Saturday we went strawberry picking with friends.

Claire taught Caleb how to ride his tricycle. They were both so proud.

After working very hard Kevin completed his chicken coop tractor.

We will be adding 5 new hens to our backyard chicken brood.

We spent lots of time just having fun.

Playing in the sprinkler, enjoying a cookout with new friends and family, ice cream treats, and turning cartwheels!

It was wonderful to enjoy the weekend with family and friends

None of this would have been possible if not for the sacrifices soldiers have made, so that we could enjoy moments like these in FREEDOM.

It’s the most wonderful time of the of the year…

Yard Sale Season!

Every spring my mother-in-law and I LOVE to go “yardsaleing”(which I think should be added to Webster’s Dictionary!).  We love finding a bargain, we love the treasure hunt, and we love to just hang out together.  I know, I’ve said it before, I am so blessed to adore my mother-in-law.  She is a wonderful second mom to me and “Super  Mimi” to our children!  Ok, back to our yard sale adventures…

Since we will be homeschooling starting this summer, I have been stocking up on books for our family library as well as looking for any toys, games or curriculum for our classroom.  I have had GREAT success so far this year!  If you haven’t searched at your local yard sales for Homeschool items, you might be surprised at what you’re able to find!   To encourage you even more I’m sharing 5 tips to prepare you for the hunt!

5 Tips For Finding Frugal Homeschool Supplies at a Yard Sale:

1. Know what you are looking for.

2. Be ready to hunt.

3. Go to a development/neighborhood sale.

4. When you find a great yard sale, make a note! 

5. You never know where you’ll find the treasure!

6. BONUS: Library Book Sales!!!

So what can I really find at a yard sale for my homeschool?

Here are just a few of our recent yard sale treasures!

• This Montessori Clock was a bargain for $2.00!

• Reference books are always a great find!

• Books ($0.25 each!)
• The Children’s Illustrated Bible (Retail approx. : $15)
• The Kingfisher Illustrated Encuclopedia of Animals (Retail approx. : $8)
• Scholastic Children’s Dictionary (Retail approx. : $9)
• We have been able to add dozens of books to our family library without spending much money!

MY Awesome find this year has to be the Primer Teacher’s Guide and CD for Math-U-See, an excellent math program that we were hoping to use this year!  the DVD and Teacher’s Guide retails for $30.00 on their site (and worth every dime).  I was able to purchase it for just $10!

Can you say “SCORE!!!”   I was planning on ordering it the next week! Saved $20 plus shipping!!  I still ordered the student book and blocks but it was great to save $20! 

Pattern Blocks and Cards ($1.00 – They retail for over $30!)

• Manipulatives (ABC magnetic squares, ABC chips, Magnetic shapes, Paper shapes, etc) ($0.10 – $0.50/ set!)
• Chalkboards and mini white boards (perfect for handwriting practice!) ($0.25 – $0.50 each)

Have you found any great deals at local yard sales? What are your tricks for finding a real ‘treasure’?  I would love to add your tips to this article, leave a comment below!

 

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I have seen the Child Training Bible ( CTB ) popping up online for a while and it really grabbed my attention.  Like many parents we’ve struggled with how to properly discipline our children.  I don’t want our children to grow up thinking that mom and dad just make up the rules and have no solid reason for our expectations.  That’s where the CTB comes in.

What is the Child Training Bible?

The CTB was created by Mindy Dunn to be used by parents as a easy way to look up scriptures that relate to certain discipline issues. Anger, Lying, Jealousy, Tattletaling, Making Excuses and Not Listening are just a few of the 20 topics included in the CTB.

Here’s what a completed CTB looks Like:

The Child Training Bible Kit that I received included: ($9.00 value)

• A Key
• 3 Easy Tabbers (the tabbers include a list of scripture and questions that you can discuss with your children)

In addition to this I purchased:

• A 9×6 Bible

I used The NIV Adventure Bible which was the best option I could find. Unfortunately I had to trim the Key in order for it to fit correctly.

** I would recommend buying the Classic Pew Bible that is suggested (pictured below).

This way you don’t have to trim the Key for it to fit.

• Post-it Tabs: You will need 8 different colors

• Highlighters:  I had a set of Crayola Twistables Crayons that I used to do the highlighting in our bible.  I originally purchased the Sharpie Highlighters that were recommended but I just couldn’t justify the $9 price tag, so back to Target they went!  The crayons worked great.  They did not bleed through and it was easy to read through the markings.

