Back to blogging

I've decided I need a creative outlet as well as a place to keep family and friends updated on our life here at Seminary. I don't know how regular I'll be as our life is pretty spontaneous. :)

Learn to Crochet

I learned to crochet when I was very young. I've never had the motivation to learn more than the basic stitches, however, until recently when I learned crochet dishcloths rock way beyond a store bought one. There are great sources on the internet, but I must say I just came across an awesome blog of a woman who not only shares her patterns for free, but has video to go with many of them. It's great! So without further ado, go HERE to see what I mean!

Breadsmith Tour

Our homeschool group went to Breadsmith today for a tour. It was a great time and the guys there were great with the kids. When we got there we were greeted with the smell of all this wonderful bread. Several hundred loaves baked daily. They make bread to sell at Sam's and Mama Jeans as well. At Thanksgiving they bake over 2500 loaves in two days!
Here is the big mixer where the dough is mixed with their own flour blend. Unbleached and preservative free, yeah!

Then into these big tubs.

Then onto the huge kneading table. Here our guide is teaching us to knead two loaves at once.

Here is their huge ovens, imported from France (I think). It took a whole crew a whole week to put it together!

The huge peel to get the bread out of the ovens.

Showing us how that works.

The whole good looking group!

Thanks Breadsmith! We had a great time and our free samples were YUMMY! Can't wait to be back for more of your great bread!

Feels Like Fall!

Well, it's feeling like fall at The Hunsakers. You know what fall means to us besides the start of a fresh homeschool year? Well, here fall means two things. I'll leave you with some pictures and see if you can figure out what those two things are. :)

Another Giveaway :)

A wonderful blogging friend, Christine, is having a fall giveaway. She has three lovely packages, something for the homeschool mom, the homemaking mom, and the tea loving mom. :) Check out her giveaway here. After you enter, check out the rest of her blog, you will surely be encouraged!

Our Homeschool

Well a couple of weeks ago we started our official second year of homeschooling. Of course we learn every day all year long, but in MO you have to have an official start date to track your year. Here is what we are doing this year:

For math all three kids use Horizons. Math and handwriting are all Ally really does as far as seatwork. Everywhere else she just jumps in wherever it tickles her fancy. :)

For spelling Aaron uses Spectrum Spelling and Mariah's lists come from this site.

We also use Spectrum Phonics and really love it! Ally will start her K phonics book when I feel like she can focus that long. :) She would not start ps K until next fall anyway, so I'm not in a hurry. Probably after Christmas. She just seems to take a big leap during January in what she wants to learn. It's her growth spurt time of year. :)

All three keep writing journals that we do about three times a week with a story starting sentence. The younger two can just write or draw, where Mariah always must write something. She also uses Spectrum writing and she is liking that.

All of the above we do during the morning while we are fresh as I think we should do whatever requires sitting first thing. :) After lunch we do Five In A Row which we are LOVING! So many fun, great books to explore and expand on using science, social studies, history, literature and literary devices, art and math. I love how with this we are not only learning, but creating so many wonderful memories together.

Also this year I joined a homeschool group with a couple of other moms that I knew and they took the reigns and planned some great field trips and a once a month park day that we are going to have to look forward to. We have so much to learn and do in this area, it's great! We also want to make to to Wilder Days to see our friends the Bettendorfs who moved from a few minutes away to a whole hour away so they could make me jealous by living my dream life. ;)

So between that and Aaron playing flag football and doing cub scouts, the girls doing dance, the Discovery Center, the Zoo, and Friday morning swim and gym I think we may have just filled up our days. :) And then some. Like teaching my kids to cook and my girls to sew, crochet and knit. It's a good life. I am abundantly blessed.

The Motherlode

Oh wow. I love blog giveaways. Whether you win or not, it's just the excitement of waiting. It's like the rush of garage saleing, but without all the gas money. ;) Simple mom is giving away a spectacular basket of prizes. Just any one of them would make me giddy, but she is giving them all away to one person! Would that not just be a dream. Oh wow. If you want to see what I'm talking about go HERE. Well, I better go sign up!