6 Weeks of gingerbread, royal icing and lots of candy!!

Every Christmas for the past 5 or 6 years my little family and I have went to the Grove Park Inn to "oooooooh" and "aaaaaaaaah" over the beautiful gingerbread houses that are on display for the Annual National Gingerbread House Competition. Last year my 11 yr old decided that he wanted to enter a house into the competition. Which I'm all about encouraging my children to participate and try new things but this one I was a little worried about. You see every time we have ever tried to roll out cookie dough and cut different shapes with cookie cutters, the dough never quite co operated like we wanted it too. The dough would get too warm and mushy and when we would go to pick the shapes up off the counter top to place on the cookie sheet the cookies would loose their shape or just stick to the counter. But never the less we gave it a whirl. After leaving the gingerbread dough in the refrigerator for a while I rolled the dough out on my baking stones. That way all we had to do after cutting the shapes out was peel the excess dough off the stone and the house pieces would still be intact. This worked great. WooHoo!




He created a great little house with a lego candy dog house and snow man out in the front yard. He didn't win but he did receive a certificate of participation. Which I think he was quite proud of.
So time rolled around again this year for the competition and not only did my 11 yr old want to compete but also his sister. So this meant double the fun! Six weeks ago we began the journey of creating their masterpieces. I wanted to try a new gingerbread recipe this year. And we are glad we did. The consistency of the dough was much more firm and a lot easier to work with. And I believe the magic ingredient was vegetable shortening. It was amazing the difference. We were able to roll the dough out right after mixing it together without having to refrigerate it at all.
Over the next six weeks we all watched as their houses took shape and became pieces of artwork.
This is the beginning of my daughters house.


This is her finished piece. She named it "Sugar Land" (love it)


This is the beginning of my sons house.


This is his finished piece. He named it "Camp Wazoo!". It is a camp for boy and girl animals.

We made the daring delivery this past Sunday. This is always interesting. Last year I rode in the back of our Land Rover with the house display held between my feet. This year however there wasn't enough room for me to fit back there with both displays so they had to ride on their own. Thankfully they made it to the GPI without any mishaps.
We haven't found out if either of them won yet. We will make the trip back to the GPI to see if either of them have a ribbon pinned to their displays. It really is a fun adventure and perhaps one day I'll get up enough nerve to enter one myself.

Getting back on the horse.

After an extremely long break I am attempting the blogging world again. I wanted to share how our first year attempt at year round school has gone so far. After nine years of homeschooling following along with the public school schedule I decided why not try year round. So far it has went well. I haven't felt nearly as stressed and worried with "Oh no, we can't afford to take today off or we will never get in all 180 days for the school year before the end of June."

We started our year the first week of August. Then seven weeks later we took our first week long break. It worked out well. My sister was getting married so I was able to plan that we would take the whole week of her wedding off so that I, the matron of honor could do whatever I needed to do to tie up any loose ends with her wedding. The kids were very excited about having a whole week off and being able to play and do "fun" things. It was like a mini summer vacation.

My intentions were for us to continue on a weekly school schedule until the week of Thanksgiving and take that whole week off. Which would be eight weeks of school until then. But two weeks ago my 11 yr old came down with the flu. He missed the whole week of school. Then the following week he was still re cooperating so I made the school work load easy on him. I did however continue to teach my 14 yr old during this time. We are going to go ahead have school on Monday and Tuesday of the week of Thanksgiving and possibly on Wednesday too. We may just see how our week plays out. My thinking too is that we'll plan to take two weeks off for Christmas. Which this is what we usually take off at Christmas time. I had considered us taking a third week off then but two weeks is usually more than enough time for the kids to play with all their new toys.

We have also missed the occasional day off here or there throughout the year too. Because as all of you who home school know, life happens and some days school just doesn't get done. But with this schedule I do feel more relaxed. Also I am looking forward to schooling through the summer months for a couple of reasons. The main reason being that my children won't forget everything that they have learned this year and then us have to spend the first month and a half of the next school year relearning everything. Another reason being that every summer my children always enjoy a few weeks of playing and doing all the fun outdoors stuff but then the "Mom, I'm bored" sets in. And here in the mountains of NC our afternoons can be quite hot and muggy and not so fun to play outside in. So this is the perfect time for them to wonder inside and us sit down together and do some school work.

