I am so excited to introduce you to my good friend, wardrobe assistant, and Stella & Dot stylist, Kitty!

She is one of my favourite fashionistas with a super sense of style. She knows just what to put together to make some gorgeous outfits! With her stylish advice she has gotten me out of a rut more than a few times.

The other night we sat down together to talk fashion and beauty and accessories, and she gave me some great info, encouragement and tips to share with you.

What is it about beauty and fashion that you enjoy?

I always had a lot of acne as a teenager and was very self conscious about my skin, so I was into skin care. I would try to find the perfect makeup for acne scars and learning that those things are just a cover up, and true beauty comes from God. For fashion, trying to adorn yourself to boost self esteem is just external. As I matured, I understood that beauty and fashion can help people with their professional image and give a boost in confidence as well, to look polished, put together.

It’s also about finding your own style, and pieces that would help you to do every day, whether you’re a mom, student, working professional, just finding your own style . What’s comfy, effortless, yet looks nice. Dressing nicely should not be a chore. That’s a very important thing, because a lot of times it seems like dressing presentably is a chore and not fun.

What advice would you give to others in regards to building an effortless wardrobe?

Finding what works for them. TAKE THE TIME TO TRY THINGS ON! If you don’t try it on you never know! Or you might really like a piece but it doesn’t look good on you. If the cut of the shirt is wrong for you, it won’t look nice on! Ask other people. Ask your husband, boyfriend, best friend, because they will know what looks good on you as well. Look for what gives you confidence. Sometimes you just need to go out of your box – out of the baggy sweat shirts and pants, try that fitted shirt and see if it works!

For jewelry, find some pieces that are basic. Determine what looks best on your skin tone (gold, silver, or other metals). You can buy a lot of pieces, but if they’re not  cute or a lot of effort to pair with an outfit you’re not going to wear them.

Try mixing and matching some accessory pieces together to see how they work together. Layering works for jewelry as well as clothing!

Do you have any tips for styling for the upcoming summer season? 

So this season it’s about a lot of bright colours. Traditionally you would only layer brights on white or dark, but now it’s layering brights on bright. So don’t be afraid to layer your neon yellow with oranges, hot pink, or green! A pop of colour is a great way to spice up your wardrobe, whether you do it in a beautiful mixed print scarf or turquoise earrings.

Coloured jeans are also hot right now – try mint green or lavender purple for some beautiful colours.

You can also tone down your outfit with neutrals. Layering again! Get pieces you can wear separately or together for an arm party.

Remember – its ok to layer and mix metals. Jewelry can really make or break an outfit. You can be wearing no jewelry and when you put a piece on it totally changes the look.

Tell me a little bit about what got you interested in Stella & Dot?

Right away the jewelry caught my eye, and I do love jewelry! Then I found out from my friend, who is a Stella & Dot stylist, that working with them is a great part or full time job opportunity. It offers women flexibility and chances to style their lives. It’s super easy to start up and maintain and its fun because you get to meet other women, earn some extra cash – every little bit helps! You also get to help people find styles that would help them to pull together an effortless look.

And the jewelry is super cute! They have also recently started carrying some really cool bags – and who doesn’t love a great bag as an accessory!

What happens at a Stella & Dot Trunk Show?

First, gather your girlfriends. I’ll bring my jewelry, scarves, bags and other accessories, and we’ll have a fun “ultimate personal styling experience”.  Stella & Dot has something for everyone!

You’ll have an opportunity to touch and feel the pieces, try them on, and your stylist will help you find the look that flatters you, ones that you can wear everyday, or for special occasions.  SEEING how one piece of jewelry can give you a different look, or be worn different ways, begins to open up whole new possibilities.

When you host a trunk show, you will have access to some pretty sweet exclusive offers, products and discounts. At Stella & Dot we love to spoil our hostesses! You can also earn free and half-off accessrories for hosting a trunk show.

Now for the bonus – a giveaway! Tell me a little bit about this great bag.

This bag is called “How Does She Do It”. It is one of my favourite bags from Stella & Dot! It is very versatile and comes in a few different styles. Whether you use it as a carryall, or snapped down into a satchel, it is great for every day use or traveling.

It can also be worn different ways, and it’s the perfect size for a laptop or to use as a diaper bag. There are also a lot of fun little extra details – charm detailing, beautiful liners, leather straps. And of course who doesn’t love the internal water bottle pocket!

Kitty, thanks so much for sharing some great tips, ideas and products with us – not to mention this fabulous bag for the giveaway! In closing, how important is quality to you when choosing accessories?

