Touches of September

The other day I took out all of my fall decor and started to take it all out of the buckets. I tried stuff here and there but nothing seemed to work. everything was aggrivating my eye! I took a break and started looking up ideas online and realized I did not want to fall decorate yet! I just wanted to ease into it naturally.So I packed everything up and sent it back to the storage room. Instead I came up with some September changes....

Just added some color with the faux flowers in a creamer pitcher

I seem to like things in threes. Here I brought out my muted table runner, added a wooden bowl I had just found at Target on sale ($13), and a vase from a garage sale ($3) with mint from my garden. Last, I finally found a spot for the sign I found while out to lunch at Cracker Barrel. It needed something so I rubbed chalk all over the front of it to mute it just the right amount. The pears I found at The Christmas Tree Shop last year.

Added a pumpkin from Hobby Lobby to some fall food magazines.

Sunflowers from my garden in a pitcher from Target and some wooden acorns from Hobby Lobby.

I had to figure out a solution for all the succulents I had on my porch. It's getting a bit chilly at night here already.I also had to keep them away from my cat! She tries to eat them! I found a way to transplant them temporarily and placed them above my cupboards. I don't think my cat will be getting up there any time soon :-)

Sharing this post at The Inspired Room’s Fall Nesting Party

J2's Junior Year Curriculum Plans

This year is going to be an adjustment because J1 has graduated but is taking a Gap year (more on that later) and J2 will be schooling for the first time without his brother. All of us are trying to settle in on a new routine and way of doing things.

J2's schedule has finally taken shape! A lot of what we are doing this year will be new to the both of us so it's going to be an adventure.

Science: Apologia Advanced Biology, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made by Philip Yancey and The Human Anatomy Coloring book by Wyn Kapit
Also, to make my life easier, I ordered Sonlight's Advanced Biology schedule. We used it for Chemistry last year and it was a real time saver and great record keeper.

History: Ambelside Online's suggestions and plans, A History of the Twentieth Century by Martin Gilbert as a spine book. He has also started the book, Seven Men Who Rule the World From the Grave by David Breeze and Theodore Rosevelt's letters to his Children. We will be adding in Ambleside's speeches too. We are also gleening all we can from Harmony Art Mom since she has done this before and is doing it again this year with her last homeschooler. One of her suggestions was to use The Book of Centuries from Notebooking.com so I purchased it this past week.

English: Ambelside Online's suggestions and a few of my own. We will be following their poetry schedule and some suggested by Harmony Art Mom. Our first poet is Edna St. Vincent Millay. He will be reading a selection of short stories and essays. For literature, he is starting with, The Grapes of Wrath. Shakespeare this year will begin with The Merchant of Venice. We will be working through Jensen's Grammar and also doing SAT prep. I'm still working on his writing plans. (This is where I always struggle)

Health: The SAS Survival Handbook:The Ultumate Guide to Surviving in any Climate, on Land or Sea by John Wiseman, The Survivorman Series, Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris
We will be adding to this list as the year progresses.

Art Survey: I'm not sure if I will keep this exact name for this class but it will include: acting, graphic arts, stop motion/animation, and photography, J2 already spent about 60 hours as an extra in a movie called, King's Faith over the summer. He will be taking the graphic arts and photography courses through or home school co-op. He has a program he purchased for the computer animation that he will be using to complete a short film.

We are looking forward to a great year!

Special last moments of summer

This past week we have enjoyed a few precious moments to take with us into the winter. We are such a summer family that we are all feeling a bit depressed that it's over. This week we will be gently beginning school again. I say gently because we will work into our full schedule over the course of the next two weeks so we will not feel withdrawals too badly. :-)

We enjoyed some time at our friends home who have a beautiful peice of property. They have an amazing tree house and one of the boys had built a small log cabin on the property. My kids were so inspired by them they came home and started building things.

Good bye summer! We will miss you tremendously!

We interupt this crazy, busy summer for a moment of art

I'm back! This has been a different sort of summer for us this year.
J1 has been interning for a film editing company and J2 has been spending his time as an extra in a movie they are filming in our city. Funny thing is J1 is learning to edit on that very movie! It's been so cool to get both sides of the movie business from both of them when they get home.
J2 has finally finished and we are trying to decide on our first official day of school. We have also had our family in from Florida this summer and have tried to spend as much time as we can together. Sadly, they go back today.
This week in the midst of all the hubbub, J2, J3 and B decided to have a time of drawing and painting at the table. Remember the saying, "Silence is golden?" I'm here to tell you....it is!

