This week there’s a buzz going around in the home school blogging community, because it is time for the annual home school blog awards!

If you are here visiting from a link on the Home School Post nominations page, WELCOME! Thanks so much for stopping by to check out my blog. I’m so excited about connecting with more bloggers in the home school community through this event. If you are a home school blogger, please, please, please leave a comment on this post so that I can come by your blog and meet you! I will visit EVERY ONE who comments on this post!!!

This blog is listed in the home School Post nomination category for Best NEW Blog, and you can find my very first blog entry ever written, from one year ago, HERE. Please take a look around my site, and if you like what you see, throw a vote my way! If I win in my category, that will help me to find and connect with even more home school families, and bloggers online. The prizes are pretty awesome too!

Vote NOW! Click Here.

And now… let me tell you a little about myself and our home school.

I’m Rachymommy. You can read all about how I grew up, and who I am now, HERE.

In brief, I’m a Southern California stay-at-home, home schooling mom, with three little kids. I’m married to a Software Engineer, and we all live together with my in-laws. Sound crazy? It is… but it’s also a lot of FUN! To read about our family full of characters, visit HERE.

When my firstborn son Leo was two years old, he started reading. By the time he was four I realized a typical kindergarten just wasn’t going to work. You can read more about how I made my decision to start home schooling, HERE.

This is my fifth year of teaching home school to my oldest son who is now in fourth grade, and this is the first year I am officially teaching two children, at two different grade levels, with my daughter now in kindergarten. It’s a challenge, but day by day, I’m figuring it out.

If you want to read more about why in the world after five years, I’m still sticking with home school, visit HERE. The short answer is… I love it!

I favor a Classical Christian Education model but have also been greatly influenced by Charlotte Mason, and a Thomas Jefferson Education approach. I’m laid back in my style because I’ve learned a very, very important principle which is: life has seasons, and with each season comes change. My home school motto is: “Inspire and Require”. I mandate that my children learn the basics, and I strive to passionately lead by example through my own love of learning.

I use Singapore Math.

I have some opinions about Shakespeare.

Along with all the hard work and serious stuff, in our home school I love to have fun, joke around, and be artistic.

Laundry is my nemesis!! It is evil. But… I will never surrender. There must be some way to home school and get all the laundry washed, dried, and put away before the end of every day. If you’ve already conquered that one, please, please, please become my Facebook friend and mentor me through the process. I need help!

One thing I did finally get a better handle on this year is gardening. It didn’t come easy though. I have a deep dark past filled with murdering many, many plants. However, things have really turned around for me in the last few months while working on a garden with my kids. We actually managed to cause a few things to grow.  You can read all about our KinderGARDEN adventures HERE.

There’s a lot to see here at MommyTopics.com. I have cupcake recipes, ideas for family fun, shopping guides and product tips, bits of my love story, and even a MommyTopics Amazon store filled with products I recommend for home school, baking, family game night, and much, much, more.

I hope you enjoy your time here, and I hope you’ll come back and visit again soon!

Don’t forget to leave a comment, so I can come and visit you too! And don’t forget to vote!

Pass a link to my site, on to some other home school families you know!

VOTE here !

Related Posts

• Got Morning Sickness? Still Need to Home School?
  Don't beat yourself up. You can do this!...
• Five In a Row: Our First Home Schooling Experience
  Whenever I spoke with other home school Moms, I always asked how they teach with younger siblings around. I hated the,“Oh, it just works out,” answer. ...
• WHY? and HOW? – Classical Christian Education
  In approaching the task of training my children at home, I needed a game-plan. ...

Happy One Year Blog-iversary MommyTopics.com !!!

It’s been one year since I began this new blogging adventure, and it’s been SO MUCH FUN!!! I’ve learned a ton about the blogging world, as well as the fact that there is still so much to learn!

I’m so grateful to all of you who have been my visitors, readers, contest enterers, and comment leavers. Your encouragement and love has fueled my passion to keep-on-bloggin’.

I’m still trying to make a name for myself in the great, vast, world that is the blogosphere, and today I’m asking you for a little help…

Nominations have just opened up at the Homeschool Post, a blog for the Homeschool Blogging community, where readers can nominate their favorite home school blogs. I would love it if you would help me get some exposure in this community by nominating my blog as BEST NEW HOME SCHOOL BLOG.

