Saturday, November 24, 2012

My Christmas Decorating has begun!

We've begun decorating our home for Christmas! We put our tree up on Thanksgiving while our delicious turkey was slowly cooking in the oven. We got it up and decorated. We put out most of the decorations but I still have a few projects planned for the couple weeks after the baby comes. These projects are mainly for the kids. I want to be able to spend some time with them after the baby is here and so I have a ton of things planned to celebrate the season! Ill be spending the next week preparing for the new baby and preparing for the weeks ahead. Getting all supplies together and grouped by project and set aside in a bin for then!

My favorite way to decorate my home is in a natural way. I love all things natural when it comes to decorating my home. This means pine cones, cranberries, sticks, leaves and what not. I love it all!

Wanted to share some cute corners in my home and the kids helping decorate..



Sunday, October 28, 2012

Tis the season for cozy drinks...




My husband and I love having our cozy hot drinks when its cold outside. I love a warm seasonal drink and a good book cuddled with a warm blankie on a cold evening or night. I love to try all the warm pumpkin, spicy and apple flavored drinks in fall. I even love warming up some good ole apple cider in the crock pot and sippin it~warms me up!

Thanks to Pinterest, I found lots of very yummy drinks that Ive already tried or Im waiting to try..so many I dont know if I will get them all in this season! Maby mix them into the winter season? :)


Monday, October 22, 2012

Right Now...

Right now I am:

:: Loving watching my family enjoy the change of the seasons, together.

:: Thinking that homemade tomato sauce is a great way to use up the fresh tomatoes
sitting on my counter

:: Planning on joining in on the pumpkin carving fun with my children!

:: LOVE checking out all the amazing Autumn Boards on Pinterest.

:: Enjoying our homeschooling adventures and adding new schedules and routines into
our lives

:: Waiting on our new little one to enter the world so we can love and hold him

:: Prepping for the upcoming season, holidays and new arrival of the baby.


Monday, October 15, 2012

Menu Plan Monday!










Decided to Join in the fun at Orgjunkies blog and post my weekly menu. Boy I have to tell you...after looking through everyones menu from last week. Im absolutely STARVING!
I make out my monthly menus and grocery lists at the beginning of each monrh. It wasnt workign at first but now its working just fine and seems to be going good. SO thats what I will stick to for now.
Anyways...On to the menu...

Monday-
Chicken Ceaser Lasanga

Tuesday-
Kale and Quinoa Soup

Wednesday-
Vegetable and Chic pea Curry with Chicken

Thursday-
Cranberry Pork Loin with Potatoes and root veggies

Friday-
Chicken breast with oven roasted squash and garlic..and a YUMMY dessert! Dahlias 2nd birthday!

Saturday-
Fall vegetables with Lentils

Sunday-
Chicken Artichoke Lasanga and fresh bread and CAKE for dessert! Trentons 9th Birthday!














Monday, September 3, 2012

Why I Love Fall




So..it isnt officially the first day of Fall yet but it sure feels like it. Carter begins his first day at Public school tomorrow. Trenton and I started school over the weekend. The cool nights and warmer days have begun. We have had some chiller days as well. The fall clothes have came out. The leaves are changing color. Its "officially" fall in my eyes!
This is my absolute favorite time of year. Maby it's the leaves falling from the trees. Maby its the amazing colors that come with the season. Here in New York..Fall lasts about 3 months. It makes me so happy. The weather begins to change about the end of Augest and then lasts right up until our first heavy snowfall...right around or after Thanksgiving. We have chilly mornings with amazing warm days and then ending with a chilly evening. So what is it about the season that I love so much? Oh Autumn....let me count the ways..

The Holidays- Love the holidays the occur in fall. Thanksgiving being one of my favorite. I love a table full of happy family and yummy food and not to mention all the pretty decor. Usually we have our own Thanksgiving here but this year I may go to my Mother in laws just because the baby is right around the corner. But Im not sure yet..I might still have it here. Halloween is so much fun too. I love to dress my little ones up and take lots of pictures. I love taking them Trick or Treating and love seeing how excited they get when they get a piece of candy in their bucket


The Colors- It's early yet, but even now you can see a patch of scarlet leaves among the green, or a flame-colored tree as you drive around town. In another week or two the countryside will be ablaze with color, and our roads will be clogged with leaf-peepers. Everybody has some kind of fall decor outside their home and the whole area turns red, orange and yellow within days.

Fall Foods-Oh Goodness. SO many foods to mention. I love Baking..all the fall yumminess..Pumpkin Bread, Apple Pies, Biscuits, Muffins, Plum cake, Pumpkin Pie..Oh gosh...All sounds so good. And not only the Baking but I also get out my Ole trusty crockpot and we eat from it all season long. Things like casseroles, Stews, and soups. I also love the many different ways to use up your garden goodies such as Squash, Sweet Potatoes, Brussell Sprouts, Apples, and root veggies such as Turnips and Beets. Ah im getting Hungry thinkin of all that yummy food!


