Krispy Kreme Ends Talk Like a Pirate Day Promotion

*Krispy Kreme has not done this promotion since 2016, sadly. We had so much fun with it. I hope they come up with something else creative like this soon! I think a dozen donuts per PERSON was a little excessive, personally, and we never actually took home five dozen donuts!

Krispy Kreme Talk Like a Pirate Day 2015 = Free Donus!

This year Talk Like a Pirate Day is Saturday, September 19 and you can bet your butt I'll be there after volleyball with 4 kids and will be acquiring enough donuts to freeze for the 5th kid and husband, who will be at a campout! Check out the full list of rules and non-participating locations here!

Vaccine Hysteria in Archdiocese of KCK: Vaccinate or Leave School

It's easy for me to sit here as a Catholic homeschooling mom of five with a husband with a good job and a few side careers of my own. It's easy for me to pick and choose the vaccine cocktail for my kids. Mr. Kerrie handed me that responsibility long ago and I did my best.

We do vaccine but I won't do Gardisil and we don't do chicken pox, among others. We do the regular ones we are all supposed to be frightened of ... Polio, Pertussis, Tetanus. I did the Tetanus shot since my kids like to go barefoot and I keep them up to date on that one, but do we REALLY need the others I give them? I doubt it. I think we are all freaked out. But I do it anyway and I respect my friends who do not.

Yes, people die of chicken pox. Yes, horrible things happen. I have not personally done the research on how many Polio or Whooping Cough cases have been happening but apparently there is about to be an epidemic and Catholics are at fault for refusing the vaccines. I thought maybe my unschooling hippie friends would be at fault for this one but nope, it's us danged Catholics.

So my husband and I were shocked tonight when I heard from a friend what was going down in my hometown and beyond. I posted on Facebook:

I just heard that if your kid goes to Catholic school in the KCK Archdiocese (yes, this affects many of my peeps) and is not vaccinated within 45 days (with the vaccines that use aborted fetal cells) your kid won't be able to attend school. I also heard the Archbishop and Superintendent are not meeting with anyone on this. Thoughts?

So it gets better! It sounds from this letter that you are okay if your kid is, say, allergic to eggs and eggs are used to make a certain vaccine. But if you just don't want to inject vaccines made with aborted fetal cells into your CATHOLIC kid, you have to suck it up and do it anyway. Oh, and this letter comes AFTER school started. They could not even give the courtesy of pulling this crap at the start of summer to give parents time to figure it all out and make other choices. Sounds like a great way to RESPECT LIFE, Archdiocese of KCK. What are you thinking?

AND, they are urging you to write the vaccine manufacturers, LIKE THAT HAS EVER DONE ANY GOOD! Laughable!

Check out this letter below, and sorry for the poor screenshot quality. One is the letter to write to vaccine companies and the other is the letter to parents about the situation. I am not calling out St. James Academy on this one because it is all Catholic schools who are having to deal with this. I actually feel sorry for them.

And I close with this that I posted on Facebook also:
Can I ask the parents at St. James something? And other Catholic high schools? So mandatory drug testing of your kids is okay but this is not? It all starts somewhere, with those little things that they stick their faces into that they should not (they are to educate, not drug test). At what point will you start to say NO?

I just think we need to wake up and that's why I get fired up and post things like this. Nazi Germany was not created in a day, people. It took a long time to gear up and happen and a lot of complicit people ... this is ridiculous and I am wondering what is going to happen in 45 days. The countdown is on.

P.S. I apologize if you are having trouble leaving me comments. I welcome all comments, even those from depressed and angry trolls trying to mess with my day. Good luck with that one. I installed Intense Debate on my blog a few years ago and could never get it off.

When My Kids Reset What Siri Calls Me on My Phone

On Wednesdays ... We Wear Uniforms ... #HomeschoolCoop2015

I can't explain how excited I am about the Christ the King Academy homeschool coop this year. I wanted to get into a coop once I could really devote myself to it and make sure we had what we needed and get there on time and participate and help out and wanted to make sure my kids were of an age where they would stay in their classes happily ... more or less.

Today was that day!

The satisfaction feedback questionnaire I gave my kids after coop today put them at about an overall 70-80% satisfaction. (I really asked them to rate their day on a scale of 1-10.)

I was worried the littles would not stay in classes without me while I helped in other classes. I was worried they would not keep quiet or still in Catechesis. I was worried Michael would hate the whole thing since he prefers Legos to most people.

I did more praying than worrying, though ... it turned out great ... even with an Eva who didn't feel her best the night before and a Callie who fell into the corner of a wall the night before, giving herself a lovely little cut on the back of her head. I slept on the floor of the girls' room last night so I could check on them. I was worried (there is that word again) we would not make our first day of coop.

WOO HOO! What a great time. What amazing women and cool children. What organization and communication and terrific library and classes. I am already wondering what I might be able to teach next year to elementary age kidlets that they would find fun.

So, Mom and Dad, your grandchildren are getting socialization like crazy and great classes and fun and friends and also all their educational needs are being met at home with me teaching virtual school.

Oh, their classes are:

Joel: Drama, Music Appreciation and PE
Michael and Callie: PE, Science Experiments and Lego Robotics (second semester is Egyptian Mummification)
Eva and Samuel: Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, Storytime, PE and Science Experiments

Check back for more posts about homeschooling fun!

McLoughlin's First Day of Homeschool 2015-2016 (Virtual School)

Okay, look. Maintaining multiple blogs while attempting to maintain my sanity is proving too difficult. I'm going to start blogging the hot mess that is my life HERE ... all in one spot. That includes Mr. Kerrie (I know you all love him because he puts up with me with barely an eye roll), the 5 little Kerries, homeschooling, writing, business junk, proofreading, recipes, Kansas City and other travel stuff and more. I'll try to make easy categories for you in weeks to come because I love ya like that.

I'm not going to bore you with a bunch of curriculum stuff. We do virtual school now, in our second year, and it helps keep me accountable and on track. Otherwise we would just "field trip" and volunteer and swim and play and mess around all day long. ALL. DAY. LONG.

I am going to show you some pics of my kids opening their Calvert curriculum. This stuff is like $1,000 per kid if you buy it yourself but since we live in the Great State of Kansas, we get it pretty much free, including all the support we could ever need. The trade-off is the State is in our biz a little bit in the form of 3-times-per-year at-home testing then that pesky State Testing (where are those results, by the way?).

All our boxes came end of July so we've been doing some checkpoints early when we get the time to get a jump on the school year so we can take a week off for a vacation in October, go see Tutu and Dave or Poppy and Nana on a whim. I love the flexibility of the program and that fact that my kids are not required to be online a certain number of hours per day. My favorite times with the kids are when we lounge around reading ... everything from The Most Dangerous Game to Theras to Mr. Popper's Penguins and beyond.

I just have to say that I really do love being home with my kids and homeschooling them. I realize it's not for everyone but it entirely works for us. It's important to do what works for your family!

Eva, first grade

Michael, 6th grade

Joel, 8th grade

Callie, 4th grade

Samuel, kindergarten

Check out my piece over here at Kansas City Mom's Blog about Back-to-Virtual-School Tips and Traditions!