Summer break in a nutshell....

Wow....once again. I'm SO behind on blogging. If you were to look at my blog and see all the blogs I have started but aren't quite ready to be published you'd be amazed! I think I probably have about 35. I have LOTS on my mind and I jot down ideas and quickly type things in my blog and save for later but finding the time to actually sit down and proof read them and make sure they make sense to my readers and add pictures is a whole different story.

We've been on summer break. With moving at the end of June (to read blog post about moving CLICK HERE) and a few of our summer birthdays we have been quite busy. We were also able to get away to Gatlinburg and Dollywood for one weekend. A much needed time away. The house is JUST about completely unpacked and in order. There are a few boxes left in our bedroom...i'll get to those someday.

I have been working ALL week on getting our homeschool room ready. I'm So excited to have a school room and I think the kids are excited too. They love having their own desks and their own work space that NO ONE else can use. But they also enjoy having a table that they can all sit at together and work on something together. This week we have done a little bit of school here and there. Just kinda getting our toes wet. Starting Monday we are starting FULL FORCE. We will have a schedule. We will have weekly goals, we will have RULES (my kids just LOVE that one), and we will most importantly have FUN!!!! School will be in session. I have a few little added surprises for my kids. You know...teachery (I honestly don't think that is a word...but i like the way it sounds if you read this outloud.) type stuff. That's the teacher inside me. I did go to college to be a teacher although I've never actually taught children besides my very own. An example. I have name tags for their desks. Now really...we don't need them, do we? I know my kids' names, they know each others names. But it's just SO fun...I just like that type of stuff. And I know my kids will LOVE that as well.
Now lets talk business now. Their curriculum. Once again I've changed the curriculum choice for this year. (i know I know...I thought using bob jones last year was the PERFECT curriculum that I'd stick with forever). It was a nice curriculum choice...but I'm learning what we really need/want for our homeschool. This year we chose to go with A.C.E curriculum.(click here for the website) IT's much simpler but I'm excited because I think it will be easier to get thru and give us more time to do added things to the lesson. I was bombarded with so much information with other types of curriculum that there was NO possible way to do it all that I think I ended up leaving out things that would have been benefitcial to do. I also need something that I can hand my kids (well, mainly Jordan) and ask him to complete a task on his own and then I will go over it with him. THere is just no possible way to do an extensive curriculum (that is really set up for classroom use) with 4 kids at one time and doing 4 different grades at one time. It was almost impossible to get thru it all with only 2. It won't be long and I'll have 3 then 4 kids all working on lessons every day. So I need something that they can work independantly from time to time. I think this will be a good one. I may find something new for next year but for now this is what we chose to go with.

So this is what has been going on in the Beers household for now. Stay tuned...I"m hoping next week to have a blog post with pictures about our first week of school. But for now..here's a few of our summer pictures.

8 years Already?!?!?!

Eight years ago my life was changed forever. I was given a gift only God could give. Something so precious, something so delicate, something so beautiful, something so life changing. I was given the gift of motherhood.

On July 1, 2003 at 2:17pm 9 pound Jordan Lee was born. My first born. Where has the time gone? Has it REALLY been 8 years? Am I REALLY the mother of an 8 yr old. Sometimes I still have to pinch myself to believe it's real.

Jordan is SUCH a blessing in my life. Because of him, my life has been changed. I could not imagine my life without him.

From little on Jordan was always my cuddle bug. He loved to snuggle. I actually remember a time when he was snuggling with and said even when he's 16 he would still lay on the couch with me and snuggle. He's half way to 16 and even though we do not actually have lots of time that we lay down and snuggle, I know he would come and sit on my lap and hug me the second I asked him to. So even though he is growing up and doesn't actually cuddle up to me like he did when he was just a few years old, I know in his heart he would in a heartbeat!

Jordan LOVES anything to do with science. He will watch it on TV, read about it, try to create it...He just loves science and not just loves it..he actually gets it..he understands it. More of it than I could ever dream of understanding. Yes, I know he's only 8! And he also has a love for history. Something I didn't pay much attention to growing up so he has taught me to now have a love for it as well. I am enjoying learning with him.

