My Weekly Notebook: New Link Up!

Life this week...

It's been a while! I haven't been blogging at all except for prior commitments like reviews and the weekly abc blog post because I just needed a break from thinking about it. It was nice. Life was plenty busy! I made a stop into Hobby Lobby this week and found several aisles lined with Christmas stuff! I got a little excited and even picked out an ornament already. I am not one of those "it's too early" people. Life's too short, enjoy it now because you never know when tomorrow won't come. It's also important to have things to look forward to. So, I enjoyed perusing the Christmas aisles, in July!

     

Homeschool this week...

We got some math and art in this week. Aric did some drawing from Art for Kids Hub, and drew this picture of Stitch. It turned out pretty good. 

 

Mom-school this week...

This is a new prompt for my weekly journal. It's a space to share my learning and growth. I think it's important to be learning and growing myself in subjects that interest me, so hopefully I'll have things to share here each week. I have decided that I want to learn more about horses, so I'm going to be starting a Funschooling Journal about horses. If you'd like to know more about Mom-schooling, click this link to see what I'm using. But, really, you can do Mom-school with any books. This is just a great place to find ideas and get your mind rolling. 

   

Helpful homeschool tips and advice to share...

Goals. I used to make goals for the new school year (and all throughout the school year), but I haven't been keeping up with that. As I was chatting with other homeschool moms this week, one mentioned that she made some goals for the school year to help her figure out her plan, and that reminded me that I haven't done that for a long time. I need to do that, so that's my advice for this week.

Places we're going and people we're seeing...

We hit the ice skating rink this week now that it's fully open again. It was so nice to do something we hadn't done for so long. Alex was afraid he wouldn't remember how to ice skate. He was a little slow at first because he's a little taller and bigger than he was last time (probably almost 2 years ago), but he picked it up again in no time.

 

I also realized he's almost the same height as me on ice skates now. That didn't use to be the case.

Nothing like freshly smoothed ice for the first time back!

 

My favorite thing this week was...

Taking a walk through Hoyt Arboretum through the redwood trees. I love being outdoors, and wish I could get out there everyday.

 

My kids' favorite thing this week was...

Alex said his favorite thing was bowling, and yes he was just so happy the whole time we were there. That kid could not contain his excitement.

         

He got a kids meal and it came on this cool bear tray.

I have never gotten more than one strike in any game (at least that I can remember), but the first game I got 2 strikes within 3 frames. I couldn't believe it.

Things I'm working on...

My first diamond art picture. April received this for Christmas from her aunt, but she said I could help her. I've wanted to give it a try to see if it's something I'd like to do more, so I'm working on hers a bit. I actually enjoy it! 

 

Random things the kids worked on...

Aric built one of his new LEGO sets from his birthday. We all had fun playing with the little basketball feature of this Spiderman set.

 

Something I accomplished...

Not much!

What we're reading...

Alex is listening to the A to Z Mysteries on CD. He discovered that he really likes those this week.

Movies we watched... 

We didn't really watch any movies either!

Outdoor time...

See my favorite thing from the week.

Games we played...

We played the official LEGO Ninjago board game that I blogged about a few days ago.

I'm cooking/eating...

I love getting tacos at the music in the park events during the summer. This week's tacos did not disappoint. So good!

 

Something that worked out great or didn't work out for us this week...

We have something that didn't work great. This jacket from the Disney store. I picked it up for Aric because he really likes The Nightmare Before Christmas, but it didn't fit him. I have to take it back, but I thought it was fun!

 

Other thoughts from the week...

Visiting the dinosaur exhibit with a friend this week was fun. But, we only got one picture. This one!

 

I'm grateful for...

The cloud cover that we've had the past few days to help with our heat wave happening now. 

That about wraps up my week. It's time for you to tell me about your week! I have decided to make this a Link-Up for others to join in and share. You can share anything about your week and link-up. You can use the prompts that I use if you want, or you can just do your own thing. Here are the prompts for you to copy and paste:

Life this week...
Homeschool this week...
Mom-school this week...
Helpful homeschool tips and advice to share...
Places we're going and people we're seeing...
My favorite thing this week was...
My kids' favorite thing this week was...
Things I'm working on...
Random things the kids worked on...
Something I accomplished...
What we're reading...
Movies we watched... 
Outdoor time...
Games we played...
I'm cooking/eating...
Something that worked out great or didn't work out for us this week...
Other thoughts from the week...
I'm grateful for...

