Thrift Schooling

What a week. What a Christmas. We live several states away from family so visiting them for Christmas does not happen every year. Actually, we started a tradition back when we first started having kids that we would go up and visit every other year. This was one of our years to stay home. Sigh. We've started our own traditions here on the home front, so it was nice to be in our own home on Christmas morning.  As far as homeschooling- we took a break this week and look forward to getting back into the swing of things after the New Year. I had planned to take it easy (as much as you can with both an infant and toddler to take care of!) this week and had *planned* to schedule the next few months of school. It's the end of the week now, and I only have January planned! But, to be honest, that's okay with me. Things change so fast around here that planning one month in advance is plenty.  Image used under license from Freestock.com I took a different approach this ti...

Normally, this would be the time of year that I would share my "blog" year in review- but that would be boring since I took most of the year off due to a new baby in the house!! I honestly was not sure if I was even going to start back up blogging again because of the commitment involved but to be honest, I missed it and so did my family, hubby included! Blogging opens up opportunities that we wouldn't have otherwise, especially as a large family. I only blogged a few months this year but even in those short months I was able to host three amazing giveaways AND visit the Carolina Renaissance Festival AND review several products. Blogging is NOT just simply sharing your thoughts on the web- though that is a part of it. There is sooooo much that goes on behind the scenes that many people don't even realize.  Instead of sharing a year in review for Thrift Schooling, I will share several of our family's highlights of 2017! Mother's Day  We spent...

1- Prepare Ahead My older two boys are my pie guys. Seriously. When they are bored (and craving a sweet treat) they ask if they can make a pie. Usually they lean towards the apple variety but this time of year, pumpkin pies have been known to arrive on the scene. Now, my boys are only nine and ten but they can make some pretty good pies, and since I'm of the thrifty variety and don't buy pre-made pie crust (or pre-made anything, really) they have had to learn through trial and error how to make their own crust. And even their own pumpkin filling from the pumpkins we had sitting out on the porch in the fall! Even though letting a nine and ten year old go at it in the kitchen might stress some people out, it is actually a blessing for me.  The first week of December I gave them a mission: to make several pies and freeze them. This way we would have some sort of contribution to bring to covered dish dinners, potlucks and Christmas parties throughout the month. I did NOT ...

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This past week was filled with Christmas wonder. Last weekend we went to the local Christmas Parade. We live in quite a small town so the parades usually don't last that long but with increasing popularity more and more people are becoming interested in joining in on the fun.  This year the parade lasted 40 minutes!  Chock full of candy, the streets were lined with unclaimed goodies as we left- there was waaaay more candy than kids this year- the last parade we went to was the complete opposite- between three of my kids, only 6 pieces were collected.  This year we had more candy than we knew what to do with- soooo, we used the candy to decorate their gingerbread houses- and there was still plenty of candy to spare after they finished their masterpieces! The highlight of the week (besides the fact we've had our first snowfall- good packing snow too!) was the PHCC Patriot Player's Christmas Spectacular . Several of our local homeschoolers were in it...

If you haven't taken your kids panning yet, you need to. I still remember the first time my husband took me panning. Of course we were newly engaged and he wanted to share his love of treasure hunting with me .I was all googly-eye in love with him, everything he did was super amazing- and still is, haha! All these years later, he is still a kid at heart, he loves searching for treasure and now has kids to share his hobby with. Of course they love it too. Whether it's metal detecting, gold panning or searching for shark teeth on the beach all my kids get into it, not just the boys but my daughter too.  Klint, the inventor of the Gold Claw, created a pan so easy to use, even his neighbor kids found gold in it in less than 30 seconds. Here is a video of their first time: If you are new to panning, here is a photo of my son using a traditional gold pan. They are round with ridges in it to catch the gold. You immerse the rocks and dirt in water and swirl it aroun...

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It's still a pleasant surprise when we can enjoy weather in the sixties or seventies this time of year here in the Blue Ridge. I still need to remind myself that I am no longer a northerner, but I'm in the south now and this weather is actually normal around here!  Well, this past week, when the forecast was in the seventies, I piled all five kiddos into the car and hit the park. I think my boys are getting tired of metal detecting our backyard so they were begging for a change of pace. This particular park allows detecting so my boys had their gear in the car faster than I could say, "don't forget to put back your plugs after you dig!" DIG EVERYTHING  My Garrett detectorist (age 9) did NOT pay attention during the last GPAA session on getting to know your metal detector. "Dig everything" was the mantra. Tsk, tsk, this is all he found.  Hey, it's more than what I left the park with that I didn't come in with, which was a crying...