Today's prayer request: West Texas is still on fire. The wind is outrageous, and I can't even remember when we last had rain.

Lowe's grocery store has Minute Rice Ready Rice packages of two on sale for $1.79ea. A dear friend gave me some coupons. One coupon was for $1.00/2 and the others were for .50/1. I used all of them. To my surprise, the 50 cent coupons were doubled, so I got each package for 79 cents. When I came home, I opened one package to heat up for the Princesses, and there was another 50 cent coupon! I opened every package, cut out the coupons, and went back to Lowe's for more. Hootie hoo! Of course, I can repeat this cycle again tomorrow, with the 50 cent coupons that I just acquired from the second trip. My kids will love these, and I have a baby niece coming to visit this weekend that will like to snack on them as well.

Most of you, as homeschoolers, are working on wrapping up this school year. We don't plan on stopping for the Summer, but we are finishing up a couple of things. For example, Abbey is doing her makeup work for math. This is her chance to practice and retake certain areas that she didn't do well on the first go around. Melody is working out of Contemporary's GED Short Course book, which is serving as an amazing review for material that she has been working with throughout the year. She won't get a GED for homeschool graduation, but I will give her a sample GED test for the sake of the scores in each subject to put in her files.

We are almost finished with our book about the men that signed the Declaration of Independence, and have made it to the middle of Great Expectations. Great Expectations is so good, that the girls often ask me to continue reading. Hopefully, when we finish the book, we will be able to find a movie to round out that lesson.

Baby Tarja is learning her ABC's and 123's via Mobigo and Youtube. She also loves to have stories read to her, and tends to get jealous when I'm reading lessons to Melody and Abbey. I taught colors and numbers to Melody and Abbey by playing UNO. Maybe it is time to break out the UNO cards for Tarja. I love our little homeschool!

Tide Stain Release In Wash Booster

I was fortunate enough to be one of the ladies chosen to take the Tide Stain Release Challenge.

First of all, it has recently dawned on me that our clothes don't often have stains. This could be due to some OCD type behavior on my part. The worst example being that all of my babies learned very, very early to wipe their faces after every bite of baby food. Picture a six month old expertly swiping her tiny mouth with a napkin, and you will either laugh or shake your finger at me.

At any rate, the item that seems to defy me every day is the white sock. White socks are their own breed of laundry. Sometimes I wonder if white socks would get dirty even if we never wore them? That sounds like a good homeschool science experiment.

I began to take notice of the white socks before and after using Tide Stain Release In Wash Booster, and discovered that even my husband's work socks are noticeably whiter than they were before. Therefore, Tide has lived up to their promises once again.

Easter Fun

We have a little children's group at church, and I got the blessing of being able to choose the song that they sang for Easter Sunday. "Celebrate Jesus Celebrate" was the most obvious choice, because it's my favorite, AND it's about the resurrection.

My brother in law's family stayed the weekend, and we had barbeque two days in a row. My favorite!

I taught my brother in law's wife how to make tie dyed eggs They are so easy to do, and when you peel the eggs, the whites are just as pretty as the outside shells were. Our deviled eggs were beautiful.

On both Saturday and Sunday, we took the kids to the park so that they could expend some of their energy. It worked like a charm, because no child had to be asked to go to bed at a decent hour, and the Easter bunny was generous.

Of course, I have to leave this holiday with a little bit of coupon spice. I always give my children something for Easter. This Easter, they received a whole bunch of Snickers eggs that were free from recent Walgreens/coupon deals. At HEB, I bought Tarja a neat wheelbarrow. With the purchase of the wheelbarrow, I got free plastic eggs (which I filled with pennies), free Easter grass, a pretty stuffed lamb, and a chocolate bunny. I bought food coloring instead of an egg decorating kit, because food coloring can be used all year for different projects, whereas the Easter egg kit would be trash after the holiday. My guests helped with meat for the BBQ, and the side dishes and snacks all came from my ever growing stockpile. As careful as I have always tried to be with money, I believe that this holiday can go down as one of my most successful, because of all of the fun that we had, and the little expense that it took to make it great.

Covergirl NatureLuxe

How many of my readers love makeup? Makeup and I have been two peas in a pod since about the 6th grade. As a Bzzagent, I am anxiously awaiting my Covergirl NatureLuxe kit to arrive so that I can try this product. It being Covergirl, I know that I will love it, but so that I can get the Bzzz out to my friends and family, these are the results that I am expecting from this new product.


• 3 out of 4 professional make-up artists would recommend the new
COVERGIRL NatureLuxe Collection to their clients
• 8 out of 10 professional make-up artists agree NatureLuxe Silk Foundation
provides flawless coverage and a light, luxurious feel
• 9 out of 10 make-up artists would recommend NatureLuxe Gloss Balm to
clients for a sheer color with a non-sticky, lightweight feel

As soon as my free sample package arrives, I will try out the Covergirl NatureLuxe and let you know what I think.

Good Friday

We have a lot of company coming over this weekend. I don't have to worry about what to feed them, because my successful coupon trips have supplied us with enough food and supplies. It's amazing!

We have twirling practice this morning to make up for one that was cancelled due to our crazy, West Texas winds.

My husband is off work this weekend. Hootie hoo!

We only have one more week to prepare for Melody's Sweet 16, but I think that everything is just about ready.

Happy Easter!

Princess Awards

Princess Melody and Princess Abbey, as of today, have both completed the requirements to earn their Gold Heritage Award from Youth Patriotism There are too many details to list here, but we have completed a very extensive unit study about the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, with special focus on the signers. One interesting point that we have learned over and over again is that the majority of our founding fathers were homeschooled for one reason or another.

In addition to that, both girls have earned the Active Lifestyle Challenge award for doing things like baton twirling, swimming, walking, and household chores.

Congratulations ladies!

The Truth About Homeschooling

1. Keeping your house clean with all of your children home all day long, every day, is like shoveling sand against the tide.

2. If you are new to homeschooling, you might want to learn how to coupon and shop the sales, because almost all meals will be eaten at home. At least, your kids won't be subjected to school cafeteria food.

3. There will be days when you think that your "on" button is stuck, or that you run in two speeds, "fast" and "faster". However, you have a great deal of control over what activities and chores are most important to you. You are your own boss.

4. You are responsible for all expenses related to homeschooling. BUT, you are in control of those expenses, and can find many ways to homeschool at low or no cost. We started homeschooling without any money at all, and I think that it actually made us better homeschoolers.

5. In reference to number 4, you will still have to pay school taxes, even though your family will benefit nothing from the school for which you support. Keep this in mind when area schools start complaining that homeschoolers cause them to lose funding. The fact is that schools cause homeschoolers to lose funding. I would rather spend those dollars on educating my own children.

6. Homeschool support groups are often disappointing. You may join a few of them, and get a new friend here and there, but don't expect the group to do much together as expected.

7. In reference to number 6, you might get a lot more satisfactory experiences from socializing with your church and scout groups, than with homeschool support groups.

8. There are many, many ways to organize your homeschool. The needs of every family are different. What works for one, might not work for another.

9. My favorite homeschool blog is Hacking High School. I have many favorite homeschool blogs, but this one is extra special, because it is written by a homeschool graduate.