Allergen Free Halloween Candy List

My husband found this list of allergen free Halloween candy, and I thought it was so helpful, I had to share: http://surefoodsliving.com/2011/10/halloween-candy-list-gluten-free-allergen-free-2011/ . It's written by a mom who's child has Celiac's (gluten allergy), I believe, but she includes six of the top eight allergens (including wheat and milk) and lists dozens of different candies and what is and isn't in them. She updates this list every Halloween too! This would be very helpful to us if all candy didn't have dyes in it and we weren't avoiding dyes! ;)

What are we doing for Halloween? Candy buy-back! The kids are getting money in exchange for their Halloween candy. We did buy a few gluten free, dye free candies at the store, but for the most part they are doing buy back. They seem to be alright with that.

Resource for Christian home educators

People homeschool for all kinds of reasons. Some people do it out of necessity--they have a child with severe allergies, or they live in a neighborhood with poorly ranking schools. Some people do it because their child was not thriving in public school. Some do it for religious reasons. Some would consider home educating their children a calling. If that's you, you may be interested in the book I've been reading of late, a book entitled, "Educating the Whole-Hearted Child" by Clay and Sally Clarkson.

I say this book is for those who feel that homeschooling is their God-given calling as parents because this book is wholly focused on Christian home education. Right off the bat I noticed that it was written to that particular audience, and I think those who do not hold to Christian belief probably would not enjoy this book much, though I can't say that definitively, since there is so much to glean between it's covers.

As a Christian home educator myself, I found this massive, nearly 400 page book to be an inspiring and quality resource. I have always felt that my children should be educated at home with me, that that was where they were meant to be. This book has given me so much inspiration as I explore how to best go about homeschooling my kids.

As the title suggests, this book is about developing the whole child, not just his academic side, but also nurturing the home environment in ways that will aid in shaping him into a child who is wholly devoted to God, and who has had an excellent education. I wish I had been able to read this one cover to cover before my review was due (course with a newborn in the house, who can blame me for not finishing the entire thing), but I will say I am thoroughly impressed with what I have read, and have spent many a session with hi-lighter in hand, processing the things I am reading. I can tell this will be a book that I come back to time and again because already it is reminding me of why I homeschool and in what ways I can make the experience better for our whole family.

"Educating the Whole-Hearted Child" can be purchased at Apologia's website for $22.00. For a book of this size (this book is the size of a college text!), that is not a bad price at all. As most of you probably know, Apologia sells lots of other books and curriculum, so be sure to cruise around their site for a while!

Please note: I was given a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I am not obligated to give a positive review.

American Heritage Girls

Have you heard of American Heritage Girls? When we signed Little Bean up for Cub Scouts, Miss O could not wait to get in on the vest-wearing, patch-earning action. She even wore her Awana Cubbies vest around the house and tagged along to Little Bean's pack meetings. When she turned 5 in July, I started looking into Girl Scouts, but heard something about this other group called American Heritage Girls.

AHG is a Christian group for girls that is apparently associated with boy scouts, and is a lot like girl scouts in that they earn patches and do fundraising and service projects in the community. We actually found out about our troop through our local homeschooling group and decided to join that instead of girl scouts.

Miss O is loving being with all her little friends and earning her beads (in Pathfinders they earn beads, not patches). Last Monday was her joining ceremony--she did great and had a lot of fun! :)

Update on the little one

Our little foster baby is 2 months now! She is doing great! She has not had a visit with her mama again yet, but we do have a family team meeting coming up at the end of this month and court again in December, so most likely mom will request a visit at that time. She is free to request one whenever she wants, but usually she ends up missing the visit for whatever reason.

The aunt that originally wanted to take the baby has changed her mind, but another possible dad is being DNA tested now, and if he is the dad, he would be able to take custody of her right away, probably. We just need to wait and see, and we should know real soon if he is the dad. They do not give us foster parents the DNA results, but if he is the dad we will know because they will call to let us know she will be moving or at least to start visits with the dad if he needs to work a parenting plan.

Baby is about 12 pounds now, and already moving up to size two diapers! There were a few days last week where she was just super fussy and I decided to take her to the doctors, because that is not like her. As it turned out, she was not getting enough of her reflux medicine and they had to adjust the dosage. She is doing much better now, thankfully!