All you have to do to help is

1. click the image below

2. enter in your info at the top

3. scroll down to the category that says BEST NEW HOME SCHOOL BLOG, and enter in:

Blog Name: MommyTopics.com

Blog URL: http://www.mommytopics.com

You can only nominate my blog in one category, so as much as you might like to help me out and nominate me down their page in several categories, those nominations will not be accepted. But if several of you nominate me in the the same category of BEST NEW HOME SCHOOL BLOG, then I have a better chance of becoming a nominee.

Here is the Home School Post’s explanation of who should be nominated as BEST NEW HOME SCHOOL BLOG…

18. Best NEW Homeschool Blog
It is hard making a name for yourself in the blogosphere. A lot of times, you feel as if you are writing and no one is out there. If you have stumbled upon a great new blogger who has a lot of potential and you want to share them with the rest of us… please consider nominating them for this category! [A new blog is one that appeared on the scene during or after last awards season.]

Hey that’s me!!!

I sure would appreciate your nomination!

And I sure do appreciate you!

Related Posts

• Welcome Friends and Voters from the Home School Post – Blog Awards
  Thanks so much for stopping by to check out my blog. I'm so excited about connecting with more bloggers in the home school community!...
• An Outdoor Thanksgiving Craft for Kids
  This activity was so fun! I'm sure we'll do it over, and over again with other themes and holidays....
• Got Morning Sickness? Still Need to Home School?
  Don't beat yourself up. You can do this!...

Today I went to meet my blogging Mentor. Her name is Ree Drummond, and to those of us who follow her blog online, she is The Pioneer Woman, or PW, or P-dub.

She recently published a BEAUTIFUL cookbook which hit #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list. We’re all so proud of her. “We” meaning her fans, and her un-authorized apprentices. She has taught us how to cook, take great pictures, use Photoshop, Home school our children, love our hubbys, and laugh with her at ourselves. You can check out her blog here.

She has been on a book tour for the last few weeks and on Sunday she made a So Cal appearance in Torrance. Of course, being one of her un-authorized apprentices and all… I had to be there.

I got my Starbucks for the road… a Venti, Iced, Caramel Brulle, Latte to be exact. It’s a new flavor and let me tell you… It is FRIENDLY! Yum!

Keys in the ignition…

Radio tuned to 92.9 FM KFROG, my favorite country radio station…

Time is 4:03 PM…Drive should take an hour and thirty one minutes according to the GPS… Book Signing starts at 5:00 PM… I’m perfectly on time according to my “always running just a bit late” schedule.

Hey check it out… those things in the backseat are empty. Amazing! That almost never happens. Hmmmm… now if only I had a hot date…

There he is!

Look at that handsome driver. Such a good sport.

Yes… he was laughing at me and my star-struck ways, saying to himself,”Are we really about to do this?”

So nice of him to escort me to my book signing in Torrance. What a good husband.

I’ve got everything I need… let’s roll!

As we drive, I’ll tell you a bit more about The Fantabulous Pioneer Woman.

For those of you who are just now hearing about Ree, she is no ordinary blogger.

You see this special “Country” issue of People magazine…

Here is Ree. She has a four page spread.

She is the blogger many of us other bloggers aspire to be… someday… when all of our blogging dreams come true.

And her new Cookbook… oh my…

It’s full of delicious recipes, with step by step photos on every page.

She is married to a Rancher whom she lovingly refers to as the Marlboro Man. Her cookbook is filled with down-home comfort food, and fantastic country cookin’ that she learned to make while feeding a slew of hungry cowboys.

Look at this recipe for Red Velvet Cake! I can’t wait to try it on some cupcakes this Christmas. This one is going to get me off those darn box mixes and into the adventure of making cake from scratch. If anyone can get me to do it, it’s Ree.

By the way… everyone (and I do mean EVERYONE) should check out all of Ree’s SENSATIONAL looking, Thanksgiving recipes, here.

Hey Ree, there’s an idea for your next cookbook… a Holiday Cookbook:

Thanksgiving Feast, Christmas Dinner, Easter Brunch, 4th of July BBQ, New Years Eve Tapas Dinner Party, Cinco de Mayo Fiesta… you get the picture. I need that book!

Hey! Is this our exit? It should be…. but the GPS says keep going.

Here we are… Borders Bookstore in Torrance, CA.  It’s 5:17 PM… only a little late.