This is what the inside of the bible looks like when you’re done tabbing and highlighting:

What I loved:

• A quick Reference- The CTB gives us a quick way to share scriptures with the children when they are struggling to behave.
• I loved putting it together – Reading through the scriptures while I highlighted and tabbed each page was a great way for me to be reminded what the bible has to say about attitudes and behaviors that even I struggle with.
• We’ve been using it - I’ve taken out the CTB at least 3 times each week (I’m trying to make it a habit).  Our 5 year old might not completely understand some of the scriptures, but it’s a great example for her to see me grabbing the bible and using it as our guide.

What could be better:

• Size - It was VERY difficult to find a Bible that the Key fit properly in.  It would be great if the Key was about 1/2 inch smaller. A smaller key would have allowed us to choose the ideal bible for our family.  The larger size Key page limited us to only a few versions and styles. We would have preferred to use the New International Reader’s Version for our young children.

Our Overall Opinion:

We love it!  Such a great concept and we’re happy to have a CTB to use with our family.  It has become a KEY tool that we will continue to use with our children for years to come.

Child Training Bible Giveaway!

Would you like a CTB for your family?  Thanks to Mindy at ChildTrainingBible.com we are giving away a Child Training Bible Chart Set. Follow the rafflecopter instructions for a chance to win one of these kits!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Want more chances to win?

• Jennifer is also sharing her review and a giveaway over at her site, so be sure to pop over and enter!

**You can also purchase a Child Training Bible on The Training Bible Site

Disclosure:  Child Training Bible.com has not paid me for this post. They have, however, provided me with the CTB kit to review. All reviews and opinions are my own. I value honesty and integrity and you can be assured that all opinions are my own. I will not recommend a product that I do not fully endorse.  This post contains affiliate links if you make a purchase using one of these links I might earn a small commission, so click away!! For more info you can read my Disclosure page. 

“Hi My name is Donna.”

“Hi Donna”

“I’m addicted to Pinterest”

I know I’m not alone in my love for Pinterest. It is, after all, a great way to find great inspiration and organize all of the ideas you find online.  Today I wanted to show you how to get the most out of your Pinterest boards and how to share specific Pinterest Boards with friends.

Why would I want to share an individual Pinterest board?

Collaboration- Are you planning a party, wedding, or other event with other people. Pinterest is a great way to collect and share your ideas.

Wish lists - I think Pinterest is another great way to start a wish list – for yourself, your spouse or your children. You can pin images from nearly any website and add the item to your “wish list”.  I’ve even found gifts for friends by sneaking around their Pinterest boards and finding something on their “Want it” board and ordering it for them.

Collections – One of the more common reasons to share a board is to share you collection of a specific topic.  Some examples might include:  ”Gluten Free Recipes” ~  ”Homeschool Ideas” ~  ”Living Room Decor”

How do I share an individual Pinterest board?

• To see all of your Pinterest Boards simply log in and click on your name on the top right corner.
• A drop-down box will appear.
• Click on Boards.

• All of your boards will now appear. (See screenshot below)

Each Board Shows you a sample of 5 images from your Board so you can quickly glance over your images and know what board you are looking at.

• Click on the board that you want to share.
• Once your Pinterest board appears you will see that the URL for your individual Pinterest Board is in the address bar.
• This is the link you can share with others:

Bloggers this is a great way to share links to a specific Pinterest board with your readers.

Are you a homeschooler?  Do you have a homeschool Board on Pinterest where you’ve been collecting great ideas for your homeschool? Click here and share your Board on the Homeschool Pinterest Boards Link-up!

When we decided to start this homeschool journey I had a lot of preconceptions. I expected to have to spend hours each day teaching my kindergartner. I prepared myself for the backlash that I would receive from friends and family. I imagined piles of books and curriculum and following a strict schedule.

As time goes by and I continue to prepare for our first year as homeschool parents.  Many wise woman have shared their thoughts, advice and concerns with me.  I’ve taken each comment into consideration.  I appreciate their advice, I hope they continue to share their wisdom with me!  I’ve spent lots of time praying about their concerns.  What I know for certain now is that:

• Every Homeschool family functions differently.
• Every Homeschool Mom has a different style of teaching.
• Homeschooling is not a cookie cutter job.

I’ve been encouraged to avoid curriculum, to focus on reading, hands-on-learning, allowing my kindergartner to have fun and experience education in a non-structured manner. This advice is great!  Unfortunately it is not for me.  I’ve prayed, considered and discussed this with my husband and I know myself pretty well.

I, the teacher, need structure.