So to sum up our first few months of this school year. I'm digging the year round school!!

Look what I got!!!!

I'm very excited! I just purchased my first Susan B. Anderson book. It is "Itty Bitty Toys". I have been following her 2 blogs. http://www.spudandchloe.com/blog/ and http://susanbanderson.blogspot.com/ for a while now and I love how creative she is. I have completed many of her free patterns that she offers on both of these blogs.

The bottom 2 pictures show my version of her latest free pattern on http://www.spudandchloe.com/blog/ . It is the Dream Catcher Baby blanket. I don't have any little babies to make it for so I decided to make it into a rug for my daughters bedroom. This is as far as I have gotten. I still need to make one more square of each color. Here is the link to the free pattern on her Spud and Chloe blog. http://www.spudandchloe.com/blog/ . Once I finish all of the squares and stitch it together I plan on making a backing for it and possibly adding some crocheted flowers or knitted polka dots.

I just wanted to share my favorite knitting author. SO if you get a chance please check out her books and blogs.

Testing Week

So this week is our yearly standardized testing week. I have always opted to order the test from http://www.baysideschoolservices.com/. They are a fabulous company that rent out the testing materials and perform the scoring of your test and mail them back to you. We have never had any issues with them. I administer the test myself in our home. Now I know there are a lot of homeschoolers who may be a little affraid to take on this task themselves and they opt to have a testing group in their area administer the test with their children. My thinking behind chosing to do it myself is keeping my kids in their original school environment and with me, their teacher.

I may recieve some criticism for doing this myself. Like I'm going to cheat with my kids. I am after all trying to raise good peoples here. So what would that teach them. I don't help them with their answers. I repeat my famous line "mark your answer" over and over. LOL!!

After nine years of homeschooling and seven years of administering test at home things have always gone smoothly with nothing major coming up during our test week. But this year was a first. We woke up Monday morning all ready to get started and my 10 year old was not feeling well at all. He was complaining of his head, throat and ear hurting. As you all know that have boys, you know that they feel bad when they willingly lay on the couch all day.

As I started to freak out thinking, "Oh no, we aren't going to be able to get his test done. What am I going to do?" I started franticly looking through all the papers that the testing providers sent, and with a huge sigh of relief found that the company is forgiving if there is sickness and we are allowed to keep the test an extra week to get is finished. "PHEW"

So I'm off to get back to it and work on some more test!

Welcome!!

As I embark on my first blogging experience I'm a little nervous but excited. I have been homeschooling my two children for nine years. I began when my oldest was beginning kindergarten. That seems like forever ago. But when I considered sending her to public school there was no peace in my body to allow me to do so. And so here we are nine years later still going strong. My oldest is 13 years old, going on 21 and my second child is 10. They are as different as night and day in every aspect.
My 13 year old was born with Down Syndrome. And she has been my teacher her whole life. I believe my children have both taught me so much about life and about the person that I want to be and need to be for them and everyone around me.
I was 17 when she was born and had no idea that she had Down Syndrome until the doctors placed her in my arms in the delivery room. I knew right away as I looked at her little face. But eveyone around me wanted to not believe it yet. But my mother instinct had set in immediatley and I knew. She was mine and that was all that mattered. I was a single teen mom who's life had just done a total 360. As I reflect on these moments my heart is softened at those precious moments between a mother and child that you never forget. Even though I was still a child myself there is nothing to stop that instant bond. And instantly creating the need to do whatever necessary to protect and provide for them. Leading me to where I am today.
Homeschooling both of my children has been such a blessing. To watch as those little light bulbs inside their noggins shine so brightly through their eyes when they have read their first sentence. There is nothing in this world that can be bought to replace such happiness and joy. I would love to see a Mastercard commercial done about homeschooling your children because it truly is priceless!