Week 8: Already?

Good grief! Time is flying and I cannot believe we've ended Week 8, we're in September already, and it's almost Fall (my favorite season, by the way).

Let me get into the Homeschooling aspect of our week, then I'll go into a few more fun things that happened.
We absolutely have our Circle Time established. K knows the routine, he asks for activities by name and in the right order, and he is taking the lead in some of them. I love to see how he's such an innate leader and he loves to take charge. The only challenge about this is that when I'm introducing a new activity (one he's never seen or worked on before), he is impatient and wants to mess around with it instead of waiting for me to show him how the activity goes, what the steps are, and what is to be learned from it.  That is the difference between work and play and I really want him to understand this difference.  With some things, I do let him explore them and try to figure out how they work or what their purpose is, but with other things, it is imperative that he practices patience and learns through observation first.  He is getting better and better at it every week.  He is just so eager to work that he get ahead of himself sometimes.

For Culture (Geography), we have been learning where we and K's grandparents live.
He really enjoys pointing at the map and saying the names of the states. Soon,
we will be adding the names of the cities, followed by the names of the states.

K loves to point and say the months of the year. As you've noticed, he's wearing a pull up only. We are still potty training and put him on the potty often, but it is easier to have him in a pull up during school, just in case he has an accident.  I'm excited to let him wear big boy underwear only during homeschool, too.  He already is at his daycare and he's only had one accident per day.

One of K's favorite things to do is practice left and right (yes, he already knows which is left and which is right) and yes, those are his very own handprints.  I think it personalizes it and makes it more special.  We started around week 4 with just left and right hands.  Now, we are practicing left and right hands, feet, knees, shoulders, cheeks, eyes, ears, etc.  He loves this activity because it's like a game to him.  Lots of giggles there.

This is the number train. The engine has a 0 on top (in red) and 1-9 in 3x3 squares (in black). The first wagon has the number 10 on top (in red) and 11-19 in the squares (in black).  The next wagon has the number 20 in red and 21-29 in black underneath.  You get the picture. We call them families (the 0 family, the 10 family, the 20 family, etc).  He can now count from 0-50 while pointing at the numbers and 0-40 by memory without looking at the numbers.  That is pretty good for a 2.5 year old! 

For the months of the year, I added little tabs (top right on October, for example)  to teach K whose birthday is when.  For now, I made one for Dada, one for me, one for K, and one for A.  Later, we'll add the Grandparents and eventually all of the aunts and uncles (there are too many of those right now, haha).  The tabs are small enough that won't get too much attention, but colorful enough for him to notice them when we talk about it.

Here's my other beautiful student.  She loves participating through observation and gets
a kick out of watching her brother sing and dance and recite stuff.  I'm sure she's eager to do the same,
but she's still too young for that.  Soon enough, though.

Let me explain to you what the following pictures are.  I found this activity on Pinterest, where you take pictures of a Mr. Potato Head and instructions on how to add body parts.  My sister-in-law took a bunch of these pictures and I'm working on putting them together and printing them as cards.  Each picture will have a number on top, to let him know the order the cards need to go in.  
It is a great activity that K can do on his own and it is great on teaching a great skill: Following Directions.  We all need a little bit of that, in my opinion.  Without even knowing it, K will be learning so much through play.  I love it! So, here is an example of what the pictures look like:

1

2

3

4

5

6

K's new memory verses are 
Psalm 121:5 (The Lord Himself watches over you.) and 
1 Peter 5:7 (Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.).
He loves reciting them and I hear him reading them over and over. I love to know that he is hiding God's words in his heart.

Here's what we got this week in our basket, except that this is a different company and it is all local produce and it comes with beans, rice, and a dozen eggs.  We usually buy the cage-free, grass-fed eggs, but this will do every once in a while.  It was $25 for all of this, except that I forgot to picture 3 bananas and a bag of lettuce that come in with this as well.  All in all, we got 98 items (counting the bag of rice as one item and the bag of beans as one item and the bag of lettuce as one item, but counting each egg as an individual item) and each item ends up costing a quarter (25/98).  Not bad, considering that mangoes are about a dollar a piece, the bag of lettuce is about $2.50 apiece, the watermelon about $2.50-3.50, etc.  A friend who also got this basket said that se guestimates that all of this would've cost close to $36, maybe more.