Rules for the linky party:

1. All posts need to be family friendly. I will remove anything inappropriate or unrelated.
2. This is a weekly wrap-up style post. Please tell us about your week. You can use my prompts if you want, but it's not required.
3. Read and comment on other posts. We all love to know someone is reading our posts.
4. Use the button if you'd like (I will make one soon)
5. This link up will be live on Sunday.
6. Thanks for linking up and have fun!

N is for Ninjago (LEGO board game)

A few weeks ago I posted about a homemade LEGO Ninjago game, but just after I posted about that I found out there is a real LEGO Ninjago board game that you build and play. We have quite a few of these LEGO games, but I never knew that there was a Ninjago one!

I only found out when a friend posted a picture of her game closet on Facebook. I commented on it, and she said I could borrow it if I wanted to. I took her up on that offer! I also offered for her to borrow one of our LEGO games in return. She is trying our Harry Potter game out.

It's a fun game of battles and defeating the skeleton dude. The goal is to collect the 4 golden weapons! There is even a spinning top to use for the "battles."

For some reason, I didn't get any pictures of us playing the game. I may decide to find this one on ebay someday. I am going to keep my eyes open for a used one at thrift stores and such too. I'd love to add it to our collection. But, now it's time to give this one back to my friend!

Fermentools (A REVIEW)

 Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

Fermentools Website

 

I have never tried fermenting anything so I was excited to receive the starter kit from Fermentools. This kit comes with everything needed to get started on fermenting veggies of all sorts. All that is needed is a Wide mouth mason jar and a ring, and the veggies of course.  

The Fermentools starter kit

The kit comes with Ancient Himalayan Salt, a glass weight, directions, airlock, rubber gasket, stainless steel lid (with a hole for the gasket and airlock), instruction guide, and a small drawstring bag for the glass weight that says Fermentools on it. All of the materials in this kit are such good quality too.

The basic instructions

The instructions are simple and helpful to quickly get started with basic instructions, pickled asparagus, and sauerkraut. There are also a lot of ideas and suggestions on the website including sourdough bread starter, legumes and nuts, kimchi, beverages, and more. Some of the ideas I've never even tried before, so I am excited to start experimenting.

A mason jar and veggies are all that is needed to get started with this kit.

My first try using this kit I decided to do sauerkraut because it's something I'm familiar with. I started by washing and weighing the cabbage so that I knew how much salt to add. Then I shredded it using a grater. After grating all that is needed is to put it in the jar with the salt and water, put the glass weight on top of the cabbage, put the gasket and the lid on the jar, add the airlock and it's ready to sit for a week. 

I never got any pictures of it sitting on my counter for a week, but I also had it covered in a towel to keep it cool and dark, as suggested in the instructions. After about 5 days it was done and I was able to take the airlock off and put it in the fridge. Unfortunately I think I made the mistake of using chlorinated water and I think my cabbage was too old, so it didn't quite come out right. I am excited to do it again though! I'm also excited to try some other things like the sourdough starter and pickling some cucumbers.

My jar of sauerkraut ready to sit for about a week.

I love preserving food. I think this has been a great way to jump into the world of fermenting, and I highly recommend it. It's so much less intimidating when you have all the pieces needed and Fermentools makes it so easy to get started. 

If you'd like to see what the other crew members had to say about this product click on the banner below.

Thankful Thursday: Garden bounty

I am thankful for friends that bring me their garden and farm picking bounties.

LEGO ABCs: P is for Park

It's time for the Letter P this week! The LEGO feature I'm sharing about is a Skate Park set. My co-host Chareen is sharing about Homeschool Podcasts that she enjoys. 

Let me start by sharing this: My son, Alex (age 10), has recently discovered the bmx track again. We hadn't gone for a few years, and we had kinda forgot about it until someone mentioned it on social media. That reminded me that Alex is at the perfect age to really enjoy going to a local BMX track again. I took him and he really enjoyed it. There were even some other riders giving him some tips. Now he wants to watch a real BMX race night to see if it's something he'd like to do more.

Alex loves all things bike and riding, so this LEGO Skate Park set is a fun one for him. We used to go to the skate park pretty often, and the BMX track. In fact there is one park that we go to sometimes (it's a little drive) that has both! Here is a video from that park from a few years ago:

With all that said, this set seems like the perfect match for my skate park loving boys. Sure, we could have made one on our own, but we didn't have some of the features that this has, nor could we have made them.

