Sweet Shot Tuesday 831/10

My dad took the old motor off his boat and it was just sittin' there looking all sad. So I decided to take some pictures and give it an artistic farewell =)



For more Sweet Shots, visit Darcy at my3boybarrians.

Blessings,

iheartfaces - Photojournalism

Earlier this week we (my kids and I) went "on the job" with my husband. He is currently working for my parents, so it was kind of a "blast from the past" since we used to go stay in the hotel with the crew when I was a kid. I took my camera and had fun looking for more "detail" type shots.

This weeks challenge at iheartfaces is photojournalism. Usually they only allow one photo for a challenge, but this week they are allowing a collage with up to 5 photos.



*Edited to add* My parents company resurfaces streets. Rock, oil, sulfate, and water are mixed in a machine on the back of a truck. Then it is spread in a thin layer on the surface of a street to help the street last longer. It is called slurry. To me, these pictures represent the whole process.

For more great photojournalism shots, visit iheartfaces.

Blessings,

Sunset

Hubby took me on a date Friday night and after dinner we drove up on the Butte to watch the sun set. It was quite beautiful :o) Unfortunately there were too many trees in the way to get a good picture of the sun actually setting, but I did get this one looking out over our town.


Details:
200mm
F5.6
1/30
ISO 400
No Flash

Post Processing:
In ACR, I brought the exposure down a pinch and boosted the blacks and vibrancy.
In Photoshop C4, I duplicated the layer and set blending to soft light. Then adjusted curves to up the contrast and pop the colors.

I'm linking this to Love That Shot.

Blessings,

Re-purposing

Some of you may remember about a year and a half ago I re-purposed some jeans into skirts (click HERE for a refresher). Around that time I bought a pair of overalls at a garage sale. I was thinking I could turn them into a cute jumper kinda like I had with the skirts. They sat in my sewing room for quite some time before I finally got around to working on them, but I did eventually turn them into a jumper. However, it just didn't turn out right. I ripped seams and cut fabric and tried several different things, but I just couldn't get it to hang right. So I finally just gave up and stuffed it away in my sewing room to work on at another time or to do something else with.

Fast forward to a few months ago. I started thinking about making a new apron for myself, but I couldn't find a pattern I liked. I was contemplating just making something up, when I remembered that failed overall jumper. It occurred to me that I could probably turn it into an apron or two. Well, this week, I finally sat down and did just that.

I managed to get, not one....

Not two...

But three aprons out of it! (*And I probably could get one more half apron, but it's from the piece that wasn't working for me with the jumper and I just don't want to mess with it right now!)

So anyway, here they are:

This is from the front of the overalls. I cut the buttons off the top and added a fabric panel to attach the straps to. I also added a flounce and a couple more pockets. I left the original side pockets intact. I was figuring this would be a great one for wearing while cleaning so that little things I pick-up can get put in a pocket. The pockets are also great for clothes pins =)

This one was the back of the overalls. Again I added a flounce and a top panel. I did the upper straps a little different and I'm not sure yet if it's going to work. I'm thinking they may slid down off my shoulders, so I may have to come up with something different. But we'll see =)

This one was super easy! I just added the waist panel and straps and two pockets. The pockets on this one are more for looks, they aren't incredibly functional. =)

So there you have it. It was a super fun and easy project and I now have three new aprons! The best part is, the overalls only cost $2 and all the fabric was leftover from other projects!

Blessings,

Sweet Shot Tuesday 8/17/10

So, I'm a little behind in picture taking and uploading. However, weekend before last was my hubby's family's annual reunion. It was a lot of fun and I took a ton of pictures :-). Here are some of my favorites:







And, one last one, just to show you how crazy our family is! Yes, it is a bike built for four. This is what happens when you put live-on-the-wild-side schemers and people who know how to weld together =)



For more Sweet Shots visit Darcy at my3boybarrians.

Menu Plan for August 16th

Well, everyone got pretty sick of leftovers for lunch last week, so we've planned lunches for this week as well. Other than that, though, the change has gone over pretty well. My kids appetite has actually improved dramatically! It used to be a fight to get them to eat at least a little bit of their dinner. Now they are asking for seconds and sometimes thirds! I think getting rid of all the processed snacks has made a huge difference. So anyway, here is our plan for this week:

Monday: Breakfast - Pancakes & bacon
Lunch - Burgers, veggies and a fruit
Dinner - Pork loin, broccoli & salad

Tuesday: Breakfast - Omelet w/spinach & feta cheese, fruit
Lunch - Fried rice
Dinner - Chili, cornbread, salad

Wednesday: Breakfast - Oatmeal, bacon & fruit
Lunch - Hot dog, split pea soup & a veggie or fruit
Dinner - Shepherds pie

Thursday : Breakfast - Pancakes & bacon
Lunch - Tuna salad w/rice crackers & a veggie
Dinner - Fried chicken, corn on the cob, salad

Friday: Breakfast - Eggs, broccoli & fruit
Lunch - Leftover chili
Dinner - Herb seasoned steak, asparagus, salad

Saturday: Breakfast - Overnight oatmeal & bacon
Lunch - Leftover fried chicken
Dinner - Garlic & herb chicken, broccoli & salad

Sunday: Breakfast - Pancakes, bacon & fruit
Lunch - Burger, veggie & fruit
Dinner - BBQ at my parents

For more menu plans, visit Organizing Junkie.

Blessings,

Shades!

This weeks iheartfaces challenge is "Got To Wear Shades". It was really hard to pick just one photo for this, my little man LOVES his shades! I have several great pictures of him in shades. Finally I managed to narrow it down to this one. It was taken while watching our small town's annual parade.


