Are you ready?  Get set!  Go!!!!!!

The Old Schoolhouse^® Magazine is having an amazing sale on subscriptions during their annual Black Friday Sale November 26 – 30. For those 5 days only, they are drastically reducing their one-year subscription price to $7.95! That's the price you would usually pay for just one issue at a bookstore!

This is their lowest price ever on the magazine and they want all of you to take advantage of this offer and share the info with your friends.

Please don't miss out. Your one-year subscription will pay for itself time and time again as you receive practical tips and Biblical encouragement to keep going strong in your commitment to homeschooling and to the Lord. Since it's a quarterly magazine, they even have a monthly subscriber's only E-Newsletter called Teacher's Toolbox that will give you seasonal teaching ideas and a free E-Book download! It's like joining a unit study of the month club! The free E-Books alone are valued at almost $250/year. It's really perfect for people who are homeschooling on a shoestring or just wanting to add in some little extras to your teaching.

Plus during the Black Friday Sale, they have all kind of bonus gifts when you spend $50, $75, $100, or $150. Some are electronic downloads that you can download immediately, while other are physical products mailed from various vendors directly to your home.

AND, their Win Big contest is going on so if you just happen to be customer 67,000, you will receive a prize package valued at almost $500 which includes a $150 gift certificate to the Schoolhouse Store! Who couldn't use that? And you can qualify to win it no matter how much or how little you spend!

Mark your calendars for November 26 - 30^th and do a little shopping from your seat, not your feet at the Schoolhouse Store's Black Friday Sale!

www.TheOldSchoolhouseStore.com

Here a few cute Thanksgiving funnies my mom sent me.

Have a blessed day, mj

Thanksgiving is a day to see and share Gods blessing with others.   I love when we sit down to dinner and we each share what we are thankful for, it is such a humbling experience.  I love to hear what others have to say.

For us girls it is a double blessing hubby/daddy cooks dinner!!   Hubby is a awesome cook!!!  I just love my/our day off!!  We do the dishes for him.   I just love hubby's cooking.  He is the one who taught me how to cook.

This year we will be having over my mother-in-law, her hubby my step-father-in-law, hubby's cousin, grandma, and maybe my father-in-law.    This will be grandma's last Thanksgiving.   We all think she is holding on to see this day.  Grandma is looking forward to her grandson cooking her dinner.  Grandma is getting worse every day. She will not be here on earth much longer.

I pray that you all have a blessed day tomorrow.  Please enjoy each other.  Do not let every day trouble be there.  Let it go and enjoy Gods love. 

God Bless you all, mj

I'm posting this the night before so that I can get started on it first thing in the morning, instead of getting lost on the computer for too long.

I'm a little upset with the girl's room, because not a month ago I went through and straightened everything up when I set up their daybeds. Part of it is my fault though, because I started stacking boxes of old toys in their, opened, and they started going through them. That and I never completely finished sorting and putting away all their summer clothes. And I never stayed on top of them like I said I would. With all that said, it won't happen again.

Here is my daily goal list for tomorrow...

~Regular routines

~Basic homeschool with kids

~Maintain Clean Rooms-kitchen, living/dining room, master bed/bathroom, family room, laundry room, bathroom/hallway, boy's room

~Clean girl's room top to bottom

~Spend time working on home management binder and cleaning routines for kids. If I have time, I'd really love to make some little binders for the older kids to help give them some more responsibility, also so that I won't have to constantly direct them, until they get used to taking care of things on their own, like their rooms, and their daily chores.

Here's the before picture of the girl's room...

I don't anticipate this room taking quite as much effort as the boy's room, but it still needs some work. Pretty much what you see is what you get in their room. In the corner on the left is a big open space where I am currently storing tubs of clothes for different sizes. It doesn't look very nice right now, but it serves a purpose, and I will try and make it look prettier later on when I have time. To the right, is the girl's large closet. It's not a walk in, but it's very wide. And right beside the closet is a dresser. I will update this as soon as I can, and then I can move on to my last and final room....the playroom. As I said before, the playroom is the most daunting for me. But one thing I've realized in this nesting mission is that although I have been able to go through every room and do some serious straightening, there is still much work left to do in each room. That's where the zone cleaning will come into play, as well as my daily routines, and basic weekly plan. So for now, I'm off to bed, and praying for a productive day tomorrow....

Blessings, sara

I found a great deal on a few Christmas gifts.   The coupon mom sent an e-mail out to people about a dinner deal.   The deal was you had to pick out as many restaurants as you would like and buy gift certificates to.  The normal price is $10.00 for a $25.00 certificate.  But the sale price was $2.00 for a $25.00 certificate.  So it ended up that I paid $24.00 for $300.00 worth of gift certificates.  What a deal.   We got them for a nice steak house.

We think it is a nice gift.  We got 2 for Michelle and Gill cost $4.00 for $50.00.   We got 2 for my husbands brother and his wife cost $4.00 for $50.00 .   We got 2 for my sister and her husband cost is $4.00 for $50.00.  We got 1 for our 4-H horse leader as a thank you for all her help, cost is $2.00 for $25.00.  And we have 1 left for $25.00 that cost $2.00.

You guys might want to look into this site of the coupon moms.  We think it is a nice gift to give.   What parents does not like a nice dinner out for free????  And what a deal.  Today we all are trying to save money and still have a nice Christmas.  We did that for a few people.   We need to keep our eyes open to great deals that the family we love.

