Final Thoughts from Relevant 2010

So, do you think I love my roommate? You can read her thoughts about the conference here and here.

 

I loved meeting Crystal {Money Saving Mom} and getting to know her better.  Small world to find out we all read each other’s blogs and didn’t know it!

 

These 2 ladies rock, I am so honored to have met them IRL and for the time we spent together.  Sara and Tara ~ I look forward to the future ;-).

Sara ~ Happy Brown House,Tara ~ Mommy Missions

 

My good friend Jill lives close to the conference center so was able to drive in and visit for a few hours on Saturday!  It was awesome to see her and talk for awhile!  She posted about her visit here on her blog!

 

I met Jen within an hour of arriving last Thursday and it was a blast getting to know her!  She is hilarious!

 

I also loved getting to know Kris {Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers} and although I didn’t get a photo with her, I did take this one!

 

I was honored to sit in on small group sessions with many of these beautiful ladies below.   

• Bottom Row L-R {Sarah Mae, Kimba, Crystal, Bonita}
• Middle Row {Angie, Kristen, Serena, Sarah, Courtney}
• Back Row {Melissa, Alyssa, Ann, Sally, Jen}

 

Relevant changed me and I have spent days praying, processing, and talking with my husband {as many attendees have done}.  Ann Voskamp was the final speaker on the last night and God used her in a mighty way.  She said many wonderful things that struck my heart, but I must highlight the one that has stuck with me the most.

She spoke of how a mother duck plucks the feathers from her chest to line her nest.  She doesn’t use discarded feathers, she doesn’t use the worst, she uses the best-and this requires sacrifice.  It is my prayer that I will remember to line my home nest with the best of me, not the leftovers.

I have pages of notes from God’s words spoken through Ann, but that is the one thing that has stuck with me in the most powerful way, I have been in prayer daily over this.

I WILL be going to Relevant 2011 ~ God wiling, and am already excited about it.  It was a weekend filled with Jesus, in a way I never imagined possible at a blogging conference.  I am so grateful for the opportunity I had and pray God will allow me the opportunity again.  I hope to meet a few of you next year! ;-)

If you missed my other post about Relevant 2010, you can find it here!

All About Homophones ~ Free with ANY purchase!

Have you had All About Spelling on your mind? Has it been on your list to purchase but you haven’t hit “order” yet?  Well, today just might be the day for you to order it!  Why??  Because today ONLY AAS is giving you the All About Homophones {27.95} book for FREE when you place any order!!

There were power outages which caused shipping delays for All About Spelling and to thank everyone for their patience, they are giving you a free gift that you can use right away, without having to wait for shipment. When you place any order, no matter how small, we'll give you the All About Homophones book for free, and you can download it immediately. This popular e-book sells for $27.95 on our website, but today it won't cost you a cent!

Here's how to claim your free book with any purchase:

1. Add any product(s) to your cart.
2. Do not add the All About Homophones e-book to your cart quite yet.
3. In the upper left corner of the cart, you'll see a box that says "Special Code." Type in these three letters, all in capital letters: AAH. Then click the "Apply" button.
4. The free All About Homophones e-book will appear just above where you enter your shipping information. Click the orange "Add to Cart" button.

We do not personally have the All About Homophones book, but we do own All About Spelling levels 1-3!  I truly believe it is the best spelling program I have seen.  Pac Man is not currently using it anymore because his Calvert takes up so much time AND he is doing MUCH better with spelling now.  He did complete up through the middle of level 2 and it really helped a TON. 

~ps-YES I am an affiliate with All About Spelling, I think their program is amazing and am so thankful that by promoting them our family also receives a financial blessing!  God is so cool!

Batman Preschool Pack

Yup, Batman School came to our house! I had one very HAPPY little 4 year old last week!!! I shared the Preschool Pack on Facebook right after I made it {I couldn’t wait!!!}. I finally have it all ready to share on the website and blog and I must say it was very successful {translation ~ Krash LOVED IT}.

How my 4 year old grew to love Batman I will never know. We don’t watch it and honestly I think it is rather violent. We have a Lego Batman game on the Xbox and I think he might have picked up his obsession from watching Dad and Pac play that…who knows? All I know is that he adores his super hero and actually Robin is his favorite. So, it was time for a break in the normal routine so we could have a fun Batman week!

I took photos of his Batman toys {since I couldn’t find clipart online that I liked} and edited them to look like clipart. I am really happy with how it all turned out and will be doing it again!

Here’s what I caught in photos of our hours and hours of fun Batman learning time!

Ordering Batmans by size {finally this was really easy for him!} He was amazed that the Batman was HIS Batman!!!

