in Texas around the same time that I get back from my trip. I did a lot of cleaning this afternoon, and I plan to do more tomorrow, so the house will be ready for our guests before I leave. We have a lot of activities planned for their week long visit including a trip to the zoo and to Six Flags over Texas. 

When they leave, Bobby will still have another week of vacation left. We aren't sure what we're doing that week, yet but I'm sure it will be something fun...

I posted a while ago a list of things I wanted to get done before my in-laws arrive. So far I've completed 4 of the 9 items on my list. Last week was a busy week, and I wasn't feeling well, so I didn't get as much done as I would have liked. 

So far, I've:

tied up loose ends financially and created a new budget 

ordered Erika's homeschooling materials

gotten my hair trimmed

tried a new recipe that I might be making for our guests 

I still need to:

purchase a few school supplies and write down the curriculum I'll need to order for Jessica and Jonathan just before school starts

make a doctor's appointment for Joseph

upload photos to Snapfish

get new tennis shoes AND a new outfit to wear to Six Flags during the visit (I might do this today with my birthday money from my mom)

do lots of deep cleaning and organizing of the house (this is the most important one, but it will probably be the last one I complete since it is a long, ongoing process) I also plan to buy a potted plant with flowers to place on the dresser of Jessica's room (where the guests will be staying) More importantly, WE NEED TO FIND THE PET HAMSTER THAT IS ON THE LOOSE IN HER ROOM!!!

I do make a little bit of pocket change from this blog, but I'm always looking for a way to make decent money from home, while still spending lots of time with my kids. I'm not trying to get rich, but it would be nice if my recreational time on the internet could somehow pay off. I saw something on the news last night about a virtual reality website called Second Life. Not that I have time to be living a "second life", but they say there is real money to be made in the virtual world. Here's the link to an article about Second Life's First Millionaire.  

On second thought (no pun intended), it said my computer didn't have what it takes to run the program properly, and then it froze up. It's probably for the best... 

Figuring out What to Buy without Spending too Much 
I just finished ordering all of the homeschooling materials I will be using for my daughter Erika, who will be going into first grade this year. I already had a few books, and I got the rest of what she needed on E-bay and Amazon which saved me a little money. I didn't buy any of the curriculum guides or lesson plans, but it's easy to divide up the books and write in my teacher planner how many pages to do each day. My two oldest kids were not homeschooled at this age, so selecting the curriculum was somewhat uncharted territory for me. I don't have the books in front of me yet, but I'll try to remember everything I ordered...

For math,  I went with a BJU "worktext" which is a textbook and workbook combined. When you order a complete set from these companies, you get answer keys and lesson plans which I feel are unnecessary in the early grades. There aren't that many math problems on a page so it's easy to just "eyeball" your child's work--I mean, I think I know what two plus two equals without having to think that hard. Also, I skipped the "manipulatives". I didn't think it was necessary to buy objects to count with or fake clocks and play money. We've already got hundreds of blocks that we can dig out of the toy box and count, and of course we have a clock hanging on the wall. Erika already has tons of play food, so when she gets to the part about counting money, we can set up a pretend store and use real cash. I remember doing that at school in first grade, and I loved it. She already informed me that she wants to be the one working in the store so that she'll get the money. I guess with only one student in the class, I can afford to let her keep the proceeds. :)

For history and geography, I went with A beka. I bought the regular first grade history book, My America and then also a U.S. geography book which was an older edition. With history and science, I just bought the textbooks which are also called "readers". Instead of buying the accompanying notebooks or workbooks, you can always make up your own quizzes or activities based on the material in the textbook. My other kids didn't even study history in first grade, but I think she'll enjoy it. Besides, I have to keep up with my sister-in-law who is homeschooling my nephew who is the same age. 

For reading and phonics, I'm going with A beka as the main curriculum. I bought the Handbook for Reading which might have been an older edition, and I got the current phonics workbook called Letters and Sounds. She'll only be 5 1/2 when she starts first grade, but she is already able to sound out words, and she can't wait to learn to read better. I feel like we're going to get through the material kind of quickly, so I also bought a BJU book called Reading For Christian Schools.

That brings me to English which I also got from BJU. I bought the worktext for first grade English skills that goes along with Reading for Christian Schools. I'm assuming it will teach her things like capitalization and punctuation at the end of a sentence. I didn't buy a separate spelling curriculum, but I've got to draw the line somewhere. I'll probably just buy some flashcards later to teach the "sight words."

For science, I got two books: I purchased a BJU science textbook for real cheap, because it was an older edition. I doubt much has changed in first grade science since the eighties or nineties. I'm assuming that book is about plants and animals. Maybe we'll grow a beanstalk or something. The other science book I bought is the current edition of A beka's Health Safety and Manners. 

For penmanship, I'm planning to use the A beka kindergarten manuscript writing book from last year, since we only filled in a few of the pages. I don't remember what it's called off the top of my head, but it's a red book with a picture of a little girl writing in the sand. It has letters to trace and the lines with a dotted line in the middle. I like how A beka writing tablets have a picture of a house at the beginning of each line, and they teach that some letters start upstairs (capitals, t's, etc.) and some go down in the basement (p's, q's, g's).   

Other than that, I have lots of learning to read books, glue, scissors, and construction paper for art, and I'll pick up some crayons, pencils, and flashcards next time I go to WalMart. She wants to study Spanish, too, which we will do once a week with some CD's, books, and videos that I already have. It may seem like we're covering a lot of subjects for first grade, but some of the subjects are taught only once a week.

I'll post something in a couple of weeks about the older kids' curriculum, but they are using mainly ACE.  

Sorry I haven't been posting much, but I've been busy. I don't have any inspiring thoughts to write about at the moment, but the following is a brief summary of what's going on in my world.

We've been attending a week long revival in another town where our pastor is the guest speaker.

I'm still in the process of ordering Erika's first grade curriculum on E-bay.

My birthday is coming up on August 15th, and my daughter Jessica's birthday is on the 23rd.

I'm making preparations for a week long visit from the inlaws who will be arriving the 18th. 

I'm excited that my husband just got a raise which was an answer to prayer.

I'm still having Erika work in workbooks, but we will be officially resuming homeschooling on September 2nd. 

What I'll be blogging about next: Check back for my 1st grade curriculum picks for each subject... 

Today I went door-to-door soul-winning with a friend from church and a few kids. We went to an apartment complex, and I volunteered to take all of the upstairs doors. We didn't last long out there in the heat, and I could really feel it in my legs after going up that many flights of stairs. I'm thinking I should always volunteer to do the upstairs, since I tend to walk fast and it's a great workout. Why clutter up my house with a stair-climber when I can get the same workout knocking on doors?

 In case you're reading this and don't know what soul winning is, here's a soul winning demonstration video that my brother made...