God Bless, mj

What is wrong with some people??  I am talking about this comment left by someone.

you need to call Gill and his parents yourself. Why are you leaving it up to your DD. Is the man who did this your ex husband? God I hope not!!! How could mother let this happen?

Here is what I have  to say.

1. Is Michelle is a big girl and able to make her own choices.  If she wants to lie more to Gill and his family , so be it.  We all know when you lie too much you can not keep up with them all.  And when they all find out how much will they trust her?    That is why I am leaving it up to her.  If she does some thing stupid to the babies safety we will step in.

2. Yes, he is my ex-husband.  I had to marry him to keep Michelle.  My parents would not let me other wise.  We were separated when she was 1 year old.

3.  How could a mom let that happen??  What the heck kind of comment was that??  It was the California courts that failed her.  The molestation happened when she was on a court ordered visit.  So how was I letting it happen ??  When we found out the police did nothing, the courts did nothing!  I had to take Michelle and My newborn daughter Shayna into hiding until the courts did some thing. My husband spent over a half million dollars over 13 years to keep her safe.  I was in court for 13 years trying to keep her away from him and his family who kidnapped her 5 times.  I did not let this happen to her, I fought my butt off for her!!!  For 13 years I fought. I can not controlled what he did on his visits before he lost them.  As neither could any mom who's ex-husband has visitation with their child.  He had his visitation for almost 3 years before he molested her.   The courts failed to protect her, not me.  He was found guilty of molesting her ,nothing ever happened to him.  His mother was found guilty of kidnapping again nothing.  We could not even redo the restraining order because his mother did not physically harm her( no cuts, broken bones and such), she just mentally harmed her. 

For you who ever you are left such a rude comment. How dare you judge me with out knowing the facts.  I gave just a few now.  If you want to take it out on some one why not the courts??  They did not protect my daughter nor are they protecting the others he is around by NOT having him register as a sex offender. 

Take it up with them!! No me a mom who fought as hard as she could to protect her daughter.  I started in court in 1990, I was done in court in 2003 and half million dollars lighter to boot.

I feel that people should not be able leave anonymous comments.  Sorry for my normal readers if I seem rude , I am just mad. 

Sorry just venting, mj

Let's have a happy Thanksgiving week sale!!!!  When you buy one book, email me and I will send you your choice of a second book for FREE!

Don't you just love FREE?!?

http://candyfoote.com/

I pray you all had a blessed weekend! Ours was quiet except for the unexpected collision with the deer on Friday night. We spent Saturday evening at my parent's home watching OU Football, and I proudly say We Won! Not that I really care, but for hubby's sake, I put on a caring face. lol.

So with 3 days left until Thanksgiving, and 3 rooms left to clean, I am working away on my little mission. The last 3 rooms are the bedrooms, one being the girl's room, one is the boy's room, and the last is the playroom, which for now houses more crafting supplies and junk than toys.

I decided to start with the boy's room today, because it is one of the more visible rooms from the living room, and it also houses all the baby clothes and things, so if I can get it done then I'll feel much better. Tomorrow I'll move on to the girl's room, and then I'll face the dreaded playroom on Wednesday. So here is my daily goal list for today...

~Regular Routines

~Basic Homeschool with kids

~Maintain Cleaned Rooms-Kitchen, Living/dining room, Master bed/bathroom, family room, laundry room, bathroom, hallway

~Clean the boys room top to bottom

~Make a run to the grocery store. I usually go on Thursdays, but I'm going to go ahead and make my list today and get it done, so I don't have to mess with the crowds as much.

So without further ado, here is the boy's very messy room.

This isn't the best shot of their room, but the room is small and square, so it's hard to get all the angles. To the left is Nick's bed, a captain's bed. There is a dresser underneath, but also behind that is lots of storage. And at the end of the bed is a built in desk.  Right beside his bed, just inside his door is a small night stand with his pet hamster's cage, and his hamper. Directly to the right is their closet, which is fairly large, not huge, but big enough for 2 boys, and then there is baby boy's crib, and beside it is his dresser. The main thing that needs doing is toys gone through and everything put where it needs to go. The boxes you see there is my hubby and son's baseball cards, which can be stored away, the gray tub holds all of Nick's summer clothes. So now I'm off to get some work done, and I'll post pictures of the finished product this evening or tomorrow.

***Daily Update***

Here is the completed pictures of the boys room.

It took me the bulk of the day to go through everything. You see, my son, God love him, is a hoarder. He saves every scrap of paper, every box from everything he's ever gotten. From this small room, I managed to get rid of a large 13 gallon bag full of trash, and a large box full of toys. He was so thrilled with the finished room, and promised me, he would always keep it that way. I told him that if I found one toy out of place, that it would go away to a little boy who would take care of it.

Here's a better view of the baby's bed and dresser.

And here's a better view of Nick's captains bed.

Today was a tiring day, and the rest of the week promises to continue much in the same way. The main thing I've come to realize is my children have entirely too many toys. I'm not sure though, that I can go through and get rid of a bunch of things at once, without dealing with some heavy crying on my children's part. So I'm going to work through their rooms one grocery sack at a time. Maybe only filling one a week, but I will definately be getting rid of a lot of toys. And once all of their rooms are cleaned, if they don't take care of their things they will automatically go away. For the longest time they had the excuse of not knowing what to do with it all, but they all know now that mom has found a place for everything and everything WILL go back in it's place or it WILL go away. So now to move on to the next to last room on my nesting mission...the girl's room...

Blessings,

sara