Just One Week Away! The Biggest Digital Homeschooling Curriculum Sale EVER! #homeschool #education #sale

The BIGGEST digital homeschooling curriculum sale EVER is coming!  Mark your calendars! Save up to 92% on popular homeschooling curriculum! ONE WEEK ONLY - July 21-28, 2014! Click here to be reminded | Enter to win $100 towards your bundle purchase What is the "Build Your Bundle" - Homeschool Edition Sale?
The "Build Your Bundle" - Homeschool Edition is designed to contain the best educational digital products on the internet! Sprinkled throughout the bundles are well known publishers, including products on Cathy Duffy's Top 100 list! Unlike overwhelming bundle sales with nearly a hundred ebooks, the "Build Your Bundle" - Homeschool Edition is a brand new concept that will allow homeschoolers to pick and choose what they want to purchase ~ all at a MASSIVE discount of up to 90% off!
Take a Sneek Peek at Our Bundles:
	Tots & Preschoolers Bundle Teach your littlest ones about God's amazing creation and the value of virtue using our Tot & Preschool Bundle! This bundle gives you a complete Christ-centered preschool program, including age-appropriate character-building tools, a stick-figure Bible study, a creation-based coloring book, a handwriting curriculum, an independent activity guide (for those times when you need a moment to focus), and much more!
Kindergarten - 3rd Grade Bundle  Teach your K-3 children basic skills and core truths through easily understandable lessons and hands-on activities. Our K-3 Bundle includes reading, math, science, handwriting, character training and Bible resources. Your children will experience life in 17th century America as they learn about the settlers and our 13 original colonies. You will have everything you need to savor these first days of discovery!
	Elementary: 4-6th Bundle Your 4th-6th graders will develop foundational skills and gain insight into the ancient world using the comprehensive collection of resources found in our 4th-6th Grade Bundle. This bundle features both a science curriculum and a creative writing course from Cathy Duffy’s Top 100 picks. You will get a popular curriculum that has a blend of history, geography, and art. Also included: Math, Bible, handwriting and copywork resources, writing guides, timeline cards, ancient history notebooking pages, creative writing for both boys and girls, and an editable weekly homeschool planner for Mom!
Middle School Bundle Your middle school students will tour the classical world and develop academic excellence using our Middle School Bundle. This bundle features a full language arts curriculum and two science curricula, one from Cathy Duffy’s Top 100 picks, as well as a complete geography and history curriculum, a popular history timeline/book of centuries, Renaissance and Reformation notebooking pages, a classical music curriculum and famous composers notebooking pages, and a creative writing collection that even “non-writers” will love!
	Bundle for High Schoolers Your high school students will develop academic mastery and intellectual maturity using our High School Bundle. This bundle features a New Testament Bible curriculum, an introduction to psychology, a full year of math curriculum, resources for world history and geography, philosophy, home economics, college prep, grammar, a creative writing collection that even "non-writers" will love, an anatomy science unit study from Cathy Duffy’s Top 100 picks, and more! You will receive enough materials for a full year of high school!
Charlotte Mason Bundle Amazing things await you in our Charlotte Mason Bundle! This bundle features a complete curriculum using the Charlotte Mason Methods for language arts, handwriting, and reading, a full geography curriculum, a plethora of resources for studying nature, artists, poetry, and a variety of "extras" just for mom! Learn all about Charlotte Mason and enjoy a special bonus (a $90 value all by itself) of great, classic audio books! This bundle is jam packed full of amazing resources your family will love!
	Bundle Just for Moms! Save money, strengthen your marriage, and streamline your schedule using our Mom Bundle. Find the encouragement you need and the insight to speak to your child’s heart (even that difficult child!). Whip your home into shape and train your children to do their chores effectively using a popular book "chores program". This bundle brims with useful tools to help you bring calm to the chaos. Get them all for just $10!
"Build Your Own" Bundles Our "Build Your Own" bundles offer you the opportunity to select a certain number of products with a retail price of $19.99 or less for up to 80% off! We have MANY items to choose from, including Cathy Duffy Top 100 Picks! When you purchase a combination of any 2 "Build Your Own" bundles, you will get the 3rd one at 50% off!
*Lots of ways to save! When you purchase ANY 2 pre-assembled bundles you will get the 3rd pre-assembled bundle of equal or lesser value for 50% off! When you purchase ANY 2 "build your own" bundles you will get the 3rd "build your own" bundle of equal or lesser value for 50% off! When the sale goes live on July 21st, tell your friends about it using our referral system that will be found on the top of the website! When 10 of your referrals visit our site using your unique link, we will give you a code to save 10% off your total purchase! The image will look like this: Now, if you are like me, you might forget about the sale when it gets here! We are prepared to send you a reminder email. Click here and enter your email in the "Remind Me" box and you will get an email the day the sale goes live! Pre-Sale Promotional Giveaway - Enter to win $100 towards the purchase of ANY of our individual or "build your own" bundles! Winner annouced the day the sale starts! CLICK HERE TO ENTER! Mark your calendar right now!!      Wow!!