He is definetly a gamer. You know..one of those who LOVES video games. Now, we don't let him play them constantly...nor even daily. Our Wii or playstation aren't even left out..they are put up and only taken out every now and then. But that kid can figure out ANY game. It's crazy. And the computer...WOW...he can figure out ANYTHING on it. Usually when it's messed up and I don't know what to do. I ask Jordan..and he'll figure it out! He is into computer games. I try to sway him toward the actual "learning" games which he does enjoy and likes to play, but every now and then a boy has gotta just play games. :)

Baseball. He is our baseball player. He has tried a few other sports and just wasn't into them. But baseball keeps his attention. And he's good at it! He is also into collecting sports cards. He's got SO many baseball, football and basketball cards. And he knows each team and player. He gets all that sport knowledge from his Daddy. Definetly his department and not mine. He is also into the outdoors. He dreams of going on long hikes in the wilderness. Again, that is his Daddy's department. The two of them have all kinds of dreams of the places they are going to some day hike.

He can also be a goofball and loves to goof around. He will always do things that make us say "Jordan Lee..you are so crazy!" Of course we are saying that while laughing. Sometimes we are ROLLING! He is quite the character! (i'm sure he will not appreciate the following pictures of him.)

Jordan is also a good big brother. I have to tenderly remind him at times that LOTS of little eyes are watching him. Which I'm sure that is A LOT of pressure for an 8 yr old curious boy to handle. For the most part though, he TRIES to take that into consideration when he makes his choices. But over all..he's a great big brother and the other kids just LOVE him.

I love you my precious baby boy. I know you are now 8 years old but you will ALWAYS be my baby boy. No matter how old you get.

Happy 8th Birthday Jordan Lee!!!!

Happy Birthday Gracie Ann

I can not believe our little baby, our youngest is TWO YEARS OLD today. Where has the time gone? (Click here for her birth story) I still think of Gracie Ann as our little infant..but then she quickly reminds me that she is far from an infant. She has NO trouble keeping up with her 3 older siblings. She is our little firecracker. A little ball of energy. She keeps us on our toes. If Gracie isn't in the room with us, that is a very scary thing. Who knows what she is getting into. I watch her like a hawk yet she STILL seems to get into all sorts of messes. Some of those messes scared the living daylights out of me and had me running to call poison control.

She loves girly things like dolls, barbies and make-up. I think she gets confused as to what is actually make up. She once thought white out was eye makeup and rubbed it all over her eye lids! (For the record..you can use baby soap to wash it off but it doens't come off of the eyelashes. It wears off of eyelashes on its own in about 4 days!) She looks girly dressed in her dresses with her bouncy curls, but don't let the bright blue eyes and blond curls fool you!! She is definetly a tom boy! She loves bugs and dirt. Her big brother Mason and her make quite a pair when it comes to getting dirty! You will also find her in the middle of a wrestling match between her two brothers. She holds her own and has quite the moves! (I think the boys are secretly scared of her when she starts in on their wrestling matches!)

Also, I am believeing she is an artist in the making. Give that child a pen, pencil, crayon or marker and she will give you a BEAUTIFUL drawing. WARNING: it may be on the walls, carpet or furniture. (also for the record, using hair spray and Mr. Clean Magic eraser will get ANY pen marks or even permanent marker off of the walls)

Gracie is also an animal lover. She LOVES dogs and meows (cats...but she just calls them meows). There are some neighborhood cats that roam around and if she sees one she will follow them everywhere! And horses...she LOVES "or-eees" as she calls them. I wish I could just buy her a real pony!

She is independent. She has potty trained herself. (well, we are in the middle of it now...but during the day if we are home she just goes by herself and then comes and tells me!) This is amazing to me as you may recall I had issues potty training my other children (click here to read the post). Mason had just finished getting potty trained about 6 months ago (he turned 3 in Dec)but every now and then he will have an accident and Gracie will be the first one to tell him that he needs to go on the potty and that it's yucky to have an accident. She also praises our ENTIRE family when they use the potty. "Good Job Mommy...you pee peed in the potty! Give me FIVE!" That is usually what she tells me!

She is tender hearted. She will always ask "you okay?" if someone gets hurt or seems sad. And if anyone raises their voice to her she busts out in tears. She gets her feelings hurt so easily. On the otherhand, this girl could fall down hard or bump her head and get right back up without a single tear, but hurt her feelings and she'll sob and sob.

