Addie Slaughter {Review}

As a homeschool mom, I am always on the look out for books that my kids would enjoy to encourage their love of reading.  When I heard about Addie Slaughter, I thought it would be one that Buddy would like.  And I was right.  Addie Slaughter by Susan L Krueger, ED.D. with Dr. Reba Wells Grandrud is based on stories from the life of Addie Slaughter, daughter of the famous John Horton Slaughter, a Texas Ranger, famed Cochise County Sheriff and an early settler of the San Bernardino Valley in the late 1800s.  It tells about about her move across the wild west and some of the advertures and experiences she had.  Escaping a stage coach robbery, escaping falling buildings in an earthquake, and meeting Geronimo were just a few.  The chapters were quick and easy to read and the kids always begged to keep reading more.  It even contains real pictures from the Slaughter family photo albums.  In the back of the book there is also a curriculum guide that could be used to turn this into a unit study or a supplement to part of a another study in your homeschool.
If you want more info or are interested in purchasing Addie Slaughter for $15.95, you may do so at Five Star Publications.

This is a MamaBuzz review. This book was provided by Five Star Publications for review.  All opinions are mine.

The Birthday Princess

Yesterday we celebrated Sweetheart's 5th birthday!

She had fun opening gifts at breakfast

 Her favorite was a beach ball sprinkler

In the evening our families came over for a barbeque to celebrate with Sweetie and her Uncle Mike who share a birthday.

Today the kids decided to brave the cool weather to try out the sprinkler ball.  They only lasted a few mintues!

Hopefully we will start getting some warm enough weather soon!

Penticton

We had a lot of fun on our vacation this past week!  We managed to get everything (and everyone!) packed into the car

The kids did really well on the 4 1/2 hour drive there and we got to see some beautiful views as we drove through the mountains.  (Sorry for the poor quality pics through the car windows!)

 We stopped for a couple breaks

We even found this really pretty log barn near one of our pit stops

 On our first day there, we drove up to a view point of the lake and town

It was pretty windy and the water still really cold, so the kids just played in the sand on the beach.

 There was a neat old paddle boat next to the beach

 Checking out a rose garden

 Playing at a playground

We stayed at an older hotel that is being upgraded so our room was really nice.  It wasn't a typical straight building, but was shaped like an S so the halls were curvy.

 Getting ready to go to sleep stay up way too late!

We picked our hotel because the website said it had a waterslide and we thought that would be really fun for the kids to play at while Peanut was napping.  Unfortunately they had closed it 2 weeks ago because it was getting too old and they are going to remodel that area.  We were pretty bummed that we missed it, but they still had indoor and outdoor pools that the kids loved playing in.

Everyone had a great time, the kids did so well, and we are thankful that we could have a few days away!

Relaxing

The Inconvenient Marriage of Charlotte Beck {Review}

I love historical romances, but when I first read the title and description of this book, I thought it sounded like it would be a little too cheesy.  But I was wrong! The Inconvenient Marriage of Charlotte Beck by Kathleen y'Barbo is one of those books you just can't put down! Charlotte Beck and Alexander Hambly can't stand each other, but when Alex is faced with financial ruin and Charlotte desires to go to college more than anything, the solution Charlotte's father comes up with is marriage.  Alex and Charlotte secretly agree to plan an annulment, but then Alex changes his mind and makes Charlotte furious!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and even laughed out loud a few times!  This is actually the third book in a series, which I didn't realize at first, but it is a great read all by itself.  I recommend this book and look forward to reading more by Kathleen Y'Barbo.



I received this book free from Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing for this review.  All opinions are mine.