There’s the sign. She’s here…

I’m getting nervous.

Look at all of those Cookbooks. Boy! If you need a good idea for a Christmas gift… this is a GREAT ONE!

Whenever you buy a cookbook, what is the one thing you just can’t get enough of? Pictures of course! Who wants a cookbook with hardly any pictures?! Well,… In the Pioneer Woman Cooks, you don’t just get a picture for absolutely EVERY RECIPE, you get several step-by-step pictures for EVERY RECIPE.

It’s very possible that there has NEVER been a cookbook on the market before with as many FANTASTIC photos as Ree has put into this one. It’s especially great for those of us less confident cooks. As we follow the recipe we can compare what we’re making to her pictures and see if we’re on the right track.

Ok, so let’s go find her.

Hubby, you find the end of the line and hold my place. I’m going to go find Ree.

Eeek! There she is.

Ok, I better get in line. Hmm? It must be back there somewhere.

Husbands are wonderful creatures aren’t they?

The things they do for us silly girls. He just looks so thrilled doesn’t he?! My camera bag slung over his shoulder and my Pioneer Woman Cookbook in hand, in a bookstore, standing in a line of cooking, blogging women.

He’s the best!

And now all we can do is wait. And chat. And gush over PW.

I found out that I had missed her talk. She spoke to the crowd before she started signing books.

I was told by the new friends I made while standing in line that she gave her Ethel Merman impression. Apparently she also made the announcement that she will be publishing her love story about she and Marlboro Man’s romance titled, “From Black Heels to Tractor Wheels.” You can read all about it on her blog here.

(Update 3/26/2010 – Not only is Ree’s love story being turned into a book due out February 2011, rights to her story have been purchased by Columbia Pictures and Reese Witherspoon is considering playing Ree in “From High Heels to Tractor Wheels the Movie.” You can read more about that here.)

And if you want to see her famous Ethel Merman impression, click here.

This is Jennifer. She works at Borders and she came by to ask if any of us needed to step out of line for a bathroom break, or to grab a drink. She offered to hold our place for us. What a dear.

Silly Jennifer… that’s what husbands are for.

Once we reached this point in the line it was almost 8 o’clock.  You see over there in the top left corner where I drew all the arrows? That’s where PW is sitting signing books. We’ve still got a ways to go.

At about this stage in line, I met the dearest woman who had driven all the way up from San Diego just to meet Ree. We were so busy talking about the Pioneer Woman and how we Home School our kids, that we forgot to exchange names. For that… I am ashamed!

Dear San Diego friend, if you happen to stumble upon this post, I so enjoyed talking to you, and I’m going to look up those Home School books you told me about.

Once we got very close, some crazy fans started getting everyone in line to do the “Wave”.

It was fun.

This is Sabrina and her husband. What a beautifully photogenic couple. Sabrina writes a blog at Sliceoflemon.com

Ooooh! Oooh! Oooooh! I’m next.

That’s Donna sitting next to Ree getting her books signed. I met her while standing in line too. We talked all about Ree and how her blog has changed our lives. We also talked about Donna’s niece Rachel, or maybe it’s Rachael, who is currently in France studying art history.

Hi Rachel/Rachael… great name!

Ok… time to focus.

Pass the camera to my hubby. Dry my sweaty palms. Wipe my shiny brow. Think Rachael think! What are you going to say?

“Hey Ree, D’ you know that the human head weighs 8 pounds? D’ you know that bees and dogs can smell fear? D’ you know that my next door neighbor has three rabbits?”

Yep… I charmed her.

And then we became best bosom friends for life and smiled for a picture.

I’m sure she’s inviting me to Lodge very soon.

So, my night was made complete. My goals had been achieved.

At about 9:15 PM Einstein (that’s my hubby) and I rolled out of Borders and headed to a late dinner.

When I got home at 11:30 PM I cracked open that Cookbook and took a look at what she had written.

See the big hearts she drew… I’m sure she only did that for me.

Told ya we’re bosom friends.

I’ll never put it down.

PW… you’re the best! Thanks for coming to So Cal.

Related Posts

• The Spice Merchants GIVEAWAY
  Spice up your life or someone else's with this great Giveaway!...
• 2009 Christmas Cookie Extravaganza – This is it!
  Here they are in all their glory!...
• Christmas Cookie Extravaganza… Almost
  We started... But we're not finished yet....