God has blessed me greatly with another beautiful, precious daughter and I couldn't be more greatful for her. I am excited to continue to watch her grow into the beautiful girl God has planned for her to be. I love you Gracie Ann! Happy 2nd Birthday!
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On the Move

We are about to move...AGAIN. There...I said it. yes, moving. Didn't we just move?? Yes, but that was one year ago. We are renting our home....ever hear of a ONE YEAR lease? Yup..that is what we had...yup..that time is up again. Do we want to renew our lease??? HECK NO! Do we like our house...well..it's DEFINETLY not what we wanted in a house like we thought when we found it last July. I actually hesitated to write this post. I could have wrote this post a month or more ago. But chose not to. I didn't want to hear it. I didn't feel like explaining our whole move to everyone. Sometimes I feel like I have to explain everything to everyone (that's why I love blogging...saying it one time for all to read!)Nothing against anyone who makes comments to me about moving. I know it's hard to "get it" when you don't live in my home on a day to day basis and hear our conversations about how we are trying to find that perfect place to "plant our roots". and just when we thought we found that place (bella vista, AR...we still miss that place and our church family and friends there..that truly is our "home"..when someone asks where we are from..I don't hesitate to say Arkansas)we had to move due to lack of a job--kind of a necessity when you have 4 kids to feed. We had to move to where the work was.(long story short..Ryan went back to being an insurance adjuster) Now that we have the whole job thing straightened out we need to just find that perfect place in Tennessee to plant our roots. TN is a big place and Ryan basically works the whole state (well, from Nashville all the way to the Eastern side of the state) so we could really live anywhere. And it just takes some time to find that perfect place. Does that make sense? His job is different than most where he has the flexibilty to work from any place here since he works from home.
Last year we moved out of our temporary rental house (if you recall..we had moved here from Texas due to my husbands job and the move was rather quick so we just found a short term rental house until we could figure out the exact area we wanted to find something more permanent)Our temp house was out in the country. We LOVED living out in the country. But since the house was for sale and we knew we could not buy it, we had to move when our lease was up. We decided to try living back in town. In the suburbs. TWO weeks after we moved, we KNEW this living was not for us. We hated everything about living in a subdivision. No offense to my neighbors, but MAN I very much dislike having neighbors. I dislike looking out my front window. I can see house after house after house. I dislike hearing garage doors open (and they aren't even loud..but I can hear them). I dislike having to hush my kids while playing outside early on a Saturday morning. I could go on and on but I will just leave it at we belong in the country. My children are COMPLETELY different children when we take them out to the country. They get along, they are creative in their play, they roam around and just enjoy being outdoors. They appear to be in their element. I love watching them play when they are out of the "city". I know it sounds crazy but there is a definite difference. And I like what I see.

About 4 months ago...we started trying to figure out what we would do when our lease was up. We knew that we could not stay here, living here for another year would be TOO much. Our main reasons being: we want to be in the country, the house is WAY too small for our larger than average family. (since we live in here, do school in here and Ryan does his work from here, we need space--more than we realized). Also, Ryan was staying out in Eastern TN at least one night a week sometimes two since a majority of his work is out that way. So the only thing that made sense was to move. We LOVE eastern TN. And decided we would move a few hours in that direction.