For more great "Got To Wear Shades" shots, visit iheartfaces.

Blessings,

Menu Plan for August 9th

So, as I mentioned last week, this week we are switching to new eating habits! I'm hoping to see some big improvements in everyone's overall health. So what exactly are we doing? Well, we are cutting out all processed foods, wheat, soy, and sugar. And for this first week, at least, we are cutting out grains in general (although, we will be letting the kids have a few grains). Our goal is not to cut grains entirely, just for a week or two. Breakfast and lunches will basically be the same throughout the week. So, here it is:

Breakfast: Eggs, leftover veggie from night before & a fruit. We will also offer the kids oatmeal (I think they'll balk at eggs 7 days a week!)

Lunch: Lunch will be leftovers from dinner the night before.

Monday - Chicken, salad, broccoli

Tuesday - Steak, salad, spinach (and probably corn for the kids)

Wednesday - Fish, salad, asparagus

Thursday - Black bean soup, salad, cauliflower

Friday - chicken, salad, spinach (again, kids will probably get corn)

Saturday - Turkey, salad, broccoli

Sunday - Roast, salad, cauliflower.

So that's our plan. I'll let you know next week how well it went over :o)

For more menu plans, visit Organizing Junkie.

Blessings

Sweet Shot Tuesday 8/3/10

Little P watchin' the parade.

For more Sweet Shots, visit Darcy at My 3 Boybarians.

Blessings,

Our plan for this school year

If you've been following my blog at all, you probably know that last years plan got blown out of the water. Being pregnant, having baby and adjusting to new baby, did not go as smoothly as I would have liked. Consequently we missed A LOT of school. And I struggled with feeling overwhelmed ever since. You can read more about it HERE and HERE.

However, I now have a plan for this year! We will be starting school on August 9th (yes, one week from today) and we will be 17, YES 17, weeks AHEAD. No more feeling guilty about being behind! No more feeling like we can't do something spontaneous because we can't miss anymore school! It's a very freeing feeling.

So, without further ado, here is what the plan is for this year:

Cast of Characters:

Munchkin - 9yo - 3rd/4th grade
Peanut - 5yo - Preschool/Kindergarten
Little P - 2.5yo - Preschool
Little Bit - Baby/toddler

Our Spine:

We will continue to work our way through MFW ECC this year. We finished through week 17, so we will start school on week 18. I haven't fully decided what we will do if we finish ECC before the year is over. We may move right on to Creation to Greeks. Or we may do another unit study to finish out the year and start C2G at the beginning of next year. I'll make that decision if/when we get there.

With ECC we will all do Bible, Geography, Music/Art, Book Basket, Science & Read Aloud (these last two with dad) together.

For the other subjects:

Munchkin:

Language Arts - We will be doing the copywork & Vocab from ECC and will add Writing Strands 3 this year.

Spelling - We recently started Sequential Spelling 1, so we will continue to use that.

English - We will continue to use Language Lesson's for the Very Young (Queen Homeschool). If we finish, we will move into the next book.

Math - We will continue with MUS Beta. If we finish we will move on to MUS Gamma.

Reading - We hadn't been doing anything for this because she is such a good reader, but I started to wonder if she was really comprehending what she was reading. So we started back on the Pathways readers (we used them in 1st grade) at level 5. We will continue for this year.

Foreign Language - Will still have not decided on a foreign language. I've been considering Latin, using either Latin Christiana or Prima Latina. However, right now I just want to focus on the basics and get into a routine. Maybe sometime in January, I'll reconsider adding a foreign language.

Peanut:

She shows some signs of being ready for school, but she still has a very short attention span. My goal is to work with her using a combination of MFW Preschool and Kindergarten. She also really wants to learn to read, so I will try some lessons from Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons. I also want to do some lapbooking with her because she definitely appears to be a kinesthetic learner.

Little P:

He has moved somewhat beyond the "just keeping him occupied" stage. Plus, after listening to David Hazel's (author of MFW) lecture on Preschoolers, I no longer think that is a stage. However, I don't think he is completely ready for official "sit down" schooling. I will most likely be including him in what I do with Peanut and in everything he's willing to sit through with ECC. I will probably also throw in a few workbooks from the Dollar Store for the days he wants "to do school". (And, yes, even my children, who have never set foot in a public school classroom, think "doing school" is a worksheet! {sigh})

Little Bit:

OK, this one will most likely just be occupied {grin}. I'm hoping for the most part she'll just nap through most of our school time. But she has been difficult about getting on a schedule, so that may not happen. I may find myself assigning one kid to play with her while I work with another one. So I guess we'll just see how this goes as the year progresses.

So that's my plan in a nutshell. To see more curriculum plans and reviews, head over to the "Not Back-To-School" blog hop on Heart of the Matter. And stay tuned for next weeks edition, "School Rooms".

Blessings,

Menu Plan for August 2nd

This weekend is my husbands family's annual family "campout" (we don't actually camp anymore), so I don't need to plan meals for Friday or Saturday. We just have to show up with two desserts. =) So here is my plan for the rest of the week:

Monday - Leftovers

Tuesday - Steak, roasted potatoes, green beans

Wednesday - Pork chops, au gratin potatoes, corn on the cob

Thursday - Chicken Caesar salad

Desserts for this weekend - Chocolate drizzled peanut butter cookies & Fruit pizza.

Next week will be totally different. Hubby and I have decided it's time to change our eating habits. It will be challenging and difficult, I'm sure, but I believe the Lord has been leading us in this direction for some time now. I'm looking forward to our new adventure =)

For more menu plans, visit Organizing Junkie.

Blessings,