The homeschool mom down the street may not need step-by-step instructions. I do. I NEED curriculum so I have boundaries, goals and direction. That is just my personality.  I’m learning that all homeschool families need to do what fits their family best.  As a work at home mom I need to have clear boundaries on my time.  My clients need to know that I’m doing their work.  My family, my #1 priority, needs to know that I’m making time for homeschooling, homemaking, and family time.

Some things that I took into consideration when deciding about a curriculum for this coming year were:

Faith - A faith based curriculum is key.  That is why we are homeschooling, so we can disciple our children and give them a strong foundation.

Family – How will this curriculum fit into our family?  Is it a good fit?  We travel out of state several times a year, is the curriculum easy to transport so we can bring it with us?

Cost – Like most families the cost of the curriculum is a factor for us.  We needed to find a curriculum that we can afford.  We want to have money left over to add in extra curricular activities for our children like music, art or dance lessons.

Prep time – I work from home and it is important to me to be sure that I continue to give my clients excellent assistance.  I don’t want to spend hours each week preparing materials for the upcoming week.  It just won’t work for us right now.  I need a curriculum that I can pull out and jump right in!

Fun –  Especially because this is our first year homeschooling I want it to be a fun year.  I want our daughter to fall in love with learning.  I want to create memories as a family and foster an environment of fun and learning in our home.

Teaching style – Like I mentioned above, I know what I need as a teacher, and that is structure.  I need a program that will give me instructions, deadlines and goals to meet.

Are you considering homeschooling next year?  Are you overwhelmed?  I know the feeling, just remember that although you will receive heaps of advice, you need to make decisions that best fit your family.

Me, I’m a curriculum girl.  I need a little bit of hand-holding, I need accountability.  You?  You  may be an “un-schooler”, you may love the Classical model and spend hours each day teaching.  See, were all different, and that’s the beauty of homeschooling – we have the opportunity to choose what is best for our family!

How did you decide if curriculum is right for you?  Do you follow a more relaxed method of homeschool for your young learners. I would love to hear what influenced your decision!  Share your thoughts in the comments below!  Like I said above I hope my dear homeschooling friends will continue to share their bits of knowledge with me even if I don’t decide to do the same. I love hearing your tips!

Image Credit: Albertogp123

If you have not read part 1 of “I’ve Had a Messed Up Heart’ you can read it HERE.

During the 2:1 Conference many woman shared about home, marriage, homeschooling and blogging.  I have pages and pages of notes. I was beyond encouraged!

Heidi St. John, a homeschool mom of 7 shared “The Busy Mom’s Guide To Time Management”.  I think a better title would have been, “Donna, get your priorities in order” because every word out of her mouth could have been shared with me over a cup of coffee.  I felt like I may have been gifted this wonderful opportunity to go to the 2:1 Conference just to hear Heidi speak.

Here are just a few snippets from my notes:

If Satan can take out the marriage he can get to your kids much easier

Your kids are watching

        When you deal with conflict in a good way your children see

Our children are our primary ministry” (not my blog, church ministry, etc)

The goal of education is discipleship!

It’s not Time management it’s ME  management

1. Spiritual life comes 1st.  1st priority. 1st thing each day. It is non-negotiable.

2. My husband comes before the children.

3. My children are watching me.

So God’s working on my heart. My life might look and sound different that it has in the past and that’s ok. I’m changing my priorities and it’s for my family! This messed up heart is getting some attention!

I have so much more to share about the conference, I am super encouraged and hopeful for what is ahead for our marriage, family and homeschooling.  Thanks for coming along on the journey.  I’ll be doing much more “Keeping it Real…” in the future!

My blog tagline is “Keeping the Home While Keeping it Real” well I’m going to get a little real here… I’ve been struggling.  Name an area of your life:  home, children, marriage, spiritual, financial, health, emotional…. I’ve been struggling in them all.

Like many mom’s, I have been able to keep it together. I can get my house cleaned before guests arrive, I do my makeup and hair before I leave the house, I even blog about my recent organizing projects, recipes and homeschooling plans. But if I’m going to be real and honest with you, like my tagline suggests; I’ve been a mess on the inside.

I can’t pin a specific time when it started, but it’s been snowballing…

The anxiety, depression, stress and sadness.

Something was wrong. Very wrong… in my heart.

For a long time I’ve assumed that the unorganized house was causing the anxiety,

I’ve assumed that my critical habits as a wife were causing the depression,

My busy schedule, work-from-home life, and over-commitments were causing the stress,

And my desire for a better life was causing the sadness…

The reality is:

The state of my heart was the CAUSE.

My unorganized house, critical attitude toward my husband, feeling overwhelmed and wanting something different?  Those were just the SYMPTOMS of a messed up heart.