The Birds Are Singing Again......I Am Choosing Joy!

Choose your Joy! Let the birds of your heart sing again.........

I have not posted here for some months now. My mental disposition has just not been to that point in my healing process yet. I do firmly believe that writing/blogging about my depression/PTSD may help other women who deal daily with this disease or condition. I have been in such a dark and deep place for months now, simply functioning on a small spark with no flame. My joy in life has dissipated until recently when I just decided to try and pick my self up off the floor(literally), my family deserves more than this....they deserve the real me, the woman full of joy, love and life. A woman of God that does not give up so easy .....

For those of you that don't know me, my mother recently passed away in Febuary with lung cancer. My mother, my mentor, my hero, my best friend!

It all happened so fast that I really had no time to think nor grieve or prepare until boom she was gone.

I still hold feelings deep internally that I can't reach past to move on. I wake up every day thinking about my poor mother and how she suffered til the end. How I wish I could have spent more time with her. What did I do wrong, I am a nurse......a healer....I failed!

Just when I thought I was moving forward in healing and the grief I experienced when my dad died in 2009, now I am faced with the lose of both of my heros in life. (I' m not bitter...nah)

Both of them have been taken away by the dreaded disease of cancer. Cancer sucks is all I can say, it seems to steal your joy away completely.

I miss my mom so much now it hurts my soul. I wake up in the morning thinking about her and go to sleep thinking about her. Little things that happen now in our life I want to call and tell her, but she is not there to answer the phone....I still have her numbers in my cell phone, I can't bring myself to erase them. I have even saved the last voicemail she left me, so I can just hear her voice.

Letting go of things has always been a problem for me, but I am working hard to let go of some of my moms material possessions that really don't make sense for us to clutter our house with. She would have wanted me to donate her clothes to a worthy cause and I am still just hanging on to them. I did let go and did not go back to the house for even more "stuff", my younger brother was a trooper and took care of the rest of the mess. I would have just hauled more junk back here to my house when I am beginning to hoard stuff already. I still cry daily over it though....crazy huh?

Homeschool moms seem to hoard tons of "stuff" as it is..lol , I am trying my best to avoid a tv episode of "Hoarders buried alive" one day.

Come with me on my journey back to a better place, each week I hope to post more about my journey one day at a time as the birds begin to sing again.

 

Snow Cream Ice Cream & Some Snow Chemistry Lessons

Snow Chemistry credit About.com 

This first recipe uses snow and salt to freeze the ice cream (an example of freezing point depressions), but this recipe doesn't involve actually eating the snow (the rest of the recipes do). 

This is a great recipe if you want to play with the snow, but don't consider it clean enough to eat.
Fill a gallon freezer bag halfway full with snow or crushed ice.
Add ~6 tablespoons of salt to the snow. This will lower the freezing point of the snow so you can freeze your ice cream.
In a quart ziploc bag, mix:
1/2 cup half and half
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zip up the quart bag, squeezing out any excess air, and put it inside the gallon bag.
Close up the gallon bag, again removing any excess air since it makes mixing difficult.
Wear gloves or else put a dry kitchen towel between your hands and the snow/salt bag. Squish the bags with your hands until the ice cream is frozen.
Remove the smaller bag and enjoy your frozen treat!

