Oh my goodness how time has flown. Its been almost a full year since I last wrote on our blog. Life certainly got very busy for us and I feel bad that I've neglected our homeschool blog. It had been one constant in our life.

I guess I will fast forward our life a little bit and recap what I've missed blogging so far. 
First in March of this year  , 2013, we moved. After living where we lived , in an apartment for 11 yrs , we upgraded and finally have a home of our own. We had lots of ' fun' moving in. Of course thinking the end of March would be safe we actually ended up moving in a snow storm. I guess it made it a lot more interesting to move in sub zero temperatures with slippery snow.

 We love our new home, and wouldn't trade that for anything in the world.  While getting comfortable we also added a cat. Her name is Sara. The girls named her Sara. I'm not sure if she likes her new name but she adopted us and she is now happily living wi
th us. Yes, Sara is a girl cat, and yes, daddy is now outnumbered 6 to 1 in our house. Poor Dad.   We aren't sure where the cat came from. We did ask around making sure she didn't belong to anyone so we think she was maybe thrown out onto the street. I will say she is plumping up nicely because when we found her she was all skin and bones.

Then after finally getting settled in we were , yet, again , dealing with another surgery. Last year Maggie had a big surgery to fix some issues she was having and we were gone for two months in the summer. This time we had to wait until September for this surgery. She had a bladder augmentation and we were prepared to stay a while only to find Miss Maggie did super fantastic and we weren't gone as long as we thought we were going to be.  Which was awesome. Though we did come away with a new diagnosis with Maggie's heart of Left Ventricular Non Compression ( say that three times fast! ) . Its where the muscle fibers of the heart did not compress down like they should have during development in the womb. With this we have to trek back to Cincinnati in the summer to have the whole family checked out as it can be a hereditary thing. We're praying its not and no one else has this other than just Maggie.

I'll of course be posting more about Left Ventricular Non Compression as we learn more about it. As for now Maggie's heart is pumping well and is still strong. Which is good. She just has a Still's Murmur which was picked up before her PICC line placement which we didn't know she still had. It just was more pronounced when she laid down and that's why it hasn't been picked up in quite some time. Everytime she's gone for a physical she has always been sitting up. When she sits up they can barely detect it.

So while we are finishing our journey with the bladder stuff , we are beginning a new journey with heart issues.

In the meantime we've been trudging along with school. Sounds rough but its so.  We decided to go ahead and go back with Pacyber for this year due to the fact Maggie was going to have surgery and Daddy was going to be the main person doing the education. Not to mention the fact that we had like zero dollars to spend on curriculum  for the  girls because we've had to use it on medical travel.  To say its going well is an understatement.  Hannah is doing well with the virtual but she isn't loving it.  Marilyn decided to take on Chemistry and Algebra 1 this year and these are two very tough classes in our book. Either I've gotten dumber or school has gotten a lot harder.  Even I have a tough time with the work. Katie is struggling mightly with the virtual and self paced .  And Maggie likes it , me not so much because some of the curriculum is working for her and some not so much,, like the math.  She really needs something like Saxon math to make it sink in.  But we are getting through the year.  I figured it would be helpful for Marilyn because she is in high school this year and the subjects are getting tougher and we just didn't have the money to shell out on our own for private virtual or DVDS to get her through it. But its proving to be very frustrating because of how the tests are worded and how they test them on things that were never discussed in the virtual class or can't find in the book.   But we have to do what we have to do to comply with state law and the fact I don't have time to make my own curriculum for four children in four different grades.

Fast forward to today: October 31, 2013, Halloween Day. Our favorite time of the year. I know there are those out there that wonder. but we don't celebrate Halloween but we celebrate dressing up , having fun and getting some candy.  I can't wait to follow up with some pictures of the girls. They've all decided what they want to be and we're hoping the weather holds up. Its not supposed to be very good weather wise tonight. Which is a bummer because we rarely ever have nice weather for Halloween. Granted it is warm outside , its grey, windy and its going to be raining soon.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

It just so happened today that it was 12/12/12. How crazy is that. This event happens every one hundred years . So it will never again happen in our lifetime. It also happened to be the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Everything seemed to fall into place in what I wanted to do with the girls to learn and celebrate about this special day.
The first thing I had gotten them started on was coloring a color sheet of Our Lady. As they were doing that I thought, " What can I do with this project?"  I had seem many projects online for making the tilma with the image of Our Lady of Gudalupe, even some how to make flowers with tissue paper.
The first thing I learned is that finding paper bags is a pretty tough endeavor , not to mention I didn't have a vehicle to go and find any because dad took Marilyn out to do a little shopping.

