Random Five on Friday (May 10th): Overwhelming Moments and Abundant Blessings

I can't believe it has been a whole week since I last posted. We have been a bit overwhelmed with packing. I have been busy homeschooling, packing, and dealing with other "issues" this week. I am going to write my Random Five within my Weekly-Wrap-Up post. Here goes.

In Our Homeschool This Week . . . 
1.) The big news is that Alyssa completed her Math-U-See Beta curriculum. She took her final test today and made a 100%. She was jumping for joy and immediately asked me when I would purchase Math-U-See Gamma. I didn't have the heart to tell her she wouldn't get to start it until after the move. In the meantime, she'll finish up the year using online math programs and supplemental hands-on lessons that I create covering time, money, measurement, multiple-digit subtraction, graphing, and more. Here is a link to my Math-U-See Beta review. The focus for this curriculum was addition and subtraction. She zipped through the material with mastery. Please don't let the focus fool you. She completed some pretty complicated problems in this book. I was simply shocked in a good way. I look forward to our adventures with multiplication next year. She received a certificate with a great big hug and kiss as a reward in addition to lots of high fives and cheers. She also chopped down a Hershey kiss and mommy gave her a zillion kisses congratulating her on her accomplishments. Many thanks to the Schoolhouse Review Crew leaders and Math-U-See for allowing us to review this curriculum!

The certificate says to thank your teacher.
Alyssa left me this note on the AAS board.
I love you baby girl!

Places We Went and People We're Seeing . . . 
2.) We are traveling to Kerrville tomorrow to visit Jeff's grandmother in the hospital. We are surprising her with a visit and we would like to check on her health. She broke her femur after a recent fall and we want to know that she is okay. By the way . . . Happy Mother's Day to all my blogging mommy friends! I won't be online tomorrow, but I wanted you all to have a special shout out! I hope your day is full of joyful family moments. Be sure to check out the video below created by Sally Clarkson at I Take Joy. I was moved by the video and felt I should share the link. We also visited our friends last night. They made us a wonderful dinner and provided us with some much needed relaxation and fun for an evening. Thank you for being there as always!

In Our Life This Week . . .
3.) I packed several boxes this week, loaded the vehicle, and took them to the house to unload. It was soooo hot outside. I was sweating all over the place. I am going to dye this summer if this is any indication of summer weather. However, my visit was "perfect" timing because I was able to see the house again. So much progress - the rock fireplace was done! My husband will add a wet look sealer to the rock, which will make the rocks stand out even more. We ended up adding the five "FREE" sparkly rocks to the fireplace. You can't really see them in the photo, but you can in person. I LOVE how it turned out! Eventually, we'll have a television and couch for them room. LOL! For now, we will take baby steps toward the goal.

BEFORE

AFTER

I saw this side cabinet on Pinterest a long time ago. I asked the cabinet maker to create one for my kitchen. It is beside the refrigerator as you can see from the photo. This is a great place to store cleaning supplies frequently used in the area. I am sure I will find even more uses for it once we move into the house. The refrigerator was also installed.

My hubby surprised me and repainted our master bathroom green. The purple shocked everyone that entered the room and he noticed that I wasn't too fond of the color he had chosen. He painted the walls the same color as the master bath in the last house. Friends that have seen the house prefer this color over the purple. I am a huge fan of green - it is a very calming color for me. What do you think? Which color would you have painted the room? You can see the old paint colors in my Random Five on Friday post last week.

I had a hard time taking this photograph from every angle, but I wanted to show you the ceiling beams and fan in the living room. Thank you Jeff and Kenny for building the beams!

We finally have a possible date (AGAIN) for the countertop installment. The gentleman told us this Wednesday.  Jeff had to call the sister of the gentleman AGAIN. We'll see. My hubby is developing a back-up plan just in case. The bank keeps calling us asking when they can do the appraisal, because the closing date is right around the corner. We are waiting on the countertops. We are praying that this gentleman is being honest with us this time. Please pray that we can trust in God and that are worries are alleviated. This project has been a frustrating hassle from the very beginning. Maybe . . . just maybe, I will have countertop photos next week.

We both noticed that the stained concrete floor was ruined after all of the work inside so we are discussing ways to hopefully fix it before we move our belongings to the house.

Oh . . . I forgot to add the photo of the guest bathroom shower tile work Jeff completed. Check out last weeks Random Five on Friday post to see the other two bathrooms. I think my hubby's work looks AWESOME! He did a wonderful job! What do you think? The walls in this room are also painted green. We might eventually repaint it, but for now the focus is to finish so that we can close at the end of the month.

I'm Cooking  . . .
4.) I cooked my first frittata ever! It actually turned out and was delicious. The recipe was from a product I am reviewing called Simplified Dinners by Simplified Pantry. I don't want to give too much away so I will only share a photo of a meal. Be sure to visit my blog towards the end of May to read my review. Menu planning has definitely CHANGED and helped our lives during the moving process.

I Am Grateful For Abundant Blessings This Week . . .
5.) I won several amazing giveaways the last two weeks. The items are truly blessings in my home and homeschool. I can't tell you how thankful I am to receive these resources. This was one of my favorite things this week. I received several items via e-mail and recently several a few from my post carrier. I know that I am extremely blessed! Here are a few things we won:

• My Audio School One-Year Subscription
• Reptile and Amphibian Unit Study and Lapbook (AJTL)
• A Journey Through Learning ($15) via Twitter Party - Purchased American History Curriculum
• The Wise Woman with Literary Analysis Journal Questions by Homeschool Adventure
• The Husband Project by Kathi Lipp
• A Christian Mama's Guide to the Elementary School Years by Erin MacPherson
• TruthQuest Pioneer Days Freebie (No Longer Available as FREE Product)
• "Meet Jesus" Free Bible Study as part of the Hello Mornings Challenge (Registration Ended)

*Thank you Heavenly Father and to the gracious companies providing the products. These resources will benefit the entire family.

Something I Have My Eyes On . . . 
Hopefully, I will get a new pair of black flip flops soon before I break my neck. The bottoms are falling apart and keep folding back as I walk. I trip ALL day and my feel hurt. Seriously, my feet REALLY hurt. I hope I don't have to wear sneakers and socks all summer in the Texas heat. They are pretty worn out as seen in the photos below - I am not sure how much longer they will last.

I will link this post up at Random 5 on Friday hosted by Miranda at The Pebble Pond. Please join the fun and link up your random five thoughts, facts, or occurrences. I will also link this post at The Homeschool Mother's Journal at iHomeschool Network and Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Thank you for visiting A Learning Journey. I love hearing from my readers, so please feel free to leave a comment so I can visit your blog. God bless!