Once we knew we would move the next step was to hopefully find something that suited us. Nothing was popping out. Nothing seemed to be what we were looking for. We had lots of needs and wants in our next home. Plus we had our 2 hr distance from potential homes against us. (it's hard to find a rental and set up a time to look at it before someone else snags it). Well, Ryan found an ad about a certain area that had acre lots. He called it to just find out about the area. The realtor said she had a rental available but it was a two bedroom. Okay, that will DEFINETLY not work. Then she said she had a 3 bedroom on a 4 acre lot that will be up for rent at the end of June. We said that is actually the time we will need to move. SO she gave us the details and told us where it was and said we could drive by and if we were interested she would set up a time for us to look at it. The house wasn't even up for rent yet so we did not have other people trying to look at it before us. Ryan was out there the next week and drove by. AMAZING is all I have to say. Country...DEFINETLY country. It's on 4 acres. Mostly wooded but some cleared up by the house. BAM!..it meets critera #1. The house is 2400 sq foot.(ours right now is 1500). BAM! meets critera #2. We havent' even seen the inside yet. So we set up a time and went to see it. BAM! Critera #3...it has SO much room. I was SHOCKED...when you see if from the outside, it looks smaller. After we looked at it she asked us if we wanted it. I knew for SURE I wanted it. It wasn't a fancy house but it met everything we required. And actually it has a whole area for a homeschooling area, which will be WONDERFUL! Since it has 2 living rooms, one will be used as a school/play room. Oh and can I add that I can not WAIT to do laundry! The house has a HUGE laundry room. Probably 4 times the size of mine now. I have grumbled about my laundry room for almost a year now so that excites me. :) So back to the realtor asking us if we wanted it. We said we did. She said, okay, it's yours. Heres the application. I won't show it to anyone else. If you change your mind let me know but if not it's yours. I couldn't believe it. We found everything we could want in a house, we didn't have to stress about finding one. It kind of found us actually. Amazing. Well, it was God I know for sure who brought it to us. I'm so greatful. That was 2 months ago. How amazing to not have to stress about where we will live.

So now the moving details. We were going to move July 1st but it will be ready for us June 23rd. Since July 1st is Jordan's birthday we decided to move June 23rd so we will be at least moved before his birthday so we can celebrate his birthday rather than be moving. I couldn't be more excited. We plan on this being our home until we can buy our own. (yes, I've said that before but sometimes for reasons it makes sense to move--one of the pros to renting..being able to just pick up and move without having to mess with selling a house!)

The kids are very excited to move. We have already found a very active homeschooling group there, We have found a church home already (we went there one Sunday). We don't have any connections here. It's easy when you are homeschooling. We don't have to mess with switching schools. The kids have really not had any major connections with friends here. THey have kids they play with but no body they will be heart broken to leave. Same with our church. We just don't have a real "connection" there so I think this move will be a good fresh start for us. Hopefully to find that special place to "plant our roots". I hope this is it. But if it's not...know that we are following Gods Will for our lives and He always guides us to our next step.

Just thought I'd share this information with you all. I hope it explains things a little where you don't think we are just "moving again" just to move because as you have read, that is not the case. We have put much thought and prayers into this decision and we feel confident God is leading us each step of the way.

Here is a picture of our new home.



So you probably won't be seeing many posts from me for the next month. I'll up to my neck with boxes packing up this house, then up to my neck in boxes unpacking our new house!

Happy Birthday Mya Jade

I can't believe that my little baby girl is now 6 yrs old! WOW...where did the time go?? Happy Birthday to my precious Mya Jade. You bring SO much joy to our lives. You are a beautiful and smart girl. I look forward to the many more birthdays of yours and watching how God unfolds your life. I love you with all my heart! Happy Birthday Baby Girl.

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Slap in the Face

Today was just one of those days. I can't pinpoint any specific problem. I just had a bad attitude I guess and well, in my opinion everything was going wrong. I had lots on my to-do list that needed done but I found myself going in circles and getting nothing done. Just when I would start..another mess that just had to get cleaned up at that moment would happen. It seemed never ending.

I broke out in tears while emptying the dishwasher. I just felt overwhelmed. My house was a wreck and I just couldn't seem to get ahead on anything.

THEN I saw it. It being my notecard that I had lamanated that was taped up by my sink. (click here to read a post about it) It read "feeling overwhelmed? too much to do but not enough time? Take 5 minutes and refresh in God's word.". I even have a Bible by my kitchen sink for those times that I want to look at it but heading to my room would be too much.