Snow cream ice cream recipes-- our favorites (yes we eat the snow---gasp--- get over it, you eat worse things, breath in worse things, so just eat the snow-- as long as it is white, not yellow, lol.

Snow Ice Cream Recipe #1

This is a classic recipe that works really well because the sweetened condensed milk is thick and helps hold quickly melting snow together.

• 1 gallon or big bowl of clean snow (if you like, you can put the bowl outdoors to collect it as it falls)
• 1 14-oz can of sweetened condensed milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix the ingredients together and eat the snow ice cream. Yummy!

Snow Ice Cream Recipe #2

• 1 gallon or big bowl full of snow
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup cream or milk

Again, just mix the ingredients together. You get the idea.

Chocolate Snow Ice Cream

• big bowl of snow
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup chocolate milk

Chocolate Snow Ice Cream Recipe #2

• big bowl of snow
• 1 14-oz can of sweetened condensed milk
• chocolate syrup or cocoa powder, to taste

Other Snow Ice Cream Variations

Some people like to substitute rum for the vanilla. You could add pureed fruit, such as strawberry or peaches. You may enjoy making a sort of snow ice cream float made by dropping a scoop of snow ice cream into your favorite soda.

Snow ice cream does not re-freeze well, so mix the ice cream and eat it immediately. Enjoy!

Gotta Glow Yourself, To Give Light To Others

Another new year is rolling on by, more resolutions made have been broken by the second week of January if you are like me.

Or rather were like me before I began to accept a new attitude about New Years resolutions.....This year I have resolved to accept me for me and build on those building blocks I already have.

I have to adopt the mentality "Gotta Glow Myself from Within" in order to help others out.

Even teaching my own children at home is sparking a love and light for learning in them, but requires a certain glow from me to help nurture that light.

Learn how to glow from the inside out if you want to give and pass your light on to others..... Think about it.

 

 

Unplugging: Can You Do It? Your Family Will Love You For It

I don't know about you but my family craves my attention all the time. I have learned that unplugging every now and then is the best thing a mom can do for her family. Put that phone away, close your computer and get out and live life without technology for a little while. Take a walk, go outside and play with the kids, do some housework without looking at your phone every 5 min. Your family and your stress level will thank you for unplugging. Not to mention you will sleep better without the light from your phone. This can be painless momma, its not forever.

Get health and fitness tips at Greatist.com

Do-It-Yourself Cleaning Solutions #diy #frugal

Credit to Picklee for this cute infographic
I have used all of these and they all work fabulously, save money and time! Just follow the directions and find your new go to cleaning solutions.

Merry Christmas Blessings

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Wishing your family a wonderful and joyous holiday season. Praying that you find the joy in Jesus that our family shares.

The birth of one small child in a stable on a starry night in Bethlehem is the reason for the season of joy!

Share it with someone you love.

 

 

Frisbee Strikes Again #elfontheshelf

What's your Elf up to? Ours has been busy hanging around and decorating the doggies...lol

Daisy and Buttons (our pug/schnauzer mix babies) awoke to find jingle bell red and green matching collars around their fat little piggie necks. He left matching Santa hats for them to wear also...so stinkin cute.

What has your Elf been up to? Tell me in the comments.

 

 

Festive Fruit Pizza A Family Favorite At Our House #recipes #holiday

Every time I need to make and take a dessert to a get together my family shouts out "Fruit Pizza"! They love this luscious fruity pizza like pie. I sorta combined recipes over the years to make my own concoction, so bear with me trying to post the ingredient list.
This time my daughter Sarah who is 10 wanted to make her own pie for our family as I made one to take to work for a co-workers birthday party. You will be amazed at the chef-like creation my 10 yr old daughter whipped up. Mommy helped minimally.

Sarah's Fruit Pizza!

My Fruit Pizza Creation!