So I found a really pretty coloring sheet that the girls really enjoyed coloring. I then decided to have them cut out the image they drew and paste it on some construction paper, preferably the bright Mexican colors and to be honest these were a perfect background for their colored pictures. Click this link to go to the coloring page.
Then next they picked out colors such as red, white, yellow, green to paste their picture onto with construction paper.
While we waited for it to dry , luck just had it that we had our Holy Heroes Glory Story come right in the mail today. Talk about fast shipping. I ordered it Monday and I received it today ( Wed).
They had an awesome offer of getting this audio CD free with only paying for shipping. It was well worth the money for the shipping cost. I can honestly say that for sure and the timing was just perfect too.

If you hurry tonight , you can still get this CD for free. It is the 1st in the Glory Stories collection with the story  of  Blessed Imelda Lambertini and St. Juan Diego.  You can also get the free coloring book download on their website that follows the CD story as well.  The girls definitely enjoyed this and I will definitely be getting more of these for them to listen to and to use for my Religious Ed class.  You can go to this link to order the Vol 1 Glory Story,, the offer ends tonight.  Even if you don't have the Glory Story you can easily read the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe here. 

After listening to the story , which I may add my 14 yr old wanted to sit and listen to it as well ( per her request) I thought of the beautiful roses that Juan carried to the Bishop to prove that Mary wanted this church built upon the hill in Mexico.  So I set out to search for some coloring pages that had roses on it and amazingly enough I found a really great coloring page by Crayola. It also lists the different colors of roses and what the colors mean. I told the girls they could color them the different colors, or color them all the same , it was up to them.  And they colored them and did a really great job. You can go to this link to print them out. 

In the end this is what our finished product looked like and they were very proud of what they did. I know the girls loved listening to the story of Juan Diego and learning more about Our Lady of Guadalupe. They learned even a simple person can carry the message of God and do great things. 

Their beautiful pictures of Our Lady of Guadalupe turned out great! They were so proud of their work and after we were done taking our picture I hung them up in our living room to remind them of the story. I plan on doing this with my RE class this week as well.
We also wanted to have a Mexican dinner food, but it didn't pan out today because Daddy was more in the mood for spaghetti. So we will have to try it out tomorrow, but this is what we plan on having for dinner tomorrow.

Count Down to Christmas

This year we are being blessed by having such a mild winter. We've seen a few snow flakes but nothing measureable really , and nothing to speak about. So far in the Northwest its been raining, dreary , but not snowing. All I can say is 'Yay'!  So far we're saving a bundle on our electricity bill ( our main heating source) , we haven't had to buy snow tires, no scraping ice off the van windows and freezing to death while we wait for the heat to kick in when we have to drive somewhere.  Its been a very long time since we've had a winter that has been so mild. Now, with that said  I'm sure I just jinxed us into our next winter storm.

I think the only thing is we're having a tough time with is getting into the Christmas spirit since we're so used to having a million feet of snow on the ground.  So with that said we've been very glad that we've had things to do to prepare and get us into the Christmas spirit mood.

The very first thing we did was make our own Advent wreath. I had scoured the web and looked and looked and either they were overpriced or just not what I liked. So I decided to make one with things I had around the house, and bought some things I didn't have around the house, and voila' an Advent wreath. It literally turned out way better then I thought it was going to turn out.

Then our next adventure was on Dec 6th when we celebrated the feast of St. Nicholas.  Though I do have a book about the Saints our book didn't contain any pictures so I read this story and found another online to read to the girls. This was when I truly realized I didn't have any other books about dear old St. Nicholas in our home. So my next investment will be of some picture story books about the grand Saint.
But this was the book we read from:

I will admit it is my favorite book. I like the fact it gives children something to think about before you read into the life of the Saint. Though it doesn't give multiple stories of Saint Nicholas it shares one story about him.
Another thing we need to invest in is some movies. If anything my children enjoy watching a good movie and it usually drives the story home when the watch and see too.

We did read the story from the Book of Saints and I also read them a story from this website : Catholic Heroes of the Faith. That had several other stories as well that I had not heard of before until I read it.