SO I grabbed that Bible and started reading. Skimming actually...thinking I was going to find some verse that would just POP out at me giving me the comfort and strength I needed at the moment. I kept reading...NOTHING that seemed to pertain to what I was feeling. THEN..I flipped a few more pages...started to skim and out of nowhere a verse popped out. Not the verse I had hoped for. Instead of something comforting and strengthing...it was like a SLAP in the face. The verse was this:

Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain. Phillippians 2:14-16

SHOOT...so it's ME that is the problem. I know I complained many times today...Yup..that verse was DEFINETLY for me. The scripture didn't exclude complaining about housework or dealing with misbehaving children. It DID indeed say EVERYTHING. Yup, I need to do EVERYTHING without complaining. I should NOT be complaining about what needs to be done. I am definetly not blameless or pure at the moment. So then I had to bow my head and first ask for forgiveness, then thank God for speaking to me thru his word and THEN with a new outlook on my tasks at hand get back to work. :)

Okay, now back to my work with a smile on my face and a happy heart. :) I had to take a few minutes to type this blog post. I was just going to type it and save it for later but decided it was okay to go ahead and publish right away. So sorry if there are typos. :)

My Walgreens Trip 5/22/11

YES..I was FINALLY able to make it to a Walgreens on a Sunday and score some deals before they were out of stock in everything I wanted. I usually get the newpaper on Sunday and read thru the Walgreens ad. I find things that I think are a good deal. I get my coupons together and head there on Tuesday. And usually end up leaving there without anything or half of what I came to buy. So this week I scoped out the ad online BEFORE even buying my newspaper. I figured up what I wanted to buy and went there. SCORE! I was able to do 2 transactions. (I'll tell you everything I got in the next paragraph). After going grocery shopping and getting my newspaper I went home. I went thru my coupons and walgreens ad again and decided to make another Walgreens run. This time to do 4 transactions. I had it all written out what I wanted. I walked in and 10 minutes later I had my cart full of everything I was going to get. I checked out and was out of there with everything I set out to buy! I was so happy. Finally success at Walgreens!

Sorry if this bores you. I hope this encourges you to start shopping the deals and creating your own stockpile! I used to have a HUGE stockpile of all kinds of items we used all the time (especially diapers...at one point in time I Had 3 kids in diapers at the same time so we went thru TONS of diapers!)but those items have been used and my stockpile has disappeared. I have started it back up again! I will now list out each transaction:

Trans #1:
Carefree pantyliners = 1.99 used a 99cent walgreens in-store coupon and a $1.00 manufacterer's coupon making them FREE.
Complete multi-purpose contact solution = $7.99
Total out of pocket with tax = $8.73 received an $8 register reward (RR) coupon to use on next walgreens purchase.

Trans #2:
Tone Body Wash = $3.99
4 Suavital fabric softners (one is $2.99 and they were buy one get one free) = $5.98
I used my $8 RR coupon from previous purchase.
Total out of pocket with tax = $2.89 received a $3 RR from the tone body wash to use on next purchase.

(my second trip)
Trans #1
Complete multi-purpose contact solution= $7.99
I used my $3.00 RR from previous purchase.
Total out of pocket with tax = $5.73 Received $8 RR from the Complete contact solution to use on next purchase.

Trans #2
Infusium shampoo= $5.99
Tone body wash = $3.99
Scrunci hair rubberbands = $2
Used a $2 manufacturer's coupon for the infusium and $8 RR from the Complete contact solution.
Total out of pocket with tax = $3.09
Received a $2 RR from the infusium, $3 RR from the Tone and a $2 RR from the scrunci rubberbands.

Trans #3
Pure Silk shaving cream = $1.99
4 Suavital fabric softners (one is $2.99 and they were buy one get one free) = $5.98
I used the $3, $2 and $2 RR's from previous purchase.
Total out of pocket with tax = $1.71
I received a $1.50 RR from the Pure Silk

Trans #4
3 walgreens brand tin foil = $.69 each with Walgreens in-store coupon.
I used the $1.50 RR from my previous purchase
Total out of pocket with tax = $.76

Summary of my Walgreens Trips:
19 items for a total of $22.91. I estimated the total without the register rewards or coupons or buy one get one free deal to be around $65. I saved a total of $42.09!! I was very happy since all items I would buy anyway. I would just probably buy different brands (usually what is cheapest but in this case...brand name products were cheaper than the store brands!)

I could have kept going and kept rolling my register rewards but decided this was a good run and I would leave stuff on the shelves for other shoppers (as I know first hand it's VERY frustrating when people clear the shelves only a day after the sale starts - I'm not out to clear the shelves, just to get some each time to add to my stockpile)

I hope this encourages YOU to try some walgreens shopping. Or other deal shopping.