TBT/ I made Bread!

I was looking back at my posts from March of 2011 and I came across a post about when I finally made good bread. I was so proud of myself. 

Read my post to find out how I did it! 

Wordless Wednesday

We are moving!

I'm excited to say that we are moving back to town, closer to my husbands job and our families.

We moved way out here because my husband worked at the prison, but he started a new job back in town last year.

The job he has now offers home loans through the company, but he has to be there certain amount of time before he can qualify for it. So we decided to try out an apartment for the next year.

I am actually pretty excited about it! We will be losing a LOT of space, but it will be nice and we got in on a great special so the rent is fairly decent. Nothing is cheap in town....

As far as apartments go, these are really nice. We could have moved already but were determined to have a downstairs apartment, so we have been having to wait till mid April...sigh... BUT it'll be worth the wait because I do not want to have to lug groceries up the stairs every week, or moving in itself to an upstairs apartment is no fun. It also is taking longer because they are upgrading our apartment, so it will have new floors, paint, etc. 

We will also have a pool, which is a big part of why I thought trying an apartment out for a year would be a good idea. 

It also has a small fitness center. 

I really wanted to find an apartment with all of these amenities but that also had a playground. 

It has a couple of toys but isn't really a playground. 

HOWEVER......What it does have is even better!!!It is literally right next to a big park that has two playgrounds, a basketball court and soccer goals! So walking to the park isn't even really any further than walking to this little playground. 

I am really excited to be so close to the park and to have a pool. 

I think we will have fun this summer. 

I am a little worried about the space issue, but I have really been getting rid of anything that I can and I have been REALLY working on organization with the apartment in mind. I have so many great organization ideas now, and after we move and I get settled I am going to start writing posts on organization. 

I'll let you know how it is going after we get settled in. I don't know where I am going to put bookshelves though!!! 

Have any of you done the apartment thing? How did you make it work???

Carole P. Roman Books and Collections/TOS Review

As you all probably know, I am a part of  The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Review Crew. I was on the Crew for the 2010/2011 Crew years as well, but had to take a break until this year. Anyhow, when the review opportunity for Carole P. Roman books and collections came up, the crew members were SO excited. I had to see what all the excitement was about! 
As I checked out the Carole P. Roman website, I noticed there were books with award stickers all over the covers. 


It is not that often that I come across a book that has this many awards, if I ever have! 


Carole P. Roman is an award winning author. She received the Kirkus Reviews Best of 2012 Award for her first book Captain No Beard. She has since received the Pinnacle Book Achievement Award and many Reader's Choice Awards. 

I was allowed to pick three books of my choice. I had not heard of these books before now, so I wasn't as familiar with them as some of the other crew members, so I pretty much just looked at the covers and picked a few that I thought Brently would like. 
I ended up choosing two that were from the Captain No Beard series. I did not realize that this was a series, or I would have picked the first two, or maybe the first 3! (Thar's what I get for not paying attention!) . Because of course, now I want the whole series, and I'm sure a lot of you are like me, and it drives me crazy to not have the whole set, or have just a few out of order. And I can't even get the first one right now because there is only one left in stock! I bet after people started reading the reviews that the Crew has written, these books started flying off the shelves! Guess I'm out of luck until they get more in stock.. Poor me. lol 
Anyhow,  I chose books number four and seven of the series. 
Book number four of the series is called Strangers on the High Seas. 

Oh My Goodness, this book is adorable! The names are cute, the story line is fun and funny. I actually laughed out loud a few times myself! 
I like books that either teach a moral lesson or are educational in nature. This book is too cute that I would want it even if it didn't teach anything, but it does teach your children a few good lessons.  It reinforces not to speak to strangers or approach animals without permission. It also teaches that everyone is valuable in their own way. 
The illustrations are super cute and inviting. 

I really enjoyed this book. Notice I say "I". But not only would my 3 year old and any other child enjoy this book, the parents would enjoy reading it to their children. 

The second book I chose was book number seven. Captain No Beard and the Aurora Borealis. 

The seventh book in the series did not disappoint. 

Your child will learn a little "science" in this book. They will learn a bit about the Aurora Borealis and the North Star and what the real name for the North Star is. 

The central theme in this book however, is that stealing is wrong. I love this! 

I am totally loving this series, and really do want to eventually have the whole series for my son. I know he will love these even more as he gets a bit older. At this point he wants to take every book I read to him and read to me. I haven't made it through a whole book yet without him taking it. But I think that's OK! He wants to read and that is what we all strive for, right?

The third book that I chose was a bedtime story book called Rocket-Bye.

This cute bedtime story introduces your children to space, the planets and the constellations as they are listening to a bedtime story. 

I am thoroughly in love with Carole P. Roman and her books. I think my son is too!

As I have already mentioned many times, I want the entire Captain No Beard Series, and of all of the other amazing books and series that she has, I am really interested in the If You Were Me and Lived In...An Introduction to Ancient Civilizations Through Time. This would be the next series I would want to collect. 

