Spy Training Party Planning

My daughter loves mysteries, it is by far her favorite type of book.  She decided that this year for her birthday that she wanted a spy party.















Here is the invitation we made.  It is a Styrofoam ball that we spray painted black.  These were a slightly different kind of Styrofoam, these were a little more solid which made them much easier to spray paint.  They also had a hole in one end of them and not only did we need that to complete the invite, it made it so much easier to paint.  We stuck a wooden dowel into the hole and stuck them into the ground in our backyard and painted.   No sticking to the paper when drying and any mess will be mowed up :)  We then took a pipe cleaner and some orange and yellow cellophane paper and cut a few layers of it into a circle.  We then folded the end of the pipe cleaner over a bit and poked a hole into the center and fed a bit of the pipe cleaner up into the circle, gathered up the cellophane and wrapped the tail of the bent over section around the cellophane to hold it in place.  We tried glue and had not luck so this was the best we could come up with and it looked just fine.  The invitation was then taped to the opposite end as you can see in the picture above and scrolled around the pipe cleaner and pushed into the hold in the ball.

These were a HUGE hit with her friends!

More to come on the party soon.

Learning to Knit and a great website

I have been attempting some knitting lately. I have taken one class, I have a partial scarf and am working on a second one that has a little bit of a pattern to it. There is an awesome website for anyone that knits or crochets called Ravelry . It is a place to connect to other people from all over the world who also enjoy knitting or crocheting. There are TONS of free patterns also. Take a second and sign up....its FREE and just having access to so many free patterns is worth it. If you sign up, feel free to add me as your friend...my name is knitting4fun2.

Coupons

Couponing is really big right now and I have tried to consistently use coupons and shop for the best value. I mean with today's economy who doesn't want to save money?? Right now my favorite site is Couponcloset. I love how she does all the work for you and has a gift of putting it all together. I also like it because she is local to me (Oklahoma) and I have been able to go to one of her coupon classes. Don't live in Oklahoma? fear not....she has some of her coupon classes in the form of videos on her blog and they are FREE!!! I also love her coupon organizer she makes. I believe she makes sells them through her blog, but it is also something you could make yourself. If your interested, I will post a picture of mine so that you can see what it looks like. What coupon sites do you like?

Change is in order

I have fallen behind and as life has gotten busier I gone longer and longer without a post. So for the time being I will mainly be using this blog for things like book reviews, recipes and fun little tidbits and as time goes on I will add on about homeschool and things like that.

Hungry Girl

Yep, that's me!! I love to cook, I love to eat and unfortunately for me it shows! So now I need to find a way to satisfy my cravings for yummy home cooked meals and lose some weight while I am at it! Any thoughts??

I have tried Weight Watchers and it works, I mean it REALLY works but my will power is not so great! I have seen people have great results with HCG and lose weight quickly with it, but you literally are starving yourself to do it. I have no desire or will power to starve to death so that one is out. I considered some of the meal delivery plans...but having to cook for a husband and child make that one seem weird, so what, I fix a meal and then eat a completely different meal than the rest of my family?

So, tell me...what do you think??

Owl Moon

This week we are working on the FIAR book Owl Moon by Jane Yolen. Candace at His Mercy is New had recently rowed this book so it was wonderful timing to get some great ideas from her.

Yesterday involved us reading Owl Moon and then spending some time learning about owls. Before we started we talked and I just wanted to get an idea of what exactly she knew about owls. We then read this book...

This was a perfect book for Reagan! It didn't involve her having to sit still and listen for a long period of time to learn about owls. It has short, informative text and great pictures. We then went to the computer and found a great link on Homeschool Share where we could listen to a few different owl calls. We loved being able to take the book and compare the owl call that the father did with the actual sound of the owl.

Tomorrow will involve an owl craft, the discussion of simile and metaphor and the reading of an additional owl book.

Reading through the Bible in 90 days!

I started this yesterday for the first time. I have read about other bloggers reading through the Bible in 90 days, but never felt like I would stay on task and do it.

I am excited to say that I am READY!! I am on day two and so far it has not been as difficult as I thought it might be. It ends up being approximately an hour of reading per day. It is even better because I got an awesome mentor, which is Candace at His Mercy is New. I love her blog and am a frequent visitor there and I consider her an awesome woman of God. I am blessed to have her praying for me and encouraging me as I go.

I will post an update from time to time and let you know how it is going and if I am still on track.