Review: Udderly Smooth Lotion

Udderly Smooth is a line of moisture rich lotions, perfect for dry, chapped skin in the winter. It's been manufactured in the USA for over 30 years! I recently had the opportunity to try some of these products out in exchange for a review. 

I was given two tubes of hand cream, one tub each of foot cream and 6 sample packets of body cream. To order all of this online from their website, it would cost me $16.75 plus $7.00 for shipping. That brings my total to $23.75. Not too bad, given the fact that these products will last you for quite a while. You don't have to order them from the company though. You can find them on many local stores: http://www.udderlysmooth.com/availability.shtml

My husband and I have been using all of these products since we received them on December 10th. We've barely made a dent in them! You seriously don't need a whole lot of product with each use. A little really does go a long way. 

We have noticed our skin feeling softer. I keep a tube of the hand cream next to my kitchen sink and put it on after I've washed dishes. Normally, my skin is really dry in the winter but this has really helped. I also gave a few of the samples to a friend to use on her children. Two of them had a rash that she was thinking was due to the dry winter air. She put the body cream on them and it cleared up the problem!  

I'm not a fan of all of the ingredients though. I would love to have it all be from natural, readable ingredients. Most of the time, I just use coconut oil for all of my moisturizing needs. That being said, if you are looking for something that works and you don't care about that sort of thing, this is your product. 

Overall, it's a great product. It does exactly as the company states it will. It's still made in the good, old USA! So, I wouldn't hesitate to spend my money on it at all. 

If you enjoyed my review and would like to read more, you can find them by heading over to Mosaic Reviews. 

 

Review of "A Tale of Two Kingdoms" and "God's Unfolding Story of Salvation"

I received both "A Tale of Two Kingdoms" and "God's Unfolding Story of Salvation" a couple of months ago in exchange for this review. They are both written by Heather A. Kendall and can be found here. I have to say that I am not always excited about Bible study books. So many times, they are just not deep enough, or they are not in line with my beliefs.

I started reading these books with that in mind, but was quickly surprised. I will be upfront with you, I did not finish either of these books yet. I am slowly making my way through both of them. They are so in depth, that it takes me a bit to fully digest everything. This is a good thing. It gives me ideas and thoughts to ponder as I go about my daily life.

In "A Tale of Two Kingdoms" Heather shares God' story of salvation by incorporating all of the stories in the Bible into one, easy to follow book. Of course, the Bible should always be our go-to when it comes to, well, pretty much everything. Sometimes, it's hard to put it all together. I believe Heather did a wonderful job of putting it together for us. It truly has been a great read so far. I plan on finishing it and then sharing it with my church community.










The second book I was given, "God's Unfolding Story of Salvation," is more like your typical Bible study. She takes you through the scriptures and you really have to search through your Bible. I will be honest, I enjoy this style much more than the style of the previous book. In this study, Heather guides you through the scriptures to help you see the big picture in the Biblical storyline, it is Christ centered. I am only a few chapters in, at this point, but I am enjoying every minute of it so far. This is one study that I will have my children read as they grow a bit older.








I highly recommend both of these books. They are very informative and helpful in one's walk with Jesus. At $23 for "A Tale of Two Kingdoms" and $22 for "God's Unfolding Story of Salvation", they are well worth the investment.

Click this button, to read more reviews of both of these books.

Cleaning Routines, Lots of Kids, & Not Enough Space

Or so I thought....

Before I get into all of that, I want to share with you some history.

Some of you may know that I spent some time in Iraq. It's where my husband and I met and fell in love. We came home, got married and had a baby, all in the same year. Well, more like a 3 month time span. It was a whirlwind! One that I'd never change, but one that brought many challenges.

I went from just having to take care of myself to having a husband and baby! Umm, what in the world!? I had no idea what to do. I did the best I could. I really did. We were fed, clothed (in clean clothes), healthy and relatively happy. I knew I needed to do more though. This was something I was determined to figure out.

Enter Fly Lady. Yeah!!! She had it all planned out. I just needed to do. Well, that didn't work so well for me. I got stuck somewhere between getting dressed to shoes every day and taking care of a baby as a first time mom. My ideals weren't lining up quite right.

Now, don't get me wrong, Fly Lady is awesome! I love her routines and her focus on forming good habits. I still read her e-mails for inspiration. It's wonderful!

I also use an app called "FlyHelper." You can find it in the Google Play Store. It's a wonderful app, and it's FREE. (I don't get anything by sharing, other than the satisfaction of helping another mom out who may be drowning the way I am.)