I am particularly interested in If You Were Me and Lived in Colonial America, If You Were Me and Lived in the American West and If You Were Me and Lived on...Mars. 

There is another series similar to this one called If You Were Me and Lived in...A Child's Introduction to Cultures Around the World. 

These would be great for learning World History. 

All in all I very much recommend Carole P. Roman's Books and Collections to any parent looking for quality reading material for their children. 

Any time I write a review and I am excited and have fun writing it, that speaks volumes to me. This was one of those reviews. 

What are your favorite Carole P. Roman books???

Be sure to check Carole out on social Media!

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TBT/ Keeping Your Dishes to a Minimum

It's time for another Throw Back Thursday! These are some of my favorite posts because I get to look back and see what I wrote this time last year, or even more years in the past. 

This week I found a past post about keeping your dishes to a minimum. I had good ideas then! LOL I don't know why I forgot them. 

I think I will be incorporating these back into our home. 

KEEPING YOUR DISHES TO A MINIMUM...

Books for sale

I am not listing prices. Just let me know what you want and we'll work out a price. Just tell me what you can/want to pay! Thank you. 

Zirrly Super Beads/ TOS Review

We all remember those fuse beads that we used to make pictures out of and then we either put them in the oven, or ironed them, right?  Well, what if you could do the same thing without the oven or iron? What if your kids could do it all by themselves? What if all you needed was water? 
When I heard there was a product like this that only needed water, I had to try it.  Zirrly sent me a package of Super Beads to try out. I chose the Jungle Animals set. 
My 6 year old niece, my 3 year old son and I were eager to get started on these. 

Inside the box were these cards that had colored dots on them so that you could see what color beads to put on the clear peg boards. 

These are the clear boards that you place on top of the cards.

You can hook them together to make bigger pictures. 

It comes with the water bottle to spray the beads with as well as a helpful tool. 

It also comes with a tray to put your beads in while your working. 

We picked our animals and got started. It's a pretty simple process. You take he beads and place them over the pegs with the matching color underneath. 

The tray is provided so that you can keep your beads in order after opening the packets. 

We tried using the tool and using our fingers. We all agreed that using your fingers is easier for putting the beads on. Taking them off, if necessary, is when the tool is useful. The tool is also almost necessary though for taking the finished animal off of the peg board.  

I should have got pictures of when we sprayed the animals, but it really is simple. After you place all of the beads on the peg board, you take the small, included spray bottle and spray the animal while it's still on the peg board. There were no exact instructions on how much water to spray, or what temperature the water should be. 

So what I did was to make the water slightly warm, not hot, and I held the spray bottle about 6 inches away and sprayed the animal, using the entire bottle. I don't know if this is overkill or not, but it's what I did and it worked just fine. 

After I sprayed it, I let it sit out on the counter for about an hour. Then I took the provided tool and used it to gently remove the animal from the peg board. I then turned it over and gave the animal a quick spray on the back side. I then let it sit out until completely dry. Most of the time this was overnight for us as we seemed to do these in the evening. In the morning they were perfect and could be held, played with or whatever you wanted to do with them. 

We had fun putting the animals together. My son loved the crocodile the most. 

Here are all of the animals that we made. 

This was pretty fun to do. We did find that the beads were a little small, but not so small that you couldn't do it, but if they could be a little bigger, that would be great. The trays also were a little small. It was hard to get your fingers in there and get the beads out. If the trays could be a little wider, that would also be great. 

The one real issue that I had was with the orange beads. These seemed to spread the color. It would get on your hands, and on the white beads if you put white on after putting orange on. I'm not sure if there is a way to stop the orange color from getting on your hands, but that is the only color that seemed to have this issue. 

These Zirrly Super Beads are pretty cool. You can make all kinds of things with these. They have many different kits to choose from. 

Super Beads Bird Set Super Beads 3D Car and Truck Set Super Beads 3D Animals Set

Super Beads Spinning Tops Set Super Beads Jewelry Set

You can also just buy the beads by themselves so that you can create your own (whatever your ideas are)!

You can hook the peg boards together to make a bigger surface if you'd like. This is especially good for when you are using your own imagination. You can even purchase extra boards by themselves if you'd like. 
One of the best, and most important features of this product, is that there is NO IRONING, NO OVEN, NO HEAT whatsoever. 
This product is SAFE for your children to use all by themselves. You don't have to worry about them burning or hurting themselves. 
You can feel confident setting your children up at the table and leaving them alone to make their products while you catch up on chores, or while your teaching another child, or whatever the case may be. 
I hung our animals on our son's bedroom wall as sort of a mobile/wall hanging. 

Here are a couple of helpful videos to help you understand the product a little more.  

Be sure to check them out on social media too!  Facebook   Instgram   Youtube   Pinterest
We all reviewed different products so be sure to check out what my fellow Crew Members thought as well.