An Update On Life and a Few Homeschool Moments.

(I started writing this posting almost 2 weeks ago.)

As I write this, it is quiet in the house and I love this time of the morning. It is the time that I check emails and the website and catch up with friends on Facebook. These days this is my only free time.

Since at the beginning of December, I started homeschooling Doodles. It is a long story as to what led up to us taking Doodles out of public school and I won’t go into the details; although, I will say that we are more than certain this will be a very positive experience for her. Public school was no longer reflecting our values and morals. Also too, the school system did not seem to have its primary focus on academics. As it seemed to us, the school’s main goals were to teach the children how to excel on the TCAP test without really learning the basics. Many hours of a child’s day at school were being spent in prepping for this test rather than really learning how to read and answer a question but how to interpret the answers from an image provided. This was only one of our concerns. Our other concerns were the moral values were being overlooked and it seemed to us that more passive behaviors were being taught, which to us seemed to take away a child’s sense of determination to excel. We may be wrong in our view of the way the public school system is educating the kids these days; however, there were just many things that we felt we would prefer to teach Doodles instead of passing that responsibility on to another that maybe didn’t share our views, morals and values.

With that being said, Doodles does miss her friends from school but is doing tremendously well with homeschool. We are enrolling her in a few enrichment classes and gymnastics. Hopefully she will find other homeschool kids to develop friendships with. We just joined the homeschool network for our community and are starting to reach out to get involved in field trips and opportunities with other homeschool families. It is a lot of work and the day is filled with assignments, learning games and lesson planning. I am having a wonderful time though. It just seems spending this time now with her learning and seeing all the “light bulb” moments, I am the one who is being blessed.

We are having fun exploring together and she is getting to learn through hands on experiences too. Here are a few photos of some of our home school moments.


I know the photos looks a lot like just playing with straws although, it was a learning opportunity for her. We found a book called Inventing Toys that inspired this project. She Google searched towers. She was so excited to learn how to do that and she has found many places where the some of the towers are located that she wants to visit on vacation. It was a great opening into getting her to explore and learn more about the states and it was a great spring board for us.




Also started a unit study on things that grow. We decided to grow wheat grass. I had never grown wheat grass but all I can say is, WOW!!! It grows quickly and not a lot of seed is needed. There are wonderful health benefits from using wheat grass in smoothies or juicing so, it was a great decision to grow it for this project. She noted it's growth daily and watered it. As soon as it put off the second sprout of grass, we harvested it for smoothies.

Doodlebug loved getting to cut or mow the grass as she called it and make the smoothies. I figured the best way to get her into really trying the smoothies and maybe liking them were to let her be the one who picked the fruits and veggies to add. It worked. She loves veggie/fruit smoothies now.



The wheat grass gave the fruit smoothie a bit of a melon flavor. It was quiet tasty.



Doodlebug thinks one of the best things about homeschool is getting to do her work in her pj's. She also likes being able to help make the choices of the things she would like to learn more about. We have a basic curriculum book that we work from each day. We also use unit study books for more involved studies and they are so much fun. This is where her chance to explore really comes in. I am learning but there are so many wonderful resources on line. I have also learned that most homeschool families are some of the most generous and kind people and share books, equipment, resources, knowledge and are just so helpful. It has been a wonderful adventure for both Doodles and I.

I will try and share more photos soon and some of our activities. I am in hopes that very soon Doodlebug will work a bit more independent and give me a bit of time to blog again. Until then, blessings to you all!

Getting Into The Holiday Spirit

Our Christmas tree will be going up this weekend. Our outdoor lights will not be going up this year. Our decks and porches are being rebuilt and I don’t know if they will be done in time to make decorating worth it this year.

Most all of our Christmas shopping is done, yeah! I will not be out shopping on Black Friday, double yeah!!! I wish all of you that are going to be out there great success in finding what you are looking for. I also hope that folks remember to just be kind to one another. I think that would make shopping on Black Friday much more fun too. Remember, kindness spreads.

In the past few days, I have been glancing back at a few of our holiday photos from last year and thinking about how it would be possible to take different portrait photos of the family this year. It is pretty hard when I have no intention of changing anything about the tree this year. As you can see from some of the crazy photos, our family is a little nuts. I guess it doesn’t really matter what the set up is, just taking the photos with these clowns is memorable for me. Last year everyone was such a clown that it was almost hard to take the photos because I was laughing so hard. By far, these are in no way the funniest photos taken. These are just a few that I thought were cute and I would share. You can see more of the photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tnmamaw/sets/72157622992635261/ You will get a better idea of what I am up against when I break out the camera.








I love this photo. I took so many photos the kids were seeing spots. I think this was my clue to stop.


The photo below is my favorite photo from last year. It is just so Luke, always keeping an eye on what his sister is doing.





I am still thinking I should change up some of the decorations on the tree but I have a style that is a simple, country look and haven’t thought about changing it in years. The other day Joe and I were in the store and he found Christmas lights that he and Joey would love to put on the tree. They were shot gun shell lights. I giggled and almost considered it but it just doesn’t seem right. I think they should put up a Christmas tree in their man cave/barn and decorate it. There is no telling what it would turn out like. Wow, I just totally got of track there.

In looking at the photos though, I would love to come up with another angle setup or something different and special for the 2010 photos. If you have any suggestions, I am open to hearing them. If we don’t change it up, it will still be lots of fun to take the photos. We always have fun doing them.