After reading our stories we decided to have some Saint Nicholas fun and Maggie had lots of fun wearing her Saint Nicholas Miter. She actually is still wearing it two days later she really likes it that much.

If your wondering where we got this super cool hat to make just visit this link at Catholic Inspired.

We also had Kids Club at the school so I decided to use the party cupcake toppers that come from the same link and make some Saint Nicholas cupcakes.  These were actually my idea ( and not a Pinterest one) to make and they turned out super cute. So much so the kids at the school really enjoyed having Mrs. Reed's Saint Nicholas cupcakes. 

First I used a vanilla cake mix and made it according to box directions , after getting everything made I split the cake batter into two bowls and added some red food coloring to one. Carefully I put about a tablespoon or so in the cupcake papers and carefully added just a small drizzle of the red. Trust me when I say small. You don't need much and if you put to much in your cupcake will just turn all red.  I used one of my kabob sticks to swirl it. I first went back and forth deep into the mix to get it mixed in with the white, then carefully took the tip of my kabob stick (you could use a toothpick too) and swirled it ever so gently. I found if you immersed the stick that the batter would just stick and you wouldn't get those swirls. Definitely not like making soap swirls that's for sure. 

Next , put in the oven and follow the box directions for making cupcakes and viola' . Red and white cupcakes. As you can see the cupcake , second from the front left is what happens when you add to much of the other color. I really tried fixing that one with adding a little more white. But it didn't help to much and that cupcake ended up being the Kid's Club teacher's because it ended up being the biggest cupcake because I ended up putting more batter in it to try and fix it up. 

 After creating my fun cupcakes I took them over to the school because they have a HUGE kitchen , unlike our postage stamp kitchen I have and was able to move around more and have more room to manipulate the cupcakes for my next step. Not to mention its much easier to travel with unfrosted cupcakes then it is frosted.  So once we got over to the school I was able to lay out our next steps. I had my oldest take candy canes and beat them with the end of our screw driver I brought along with us. You need something very heavy to pound them into little bits like we needed from the cupcakes.  While she was doing that Katie helped open the cake decorating bag so I could scoop in the store bought frosting ( something I don't like doing but didn't have time to make my own before going over that day) and I piped on the frosting on top of the cupcakes. Then I sprinkled the candy cane bits onto the top, and added our St. Nicholas toppers and they turned out great, not to mention tasted amazing!!! They were a sure hit and I had kids coming up asking for more. Sadly the rule was one cupcake ( due to children having after school activities we didn't want them loading up on sweets).  When I got home I was finally able to try one and I had to agree. They tasted super duper great!  

I will say this , the candy cane for toppers doesn't last long. Amazingly enough it melts on top of the frosting. I found this out the next day when I went to snack on another. I'm not sure if it has to do with it being room temperature but if you let them sit out to long in a warm area the candy cane will melt. With that being said, they still tasted pretty darned good.  

Oh yes, and on another note, St. Nicholas stopped at our house and dropped off some pretty neat Angry Bird Match Box Cars to put in the girls' shoes. I didn't get a picture of it though because , me being me, I forgot to grab a picture.  Maybe I won't forget next year. 

So that was the way we spent our St. Nicholas Day this year. Looking forward to seeing how everyone else spent their's. 

Preparing for Advent

One thing that has always remained constant in our homeschooling is one way of learning that my daughters learn best. I've found that girls are very visual tactile learners. They love to create an have something to look at. So in our homeschooling endeavors I try to be as creative as I can be because the one thing I've learned is that these simple activities stick.  The crafts we create are not meant to be busy work but something that has meaning and will help them to remember important facts.   I know that it works because I've had my 14 yr old daughter say " Mom, do you remember when we did (fill in the blank) when I was five?  That was so much fun and it helped me to remember ( fill in important fact)." Whether we create crafts, make lapbooks , or do notebooking, these are visual reminders for my daughters and I know there are many children out there that are just like this.  I use this method in my Religious Ed (CCD) class because I know, even if my words fall on deaf ears, the art they create will always be remembered.

