"Holiday Hallway" Project

Hello Friends!
Just zipping past with a quick craft for the 'no big holiday' months of January and February. I have this lovely little hallway at the front of my house and I've claimed it as the 'holiday hallway' since hubster doesn't care for my 'clutter', I mean decorating attempts. So since we've arrived last spring, it's been adorned with our Summer Reading Challenge posters, spent a while dressed up for fall, and most recently was a wintry blizzard full of snowflakes. I had intended to leave the snow up all winter, but a certain someone declared with CHRISTMAS decorations and helpfully took them down for me. *ahem, thank you* So I now have a bare hallway that is NEEDING some attention. I've got two long pieces of twine strung along the walls and plenty of mini-clothes pins to hang things on, so it's just a matter of picking a topic. After perusing my calendar for upcoming holidays, I decided that I'd do a multi-holiday theme for the rest of the winter. Those holidays include more snowflakes, hearts for Valentine's Day, President silhouettes and quotes plus national and state flags for President's Day, and "I have a dream" Dream Clouds for Martin Luther King Day where they will fill in their dreams for the world. To some it might be a bit jumbled looking, but I'm excited about it.
I've got a house full today with Jodi's 2 boys here to join my 3, so once nap time is over for the littles, we will be gathering around the craft table with scissors, glue and crayons to enjoy some creative time together.
If you are interested, I printed things from these pages.
Flags~ http://www.free-printable-flags.com/ and http://www.freeprintablecoloringpages.net/category/State_Flags
Hearts~ http://homeschooled-kids.com/valentinesdayhearttemplate.html
Clouds~ http://www.edupics.com/coloring-page-cloud-i22857.html
President Silhouttes~ http://kidscraftzone.com/category/Presidents-Day-Crafts.aspx

Thanks for joining us. I'll be adding a few more pics once we are finished with our craft.

Homeschooling Room Re-Do

Homeschool Room Re-Do

I am so excited to share this post with you! The first weekend in Sept (yes, I know it's November) Dan went out of town to pick up Patrick who had been spending a few weeks in IL with my parents. I asked my sister Karen to watch David and Derek for a few days so I could have a much needed break from parenting, homeschooling, being the mama taxi and meeting the needs of my husband and family. (hey, everyone needs a break now and then) I made my lists, prioritized them, started over, made more lists, made more lists and MORE lists, and before long, I had way more planned than I could get done in a MONTH alone. So I settled on one large project and made it my focus. Our school room had been needing "something" for a while. It was crowded, cluttery, disorganized and discouraging to be in for any length of time. "Something" needed to be done. So I endevoured to do that particular something. *winks*
Once all of the Man Crew was off to their adventures without me, I settled in with some music, some snacks, a new Gaither DVD, and my camera. I'm sure I annoyed everyone on my FB friends list by posting every 5 minutes for a few hours. I am not used to being alone (as in, it's been 10 years since I've been alone for more than a few hours~ seriously) so once I got the hang of that, I got down to business. I started with the pre-requisite BEFORE pictures that looks like this *cringe*

I hope this is a No Judgement Zone :) I know. Clutter clutter clutter. Anywho, after that, I just scooped up every single thing in the room and drug it to the LR. I piled all the papers, and books, and games, and manipulatives on the couch, chairs and floor and started going through every single thing. THAT took 2 full days. It was slow going but so worth doing. I pulled almost 1/2 of the things out to either be put into storage (boys old school papers and projects) sold on eBay or to homeschooling friends, or just be tossed, tossed, tossed. It felt GOOD! I cleaned the room, the furniture and the walls. I also rearranged so that the room was more open and airy. So, here is the fruit of my labors. 3 days well spent in my opinion. The boys are able to find all of their things at a moment's notice. Plenty of things went to other families to bless them. The room is clean and useable, we almost never have to LOOK for somewhere to sit down our papers these days, and that's ALWAYS a good thing!

Oh, and we even finally had room for all my encouraging posters, informative reminders and seasonal decorations.

I know, I'm a super dork to get so excited about a clean and well organized space, but I'm ok with that. :) Being able to effectively corral our homeschooling 'schtuff' has always eluded me, so it's a big deal. LOL
Blessings, ~K~

Homeschooling Play Day at the Park

 A fun day at the park. As one of those fun homeschooling perks, we can just cancel school and head to the park when the mood strikes. Swinging, swordplay and Sonic. Life is good! The boys had a ball!

Hmmm, some of those aren't as good as I had hoped! Well, it serves them right for not cooperating. I'm posting them anyway. Ha ha ha!

Meet the MeYeR's "Greetings from New Mexico!"

This is all of us at Josh and Lauren's wedding. From left: Dan holding Derek, Josh and Lauren, David in front of Josh, Pat and then me


Hey everyone! I'm Kristy...your average ordinary homeschooling mama. I've been married to the wonderful Mr Dan (aka Hercules or the Love Monkey) for 13 years now and it's been quite an adventure. So adding lots of boys to the mix should keep things from getting boring, right?? We are a regular Plumfield around here (think of the books, Jo's Boys and Little Men) Boys, animals and mayhem abound night and day. In our 'collection' we have 3 biological sons, David 12, Patrick 11 in 2 weeks and Derek 4. We also have Joshua who is 21, grown and married but still frequents the house. (Long story short, Joshua belongs to us...but he's not our child) Over the years, we've had many boys that needed a home for a short time that have stayed with us or only went home to shower and change...they are referred to here as the lost boys. We also have 2 dogs, a cat, a turtle, 2 lizards, a HUGE tank of fish and most recently, a tarantula (that we caught IN the house) LOL~ Have I mentioned yet that we aren't bored?? And up until 3 days ago, my sister, brother in law and 2 nephews and their dog lived here too. Oh my, we do sound crazy in black and white!


Anywho, back to the homeschooling part. We choose to home school NOT because we think that Public school is bad, just that it isn't for us. We've tried it..and it was a poor fit for our family, one child in particular. So for our particular journey we've been homeschooling for 8 years now. D and P both started at home, then went to PS for 2 years (D for 3rd and 4th, P for 1st and 2nd) but it was time for them to come back home and we've been here ever since. D is now in 7th, P is in 5th and Derek is starting pre-K and loving it. We started out VERY rigidly, with charts, lessons planned MONTHS in advance, and everything had to be done at a desk at the 'correct' time. Oh my...what a control freak I was ; ) As the years have rolled on, children have been added to our home, cross country moves, living with other families...I've learned to roll with the punches and have relax quite a bit. Do I still plan? YES! Do I still use a set curriculum? Yes, but I've learned that it's ok to Dr the plans a bit, add to the plans, OR take away from them. Or (gasp!) even toss them all together and start from scratch. Do I still like things done a certain way? YES! Do those things happen?? Not generally...ha ha ha! And that's the "glory of home school"~ if it doesn't get done today, that lesson will still be there tomorrow. For our method. "ISH"...that's a word at our house ; ) It means sorta, kinda, maybe, err, well maybe not. Officially, we are school at home, boxed curriculum kind of schoolers...but we are branching out into lap books, unit studies, do TONS of reading and most recently have thrown our schedule out the window completely. Dan is only working 4 days a week this past year and so we try to get out official studies done in that time frame. Now that sister moved out, half of our school will be done in 2 afternoons a week. So on any given day, you might find us sitting at desks in front of the chalkboard, watching an educational video, calling Grandma with an oral report, out for a field trip, baking in the kitchen or cozied up in a big chair with a pile of books. Life is an adventure. Home school is an extension of that adventure. Come join us as we enjoy living, loving and learning at home.


Kristy