Very! I would definitely choose quality over quantity.  Quality is very important because a lot of the time it affects the way it falls on you.  Or, if you buy a cheap bag, if you use it every day, it will break in a few weeks. The lining will start to fade, the edges will fray. But a good quality bag used every day will last you a long time.

Enter to win the How Does She Do It bag from Stella & Dot!

 *Giveaway open only to residents of the Greater Toronto Area*

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The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah. Or more like BOO-NO! And they never, EVER march in just groups of 1, or 2, or 3. More like entire COLONIES that always seem to make their way into your house on the 2nd week you haven’t vacuumed and there’s a proverbial smorgasbord of delicious goodies all over the floor for them to avail themselves of….

We always seem to get a general infestation of ants as soon as we get a few consistent days of warmth and sunshine. And with kids around it can be very difficult to safely eliminate the problem. Ant poison traps are always in danger of ending up in little hands, spraying is just nasty (not to mention super toxic!) and I’ve never found a safe “natural” solution that works well.

I’d often do a happy dance on the rain days when the torrents would come down, thinking with glee that the ants were getting drowned and washed away. Not so, as we learned in our Apologia studies last year. Ants have the ability to hold their breath. For a long time. Which means no ants were getting drowned on our back patio. (Great defense mechanism, bad elimination tactic).

So in desperation, I devised my own completely safe, highly effective (and let’s face it, fun :D) way to get rid of ants.

All you need is some water, a kettle, broom, vacuum and mop, and a pile of ants.

Step 1. Sweep or vacuum the area where your ants are coming in. Wipe the floor down or mop to remove as much of their scent as possible.

Step 2. Boil your kettle full of water.

Step 3. Pour boiling water over the ants and ant hills.

Step 4. Repeat

Bonus feature – This is also a really great way to get a clean patio or a big mud puddle for your kids to play in too :D

I’m DEAD serious (hee hee). This works. And it works well! You may have to repeat a couple of times, and reboil the kettle depending on how many ant hills you have in the back yard. But once we do this a couple times (and keep floors swept clean and mopped!) you’ll stop seeing the ants coming in.

We do this a couple of times (maybe) over the summer and that’s all the ants we have to deal with!

Let me know if you try it how it works for you!

*I received a copy of The Big Book of Earth and Sky to review*

As much as possible in our preschool letter of the week lessons with Keekers,, I try to draw our older boys in with a unit study. This helps me to spread my already stretched time just a little bit further :D

Last week we were working on the letter W, and I had chosen weather, wind and water to be our unit study focus. It worked out so conveniently because at the very same time I received The Big Book of Earth and Sky from MasterBooks to review! A couple years ago we won a copy of The Big Book of History, and it is FANTASTIC, so I knew this book would be the same.

How we are using The Big Book of Earth and Sky

We spent some time outdoors examining the sky and learning a bit about types of clouds. There are more than just cumulus, cirrus, and stratus! There are actually many combinations of clouds, and if you get familiar with them, you can get pretty good at predicting the weather :D

Speaking of weather, it almost always involves water in some way – we studied up on the water cycle, to understand how it is that water gets from the ocean, to the sky, to the earth, and back to the sky again.

Check out our fun experiment to see how much water evaporates! This level went down over a couple of days’ time.

The Big Book of Earth and Sky has a ton of fantastic information about weather, right there in the fold-outs! All 15 feet of them!

What’s Inside The Folds

This book is huge, jam-packed with creation-based, biblically accurate information about the earth and the sky God created. It covers everything from the earth’s atmosphere and solar system to who broke the record for the highest sky dive, types of rocks, ocean creatures, and everything in between! The kids will literally spend HOURS with it on the floor, examining each image, reading the information, coming running into the kitchen to share some new fact discovered, excited and more than entertained – they’re learning!

How to get a copy of The Big Book of Earth and Sky

Master Books and New Leaf Publishing are generously offering a copy of The Big Book of Earth and Sky to one of my readers! Enter below!
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If you can’t wait, you can buy a copy from New Leaf Publishing for $19.99!

You’re also going to want to check out the Master Books Book and a Bite Facebook Party tomorrow night (Tuesday, April 30th) at 8-9 pm central (9-10 pm eastern). This is a great opportunity to learn more about Master Books, engage with other families, AND win some great prizes :D See you there!