With this said we are preparing for the first day of Advent ( Dec 2) and I can't wait to do this craft with my K/1st graders. Granted I have the toughest class. I say this because once a week , for an hour and a half I have to keep the attention of seven 5 and 6 yr olds for an hour and a half. Not an easy task since only one (Maggie) reads at a 2nd grade level, another one has a fantastic memory, and the others can neither read or write, and  I believe have never really heard a Bible story, and I have one child that can't even match pictures.  So I have a wide spectrum in my class that's for sure. Not to mention you have to pick your games carefully , and can't really get into a deeper level of thinking like you can with older children.  The worst thing in the world you can possibly have is a class of 5 and 6 yr old children that are bored for an hour and a half. That equals chaos in my book.

 So at the beginning of the year I created a predictable schedule for them ( something that does not work with older children by the way) with starting our day asking them how they are, if they did anything fun or exciting that week. Then we get down to business with singing (we usually end with something like Father Abraham to get the wigglies out) ,  sit down to listen to a Bible story, and then the Catechesis.  After they've spent time listening , answering simple questions, then its time to get down to the hands on stuff.  I always try to have some type of craft when I'm teaching ( if I'm not able to I always make sure there is some kind of coloring sheet, or extremely simple craft for a substitute teacher) to solidify what I've taught. I like to try and split up our crafts with one class a craft about a Bible story we've learned, and the next with a craft that goes along with the catechesis.

With all of that said there has been so many great craft projects out there being created by Catholic Religious Ed teachers, and Catholic families.  Pinterest is my addiction to finding what I need on any given subject, and sometimes I find myself relying to much on Pinterest and not on my creative juices that I once had. None-the-less I find my brain pretty scattered anyways these days , so much to think about and do right now that I actually am happy Pinterest exists at the moment.

This craft I created isn't exactly original by any sense of the matter, but it is easy, and simple and fits into the short time frame one has on a Sunday morning before Mass. So without further ado,,, here is our very first Advent project. The Advent Calendar.

 Our supplies :
Two different colored felt , obviously read or green for this activity, you could also use white or even pink or purple (advent colors) if you wish too.
Printable Advent Calendar
Here are two links you can use for your Advent Calendar : http://sermons4kids.com/nativity_advent_calendar.htm
http://www.sermons4kids.com/advent_calendar_manger_scene.pdf
The first link is a big chunky picture of Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus (great for children in Prek-1st grade)  The second link is the Manger scene you see in my photo ( definitely would work with children grades 2 and up)
colored yarn ( I chose white to offset the colors)
and wooden dowels ( found them really cheap at Walmart)
and a package of star stickers

 I made sure that the dowels were glued onto the felt, the pictures cut down to size to fit on the felt and I use tacky glue to glue on the back of the paper as this leaves the paper nice and flat without those glue bubbles that you normally see with regular glue.  I also used a craft stick to spread it evenly because tacky glue is thick. Once the children are done coloring their advent calendars, glue them on the felt with tacky glue , then I will have them tie on the string ( little ones may need help with this) onto the dowel. I found string that is already cut to 21 1/4 inch long to be the perfect length for this project.

 After doing all of that I took a paper clip and clipped on the sheet of star stickers ( make sure you have 25 stars at least on a sheet) onto the side of the calendar and they are ready to take home.

Easy to make and ready to hang when they get home. Since we'll be doing them on the first day of Advent the kids will be able to start with the very first sticker and they can finish the countdown at home with their families.

So there you go. A simple Advent calendar that is a little more dressed up. Originally I was going to have the kids just color the page , give them some stickers and send it home. After looking and looking at it I felt we could do just a little more to spiff it up a bit and make it more fun than just a coloring project. Granted, its not reusable but it will make for a wonderful keepsake. Actually now that I look at it some more I think I may cut out some small numbers and put 2012 on the side. See how scattered my brain is? Ha, ha.  Not to shabby for my first year teaching K and 1st graders ( last year I taught 2nd grade).

Do you have a fun and amazing Advent calendar you do with your family or RE (CCD) students?  If you do, post a link in my comments and share. The more ideas, the better!

Our Thanksgiving Table Runner

I thought we would post our fun craft that we did today in preparation for Thanksgiving. One thing I've not ever really done was make something that I could bring out year after year for Thanksgiving. So I was excited to see this craft on the website Catholic Icing. It was fun, very easy to make, and the end result was wonderful.

What do you need?

Fabric Runner
Cardboard
Clorox Bleach Pen ( and, yes, they do exist)
and the peel and stick laminate
stencil of a cross ( if your not good at drawing crosses like I am )
chalk

The first thing I did was go online and find a free printable cross that I liked and wanted on our fabric runner. Printed it out at a 3x5 size on our printer. Depending on the size of your fabric runner will depend on the size you want your cross to be. 

