The Rag Coat

We started The Rag Coat this week. I have absolutely fallen in love with this book. These are the plans for the week:

• Study and locate the Appalachian Mountains


• Study Coal


• Make coal flowers


• Look at quilts


• Make a quilt square


• Look at artwork in the book and expressions used


• Books to go along with this: Silver Packages, Grandma's Attic, The Quilt Story

I am really looking forward to this rowing!!

Great Giveaway!!

Branch of Wisdom is having a great New Year giveaway on her blog. There are a bunch of great prizes and you need to click on over there to enter :)

Click here to see the giveaway

While you are there, make sure to take the time to check out the rest of her blog, I really love her posts about their home school!!

Cranberry Thanksgiving

We started Cranberry Thanksgiving this week. My plan is to carry this up until Thanksgiving which would make this about a week and a half.

We have rowed this book once before and we are looking forward to doing this again. Today we read the book and talked about the different characters in the book. We talked about how the Grandmother initially didn't like Mr. Whiskers because of the way he looked and smelled :) and that she wasn't looking at what was on the inside of him. We talked about how sometimes we have to ignore the outside and look into someones heart.

This is sometimes a difficult balance, because it is hard to do this when you initially meet someone and don't truly know what kind of person they are.

We talked about the secret Cranberry Bread Recipe and then talked about what kinds of foods we have on Thanksgiving Day and what our favorite food on that day is.

Tomorrow we will be talking about and focusing on cranberries.

She's a natural

Reagan has decided that she LOVES to take pictures. She has also discovered that her favorite subject is herself :)
I gotta get this girl a camera for Christmas!!!

The Dress

My daughter will be getting married in June and her dress came in yesterday. We were so excited and rushed up to get the dress and try it on again for alterations. Amazingly, the dress fit perfectly!! No alterations needed.

Originally she was just going to have that small hair piece in that had a flower and some feathers and that was all. Once we got back there and she put the dress on and decided to "just look at" a veil, she as hooked. In the end she went with a really long veil on bottom with a shorter veil on top. It is really beautiful.

A few more pics of the dress.

Then the lady in charge of alterations did the most amazing thing to bustle the wedding dress for the reception. Instead of simply having it tuck under, she has it in a series of folds that make this dress look so beautiful. It is had to see in the pictures, but it makes the back of the dress look like a bunch of rose petals.

We are so pleased at how everything has worked out with the dress! If only everything else would go this smoothly :)

Colonial Tea Party

To wrap up our reading of the American Girl Historical books about Felicity, we had a Colonial Tea Party.

I sewed (just learning how) matching dresses for my daughter and her doll.

The tea party was done as a co-op type event and the wonderful woman heading this up made each girl a mop cap to not only wear during the party, but to take home with them.

Reagan learned how to minuet and we have practiced this at home several times since the party.

Each girl had a place card on the table with some blank paper below it. They made quill pens and practiced writing with them.

The girls probably would have been happy doing this all day long! We had no idea how much fun they would have with this project. In fact, we ended up not doing one of the projects that could fit into another party since they wanted to keep writing!

Then it was Tea Time!!

We had a really great time and look forward to the next meeting (fiesta) that will will be having after finishing up Josefina!

It has been awhile

since I have posted here on my blog. I had considered giving up my blog as I really felt the need to concentrate more on school this year and spend less time on the computer. It is so easy for me to get wrapped up reading all the wonderful blogs out there and I end up losing track of time.

I really like my blog and have miss posting on it and reading all of my favorite blogs. I am going to attempt to re-enter the blogging world in moderation.

We had a few unexpected trials at the beginning of our school year and it through us off track. We are getting back into the swing of things and are really enjoying our school. We are getting ready to have our first get together with our History Girls Club. We have finished the Felicity books and are going to be having a Colonial Tea Party next week. We are really looking forward to this and I even stepped out of my comfort zone and sewed my daughter a colonial dress and then made a matching colonial dress for her doll to wear to the party. Whew...was this a stretch for someone that has never sewed before :) We are also doing Along the Alphabet Path with a few exceptions. First we have pumped it up a bit to make it a little more on Reagan's level. Next I re-wrote (just for our personal use) the section of the story that involves the Catholic Saints. What I ended up doing is inserting a bible story that goes along with each letter of the alphabet. I will write more about that in a separate post. Anyway, we are really enjoying Alphabet Path and will continue that for the remainder of the year. It falls nicely along with our Studying Creation with Botany co-op we are in. Overall I am really pleased with school this year so far.

I have had a few health issues going on at the same time. After undergoing a colonoscopy and EGD (scope of the esophagus and stomach) we have ruled out all of the really bad stuff and we believe now that it might be IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). I would just be happy if we could get this under control and not feel yucky all of the time. I would humbly ask that you add me to your prayer list that the doctors might be able to help me. Anyone else out there with this issue that could offer me any insight into this?

Thanks for stopping by and visiting me, and I look forward to getting caught up with everyone!

A change for the new school year

We will be starting school on August 1st and I felt the need for some changes in order to make my life more simple and easier to manage.

I have left the majority of my yahoo groups with the exception of a select few in order to decrease my email inbox and the time that I spend in front of my computer just reading all of the emails.

I have also decided that at least for the time being, I will just be making a monthly entry on my blog with all of the fun things that we have done the month previous and what we have coming up.

This is what we have planned for homeschool...

We will be spending this year using the American Girl Historical books for our history. We are also part of a co-op that will meet every 6-8 weeks after we have finished the current "girl" we are reading about and have a big get together with crafts, food and fun related to that time period.

We will also be starting Apologia Young Explorers Botany study. This will also be a co-op that will meet once a week after each chapter is completed and we will be doing the experiments and more together.