I’ll admit it. I grew up homeschooled, we decided to homeschool, and have now been doing it for 6 years without ever having once attended a homeschool convention. Yup, not a one. It’s not for lack of events occurring in my area – every year there are 2 major homeschool conventions that occur within a 2 hour drive of us. It’s not for lack of desire to be encouraged and receive practical tips and angles for everything you could possibly imagine facing during your homeschooling journey. I suppose it has mostly been a combination of things – fear of being overwhelmed, and as I typically do, to the point of not actually applying anything we learn. But something else has also held me back from attending these conventions, and I think I’ve finally pin-pointed what it is.

The head of the family is the father. He leads, sets the tone and focus, encourages, disciplines, and is mom’s biggest cheerleader, encourager, and support. His role in the homeschool is just as important as his role in the family, and I feel as though the challenge for dad’s to step up in this area has been lacking. Homeschool convention workshops are typically geared toward the mom, keeping in mind dad’s will be attending – but nothing has really been focused on encouraging, equipping and loving on the dads steering the ship.

But then I heard about Teach Them Diligently. And I knew instantly that something was different. Maybe it was hearing stories of the Men’s Breakfast, where the dads are poured into by some pretty cool homeschooling fathers and encouragers. Maybe it was seeing the session topics focusing less on “How to Homeschool” and more on how to reach the heart of and disciple your children. And then there’s the childrens’ program. I’ve never heard of a homeschool convention with a discipleship training program for your children to attend while their parents are being discipled.

Going once, going twice, SOLD!

And so, in a few weeks’ time, we’ll be making the long drive down to attend our very first homeschool convention ever. Am I nervous? Only slightly! Because I know that the women I’ve been connecting with online will be there to welcome us, and that these families are all coming together for the same reasons – learning how to let God lead in our homes, school and hearts. Plus, what better place is there to gather to hear some amazing testimonies, share stories, laughter and tears? Oh, AND there will be a TON of my favourite homeschool companies there, in the vendor hall. And there will be deals, oh yes, there will be deals! :D

If you’ve never attended a homeschool convention before, this is one you don’t want to miss! It’s worth the drive to Nashville, Omaha or Spartanburg. We’re even turning it into an amazing family adventure – we’ll be visiting the Creation Museum (did I MENTION Ken Ham is a speaker?!) on our way down, stopping to stay with some beloved friends, and making a trip over to the Sight and Sound Theater to see “Noah” on our way home.

Have you ever attended a homeschool convention? What was the best thing you took away from it? Are you going to Teach Them Diligently?

If you aren’t able to make it to the convention locations in May, then you must try to make it to one of the 9 Marketplace locations happening across the US over the summer! Mini retreat, convention and marketplace, all rolled into one!

There’s been a whole lot of talk going on everywhere lately about wardrobes – not the Narnian kind you walk through, but rather the often confusing and frustrating mass of clothing we have shoved into our drawers or hanging askew in our closets. As a mom with young kids and a baby who is up at night, I often have to think HARD about what I’m going to wear in the morning – and I’m more often than not the last one dressed out of the bunch :D Don’t get me wrong – I do so LOVE dressing for the day and choosing outfits which are fun and fit comfortably. But too often I’ve found myself stuck with limited options because of a nursing baby.

When I discovered Undercover Mama nursing tops, I nearly jumped up and down with glee! This isn’t just your average nursing top. Yes, there are tank tops out there that you can wear to nurse discreetly, but I’ve always found them to be poor quality, boring colours, lacking in length, or too low cut.

Undercover Mama is the exception, and here are the things I love best about them!

Discreet nursing

With 4 kids I don’t have much choice in deciding where and when I am going to nurse the baby if we are out and about. I used to whole up in a room so I could save everyone the flash of white belly while trying to nurse my little one. While I still like to be discreet and use a nursing cover, these tops have made feeding the baby while out and about so much more comfortable and less stressful! No more exposed back!

Single un-clip

Many nursing tank tops have a separate strap and clip from your bras. That means you have to unclip and re-clip twice. This is very awkward when you often only have have 1 hand to do it with! Undercover Mama has a convenient rubber ring which slips on to the bra flap and allows you to un-clip both at the same time. It also comes with a hook you can slide onto the strap or flap of your nursing bra.

Longer length

A pet peeve of mine are tops that shrink and hike up, especially the ones we use for layering under our normal shirts. The Undercover Mama top has an extra long length to it, so whether you have a short or long torso, it’s got your back (covered that is! :D). They do seem to run a bit on the larger side, so if you’re normally a medium, go with a small. When in doubt, there is a great size guide!

Multiple Colours

Most nursing tank tops I’ve seen come in two c0lours – black and white. Not so in this case! With Undercover Mama you have over 10 colours to pick from. This definitely makes coordinating with your current wardrobe a lot easier.