J2 chose to draw a wolf using the book, Drawing Wildlife by J.C. Amberlyn

B is drawing from a book she found at the library, The Young Cartoonist by Syd Hoff

J3 is painting a pond scene.

None of us are ready to part with summer. We blinked (as hard as we tried not to) and it was over. We are ready to push forward and have a routine back but we will definately be taking a day here and there to pretend it is still summer. :-)

Porch Reveal

I just realized I never shared my porch redo with you. I guess I always feel like it's never finished. There is always more I could do and for lack of funds or finding the right extra pieces I am calling it DONE!

First, here's a couple of fall shots I took last year.

Here's the after....

I love sitting out there on my computer with my coffee now. I'll share all the details on everything sometime next week.

Graduation Party....DONE!

We had J1's graduation party this past Sunday. Whew!! It was a lot of work and anticipation! Today, we are feeling like we can now look forward to the rest of the summer and the new school year. I could not even think about curriculum until after the party was over. It was also hard to blog about anything! Graduation planning was numero UNO. I'm actually excited to sit down and start investigating curriculum choices now.
Today I spent the whole day gardening! What a joy! I've missed it terribly!

I thought I'd share some of the ideas we used for the graduation party. I wish I took more pics. (something I need to remember to do at J2's party)
We decided to have a backyard BBQ theme. I scoured the internet for ideas and thankfully found some at Hostess With the Mostess.
She had found some great ideas for having a gourmet hot dog bar which J1 really liked. I was able to download all the printables for free.
It was 92 degrees on Sunday so we set up all the food in our sunroom.

Then I found desert table ideas from Paisley Petal Events which lead me to
Frog Price Paperie
I purchased her 2011 graduation set on her Etsy site in black and red.
I wish I had found her sooner because I did'nt have much time for all the cutting!
I think it still turned out wonderful!

Also, I stole an idea from Thoughtfully Simple ....her leave a note idea.

I bought a cookie jar from Target and cut peices of twine for people to tie their notes up like a diploma.
Finally, Creations From My Heart inspired my centerpieces.

Almost everything to put hese together was from the dollar store except the chalk boards (Jo Ann Fabrics) and the buckets (Hobby Lobby for $1.20 clearance). I filled the buckets with play sand, hot glued everything onto dowels, and stuck them right into the sand. The weight of the sand kept the table clothes in place. (Yes, even though it was 92, we had a breeze)
I would recommend if you use the candy idea and it's hot out the day of your party...take it out! We had milk dud mush!

Hope you enjoyed the pics...I'm heading back to the garden!

Camp Mom -Handmade T-Shirts

When my two older boys were younger, we had fun activities we would do during the summer. Instead of going away to camp we decided to bring camp to us. The boys coined it, "Camp Mom". Every time we would go to the movies, make projects, go letterboxing, etc., the boys would shout "We're at Camp Mom!"
It kind of stuck through the summers and this summer is no different. We ran a little late with our school year and the younger two are finally done!
I have always wanted to get one of those creative art kits from Hearts and Trees! Love!! Love!! Love her site!! Not to mention that I don't know what I would have done with out her mother's blog, "Harmany Art Mom"! She has really inspired and encouraged me in homeschooling highschool the Charlotte Mason way! More of that in a later post.
Anywho... when she was offering her spring 2011 kit for $10 I thought I would try one out for B and J3.
This week we made our own T-shirts! What a perfect first project for Camp Mom!
We had a great time choosing our stencil ideas. B loves cats so she printed out a cat and mouse from the computer and made a stencil from them onto the freezer paper. J3 loves fishing so we printed out some fish and a hook. I actually just googled online stencils and found everything we were looking for.

We found our fabric paint at Jo Ann Fabrics on sale for only .50 a bottle and they had youth T-shirts on sale as well.

I used a permanant marker to draw in a fishing line on J3's shirt.

Next we are going to make the pencil toppers!