These homemade cinnamon rolls are one of the breakfasts that my family lives for! They are so good! I've made them so many times, that now, I feel very confident substituting ingredients to see how well they turn out.  Let me post the original recipe first and then give you a few variations that I've liked.

Original recipe from www.allrecipes.com.

I use organic sugar in all the variations below.

Variation 1: Follow the exact instructions, but use store-bought cream cheese frosting.  I know, it's fattening, etc, but it is easy to use, it isn't used often, and it's pretty delicious.

Variation 2: Instead of using 3 cups of white flour, I use 1 cup of oat flour (throw one cup of old fashioned oats in the blender), 1 cup white flour, and one cup white wheat.

Variation 3: Use 1 cup oat flour, 1.5 cups white flour, and .5 cup coconut flour.  Instead of an egg, soak 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseeds in 3 tablespoons of water until it gels and throw it in the mix like you would an egg.

Variation 4 (haven't tried this yet, so I'm not sure how it would turn out): GLUTEN FREE Use 1 cup oat flour, 1.5 cup ground gluten free rice chex cereal (or corn), and .5 cup coconut flour.  Same egg substitution for egg as variation 3.

Variation 3 is the closest to making this recipe VEGAN, but I still have to figure out how to substitute the powdered milk to make it completely vegan.  Suggestions are accepted. :)

Week 7: Une Mot: Mélange

The title in French means "One Word: Medley."  Mélange means: assortment, combo, hodgepodge, jumble, medley, mishmash, mix, mixed bag, patchwork, potpourri.

Yes, this has been a week of shuffles, rerouting, reinventing, and practicing lots of flexibility.

For one, my husband's work schedule switched from days to nights this week and even had a day off. If anyone reading this homeschools, you know that this sole factor changes how things are usually run. It's such a privilege to have Dad (my husband) hang out with us in the morning (which he only gets to do that on the weekends), but then we miss him in the evenings when he's at work. Thankfully, this is only one week a month.

So, I did homeschool, with a more relaxed tone. Surprisingly, we got more things done. :) I apologize for forgetting to take pictures of everything we did this week. I'll find a picture of our activity elsewhere or I'll try to describe it as best as I can.
We had Circle Time, which is one of Caleb's favorite classes. We recite the Pledge of Allegiance, the Pledge of Allegiance to the Christian flag, and the Pledge of Allegiance to the Bible.  It touches my heart how at the end of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Christian flag, it says "and coming back, with life and liberty to all who believe" and Caleb, all by himself, says "I believe!" every single time we recite it.  During Circle Time, we also read from the Christian Mother Goose.  My two favorites so far are: 

We also read a Bible lesson, recite our memory verses, do academic activities (games or paper and pencil), practice left and right, do calendar (weather, date, days of the week, months of the year, etc) and read books as well as flash cards with sight words.

This is one of the activities we did this week. Opposites.

After Circle Time, we have a snack (fruit, crackers, or popsicles). If there is time, we will have another academic activity or two.  This week, we practiced the number rods with digit cards (1-10), cutting, gluing, baking, cutting food, etc.  It was a fun week.

I wanted to add this picture because I am proud to say that K
is a wonderful salad eater. He eats salads with us and eats
everything in it, even spinach! This makes my heart happy.

A quick tip on how to keep greens alive longer:
Soak in cold filtered water with homemade veggie wash
(vinegar, baking soda, lemon juice, water) for 15 minutes.
Cut a little bit of the bottom and put in a bowl with
a little bit of water.  Works for lettuce, celery, cilantro, and anything
else that likes to "drink" water.

Homemade Natural Air Freshener

Commercial air fresheners are very dangerous and damaging to us and our kids (especially the aerosol kinds).  I have done extensive research and I have opted to use only candles, coffee beans, and this natural air freshener below.

You will need:
A hammer
A nail
A mason jar (I picked this short, cute one at Target)
About 1/2 cup baking soda
Essential oil of preference (I used orange)

Poke holes on the lid with the hammer and nail. Make any pattern you like.
Add the baking soda and a few drops of the essential oil.  This isn't overpowering, it simply helps remove smells.  If you do want it to be powerful, then add more essential oil in there.  Works great!

Homemade toothpaste

I made my own toothpaste this week and I love it! It is extremely easy.

You can follow the recipe in the picture below (which I haven't done) or you can follow mine.

For mine, you will need:

aluminum free baking soda

coconut oil

peppermint essential oil (100% pure, therapeutic grade)

optional: clove essential oil (100% pure, therapeutic grade)

a small container with lid

Put about 2 tbsp of the baking soda and add coconut oil until it makes a paste.

Add about 10 drops of peppermint oil and mix. I added 2 drops of clove oil (optional) because it helps with bleeding gum, which is my case.

Just in case you didn't know, a natural way of healing cavities is to put coconut oil on the cavity daily, so by brushing your teeth with coconut oil in the mix, you make sure that a layer of it stays on and not only heals existing cavities, but it may also protect from getting new ones. Wow! 

Let me know if you have decided to try this and how you liked it.

Homemade Tomato Sauce for Pasta

I'll be honest with you, who doesn't love to just open a jar of pasta sauce and pour it over pasta instead of having to take a very long time to make the better alternative: the homemade kind? This is the truth, I have spent al morning getting a homemade tomato sauce ready for tonight's dinner.  Not only does it require taking skins off of tomatoes and all the jazz that surrounds that, but the sauce is also supposed to simmer for 4 hours! That means I'm tied down to staying at home to keep "watching" the sauce.

It tastes good, so far, but these are my thoughts about the two sauce choices:

The store-bought pasta sauce contains all kinds of preservatives and unnecessary junk that makes it taste good, but it isn't good for us.

The homemade is definitely a better alternative because the ingredients are fresher and no preservatives or junk of any kind.  My concern about this is that the 4-hour simmering process practically kills the food and there might be little or no nutritional value in it at the end of it all.

WHAT'S MY ALTERNATIVE? 

Well, last week, I decided to make pasta, but realized we were out of pasta sauce at a time when it was too late to head to the store to but some. So what did I do? I threw tomatoes, a little onion, garlic, spices, Italian seasoning, a bit of olive oil, pepper, and green and red bell peppers in the blender and blended it all. I didn't cook it, just warmed it up a little bit! 

I browned the ground beef and mixed it in with the sauce and pasta in the individual bowls and not in a big container (it is easier to save leftovers because pasta won't get soggy). 

Long story short: it was delicious and fresh and I felt so good that I was sure that my family and I were getting all of our veggies' nutritional value.  So there. That's what I'll be doing from now on. :) It was very quick, too. I love it!

Vegan/Gluten Free/Super Healthy Pancakes

Dinner: pancakes. But not just any pancakes! 
These were great because I used...
- 1.5 cups Gluten free pancake mix (instead of regular pancake flour)
- .5 cup Coconut flour (instead of regular pancake flour)
- 2 tbsp Coconut oil (instead of vegetable oil)
- .3 cup Mashed sweet potatoes (a nice addition)

- 2 tbsp Ground flaxseeds and 6 tbsp water (instead of eggs)
- about 2 cups Water (keep adding water until the batter can pour)

Mix the ground flaxseed and water in a bowl and let it sit for a few minutes until it "gels".

The batter/pancakes will have a different consistency than regular pancakes. I personally love the texture, the sweetness of the sweet potato, and the nutty flavor of the flaxseeds.

Make sure that the pancakes are fully cooked on the bottom side before attempting to flip.
And on top: real butter and blue agave syrup.
YUMMMMMMMMMMM

Week 6: Learning the unexpected

This week was absolutely full of unexpected things. I won't bore you with all the details, but I will share a few things that happened.

I am still taking it easy in the afternoons with the homeschooling schedule because K is still napping. I am so eager to get started full force, but I think that if he is still napping on his own, then his body (and brain) must need it.  He is a much more pleasant guy after a nice nap, too, so I'm in no way complaining. Haha

We did Circle Time every day and it is really getting established. K knows the order of the activities and he is getting better at following the schedule.  He is always asking for Bible class every single time (even though he knows that we always have it). It's quite obvious that he really loves it!  K is also loving Calendar more and more. I let him hold the yardstick and point at different things (calendar-related stuff like the days of the week, weather, months of the year, etc) with it.  He is getting more and more coordinated with it, too.  To find out everything we do during Circle Time, please read last week's post (under the homeschooling drop box).  

K loves to play with play dough.  It was drying out, so I made him some. Here are 3 recipes (I made the first one).
I asked K what color he wanted his play dough to be (gave him a choice of the food coloring I have) and he chose blue.  I wanted to use just one color because he mixes all the doughs anyway, and it turns into an ugly grayish/brownish color.  
The recipe makes a ton of play dough.  He can comfortably play with one third of the entire ball, so next time, I will either make less or I will color only the third he will be using, instead of the entire ball.  That way, we can use different colorings every time.  Good idea! :)

K has really good memory. One of his favorite things to do is

memorize Scripture. Here is a video of his first verse.  He has

three memorized now. I hear him reciting them on his own.

K has memorized: 

Genesis 1:1 and 31 "In the beginning, God made the sky and earth. It was very good."

Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Jesus who makes me strong."

Ephesians 6:1 "Boys and girls, obey your mom and dad in the Lord, for this is right." (very important)

I am excited to add more to the list. I won't add any if he hasn't mastered the previous ones, but he does such a great job that I don't think this will be a delay at all.

We practiced with our dressing frames. He practiced how to zip, snap, and button.
Buttons are a bit of a challenge, but we'll keep at it.

I got the kids more Baltic amber necklaces and bracelets.
They help with pain (like teething).  I wore a necklace while recuperating after
giving birth and I hardly took pain medication (compared to when I had my first baby).
I really think they work.  I also use them whenever I get headaches or any kind of pain.
If you get some, make sure that it's real Baltic amber, though. I get most of mine at http://hyenacart.com/stores/inspiredbyfinn/

My family and I love to juice fresh fruits and veggies every single morning.
We get most of our produce from a co-op that give us all of this for a very
affordable price as well as assure us that these aren't GMOs.
http://bountifulbaskets.org/

We are still practicing cutting. He is getting better and better.

A new activity was using all kinds of stamps.
K was having fun just stamping all over the paper, but when dad showed up, he started stamping with him and making up stories. That made it much more fun and it also helped K develop his imagination to make up his own stories.

Look how K was holding his pencil before.

Look how he holds it now after we practiced lots.

Essential Oils

I have a good friend who knows a lot about essential oils and their therapeutic/healing properties. She has taught me a lot and last night I got some clove essential oil from her to make a natural teething remedy for baby A to complement the Baltic amber.  Yes, she is getting a tooth already.  Sigh, time is flying! The natural teething cream is making a paste with organic shea butter, coconut oil, and a few drops of clove essential oil.  Totally edible, natural, and nontoxic.  I am excited about making it!   She also let me borrow a book that gives tons and tons of information about all essential oils out there.  So informative!  It is called Essential Oils Pocket Reference and you can find it here. I am so bummed that it is so expensive! I really would love a copy. I can totally see myself using it regularly. I'll keep an eye out for it and hopefully, find it for less than this someday! As of now, I think I'm getting this one. It seems to be very complete.  Anyway, I was reading up on it last night and saw that you can use eucalyptus and peppermint essential oils to help with coughs. K has had a cough all week and so I gave him a couple of diluted drops of each of these essential oils and voilá! No more cough! He hasn't coughed once! I am definitely onto something here! I am seriously thinking about requesting some more essential oils as birthday gifts from my husband.  We have been using some really good ones for our homemade laundry detergent, cleaning solutions, and toiletries, but I never thought of using them purely as essential oils!