Traced the cross on the back of my peel and stick laminate. I traced it on the back so I could use my Exacto knife to cut 

Cut out the stencil with an Exacto knife and then pull out the middle so that you have an open cross pattern to use on your fabric runner. This helps to keep the bleach from the bleach pen from running. You want a stencil that will stick to the fabric so it doesn't run.

Next place your sticky stencil down on the runner where you would like to see it. 

For us the girls decided that they wanted  one on each end .So that was where we placed them. 

Next comes the bleach pens. The aforementioned bleach pen. Would you believe this is  a big city thing and not a you- live- 45 miles- away- from -the- city -and -in- a -rural- area thing? I had actually never heard of a bleach pen. I've heard of the Tide Stain  pens, but had never seen this before reading Catholic Icing's blog. Also would you believe neither has the total population of our town either? We even went to our laundry mat and asked the lady there that does the dry cleaning there, and she had never heard of a bleach pen either. My husband began to think I was telling him a tall tale about as equivalent to the story of the tooth fairy, but low and behold, I came home, my husband did a search online(because I told him to) ,  and it was like the little child who finds out that the tooth fairy does to exist. Ha, ha!  So off to the city we went to pick up the aforementioned bleach pen. 

Next I rubbed some of the bleach from the pen onto the stencil 

and then used a paint brush to evenly distribute the bleach so that it would get to all the places it needed to be because it wasn't getting there with the pen. The nice thing is that the peel and stick laminate does a great job keeping the bleach from spreading to the rest of the fabric. 

Next take some chalk and write on your runner what you would like it to say. Chalk I found really does do the trick. Especially when you need to move your words over a little more after you writ them the first time ( hence the double writing). After centering and writing what you want on the runner, you can now write over the chalk with your bleach pen. 

  

After writing with my bleach pen I let it sit for about 15 minutes, I found 15 minutes to be the right amount of time for the bleach , to well, bleach. Ha!    Then I ran it under some cold water in the sink to stop the bleaching process. Be super duper sure you don't let it touch anything even after you've run it under cold water because it WILL bleach everything else around it because you will next need to put it in the washing machine. This I learned the hard way. I thought I had washed it off enough that it would be alright and still managed to bleach a small spot. 

After throwing it in the washing machine ( be sure to fill your washing machine first with water to be sure that it doesn't bleach the rest of your runner and wash it alone) , and drying it. The last thing to do was iron it , and here is our end result. It really did turn out super neat, and we look forward to using it on our table for Thanksgiving, and I look forward to always having something to bring out each and every year. Something that we all worked on together and are very proud of.

From our family to yours, the Reed family hopes that everyone has a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving.

Review and Giveaway on Home to 4 Kiddos

Just in time for Christmas, our friends at Home to 4 Kiddos are having a Giveaway.
The name of the book is Destination : Bethlehem  A Family Adventure.

Here is the excerpt of what the book is about from their blog :



"Destination: Bethlehem A Family Advent Adventure," by Sharon Altman and Christine Winkelman is a wonderful, engaging adventure that in its 24 chapters, can be read every night in December leading up to Christmas.

On the back cover the book reads, "Two boys, Isaac and Jediah, experience adventure while traveling through ancient Palestine.  As their journey unfolds, the boys find themselves at the heart of the Nativity Story and gradually realize God's greatest promise, the birth of the Messiah is at hand."

I found that each chapter was short enough to be read in around 10-15 minutes.  I look forward to reading these chapters with my children this Advent.  I change our entire homeschool focus during the Advent season.  It is so important to give them (and me!)  the proper focus leading up to Christmas and I know this book will be a part of our daily Advent activities.

There is also an optional activity of a little package that you could give to your children each day that represents something from that chapter.  I like that many of the items are things that we probably already have in the house.  I can't wait to see the look in their eyes as they try to guess what each little package may contain.  I know that will open the avenue for much discussion and learning.

There are pages entitled "Travel Guide to the Past" after each chapter that give some historical information about what is going on in the chapter and ties it all in magnificently with the Bible.  For example, after chapter 18, we are told that "Jediah's family traveled on the same treacherous pathway that Jesus later spoke about in the parable of the Good Samaritan."  The boys' journey even takes them through Gethsemane before reaching the hills of Bethlehem.

