A Stable Beginning: December 2014

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Merry Christmas

From our family to yours, Merry Christmas!

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Friday, December 19, 2014

This boy makes me SMILE! <3

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Thank you Mrs. Jennifer B. for my snowman hat!

Thursday, December 18, 2014

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big boy

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

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hard at work finishing up her research paper before Christmas break.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Caroling

This morning we went Christmas caroling with our Girl Scout troop friends. The girls and Micah had a great time and so did I. The group warmed up outside before beginning the show.

The group sang 7 songs, including familiar ones like Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. I loved watching the Daisy’s as they were with the group one minute and the next doing their own thing. These are a great group of girls, and McKenzie enjoys spending time with them every other Tuesday.

The parking lot at the retirement/rehabilitation center is ~~horrendous~~ challenging to say the least. I thought I was the last spot along this row, but turns out the car behind me thought they could fit too…not so much. Luckily, I knew the lady in front of us and we didn’t have to wait too long to get un-stuck.

Once the group of Girl Scouts had made rounds within the buildings we headed to lunch at Chick-fil-a, which is always a treat, especially when you get to eat with your friends. We passed out gift bags of tangelo’s to the girl’s leaders for being such special ladies.

Micah slept through the majority of lunch since he stayed awake the entire time during the singing watching and taking in all the sights and sounds around him. When he woke up, the cow was making rounds throughout the restaurant. He was not quite sure what to think about the cow, LOL. After lunch we headed to Wal-Mart to pick up our necessary supplies to finish up our crafts for the week.

McKenzie started feeling sick just after lunch and began complaining of a stomach ache and she kept sneezing. So much so, that she missed pre-TOPs practice this evening because her nose kept running like a faucet.

We’ve had a blessed day, how about you?

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Montana is purchasing Christmas gifts for her friends with her own money tonight. She has such a servants heart.

Monday, December 15, 2014

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there’s beauty in those tears

Saturday, December 13, 2014

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first Christmas ornament

Friday, December 12, 2014

Weekly Wrap Up ~ Random 5 on Friday, December 12th {style}

Happy Friday Friends!

It is so good to be back in health after last weeks sickness. Seriously, I thought my head was going to explode. Now that I am back in health I have a lot of pictures to share with you and some exciting news!

1 ~ I am so happy to say that I have been nominated for a Home School Blog Award in the Best Photos category. I am humbled and thankful! Can I ask a favor? Can you click HERE and vote for this little blog of mine, I would truly appreciate your daily vote until 12/29.

2 ~ school has been going great. This week we finished up week 15 for Marie and week 14 for the rest of us. I was able to make up work from last week without to much stress with the three youngest. Madison & Marie continued their studies, last week on their own, so I only needed to correct for them. Montana finished book one of her Saxon 2 Math yesterday. That means no math for her until January, She's pretty excited about that!

Madison did misplace the math instructional CD's (both sets) so I have been teaching her the lesson one on one. So far this week it is working smoothly and her comprehension is a lot better. She will need a lot of math in her future studies, so having a firm grasp of Algebra is an important goal for her. Next week we will finish up writing assignments any any tests so that we can start the year fresh come January.

In science club we are learning about the earths crust and making volcano's. I had planned to do some fun extra hands-on projects like a play dough earth layers or a paper mâché earth, but it just never happened. Good thing I will make my way back through this Earth Science curriculum a few more times so we will get to pick up the projects we missed.

Today, we tackled making volcano's with our two groups of girls. The Logic girls were very methodical in construction while the younger grammar girls did a great job on theirs and had a blast. And is there some kind of glue shortage? I searched high and low in my town this morning and only managed to find 3 bottles of glue. The Dollar Tree is my normal go to store for liquid glue when doing paper mâché and they were cleared out. Luckily Mr. M found those three bottles at Big Lots.

3 ~ last Tuesday we received our "big" food co-op order. Huge is more like it. The coordinator actually called and said my order may be too big to get home in one vehicle. Gulp! I knew Mr. M would not be home in time to help this month, so I cut down my order a bit and I am so thankful that I did because our new freezer is JAM-PACKED to the gills! Turns out Mr.m was able to get home early enough to help me and we fit 90% of the order in the van (with the all seats removed except for Micah's).

I can not even think of putting another thing in the garage or inside freezer. We were able to order lots of nutritious foods and juices. I was so thankful to have those juices and foods on Wednesday afternoon when the sickness took ahold of me. My older three girls were able to feed the younger two girls without me worrying. Plus we got three cases of orange juice that I have been guzzling down. The orange juice was especially helpful when I had an extremely sore throat and no appetite to eat and I was still able to nurse Micah.

The best part of our food order is that it is a cash only business and with the help and encouragement of my friend, Valerie, I have been able to cut down my grocery bill by $400 a month! Yes, you read that right. I have saved $400.00 each month since October, dropping my weekly budget to just $100.00 a week for food only for our family of 8! I am excited, and that's saying something considering my love/hate relationship with food and grocery shopping.

4 ~ this week we found out that Mr. M is in zone for promotion, yahoo! So excited for this opportunity and what it will bring for our family and his career. God is good and we are thankful to be in zone. I will keep you posted as we will not know anything until summer 2015. Last week, Mr.M went to the Strike Fighter Ball, a huge deal in our current community, and sat at the table with the XO, CO, and Wing Commodore. He almost didn't go because he felt bad for me being sick, but I am glad he got all dolled up and had a good time. Next year we both will spend the night out on the town all gussied up.

5 ~ last Thursday Madison & Mikayla had the opportunity to rise at the crack of dawn and join their fabulous Girl Scout leader at a local Lockheed Martin Center for Innovation to watch the broadcast of the Orion launch. This was right up my Future astrophysicists/aerospace engineer's alley! Even though the launch was scrubbed, they both had a blast and learned a lot. Madison's favorite part was the space helicopter simulator.

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So, this blog post has you all caught up on life in our side of the world. Next week is Mikayla's first gymnastics meet of the season. Our gym is hosting the meet and it is always a lot of fun. I am excited and looking forward to meet season as well as a brief break in our homeschooling to celebrate Christmas!

linking up at:

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Thursday, December 11, 2014

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Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Homeschool Blog Awards Nominee

What a pleasant surprise to discover this morning that this little blog of mine has been nominated for a Homeschool Blog Awards in the Best Photos Blog category.

This blogger has photographic talent and makes her posts pop with eye-candy. We want to thank those of you who post pictures and graphics that inspire us! The winner of this category will be one that takes her own photos – not someone who only uses stock images.

What an honor, Thank You to whoever nominated me! Head on over HERE and check out the other blogs nominated in this category and give one of us a vote {voting ends 12/29}. Be sure to check out the other 19 categories of blogs while your there!