Usborne!!!

After countless online parties and earning a ton of Usborne products for free and discount, I finally took the plunge and joined as a consultant with this month’s amazing special!

 

We have been huge fans of Usborne products for years – their books are so creative, engaging, and educational… I’m so excited to now have the opportunity to help friends earn and receive Usborne’s incredible products!

If any of my friends are interested in ordering, hosting their own party, or joining with this awesome deal, I would love to hear from you!

June July

June 2014: 

We wrapped up our first “year” of Rivendell Academy. Successfully moved up to 2nd Grade (Keaton), 1st Grade (Benjamin) and PreK (Caedmon). We celebrated with certificates and a trip Pelican’s Snoballs.

 

July 2014

After that, we had Runner’s Camp – I volunteered at both June & July Camps, but Keaton attended only July camp (B & C went to mini camp).

Keaton participated in Javelin and placed 4th in his age group for High Jump!

Opening Ceremony at the July 2014 Track Meet

Keaton also participated in the 100m Dash and 100m Hurdles!

  

       

And then, July 8, Rivendell Academy began the 2014-2015 school year!

 

More fun is planned for the remainder of the summer — soaking up the beautiful, warm weather while we can! 😀

Jamberry Party

I might have lost my ever-lovin’ mind, but I’m hosting a Jamberry party! If you know me at all, you know I’m very much a jeans, t-shirt, low (low LOW) maintenance kind of gal. I don’t like to spend a lot of time on hair/make-up/what have you… but then a friend showed me this:

And, well…I had to have it! 😉

And, another thing friends know about me… I’m cheap. I don’t like to pay full price for anything 😉 So, the best solution to get these ‘Bama ‘Jams’ for free (or cheap)… have a party!!!!

Shaana, my consultant, brought by some sample Jams for me yesterday, and the strangest thing happened… I might have fallen in love!!!

This is my first ever Jam. I was nervous… I’d never used anything like this before. Some initial take away thoughts:

1. Holy smokes – it’s EASY!
2. How cute!!!
3. It’s really easy!!! I’m totally uncoordinated and figured I’d need help…or get the Jams stuck somewhere…like in my hair…or fingers stuck together…something ridiculous. But, really, they’re super easy!
4. I put nail polish on my other nails and there is SUCH a difference (less mess, my paint is already chipping and it hasn’t been 24 hours!, the funkyness!, I could go on)
5. I’m pretty certain this low-maintenance girl is a-d-d-i-c-t-e-d!

If you’d like to join in the fun on the Facebook party (did someone say giveaways?!?! Oh yes!!!) simply click here and join us!

If you’d rather just shop, you can do that too, by clicking here, pick your goodies, and at checkout, select “Terra’s Jamberry Party” – just order quick! My party end Monday, June 16th!

Thanks y’all!

6 month anniversary of Rivendell Academy

My goal was 6 months…I was going to consider this first homeschool “year” a success if we could make it 6 months and we all still liked each other and my kids didn’t run away.

Dramatic?

Yes. But. Seriously.

We did it!

It was so hard, and there were definitely days where I questioned if I had what(ever) it takes to do this.

Prayer. Amazing friends cheering us along the way. The laughter from the table when they should be doing math. Dr. Pepper. Some more prayer. Some more Dr. Pepper. And we made it 6 months, and almost to the end of our school year.

We’re planning on schooling “year round” because I’m lazy and like to take long breaks. So we’ll stop on June 11, wrap up Kindergarten, 1st grade, and Pre-preK. Do a few weeks of Runner’s Camp chaos. Pick back up sometime mid-July with 2nd grade, 1st grade, and Pre-ishK. 😉 (Can’t say no to Caedmon’s sweet face asking if he can do his ABC school one more time today…)

Benjamin finished up Math-U-See Primer today – the kid is a math whiz. I tricked them into playing a math game and started shouting out random addition problems, and Benjamin kept answering so quickly. Not fair that he gets a Math AND Creative brain!! 😀

 

Keaton is loving reading and spelling (maybe he is my kid after all!) He’s doing so well with it all, but these are his favorites. He often asks if we can skip “the other stuff” and do these “fun things” 😉 He even started cursive a few weeks ago (his request), and was doing great with it, but asked to go back to “normal writing” for a bit longer 😉

 

We’ll be adding in a few things this next school year (I’ll update on that soon), and hopefully will be getting together regularly with some friends for co-op (plans are in the works!)

 

 

A HUGE Thank You!

A few weeks ago, I shared how our family was once again participating in 4000Steps to raise money for First Choice Pregnancy Solutions.

Our family surpassed our goal (multiple times). We went for $300, then $500, then $700…then $1500… We ended up at an incredible $2,002!!!! I was simply blown away. We can’t thank our friends and family that sponsored us enough.

The weather for the Walk on Saturday was beyond perfect (we’ve had years where it was freezing cold, cloudy and windy on the day of…a year where there was drizzle off and on, and beautiful sunny days… this was by far the best).

It came time to announce the grand total. The goal was $175,000, and a handful of us were flipping out on Facebook as we hit that about 10pm Friday… But the funds kept rolling in…

Finally, we heard the news: $181,359.94

Simply amazing!!! Thank you again to each that gave for the cause of life!!!

So looking forward to next year… goal: $200,000!!!!