Ingredient List :

• Sugar cookie dough- I buy the rolls or big bucket at "SAMs", I have made from scratch but find it work better premade and already chilled.
• Cream cheese-softened-2 blocks per pizza
• Cool whip -1-8oz container per pizza( use vanilla if you want extra yummy)
• Heavy whipping cream ( optional-makes base creamier)
• Sugar -1cup per pizza
• Lemon zest or juice--or almond extract (your taste in base)
• Confectioners sugar -for glaze
• Juice of an orange -for glaze
• Assorted fresh fruit in season drained of juices-I like kiwi, blueberries,strawberries,mandarin oranges,raspberries,blackberries, bananas (slice and pat juices with paper towel so it does not run)

 How To:

• Start with a pizza pan /stone or a baking/cookie sheet, place parchment paper or aluminum foil on pan to ease clean up. 
• Grease foil pan with coconut oil(my preference-works great in baking).
• Take your sugar cookie dough and begin to form a huge cookie bottom on your pan. 
• If you are using slice rolls , cut then approx 1in wide or so and put them down on the pan. Roll out or use your hands ( grease them first) to press the dough all over the pan. 
• Your choice if you want an edge or roll around the edges.

Now bake cookie dough as directed on your dough directions.

Let cool completely

You can start mixing the base or pizza sauce for your pizza while the cookie is baking and cooling.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese, whipped cream, lemon zest or extract (or your choice of flavorings), and sugar. Pour heavy whipping cream in as you mix with your beaters or free standing mixer.

When the base is a totally mixed and whipped together to your liking, apply to the baked cookie crust
of your pizza. I use a spatula to ease the spread of the mixture.

Get all your fruits ready to go, sliced, dry and no dripping juices to run.

The pizza is now ready to be your canvas to place all your fruits in any patterns you desire. Anything goes, you can get as creative as you please. I start from the center and work my way out, rotating colors.

When you are all done, mix your glaze, the confectioners sugar and juice of an orange or a lemon, with a whisk. Use a pastry brush to paint the glaze over all the fruit to give it an extra shine and help keep it fresh.

Place your pizzas in the fridge to chill, cut with a pizza cutter and serve. Your family will enjoy I promise. The longer this delight sits the better it gets. Yummy....... just shake out all those calories.

Choose Your $50 Gift Card Giveaway! Live until 12/14 #giveaway

Welcome to the Choose Your $50 Gift Card Giveaway!

Hosted By: Simply Southern Couponers

Co-Hosted By: Tales From A Southern Mom, Sweet Southern Lovin, My Silly Gang, An Exercise in Frugality, Romania and Missions, The Breezy Mama, Deliciously Savvy, Delightful Ideas, Fun Fierce Fab Beauty Over 50 and Love Me Some Coupons!

A special thanks to all of the bloggers participating and helping promote this event! This giveaway could not be possible without all of them, so be sure to stop by and send them a thank you.

One lucky winner will receive a $50 Gift Card of their choice.

(Old Navy, Target, Kohl's, Walmart, Toys R Us or Amazon)

Chips Off The Old Block blog is delighted to help promote this giveaway. Winning a gift card from any of the choice stores can help with your last minute gift buying, a stocking stuffer, secret Santa gift for someone special or you can use it to shop for you yourself! 
I am liking that Amazon gift card, my favorite spot the shop.....my couch..online.

Good Luck!! Let me know if you win, that would be so exciting. 

Event Details:

December 1st - December 14th

Open to US Residents only.

Must be 18+ to enter.

How to Enter:

Enter using the Entry Form below. By entering you agree to abide by the Terms and Conditions listed on the Entry Form. All winning entries will be verified. Winner will receive an email from Jennifer at simplysoutherncouponers@gmail.com and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. Good Luck and thanks for entering.

Entry-Form

Disclosure: Chips On The Old Block blog  received no compensation for this post. Simply Southern Couponers is responsible for prize fulfillment. This giveaway is in no way sponsored, endorsed by, affiliated with, or associated with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Google or any other social media platform. If you have any questions please email Jennifer at simplysoutherncouponers@gmail.com.

   

Homeschool Domination: Why These Kids Will Take You Down [infographic]

Interesting facts about Homeschooling vs Public schooling, you wonder why more and more parents are turning to homeschooling, this shows you why.