AMAZING Customer Service

These guys stand behind their products! Plus, it was developed by a mom, so you KNOW it’s been put through all the tests. And if there are ever any issues with your tops, customer service is on it like a bee on honey. I had an issue with the lace on one of my tops separating from the bottom seam, and they very quickly sent a replacement top.

Want to win one of your own? Use the rafflecopter entry form below and win your choice of colour and size in an Undercover Mama! (Not including Blueberry, Emerald or Orange). Giveaway will be open until Friday, May 3rd.

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*Disclosure* I received one free Undercover Mama nursing top for the review. All opinions and other tops are my own :D

I am a list-maker by default. If something needs to get done, it isn’t getting anywhere near completion without a detailed list in front of me where I can see tangible progress! It is the same whether it’s chores, blog posts, groceries, projects for myself or the kids, and most importantly, our homeschool.

I’ve written before about the importance of using a schedule to keep yourself on track, and accountable to your daily lessons. Believe me when I tell you that if we don’t have a schedule, we are wasting most of our time either trying to figure out what is coming next (that goes for both the kids AND mom :D) and trying to rally everyone together for a group lesson or chore time. As much as I know it is important to keep us organized, focused and on track, I still struggle so much with the actual putting together of a schedule. Once we have the framework in place though, it’s literally a BREEZE and I feel like we save hours in our day!

Though I tend toward using pen and paper for making up our schedules, when I heard about the Homeschool Minder program, I knew it was some new territory I wanted to venture into. I’ve heard a lot about scheduling and record keeping software, and frankly, it all makes my head spin! But I went into this with no expectations, curious to see how all the different parts work together. Below is a breakdown of how we used the web-based program and what the benefits were.

How to Lesson Plan with Homeschool Minder

This is the heart and soul of the whole program. Homeschool Minder conveniently allows you to set up separate students with their subjects under “make your own” categories – so you’re not restricted to pre-made areas of study, and you can easily change/rename them. If you have more than one student using the same subject – for example, both my boys participate in our Apologia Swimming Creatures study – you can create the lesson once, and copy it from one student to the next! I love me a good copy and paste :0)

Any number of subjects can be added to your student, along with resources, activities (and chores!).

If you know what your daily schedule is going to look like, you can add a start and finish time to the subject. This is extremely helpful because when you print out the schedule, everything is already given a time slot and your child can work through the schedule, checking off things as they go.

You can be as detailed with the planning, or go as simple as you want. To each subject you can add a lesson. To each lesson you can add instructions, as well as assignments. Here is where you would also add which resources you are using – this is perfect for future years when your younger students are doing the same subject and you can’t remember which books you used!

Grading and Keeping Records with Homeschool Minder

If keeping track of grades is important to you, or you need to keep a record of them, then you will love the gradebook. When you add an assignment, you can determine how much the finished work is worth - either a certain number of points, or a pass/fail.

When the assignment is complete, simply add in the score. The fun part is how cool and professional the printed report looks!

I am a visual person, so I love seeing improvement. This got me excited because, even though we don’t necessarily need to use it now, I can get really accurate reports on progress and see where we would need to apply more review and teaching. Once we get into high school and needing to keep daily records and grades for a transcript, this is a feature I can see using a lot more.

Outside of the grading, you can generate over 16 different kinds of reports and save them as a .pdf  for quick viewing or your own records. As I mentioned, you can set up each student separately. To the usual activities and subjects, you can also add standardized test scores, chores, volunteer work and reading lists. Bring on those dreaded high school transcripts, Homeschool Minder keeps it all in one place for you to quickly and easily get the report done!

Homeschool Minder Calendar Feature

The calendar view is really nice – you can choose whether you view a month or a week – individual students’ schedules, and what subjects or activities are scheduled on each day. If you want to keep it simple, you can just check off the day of school completed and not show anything else.

Miss a subject? Quickly and easily drag it to the next day or slot on the calendar.

Need to change the time you scheduled a subject for? Click on it in calendar view and change the time slot for that day. Everything is editable from the calendar, which makes it very easy to change things without having to go digging for them!

From the calendar you can also print a report of your activities – what field trips you have planned, how many days of school were completed, the assignments due, etc.

Accessing the Online Record Keeping Application

Homeschool Minder is a web-based planning program. This is great because you can access it anywhere. If your computer dies, you don’t have to worry about not being able to get in and make or change lesson plans – just jump on another computer! If you’re out of town and you forgot to add something to your students’ schedule, you can do it right where you are. Homeschool Minder is also working on the possibility of setting each child up with their own login so they can see their schedules online.