Pumpkin Patches- Yep it's true. I absolutely ADORE hay rides and corn mazes and fields of orange as far as the eye can see. It was one of my favorite things growing up and as a parent is something I still look forward to all year long.


So yeah those are the things I absolutely love about Fall!





Saturday, August 11, 2012

The Perseid Shower

We are so excited tonite to see the Meteor shower! We are going to get on sweatshirts, lay a blanket down on the deck (hope no skunks join us) and watch the shower! Tonite is suppose to be better than tomarro night. The kids are super excited because this will be the first time to see a meteor shower! They dont know what to expect! But they are definately excited and so is mama! The last time I saw one I was in 8th grade! So its been a while! ooo...its been kinda chilly here at night..maby I will make us all some Hot cocoa! Hope everyone else has a fun time watching the shower!

Thursday, August 9, 2012

BLOGGER HELP!

I havent blogged in FOREVER! So I need some help please.....When I type..it wont recognize spacing..like below everything is all jumbled together. Does anyone know how I fix that? :(

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Our School Plans 2012-2013

Carter is going to public school this year. He did so well that we are letting him go this year again. Even though I dont entirely like the idea.
Trentons staying home this year. He did HORRIBLE last year with a CAPITAL H! Hated going to school everyday and was miserable when he came home. The only thing that improved was his speech. Which he will still be doing this year. His behavior went down hill, his focus went down hill and he overall didnt progress very much at all. So this year we are going to try homeschooling again and see how it works for him.
I have a TON of stuff planned and I am not following a standard curriculum. Trenton will be in third grade this year but he only tests at a Kindergarten/first grade level. He still dont know much of the alphabet and only a few sight words so we will start from there. So far this is what I have planned for him...But Im still planning and right now I am going to take it month by month. We are using more of a relaxed approach and any curriculum listed is just for guidelines really. I have a ton of stuff planned besides what I have listed that I will get into more detail with in another post. We are going to focus ALOT on nature and reading this year...Fairy Tales and Fables. Fun, child based stuff for him..I dont want to in any way PUSH him to do school work..All the years he has been struggling, I hate to make it worse for him.


History- We will be starting with Christopher Columbus and following through to the Revolutionary War or maby even to the Oregon Trails..depending on how fast and easy we can work through this. We will be using Paths of Exploration as a guideline.
I also hope on doing a few unit Studies..Such as Vikings, Medieval Times and maby throw some Indians in there somewhere. These are based on Trenton's interests.



Geography- We will be working on the basics of reading a map..what a map looks like..direction etc. When we are through with that we will study the states (memory) and memorize their capitals. We will also be doing units on things like weather, landforms, etc

Math- I havent found a specific curriculum yet but I saw some really cool workbooks at BJ's I will most likely go back and buy. They were very colorful and had alot of fun things in them. We will be working on math basics this year..NUMBERS..he needs to learn his numbers..he can recite until 100 but he cant write them and cant recognize them when they are wriiten. When he learns them we will then work on simple addition and subtraction. We will also do measuring, weighing, Telling Time, Sorting money and counting and learning what money is, and sorting and patterns.
We will also have Math journals and worksheets to work on and will be using alot of hands on activities with our Math. Trenton learns better visually.

Science- Ive ordered the Mcgraw Hill Science Book. It looks great so we will follow along in this throughout the year. We also will have a science Journal and will do different experiments etc every week and then record them in our Journal. Of course we will have Unit Studies as well..Animal and nature units..Im not 100% fully sure yet. Still planning.

Language, Reading and writing-

Spelling will just be sight words. He will learn to sound out and recognize his sight words. Writing..he will learn to write the WHOLE alphabet, recognize Capital and lowercase letters and write them both. We will use lots of hands on and Handwriting without Tears and Get ready for the code. If he progresses then we will carry on throughout the series.

Once a week (end of the week)we will have a journal entry of some sort. Im not sure what I want to do with this. Id like it to be an art journal..based on what we have learned through out the week. But Im not sure yet..I love to journal and Id like to pass it onto him and see if he would take interest.

Vocab journal..I may do a Vocab journal which is and idea I got from Pinterest. Im not sure though because we do have a few journals running throughout the week. We'll see though how things work out.

Notebooking-We will also be using Notebooking and Lapbooks. Special and certain units and studies we will make and use these.

Reading Eggs..this is a great online website that allows your child to learn and reinforce his reading skills. We also love Star Fall.

Read Alouds-I got a LOAD of Chapter Books we will be reading together.