We are looking forward to spending time with the family for Thanksgiving. It will be nice to have a long weekend. This will be one of the first weekends in a while that Joe has not been working late on Fridays and on call for Saturdays in such a long time. I hope he will be able to kick back, relax and get some rest. He is battling a cold and hasn’t been resting well. Hopefully this weekend will give him some well needed rest.

I am looking forward to hanging out with the grandkids. Doodlebug is planning a family baseball game. It is suppose to rain this afternoon and tomorrow but hopefully it will be nice weather by Thursday to get a game going. I discussed this with Granny last night and she is willing to play too, if we can get a runner for her. I told her that wouldn’t be any problem we would put Doodles on her team. I think Doodlebug runs faster than anyone in the family so, I want to be on her team too.

Well, that’s all I have for this blog entry. I hope everyone has a wonderful, blessed Thanksgiving day with all your loved ones.

Blessings and hugs to you all!

I am so far behind, I thought I was first...

The opening line of this blog was on my newest T-shirt that I purchased for myself. I chuckled so much in the Mast General Store, I think people thought I was nuts. It just seemed to really apply to my life these days.

I have been so busy around here trying to launch this little business that I have not had an interesting thought for a post here, which stinks. There are still plenty of wonderful things going on with the family and I should be sharing them.

DoodleBug graduated from kindergarten a couple of weeks ago. It was a wonderful little program and there were several grandmas and great grandmas sniffling and holding back the tears. They sang the song "Love Can Build A Bridge" by Wynona Judd. It was just beautiful to see those little faces light up while they were singing that song. I don't think there was a single grandma there with a dry eye. Even some of the grandpas teared up a bit too. I am sure some proud moms were tearing up too but there was something in my eyes and I couldn't see them. ;)

I was very upset with myself. I had not check to make sure I had full charges on the cameras and I only had enough power to snap off a couple of photos and grab a little clip or two. The school is offering a DVD of the whole program which, I ordered two.

It was not a cap and gown cermony; however, it was adorable just the same. Each kid was called by name to come and pick up their diploma. It was so fun just watching their moves and expressions and to see such pride in all their little faces.
After the cermony, Doodles got to take the rest of the day off. She was finished and so excited. She really had been looking forward to the ending of school for the last couple of weeks. Her last week of school, we were on a day to day count down. Each morning she would ask, "how many more days until I graduate?" Summer break couldn't have come at a better time for her.



A very short clip of DoodleBug on stage before the program started. You can just see how thrilled she was.


We spent much of the rest of the day at the park. Doodles played ball with her Great Granny. I think Granny had a really good time but was a bit tired afterwards.





I know DoodleBug had a good time playing with Great Granny. I think Granny had very good time with Doodles too.



As for more recent, for the Memorial day weekend, we didn't grill. We went to Famous Daves on Saturday and ate ribs instead. With the rains coming and going, we couldn't insure the tempature on the smoker so we didn't even try. Although, on Sunday evening we did build a little fire in the fire pit and Doodles roasted hot dogs and marshmellows. That was a fun evening. She was so tired from playing that day she climbed up into my lap, stretched out and fell asleep before the fire was finished. It was sweet.

Hopefully here in a few weeks, I will have the Lily Field Designs business going and the online store front running well, a system to follow and more free time...OK I am laughing now about the free time remark. If you get a chance check out the Lily Field Designs blog at lilyfielddesigns.blogspot.com and become a follwer there. I also have a fan page on facebook and the web adress is www.lilyfielddesigns.com I will provide a link on this blog to those locations very soon.

Hope everyone had a blessed holiday weekend and a great week this week.

Blessings and Hugs!

Nothing Beats A Little Pizzazz

We hit the sales rack looking for some good little canvas sneaks for Doodlebug to play in. We found this not so attractive pair of red canvas sneakers that really wouldn’t go with much of Doodlebug’s clothing. Red really isn’t Doodlebug’s color unless it is Christmas time, which then she wants everything red. We found them in her current size as well as her next size up and even though they were not her colors, we bought both pair for $3.00 each. Who can pass up a deal like that? We sure couldn’t.

We always love embellishing add personal touches to things so, we tried our hand at adding some pizzazz and made these awesome graffiti sneakers. Doodlebug painted one pair and I helped with the bigger size.

The materials we used were a basic fabric medium, Gesso, Tulip fabric markers and a few bottles of squirt fabric paint and scotch tape.


The very first thing we did was to put tape along the rubber soles to cover them so we wouldn’t get any paint on that part of the shoe. Next we added a little of the fabric medium to the gesso, stirred well and thinned it down some. Then covered the shoes completely using a brush and left them for a couple of hours to dry.

After the long awaited two hours were up, we really started to have fun. Using the fabric markers, we just added all sorts of squiggle lines, over lapped colors and just went nuts. There are no rules here, our favorite type of craft. I loved Doodlebug’s X’s and O’s idea. When the fabric markers were dry, which didn’t take very long at all, we used the squirt bottles of fabric paint and added little designs, symbols, words and more squiggles. It was really hard to stop, as you can tell.
The second pair that we painted. I got to help, it was so much fun.


Doodlebug couldn’t wait to try on her recreated sneakers and show them off. I think she did an awesome job.



This was a very fun and simple project and kids really love getting involved in creating their own style. Speaking of personal style, Doodlebug’s new favorite, all time television shows to watch are all the old Punky Bruster episodes. We all know Punky was all about adding pizzazz. Papaw happened to find one of the Punky Bruster seasons on DVD in a bargain bin at Books A Million and she loves them!!!







Blessings To You All!