Mom: Daily Quote

This one comes from an unknown author.

The mark of a successful man is one that has spent an entire day on the bank of a river without feeling guilty about it. 
Unknown

Homeschool: We're reading this week...

Welcome to another one of my new weekly posts! These ones will be all about what we're reading in our homeschool with both my 9 year old boy M, and 9 month old girl K!
To see any books on amazon, just click the pictures!

click to learn more

Michael's history lessons continue this week with learning about World war I and II. We are continuing to use a Childs History of the World (you can see my review on this book by clicking here). This book covers both wars in about 4 chapters, and the depression in between.





Another book for history this wee is the Usborne Book of World History! I love Usborne books - they're full of pictures and very informative in a way that's easy for kids to understand






Our next history book is a story about an 11 year old girl, set during world war II. Heres a description from Amazon:Take care of the little riders," says Johanna's father to the eleven-year-old when he leaves her with his parents for an extended vacation in their Dutch village. And Johanna does. She loves the twelve metal figures on horseback who ride forth each hour from the clock on the ancient church tower. She would do anything to protect them, anything. And on night she risks her life to prove it.
Set during the Second World War when the German army occupied Holland The Little Riders is an exciting, moving adventure story, just right for reading aloud.

Aside from our history books, we are also learning all about countries of the world and where they are through songs! Geography Songs is a great book that comes with a CD of all the books songs and names every country in the world, it's states/provinces! It actually really helps my son remember, and is cute when you ask him the names of states or provinces and he sings! You can listen to samples of songs by clicking on the image to the right


We're also using some poetry books! A Poke in the I is an interesting book of poems with great illustrations and fun poems in all kinds of shapes and swirls!





For science this year my sons favorite has been this book - a part of the TOPS collection of books. By growing corn and bean plants we've been learning all about how plants grow and doing some really fun experiments (like dissecting a seed to see a growing plant embryo, and making homemade planter pots out of aluminum foil) The book has full lesson plans for teachers, as well as student worksheets and schedules
We also just finished the Radishes TOPS book!


Another science book we use a few times a week is the Usborne Science Encyclopoedia! Full of great subjects and experiments (counting and numbers, energy, friction and gravity, atoms, and more!) we love to read this colorful book with each page packed full of information that is easy for kids to digest, but not too simple either!

And that is all we're reading this week! Yes, we read a lot!

Fun: Vacation III

The view from where we sat

Today's post is all about how we spent mothers day.

At Jenkinsons Boardwalk - for more info about Jenkinsons, click here.

Mothers day was spent with my mother, stepfather, sister and my husband and kids at the Jersey shore!

The tiki bar

My mother had taken my son here to Point Pleasant beach last year and he couldn't stop telling me about it! So my mother and I agreed that it would be nice to spend mothers day there.

The Restaurant/eating area

We arrived around lunchtime and brought our own picnic from wholefoods. The first thing I tried there was the Tiki bar (pictured left). My absolute favorite cocktail that I must try wherever we go is a strawberry daiquiri! So, of course on that hot day I ordered one, and was not disappointed! Just the right amount of alcohol to drink and it was made with fresh strawberries! yum! My husband ordered a rum and coke and enjoyed it as well :)

After our lunch we spent a good amount of time sitting on the beach, letting our 9 month old daughter, K play in the sand, and my mother took our 9 year old, M to wade in the water. I guess since it wasn't exactly summer out the beach wasn't too crowded (as you can see from the pictures I took), but it was still gorgeous and the bar had a great band playing!

After sitting a while, my son could wait no longer - we had to go play the games!

We headed to the first arcade right by the Tiki Bar and all began playing - pretty much any game you can imagine was there from classic arcade games to skee ball!

A seagull on the beach

We won a bunch of tokens playing and were able to cash them in for a prize (my son chose a plushie of  some sort of monster - such a boy! lol)

The next stop was my favorite - for taffy! Jenkinsons Sweet Shop was also right around where we were and was full of yummy looking stuff! I bought a few of each kind of taffy, and some of their maple fudge. We saved it all until we got back home and loved it all! The fudge especially was really good! I highly recommend it!

We played a few of the carnival games as well, including the water squirt game, which I won (woohoo!), and then just spent  a bit of time browsing the gift shops (had a special moment when my 9 year old used the rest of his game money his grandmother gave him and bought me a bracelet for mothers day!)

All in all, a perfect mothers day! 

I can't wait to visit the shore again!

Giveaway! Fun Bites Cutter

Debbie Jean's has joined together with Tots and Me and some other great bloggers to bring you this great giveaway.

The following review is written by Tots and Me

I saw this intriguing product floating around the blog-o-sphere and wasn't sure how exactly it worked. At first it didn't make sense to me. But I wanted to learn more, and am I glad I did. Let me introduce you to FunBites. I was given the opportunity to try out the Cube It! Fun Bites Cutter and was able to see for myself how it worked.

Have you ever cut out cookies or sandwiches or other food items into little pieces and had it take forever to cut out. Or have you ever used small cookie cutters and had the food stick in the cutter. With the FunBites cutter you can cut little pieces quickly, safely and uniformly. And then you can easily remove them by pushing the popper top in.

This is the cutter:

And this is the popper top:

I enjoyed using this to make our muffin tin meal a couple of weeks ago. I used it on all sorts of food. 

Cheeses, meats, vegetables, fruits and a sandwich.

Not only is this easy to use, it is actually quite fun!

Push the cutter into the food and rock it back and forth a few times.

See, it went right through the sandwich.

Insert the popper top and push it through. (No, this wasn't the sandwich, I forgot to take a picture of the sandwich being popped out.)

Out pops the bite-sized pieces of food.

Make a fun meal. This was our Patterns Muffin Tin.

And some melon for dessert.

The FunBites cutter worked well on all the food, except for a little extra rocking needed for the green pepper with its thick skin. However, it was cut through enough that I just needed to break the pieces apart.

Now, you are probably thinking it looks like there is a lot of waste with the crust and pieces of veggies and fruit. That made a nice lunch for mommy.

Oh, and mommy did enjoy a few of the bite-sized pieces. There is something yummy about eating little bite-sized pieces. And I guess if it amuses this mommy so much it has got to be fun for children, even picky children. 

I guess the one thing I had concerns about was not knowing for sure if I have it clean enough in the crevices. Yes, it is able to go in the dish washer (top rack only), but then I would end up with water in the holes. So I washed it by hand after soaking it, and rinsed it really well. 

In spite of that, I love this innovative little kitchen tool. I love that it is BPA free. I love the ease of use. I love the uniform shapes that were cut out. And I love that the food just looks so cute. So did the children. 

And I love that it is made in the US of A. 

Do you like to create fun lunches for your child? Do you want to cut fun finger foods for a party? Do you have a picky eater? Then you have got to check out FunBites. 

Head on over to their site for ideas, instructions and a video.

And check them out of Facebook and Twitter.

I have been given the opportunity to give you a chance to win a FunBites of your very own. You get to choose between the Cube It! and Love It! Cutter. Just fill out the Rafflecopter form below. And, as always, you do NOT have to fill out every entry. There is only 1 mandatory entry. But the more entries you fill out the better your chances of winning. And don't forget to stop by daily to fill out your daily entries.

Giveaway is open to US and Canada

Giveaway runs May 24th 12:01am through June 9th 11:59pm