If you are interested, you can try Homeschool Minder with a FREE 30 DAY TRIAL. A tip for you – use the tutorials! This is a detailed-oriented program, so you need to learn at the start where things are to make the process go quickly after the setup.

If you want to sign up, it’s only $5.99 a month for an unlimited number of students!

And the first 50 people who sign up with this link will receive a 20% discount off their subscription.

For more information, check out Homeschool Minder on Twitter and Facebook.

Read more from these other great reviews!

Keeping Homeschool Records with Homeschool Minder

The Ultimate Homeschool Documentation Tool

Yesterday was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. For the past few weeks, things have been getting more and more wrangy around our house. I can blame the weather, I can blame the kids getting sick again, I can blame us keeping too many long hours, I can blame too busy weekends. But if I peel back each of these layers of blame, I think I can see what the root problem is.

We are weary. The winter has been long. The spring has been wet, dreary, filled with illness. Our days have been non-stop, our attitudes and nerves worn to the core. Our time in the word – piddly at best. Oh, we still have our daily devotions as a family, but I’ve slacked off in keeping up with our bible studies during our school day, starting off on the wrong note of tension and frustration. Though I’m reading daily on #SheReadsTruth, and leading my Hello Mornings group,  I haven’t been to small group in a month, maybe two. I’ve caught one full church service in 4 weeks.

I’ve been feeling like I have to keep it all together. Have to keep the house tidy. Have to keep the meals healthy (oh boy, did I maybe start this change in lifestyle at the wrong time?!). Have to put everything away at the end of the day. Have to do all our normal schoolwork. Have to fit in all the extras too. (Remember my series about that?)

Finally, I’d had enough. Yesterday I sent out an S.O.S. to some dear momma friends who have been or currently are in the exact same trenches I am wallowing in right now. I laid it all out there – the crying, the yelling, the collapsing in despair, the mess, the distress, the 3-day unwashed hair. And what I heard back was soothing, ointment for my soul.

They told me I am not alone. Even those who look all kept together all over the blogosphere, you don’t know that the same day they’re battling deep. That you don’t do it all when you have a 4 month-old and 3 others that you’re homeschooling. Over and over I heard that on the best days you snuggle on the couch and read, and on the worst you just pray and try to smile. Mackenzie showed me pictures of mismatched socks and told me how she’s still trying to figure it out with a baby, 9 months later. Cindy told me to suck it up when I don’t feel like spending time with my kids because they’re acting like aliens from some planet other than earth (love ya girl!).

They were real with me in the struggles they’re experiencing, showing me THIS.IS.NORMAL, and no, I’m not crazy or delusional, I’m just sleep-deprived and trying to DO.TOO.MUCH. They showed me it’s ok to not have it all together, and in fact, cheered me on into making the decisions to let things go.

They told me to give up. Not everything. But to find some things I could give up that were causing me stress. My hubby helped me to realize that I needed to turn those darn Facebook group e-mails off and just check the notifications in-app (Can I just tell you how FREEING that is?!?!). Jodi told me to unsubscribe from some blogs (sorry!) because though they are encouraging and lovely, they are sucking time I don’t have, and have the potential to make me jealous of their food :D and I would be constantly comparing myself to them (not knowing what else they’re going through).

Sweet Rebecca told me to give myself time on here. That just because others were writing, didn’t mean I needed to. Christin wrote yesterday about the ground being dry, forgetting to pray, praise, and needing to let some distractions go.

My time is so limited, so precious, and I need to be better prioritizing it. I’m going to pare down our school days to the absolute MUSTS (math and reading), and if anything else beyond that gets done, it will be a mighty victory! I’m going to let go the need to have everything tidied every day and leave those messes for the moments of fun I have been missing. I’m unsubscribing from blogs and putting them in my Feedly, disabling my Facebook notifications and checking less. Spending more time in the word, soaking in the strength and wisdom that can get me from surviving to thriving again.

Things are going to be pretty slow on here for a while. I still want to be connected, but what good am I to encouraging and uplifting others if I can’t even keep a joyful spirit and a happy face before my own children?  While I’m not giving this up, I’m stepping back so I can get my head on straight. I need a reset! I have some obligations still to fill, but after that I’ll be assessing what and where my time is best spent.

I am so grateful for this space here, and for those who read and leave such encouraging comments. My encouragement to you is if you feel like you’re drowning, you can’t get it all done, it’s ok! Take to heart some of the words of the wise women above and see pray about where you need to make some changes.