This set was pretty quick to put together. It's only 195 pieces, so I was able to put it together during an episode of LEGO Master Builders (surprisingly Alex didn't want to build it, he just wanted to play with it).

Once it's together there is a nice interactive skate park scene with a skateboarder, a bicycle, and a wheel chair. I really love that it includes so many characters to play with on the park. It also has a truck with what looks like it could be a sponsor of some sort of orange soda or vitamin drink.

I tried to make the characters look as cool as the ones on the box. They don't stay very well.

Makes me want to go play at the skate park!

I really enjoyed the wheel chair dude too.

There is a lady inside that truck driving the drinks around.

People that can do awesome things in wheel chairs amaze me. I like that they included that in this set.

Must be a sunny and warm place where this skate park is.

That's about all I have for this week's ABC blogging with the Letter P. If you haven't had the chance to check out last week's Letter O posts, here they are: 

• Offenbach Composer ABCs from At Home: Where Life Happens
• O is for Out (Speak Out, games ABC) from Our Homeschool Notebook
• Letter O Homeschool tips from Homeschooling Highway.
• Olympics 2021 from Every Bed of Roses
• Winter Olympics 2014 Unit Study Resources from Every Bed of Roses

Now it's your turn to share! Please join co-host Chareen and me as we blog through the alphabet and link-up below:

• Desiree @ Our Homeschool Notebook: All of my current ABC posts

• Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses: P is for Podcasts

LEGO ABCs: O is for Olympics

We are on the Letter O this week for blogging through the alphabet. I have to say this one was a doozy until I realized that the Olympics is in 2 days! Duh! Why not do that?! So, I asked each of my kiddos to make/create their favorite summer Olympic sport or one that they would want to watch. And, what's even better? My co-host Chareen is also blogging about the Olympics.

Making different elements of the Olympics was so fun. I wish we had more time to make more, but hopefully as we watch the Olympics over the next few weeks the kids will be inspired to add to what we've made so far.

As I stated earlier, I asked my kids to make their faovire summer Olympic sport. I got 2 of the kids to make something. The other 2 are still working on theirs.

First, we have the observer at home on the couch. This one was made by Aric. I thought it was pretty clever because that is exactly how we'll be watching. Apparently, this is his favorite "sport."

Next we have the swimmer carrying the Olympic torch, and all the people in the audience. It was hard to find observers that were just normal minifigs and not Batman or any other character. Although, April thought it would be great to have Shakespeare or Santa Claus sitting there. 

I made the torch girl and the observers.

Next we have the Equestrian events made by April (and mom). She brought me the horses and the people and I added the jump.

Alex has yet to do his favorite sport, but he did help me make these rings. These are not as easy to put together as it looks! He struggled and had to put them back together a few times after them falling apart, but he persevered and now we have a fun decoration while we watch all the games. The idea for these rings came from Little Bins, Little Hands.

I made a set of rings too, and helped him find pieces for his. I really like how these turned out, and the pieces are pretty standard. 

More Olympic LEGO building inspiration is found at Frugal Fun 4 Boys and Girls. That is where I found the inspiration for the torch and the people observing.

O is for Outside:

This was my original idea for this week's post, but it just wasn't coming together in a very interesting way. I still want to mention it though. 

On Sunday afternoon I was building a Ninjago set that I posted about last week. It was fun, but the outdoors was calling me. I just wanted to get outside and enjoy the sunshine. I kept thinking I should just take the LEGOs outside. It seemed like a pain to take it all outside, but I finally did on Tuesday evening.

April said she wanted to build outside with me too. She was building her Friends set. We needed a big table space, so we took them to the table outback. It was so nice to just be outside in the cool evening air. The lighting was good too.

We both didn't finish, but we had fun together. Taking anything outside to work on is always a nice change of pace, but I will add that LEGOs outside is fun too!

That wraps up this week's ABC blogging with LEGOs and the Letter O. If you haven't had the chance to check out last week's Letter M posts Here is the list. As I say every week, such fun posts and lots of great information! I always feel enriched after reading these.

• Netflix in Your Homeschool
• Nature Journaling
• Keeping a Nature Journal
• Letter N Homeschooling Tips
• Discovering N Rabbits
• No Longer Wanted (rabbits)
• N is for Saying No
• N is for Names (American Civil War)
• N is for Nelson, Ron (Composer series)

Now it's your turn to share! Please join co-host Chareen and me as we blog through the alphabet and link-up below:

• Desiree @ Our Homeschool Notebook: All of my current ABC posts

• Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses: Olympics 2021