I tried Fly Lady off and on for a few years. I also tried a few other things. Some, I can't even remember the name of right now. I tried making my own. I tried following a schedule set to the time. That just didn't work for me either. If I could live my life without ever looking at a clock, I'd be one happy lady.

Throughout those years of trial and error, I found quite a few things that worked and quite a few more that didn't. I have finally found something that works for us. It involves everyone. Well, everyone except my husband since he's at work during the day. I have a clean house, that is free of clutter(mostly), toys are picked up, laundry is "done", dishes aren't scattered all over, and most of all we are happy living in. Now, if you were to knock on my door this second, you would not find a house straight from the pages of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. Far from it. We have a small house and 6 people living in it, there's stuff here. We LIVE in our house. We homeschool in this house. If you were to walk in, right now, you'd find kids happily playing with toys and dishes in the sink. Like I said, we live here, and I'm fine with that.

Would you like to hear my big secret on how we got on top of the clutter and mess? Okay, get ready to take notes. Got your paper and pen? Here it comes....




We have started spending 15 minutes a day in each room! Ha! That's it! I set my trusty timer(thank you FlyLady) for 15 minutes and off we go! We all work in the same room, from me all the way down to my 3 year old.

We start by simply picking things up and putting them in their place. You know the saying, "A place for everything and everything in it's place." This is very important. If it doesn't have a place, you don't use it or need it, out it goes. You don't need it in your house!

Once that is done, we start on our details. For this, I use FlyLadys zones. You can find them here. Just click on "zones." If we don't have time for the details, we don't do them. At least the beds are made and everything has found it's place for that day.

Laundry is done daily also. I wash, dry and fold anywhere from 2-6 loads a day, depending on what needs to be done. At the end of the day, we all work on getting it all put away. We do this after supper when dad is home and he helps. We all wear the clothes, we all do our part. It takes us, you guessed it 15 minutes. Sometimes it takes maybe 20-25 depending upon how much we have and how well the kids are cooperating.

                                     (Picture of FlyLady's timer is used with permission of FlyLady.)

Yes, it's that simple! We spend no more than 15 minutes in one room and no less. You can do it too! So, get your timers out and give it a try. Let me know how it goes!

New addition to the family.... or make that FOUR new additions

Before you start wondering if I just gave birth to quadruplets. I didn't. We just bought 4 goldfish for the kids to take care of.

They have been begging for a while now to have some fish. I made a deal with them. They had to clean and de-clutter their room and I would buy them some fish. My husband and I talked about it and decided that 38 cent goldfish weren't too much of an investment if this little project goes south.

Since I have 4 kids, ready and willing, to help in the care of these cute little fish, I needed some way to track what had been done. The fish will need to be fed once or twice daily, not four. The tank will also need to be cleaned. We just purchased a typical goldfish bowl to start. That is why it will need to be cleaned so often. I plan on buying them something similar to this magnetic cleaner.

I searched online and couldn't find what I was looking for, so I made my own. I decided to share it with all of you too! You can print it by following this link to Teachers Pay Teachers: Goldfish Care Chart.

Math Mammoth Review

This week, my review is on Math Mammoth Light Blue Series 1A & 1B. I don't technically have any children in grade 1. However, my 5 year old, Hurricane, was ready to move past pre-school level math, so I thought we'd give this a try.

With my other two boys, we used Singapore Math 1A & 1B. We are very much a Singapore Math family, so it was very hard for me not to compare the two curricula when doing this review. It seems that most, if not all, homeschooling families have a certain math curriculum they use and they stick with it. Everyone has different tastes and learning styles, so they are all going to be different. Early on in my homeschooling "career," I referred to this chart from the Math Mammoth website to help me decide what would be best for our family. We use Singapore Math Standards Edition, so it doesn't line up exactly with Math Mammoth, but it's close.

Math Mammoth 1A starts out with a Kindergarten math review. I LOVED this. Since Hurricane is still a bit young, it was nice to have a bit of review to go over with him. It also helped him to get used to the work text format.  We are moving nice and slow for him. One page a day, at this point. I plan on slowing down or speeding up, depending upon his needs.

After the Kindergarten math review, the curriculum covers four main areas; addition and subtraction, place value, measuring lengths and geometric shapes. A full table of contents can be viewed by clicking the link above for the Light Blue Series 1A & 1B and downloading the "contents and samples" file.

One thing I really love about Math Mammoth is the focus on UNDERSTANDING of mathematical concepts. It's not just all memorization, though that is helpful when it comes to math.  I am a "why" person. I don't just do things without a good reason. Math Mammoth will teach your children to understand why. I believe this really helps to master the concepts taught in mathematics, and is one main reason I would suggest Math Mammoth to any homeschooling family.