Things have been pretty quiet here lately on the blog – not that things haven’t been going a mile a minute in our lives! After the fantastic birthday week of giveaways, celebrations, and Easter (HE IS RISEN!), the girls got hammered with the flu :0( The boys were fine, though they’d had some chest congestion and coughing for a few weeks before. Today we thought we were out of the woods, however The Boy woke up with a fever and headache. Here we go again! I’m buried under laundry and party planning (my sister’s getting married, woo hoo!), homeschool scheduling, teaching, and researching.

For a while now I’ve been wanting to start running. A few years ago you couldn’t pay me to run, and I had zero desire to. While I was at Capernwray New Zealand, in the adventure program, we HAD to run. I chugged, huffed, puffed and cramped my way along, liking the adrenaline rush at the end, but hating the general process. Over the past year I’ve been reading Erin’s blog where she’s talked a lot about getting into running. I’ve watched a lot of my friends take it up, and end up loving it. Their testimonies are so inspiring I’ve decided to tackle it! I even got my brother to get my Vibram 5 Fingers for my Christmas present, because I’m convinced barefoot running is the way to go to avoid the strain that running can put on your body. I’ve done my reading (Run Like a Mother is PHENOMENAL, very funny, practical and inspiring!), read up on how to stride, land, breathe, etc, bought some comfortable running gear, and downloaded the tracking apps to my phone. I’m planning on using Couch to 5K and Another Mother Runner’s 5K Finish It plan. After one more week of consistent walking, I think I’ll be ready to go! I’ll try to chronicle my experiences here on the blog, let you know what I learn and how I progress. If any of you have tips or encouragement for beginning runners, I’m all ears!

The other project I’ve been working on is looking into Whole 30, Paleo, clean eating, the whole shebang. I’ve been toying with the idea of Whole 30 for a while, but after a lot of research, I don’t think it’s a good fit for us. A, I’m still Miss E’s source of food, and I’ve read that milk supply can decrease a lot while on Whole 30 (though there are things you can do to combat it). B, neither my hubby nor I have any major health issues or concerns, reasons for doing an extreme elimination diet – other than needing to cut back on unhealthy grains and exposure to sugars. So, after a ton of research and going back and forth, today we are starting something of a Paleo/Primal, whole/clean -ish eating plan.

Our goals? Cutting back on sugar is one – SUGAR IS EVERYWHERE! YIKE! Even where you wouldn’t expect it to be. Like in bacon. No joke. I’d also like to limit and change our wheat/gluten products. I am convinced that if we followed all the rules of every idea of healthy eating out there, we’d not be able to eat anything. For Paleo, grains are totally out – and there are some good reasons to avoid them if you have issues with your stomach. But I really do not like the idea of cutting them out totally, at least not forever, but rather modifying what we’re eating and how we’re preparing them. There’s so much to learn about our food and diets, health, etc. It’s totally overwhelming! Ill be sharing some of what I’m learning along the way, hopefully sharing some recipes and meal plans.

I signed up with e-meals a few weeks ago when they had a Groupon deal going, and they have Paleo meal plans! They also have clean eating, gluten free, etc. and you can change up the plans every term. Without these plans I don’t think I could do it, they save me so much time and energy, though I’m still doing a lot of research for breakfast and snack ideas so we don’t end up cheating!

I don’t know that this will be a long term diet for us, but hopefully a healthy change in lifestyle and reading more labels, making better food choices for the whole family.

I’ll keep you posted along the way and I’d love to hear from you your favourite healthy recipes and how you maintain a healthy lifestyle.

My husband and I love Indian food. There are a couple of good places around where we live that we like to eat at – and when you get good Indian food, oh man is it EVER good! If you’ve never had Indian before, I suggest you start off easy with a nice butter chicken. If you’re not sure about the places near you (because you can definitely get bad Indian :p) then buy one of the jars of butter chicken sauce from Costco, or try making your own butter chicken with this recipe from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry (it’s not hard!).

Papad has been a recent discovery for us – it’s these flat bread crackers that you dip into sauces and is often served as a precursor to your meal. We like it with mango chutney, so delish! We had tried finding them at our grocery store in the ethnic section, but were unsuccessful. But because of where we live, there are a lot of Indian grocers around, so that was the big duh moment! The Man was able to find them no problem! There are different flavours of papad, we like the caraway ones, but could only find the plain ones. They’re easy to prepare – just put a little (VERY LITTLE!) oil in a frying pan, add the papad, press down and turn with a spatula, flipping frequently so as not to over cook it. Then remove to a paper towel. It will harden as it cools, but during the cooking process is quite soft.

