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

just thought I'd share...

some pictures from our week...

learning notes - 9/24 to 9/28

L/A: letters "D" and "U", sight words "of" and "was", making words activity - I ask Ryan to make a words using his letter cards - this week he made 38 words! It's absolutely amazing to watch him learn!


Math: MUS Primer lesson 9 (decimals/tens and ones place), practice page 9B, Singapore Early Bird 2A pg 56-58...this was all new info for Ryan so I wasn't sure how he would do since all of the math we have done so far has been review - but he picked up this new info quickly!


Misc: came up with a list of words that rhyme with "goat", both Ryan & Abby did a cut/paste activity "farm animal parade" and we added each of their "parades" to our farm mural


Read-Alouds: The Quiltmaker's Journey by J. Brumbeau, Beren Bears and Baby Makes Five, Beren Bears and the Bad Dream, G is for Goat by P. Polacco, Oh Look! by P. Polacco, The Little Scarecrow Boy by Margaret Wise Brown, Gregory the Terrible Eater by Mitchell Sharmat

learning notes - 9/17 to 9/21

L/A ~ letters "j" and "h", sight words "you" and "and", made our "taking off in reading" words with letter cards - Ryan is really "taking off in reading"! "rhyme time" game in Wow! I'm Reading; Math ~ MUS primer lesson 9 and practice page 9A - this is new info for Ryan so we are working slower - learning about decimals (tens place and ones place); Read Alouds ~ "The Little Match Girl" (such a sad story)


We also visited our local fair this week, the kids had fun looking at the farm animals. We saw cows, goats, chickens, roosters, bunnies and turkeys. We also got to see a mama pig and her one-day old piglets and two baby calves in the fair's birthing center.

Our last stop was to the poultry barn - it was pretty noisy - lots of roosters crowing and chickens sqwauking (sp?)... I never knew there were so many different kinds of roosters...This was the pose that I got after Abby said, "Mom, take our picture in front of the chickens"...