Part I of the book begins with "Isaac's Journey," a year before Christ's birth.  The last chapter has the boys in the Cave at Bethlehem on Christmas Eve.  Such a beautiful and heartwarming journey!

The authors have graciously given me an autographed copy to be won by one of my lucky readers!  I want to be sure that the giveaway will take place for you to have the book in time for the beginning of Advent, which is only a little more than a month away!  Wow!  :-)

So jump on over and enter their blog today at Home to 4 Kiddos  (click).

Artist Trading Cards

All I can say is: Why didn't I think of this?  I came across a Catholic homeschooling blog Pondered In My Heart  while searching for other Catholic homeschoolers since I don't know any in our area. I figured I'd turn to the internet to find others with similar interests. I scoured through the blogger's posts with real interest and saw  Many things I found she did I wished I had time to do ,which I don't because life is over scheduled for me right now.  I oohed and ahhed over many of her creations and the fact her children were so artistic. I marveled at the fact that she too has a younger child with special needs just like I do,  and was able to make her homeschooling work.  I loved the photos of just the simple things they do in life together as a family.

(Not ours but some beautiful ones from Pondered in my Heart website.)

After all that oohing and ahhhing I found a post about an art activity they did called Artist Trading Cards. After looking at the photos and reading about it, I knew that my daughters would love to do something like this because they have such a love for art and drawing. The concept is so simple and yet so enjoyable to do.
This requires paper, art medium, and your love for drawing.
So this morning I shared the idea with my girls ,and in true form they got right to work practicing and warming up their artist skills.

Hannah, Marilyn, Maggie and Katie working very hard on their practice Artist Trading Cards. They were using the book A Year with God (sadly out of print) from Catholic Heritage Curriculum, to practice drawing a picture of Mary and the Christ Child. 

Sorry about  the fuzzy looking picture. It was Marilyn's beginning sketch of the Blessed Mother and her child.

Which was  shown how to do step by step  in our A Year with God book. 

And this was the end result of our little experiment, and it turned out great. It was so neat to see my little  artists' perspectives of Our Lady and baby Jesus. I know the girls really enjoyed seeing each of their pictures side by side after they were done.
Who's pictures are who's?  Starting from left to right , Maggie(6), Hannah(9), Marilyn(14) and Katie(12).

So now that we've practiced a little bit. The girls are ready to draw and trade with others.
If anyone is interesting in creating their own Artist Trading Cards and trading with us. The theme is Saint  ATC's. Since All Saints Day is coming very soon.
Here are the rules ( that I graciously copied from Pondered in My Heart):



1. Each participant will create cards that are 2.5" x3.5" ( 6.35 x8.89 cm ) in length.  . You can buy ready made cards, cut out your own on heavy paper such as cardstock or watercolor paper . It is said that a 9x12 sheet of paper will give you ten cards.

2.You may use any art medium that your heart desires.. whether its pencil, pen , water color, colored pencils , graphite, acrylic, marker or ink. Whatever you prefer to use.

3. The swap is open to all ages from the very young to the very experienced. LOL

4. Each participant will create 5 ATC's to mail out, and that person will receive 5 different cards in return.

5. Cards will be addressed to me and I will sort out cards to each child by age group/ability  of the creator .And we'll mail out our cards to the new recipients. When you mail out your cards please include a self addressed  stamped envelope and we'll send our cards out to you.

6. International swappers are welcome.

7. Is open to to all ages.

8. Each card should be labeled on the back with the creator's name,and how ever much info you'd like to share ( age of child, or adult, date, title of piece , media used,and location if you wish). Some participants like to participate as pen pals and can include more personal info but its not required.

9. If your interested in participating with us please email me at : reedfamily( at) yahoo (dot) com. And put ATC Card Swap in  your subject line. We'll send you more info and the more who participate the better.

10. Please mail your cards post marked by November 19,2012 ( one more week extension , by November 26th).

I'd like to thank Pondered in my Heart for sharing this really neat activity and giving us something to do this winter. It also gives us a reason to add more art into our homeschool days , as it was always taking a back seat to our other subjects. I know the girls will enjoy starting out their day with art and even better, art to give to others.

And if you need some inspiration check out the the post Pondered In My Heart  has of all the ATC's they collected when they did their ATC swap.

We're looking forward to having others participate with us and we can't wait to see all the art work that comes to us and we're looking forward to sharing ours with others, too.