Another favourite dish of ours is Chicken Tikka Masala. This is a super flavourful, spicy dish, full of cumin, coriander and a special blend of spices called garam masala.

You should be able to find this in an ethnic section of your grocery store (we found it at No Frills in Ontario), but if you are unable, you can also make the blend yourself.

1 tablespoon coriander; ground
1 tablespoon cumin; ground
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper; ground
1 tablespoon fennel seeds; ground
1 tablespoon ginger; ground
1 tablespoon cardamom; ground
1 tablespoon nutmeg; ground
1 TEASPOON cloves; ground

I have tried a couple different chicken tikka masala recipes, trying to find one that tasted at least somewhat close to what you would get at our favourite Indian restaurant. My first attempt was an utter failure. It didn’t taste anything like it was supposed to (just chicken in a tomato sauce, boring!) though our friends, Chris and Kitty, whom we served it to, were probably relieved since they’re not big fans of Indian/spicy food ;0)

My second attempt was very much like butter chicken. While we love butter chicken, it just did not have the right blend of spices, and the flavour was too mild. I gave up and decided it was too difficult.

Until hubby brought home the papad. Suddenly I started researching recipes again and settled on a couple to compare and try. The result was a SMASHING success! The Man even brought home a jar of the sauce from the store for us to compare to, did a blind taste test, and chose mine over it!

Points!

So here’s the recipe we settled on. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do! If you like it spicier, you can add in chile peppers – but just so you know, between the chili powder on the chicken and the garam masala mix, it does have a nice little bite to it. Not a fire, fire fire! bite, but enough to get your taste buds jumping :0) Enjoy!

Chicken Tikka Masala

Chicken and Spice Rub:

• 3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or chili powder)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup plain yogurt (the more fat the better!)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2-4 garlic cloves, minced (better flavour if you mince it vs. pressing it through a garlic press)
• 1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger

Mix spices together and rub over both sides of the chicken breast, pressing in. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour. Mix together yogurt, oil, garlic and ginger.

Dredge the chicken through the yogurt mixture, making sure to coat it well.

Preheat oven on the broiler and line a cookie sheet with foil. If you don’t have an uncoated cooling rack (mine is covered in a plastic), just place the chicken right on the oven’s metal shelves, about 6 inches from the element, with the cookie sheet underneath to catch any drips. Broil about 5-7 minutes per side, or until cooked (they won’t be cooked past this point, so make sure they’re cooked through!). They should be slightly blackened, but not charred.

Chicken Tikka Masala Sauce

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 2-4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1-3 tablespoons garam masala (depending on how flavourful and spicy you want it – I used 3 tablespoons, a little spicy for the kids though!)
• 1/2 can (14 ounces total) crushed tomatoes
• 1/2 can (14 ounces total) diced tomatoes (make sure both the tomatoes are plain, no spices added!)
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon salt
• 1/2 – 1 cup cream (heavy or half and half is fine – the amount varies depending on how creamy you want your sauce to be)
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Heat a frying pan and add the oil. Saute onions until soft and slightly golden, about 5-8 minutes. Add garlic, ginger, tomato paste and garam masala, cooking until fragrant (about 2-3 minutes). Stir frequently so it doesn’t burn! This is where you want to add any more garam masala to the dish because the “fragrancing” is where all the flavours come out!

Add tomatoes, sugar and salt and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 15 minutes (stir occasionally). Stir in cream and return to a simmer. Remove pan from the heat and keep warm.

Cut up the chicken into chunks and add to the sauce – you do not want to heat the chicken up in the sauce, so make sure it is cooked through and still hot when you add it. Stir in the cilantro or garnish on top.

Serve with hot basmati rice, garlic naan and papad.

(Disclaimer – I received a free trial of Time4Learning and was compensated for my time. The thoughts and opinions I shared are completely my own.)

Homeschooling 3 kids between ages 4 and 8, with a 4 month old baby to boot, can be quite the circus act. While my eldest is almost 8, in 3rd grade, and becoming quite independent with his schoolwork, I still find it a struggle to keep him occupied at certain times during the day.

He tends to finish very quickly sometimes, before I have a chance to get something else together for him to work on. And if both boys are finished school and I’m busy with Keekers or Miss E, it can be a recipe for disaster! They are boys, curious, and full of energy (especially when they’ve been cooped up for 2 weeks with colds!) and always on a mission of some kind.

While I know it’s not good to keep them constantly busy with schoolwork (they need room to breathe and be creative after all!), it’s also not good to leave them to their own devises for too long. Then you’re just asking for trouble.

