More Vacation Pics

I always try to get at least one pic of everyone looking out at the water, it's such a peaceful scene (and it doesn't matter if the kids are making goofy faces 'cause you can't see them anyway!)

Possible Christmas card photo?
They grow so fast!

learning notes - 10/24 through 10/26

It may look like we've taken a break from learning, but even though we weren't "doing" school, Ryan has still been practicing reading - he's been reading real books to all who will sit still long enough to listen!

This week, however, we did get back into "doing" school:

L/A ~ letters "G" and "W", sight words "were" and "to", making words list: mice, dice, rice, nice, cot, cop, can, lot, pal, look, pool, loot, lake, late, let, good, gas, gate, got, west, wade, dog, grab, grass, gone, wall, well, will, wig

Math ~ MUS Primer 9F - review page; Singapore EarlyBirdK 2A p. 61 - working on tens and ones place

Read-Alouds ~ Beaver Pond, Moose Pond by Jim Arnosky, Old Beaver by Udo Weigelt, Get Busy Beaver by Carolyn Crimi, Beaver at Long Pond by William George, Box Turtle at Long Pond by William George

Happy First Birthday Caleb!

First picture of momma and baby boy

And here we are, one year later, almost to the minute

learning from Frugal Hacks

I've always considered myself to be pretty good with money, that is, pretty good at making it last. However, since I've become a mom I haven't been able to spend as much time doing the work to "save money" like shop different stores for the good deals, clip coupons, etc. However, a few months ago I was starting to feel a bit frustrated over our grocery bills - it seemed that I had done all that I could to reduce this bill (very little convenience foods, stock up on sale items, make a list, menu plan, etc) and it still kept going up! Then I read Biblical Womanhood's blog about her $35/week budget for her family of four - how can that be possible??? She inspired me - instead of just accepting that our grocery budget would continue to rise and I could do nothing about it - I began taking little steps to bring it back down (not quite as low as $35/week but also not the $90-$100/week it seemed I was spending before). First I went to a cash system for groceries (recommended by Dave Ramsey), then I clipped a few coupons for some items I usually buy - so far just making these 2 little changes has worked wonders for me! I plan to continue to work on this area of our budget since its really the only one that I can change for now!

Vacation

Wow, I hadn't realized it had been almost a month since I had posted...I do have a good reason though - we were on vacation last week and of course it took me about a week to prepare for us to go on vacation and almost a week to recover from our vacation :)

We had an absolutely gorgeous week at the beach last week! The weather was perfect for just hanging out on the beach, playing the water, digging in the sand, chasing sand crabs - and because it was mid-October we had no crowds to deal with and saved TONS of money on the beachfront house! Gotta love that! Here are some of my favorites pics of our vacation (from the over 400 that were taken!

learning notes - October 1 - October 5

L/A ~ letters "c" and "l", sight words "she" and "are", made lots of words using letter cards, - I say a word to Ryan and he uses his letter cards to spell the word - and boy is he good at it! This week he made over 37 words (dot, cone, late, came, mud, cane...). We also came up with a list of words that rhyme with "pig" to go along with our farm theme - and he wrote the words on his handwriting sheet. Ryan is really getting into reading now - everytime we read a book together he points out words and phrases that he knows and this week he actually read the book Ten Apples Up On Top by Theo LeSieg (Dr. Suess) out loud to Scott and I - he only needed help on a few words!



Math ~ MUS Primer Lesson 9, Singapore Early Bird K - 2A p. 59-60 - I am going slowly through math - he seems to be getting the whole "tens and ones place" thing - but I don't want to rush it, I'd rather he really know it before we move on.



Read Alouds: Library Lil (2 times), Berenstain Bears and Baby Makes Five, Beren Bears and the Bad Dream, excerpt from Heidi from Treasury of Classic Stories