She is sleeping through the night most of the time now (8 to 10 hours!). I say that tentatively, since she tends to go for several nights great, and then need a feed the next night at 1 am. But for almost 9 weeks, she is doing super in the sleeping department. Her naps are not as good, she takes some of them pretty well, like 1.5 hours at a time, but others she wakes up after 45 minutes and is clearly not hungry and is clearly still tired. Not sure how to fix that, but eh, it is what it is right now I guess. I will say it makes homeschooling quite a challenge when I can't have her on a predictable schedule. Sometimes I feel like I am doing so much I can't do any of it well, or if I do one thing well, the other things suffer. I guess that's probably normal for this stage in life though!

We had her pictures taken when she turned 5 weeks, they are so adorable! I wish I could post them, but we are not allowed! I can't wait to show them off to her mom. :)

She is a lot of work, I will say that, between meetings, visits, court dates, docter visits, and home visits. We will likely add Early Intervention to that list soon too, as she is not meeting all of her milestones (who knew an 8 week old could be behind, but alas, this is what the social workers are worried about, but I digress...) and as a foster child, they are required to refer her sometime in the first three years of her life. I can't tell you how many people and how often they have asked me if I want her referred already! Even if she is alot of work, she is such a pleasure to have around, and we all already love her dearly!

Magnet Curriculum

What kid doesn't love playing with magnets? I know both of mine have really enjoyed playing with the magnets in the kit Little Bean received from a friend a year or so ago. The kit even came with a little booklet with some simple experiments to try. So when the opportunity arose for me to review Primarily Magnets, published by Aims Educational Foundation, I was certainly interested.

Primarily Magnets is geared toward grades K to 2, and is 85 pages long. Covering such things as magnets interacting with other magnets, magnets interacting with other materials, attraction and repulsion, magnetic fields, and the everyday use of magnets, this supplimentary curriculum went far beyond the little booklet in our existing magnet kit. Primarily Magnets consists of thorough lesson plans which are aligned with educational standards and also has pages that can be copied for use with the lessons. A CD with PDF files of all the worksheets comes with the book, which is really convenient for those who don't have free access to a copier, but can print at home. Primarily Magnets is $18.95. Primarily Magnets is offered in a PDF version for the same price.

As I said, the kids have already done a lot with magnets in the past, but with Primarily Magnets I was able to take their knowledge to a deeper level. I was glad that we had a variety of magnets on hand already, otherwise the book alone would not have been all that fun since it does not come with magnets. You can purchase ring magnets alone from AIMS or a Mostly Magnets kit, but the kit in my opinion wouldn't work for homeschoolers because it comes with too many duplicates (it was clearly made for classroom use). But magnet kits are inexpensive and easy to purchase, and luckily this curriculum with adapt well to any magnet kit you decide to use alongside.

I found Primarily Magnets to be a solid curriculum choice for those looking for a unit study or semester long study of magnets. Was it exceptional? In my opinion, no, not really. But it wasn't bad either. It was a good solid curriculum and I have nothing bad really to say about it. My friends on the Homeschool Crew also reviewed Primarily Magnets and other products from AIMS (AIMS offers quite a range of educational products in the areas of math and science), so if this book sounds like something you'd like to know more about, by all means hop on over here and see what other people are saying.

I received Primarily Magnets for free in exchange for my honest review. I am not obligated to give a positive review, and all opinions are mine.

Couldn't have found this site at a better time...

Just a few weeks before we picked up our little one (now 4 weeks old!), I started asking around on the different homeschooling message boards about an online program that I could use with my kids. I knew I'd be swamped taking care of a little baby, but at the same time, I really wanted the kids to continue with their studies even while we took some time off from our regular schedule. I didn't want an actual online school or a complete program, just something that would continue to sharpen and keep their knowledge fresh while we were away from the school room for a while.

A few people mentioned this program called Big IQ Kids, which is a free website (with a premium section, more on that later) designed for K to 12, offering learning exercises in math (drill), spelling, vocabulary and the states. To my delight, I was actually offered a premium subscription to this site for both my kids, and it couldn't have come at a better time!

Big IQ Kids is kind of a unique program because it is fairly customizable for your student. In the math section you can choose to have them timed or not timed, which operations you would like them to do and in how many digits (1 digit addition, etc), and how many problems they must complete to finish the lesson. In the free spelling section you can input your own word lists and choose how many and which games they will play to learn their words. Miss O was put on the premium spelling, and hers is oddly much less customizable than the free version. The section the states is not customizable, but it starts everyone at the beginning.