So what’s a busy homeschool mom to do? I don’t like them watching TV or playing online games – we’ve even limited the time they have on the iPad because they would fight for turns and expect it all the time.

Think, think, think….

Fortunately I was introduced to Time4Learning – an online educational program that encompasses a broad range of subjects, and is appropriate for age 3 up to grade 8. This isn’t your average games portal. Believe me, I’ve been searching and searching for a program that would offer more than one subject of study and wouldn’t just be teaching or just games. I always approach anything computer related with extreme caution as I know that my kids have a tendency to get addicted to electronics very easily! To be honest, I was really skeptical that this program would be any different than a typical computer game. Boy was I wrong!

What I love about Time4Learning:

When you first login, you set up each child to have their own account. You choose their age and grade levels. You can also choose different levels for different subjects – for instance, my 8 year old is in a higher ability level in reading than in math, so I can put him at a lower level for the math lessons.

When they login and use the program, it keeps track of their progress. And by progress I don’t mean “game scores”. There are different subjects to take lessons in – all are age-appropriate and include (but are not limited to):

• language arts
• science
• math
• social studies
• reading comprehension

When your child uses the program, it tracks their answers to quizzes and which lessons they have completed so you know where they need help.

Parent interaction is as much or as little as you desire. You can let them complete the lessons and do the quizzes on their own and check their scores. There is also a section to view the Scope and Sequence for each grade, subject and lesson. For me this is too much involvement since we already have our curriculum planned, and are planning on using this more for activities, but if you are using this program as more than a supplement to your schooling this section is very helpful!

Select the subject and number of weeks they’ll be working on it, then input if you want them to do the lessons, quizzes, worksheets and tests. Generate a schedule which shows the lesson to complete, save to PDF and print – voila, the lessons are planned for you!

As well as a Learning section, there is also a games area (with a timer!) called The Playground. This is the place where the games are at. The Playground area has games within itself, but it is also linked to a lot of really great educational games websites (like PBS Kids!). My kids DEFINITELY wanted to immediately go to the Playground area and skip over the lessons. However, I set up the timer (which you can set permanently or daily) which shows them the minimum amount of lesson time to complete BEFORE they’re allowed to play on the Playground.

Bonus – you set the maximum amount of time to play on the Playground! I don’t know about you, but my kids aren’t so good at listening to a timer when they’re engrossed in the computer. And I can’t always be there to make sure they get off as soon as the timer goes, or the next person gets their turn. The Playground timer kicks them out of the games area once the time is up :D No chance of going over the amount of time you want them to play! I like that the kids can play on some of their favourite sites and still be kept to the timed games session.

What my kids love about Time4Learning:

My 6 year old LOVES the Ranger guy in the Language Arts section. They review phonics sounds and rules for spelling different words. The instructions are clear and the characters really engaging! He’s only in first grade but he loves to read and do any of the reading activities that go along with it.

My 4 year old can login (with my help) and easily pick from the lesson areas as the picture labels show her what the lessons are about. Each section has a storybook or video about the topic and some kind of game or activity (patterns, matching, painting, etc.). Some of the instructions are difficult for a 4 year old to catch, so you would definitely want to be nearby to help so they don’t get frustrated.

My eldest is almost 8 and probably benefits the most academically out of the program. He’ll whip through a lesson and take a quiz, then move on to the next topic of interest. Yesterday’s science lesson was on hearing, and there was an experiment to go along with it!

I love that there are hands on opportunities to experiment with what you’re learning! He couldn’t wait for daddy to get home and work on the project with him. (Under the parent controls section of the website it outlines what projects and activities there are for each subject so you can see what’s coming up and what materials you might want to have on hand.)

What I would change about Time4Learning:

We liked most of what we saw on Time4Learning. One thing I might change is the Playground access for younger ones. Since all of the games are available to be clicked on, for my 4 year old it would be less confusing, frustrating and time consuming to only have available for playing those games that are for kindergarten age and under.

Because the games section is linked to outside websites, you’ll need to monitor what games and sites the kids go to. It might be nice to have parental controls to turn off some access.

In all, I was pleasantly surprised at our experience with using Time4Learning. As I mentioned I am extremely picky about what and how much I let my kids do on the computer. But Time4Learning is a program that I am very pleased with, for the ease of use, different levels of parental involvement, engaging lessons and activities, and depth of material covered. If you’re looking for a program to enhance your homeschool, use as an after school activity or an alternative to tutoring, or even as your school curriculum, Time4Learning is definitely it!

To give you a jump-start, Time4Learning is giving away TEN 14-day trials to my readers!! You can enter using the widget below. I hope you win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway