Susie is a slightly crazy, homeschooling, gardening, square dancing Momma with a houseful of babies (10 to be exact), and a whole lot of Jesus. She gave birth to seven of those babies (and she has the stretch marks and scars to prove it) and then God chose her to be Momma to three more who she refers to as her 'Unexpected Blessings'. Having a large family means she has heard just about all of the large family jokes... you know like 'You know how that happens, right', or 'Don't you have a TV?'. Many people believe that she must be related to Mother Teresa but she insists she isn't anywhere close to a Saint although she does appreciate as many prayers as she can get sent her way. Even though four of her babies have flown the coop, her life stays really busy. Most days start out early with a cup of her favorite Dandy Morning Coffee and a quick Trim Healthy Mama breakfast before the kids get up and the crazy starts. She looks at every day as an adventure where the unexpected keeps her on her toes. In the rare moment that she finds a little quiet time, you can usually find her snuggled up with a good book, browsing a thrift store, sewing a new outfit, piddling in the greenhouse or garden, or getting a little 'Pin Happy' with To-Do projects on Pinterest. She is extremely passionate about her family, cooking, being a keeper of the home, gardening, and square dancing. She is also on a mission to help others to make healthier changes in their lives, one family at a time. She strives to live by the Proverbs 31 model but she also acknowledges that she is not perfect and is just a sinner saved by grace. Pollywog’s Place Blog began as a way to share her family's journey with family and friends as they've gone through so many life changes. After getting so many questions about parenting, homeschooling, gardening, and recipe requests she realized that she could really use her blog as a way to help others out there who may be struggling with their roles as a mother, especially the single mothers who may feel like they are all alone on their journey. This blog has become a journal of sorts and a way for her to help inspire and provide encouragement to others. She enjoys looking back over old posts to see how far they have come and to motivate her when times seem tough. On Pollywog’s Place Blog, she talks about their life's journey through the adoption process, how their faith in God got them through some difficult and challenging times, as well as the many ups and downs they have faced with a large family and special needs (ADHD, ODD, and Down's Syndrome to name a few). Susie also shares the products that they use in their home as well as tips and tricks that she uses to keep her family running as smoothly and efficiently as possible with some gardening and video tours sprinkled in. Do you ever feel like your juggling so many things that you can't think straight? She has often felt the same way but has come up with some simple routines and schedules that help everyone to stay on track and I think they just might help you too! Under the 'Keeper of the Home' tab, you can find various tips, tricks, and hints to get your house up and running on autopilot. That's not been such an easy task for them since they downsized to a 600 ft square cabin but somehow they make it work and she loves sharing some of the helpful tips and tricks that they've learned along the way. One question they get a lot is about how they feed this army. It's not always an easy task and trying to eat healthily can get quite expensive so she is always looking for ways to save money and stick to their grocery budget. Under the 'Mama’s Recipe Box' section they have a ton of their favorite recipes like Daddy Can't Wait Casserole, Hoe Cakes (one of the most viewed posts on the blog), freezer cooking, and meal plans along with their family's 'Trim Healthy Mama' plan ideas and successes. If you haven't heard of the 'Trim Healthy Mama' plan you should definitely check it out today! Sometimes eating healthy does mean she spends a little extra on groceries so she finds other areas to cut expenses. One way they have found is with their cleaning supplies and health products. She has always been concerned about the chemicals (Did you know that the average household contains about 62 toxic chemicals?) and toxins that are in many household cleaners so she tries to use more natural and cost effective ways to clean. Susie has been homeschooling for several years now and although she does not consider herself to be an expert but she has found a variety of products and services that have helped to make their homeschooling journey a unique experience. You can find links to these products under the 'Homeschool' tab. Susie and her kids have had a ton of fun reading through the Little House on the Prairie series and she has posted some of the unit studies that they have put together for the different books. The family has been trying to incorporate some of the old fashioned morals and values into their everyday lives. As if juggling kids, home, and a home business weren't enough, the family also enjoys square dancing twice a week or more. Mr. Awesome and his dad happen to be the only father/son caller duo in Florida and are pretty well known in these parts. She also manages a couple of other facebook and blog pages for a couple of the local square dance clubs. The 'Kirby's Korner' tab is where they post links to their square dancing activities which is one of the things they do as a family. Susie loves to dress up in her fancy dance outfits and thinks the fluffier the petticoat the better. She also loves to take selfies of her various square dance outfits and share them with others. Did I mention that she met Mr. Awesome through square dancing? You'll have to poke around the blog to see if you can find that story somewhere. If you just want to find a list of the affiliate/referral programs that the family works with you can click on the 'Affiliate Links' tab. These links help to support their blog, their family, and their homeschooling mission at no extra cost to you. If you like to chuckle about the crazy things kids do or the crazy things they do on a daily basis then you really should follow their blog. They also have accounts on Facebook (@kirbyskabinblog and @susieschemfreezone) as well as on Instagram (@kirbyzkorner and @susieschemfreezone). They have been posting to YouTube as well so be sure to check that out. In July of 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Susie and Shane welcomed their youngest daughter, Shyanne, into the family. Shyanne has a dual diagnosis of Down Syndrome and Dandy-Walker Malformation w/hydrocephalus. She has gained many followers and supporters from around the world who have joined together to be prayer warriors for this special little girl. You can read more about her under ‘Sweet Shyanne’.
