Sunflower Faith

Laurie Ann of Magnolia’s Heart Beats, had this posted on her site and I wanted to pass this on and share with you!

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Both; I make my hot chocolate from scratch (yes I have to do it the hard way,lol). The recipe I use is:

• 2 ounces (2 squares) unsweetened chocolate
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 4 cups milk
• pinch salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation:

Place chocolate, sugar, milk, and salt in a 2-quart saucepan over
medium-low heat. Heat, stirring, until chocolate melts and mixture is
well blended.

Add vanilla; pour hot chocolate into cups.
Hot chocolate recipe serves 4.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?

It varies; We have a “family Christmas” on Christmas Eve where we exchange gifts and then come Christmas morning, we make hot chocolate (the quick way,lol) and then we open up the presents that Santa wrapped and we manage to unwrap under 10 seconds.

3. Colored light on house/tree or white?

We varied for outside,depending on mood, but we always do colored christmas lights on the tree.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?

We go fake due to having children and dogs.

5. When do you put your decorations up?

Normally we do it a week after Thanksgiving; We’re just not in a rush to start the “Christmas holiday” in the sense that we want time to really enjoy the period after Thanksgiving and reflect on Christmas as it is before we do the decorating; did that make sense? LOL

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?

COOKIES!

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child?

Getting a stuff animal I really wanted

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?

A classmate broke the news and I remember being stunned. lol

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?

The gifts we open on Christmas Eve is for when the family as a whole gathers and then we do “personal” gifts to each other Christmas morning.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?

Traditional

11. Snow. Love it or dread it?

We would LOVE to see snow.

12. Can you ice skate?

Never been on an ice skating rink.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?

Barbies! LOL

14. What is the most important think about the holidays for you?

Honoring the birth of Jesus Christ

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?

Chocolate Pie

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?

My Mother In Laws cooking and sherbet punch

17. What tops your Christmas tree?

An angel

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?

GIVING.

19. What is your favorite Christmas song?

Christmas Cookies and Holiday Hearts-My mother in law loves it and my husband hates it because he hears it ALL the time so it’s a running joke in the family.

20. Candy Canes. Yum or Yuck?

Yum!

21. What do you want for Christmas?

Bookcase,lol

22. Do you attend an annual Christmas party.

We’re too much homebodies and tend to split time at home or with the inlaws

23. Do you dress up for Christmas Eve or wear PJ’s?

We usually just do comfy jeans and a sweater. LOL

24. Do you own a Santa hat?

Everyone including the dogs has one! LOL

25. Who do you normally spend Christmas with?

Family.

Tag 5 people – Tag, you’re it! Leave me a comment so I can come read about you…

• AmyDeanne of “160 Acres Woods“
• Lori, “All You have to Give“
• Melly of “Melody Minutes“
• Becki of “Blog Mommas” and “A Walk through the Valley“
• Pam of “Beyond the Red Door“
• YOU,Gentle Reader

Laurie, Thank you so much for this sweet award. It’s such a great joy talking with you off the blog as well as on the blog!

Here are the rules:

Copy and past the following along with the award:

“These
blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find, and be
friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is
that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships
are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver
this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include
this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

So, I would like to pass this on to the following:

• AmyDeanne of “160 Acres Woods“
• Lori, “All You have to Give“
• Melly of “Melody Minutes“
• Becki of “Blog Mommas” and “A Walk through the Valley“
• Pam of “Beyond the Red Door“
• YOU,Gentle Reader

For many homeschoolers, using the computer is a vital component of homeschooling; Be it for keeping records, researching, creating/downloading worksheets, keeping in touch with other homeschooling parents or for in-class use of watching videos, online tests or software to supplement the homeschool experience and just for general storage of homeschool material shared,bought and downloaded.

Learned from personal experience of a computer crashing and with it many material that I may not use now but needed for later use in curriculum, I quickly learned the importance of investing in a portable USB stick.

Not only is it the holiday season where great sales abound on inexpensive memory cards, but even just every day pricing, it’s worth spending the 8.00 to 10.00, investing in a 2GB memory card to be used as a vital component of backing up precious homeschool data, worksheets/workbooks and future homeschool materials.

Another plus to making the USB stick, a vital part of the homeschooling parent everyday tool, is the fact that this can be use from computer to computer, very small and easy to pack and carry, and easily stored as backup.

Personally, I find having a set, helpful, because I can use one as backup and the other as a “working drive” that I store ALL my homeschooling material on, so there is no fear of losing everything, again, in the event something happens to the computer.

Plus, if I take one of them with me to work on while away from home, or whatever the reason,if it gets lost, I know I still have a backup at home, safely locked away in a fireproof box.

Silly,I know, but if you leave in hurricane prone (or fire prone areas like in California), your homeschool records are just important information and probrably the most difficult at times, to recover if all the paper is lost or the computer has crashed.

So if you use a computer as part of your homeschool record keeping and/or homeschooling use, I strongly advise using reliable backup.

In case you’re wondering, I use a rewritable CD as well, but I still like my USB stick because it’s quick to access, honestly, very tiny compare to a CD and easier to just “drop” in my purse/bag, so if I’m say,at the library, I can pop it in the computer there to quickly print out either a worksheet, or say I forget to bring my library book list, I can access it right there.

You can find these at Office Depot from 8.99 to 14.99 and usually at miniumn 2GB to more

So if you haven’t thought about using one yet or invested in one, this is a great must have!

Another thought…this makes a GREAT stocking stuffer or inexpensive gift for that homeschooling parent you might know, a secret sister gift or just great gifts for each child to have to use to store their own studies on.

The USB sticks come in many colors and designs, place a label with a child’s name on it so they can keep track of it, download their files and curriculum on it and there you go: An electronic folder.