Sounds pretty hopeless, huh?

Luckily it is not. Thankfully God found a way to show me what was wrong.

**Come back tomorrow for the rest of “I’ve Had A Messed Up Heart”.  I’m excited to share part 2 of my story.**

In just 2 days I’ll be headed to Sterling Virginia to the 2:1 Conference!

The 2:1 Conference is a conference for bloggers and homeschooling moms, and beginning this summer I will be both!  I was given a ticket to the conference by an anonymous donor. { Thank you!!! }

I can’t tell you how much I need a weekend away and how much I hope to learn!  I have a feeling I’ll be surrounded by many veteran homeschool moms and I’ll be taking lots of notes!

As for the future of Hey, Donna, I hope to include our homeschool adventures here on the blog!  Claire will be starting kindergarten this year and we will be using My Father’s World curriculum.  We may add more curriculum to our schooling down the road but I’m hoping to keep it simple, so I can balance home, schooling, family and working from home!

Some topics that I’ll be adding to Hey, Donna are:

• Work-at-Home Mom Tips
• My Father’s World Curriculum Ideas
• General Homeschool ideas
• Homeschool resources
• Homeschool curriculum Reviews and Giveaways (please contact me if you would like me to review your product)

I also hope to continue to share homemaking, organizing and family life tips and stories. You will get a glimpse into our home, my work-at-home life, our homeschooling and how we will try to make it all work!

Thanks for coming along for the journey. I’ll be sure to keep it all real along the way!

If you haven’t already you can easily subscribe to receive all new posts in your inbox by clicking HERE or if you use an RSS feed reader (Like Goole Reader) you can subscribe HERE.

Our children have been sharing a bedroom for about 8 months now.  We first moved them into the same room when my mother moved in back in July and they have been sharing a room ever since. When my mother moved out last month, we made the decision to  keep them in the same room.  The love sharing a room so we didn’t see any good reason to switch them around again.

In order to create more open space in the room I had this grand idea to get rid of the dressers.  Claire had an old 1970′s dresser that was big and bulky and Caleb was still using his changing table/dresser.  We needed more storage for their clothing and I wanted them to have easy access to their own clothes so they can get dressed by themselves and help put away their clean clothing.

My solution:  Get rid of the dressers and make the large closet a “kids closet”.

This is the closet with all it’s clutter

Empty Closet – Clean Slate!

The organized kids closet finished:

TaDa!

We are so thrilled with how it came out.

Here’s a closer look.

Pj’s, Underwear and Sweatshirts. Shoes and Bed Sheets are stored on the floor. I love that this new setup allows Claire to help me put away laundry, and she loves to help!

I found this cute organizer w/ mirror at Target on clearance for just a few dollars. It is perfect to keep all of Claire’s fun , jewelry and hair bows. Calebs ties are also stored at the bottom. I’m surprised how well it worked out. I still need to find a better way to hang it up but it works for now!  The kids also have a “bucket” for their socks.  These buckets are actually little hanging planters from Target.

Hanging clothes above 3 drawer storage containers. Our “Play Clothes” are for outside play. Dirty playtime. We keep ripped jeans, stained shirts and even some almost-outgrown clothes and use those outfits for play clothes. This way I don’t have to worry about the kids ruining their nicer clothes and I can let them get a little messy without having to scrub out stains!  Every home needs a Mix & Match Sock bin, this is where those lost socks end up.

Here’s what the room looked like before:

The dresser was covered in random stuff!  That’s the problem with me and flat services… they are just calling to be covered with crap!

And here is the room after (We will need to move the changing table/dresser out)

We are loving our new set up and it’s nice to finally have the closet cleared out and to finally use the closet more efficiently.

Most of the items that were in the closet have since been organized in the attic.  We were able to donate or throw away a lot too.  The rest, well… our “spare room” is now a mess!  We’ll be tackling this mess next!

Today I’m linking up over at Simple Mom for her Project Simplify!

As the weather gets warmer I’m looking forward to breaking out our popsicle maker and whipping up cool snacks for the kids this summer.  This week I found out that one of my popsicle recipes was featured over at TipNut.com!

They have compiled a huge list of Popsicle recipes, sorted by flavor. It’s a great resource for summer snack ideas!  Be sure to  stop over and check it out!

My Blueberry Greek Yogurt recipe is featured in the “Blueberry” category.

We will be keeping this list handy for the summer!  What’s your favorite popsicle?  I’m keen on the traditional fudge, but I think I’ll try whipping up some Nutella pops this summer! Mmmm Nutella….