GUEST POST

I got to be a guest poster over at http://www.notesaboutmusicnotes.com/ ! Check it out! I love Lesa's spiritual/musical blog! And I was honored to write a post for her!

TODAY

The girls looked so pretty today. I had to share.

SOMETIMES YA' GOTTA READ

My daughters read non-stop today...

SCRABBLE TILE CHARM BRACELETS

A friend of mine wanted to see the bracelets I helped my daughters make this summer. They have 8 charms, one for each value in the Young Women's program. We took the color of the value and found a flower to match. Then we typed the value to the picture and created the scrabble tile charms. The girls really like their bracelets.My bracelet is a tribute to my favorite books. I have a quote from the book on one side and the title and author on the back.We love wearing our jewelry and get great comments on them all the time. :-)

YOUNG WOMEN'S NEW BEGINNINGS

My baby girl is growing up too quickly. Tonight was New Beginnings for Young Women's, and Kotten Kandy attended. She turns 12 this year!

It was a GREAT program! The theme was Mission Possible. Kotten Kandy was one of the agents. They recognized her (and a few of her friends). Here's what they said about my sweet daughter:
"Here is agent DeGooyer. Code name: Kotton Kandy. She has been known to go into disguise as Cruella DeVille in the play 101 Dalmatians. She is skillful in roller blading (good for quick get aways), in writing and drawing. Her idea of a perfect Saturday is playing games with her family. There are four people in her family. Her favorite color is green which suggests that in her personal progress, she will value knowledge. This will be further strengthened by the fact that she is home-schooled. Here is another agent that has the uncanny ability to touch her nose with her tongue. Her bravery has been shown by the fact that she has climbed on a rock wall while blindfolded. Her secret password is "garbage."
After introducing the new agents, they "exposed" the bad guys: apathy, procrastination, too busy, forgetfulness, etc. And they also gave instructions to the field agents to use the Young Women values in their assignments! It was a terrific program.

My second favorite part of the program was the closing song. They sang "It's Possible" - sung to Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella song "Impossible". The new words were:
1st verse:
It's possible - to live the gospel values
And be worthy for the temple.
It's possible - To keep your clothes very modest
And still look right in style.
To stay away from parties where bad things happen.
And go to church and don't get caught nappin.
It's possible!

chorus:
But the world is full of zanies and fools
Who don't believe in sensible rules.
And won't believe what church leaders say.
And though all bad things will lure you away and hold you back and tempt you all day.
It's possible - You can improve every day.

2nd verse:
It's possible - to live the gospel daily
And still fit in at school.
It's possible - to date really great people
Who will live the golden rule.
To live the guidelines in the Strength of Youth pamphlet
To read the scriptures daily and pray about it.
It's possible!

repeat chorus

There are four future young women in our ward. They are an AWESOME group of girls. From left to right: Kotton Kandy, Doritos, Pizza and Apricot. Love these girls....
My FAVORITE part of the evening was seeing the joy, and excitement in my beautiful daughter's eyes. She is going to be a FABULOUS Young Woman!

COUPONS 101

Today I attended a class learning about how to coupon effectively for my family. It was an AMAZING class. And I'm glad I went! I am looking forward to implementing what I learned and helping my family reap the benefits of saving money. Here are a few pointers I picked up from the class:

1. Organizing your coupons is the most important thing. I am going to try the binder method and categorize all my coupons by products; ie. bread, meat, condiments, breakfast, frozen, canned goods, produce/deli, baking, cleaning, beverages, snacks, cosmetics, toiletries, etc.

2. I learned that the best place to gather coupons is the Sunday paper. Scott and I are signing up for a subscription. I also can go to a few on-line sources, and use in-store coupons.

3. Our instructor suggested that we pick one store to start and get familiar with that store and it's coupon policies. I've chosen Kroger.

4. Most people want to use their coupons immediately, but it pays to wait and use the coupons with sales. Also, stores that "stockpile" coupons are a good thing. (Stockpile means to use more than one coupon per item; ie. a manufacturer's coupon and a store coupon.) Kroger's stockpiles coupons.

5. Our teacher also gave us many websites to check out. www.Hip2Save.com has lots of freebies. She also suggested www.SoutherSavers.com for people who lived in this area.

I'm excited to begin!

FUNNY HOMESCHOOL SONG