His favorite, “catching the bad guys” {otherwise known as pre-writing practice}

Patterns with Batman and Robin…

I spelled Robin for him on his ledge {actually I had Batman and he asked me to switch it to Robin}. We also made their names using our mini foam alphabet puzzle {from Walmart}. Here he is working on his Play Doh mats…

We also made the names with our beanbags {my mom made them for us} and after that I found that he had taken ALL of our beanbags out to make a trail! ;-)

He did the color-by-number ALL on his own! I gave him the correct markers and that was all, I was so amazed!

He learned the word “villain” and really liked it! Here he is sorting the good/bad guys!

Counting with Batman. I made the cards to cut apart and match up, but we never got to that, he liked putting them in order and identifying his toys on the cards!!!

He ADORED the mini book I made him, called “Heroes and Villains” and was really surprised to find HIS photo at the end of the book!

So, what did he not like? Well, for the most part, these were a flop with him…

On the left is a color matching memory game, we played it but we hurried through it! ;-) He wasn’t too fond of the B is for Batman sheet either. I was really impressed with my Find the Letter game but he was not, oh well ~ you can’t win them all!

Probably the best memory of the week was the spontaneous activity HE initiated himself. I had a small coloring book {from Target awhile back} and he became obsessed with coloring the guys! He used his books to color them exactly the right colors and then asked me to laminate his friends!He played with these SO much!!!

They will be keepsakes I will always treasure! I can’t tell you how many hours he spent working on these {and we still have more that aren’t pictured!

It was a really fun week and he enjoyed the surprise a lot! I hope to do this more as I find time to take photos of his favorite toys and create a Preschool Pack. It really made it personal for him and he loved it!

Does your preschooler love Batman too? You can download the Batman Preschool Pack for free on my website!

I created a new Preschool Packs home page on my site where I will host links to all Preschool Packs that I make. I will also try to stay on top of things by adding a coming soon button when I start working on one! Also-be sure to follow me on Facebook as I always share there before I share on the blog when I have new printables!

More Preschool Links…

• RRSP Roll Call & Linky Info
• Lesson Planning Sheets
• Raising Rock Stars Preschool Home
• Raising Rock Stars Sample Lesson Page
• Preschool Printables
• Preschool Tools Store
• Behind the Scenes ~ Preschool Workboxes
• Members Only Information

Be sure to visit Preschool Corner to see all of the other amazing home-preschool moms!

Tell Your Time..

While at Relevant, I was honored to hear Crystal {Money Saving Mom} speak a lot about Amy {who I didn’t personally meet but have been a fan of for awhile!!!} and how Amy has helped Crystal tremendously with time management. Amy has launched a new e-book Tell Your Time, today and has a serious discount going on right now! I have read the e-book and love it. It is simple, straightforward and is NOT something I have read before {and believe me, I have read it all about this topic}!

I wanted to share this resource with you, especially while Amy is offering it at such a low price. Also - Crystal will be blogging about it {she began today}, so you'll get a real-life testimony for the system. If time management is an issue for you, head on over to snag your copy of Tell Your Time!

{ps-yes I am now an affiliate ;-), thanks Amy for offering this great opportunity to help you promote something wonderful!}

Something Special ~ Baby Food Jar Pumpkins Craft

Again,  I browsed around online for pumpkin craft inspiration and came across this post from Stacie {who I was honored to host and Usborne giveaway for last month}!    

We didn’t have small bottles but we did have baby food jars, so I modified the craft a bit! Here is the end result…

~ Rip up orange construction paper, crumple and stuff into the jars…

Ladybug was EXTREMELY into the stuffing part!  She loved this!  It kept her busy the entire time while I did the other things with the boys!

~cut jack-o-lantern faces out of black construction paper

~use a green Sharpie to color the jar lids

~twist a green pipe cleaner into a stem {Pac did his own, I did K and L’s}

~use a hot glue gun for it all!

They are now adorable little keepsakes and will certainly be brought out as decorations for years to come!

See more…

• All Something Special Posts
• Something Special Intro and Schedule
• Visit our Fall Fun Webpage
• More Fall Fun Activities here on 1+1+1=1
• Fall Activities for Toddlers & Preschoolers on Totally Tots

Raising Rock Stars ~ “Convinced” Romans 8:38-39

Romans 8:38-39

Our night was based upon the song, Convinced {Romans 8:38-39} from Seeds of Courage.  I didn’t get any pictures, but here’s the verse hanging up on our calendar board…  Of course we used the great  printables Valerie made for Totally Tots to learn this verse and what it means.

While teaching the verse one portion at a time to the boys, Krash announced his confusion with the “locked up heart.”  God popped an object lesson in my head to try to make this real for him and it really helped.

I led him out of our schoolroom door {that leads into my husband’s tool area and happened to have the new key to the door right there} and locked the door quickly hiding the key in my pocket. 

Mommy ~ “What are we supposed to do?”

Krash ~ “We need a key.”

M ~ “How do we get a key?”

K ~  “Daddy.”

M ~ “ Yes, we need to ASK for the key.”

I went on to apply this to the symbolic KEY to heaven that comes to us by ASKING Jesus into our hearts.  I told him that when we ask Jesus into our hearts we get the key to heaven and get to live with God forever.  He then referred back to the locked up heart image.  I told him that when we accept Christ into our hearts, God locks us up tight and won’t let the key to heaven get away!  God loves us so much and nothing can separate us from Him.

 

Resources used this week:

• Seeds Family Worship CD: Seeds of Courage {use code 1plus1plus1 for 20% off if you purchase the cd through the Seeds Family Worship Website}
• Romans 8:38-39 Printables from Totally Tots

Visit the Raising Rock Stars Webpage to download your own notebook pages and to see links to previous Rock Stars posts! Please read there or here before you add your link.

Tot School ~ 1/2 with Daddy ;-)

~Ladybug is currently 18 months old~

 

I think I have found a way to rotate her learning toys for the week  There are certain toys she always has success too, but I am trying to rotate the others. We’ll see if this method works ;-).  I picked 3 and put them on the floor for her to find Monday morning. {Kimochi, Shape Sorter, Puzzle} I kept these 3 out all week and we just went to them when she wanted to and I played with her and just had fun!  She also played a lot with them on her own too.  I look forward to putting 3 new ones out for her tomorrow!  The boys enjoyed them too—added bonus!

She enjoyed the Shape Sorter, mostly “counting” the blocks and also stacking them!

 

Wedgits are still popular with ALL of my kids.  Ladybug has finally learned how to stack various pieces, but she still loves the tiny white ones!

 

 

 

We played ball together, in a few different ways!  She tried to see if her ball could fit in her teapot ;-)  when it didn’t she was ready to practice throwing and catching with me!  She LOVES to play ball!

 

   Pengaloo was K’s game for the week, but she had fun laying with the pieces too!

Easel time is still a daily thing for her!  ;-)  I love seeing her draw!

We had our Thanksgiving set out early since I was photographing it for our upcoming Preschool Pack, she enjoyed rocking the pilgrims in her doll cradle!Stacking Pegs were fun for about 2 minutes ;-)  The ABC Mat and home-made bean bags were a daily dose of fun!  She loved throwing them on the mat! 

 

I finally set up some Tot Trays for her, but didn’t get a lot of pictures!  Here she is stringing penne pasta tubes onto a pipe cleaner…

 

 

I gave her a pitcher {it’s from Ikea}, a bowl and some pom poms and taught her to pour.  At first she had no interest and just wanted to stack and put the balls in the bowl.  After gently showing her a few times, she then thought pouring was fun {but very difficult for her}!

 

          

She continues to love our fall sensory bin, I added a few more pumpkin containers to her free play, and we made a necklace out of the jewels too {she loves necklaces!}

 

 

While I was at Relevant, Daddy had TONS of fun with the kiddos.  He took a few pictures on his phone of them when they were at the pumpkin patch!  Ladybug got to see farm animals, play on an awesome playground and pick her own pumpkin!  I hated to miss the fun but was so thankful that my husband took them on his own!            

 

 

She has been quite the cheese monkey lately, this photo does a great job of capturing her cheesy grin I love so much! 

 

More Tot School Links…

• Tot School 2010/2011 Roll Call  {and FAQ Clarification Post} –I have finished updating the Tot School roster, please let me know if you are not on it and you have linked up for at least 3 weeks.  You can leave a comment on this post telling me that this is your 3rd {or more} time linking up!
• Behind the Scenes ~ Where Do I Begin with Tot School?
• Tot School Webpage {including links of all participants}
• Tot Trays {webpage}, Behind the Scenes ~ Tot Trays, Where are the Trays?
• Totally Tots {my other team-written blog, all about tots!}
• All of our Tot School Posts
• Visit our Tot School Tools Store
• Tot School Zones {Linky with other moms sharing their Tot School zones}
• Tot School FAQ
• How do I Link up to Tot School?  Please be sure to read this BEFORE you link up for the first time!!! If your blog is not linked back here to Tot School {within your post, not just on your sidebar}, and/or your post is not specifically a Tot School post, your link will be deleted to help Tot School surfing moms. If your link was deleted, please email if you don’t know why.

Please put your tot's age (in months) after it, like this: 1+1+1=1 (41 mos)

If you are NEW will you please leave a comment letting us all know so we can be sure to visit you?