I'll be honest and just say we did not use the vocabulary section all that much, and I'll tell you why. This may just be me, but the characters on this program are computerized and they speak in a very monotone and unnatural fashion. In the vocab section especially, this is apparent, and I'll just say it, the voices irritated me. I didn't feel like my kids could understand them because of the strange tone and mode of speech. They actually never complained that they couldn't, but I couldn't bear to listen to it more than necessary!

Now here's the part of Big IQ that my kids liked: after every lesson, they earned a coin. The coins are saved and then can be used to play little games on the computer. The games are short and generally pretty simplistic, but it's enough of an incentive to get them to happily do some math drills or spelling games.

As I said before, Big IQ also offers a premium section of their site. The main difference between the two is that with the premium subscription the program will monitor and track your child's progress in the various subjects and move them forward only when mastery is achieved. But you do not have to have the premium membership to benefit from this site. There is alot there that is free for you. I wish I had known about it earlier! Here is more information on just what is free and what is included in the premium price. You can purchase the premium programs separately or all four for a bundle price of $19.99 a month, or $89.99 for a year. Find out more about pricing for individual purchases here.

We were given a 1 year subscription to this site, and I am sure we will get lots of use out of it--we already have! If you are interested in Big IQ Kids, hop over here and read more reviews for this product or go to their website FAQ page and find out more!

Please note: I was given this product free of charge in exchange for my honest review. I am not obligated to give a positive review and all opinions are mine.

Foster Care Update

We have had our little foster baby in the house for a little over 2 weeks now, and she is such a delight! I haven't shared much about her, though I'd like to (I feel like I need therapy just thinking about all she has gone through in her little life!), to preserve her privacy and dignity there is alot I can't talk about.

But she is doing great! She came to us at 4 lb 12 oz, and she is a whopping 8 lb 5 oz now at almost 4 weeks. She is such a good baby too. I have memories of walking my kids up and down the living room floor at night trying to get them to fall asleep and stay asleep. Not so with this little one! She came to us already knowing how to fall asleep on her own. She has a very distinct pattern to her days: eat, stay awake for a while, get groggy, go to sleep, and start over again. Except at night when she skips the staying awake bit! Truly I did not know babies like her existed, she is SO good!

Even still, she does keep me getting up every 3 to 4 hours at night and likes to spray me with her projectile vomit at least daily (she has acid reflux and is on Zantac), so I am tired! I got a cold just right after we got her, and haven't been able to get rid of it. I'm not sure how I will with such sporadic sleep going on!

I don't know if I mentioned before, but in the state of Oklahoma, a kinship or family placement takes priority over a straight foster care placement, which is what we are. There is a relative that would like custody of this little one, and so is going through background checks now. If she is approved, the baby would go to live with her. Things do not look like they will go that way, but we will not know for at least a few months.

Baby had her first visit with her birthmom yesterday. I will say that it was interesting (and not in a good way) to say the least, but the most important thing I got out of it was that a)the birth mom loves her little baby A LOT, and b)although she is upset about the situation, she does not have any bad feelings, it seems, toward us as the foster family. I'm glad for that because I would really like to have a good working relationship with her, and am not the kind of person who knows how to deal with that kind of conflict. The baby was wide awake for the visit and well fed beforehand, so she was a little sweetie pie for her mom and they spent some time getting to know one another. I'm not sure if and when the next visit will be.

Yesterday our case worker also gave us a clothing voucher so we can do a little shopping for the little miss! Since she was so new when she came into custody, she came with nothing but the clothes on her back (a 3 to 6 mo. onesie and socks) and a receiving blanket. We have purchased alot of clothing for her already, but with the weather changing (yay!) she will be needing more warm clothing and the voucher will help a lot!

Miss O and Little Bean are enamored with her, but in different ways. Miss O is like my little helper, she even *tries* to change diapers for me! Little Bean loves how soft her skin is and how she makes "animal" noises and squeezes his fingers! We started homeschooling back up again on Tuesday, but I can tell I may need more time. My energy is really at an all time low. Thank goodness she is such an easy little baby, not sure I can handle much more!

When she came to us there were some concerns with her heart (possible situs inversus, or reversal of the heart) and she had some stomache distention, and had an x-ray. All was normal on that, and she is healthy in every way at this point. We are so thankful to have her for whatever amount of time. What an amazing (yet exhausting experience) this has been so far!