I wave at my life as it passes me by everyday.

My heart is not in this. It’s really that simple.

I began this blog as a way to express myself but it slowly turned into more--ways to get new readers, reviewing products, keeping the blog going because I had ads.....it turned into something I wasn’t. And it wasn’t very fun.

My life has been crazy these days. Between shopping for literally everything that was in home before the fire to redesigning our home from the studs to homeschooling to the numerous activities to marriage to well sleeping; blogging has not been in the schedule.

I have gone days without even opening my laptop--I twitter or facebook on the iPhone because it’s quick easy and not much to it. If only all comments were limited to 140 characters. ;)

Blog posts are different. I don’t want to offend. I need to be careful about what I say about my older kids because they have friends on the internet that read my blog (!). And it all takes time.

I know there are many of you who do have the time, the energy and wit to spit out those blog posts. That’s just not me. I can’t do it. At least right now.

I am not sure. I do want to help my husband with his real estate website. He is so busy running his business, he has little time to really care for it. And because he is also an appraiser, he has such a vast amount of knowledge in real estate--I could take his thoughts and share them with the world (and hopefully get a few clients out of it--hey don’t fault me, his commissions are literally our bread and butter!). The added bonus here would be more time with my husband--I love that guy!

My kids have been pushing me to do You Tube cooking videos. It might be fun in the newly designed kitchen. I don’t know. I’d like it because I could do the videos with the kids but I am not sure.

And then there’s that political side of me. To be honest, I am getting sick of the main media outlets painting me as some whacko terrorist because I disagree with our current president and congress. But that’s another story.

Or maybe I will just breathe.

So farewell for now. I wish everyone the best of the best and I love and appreciate you all!

((HUGS))

(Don’t worry--I am not disappearing, I will be stopping by the blogs--even if only from my iPhone!)

CD Winner

OK--we have a winner!!!!

It is comment #4 from 'Susan'.

'Susan' please contact me at verybusymomwith4@gmail.com so I can get your address. I cannot find a link to your name.

Thanks to all for playing!

Spanish Learning CD Giveaway!

I have always been a big fan of using different types of media to help enhance learning--half the apps on my iPhone are designed to help pre-school and grade school children--really drooling for that iPad but that's beside the point ;)

Anyway you can imagine I jumped at the opportunity presented by Business 2 Blogger to review a Spanish learning CD by Sing-A-Lingo. Learning Spanish via music was too good to pass up!

Sing-A-Lingo is a cute cd set to popular nursery rhymes tunes in Spanish. The songs are actually filled with common phrases such as ‘Are You Hungry?’ (Tienes Hambre) or ‘Wash Your Hands’ (Lava las Manos). I love this part because it's things you actually say on a daily basis!

Because my kids homeschool and already listen to some grammar CDs, it was pretty easy to switch the CD at lunchtime and start listening. Now before I continue, I must point out my kids do not know Spanish even if we do live in Texas. They are currently learning Latin (et tu?) which I am sure does help but for the most part, they are experiencing Spanish cold here.

When the CD first started, the kids giggled for the first few minutes. They thought it was cute and funny! It wasn’t long before one of my children asked what they were saying so I pulled out the CD case that included the words in Spanish and English. Quickly she and the others were identifying specific words and having fun, even if they were learning. We were using music to learn Spanish!

For the next few weeks, I played the CD and they got pretty quick with many of the common phrases. I find this quite amazing because I basically did nothing but play the CD.

Now I will say, I am sure the CD alone will not fully teach a child Spanish. As most homeschooling parents know, you need multiple venues to really teach a language. The website offers a ‘Spanish All Day’ product that features sticky note word cards, 2 CDs, lyric and vocab cards along with a good night singable book. These items will really enforce the language concepts, especially if your child is learning Spanish at school or it is part of your homeschool program. Also, this CD can really help young children get interested in Spanish--and getting kids interested in a subject is half the battle!

I can really see this CD helpful if you are raising bilingual children--the music just becomes a part of day to day life and the lyrics in the songs are the same things we say daily but the thing I love best about the CD is how I can pop it in the car and we can just listen (and learn Spanish) while driving from place to place to place.......

Today, I am giving away one of these great Sing-A-Lingo CDs! All you need to do is comment and you are entered in the drawing. Mention this giveaway on Twitter or Facebook and get an additional entry :)

I will select a winner this Saturday, April 10.

Buenas Suerte!

A Colorful Menu

The other week I was tweeting with a friend about the Food Revolution show and how shocking it was that the kids had meals no colorful fruits or veggies. Neither of us can even handle one meal without some color other than brown--it’s just ugly to even look at much less eat!

It reminded me of when Miley just started to really eat foods and how I would always make sure she had every color of the rainbow at least once in a three day period. It was my little way to make sure she had some good variety and lots of different anti-oxidants. Little did I know this is actually a method many nutritionists use to make sure their clients have a healthy diet.

In honor of the rainbow (ROYGBIV) I have a menu that follows the well known scheme of the rainbow. I am focusing mainly on veggies here because we usually eat most of our fruit at breakfast.

Monday: RED and ORANGE Pasta Pepperonata (the red and orange peppers look beyond lovely here!)

Tuesday: YELLOW and GREEN Chicken stir fry with yellow and green squash (along with a host of other veggies like carrots, asparagus and sweet peas) served on brown rice

Wednesday: BLUE and INDIGO A very yummy green spinach salad with blueberries, blackberries and nuts and feta cheese. The nuts and cheese add the protein to make this a full meal!

Thursday: VIOLET and RED (going full circle) Pasta with Eggplant and Tomato

Friday: ORANGE and YELLOW and GREEN and WHITE Chicken fajitas with carrots, yellow peppers, spinach and mushrooms

Saturday: BLUE and INDIGO Bison burgers paired with a nice GREEN salad and coupled with blue (and black) potatoes

Sunday: VIOLET Purple cabbage in Confetti Rice and Rye along with sauteed salmon

For more meal plans, check out Jen at Chive Talkin’ :)