First Pack of Diapers

We had a great last week of school last week.  Buddy and Sweetie each finished up their lessons for 1st grade and kindergarten, completed their swim lessons, and Buddy also passed his next belt test in Tae Kwon Do.  To celebrate we decided to take our family vacation this week, so we are enjoying sunny Penticton.  While my Peanut is napping and the others are swimming, I get to spend some quiet time catching up on reading and computer stuff.  When preparing for our trip, I went and bought some disposable diapers to take along and as I was doing that, I realized that that was the first pack of diapers that I have bought for Peanut since she was born!  I had purchased one newborn pack before she was born, but nothing since then.  That is all that I have had to buy for my little Peanut in NINE MONTHS!!!  Since we started using modern cloth diapers for Lovebug about 2 years ago, I have been able to reuse all of the ones that I've used on him.  I have also used about 3 other packs of disposable diapers that I had left from Lovebug or were given to us as gifts.  I used to spend $40 a month on diapers and since the price has gone up even since we quit using them and we now have 2 in diapers (but hopefully not much longer!), I can safely say that we have saved thousands, not to mention how much healthier it is for our kids!  I am so glad we made the switch! 

Peanut in a BumGenius at 3 days old

I was most nervous about cloth diapering a newborn, but I used a combination of cloth and disposables and it really wasn't that hard!  If you are thinking about switching to cloth, just remember it doesn't have to be all or nothing, you can do a mixture of both to make it work for you. And I still use disposables for vacation because I don't want to have to wash diapers because then it wouldn't be vacation, right? :)  I have tried a lot of different brands and styles of cloth diapers now and if you are interested I would be more than happy to share what I like and have found works for us. You can also read through some of my older posts about cloth to get an idea of what we use.  I have even ventured into the wonderful world of wool by crocheting up a few wool soakers (covers) for leakproof nights.

Peanut in a Bum-Ware at 7 months

Linked up with Raising Homemakers

We have another climber!

Peanut has hit a few new milestones this past week and today this is what I found her doing:

Later she even made it all the way to the top before we caught her! I guess it is time to get out the gate!  She also has found out how to pull herself up to standing in her crib and throw her pacifier over the edge and she also popped out her 3rd tooth.  (Which has made for one crabby little girl!)   Has anyone ever heard of teeth coming in out of order?  She has the bottom two and the next to come through should be her front top two, but instead the second (or maybe even third?) one on the top right has come through.  That or she is gonna have to see the orthodonist a lot when she is older! 

Tasty Tuesday ~ Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

My kids have never been fans of oatmeal (probably because I'm not) so we don't eat it very often at our house.  So when I saw a picture of this Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal with Buddy once, I was surprised that he thought it looked really yummy and wanted to make it.  We gave it a try and I am glad we did because everyone loves it! It is also really easy and the kids love to help.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/4 - 1/2 Tbsp cinnamon

2 cups chopped apples

1/2 tsp salt

3 cups rolled oats

My eager helper, Lovebug

First melt together the honey, coconut oil, and cinnamon over medium heat

Once it starts to boil, add the apples and salt

Return it to a boil and stir in the oatmeal. 

Reduce heat and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5-10 minutes. 

We all like it different ways.  Some of us add milk, blueberries, raisins, or cranberries and some add all of the above!  I've even made it without the apples when we were all out and it still tasted really good!

Linked up with:

A Lucky Horseshoe Winner!

Thank you to everyone who entered the A Lucky Horseshoe giveaway!  If you weren't lucky enough to win, I would still encourage you to support this great business and purchase some cute wall decals for your home.  I used random.org to pick a winner and here is what it said:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

8

Timestamp: 2011-06-03 19:34:09 UTC

Comment #8 is:
Kelsey said...

I think the pinwheels are so cute:) This is a fun website!

Kelsey

Congratulations Kelsey! I will be contacting you soon!

First Wagon Ride

Peanut took her first ride in our little wagon yesterday and she LOVED it!  She kept giggling and laughing the whole time! It was so cute!  I got a video of her, but can't figure out how to get it on here.  (Isn't is a little sad that she still needs a hat in JUNE!)

First we walked out the field to watch daddy plowing.

Lovebug got to stay with him and go for a tractor ride.

Then we went and visited the chickens to see how big they were getting.

They are almost full size so hopefully they will start laying some eggs soon! (The bigger white bird in the back is one of our turkeys)