Maria really does a wonderful job explaining the Light Blue series here:

Pros

1. Very cost effective at $34 for the whole year.

2. Focuses on understanding of mathematical concepts.

3. Easy to use with the directions printed right in the workbook.

4. No teachers manual needed.

5. Very clear explanations.

6. Can be purchased in a few different forms. 

7. Very little "extras," like manipulatives, needed. 

Cons

I honestly can't think of any. 

I will say that we plan on continuing with this curriculum for Hurricane's first year of math. After that, the plan is to switch to Singapore Math Standards Edition. That is not a knock on Math Mammoth at all, just a personal preference. I feel the scope and sequence fits our family better. That is my ONLY reason. If there ever were a time that we needed to change our math curricula for any reason, Math Mammoth would be at the top of my list! 

If you would like to purchase this curricula, you can go to the Math Mammoth Light Blue Series Grade 1 site and choose which option you like best. Your options are printed, download and CD formats. The printed are a bit more expensive, but still not as expensive as some of the math curricula out there. 

You can also read more reviews for Math Mammoth here: Mosaic Reviews: Math Mammoth

Rowing "The Tale of Peter Rabbit"

The week of September 3rd marked the start of our school year. I hadn't planned on starting until the following week, but the kids were begging to get going. Who am I to deny them? Since I didn't want to mess my plans up. I decided to do Tuesday and Thursday the first week and Monday, Wednesday, Friday the next week. That way we get our full first week in, and we can ease back into our school schedule.

For the first week, we decided to row "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" by Beatrix Potter. I LOVE this book. There are so many things to learn from it's characters. The kids love it too.

Most of our activities are right out of the Five In A Row Volume 2 manual, so I won't go into those much. The manuals are very much worth every penny spent. (Though, I didn't have to spent anything on mine since I found them at a local FREE store.) I really wanted to share with you the sensory bin I came up with.

What you will need (cost):

Bin large enough to hold everything (free since I had it at home)

Potting soil ($0.97 at Walmart)

Seed packets ($0.10 a piece on clearance)

"Silk" flowers ($0.50 a bunch on clearance, I bought 3)

Shovels and other play things ($1.60 a piece on clearance)

As you can see, I didn't spend much on this bin. You don't need to really. I plan my sensory bins a few weeks out, so I can look through clearance isles and 2nd hand stores. I just make a list of everything I am going to need and keep my eyes open. If something proves to be too hard to find, I can usually find something else to fit in the bin, or just change the bin idea.

My kids LOVED it! Once we finished reading the book and doing our learning activity for the day, I brought this bin out. I put it on the floor with a large vinyl tablecloth underneath. (That made for very easy clean up. I found it at Goodwill for $2) This bin kept the younger two (ages 3 and 5) busy while I continued teaching my older two.

I left it out for maybe 30-45 minutes, then picked it up. I have found, with my kids, that if I leave things out for them too long, it will just become a huge mess. They were usually done playing with it by this time anyway. I wouldn't take it away from them when they were in the middle of playing. That is serious business. I would just pay attention to when they were loosing interest and put it up at that point.

We had lots of fun rowing "The Tale of Peter Rabbit." We hope you do too!

Review - Homeschool Programming Kid Coder Web Design

Homeschool Programming 

Kid Coder Beginning Web Design

Grades 4-12

Price: 

Homeschool Programming is a super fun computer science curriculum that teaches your 4th-12th grade children how to write their own computer programs and games. The program was written by homeschool parents with over 17 years of experience in the software industry.

They offer "Kid Coder" and "Teen Coder" options. Kid Coder is for all grades within that range, while Teen Coder is for the student who would like a more in-depth study. 

Here's a photo from their site that shows everything they offer. 

 

Being that most of my children are too young for this program, I had my oldest work with it. Both of us have enjoyed it so far. "Lightening" seems to be catching on to most of it. He likes how it's laid out for him and the fact that he can work independently. I also like this aspect. I can set him to work and go about mine. I check in with him often and help him when he asks. Though it's not really needed as the program walks him through step by step. I barely have to help him!

We are only about 4 chapters in at this point, but we do plan on continuing to the end. We may even purchase the other program options, if that is what Lightening wants to do. I do believe it's worth every penny! This is all information that I wish I knew, so I had no idea how to teach my children. Homeschool Programming took care of it all for me!

To read other great reviews of this product, go to Mosaic Reviews.