We are really excited this year and the only way that I can see to get it all done is to spend less time on the computer :(

I will see you back in a month to let you know how our first set of books went as we begin our history study with Felicity 1774-1776.

Father's Day at the zoo

On Father's Day, we were finishing up our Kansas and Missouri trip and decided to spend the day at the Tulsa, OK Zoo. We were really excited since the elephants from our zoo are now at the Tulsa Zoo while we are building a larger nicer area for them. We have not seen our elephants in a year and were anxious to see what they looked like.

Entrance to the zoo.
Father's Day Picture.

Children's Petting Zoo

The tropical rain forest area with free roaming animals

I really loved the tropical rain forest area, it was so beautiful.

The tram that we used to get from the front of the zoo to the back area and then back to the front again. We really appreciated this since is was 102 degrees at the zoo that day.

We didn't get to see our elephants, they were not out while we were there, but we really love the facility they have there for the elephants.

My two favorite areas were the tropical rain forest and the cave area. This was so much fun and definitely worth the time if your in the area.

For Tiffany

Picture from the street before.

Picture from the street after.

Picture of the front porch area before.

Front Porch area after.


Side gate to backyard before.

Side gate after. (Ran short one bag of mulch...will be added this week)


Corner of house before.



Corner of house after.


East window before.
East window after.


West window before.

West window after

Front before

Front after

Front after

4th of July

Have a safe and happy 4th of July!!!

Oklahoma Aquarium

On our way home from our trip to Missouri and Kansas, we made an overnight stop in Tulsa, OK. We took advantage of our extra time and decided to visit the Oklahoma Aquarium. It was really great and worth the trip if you ever get that direction!
Reagan petting a starfish.

They have certain touch time to interact with the stingrays and small sharks. This was really neat. The stingray felt slick and the shark felt like sand paper.

The have a section you walk through where the aquarium is over and around you with sharks swimming through.

If you ever are in that area and get a chance to see the aquarium, you won't regret it. There are several hands on type activities that the kids really love.

Psalm 91

When sick or in pain read Psalm 91

Laura Ingalls Wilder (as found in her bedside Bible after her death)


Psalm 91


1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.



2 I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."


3 Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence.


4 He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.


5 You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day,


6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.


7 A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.


8 You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.


9 If you make the Most High your dwelling—even the LORD, who is my refuge-


10 then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent.


11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;


12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.


13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.


14 "Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.


15 He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.

16 With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."


All we have to do is believe and his protection is ours.

The cast is off....and another break!

The good news and the bad news!



Let's start with the good news shall we? I always like the good news first. We went back to the orthopedic and Reagan had the cast removed, re-xrayed and Dr. Anderson decided the cast could stay off!! We washed that hand and scratched it and rubbed her arm (the break was in her pinkie finger and knuckle). This was worthy of a celebration lunch at a pizza buffet that we have here locally.



The bad news is that the week after Reagan broke her hand, we went back to the same inflatable play place thinking that it was just one of those fluke things that happened. Well...wrong! Reagan came down off of a slide and landed wrong and had been limping off and on for about a week. While we were there I asked Dr. Anderson if he would mind taking a look at her foot and he did and x-ray (my daughter probably glows in the dark now :)) and guess what?? her heal is broken. After much discussion and examination it was decided that we wouldn't cast her foot for now. She is walking on it and the break is not severe. We are to call him next week if things are not better and he will have to cast it.

Believe it or not, we are supposed to go to this same place in two weeks for a birthday party....I am not to sure about that one.

Little House on the Prairie Wrap-up

We have spent this year in a small co-op with the Prairie Primer. For those of you who might not be familiar with the curriculum, it is written to spend a year going through the Little House on the Prairie books. It is written like a unit study with all subjects based around these books. We had an awesome group this year and had prairie dresses and lunch pails that we used each week in co-op. There were some awesome field trips...nature center, square dancing, weather center, train ride and many more. As a final trip to wrap up the year we decided to take a four day vacation as a group and go to Independence, KS and Mansfield, MO to visit two of the locations that she lived in.

We started met up and were ready to hit the road at 7:00 am. OUCH!! We are not early birds.

After a brief stop in Bartlesville, OK for a break, we arrived in Independence, KS at the site that the book Little House on the Prairie is based on. There is a replica of the house the Ingall's lived in based on the description given by Laura Ingalls in her book and others that lived in the area and had similar cabins.

Reagan just couldn't believe that all five of them lived in a house smaller than her bedroom. We also took a wagon ride out to the prairie where we had a guide talk with all of us about the differences that would have been found on the prairie back in Laura's days in comparison with what we were seeing now. It was really interesting to hear.
We then drove in to Joplin, MO for the night and spent the evening swimming in the hotel pool. We got up on Saturday morning and drove into Mansfield, MO to the home that Laura shared with Almonzo and also the place that she wrote the Little House books. She actually did not start writing these books until she was 65 years old. We were not allowed to take any pictures inside the home, but were able to take several outside the home.

When Laura's daughter Rose was an adult, she used money she received from selling one of the books that she wrote to have a retirement home built for her parents. This home was purchased from the Sears catalog for $2,000 dollars and put on another area of the farm. Rose had many extras added on such as running electricity from the city of Mansfield to this home (they were the first outside of town to have electricity). In the end, the home ended up costing $11,000, which was a huge sum for that day and time.

We then took a side trip to Branson, MO for one night and then to the Tulsa Zoo and Oklahoma Aquarium on the way home.

This was a REALLY great trip. It was both fun and packed with so much history! We had a great time and I highly recommend visiting these sites if you get the chance.