Little Girls' Room Do-Over

Not long ago, I posted about the girls bedroom makeovers.  All in all, their rooms have stayed about the same.  But the little girls' room seemed to become the bane of my existence every week.  It was constantly a mess, no one ever wanted to clean it up and things were getting broken and torn form being stepped on.  It was driving me insane!  A few weeks ago, I decided to take half of the "stuff" that they had and store it in the garage (to rotate out next summer).   Things were STILL constantly a mess.   So yesterday, I decided that today would be spent cleaning house and the little girls' room was my first stop.  As I was cleaning (mainly alone, because Bijou decided to spend this time laying on her back staring at the ceiling), I realized that it was pretty difficult to get toys in and out of the bins on the shelf. 

The only logical solution, of course, was to build a new shelf.  So, that's what I did!  I am going to insert a complaint here.  I love Home Depot, don't get me wrong.  But I was SO annoyed with HD today.  I went in to get wood for the shelf, found the pieces that I needed place neatly above a $5.98 price tag.  The very helpful HD employee even did some comparison pricing for me with a piece twice the size to see if we could cut a cents off the price by just cutting them in half.  We found that it would be about the same price, so I got my four boards.  The very helpful HD employee cut my boards and loaded them into my cart.  I get to the cash register with my plan to spend about $27 on wood and about $4 on nails.  The checkout girls scans the pieces and they are $8.40 a piece!  I mean, it's not a HUGE difference, but it added like $12 - $14 to my total cost!  I was so annoyed...ugh.  Anyway, complaint over...  The shelves were quick and easy to put together and the bins are much more accessible for small people who don't want to work to hard get their toys put away.

More homemade Montessori

So, on occasion the little girls come spend the day with me at work.  They love visiting the school and getting to use the materials.  I try to watch and see what things they enjoy and figure out if I can recreate them at home for little or no money.  Last weekend I made a decanomial.  It's made from craft foam (cheap, $5, and easy to cut).  Ashni (who HATES math) said, as soon as a demonstrated it for her, "Oh, it like multiplication."  I think the universe must have opened up and rained down joy on me!!!  It's like this method is what she has needed (particularly for math) for the last couple of years. 

Tonight I made some insets for Zion and Bijou.  They both love the metal insets at the school, so I decided to make a set from mat board to have here at home.  I traced the set at work to use as templates and the knobs are just wooden beads that are hot glued on.  Total cost of this project $0.

Bijou loves the object boxes at work.  She likes being able to read the words and match them to their object.  I could not imagine having additional tiny objects in the house, so I printed some pictures of objects and labels for her match. 

Today's Bijou-ism

So, I posted a picture a couple of days ago of Bijou sitting proudly with her list of words that she'd spelled with her letter cards.  Unfortunately, I forgot to share the great Bijou-ism that goes along with that picture...

Bijou:  I can spell "as".  A. S.

Me: Very good.  Now can you tell me a sentence using the word as?

Bijou: (looking very thoughtful and serious) Like, pain in the as???

Me: (falls on the flooring laughing)

Okay, so maybe I won't win mom of the year for that one, BUT I did let her know that it was not polite for little girls to say that and gave her the correct use of the word "as".

Goodbye to a friend

The girls pet fish died tonight.  He was their first pet, so everyone was very sad.  I think Jena took it especially hard because she bought him, named him and took care of him the most.  We had a small fish funeral in their bathroom before sending him to the big fish bowl in the sky (think Cosby Show circa 1984).  We'll miss you An.  The dining room won't be the same without you.

Homemade Montessori

So, in my last post before my blogging hiatus, I mentioned that I was going to start working again.  Well, I've been working at a small local Montessori school.  It's a great job and I love it.  I miss being here with the girls for their schooling, but I love Montessori and am really happy to have had the opportunity to take this job.  (I am also happy to have a regular paycheck again.  Yay, income!).  Over the summer, before school officially started here, we had the opportunity to go observe a Montessori school in Memphis.  I was already pretty familiar with the method for preschool (we wanted to send our older girls to Montessori school when we still lived in St. Croix, but we could afford it, so we incorporated a lot of the ideas and materials into our homeschool then and with Bijou and Zion now), but hadn't had the opportunity to see an elementary aged class.  I have to say that I fell in LOVE!!  I wished we lived in Memphis just so we could send our older girls to school there.  BUT, since we don't live in Memphis, I decided to incorporate some of the ideas and materials into our soon-to-be-fourth-and-fifth-graders school day.  The director of the school where I work was gracious enough to give us some of her old materials when her new ones came in.  I was immediately struck by how enthusiastic Ashni was to do pages of subtraction problems using the subtraction strip board (if you follow us, then you'll know that Ashni HATES math).  I really think that Ashni could excel in a program like this (and I think it would take some of the pressure off of my husband who, despite our homeschooling for the last 5 years, is very new to actually having to school the children).

So I guess a new addition to this little blog will be some of the Montessori type materials that I make for the girls to use (because the materials are terribly expensive, and we just can't afford it).  Today, i will leave you with a picture of Bijou making a list of words that she can spell.  She has the attention span of a flea right now, so after about 5 minutes, she was over making words.

Please excuse my husband's giant shoes that I didn't notice until just now...

I told you I'd be back...

I am officially back to blogging. I know, I know, it's been FOREVER! Hopefully there are still a couple of people who still care about what's going on in our little corner of the world. There have been big changes around here.


First and foremost, I am now an official member of the work force again. So, I am up and out everyday at 7:20 (that's in the morning), which is a HUGE change for me. That also means that The Hubs is now handling the bulk of the homeschooling activities. I'm still putting together the lesson plans for the most part, but he is carrying them out. We will be wrapping up 3rd (Ashni)and 4th (Jena) grade in the next few weeks and begin 4th and 5th grade in January. Bijou has learned to read several sight words and can sound out short words on her own. She's very proud.


Jena turned 10 on August 20th. She officially had her last big birthday party. It was rainbow themed and all of her friends came out to celebrate with her.



This is a version of a very complicated sounding cake that Jena saw in a Martha Stewart magazine (a frozen rainbow chiffon cake). My version consists of several flavors of sorbet melted and refrozen in a cake pan in rainbow order, then covered in whipped cream. It looked and tasted awesome! It was a bigger hit than the cupcakes!

I haven't really created much in the way of crafts or art, but I have a couple of portrait commissions waiting in the wings. I did make chocolate souffles several weeks ago. They weren't as difficult as I thought they would be and were delicious. (I think I won Mother of the Year the day after the souffles were made because I let the girls have them for breakfast. I mean, they're mostly eggs, so that makes it okay. Right?).

(they were taller when they first came out of the oven, but I didn't think to take a picture when they first came out)

I will be back...I promise

It seems that I have been put into some sort of communication bubble. My communication with anyone outside of my immediate four walls has become nil. I will regain the ability to communicate with the outside world soon. It feels like my connections to the outside world have gotten shakier and shakier over the last year, until is has faded away to nothing. But I promise I will be back.

For now, a tiny update. We are half way through our 3rd and 4th grade school year (WOO HOO). Next year I hope to be working, so that was add an entirely new dynamic to the whole home schooling thing. Jena is participating in a dance workshop this week. She will spend 8 hours a day immersed in dance. She has also asked to play soccer this year. Team sports are a new addition to our household. Ashni has decided that she wants to take Taikwondo and will hopefully be taking part in a theater workshop. All the girls are taking swim lessons again this summer. Jena is the only official swimmer, though. On the "making stuff" front, I took the little kids' cardboard playhouse that I made last summer and cut it down so that it can be assembled and disassembled in their room (pictures to be posted at a later date).