Pepperoni!

Last week was a very, very good week. Isaac finished up his two-year program at the local technical college, and The Boy finished kindergarten. (If you're interested, you can find more info on the home-kindergarten thing on one of my other blogs, Pie for Breakfast.)

So we had ourselves a little homemade-pizza party.



Whole-wheat pizza, anyone?


Pepperoni always gets a thumbs up from The Boy. Pizza was accompanied by Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and we followed up with some ice cream. We know how to party.

Now, we're on to a new job and first grade. And I'm totally not freaking out about it. Nope. Not at all.

A Giveaway!

...on my other blog. Heehee.

It's a good one, though. We're giving away some kids' art supplies--scissors, crayons, fun stuff like that. And you know every mommy needs a stash of extra art stuff. I'll be totally honest with you here: we don't have very many readers yet, so your chances of winning are pretty darn good.

So head on over and check out Pie for Breakfast's first giveaway!

Pie for Breakfast?!

Hiiii! I'm really excited today because...you know how I used to have a separate homeschool blog, called Pie for Breakfast?

(If you don't, just play along.)

Well, my super-awesome friend, Melissa, and I are starting it up again. Today! And I'm pretty sure it's going to rock, because Melissa has the best, most creative ideas ever.

So head on over there to see what's new!

Blue-Skinned Pilgrims

(I might have helped a little with the coloring.)

I'm thinking about just posting homeschooling stuff on this blog, since I hardly ever post on the actual homeschool blog. Yay/nay?

I have a handful of photos from Thanksgiving, but most of them are of... food. And I am not a food photographer. So those are flat-out boring, and I won't make you look at them.

I did manage to take one non-food photo, though. Ta-da! Puppet patterns from here. Toilet paper rolls from my house. Puppet arm positioning by Isaac.

We also made a little turkey to go with them, but he didn't make it into the photo.

Library Llamas

No, really. There were llamas at our library. Well, outside our library. This was the only photo I got that doesn't have millions of random strangers' faces in it. See the baby llama? One of the cutest things I have ever seen. {Cross-posted at Pie for Breakfast}

Oops.

So I realized today that I've been neglecting my homeschooling blog for the last three weeks. There's a new post up now. Come on over!

Something We Should All Think About

I just posted on my homeschool blog, which means that I wouldn't ordinarily make a post here tonight. But something came up over there that I think I should mention here, too.

This is important to me, and it's something that I take very seriously. Some of you guys are my friends, and I want us all to be safe. Some of you are people that I don't know but are probably lovely people. I know that there are several people who read this blog that I don't know. My site stats show that.

And the thing is, some of you (sorry) might not be lovely people. That's why I'm careful about what I post here--for example, why I don't use Little Boy's real name.

Microsoft has some good, straightforward information on blog safety. Scroll down to "Basic Guidelines for Bloggers." It's information that you're supposed to tell your kids, but these tips really go for everyone.

And here's a more personal take from a fellow blogger. Scary, but worth reading.

Time Keeps on Slippin', Slippin', Slippin'...

{image link} I know I say this all the time. Really, I do. But I'm going to say it again: I'm still here, and alive, and reading your blogs. The only time I really have for blogging is when I'm caught up on my own schoolwork and caught up on planning for Little Boy's schoolwork. Turns out, that's not very often. But I just want to reassure everyone, yet again, that I do love to blog and that I'll keep blogging when I have time. And thank you, those of you who have stuck with me for so long. You guys are the best.

No New Post Here Today, But...

...I have a new post up at my homeschooling blog: Dominoes!

Tip: Remove Old Dry-Erase Marks

{photo source} Sometimes I put Little Boy's worksheets in page protectors (the smooth kind), so he can do them over and over again with dry erase markers. Works great.

Except when you forget to erase it. And discover it several days later.

Then it's stuck.

So I turned to good ol' Google and started working my way through suggestions for removing dry erase marker.

Vinegar: didn't work much better than water.

90% rubbing alcohol or hand sanitizer: I'm pretty sure that would've worked, but we were fresh out of both.

White toothpaste: worked like a charm.

You do have to wipe the toothpaste off with a little water, of course. I don't know whether toothpaste will work on other surfaces, but it does work on Little Boy skin--he managed to get a little bit of dry erase marker on his chin while I was working on toothpaste-ing his page protectors.

{cross-posted at Pie For Breakfast}

Beach Trip

I have a lot of pictures here, so I'm not going to type much. We'd been learning about the beach, so we took a trip to the nearest one (it's more of a seashore than a beach, I think--you'll see in the pictures). My baby sister drove--she needs a lot of practice hours before she can get her license. Little Boy hadn't been to the beach (seashore?) in at least a year. We had this part of the beach to ourselves. Rocky, huh? My brother tagged along, too. Little Boy found a tiny shell--you can't tell in the photo, but the shell is fingernail-sized. I wouldn't recommend swimming in this water (although some people do). We wear rain boots instead. We saw barnacles, little crabs, seaweed, gulls, and seashells--all things we'd learned about at home. And Little Boy thought that was kinda cool. But really, all a three-year-old boy wants to do at the beach is throw rocks in the water. {cross-posted at Pie For Breakfast}

Mini Mighty Mind

This is Little Boy's favorite toy right now.  [I ordered it from Fat Brain Toys.]

For more info, check out my new blog: Pie For Breakfast.