I am a Young Living essential oils distributor now. You can order from www.youngliving.com and use my distributor number to order if you'd like (1498096).

I made homemade body wash for the kids since I did some research and found out that many (most) baby washes contain either carcinogens or neurotoxins and I don't want that near my kids.  I am sorry, but I didn't save any of the research, except for these two articles (for Article 1, click here) and (for Article 2, click here), otherwise, I'd post it here for you to read. It isn't hard to find all this information online, though. I highly encourage you to educate yourself in this matter and make your own decisions.  Mainly, stay away from ingredients such as phthalates, triclosan, parabens, artificial fragrances, methylene glycol, 1,4 dioxane, aluminum, sodium benzoate, etc.

To make the body wash I made, simply buy a bar of soap that is organic and that contains ingredients that you can recognize and understand.   I got Dr. Bronner's organic lavender bar for about $3.00 .  Grate it and put it in a pot with about 4 cups of filtered water (I prefer distilled).  Turn heat to low/medium.  Stir until it has melted completely.   Add another 4 cups of filtered water and pour into a large container.   Let it sit overnight to "gel" (8-12 hours minimum, better if it's 24 hours).   In the morning, assess its consistency.  If it's too thick, add more water, but don't make it too runny.  Once it reaches the consistency you like, pour it into smaller containers (preferably with pumps). This solution will need to be shaken before every use, so I suggest using smaller containers.  It will last you forever and ever!  Be careful when using near the eyes as this isn't a tear-free solution.  My kids have been fine every time we use it, though. Reading up on what makes a solution tear-fee and how much of a chemical change the ingredients need, I opted to use something that isn't tear-free and be careful with it no going into their eyes. So far, so good.  I don't use soap on them every single day.  I use it only when they need it.  When they only need to get rinsed off, I add a few drops of coconut oil and jojoba oil in the bath water.  FYI, Aveeno is also made by Johnson&Johnson.  I cannot tell you how good (yet weird) it felt to pour our J&J baby washes down the toilet (literally)! I also made whipped shea butter lotion for the family. It is absolute heaven! I even used it on my hair as a mask and it left my hair soft and shiny. Love it! I simply ordered 100% organic raw shea butter and put it in the mixer with some coconut oil, some jojoba oil, and some lavender essential oil. I put on the kids and on myself. It is natural and safe. I love to make things for my family that are healthy for them. On a side note, we are celebrating today! We moved in to our home a year ago! We love it here so much! We feel very blessed to be where God has placed us right now. And to save the best for last, I have noticed a shift in K's attitude towards his baby sister lately. Before, she was just a blob in a chair and now he is interacting with her a lot more.  She is almost seven months old and is now sitting up, so she is more visible and participates in all our family activities more.  It is adorable how they talk to each other and play together, especially during dinner and bath time.  They are great friends and they certainly love each other very much!

Baby/Child Development by Age (Month 1 to 6 Years old)

Click here to see the link that lists developmental milestones by age (Months 1-3). Definitely helpful and worth reading.
Months 4-6
Months 7-9
Months 10-12
Months 13-15
Months 16-18
Months 19-21
Months 22-24

Age 2-3
Age 3-4
Age 5-6


Below is an example of what you can read in the links:

Month 1

Most babies should be able to . . .

• Lift head briefly when on stomach
• Respond to sound
• Blink at bright lights
• Stare and focus at faces

Some babies will probably be able to . . .

• Follow objects moved about 6 to 10 inches from face
• Ooohs and aahhs
• Turn towards familiar voices and sounds
• Look and see black and white patterns

Some babies could possibly be able to . . .

• Smile in response to your smile
• Laugh
• Hold up head at 45 degree angle
• Hold head steady when upright

•  wants with gestures other than crying
• Stand alone momentarily

Some babies could possibly be able to . . .

• Drink from a cup independently
• Stand alone well
• Play ball and patty cake
• Walk for a step or two
• Say one word other than mama or dada
• Put toys or object into a container