Nature Study- We will be taking Hikes, going outsie and doing all we can do to learn and feel nature. I just love nature and think its an amazing thing and would love for Trenton to experiance the love for nature as well. We will have Nature Journals and hopefully will be following along in the Challenges from The Outdoor Hour!


I also ran to Bjs the other day and bought a bunch of Brain Quest workbooks. These look like so much fun!

Well. Thats my plans so far for Trenton. I plan on doing preschool work with Rylan (4) and plan on tot school with Hudson (3) and Dahlia (2). FUN FUN YEAR PLANNED AHEAD!



Not Back to School Blog Hop







HELLO!

Ok. So its almost been a year and I haven't wriiten in ages. Im updateing the blog a bit, adding posts from another blog that I started and never finished and compiling everything into one area! Id love to get blogging again..even if its just a couple times a week! Our family has grown so much in a year! We have many birthdays coming up in the next few months and we have another sibling on the way! We are so excited to meet him! Yes I said him!!! :) He will arrive in the beginning of December. The kids are so excited! Ecspecially Rylan and Hudson...they talk to my tummy alot and Rylan calls the baby..Baby RyRy. I will be homeschooling Trenton this year. He didnt do very good in Public school last year so Im going to try to give it another shot and homeschool him. Hoping it will help him better at staying more focused. carter will be going to Public school. He loves it and did great last year! Rylan and Hudson will stay home with mommy and we will do preschool and tot school with Hudson and Dahlia. She is soooo smart and a very fast learner so I will be including her in with Tot School as well!

Shakers~

10/4/2011 So I let the Toddlers stay up until midnight and make shakers! They loved them!




And here they are...SHAKIN :)

Happy 2nd Birthday Hudson!

10/4/2011 HAPPY 2nd Birthday Hudson! My little guy is 2 already. I just cant believe it! He grew so quick :( I feel like it wasnt long ago we had him and brought him home to be a part of our family. Introducing him to his brothers. He is growing right up on us...wont be long and he will be heading into school with his brothers :(
We had a little Party for him today. Not many people came...Grandma new Knee and Papa David were there of course and Aunt Georgi and cousin Giona. Grandma new Knee made the volcano cake..That u adored.









Enjoying his cake! YUMMY! Love u so stinkin much little man :)




Had to share this too. I took this at the party. Daddy and his little girl. I love how Dollys head is tipped to the side...like she is thinking...what is my Daddy doing? LOL

Happy 30th Birthday Daddy!

9/10/2011
We love you tons! You are the best Daddy & Husband EVER!

Clarke Family Reunion

9/11/2011


First Day of School

9/8/2011
Ok. SO they boys first day of school was Tuesday September 6th! Im a little late sharing the first day with everyone because this week has been pretty CRAZY! Anyways. They both loved their class and loved school. I was pretty bummed and cried on the way home. It was a pretty sad day for me :(
Trenton said he cried all his whole bus ride to his school because he didnt get a chance to hug and kiss me goodbye. What a mommy's boy!
Anyways...my little boys missed these 2 like CRAZY while they were gone. We start our days fresh on monday !!!

Happy 3rd birthday Rylan!

8/27/2011

Friday was Rylan's birthday! He turned 3 years old! I cant believe how fast the time goes by! I cant believe that he is 3 already!!!! I remember when he was a tiny itty bitty baby. He used to sleep on me all night and all day...any time he slept. It was on my belly! We cuddled all the time and we were just so close. We still are very close. He still to this day sleeps with me at night...every night. Hes just a bit bigger thats all.
We had a special cake made for him! It didnt turn out as big or as nice as I imagined but he loved it and thats all that mattered.






HAPPY BIRTHDAY RY RY! WE LOVE U VERY VERY MUCH!

School and other news!

8/27/2011 Ah...SO We decided to stick the big boys into public school this year :( This makes me sad. I really had the dream of homeschooling my boys but it just didnt work out. Things just didnt go as planned. So Only 11 more days until school starts. It will be me and the 3 little ones at home all day for 7 hours...I have made plans to work with my 3 yr old..like preschool. He is so smart already and Id really love to help him advance. So...Still lots of schooling and adventure here...just focusing on the younger children now. And other news...Hubby and I have decided to start trying to conceive for our 6th child. WISH US LUCK!

A Day At the Lake

7/28/2011 We decided to pack a picnic today and head out to the Lake! The kids had tons of fun! They swam and swam, and played on the beach, and played on the playground and they even chased a flock of HUGE Geese. They were so big...I swear Rylan could have rode one! It was a greatd day to go. It was great weather and just the right temp down by the lake!













Everyone having fun!




Hudson Loooved the water! He was awful brave...sticking his whole head under water. Wasnt soon enough and he knew he had to hold his breath!






EVERYONE had a great time!