I’m trying to stay away from sugar as my body doesn’t seem to like it very much and I’ve been incorporating a lot of sourdough into our meals so this was a creation I came up with.
Top it with some sugar-free caramel syrup and a scoop of vanilla ice cream for a delicious treat!
In the photo, I put the cobbler dough on top but it also works well if you want to spread the dough on the bottom of the pan first and put the fruit on top.
If you don’t have any sourdough on hand then you may want to check out my other Fruit Cobbler recipe.
Easy Sourdough Fruit Cobbler with sugar-free options
I can’t believe that I haven’t found this site before but I just had to share it with everyone else because this is so awesome! I mean this can and will save me a ton of time and it makes some parts of homeschooling so much easier and my kiddos actually enjoy reading this series.
Magic Treehouse books are geared towards 1-4 grades (6-10 years old) but I’m actually going to be using them with my 3rd grader and my 5th grader because it’s just easier to combine things when I can. The older kiddos (and little miss) will be listening in as we will be in the same room so they will all be learning as we go.
**This post does contain some affiliate and/or referral links to products and/or services that we use. If you happen to click through a link and make a purchase we may earn a teensy-weensy small commission (at NO EXTRA cost to you) if a purchase is made through these links. These links help to support our family, our blog, and our homeschooling mission. This means that we can keep bringing you great recipes, ideas, and tips for FREE! Click HERE for a full disclaimer. –Thank you!
We usually school year-round so this week is a planning week for me… actually, it’s a ‘catch-up’ on everything around the house week before the place gets condemned (jk) kinda week but I have been getting some planning and printing done, and have the next three weeks of learning ready to go. I still felt like I needed a little more reading for the boys and I’d found a couple of Novel-ties study units but you know me… if we were going to do a few books out of the series why not do them all? BTW, I haven’t forgotten about the Little House on the Prairie Unit Studies and I will get back to them just as soon as I have a chance to catch my breath around here. I also have some plans to create a ‘ready-made’ unit study guide that can be used with just about any book…. when I find some spare time that isn’t already set aside for something else or being used to chase around the almost 2-year-old who is getting to be very mobile despite her prenatal diagnosis of ‘being nothing more than a vegetable’… she sure fooled them!
Where has the time gone? I can’t believe it’s been two years this week since little miss made her debut and I still remember how scary that was but she has been such a blessing to us and we are so very grateful to all of our prayer warriors for helping us get through those traumatic events… words could never express how grateful we are and how blessed we have been to be surrounded by so many loving and caring people!
Anyways, getting back to my reason for writing this post… I couldn’t find any ready-made unit studies for all of the books so I figured I’d just make my own, but who am I kidding? I don’t really have time for that right now so the next best thing was to ask my dear old friend, Google, and she hooked me up with some links to check out. Among them was a link to this wonderful blog post HERE, which is where I learned that the Magic Treehouse has a website and FREE Lesson Plans to go along with their books… WHATTTT????? Why has no one told me this before????
They also have a ‘special education’ lesson plan to use with grades 3-5 and this will work put great with our kiddos. My kids are already using the Living Education for Language Arts and Math so I’m not set on them needing any extra work but there are some great activities that we can definitely incorporate into our daily lesson plans. The site also has several different games and online activities for the kiddos but I haven’t had a chance to really check them out yet. Be sure to check the ‘Parents’ tab and the ‘Teachers’ tab for the different activities.
I just purchased a few of the ‘Fact Checker’ books as well to go along with these and I will buy a few at a time as we read through the series… there are more books than I had previously thought but you can never have too many books, right?
These would also be great to use for summer reading to keep the kiddos from getting bored!
We’ve been gifted several boxes of peaches over the last couple of weeks so we’ve been making quite a bit of cobbler as well as putting some away in the freezer. I’m hoping to make some peach butter or preserves too.
This is really good with a drizzle of caramel sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Pollywog's Place Blog 