KJ's Ladies: Happy Ice Cream Day

Did you know that July is National Ice Cream month? On July 9, 1984 Ronald Regan signed the proclaimation making it offically National Ice Cream month... so... Happy ice cream day! We celebrated by making our own homemade chocolate ice cream... mmmm! The girls had fun, although mommy didn't read the recipe really well and it ended up being a two day process due to cooling times (oh well). We also installed our AC units yesterday. Being in upstate NY the weather only requires us to have window units in the dead of summer and even then it is a luxury we save only for nightime sleeping. It has been in the high 80's and low 90's with dew points in the 70's which means you just drip with humidity! We lost one AC unit this year and thought we were going to have to get a new one, but Prince Charming found someone at work getting rid of one... THANKS! (pie to follow really soon)

Yesterday was the first day of our summer bible study. It is a really relaxed sort of book study. A group of ladies have decided to read "To Shepherd A Child's Heart" by Tedd Tripp (if you haven't read it I highly reccommend it) and get together to discuss what we read. (basically swap parenting stories) We let the kids run in our church's gym area (this week there were 5 ladies with 22 children) but the great thing is that they range in age from 15 yrs-3 months, so the older ones entertain the younger ones.

Yesterday I also met with a very good friend, who happens to also be family, a veteran homeschooler, former preschool teacher, and former school administrator. (She started the Christian school in our area) Anyway, now that I have sung her praises... I meet with her to get some direction on what I want to do this year in school. As I have tried to put together my "plan" for next year I realized I was all over the board on what I wanted to teach. I needed to find some direction. She suggested that I first write out what I wanted Princess #2 to accomplish by the end of the school year and then figure out how best to get that end result, rather than starting from the beginning and trying end up with goals. She also told me I was also expecting too much from Princess #2. She is really only at a Pre-preschool level and I was preparing for a preschool level. So I have spent the last few days researching on line for resources on what 3 year old should be able to do. The Veteran Teacher also lent me some good books to read. Prince Charming is actual reading some too... I am amazed! Yeah! Currently I am into "So you Think you Want to Homeschool", which is a good book to just kinda figure out what type of homeschool might work best for your family. I thought I was classic school type teacher, but so far the stories I seem to relate to best are called "electic"... hmmm sounds kinda eccentric huh? ... anyway, all that means is you find out how each child learns and teach that way to that child. But I have yet to finish the book, so I could change between now and then... hmm maybe I am more electic than I thought...no wait maybe not... oh just stop it!

Also this week, I happened upon a website called FlyLady . In this website there is an item called a "control book". I love this idea! It is a binder with everything you need for life in check list format... menu, grocery lists, lesson plans, daily schedules, cleaning, etc... As you can see from this post, I can get a tad side-tracked at times and the idea of a "control book" is to keep me on track. (Plus I am a control freak and love checklists) I haven't yet figured out how to post anything other than pictures, so when I do figure it out I will try and post some examples of my control book. Yes, I know I am wacko, I loved making this control book!

So anyway, I guess I have rambled on enough for one night... don't you agree... here are some photos of our ice cream adventures... (which will continue on tomorrow at school)

Making the ice cream mixture